The History of a Crime, Victor Hugo [white hot kiss .TXT] 📗
- Author: Victor Hugo
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The Representative Labrousse, seated at a table of the café, had witnessed this conspirators' parley.
Each of the two Commissaries was followed by that species of police agent which is called "the Commissary's dog."
At the same time strange warnings reached the Committee; the following letter18 was brought to our knowledge.
"MY DEAR BOCAGE,
"To-day at six o'clock, 25,000 francs has been offered to any one who
arrests or kills Hugo.
"You know where he is. He must not go out under any pretext whatever.
"Yours ever,
"AL. DUMAS."
At the back was written, "Bocage, 18, Rue Cassette." It was necessary that the minutest details should be considered. In the different places of combat a diversity of passwords prevailed, which might cause danger. For the password on the day before we had given the name of "Baudin." In imitation of this the names of other Representatives had been adopted as passwords on barricades. In the Rue Rambuteau the password was "Eugène Sue and Michel de Bourges;" in the Rue Beaubourg, "Victor Hugo;" at the Saint Denis chapel, "Esquiros and De Flotte." We thought it necessary to put a stop to this confusion, and to suppress the proper names, which are always easy to guess. The password settled upon was, "What is Joseph doing?"
At every moment items of news and information came to us from all sides, that barricades were everywhere being raised, and that firing was beginning in the central streets. Michel de Bourges exclaimed, "Construct a square of four barricades, and we will go and deliberate in the centre."
We received news from Mont Valérien. Two prisoners the more. Rigal and Belle had just been committed. Both of the Left. Dr. Rigal was the Representative of Gaillac, and Belle of Lavaur. Rigal was ill; they had arrested him in bed. In prison he lay upon a pallet, and could not dress himself. His colleague Belle acted as his valet de chambre.
Towards nine o'clock an ex-Captain of the 8th Legion of the National Guard of 1848, named Jourdan, came to place himself at our service. He was a bold man, one of those who had carried out, on the morning of the 24th February, the rash surprise of the Hôtel de Ville. We charged him to repeat this surprise, and to extend it to the Prefecture of Police. He knew how to set about the work. He told us that he had only a few men, but that during the day he would cause certain houses of strategical importance on the Quai des Cèvres, on the Quai Lepelletier, and in the Rue de la Cité, to be silently occupied, and that if it should chance that the leaders of the coup d'état, owing to the combat in the centre of Paris growing more serious, should be forced to withdraw the troops from the Hôtel de Ville and the Prefecture, an attack would be immediately commenced on these two points. Captain Jourdan, we may at once mention, did what he had promised us; unfortunately, as we learnt that evening, he began perhaps a little too soon. As he had foreseen, a moment arrived when the square of the Hôtel de Ville was almost devoid of troops, General Herbillon having been forced to leave it with his cavalry to take the barricades of the centre in the rear. The attack of the Republicans burst forth instantly. Musket shots were fired from the windows on the Quai Lepelletier; but the left of the column was still on the Pont d'Arcole, a line of riflemen had been placed by a major named Larochette before the Hôtel de Ville, the 44th retraced its steps, and the attempt failed.
Bastide arrived, with Chauffour and Laissac.
"Good news," said he to us, "all is going on well." His grave, honest, and dispassionate countenance shone with a sort of patriotic serenity. He came from the barricades, and was about to return thither. He had received two balls in his cloak. I took him aside, and said to him, "Are you going back?" "Yes." "Take me with you." "No," answered he, "you are necessary here. To-day you are the general, I am the soldier." I insisted in vain. He persisted in refusing, repeating continually. "The Committee is our centre, it should not disperse itself. It is your duty to remain here. Besides," added he, "Make your mind easy. You run here more risk than we do. If you are taken you will be shot." "Well, then," said I, "the moment may come when our duty will be to join in the combat." "Without doubt." I resumed, "You who are on the barricades will be better judges than we shall of that moment. Give me your word of honor that you will treat me as you would wish me to treat you, and that you will come and fetch us." "I give it you," he answered, and he pressed my two hands in his own.
Later on, however, a few moments after Bastide had left, great as was my confidence in the loyal word of this courageous and generous man, I could no longer restrain myself, and I profited by an interval of two hours of which I could dispose, to go and see with my own eyes what was taking place, and in what manner the resistance was behaving.
I took a carriage in the square of the Palais Royal. I explained to the driver who I was, and that I was about to visit and encourage the barricades; that I should go sometimes on foot, sometimes in the carriage, and that I trusted myself to him. I told him my name.
