Napoleon the Little

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[1] _Extinction of Pauperism_, page 10.

With reference to this word budget an observation occurs to us. In
this present year 1852, the bishops and the judges of the _Cour de
Cassation_,[2] have 50 francs per diem; the archbishops, the
councillors of state, the first presidents, and the procureurs-general,
have each 69 francs per diem; the senators, the prefects, and the
generals of division receive 83 francs each per diem; the presidents of
sections of the Council of State 222 francs per diem; the ministers 252
francs per diem; Monseigneur the Prince-President, comprising of
course, in his salary, the sum for maintenance of the royal residences,
receives per diem 44,444 francs, 44 centimes. The revolution of the 2nd
of December was made against the Twenty-five Francs!

[2] Court of Appeal.

V

THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS

We have now seen what the legislature is, what the administration, and
what the budget.

And the courts! What was formerly called the _Cour de Cassation_ is no
longer anything more than a record office of councils of war. A soldier
steps out of the guard-house and writes in the margin of the book of
the law, _I will_, or _I will not_. In all directions the corporal
gives the order, and the magistrate countersigns it. Come! tuck up your
gowns and begone, or else--Hence these abominable trials, sentences,
and condemnations. What a sorry spectacle is that troop of judges, with
hanging heads and bent backs, driven with the butt end of the musket
into baseness and iniquity!

And the liberty of the press! What shall we say of it? Is it not a
mockery merely to pronounce the words? That free press, the honour of
French intellect, a light thrown from all points at once upon all
questions, the perpetual sentinel of the nation--where is it? What has
M. Bonaparte done with it? It is where the public platform is. Twenty
newspapers extinguished in Paris, eighty in the departments,--one
hundred newspapers suppressed: that is to say, looking only to the
material side of the question, innumerable families deprived of bread;
that is to say, understand it, citizens, one hundred houses
confiscated, one hundred farms taken from their proprietors, one
hundred interest coupons stolen from the public funds. Marvellous
identity of principles: freedom suppressed is property destroyed. Let
the selfish idiots who applaud the _coup d'etat_ reflect upon
this.

Instead of a law concerning the press a decree has been laid upon it; a
_fetfa_, a _firman_, dated from the imperial stirrup: the regime of
admonition. This regime is well known. Its working is witnessed daily.
Such men were requisite to invent such a thing. Despotism has never
shown itself more grossly insolent and stupid than in this species of
censorship of the morrow, which precedes and announces the suppression,
and which administers the bastinado to a paper before killing it
entirely. The folly of such a government corrects and tempers its
atrocity. The whole of the decree concerning the press may be summed up
in one line: "I permit you to speak, but I require you to be silent."
Who reigns, in God's name? Is it Tiberius? Is it Schahabaham?
Three-fourths of the republican journalists transported or proscribed,
the remainder hunted down by mixed commissions, dispersed, wandering,
in hiding. Here and there, in four or five of the surviving journals,
in four or five which are independent but closely watched, over whose
heads is suspended the club of Maupas,[1] some fifteen or twenty
writers, courageous, serious, pure, honest, and noble-hearted, who
write, as it were, with a chain round their necks, and a ball on their
feet; talent between two sentinels, independence gagged, honesty under
surveillance, and Veuillot exclaiming: "I am free!"

[1] The Prefect of Police.

