Napoleon the Little

V >> Victor Hugo >> Napoleon the Little

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18

When all the burglaries and all the robberies which constitute the
success of his policy had been accomplished, he resumed his true name;
every one then saw that this man was a Monseigneur. It was M.
Fortoul,[1]--to his honour be it said--who first made this discovery.

[1] The first report addressed to M. Bonaparte, and in which
M. Bonaparte is called _Monseigneur_ is signed FORTOUL.

When one measures the man and finds him so small, and then measures his
success, and finds it so enormous, it is impossible that the mind
should not experience some surprise. One asks oneself: "How did he do
it?" One dissects the adventure and the adventurer, and laying aside
the advantage he derives from his name, and certain external facts, of
which he made use in his escalade, one finds, as the basis of the man
and his exploit, but two things,--cunning and cash.

As to cunning: we have already characterised this important quality of
Louis Bonaparte; but it is desirable to dwell on the point.

On November 27, 1848, he said to his fellow-citizens in his manifesto:
"I feel it incumbent on me to make known to you my sentiments and my
principles. _There must be no equivocation between you and me. I am
not ambitious...._ Brought up in _free_ countries, in the school of
misfortune, _I shall ever remain faithful_ to the duties that shall be
imposed on me by your suffrages, and the will of the Assembly. _I shall
make it a point of honour to leave, at the end of the four years, to my
successor, power consolidated, liberty intact, and real progress
accomplished._"

On December 31, 1849, in his first message to the Assembly, he wrote:
"It is my aspiration to be worthy of the confidence of the nation, by
maintaining the Constitution _which I have sworn to execute_." On
November 12, 1850, in his second annual message to the Assembly, he
said: "If the Constitution contains defects and dangers, you are free
to make them known to the country; I alone, _bound by my oath_, confine
myself within the strict limits which that Constitution has traced."
On September 4, in the same year, at Caen, he said: "When, in all
directions, prosperity seems reviving, he were, indeed, _a guilty man_
who should seek to check its progress by _changing that which now
exists_." Some time before, on July 25, 1849, at the inauguration of
the St. Quentin railway, he went to Ham, smote his breast at the
recollection of Boulogne, and uttered these solemn words:

"Now that, elected by universal France, I am become the legitimate head
of this great nation, I cannot pride myself on a captivity which was
occasioned by _an attack upon a regular government_.

"When one has observed the enormous evils which even the most righteous
revolutions bring in their train, one can scarcely comprehend one's
_audacity in having chosen to take upon one's self the terrible
responsibility of a change_; I do not, therefore, complain of having
_expiated_ here, by an imprisonment of six years, my _rash defiance of
the laws of my country_, and it is with joy that, in the very scene of
my sufferings, I propose to you a toast in honour of those who,
notwithstanding their convictions, are resolute to _respect the
institutions of their country_."

All the while he was saying this, he retained in the depths of his
heart, as he has since proved, after his fashion, that thought which he
had written in that same prison of Ham: "Great enterprises seldom
succeed at the first attempt."[2]

[2] _Historical Fragments._

Towards the middle of November, 1851, Representative F----, a
frequenter of the Elysee, was dining with M. Bonaparte.

"What do they say in Paris, and in the Assembly?" asked the President
of the representative.

"Oh, prince!"

"Well?"

"They are still talking."

"About what?"

"About the _coup d'etat_."

"And the Assembly believes in it?"

"A little, prince."

"And you?"

"I--oh, not at all."

Louis Bonaparte earnestly grasped M. F----'s hands, and said to him
with feeling:

"I thank you, M. F----, you, at least, do not think me a scoundrel."

This happened a fortnight before December 2. At that time, and indeed,
at that very moment, according to the admission of Maupas the
confederate, Mazas was being made ready.

Cash: that is M. Bonaparte's other source of strength.

Let us take the facts, judicially proved by the trials at Strasburg and
Boulogne.

At Strasburg, on October 30, 1836, Colonel Vaudrey, an accomplice of M.
Bonaparte, commissioned the quartermasters of the 4th Regiment of
artillery, "to distribute among the cannoneers of each battery, two
pieces of gold."

