Napoleon the Little

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It is true, however, that this dictator keeps in motion; let us do him
this justice; he does not remain quiet for an instant; he sees with
affright the gloom and solitude around him; people sing who are afraid
in the dark, but he keeps moving. He makes a fuss, he goes at
everything, he runs after projects; being unable to create, he decrees;
he endeavours to mask his nullity; he is perpetual motion; but, alas!
the wheel turns in empty space. Conversion of _rentes_? Of what profit
has it been to this day? Saving of eighteen millions! Very good: the
annuitants lose them, but the President and the Senate, with their two
endowments, pocket them; the benefit to France is zero. Credit Foncier?
no capital forthcoming. Railways? they are decreed, and then laid
aside. It is the same with all these things as with the working-men's
cities. Louis Bonaparte subscribes, but does not pay. As for the
budget, the budget controlled by the blind men in the Council of State,
and voted by the dumb men in the Corps Legislatif, there is an abyss
beneath it. There was no possible or efficacious budget but a great
reduction in the army: two hundred thousand soldiers left at home, two
hundred millions saved. Just try to touch the army! the soldier, who
would regain his freedom, would applaud, but what would the officer
say? And in reality, it is not the soldier but the officer who is
caressed. Then Paris and Lyons must be guarded, and all the other
cities; and afterwards, when we are Emperor, a little European war must
be got up. Behold the gulf!

If from financial questions we pass to political institutions, oh!
there the neo-Bonapartists flourish abundantly, there are the
creations! Good heavens, what creations! A Constitution in the style of
Ravrio,--we have been examining it,--ornamented with palm-leaves and
swans' necks, borne to the Elysee with old easy-chairs in the carriages
of the _garde-meuble_; the Conservative Senate restitched and regilded,
the Council of State of 1806 refurbished and new-bordered with fresh
lace; the old Corps Legislatif patched up, with new nails and fresh
paint, minus Laine and plus Morny! In lieu of liberty of the press, the
bureau of public spirit; in place of individual liberty, the ministry
of police. All these "institutions," which we have passed in review,
are nothing more than the old salon furniture of the Empire. Beat it,
dust it, sweep away the cobwebs, splash it over with stains of French
blood, and you have the establishment of 1852. This bric-a-brac governs
France. These are the creations!

Where is common sense? where is reason? where is truth? Not a sound
side of contemporary intelligence that has not received a shock, not a
just conquest of the age that has not been thrown down and broken. All
sorts of extravagance become possible. All that we have seen since the
2nd of December is a gallop, through all that is absurd, of a
commonplace man broken loose.

These individuals, the malefactor and his accomplices, are in
possession of immense, incomparable, absolute, unlimited power,
sufficient, we repeat, to change the whole face of Europe. They make
use of it only for amusement. To enjoy and to enrich themselves, such
is their "socialism." They have stopped the budget on the public
highway; the coffers are open; they fill their money-bags: they have
money,--do you want some, here you are! All the salaries are doubled or
trebled; we have given the figures above. Three ministers, Turgot (for
there is a Turgot in this affair), Persigny and Maupas, have a million
each of secret funds; the Senate a million, the Council of State half a
million, the officers of the 2nd of December have a Napoleon-month,
that is to say, millions; the soldiers of the 2nd of December have
medals, that is to say, millions; M. Murat wants millions and will have
them; a minister gets married,--quick, half a million; M. Bonaparte,
_quia nominor Poleo_, has twelve millions, plus four millions,--sixteen
millions. Millions, millions! This regime is called Million. M.
Bonaparte has three hundred horses for private use, the fruit and
vegetables of the national domains, and parks and gardens formerly
royal; he is stuffed to repletion; he said the other day: "all my
carriages," as Charles V said: "all my Spains," and as Peter the Great
said: "all my Russias." The marriage of Gamache is celebrated at the
Elysee; the spits are turning day and night before the fireworks;
according to the bulletins published on the subject, the bulletins of
the new Empire, they consume there six hundred and fifty pounds of meat
every day; the Elysee will soon have one hundred and forty-nine
kitchens, like the Castle of Schoenbrunn; they drink, they eat, they
laugh, they feast; banquet at all the ministers', banquet at the Ecole
Militaire, banquet at the Hotel de Ville, banquet at the Tuileries, a
monster fete on the 10th of May, a still more monster fete on the 15th
of August; they swim in all sorts of abundance and intoxication. And
the man of the people, the poor day-labourer who is out of work, the
pauper in rags, with bare feet, to whom summer brings no bread, and
winter no wood, whose old mother lies in agony upon a rotten mattress,
whose daughter walks the streets for a livelihood, whose little
children are shivering with hunger, fever and cold, in the hovels of
Faubourg Saint-Marceau, in the cock-lofts of Rouen, and in the cellars
of Lille, does any one think of him? What is to become of him? What is
done for him? Let him die like a dog!