VI

NOVELTIES IN RESPECT TO WHAT IS LAWFUL

The press enjoys the privilege of being censored, of being admonished,
of being suspended, of being suppressed; it has even the privilege of
being tried. Tried! By whom? By the courts. What courts? The police
courts. And what about that excellent trial by jury? Progress: it is
outstripped. The jury is far behind us, and we return to the government
judges. "Repression is more rapid and more efficacious," as Maitre
Rouher says. And then 'tis so much better. Call the causes:
correctional police, sixth chamber; first cause, one Roumage, swindler;
second cause, one Lamennais, writer. This has a good effect, and
accustoms the citizens to talk without distinction of writers and
swindlers. That, certainly, is an advantage; but in a practical point
of view, with reference to "repression," is the government quite sure
of what it has done on that head? Is it quite sure that the sixth
chamber will answer better than the excellent assize court of Paris,
for instance, which had for president such abject creatures as
Partarrieu-Lafosse, and for advocates at its bar, such base wretches as
Suin, and such dull orators as Mongis? Can it reasonably expect that
the police judges will be still more base and more contemptible than
they? Will those judges, salaried as they are, work better than that
jury-squad, who had the department prosecutor for corporal, and who
pronounced their judgments and gesticulated their verdicts with the
precision of a charge in double quick time, so that the prefect of
police, Carlier, good-humouredly observed to a celebrated advocate, M.
Desm----: "_The jury! what a stupid institution! When not forced to
it they never condemn, but when forced they never acquit._" Let us
weep for that worthy jury which was made by Carlier and unmade by
Rouher.

This government feels that it is hideous. It wants no portrait; above
all it wants no mirror. Like the osprey it takes refuge in darkness,
and it would die if once seen. Now it wishes to endure. It does not
propose to be talked about; it does not propose to be described. It has
imposed silence on the press of France; we have seen in what manner.
But to silence the press in France was only half-success. It must also
be silenced in foreign countries. Two prosecutions were attempted in
Belgium, against the _Bulletin Francais_ and against _La Nation_. They
were acquitted by an honest Belgian jury. This was annoying. What was
to be done? The Belgian journals were attacked through their pockets.
"You have subscribers in France," they were told; "but if you 'discuss'
us, you shall be kept out. If you wish to come in, make yourselves
agreeable." An attempt was made to frighten the English journals. "If
you 'discuss' us"--decidedly they do not wish to be _discussed_--"we
shall drive your correspondents out of France." The English press
roared with laughter. But this is not all. There are French writers
outside of France: they are proscribed, that is to say they are free.
Suppose those fellows should speak? Suppose those demagogues should
write? They are very capable of doing both; and we must prevent them.
But how are we to do it? To gag people at a distance is not so easy a
matter: M. Bonaparte's arm is not long enough for that. Let us try,
however; we will prosecute them in the countries where they have taken
refuge. Very good: the juries of free countries will understand that
these exiles represent justice, and that the Bonapartist government
personifies iniquity. These juries will follow the example of the
Belgian jury and acquit. The friendly governments will then be
solicited to expel these refugees, to banish these exiles. Very good:
the exiles will go elsewhere; they will always find some corner of the
earth open to them where they can speak. How then are they to be got
at? Rouher and Baroche clubbed their wits together, and between them
they hit upon this expedient: to patch up a law dealing with crimes
committed by Frenchmen in foreign countries, and to slip into it
"crimes of the press." The Council of State sanctioned this, and the
Corps Legislatif did not oppose it, and it is now the law of the land.
If we speak outside of France, we shall be condemned for the offence in
France; imprisonment (in future, if caught), fines and confiscations.
Again, very good. The book I am now writing will, therefore, be tried
in France, and its author duly convicted; this I expect, and I confine
myself to apprising all those quidams calling themselves magistrates,
who, in black and red gown, shall concoct the thing that, sentence to
any fine whatever being well and duly pronounced against me, nothing
will equal my disdain for the judgment, but my contempt for the judges.
This is my defence.

VII

THE ADHERENTS

Who are they that flock round the establishment? As we have said, the
gorge rises at thought of them.