On the 5th of August, 1840, in the steamboat he had freighted, the
_Ville d'Edimbourg_, while at sea, M. Bonaparte called about him
the sixty poor devils, his domestics, whom he had deceived into
accompanying him by telling them he was going to Hamburg on a pleasure
excursion, harangued them from the roof of one of his carriages
fastened on the deck, declared his project, tossed them their disguise
as soldiers, gave each of them a hundred francs, and then set them
drinking. A little drunkenness does not damage great enterprises. "I
saw," said the witness Hobbs, the under-steward, before the Court of
Peers,[3] "I saw in the cabin a great quantity of money. The passengers
appeared to me to be reading printed papers; they passed all the night
drinking and eating. I did nothing else but uncork bottles, and serve
food." Next came the captain. The magistrate asked Captain Crow: "Did
you see the passengers drink?"--Crow: "To excess; I never saw anything
like it."[4]

[3] Court of Peers, _Depositions of witnesses_, p. 94.

[4] Court of Peers, _Depositions of witnesses_, pp. 71, 81,
88, 94.

They landed, and were met by the custom-house officers of Vimereux. M.
Louis Bonaparte began proceedings, by offering the lieutenant of the
guard a pension of 1,200 francs. The magistrate: "Did you not offer the
commandant of the station a sum of money if he would march with
you?"--The Prince: "I caused it to be offered him, but he refused
it."[5]

[5] Court of Peers, _Cross examination of the accused_, p. 13.

They arrived at Boulogne. His aides-de-camp--he had some already--wore,
hanging from their necks, tin cases full of gold pieces. Others came
next with bags of small coins in their hands.[6] Then they threw money
to the fishermen and the peasants, inviting them to cry: "Long live the
Emperor!"--"Three hundred loud-mouthed knaves will do the thing," had
written one of the conspirators.[7] Louis Bonaparte approached the
42nd, quartered at Boulogne.

[6] Court of Peers, _Depositions of witnesses_, pp. 103, 185,
etc.

[7] The President: Prisoner Querelles, these children that cried
out, are not they the three hundred loud-mouthed knaves that you
asked for in your letter?--(Trial at Strasburg.)

He said to the voltigeur Georges Koehly: "_I am Napoleon_; you shall
have promotion, decorations." He said to the voltigeur Antoine Gendre:
"_I am the son of Napoleon_; we are going to the Hotel du Nord to order
a dinner for you and me." He said to the voltigeur Jean Meyer: "_You
shall be well paid._" He said to the voltigeur Joseph Meny: "_You must
come to Paris; you shall be well paid._"[8]

[8] Court of Peers, _Depositions of witnesses_, pp. 142, 143,
155, 156, 158.

An officer at his side held in his hand his hat full of five-franc
pieces, which he distributed among the lookers-on, saying: "_Shout,
Long live the Emperor!_"

The grenadier Geoffroy, in his evidence, characterises in these words
the attempt made on his mess by an officer and a sergeant who were in
the plot: "The sergeant had a bottle in his hand, and the officer a
sabre." In these few words is the whole 2nd of December.

Let us proceed:--

"Next day, June 17, the commandant, Mesonan, who I thought had gone,
entered my room, announced by my aide-de-camp. I said to him,
'Commandant, I thought you were gone!'--'No, general, I am not gone. I
have a letter to give you.'--'A letter? And from whom?'--'Read it,
general.'

"I asked him to take a seat; I took the letter, but as I was opening
it, I saw that the address was--_a M. le Commandant Mesonan_. I said to
him: 'But, my dear Commandant, this is for you, not for me.'--'Read it,
General!'--I opened the letter and read thus:--

"'My dear Commandant, it is most essential that you should
immediately see the general in question; you know he is a man of
resolution, on whom one may rely. You know also that he is a man
whom I have put down to be one day a marshal of France. _You will
offer him, from me, 100,000 francs_; and you will ask him into what
banker's or notary's hands _I shall pay 300,000 francs_ for him, in
the event of his losing his command.'

"I stopped here, overcome with indignation; I turned over the leaf, and
I saw that the letter was signed, 'LOUIS NAPOLEON.'

"I handed the letter back to the commandant, saying that it was a
ridiculous and abortive affair."

Who speaks thus? General Magnan. Where? In the open Court of Peers.
Before whom? Who is the man seated on the prisoners' bench, the man
whom Magnan covers with "scorn," the man towards whom Magnan turns his
"indignant" face? Louis Bonaparte.

Money, and with money gross debauchery: such were his means of action
in his three enterprises at Strasburg, at Boulogne, at Paris. Two
failures and a success. Magnan, who refused at Boulogne, sold himself
at Paris. If Louis Bonaparte had been defeated on the 2nd of December,
just as there were found on him, at Boulogne, the 500,000 francs he had
brought from London, so there would have been found at the Elysee, the
twenty-five millions taken from the Bank.