X

THE TWO PROFILES OF M. BONAPARTE

The curious part of it is that they are desirous of being respected; a
general is venerable, a minister is sacred. The Countess d'Andl----, a
young woman of Brussels, was at Paris in March, 1852, and was one day
in a salon in Faubourg Saint-Honore when M. de P. entered. Madame
d'Andl----, as she went out, passed before him, and it happened that,
thinking probably of something else, she shrugged her shoulders. M. de
P. noticed it; the following day Madame d'Andl---- was apprised, that
henceforward, under pain of being expelled from France like a
representative of the people, she must abstain from every mark of
approbation or disapprobation when she happened to meet a minister.

Under this corporal-government, and under this countersign-constitution,
everything proceeds in military form. The French people consult the
order of the day to know how they must get up, how they must go to bed,
how they must dress, in what toilette they may go to the sitting of the
court, or to the soiree of the prefect; they are forbidden to make
mediocre verses; to wear beards; the frill and the white cravat are
laws of state. Rule, discipline, passive obedience, eyes cast down,
silence in the ranks; such is the yoke under which bows at this moment
the nation of initiative and of liberty, the great revolutionary
France. The reformer will not stop until France shall be enough of a
barrack for the generals to exclaim: "Good!" and enough of a seminary
for the bishops to say: "That will do!"

Do you like soldiers? they are to be found everywhere. The Municipal
Council of Toulouse gives in its resignation; the Prefect
Chapuis-Montlaville replaces the mayor by a colonel, the first deputy
by a colonel, and the second deputy by a colonel.[1] Military men take
the inside of the sidewalk. "The soldiers," says Mably, "considering
themselves in the place of the citizens who formerly made the consuls,
the dictators, the censors, and the tribunes, associated with the
government of the emperors a species of military democracy." Have you a
shako on your head? then do what you please. A young man returning from
a ball, passed through Rue de Richelieu before the gate of the National
Library; the sentinel took aim at him and killed him; the journals of
the following morning said: "The young man is dead," and there it
ended. Timour Bey granted to his companions-in-arms, and to their
descendants to the seventh generation, impunity for all crimes
whatsoever, provided the delinquent had not committed a crime nine
times. The sentinel of Rue Richelieu has, therefore, eight citizens
more to kill before he can be brought before a court-martial. It is a
good thing to be a soldier, but not so good to be a citizen. At the
same time, however, this unfortunate army is dishonoured. On the 3rd of
December, they decorated the police officers who arrested its
representatives and its generals; though it is equally true that the
soldiers themselves received two louis per man. Oh, shame on every
side! money to the soldiers, and the cross to the police spies!

[1] These three colonels are MM. Cailhassou, Dubarry and
Policarpe.

Jesuitism and corporalism, this is the sum total of the regime. The
whole political theory of M. Bonaparte is composed of two
hypocrisies--a military hypocrisy towards the army, a catholic
hypocrisy towards the clergy. When it is not _Fracasse_ it is _Basile_.
Sometimes it is both together. In this manner he succeeded wonderfully
in duping at the same time Montalembert, who does not believe in
France, and Saint-Arnaud who does not believe in God.

Does the Dictator smell of incense? Does he smell of tobacco? Smell
and see. He smells of both tobacco and incense. Oh, France! what a
government is this! The spurs pass by beneath the cassock. The _coup
d'etat_ goes to mass, thrashes the civilians, reads its breviary,
embraces Catin, tells its beads, empties the wine pots, and takes the
sacrament. The _coup d'etat_ asserts, what is doubtful, that we have
gone back to the time of the _Jacqueries_; but this much is certain,
that it takes us back to the time of the Crusades. Caesar goes crusading
for the Pope. _Diex el volt._ The Elysee has the faith, and the thirst
also, of the Templar.

To enjoy and to live well, we repeat, and to consume the budget; to
believe nothing, to make the most of everything; to compromise at once
two sacred things, military honour and religious faith; to stain the
altar with blood and the standard with holy water; to make the soldier
ridiculous, and the priest a little ferocious; to mix up with that
great political fraud which he calls his power, the Church and the
nation, the conscience of the Catholic and the conscience of the
patriot. This is the system of Bonaparte the Little.