Ah! these rulers of the day,--we who are now proscribed remember them
when they were representatives of the people, only twelve months ago,
running hither and thither in the lobbies of the Assembly, their heads
high, and with a show of independence, and the air and manner of men
who belonged to themselves. What magnificence! and how proud they were!
How they placed their hands on their hearts while they shouted "Vive
la Republique!" And if some "Terrorist," some "Montagnard," or some
"red republican," happened to allude from the tribune to the planned
_coup d'etat_ and the projected Empire, how they vociferated at him:
"You are a calumniator!" How they shrugged their shoulders at the word
"Senate!"--"The Empire to-day" cried one, "would be blood and slime;
you slander us, we shall never be implicated in such a matter." Another
affirmed that he consented to be one of the President's ministers
solely to devote himself to the defence of the Constitution and the
laws; a third glorified the tribune as the palladium of the country; a
fourth recalled the oath of Louis Bonaparte, exclaiming: "Do you doubt
that he is an honest man?" These last--there were two of them--went
the length of voting for and signing his deposition, on the 2nd of
December, at the mayoralty of the Tenth Arrondissement; another sent
a note on the 4th of December to the writer of these lines, to
"felicitate him on having dictated the proclamation of the Left, by
which Louis Bonaparte was outlawed." And now, behold them, Senators,
Councillors of State, ministers, belaced, betagged, bedizened with
gold! Base wretches! Before you embroider your sleeves, wash your
hands!

M. Q.-B. paid a visit to M. O.-B. and said to him: "Can you conceive
the assurance of this Bonaparte? he has had the presumption to offer me
the place of Master of Requests!"--"You refused it?"--"Certainly."--The
next day, being offered the place of Councillor of State, salary
twenty-five thousand francs, our indignant Master of Requests becomes
a grateful Councillor of State. M. Q.-B. accepts.

One class of men rallied en masse: the fools! They comprise the sound
part of the Corps Legislatif. It was to them that the head of the State
addressed this little flattery:--"The first test of the Constitution,
entirely of French origin, must have convinced you that we possess
the qualities of a strong and a free government. We are in earnest,
discussion is free, and the vote of taxation decisive. France possesses
a government animated by faith and by love of the right, which is based
upon the people, the source of all power; upon the army, the source of
all strength; and upon religion, the source of all justice. Accept the
assurance of my regard." These worthy dupes, we know them also; we
have seen a goodly number of them on the benches of the majority in the
Legislative Assembly. Their chiefs, skilful manipulators, had succeeded
in terrifying them,--a certain method of leading them wherever they
thought proper. These chiefs, unable any longer to employ usefully
those old bugbears, the terms "Jacobin" and "sans-culotte," decidedly
too hackneyed, had furbished up the word "demagogue." These ringleaders,
trained to all sorts of schemes and manoeuvres, exploited successfully
the word "Mountain," and agitated to good purpose that startling and
glorious souvenir. With these few letters of the alphabet formed into
syllables and suitably accented,--Demagogues, Montagnards, Partitioners,
Communists, Red Republicans,--they made wildfires dance before the eyes
of the simple. They had found the method of perverting the brains of
their colleagues, who were so ingenuous as to swallow them whole, so to
speak, with a sort of dictionary, wherein every expression made use of
by the democratic writers and orators was readily translated. For
_humanity_ read _ferocity_; for _universal good_ read _subversion_;
for _Republic_ read _Terrorism_; for _Socialism_ read _Pillage_; for
_Fraternity_, read _Massacre_; for _the Gospel_, read _Death to the
Rich_. So that, when an orator of the Left exclaimed, for instance:
"_We rush for the suppression of war, and the abolition of the death
penalty_," a crowd of poor souls on the Right distinctly understood:
"_We wish to put everything to fire and sword_;" and in a fury shook
their fists at the orator. After such speeches, in which there had been
a question only of liberty, of universal peace, of prosperity arising
from labour, of concord, and of progress, the representatives of that
category which we have designated at the head of this paragraph, were
seen to rise, pale as death; they were not sure that they were not
already guillotined, and went to look for their hats to see whether
they still had heads.

These poor frightened creatures did not haggle over their adhesion to
the 2nd of December. The expression, "Louis Napoleon has saved
society," was invented especially for them.

