The History of a Crime Part 19

They applauded.

"Let us all sign," said Pelletier.

"Let us try to find a printing-office without delay," said Schoelcher, "and let the proclamation be posted up immediately."

"Before nightfall--the days are short," added Joigneaux.

"Immediately, immediately, several copies!" called out the Representatives.

Baudin, silent and rapid, had already made a second copy of the proclamation.

A young man, editor of the provincial Republican journal, came out of the crowd, and declared that, if they would give him a copy at once, before two hours should elapse the Proclamation should be posted at all the street corners in Paris.

I asked him,--

"What is your name?"

He answered me,--

"Milliere."

Milliere. It is in this manner that this name made its first appearance in the gloomy days of our History. I can still see that pale young man, that eye at the same time piercing and half closed, that gentle and forbidding profile. a.s.sa.s.sination and the Pantheon awaited him. He was too obscure to enter into the Temple, he was sufficiently deserving to die on its threshold. Baudin showed him the copy which he had just made.

Milliere went up to him.

"You do not know me," said he; "my name is Milliere; but I know you, you are Baudin."

Baudin held out his hand to him.

I was present at the handshaking between these two spectres.

Xavier Durrieu, who was editor of the _Revolution_ made the same offer as Milliere.

A dozen Representatives took their pens and sat down, some around a table, others with a sheet of paper on their knees, and called out to me,--

"Dictate the Proclamation to us."

I had dictated to Baudin, "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is a traitor." Jules Favre requested the erasure of the word Napoleon, that name of glory fatally powerful with the People and with the Army, and that there should be written, "Louis Bonaparte is a traitor."

"You are right," said I to him.

A discussion followed. Some wished to strike out the word "Prince." But the a.s.sembly was impatient. "Quick! quick!" they cried out. "We are in December, the days are short," repeated Joigneaux.

Twelve copies were made at the same time in a few minutes. Schoelcher, Rey, Xavier Durrieu, and Milliere each took one, and set out in search of a printing office.

As they went out a man whom I did not know, but who was greeted by several Representatives, entered and said, "Citizens, this house is marked. Troops are on the way to surround you. You have not a second to lose."

Numerous voices were raised,--

"Very well! Let them arrest us!"

"What does it matter to us?"

"Let them complete their crime."

"Colleagues," said I, "let us not allow ourselves to be arrested. After the struggle, as G.o.d pleases; but before the combat,--No! It is from us that the people are awaiting the initiative. If we are taken, all is at an end. Our duty is to bring on the battle, our right is to cross swords with the _coup d'etat_. It must not be allowed to capture us, it must seek us and not find us. We must deceive the arm which it stretches out against us, we must remain concealed from Bonaparte, we must hara.s.s him, weary him, astonish him, exhaust him, disappear and reappear unceasingly, change our hiding-place, and always fight him, be always before him, and never beneath his hand. Let us not leave the field. We have not numbers, let us have daring."

They approved of this. "It is right," said they, "but where shall we go?"

Labrousse said,--

"Our former colleague of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, Beslay, offers us his house."

"Where does he live?"

"No. 33, Rue de la Cerisaie, in the Marais."

"Very well," answered I, "let us separate. We will meet again in two hours at Beslay's, No. 33, Rue de la Cerisaie."

All left; one after another, and in different directions. I begged Charamaule to go to my house and wait for me there, and I walked out with Noel Parfait and Lafon.

We reached the then still uninhabited district which skirts the ramparts.

As we came to the corner of the Rue Pigalle, we saw at a hundred paces from us, in the deserted streets which cross it, soldiers gliding all along the houses, bending their steps towards the Rue Blanche.

At three o'clock the members of the Left rejoined each other in the Rue de la Cerisaie. But the alarm had been given, and the inhabitants of these lonely streets stationed themselves at the windows to see the Representatives pa.s.s. The place of meeting, situated and hemmed in at the bottom of a back yard, was badly chosen in the event of being surrounded: all these disadvantages were at once perceived, and the meeting only lasted a few seconds. It was presided over by Joly; Xavier Durrieu and Jules Gouache, who were editors of the _Revolution_, also took part, as well as several Italian exiles, amongst others Colonel Carini and Montanelli, ex-Minister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. I liked Montanelli, a gentle and dauntless spirit.

Madier de Montjau brought news from the outskirts. Colonel Forestier, without losing and without taking away hope, told them of the obstacles which he had encountered in his attempts to call together the 6th Legion.

He pressed me to sign his appointment as Colonel, as well as Michel de Bourges; but Michel de Bourges was absent, and besides, neither Michel de Bourges nor I had yet at drat time the authority from the Left.

Nevertheless, under this reservation I signed his appointment. The perplexities were becoming more and more numerous. The Proclamation was not yet printed, and the evening was closing in. Schoelcher explained the difficulties: all the printing offices closed and guarded; an order placarded that whoever should print an appeal to arms world be immediately shot; the workmen terrified; no money. A hat was sent round, and each threw into it what money he had about him. They collected in this manner a few hundred francs.

Xavier Durrieu, whose fiery courage never flagged for a single moment, reiterated that he would undertake the printing, and promised that by eight o'clock that evening there should be 40,000 copies of the Proclamation. Time pressed. They separated, after fixing as a rendezvous the premises of the Society of Cabinet-makers in the Rue de Charonne, at eight o'clock in the evening, so as to allow time for the situation to reveal itself. As we went out and crossed the Rue Beautreillis I saw Pierre Leroux coming up to me. He had taken no part in our meetings. He said to me,--

"I believe this struggle to be useless. Although my point of view is different from yours, I am your friend. Beware. There is yet time to stop. You are entering into the catacombs. The catacombs are Death."

"They are also Life," answered I.

All the same, I thought with joy that my two sons were in prison, and that this gloomy duty of street fighting was imposed upon me alone.

There yet remained five hours until the time fixed for the rendezvous. I wished to go home, and once more embrace my wife and daughter before precipitating myself into that abyss of the "unknown" which was there, yawning and gloomy, and which several of us were about to enter, never to return.

Arnauld (de l'Ariege) gave me his arm. The two Italian exiles, Carini aril Montanelli, accompanied me.

Montanelli took my hands and said to me, "Right will conquer. You will conquer. Oh! that this time France may not be selfish as in 1848, and that she may deliver Italy." I answered him, "She will deliver Europe."

Those were our illusions at that moment, but this, however, does not prevent them from being our hopes to-day. Faith is thus const.i.tuted; shadows demonstrate to it the light.

There is a cabstand before the front gate of St. Paul. We went there. The Rue St. Antoine was alive with that indescribable uneasy swarming which precedes those strange battles of ideas against deeds which are called Revolutions. I seemed to catch, in this great working-cla.s.s district, a glimpse of a gleam of light which, alas, died out speedily. The cabstand before St. Paul was deserted. The drivers had foreseen the possibility of barricades, and had fled.

Three miles separated Arnauld and myself from our houses. It was impossible to walk there through the middle of Paris, without being recognized at each step. Two pa.s.sers-by extricated us from our difficulty. One of them said to the other, "The omnibuses are still running on the Boulevards."