All his acts, from the most monstrous to the most puerile, from that
which is hideous to that which is laughable, are stamped with this
twofold scheme. For instance, national solemnities bore him. The 24th
of February and the 4th of May: these are disagreeable or dangerous
reminders, which obstinately return at fixed periods. An anniversary is
an intruder; let us suppress anniversaries. So be it. We will keep but
one birthday, our own. Excellent. But with one fete only how are two
parties to be satisfied--the soldier party and the priest party? The
soldier party is Voltairian. Where Canrobert smiles, Riancey makes a
wry face. What's to be done? You shall see. Your great jugglers are not
embarrassed by such a trifle. The _Moniteur one fine morning declares
that there will be henceforth but one national fete, the 15th of
August. Hereupon a semi-official commentary: the two masks of the
Dictator begin to speak. "The 15th of August," says the _Ratapoil
mouth, "Saint Napoleon's day!" "The 15th of August," says the
_Tartuffe mouth, "the fete of the Holy Virgin!" On one side the
Second-of-December puffs out its cheeks, magnifies its voice, draws its
long sabre and exclaims: "_Sacre-bleu, grumblers! Let us celebrate the
birthday of Napoleon the Great!" On the other, it casts down its eyes,
makes the sign of the cross, and mumbles: "My very dear brethren, let
us adore the sacred heart of Mary!"

The present government is a hand stained with blood, which dips a
finger in the holy water.

XI

RECAPITULATION

But we are asked: "Are you going a little too far? are you not unjust?
Grant him something. Has he not to a certain extent 'made Socialism?'"
and the Credit Foncier, the railroads, and the lowering of the interest
are brought upon the carpet.

We have already estimated these measures at their proper value; but,
while we admit that this is "Socialism," you would be simpletons to
ascribe the credit to M. Bonaparte. It is not he who has made
socialism, but time.

A man is swimming against a rapid current; he struggles with unheard-of
efforts, he buffets the waves with hand and head, and shoulder, and
knee. You say: "He will succeed in going up." A moment after, you look,
and he has gone farther down. He is much farther down the river than he
was when he started. Without knowing, or even suspecting it, he loses
ground at every effort he makes; he fancies that he is ascending the
stream, and he is constantly descending it. He thinks he is advancing,
but he is falling hack. Falling credit, as you say, lowering of
interest, as you say; M. Bonaparte has already made several of those
decrees which you choose to qualify as socialistic, and he will make
more. M. Changarnier, had he triumphed instead of M. Bonaparte, would
have done as much. Henry V, should he return to-morrow, would do the
same. The Emperor of Austria does it in Galicia, and the Emperor
Nicholas in Lithuania. But after all, what does this prove? that the
torrent which is called Revolution is stronger than the swimmer who is
called Despotism.

But even this socialism of M. Bonaparte, what is it? This, socialism? I
deny it. Hatred of the middle class it may be, but not socialism. Look
at the socialist department _par excellence_, the Department of
Agriculture and of Commerce,--he has abolished it. What has he given
you as compensation? the Ministry of Police! The other socialist
department is the Department of Public Instruction, and that is in
danger: one of these days it will be suppressed. The starting-point of
socialism is education, gratuitous and obligatory teaching, knowledge.
To take the children and make men of them, to take the men and make
citizens of them--intelligent, honest, useful, and happy citizens.
Intellectual and moral progress first, and material progress after. The
two first, irresistibly and of themselves, bring on the last. What does
M. Bonaparte do? He persecutes and stifles instruction everywhere.
There is one pariah in our France of the present day, and that is the
schoolmaster.

Have you ever reflected on what a schoolmaster really is--on that
magistracy in which the tyrants of old took shelter, like criminals in
the temple, a certain refuge? Have you ever thought of what that man is
who teaches children? You enter the workshop of a wheelwright; he is
making wheels and shafts; you say, "this is a useful man;" you enter a
weaver's, who is making cloth; you say, "this is a valuable man;" you
enter the blacksmith's shop; he is making pick-axes, hammers, and
ploughshares; you say, "this is a necessary man;" you salute these men,
these skilful labourers. You enter the house of a schoolmaster,--salute
him more profoundly; do you know what he is doing? he is manufacturing
minds.

He is the wheelwright, the weaver, and the blacksmith of the work, in
which he is aiding God,--the future.