There has, then, been in France,--one must needs speak of these things
coolly,--in France, that land of the sword, that land of cavaliers, the
land of Hoche, of Drouot, and of Bayard--there has been a day, when a
man, surrounded by five or six political sharpers, experts in
ambuscades, and grooms of _coups d'etat_, lolling in a gilded office,
his feet on the fire-dogs, a cigar in his mouth, placed a price upon
military honour, weighed it in the scales like a commodity, a thing
buyable and sellable, put down the general at a million, the private at
a louis, and said of the conscience of the French army: "That is worth
so much."

And this man is the nephew of the Emperor.

By the bye, this nephew is not proud: he accommodates himself, with
great facility, to the necessities of his adventures; adapts himself
readily and without reluctance, to every freak of destiny. Place him in
London, and let it be his interest to please the English government, he
would not hesitate, and with the very hand which now seeks to seize the
sceptre of Charlemagne, he would grasp the truncheon of a policeman. If
I were not Napoleon, I would be Vidocq.

And here thought pauses!

And such is the man by whom France is governed! governed, do I say?
possessed rather in full sovereignty!

And every day, and every moment, by his decrees, by his messages, by
his harangues, by all these unprecedented imbecilities which he parades
in the _Moniteur_, this _emigre_, so ignorant of France, gives lessons
to France! and this knave tells France that he has saved her! From
whom? from herself. Before he came, Providence did nothing but
absurdities; God waited for him to put everything in order; and at
length he came. For the last thirty-six years poor France had been
afflicted with all sorts of pernicious things: that "sonority," the
tribune; that hubbub, the press; that insolence, thought; that crying
abuse, liberty: he came, and for the tribune, he substituted the
Senate; for the press, the censorship; for thought, imbecility; for
liberty, the sabre; and by the sabre, the censorship, imbecility, and
the Senate, France is saved! Saved! bravo! and from whom, I ask again?
from herself. For what was France before, if you please? a horde of
pillagers, robbers, Jacquerie, assassins, demagogues! It was necessary
to put fetters on this abominable villain, this France, and it was M.
Bonaparte Louis who applied the fetters. Now France is in prison, on
bread and water, punished, humiliated, throttled and well guarded; be
tranquil, everybody; Sieur Bonaparte, gendarme at the Elysee, answers
for her to Europe; this miserable France is in her strait waistcoat,
and if she stirs!--

Ah! what spectacle is this? What dream is this? What nightmare is this?
On the one hand, a nation, first among nations, and on the other, a
man, last among men--and see what that man does to that nation! God
save the mark! He tramples her under foot, he laughs at her to her
face, he flouts her, he denies her, he insults her, he scoffs at her!
How now! He says, there is none but I! What! in this land of France
where no man's ears may be boxed with impunity, one may box the ears of
the whole people! Oh! abominable shame! Each time that M. Bonaparte
spits, every one must needs wipe his face! And this can last! And you
tell me that it will last! No! No! No! By all the blood we have in our
veins, no! this shall not last. Were it to last, it must be that there
is no God in heaven, or no longer a France on earth!

BOOK II

I

THE CONSTITUTION

A roll of the drums; clowns, attention!

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC,

"Considering that--all the restrictive laws on the liberty of the
press having been repealed, all the laws against hand-bills and
posting-bills having been abolished, the right of public assemblage
having been fully re-established, all the unconstitutional laws,
including martial law, having been suppressed, every citizen being
empowered to say what he likes through every medium of publicity,
whether newspaper, placard, or electoral meeting, all solemn
engagements, especially the oath of the 20th of December, 1848,
having been scrupulously kept, all facts having been investigated,
all questions propounded and discussed, all candidacies publicly
defeated, without the possibility of alleging that the slightest
violence had been exercised against the meanest citizen,--in one
word, in the fullest enjoyment of liberty. "The sovereign people
being interrogated on this question:--

"'Do the French people mean to place themselves, tied neck and
heels, at the discretion of M. Louis Bonaparte?'

"Have replied YES by 7,500,000 votes. (_Interruption by the
author_:--We shall have more to say of these 7,500,000 votes.)

"PROMULGATES

"THE CONSTITUTION IN MANNER FOLLOWING, THAT IS TO SAY:

"Article 1. The Constitution recognises, confirms, and guarantees
the great principles proclaimed in 1789, which are the foundation
of the public law of the French people.