And those eternal prefects, those eternal mayors, those eternal
magistrates, those eternal sheriffs, those eternal complimenters of the
rising sun, or of the lighted lamp, who, on the day after success,
flock to the conqueror, to the triumpher, to the master, to his Majesty
Napoleon the Great, to his Majesty Louis XVIII, to his Majesty
Alexander I, to his Majesty Charles X, to his Majesty Louis Philippe,
to Citizen Lamartine, to Citizen Cavaignac, to Monseigneur the
Prince-President, kneeling, smiling, expansive, bearing upon salvers
the keys of their towns, and on their faces the keys of their
consciences!

But imbeciles ('tis an old story) have always made a part of all
institutions, and are almost an institution of themselves; and as for
the prefects and magistrates, as for these adorers of every new regime,
insolent with, fortune and rapidity, they abound at all times. Let us
do justice to the regime of December; it can boast not only of such
partisans as these, but it has creatures and adherents peculiar to
itself; it has produced an altogether new race of notabilities.

Nations are never conscious of all the riches they possess in the
matter of knaves. Overturnings and subversions of this description
are necessary to bring them to light. Then the nations wonder at what
issues from the dust. It is splendid to contemplate. One whose shoes
and clothes and reputation were of a sort to attract all the dogs
of Europe in full cry, comes forth an ambassador. Another, who had
a glimpse of _Bicetre_ and _La Roquette_,[1] awakes a general, and
Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honour. Every adventurer assumes an
official costume, furnishes himself with a good pillow stuffed with
bank-notes, takes a sheet of white paper, and writes thereon: "End
of my adventures."--"You know So-and-So?"--"Yes, is he at the
galleys?"--"No, he's a minister."

[1] State prisons in Paris and Languedoc.

VIII

MENS AGITAT MOLEM

In the centre is the man--the man we have described; the man of Punic
faith, the fatal man, attacking the civilisation to arrive at power;
seeking, elsewhere than amongst the true people, one knows not what
ferocious popularity; cultivating the still uncivilized qualities of
the peasant and the soldier, endeavouring to succeed by appealing to
gross selfishness, to brutal passions, to newly awakened desires, to
excited appetites; something like a Prince Marat, with nearly the same
object, which in Marat was grand, and in Louis Bonaparte is little; the
man who kills, who transports, who banishes, who expels, who
proscribes, who despoils; this man with harassed gesture and glassy
eye, who walks with distracted air amid the horrible things he does,
like a sort of sinister somnambulist.

It has been said of Louis Bonaparte, whether with friendly intent or
otherwise,--for these strange beings have strange flatterers,--"He is a
dictator, he is a despot, nothing more."--He is that in our opinion,
and he is also something else.

The dictator was a magistrate. Livy[1] and Cicero[2] call him _praetor
maximus_; Seneca[3] calls him _magister populi_; what he decreed was
looked upon as a fiat from above. Livy[4] says: _pro numine observatum_.
In those times of incomplete civilisation, the rigidity of the ancient
laws not having foreseen all cases, his function was to provide for the
safety of the people; he was the product of this text: _salus populi
suprema lex esto_. He caused to be carried before him the twenty-four
axes, the emblems of his power of life and death. He was outside the
law, and above the law, but he could not touch the law. The
dictatorship was a veil, behind which the law remained intact. The
law was before the dictator and after him; and it resumed its power
over him on the cessation of his office. He was appointed for a very
short period--six months only: _semestris dictatura_, says Livy.[5]
But as if this enormous power, even when freely conferred by the
people, ultimately weighed heavily upon him, like remorse, the dictator
generally resigned before the end of his term. Cincinnatus gave it up
at the end of eight days. The dictator was forbidden to dispose of
the public funds without the authority of the Senate, or to go out of
Italy. He could not even ride on horseback without the permission of
the people. He might be a plebeian; Marcius Rutilus, and Publius Philo
were dictators. That magistracy was created for very different objects:
to organize fetes for saints' days; to drive a sacred nail into the
wall of the Temple of Jupiter; on one occasion to appoint the Senate.
Republican Rome had eighty-eight dictators. This intermittent
institution continued for one hundred and fifty-three years, from the
year of Rome 552, to the year 711. It began with Servilius Geminus,
and reached Caesar, passing over Sylla. It expired with Caesar. The
dictatorship was fitted to be repudiated by Cincinnatus, and to be
espoused by Caesar. Caesar was five times dictator in the course of five
years, from 706 to 711. This was a dangerous magistracy, and it ended
by devouring liberty.