The first comer is almost always an honest man. This true-hearted coachman answered me, "I know where the barricades are. I will drive you wherever it is necessary. I will wait for you wherever it is necessary. I will drive you there and bring you back; and if you have no money, do not pay me, I am proud of such an action."
And we started.
18 The original of this note is in the hands of the author of this book. It was handed to us by M. Avenel on the part of M. Bocage.
CHAPTER IX. THE PORTE SAINT MARTIN Important deeds had been already achieved during the morning.
"It is taking root," Bastide had said.
The difficulty is not to spread the flames but to light the fire.
It was evident that Paris began to grow ill-tempered. Paris does not get angry at will. She must be in the humor for it. A volcano possesses nerves. The anger was coming slowly, but it was coming. On the horizon might be seen the first glimmering of the eruption.
For the Elysée, as for us, the critical moment was drawing nigh. From the preceding evening they were nursing their resources. The coup d'état and the Republic were at length about to close with each other. The Committee had in vain attempted to drag the wheel; some irresistible impulse carried away the last defenders of liberty and hurried them on to action. The decisive battle was about to be fought.
In Paris, when certain hours have sounded, when there appears an immediate necessity for a progressive movement to be carried out, or a right to be vindicated, the insurrections rapidly spread throughout the whole city. But they always begin at some particular point. Paris, in its vast historical task, comprises two revolutionary classes, the "middle-class" and the "people." And to these two combatants correspond two places of combat; the Porte Saint Martin when the middle-class are revolting, the Bastille when the people are revolting. The eye of the politician should always be fixed on these two points. There, famous in contemporary history, are two spots where a small portion of the hot cinders of Revolution seem ever to smoulder.
When a wind blows from above, these burning cinders are dispersed, and fill the city with sparks.
This time, as we have already explained, the formidable Faubourg Antoine slumbered, and, as has been seen, nothing had been able to awaken it. An entire park of artillery was encamped with lighted matches around the July Column, that enormous deaf-and-dumb memento of the Bastille. This lofty revolutionary pillar, this silent witness of the great deeds of the past, seemed to have forgotten all. Sad to say, the paving stones which had seen the 14th of July did not rise under the cannon-wheels of the 2d of December. It was therefore not the Bastille which began, it was the Porte Saint Martin.
From eight o'clock in the morning the Rue Saint Denis and the Rue Saint Martin were in an uproar throughout their length; throngs of indignant passers-by went up and down those thoroughfares. They tore down the placards of the coup d'état; they posted up our Proclamations; groups at the corners of all the adjacent streets commented upon the decree of outlawry drawn up by the members of the Left remaining at liberty; they snatched the copies from each other. Men mounted on the kerbstones read aloud the names of the 120 signatories, and, still more than on the day before, each significant or celebrated name was hailed with applause. The crowd increased every moment—and the anger. The entire Rue Saint Denis presented the strange aspect of a street with all the doors and windows closed, and all the inhabitants in the open air. Look at the houses, there is death; look at the street, it is the tempest.
Some fifty determined men suddenly emerged from a side alley, and began to run through the streets, saying, "To arms! Long live the Representatives of the Left! Long live the Constitution!" The disarming of the National Guards began. It was carried out more easily than on the preceding evening. In less than an hour more than 150 muskets had been obtained.
In the meanwhile the street became covered with barricades.
CHAPTER X. MY VISIT TO THE BARRICADE
My coachman deposited me at the corner of Saint Eustache, and said to me, "Here you are in the hornets' nest."
He added, "I will wait for you in the Rue de la Vrillière, near the Place des Victoires. Take your time."
I began walking from barricade to barricade.
In the first I met De Flotte, who offered to serve me as a guide. There is not a more determined man than De Flotte. I accepted his offer; he took me everywhere where my presence could be of use.
On the way he gave me an account of the steps taken by him to print our proclamations; Boulé's printing-office having failed him, he had applied to a lithographic press, at No. 30, Rue Bergère, and at the peril of their lives two brave men had printed 500 copies of our decrees. These two true-hearted workmen were named, the one Rubens, the other Achille Poincellot.
While walking I made jottings in pencil (with Baudin's pencil, which I had with me); I registered facts at random; I reproduce this page here. These living facts are useful for History; the coup d'état is there, as though freshly bleeding.
"Morning of the 4th. It looks as if the combat was suspended. Will it burst forth again? Barricades visited by me: one at the corner of Saint Eustache. One at the Oyster Market. One in the Rue Mauconseil. One in the Rue Tiquetonne. One in the Rue Mandar (Rocher de Cancale). One barring the Rue du Cadran and the Rue Montorgueil. Four closing the Petit-Carreau. The beginning of one between the Rue des Deux
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