"Article 2 and following. The platform and the press, which impeded
the march of progress, are superseded by the police and the
censorship, and by the secret deliberations of the Senate, the
Corps Legislatif and the Council of State.

"Article last. The thing commonly called human intelligence is
suppressed.

"Done at the Palace of the Tuileries January 14, 1852.

"LOUIS NAPOLEON.

"Witnessed and sealed with the great seal.
"E. ROUHER.
"_Keeper of the Seals and Minister of Justice._"

This Constitution, which loudly proclaims and confirms the Revolution
of 1789 in its principles and its consequences, and which merely
abolishes liberty, was evidently and happily inspired in M. Bonaparte,
by an old provincial play-bill which it is well to recall at this time:

THIS DAY,

The Grand Representation

OF

LA DAME BLANCHE,

AN OPERA IN THREE ACTS.

Note. The _music_, which would embarrass the progress of the plot,
will be replaced by lively and piquant _dialogue_.

II

THE SENATE

This lively and piquant dialogue is carried on by the Council of State,
the Corps Legislatif and the Senate.

Is there a Senate then? Certainly. This "great body," this "balancing
power," this "supreme moderator," is in truth the principal glory of
the Constitution. Let us consider it for a moment.

The Senate! It is a senate. But of what Senate are you speaking? Is it
the Senate whose duty it was to deliberate on the description of sauce
with which the Emperor should eat his turbot? Is it the Senate of which
Napoleon thus spoke on April 5, 1814: "A sign was an order for the
Senate, and it always did more than was required of it?" Is it the
Senate of which Napoleon said in 1805: "The poltroons were afraid of
displeasing me?"[1] Is it the Senate which drew from Tiberius almost
the same exclamation: "The base wretches! greater slaves than we
require them to be!" Is it the Senate which caused Charles XII to say:
"Send my boot to Stockholm."--"For what purpose, Sire?" demanded his
minister.--"To preside over the Senate," was the reply.

[1] Thibaudeau. _History of the Consulate and the Empire._

But let us not trifle. This year they are eighty; they will be one
hundred and fifty next year. They monopolise to themselves, in full
plenitude, fourteen articles of the Constitution, from Article 19 to
Article 33. They are "guardians of the public liberties;" their
functions are gratuitous by Article 22; consequently, they have from
fifteen to thirty thousand francs per annum. They have the peculiar
privilege of receiving their salary, and the prerogative of "not
opposing" the promulgation of the laws. They are all illustrious
personages."[2] This is not an "abortive Senate,"[3] like that of
Napoleon the uncle; this is a genuine Senate; the marshals are members,
and the cardinals and M. Leboeuf.

[2] "All the illustrious persons of the country." Louis
Bonaparte's _Appeal to the people_. December 2, 1851.

[3] "The Senate was an abortion; and in France no one likes to
see people well paid merely for making some bad selections."
Words of Napoleon, _Memorial from St. Helena_.

"What is your position in the country?" some one asks the Senate. "We
are charged with the preservation of public liberty."--"What is your
business in this city?" Pierrot demands of Harlequin.--"My business,"
replies Harlequin, "is to curry-comb the bronze horse."

"We know what is meant by _esprit-de-corps_: this spirit will urge the
Senate by every possible means to augment its power. It will destroy
the Corps Legislatif, if it can; and if occasion offers it will
compound with the Bourbons."

Who said this? The First Consul. Where? At the Tuileries, in April,
1804.

"Without title or authority, and in violation of every principle, it
has surrendered the country and consummated its ruin. It has been the
plaything of eminent intriguers; I know of no body which ought to
appear in history with greater ignominy than the Senate."

Who said this? The Emperor. Where? At St. Helena.

There is actually then a senate in the "Constitution of January 14."
But, candidly speaking, this is a mistake; for now that public hygiene
has made some progress, we are accustomed to see the public highway
better kept. After the Senate of the Empire, we thought that no more
senates would be mixed up with Constitutions.