[1] Lib. vii., cap. 31.

[2] De Republica. Lib. i, cap. 40.

[3] Ep. 108.

[4] Lib. iii., cap. 5.

[5] Lib. vi., cap. 1.

Is M. Bonaparte a dictator? We see no impropriety in answering yes.
_Praetor maximus_,--general-in-chief? the colours salute him. _Magister
populi_,--the master of the people? ask the cannons levelled on the
public squares. _Pro numine observatum_,--regarded as God? ask M.
Troplong. He has appointed the Senate, he has instituted holidays, he
has provided for the "safety of society," he has driven a sacred nail
into the wall of the Pantheon, and he has hung upon this nail his _coup
d'etat_. The only discrepancy is, that he makes and unmakes the law
according to his own fancy, he rides horseback without permission, and
as to the six months, he takes a little more time. Caesar took five
years, he takes double; that is but fair. Julius Caesar five, M. Louis
Bonaparte ten--the proportion is well observed.

From the dictator, let us pass to the despot. This is the other
qualification almost accepted by M. Bonaparte. Let us speak for a while
the language of the Lower Empire. It befits the subject.

The _Despotes_ came after the _Basileus_. Among other attributes, he
was general of the infantry and of the cavalry--_magister utriusque
exercitus_. It was the Emperor Alexis, surnamed the Angel, who created
the dignity of _despotes_. This officer was below the Emperor, and
above the Sebastocrator, or Augustus, and above the Caesar.

It will be seen that this is somewhat the case with us. M. Bonaparte
is _despotes_, if we admit, which is not difficult, that Magnan is
Caesar, and that Maupas is Augustus.

Despot and dictator, that is admitted. But all this great _eclat_, all
this triumphant power, does not prevent little incidents from happening
in Paris, like the following, which honest _badauds_, witnesses of the
fact, will tell you, musingly. Two men were walking in the street,
talking of their business or their private affairs. One of them,
referring to some knave or other, of whom he thought he had reason to
complain, exclaimed: "He is a wretch, a swindler, a rascal!" A police
agent who heard these last words, cried out: "Monsieur, you are
speaking of the President; I arrest you."

And now, will M. Bonaparte be Emperor, or will he not?

A pretty question! He is master,--he is Cadi, Mufti, Bey, Dey, Sultan,
Grand Khan, Grand Lama, Great Mogul, Great Dragon, Cousin to the Sun,
Commander of the Faithful, Shah, Czar, Sofi, and Caliph. Paris is no
longer Paris, but Bagdad; with a Giaffar who is called Persigny, and a
Scheherazade who is in danger of having her head chopped off every
morning, and who is called _Le Constitutionnel_. M. Bonaparte may
do whatever he likes with property, families, and persons. If French
citizens wish to fathom the depth of the "government" into which they
have fallen, they have only to ask themselves a few questions. Let us
see: magistrate, he tears off your gown, and sends you to prison. What
of it? Let us see: Senate, Council of State, Corps Legislatif, he
seizes a shovel, and flings you all in a heap in a corner. What of it?
Landed proprietor, he confiscates your country house and your town
house, with courtyards, stables, gardens, and appurtenances. What of
it? Father, he takes your daughter; brother, he takes your sister;
citizen, he takes your wife, by right of might. What of it? Wayfarer,
your looks displease him, and he blows your brains out with a pistol,
and goes home. What of it?