Well! to-day, thanks to the reigning clerical party, as the
schoolmaster must not be allowed to work for this future, as this
future is to consist of darkness and degradation, not of intelligence
and light,--do you wish to know in what manner this humble and great
magistrate, the schoolmaster, is made to do his work? The schoolmaster
serves mass, sings in the choir, rings the vesper bell, arranges the
seats, renews the flowers before the sacred heart, furbishes the altar
candlesticks, dusts the tabernacle, folds the copes and the chasubles,
counts and keeps in order the linen of the sacristy, puts oil in the
lamps, beats the cushion of the confessional, sweeps out the church,
and sometimes the rectory; the remainder of his time, on condition that
he does not pronounce either of those three words of the devil,
Country, Republic, Liberty, he may employ, if he thinks proper, in
teaching little children to say their A, B, C.

M. Bonaparte strikes at instruction at the same moment above and below:
below, to please the priests, above, to please the bishops. At the same
time that he is trying to close the village school, he mutilates the
College de France. He overturns with one blow the professors' chairs of
Quinet and of Michelet. One fine morning, he declares, by decree, Greek
and Latin to be under suspicion, and, so far as he can, forbids all
intercourse with the ancient poets and historians of Athens and of
Rome, scenting in AEschylus and in Tacitus a vague odour of demagogy.
With a stroke of the pen, for instance, he exempts all medical men from
literary qualification, which causes Doctor Serres to say: "_We are
dispensed, by decree, from knowing how to read and write._"

New taxes, sumptuary taxes, vestiary taxes; _nemo audeat comedere
praeter duo fercula cum potagio_; tax on the living, tax on the
dead, tax on successions, tax on carriages, tax on paper. "Bravo!"
shouts the beadle party, "fewer books; tax upon dogs, the collars will
pay; tax upon senators, the armorial bearings will pay."--"All this
will make me popular!" says M. Bonaparte, rubbing his hands. "He is the
socialist Emperor," vociferate the trusty partisans of the faubourgs.
"He is the Catholic Emperor," murmur the devout in the sacristies. How
happy he would be if he could pass in the latter for Constantine, and
in the former for Babeuf! Watchwords are repeated, adhesion is
declared, enthusiasm spreads from one to another, the Ecole Militaire
draws his cypher with bayonets and pistol-barrels, Abbe Gaume and
Cardinal Gousset applaud, his bust is crowned with flowers in the
market, Nanterre dedicates rosebushes to him, social order is certainly
saved, property, family, and religion breathe again, and the police
erect a statue to him.

Of bronze?

Fie! that may do for the uncle.

Of marble! _Tu es Pietri et super hanc pietram aedificabo effigiem
meam._[1]

[1] We read in the Bonapartist correspondence:--"The committee
appointed by the clerks of the prefecture of police, considers
that bronze is not worthy to represent the image of the Prince;
it will therefore be executed in marble; and it will be placed on
a marble pedestal. The following inscription will be cut in the
costly and superb stone: 'Souvenir of the oath of fidelity to the
Prince-President, taken by the clerks of the prefecture of
police, the 29th of May, 1862, before M. Pietri, Prefect of
Police.'

"The subscriptions of the clerks, whose zeal it was necessary to
moderate, will be apportioned as follows:--Chief of division
10fr., chief of a bureau 6fr., clerks at a salary of 1,800fr.,
3fr.; at 1,500fr., 2fr. 50c.; and finally, at 1,200fr., 2fr. It
is calculated that this subscription will amount to upwards of
6,000 francs."

That which he attacks, that which he persecutes, that which they all
persecute with him, upon which they pounce, which they wish to crush,
to burn, to suppress, to destroy, to annihilate, is it this poor
obscure man who is called primary instructor? Is it this sheet of paper
that is called a journal? Is it this bundle of sheets which is called a
book? Is it this machine of wood and iron which is called a press? No,
it is thou, thought, it is thou, human reason, it is thou, nineteenth
century, it is thou, Providence, it is thou, God!

We who combat them are "the eternal enemies of order." We are--for they
can as yet find nothing but this worn-out word--we are demagogues.

In the language of the Duke of Alva, to believe in the sacredness of
the human conscience, to resist the Inquisition, to brave the state for
one's faith, to draw the sword for one's country, to defend one's
worship, one's city, one's home, one's house, one's family, and one's
God, was called _vagabondism_; in the language of Louis Bonaparte, to
struggle for freedom, for justice, for the right, to fight in the cause
of progress, of civilisation, of France, of mankind, to wish for the
abolition of war, and of the penalty of death, to take _au serieux_ the
fraternity of men, to believe in a plighted oath, to take up arms for
the constitution of one's country, to defend the laws,--this is called
_demagogy_.