III

THE COUNCIL OF STATE AND THE CORPS LEGISLATIF

There is also a Council of State and a Corps Legislatif: the former
joyous, well paid, plump, rosy, fat, and fresh, with a sharp eye, a red
ear, a voluble tongue, a sword by its side, a belly, and embroidered in
gold; the Corps Legislatif, pale, meagre, sad, and embroidered in
silver. The Council of State comes and goes, enters and exits, returns,
rules, disposes, decides, settles, and decrees, and sees Louis Napoleon
face to face. The Corps Legislatif, on the contrary, walks on tiptoe,
fumbles with its hat, puts its finger to its lips, smiles humbly, sits
on the corner of its chair, and speaks only when questioned. Its words
being naturally obscene, the public journals are forbidden to make the
slightest allusion to them. The Corps Legislatif passes laws and votes
taxes by Article 39; and when, fancying it has occasion for some
instruction, some detail, some figures, or some explanation, it
presents itself, hat in hand, at the door of the departments to consult
the ministers, the usher receives it in the antechamber, and with a
roar of laughter, gives it a fillip on the nose. Such are the duties of
the Corps Legislatif.

Let us state, however, that this melancholy position began, in June,
1852, to extort some sighs from the sorrowful personages who form a
portion of the concern. The report of the commission on the budget will
remain in the memory of men, as one of the most heart-rending
masterpieces of the plaintive style. Let us repeat those gentle
accents:--

"Formerly, as you know, the necessary communications in such cases were
carried on directly between the commissioners and the ministers. It was
to the latter that they addressed themselves to obtain the documents
indispensable to the discussion of affairs; and the ministers even came
personally, with the heads of their several departments, to give verbal
explanations, frequently sufficient to preclude the necessity of
further discussion; and the resolutions formed by the commission on the
budget after they had heard them, were submitted direct to the Chamber.

"But now we can have no communication with the government except
through the medium of the Council of State, which, being the confidant
and the organ of its own ideas, has alone the right of transmitting to
the Corps Legislatif the documents which, in its turn, it receives from
the ministers.

"In a word, for written reports, as well as for verbal communications,
the government commissioners have superseded the ministers, with whom,
however, they must have a preliminary understanding.

"With respect to the modifications which the commission might wish to
propose, whether by the adoption of amendments presented by the
deputies, or from its own examination of the budget, they must, before
you are called upon to consider them, be sent to the Council of State,
there to undergo discussion.

"There (it is impossible not to notice it) those modifications have no
interpreters, no official defenders.

"This mode of procedure appears to be derived from the Constitution
itself; and _if we speak of the matter now_, it is _solely_ to prove to
you that it must occasion _delays_ in accomplishing the task imposed
upon the commission on the budget."[1]

[1] Report of the commission on the budget of the Corps
Legislatif, June, 1852.

Reproach was never so mildly uttered; it is impossible to receive more
chastely and more gracefully, what M. Bonaparte, in his autocratic
style, calls "guarantees of calmness,"[2] but what Moliere, with the
license of a great writer, denominates "kicks."[3]

[2] Preamble of the Constitution.

[3] See _Les Fourberies de Scapin_.

Thus, in the shop where laws and budgets are manufactured, there is a
master of the house, the Council of State, and a servant, the Corps
Legislatif. According to the terms of the "Constitution," who is it
that appoints the master of the house? M. Bonaparte. Who appoints the
servant? The nation. That is as it should be.

IV

THE FINANCES

Let it be observed that, under the shadow of these "wise institutions,"
and thanks to the _coup d'etat_, which, as is well known, has
re-established order, the finances, the public safety, and public
prosperity, the budget, by the admission of M. Gouin, shows a deficit
of 123,000,000 francs.

As for commercial activity since the _coup d'etat_, as for the
prosperity of trade, as for the revival of business, in order to
appreciate them it is enough to reject words and have recourse to
figures. On this point, the following statement is official and
decisive: the discounts of the Bank of France produced during the first
half of 1852, only 589,502fr. 62c. at the central bank; while the
profits of the branch establishments have risen only to 651,108fr. 7c.
This appears from the half-yearly report of the Bank itself.

M. Bonaparte, however, does not trouble himself with taxation. Some
fine morning he wakes and yawns, rubs his eyes, takes his pen and
decrees--what? The budget. Achmet III. was once desirous of levying
taxes according to his own fancy.--"Invincible lord," said his Vizier
to him, "your subjects cannot be taxed beyond what is prescribed by the
law and the prophet."

This identical M. Bonaparte, when at Ham, wrote as follows:--

"If the sums levied each year on the inhabitants generally are
employed for unproductive purposes, such as creating _useless
places, raising sterile monuments, and maintaining in the midst of
profound peace a more expensive army than that which conquered at
Austerlitz_, taxation becomes in such case an overwhelming burden;
it exhausts the country, it takes without any return."[1]

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18