All these things being done, what would be the result? Nothing.
"Monseigneur the Prince-President took his customary drive yesterday in
the Champs Elysees, in a caleche _a la Daumont_, drawn by four horses,
accompanied by a single aide-de-camp." This is what the newspapers will
say.

He has effaced from the walls Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity; and he
is right. Frenchmen, alas! you are no longer either free,--the
strait-waistcoat is upon you; or equal,--the soldier is everything; or
brothers,--for civil war is brewing under this melancholy peace of a
state of siege.

Emperor? Why not? He has a Maury who is called Sibour; he has a
Fontanes, or, if you prefer it, a _Faciuntasinos_, who is called
Fortoul; he has a Laplace who answers to the name of Leverrier,
although he did not produce the "_Mecanique Celeste_." He will easily
find Esmenards and Luce de Lancivals. His Pius VII is at Rome, in the
cassock of Pius IX. His green uniform has been seen at Strasburg; his
eagle has been seen at Boulogne; his grey riding-coat, did he not wear
it at Ham? Cassock or riding-coat, 'tis all one. Madame de Stael comes
out, of his house. She wrote "Lelia." He smiles on her pending the day
when he will exile her. Do you insist on an archduchess? wait awhile
and he will get one. _Tu, felix Austria, nube._ His Murat is called
Saint-Arnaud; his Talleyrand is called Morny; his Duc d'Enghien is
called Law.

What does he lack then? Nothing; a mere trifle; merely Austerlitz and
Marengo.

Make the best of it; he is Emperor _in petto_; one of these mornings
he will be so in the sun; nothing more is wanting than a trivial
formality, the mere consecration and crowning of his false oath at
Notre-Dame. After that we shall have fine doings. Expect an imperial
spectacle. Expect caprices, surprises, stupefying, bewildering things,
the most unexpected combinations of words, the most fearless cacophony?
Expect Prince Troplong, Duc Maupas, Duc Mimerel, Marquis Leboeuf, Baron
Baroche. Form in line, courtiers; hats off, senators; the stable-door
opens, monseigneur the horse is consul. Gild the oats of his highness
Incitatus.

Everything will be swallowed; the public hiatus will be prodigious. All
the enormities will pass away. The old fly-catchers will disappear and
make room for the swallowers of whales.

To our minds the Empire exists from this moment, and without waiting
for the interlude of the senatus consultum and the comedy of the
plebiscite, we despatch this bulletin to Europe:--

"The treason of the 2nd of December is delivered of the Empire.

"The mother and child are indisposed."

IX

OMNIPOTENCE

Let us forget this man's origin and his 2nd of December, and look to
his political capacity. Shall we judge him by the eight months he has
reigned? On the one hand look at his power, and on the other at his
acts. What can he do? Everything. What has he done? Nothing. With his
unlimited power a man of genius, in eight months, would have changed
the whole face of France, of Europe, perhaps. He would not, certainly,
have effaced the crime of his starting-point, but he might have covered
it. By dint of material improvements he might have succeeded, perhaps,
in masking from the nation his moral abasement. Indeed, we must admit
that for a dictator of genius the thing was not difficult. A certain
number of social problems, elaborated during these last few years by
several powerful minds, seemed to be ripe, and might receive immediate,
practical solution, to the great profit and satisfaction of the nation.
Of this, Louis Bonaparte does not appear to have had any idea. He has
not approached, he has not had a glimpse of one of them. He has not
even found at the Elysee any old remains of the socialist meditations
of Ham. He has added several new crimes to his first one, and in this
he has been logical. With the exception of these crimes he has produced
nothing. Absolute power, no initiative! He has taken France and does
not know what to do with it. In truth, we are tempted to pity this
eunuch struggling with omnipotence.

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