The man is a demagogue in the nineteenth century, who in the sixteenth
would have been a vagabond.

This much being granted, that the dictionary of the Academy no longer
exists, that it is night at noonday, that a cat is no longer called
cat, and that Baroche is no longer called a knave; that justice is a
chimera, that history is a dream, that the Prince of Orange was a
vagabond, and the Duke of Alva a just man; that Louis Bonaparte is
identical with Napoleon the Great, that they who have violated the
Constitution are saviours, and that they who defended it are
brigands,--in a word that human probity is dead: very good! in that
case I admire this government It works well. It is a model of its
species. It compresses, it represses, it oppresses, it imprisons, it
exiles, it shoots down with grape-shot, it exterminates, and it even
"pardons!" It exercises authority with cannon-balls, and clemency with
the flat of the sabre.

"At your pleasure," repeat some worthy incorrigibles of the former
party of order, "be indignant, rail, stigmatize, disavow,--'tis all the
same to us; long live stability! All these things put together
constitute, after all, a stable government."

Stable! We have already expressed ourselves on the subject of this
stability.

Stability! I admire such stability. If it rained newspapers in France
for two days only, on the morning of the third nobody would know what
had become of M. Louis Bonaparte.

No matter; this man is a burden upon the whole age, he disfigures the
nineteenth century, and there will be in this century, perhaps, two or
three years upon which it will be recognised, by some shameful mark or
other, that Louis Bonaparte sat down upon them.

This person, we grieve to say it, is now the question that occupies all
mankind.

At certain epochs in history, the whole human race, from all points of
the earth, fix their eyes upon some mysterious spot whence it seems
that universal destiny is about to issue. There have been hours when
the world has looked towards the Vatican: Gregory VII and Leo X
occupied the pontifical throne; other hours, when it has contemplated
the Louvre; Philip Augustus, Louis IX, Francois I, and Henri IV were
there; the Escorial, Saint-Just: Charles V dreamed there; Windsor:
Elizabeth the Great reigned there; Versailles: Louis XIV shone there
surrounded by stars; the Kremlin: one caught a glimpse there of Peter
the Great; Potsdam: Frederick II was closeted there with Voltaire. At
present, history, bow thy head, the whole universe is looking at the
Elysee!

That species of bastard door, guarded by two sentry-boxes painted on
canvas, at the extremity of Faubourg Saint-Honore, that is the spot
towards which the eyes of the civilized world are now turned with a
sort of profound anxiety! Ah! what sort of place is that, whence no
idea has issued that has not been a plot, no action that has not been a
crime? What sort of place is that wherein reside all kinds of cynicism
and all kinds of hypocrisy? What sort of place is that where bishops
elbow Jeanne Poisson on the staircase, and, as a hundred years ago, bow
to the ground before her; where Samuel Bernard laughs in a corner with
Laubardemont; which Escobar enters, arm-in-arm with Guzman d'Alfarache;
where (frightful rumour), in a thicket in the garden, they despatch, it
is said, with the bayonet men whom they dare not bring to trial; where
one hears a man say to a woman who is weeping and interceding: "I
overlook your love-affairs, you must overlook my hatreds!" What sort of
place is that where the orgies of 1852 intrude upon and dishonour the
mourning of 1815! where Caesarion, with his arms crossed, or his hands
behind his back, walks under those very trees, and in those very
avenues still haunted by the indignant phantom of Caesar?

That place is the blot upon Paris; that place is the pollution of the
age; that door, whence issue all sorts of joyous sounds, flourishes of
trumpets, music, laughter, and the jingling of glasses; that door,
saluted during the day by the passing battalions; illuminated at night;
thrown wide open with insolent confidence,--is a sort of public insult
always present. There is the centre of the world's shame.

Alas! of what is France thinking? Of a surety, we must awake this
slumbering nation, we must take it by the arm, we must shake it, we
must speak to it; we must scour the fields, enter the villages, go into
the barracks, speak to the soldier who no longer knows what he is
doing, speak to the labourer who has in his cabin an engraving of the
Emperor, and who, for that reason, votes for everything they ask; we
must remove the radiant phantom that dazzles their eyes; this whole
situation is nothing but a huge and deadly joke. We must expose this
joke, probe it to the bottom, disabuse the people,--the country people
above all,--excite them, agitate them, stir them up, show them the
empty houses, the yawning graves, and make them touch with their finger
the horror of this regime. The people are good and honest; they will
comprehend. Yes, peasant, there are two, the great and the little, the
illustrious and the infamous,--Napoleon and Naboleon!

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