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DANGERS TO ENGLAND 
 
 ALLIANCE WITH THE MEN 
 OF THE COUP D'ETAT. 
 
 TO WHICH ARE ADDED, THE 
 
 PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE DECEMBER 
 CONSPIRATORS, 
 
 AND SOME 
 
 ^iagrupl^kal ^olk-es 0f t^e most notorious of thtm. 
 
 BY 
 
 VICTOE SCHOELCHEE, 
 
 aEPilESENTATiyE OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 K^p^ Of THB 
 
 [USIVBIISIT7) 
 
 \^*l^^^S!!^ LONDON ; 
 NrWFBNEE, & CO., 12, PATEENOSTEE EOW. 
 
 1854. 
 

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 A>" 
 
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CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Immorality of kings 1 
 
 II. 
 Can a people erer be allied with notorious criminals? . .10 
 
 ni. 
 
 What were, and what still are, the assassins of December ? . 24 
 
 IV. 
 
 It is undoubtedly with the Decembriseurs, and not with 
 
 France, that the alliance is made 44 
 
 V. 
 
 Bonapartism, reinforced, already proffers its services to abso- 
 lutism .......... 65 
 
 VI. 
 
 Great Britain will be betrayed by the Decembriseurs . . 60 
 
 VII. 
 
 It is with the oppressed peoples that a free people ought to 
 
 form an alliance . . 68 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The revolutionists are purely agents of progress . . .78 
 
 IX. 
 
 The anarchists and the property-partitioners {^^partageux ") . 85 
 
 X. 
 
 Personal explanations of the Author, a Refugee in England . 90 
 
 ANNEXES. 
 
 No. 1. Personal Confessions of the Assassins of December . 93 
 
 No. 2. Biographical notices of some of the December Con- 
 spirators 119 
 
 No. 3. The assassination of General Brea was committed by 
 
 the Bonapartists 186 
 
 No. 4. Another calumny of the Times against the Republican 
 
 Refugees 188 
 
[TJinVBRSITrl 
 
 DANGERS OF THE ALLIANCE OF ENGLAND 
 WITH THE MEN OF DECEMBER. 
 
 IMMORALITY OF KINGS. 
 
 We forbid the very approach of the Pantheon of our 
 great men to the Alexanders, Gengis-khans, Attilas, and 
 Napoleons. Those so-called heroes are, in reality, but 
 monsters of egotism, vanity, and infernal insensibility. 
 Their lives are replete with crimes, for the like of which 
 the ordinary assassin is hanged. In our opinion, they 
 deserve still more than the Neros and Tiberii the appel- 
 lation of scourges of mankind ; for, owing to the fallacious 
 glory of their arms, they add to all the harm they do, 
 that of perverting the judgment of the vulgar, which 
 admires instead of cursing them. 
 
 Napoleon, styled the Great ^ was one of those scourges. 
 His remembrance is still the idol of a deceived people, 
 whom he reduced to a shameful servitude. That people, 
 by a strange aberration, allows him the honour of 
 victories, whose ultimate result was to bring twice the 
 enemies of France to the very heart of Paris. 
 
 This fatal popularity of the name which he wears, has 
 
 given to M. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte a morbid ambi- 
 
 / tion, which has decided his fate. This man, the fruit 
 
 B 
 
2 IMMOEALITT OF KINGS. 
 
 of an adulterous connexion,* has calculated with the 
 tenacity of a maniac, the chances reserved for the rank 
 of "Nephew of the Emperor;" and, in the usurpation 
 which originated with him in his very cradle, he found 
 and developed in after years, without much skill, the 
 germs of an imperial usurpation. 
 
 It was to the powerful prejudice attached to his 
 spurious title, and maugre the ridiculousness of the 
 freaks of Strasbourg and Boulogne, that he was indebted 
 for his nomination to the Presidency of the Erench Ee- 
 public. Once there, he was enabled to bribe the autho- 
 rities whose fate is at the disposal of the executive power, 
 
 * The deplorable prestige of a name has made all the incredible . 
 fortune of M. L. N. Bonaparte. Well now, that name does not 
 even belong to him. He is not the *' emperor's nephew," as his 
 acolyte, M. Persigny, always styles him. He does not pos- 
 sess one drop of the Bonapartes' blood in his veins. He is the son 
 of the Dutch Admiral Yerhuel. The King of Holland was aware 
 of this, and would not father the intruder. He shrank only be- 
 fore the scandal of a public declaration, when his wife, the 
 daughter of Josephine Beauharnais, was brought to bed in Paris. 
 A popular song of that period concluded by the following burden : 
 ** Le roi de Hollande 
 
 Pait la contrebande, 
 
 La reine fait de/awa; Louis** 
 *' The Bonapartes," says Citizen Pascal Duprat, in his Tables de 
 Proscription (tome I. page 15), — "the Bonapartes have not for- 
 gotten that song. They recollected it especially before the 2nd 
 of December, and did not disdain to sing it after their own fashion. 
 * He is not my cousin,* rather frequently used to say the son of 
 the ex-king Jerome, meaning the President of the Republic ; ' he 
 is a stranger to our family ; he is a Dutchman.' Whenever the 
 widow of Lucien, who lives in retirement in Italy, wrote to her son, 
 Pierre Bonaparte, she spoke of the former prisoner of Ham only 
 under the designation of the false name. This epithet had taken 
 among the family. It was an euphemism for the use of the women. 
 The men employed the proper word. He who now writes these 
 lines has more than once heard it with his own ears. You must 
 still remember it, M. Napoleon Bonaparte?" 
 
IMMOUALITT OF KINGS. 8 
 
 and to buy up, for gold, those of the chiefs in the army 
 whose bad repute was notorious ; and thus it was that, 
 with the help of their treason, he attained to the aim he 
 had, for so long a time, had in prospect. 
 
 That which he and his accomplices have done, in order 
 to effect his purpose, offers scarcely one example in the 
 most gloomy pages of history. We will summarily call 
 it to the recollection of our readers. 
 
 They have kindled civil war in their own country, pro- 
 voked the fury of the soldiers against the citizens ; with 
 a view to strike the population with terror, they have 
 shed by torrents, with premeditation and by means of 
 ambushes, the blood of the unarmed inhabitants of Paris ; 
 they have slain the peaceful passers-by on the Boulevards, 
 without any distinction of age or sex ; they have butchered 
 their prisoners, thrown into the water the wounded, shot 
 a woman, beheaded five men ; they have imprisoned more 
 than ninety thousand citizens ; they have sentenced to 
 residence in strange spots (interne), to exile-, and to depor- 
 tation, without legal examination, twenty- eight thousand; 
 they have hunted their foes, who had taken refuge in the 
 forests and mountains, as tigers hunt their prey; they 
 have sent to the tortures of hard labour, in Algeria, even 
 women, nay more, children ; they have condemned and 
 flung to the galleys some charitable persons cdnvicted of 
 having given an asylum to some of the banished; they 
 have knocked down from their seats, by striking them 
 with the butt-ends of their guns, the magistrates, who 
 were deliberating in the name of the laws !* 
 
 Thanks to that heap,, of crimes, the chief of the new 
 barbarians has donned, in the heart of France surprised, 
 overcome, terrified by, the pretorians, an imperial mantle 
 whose purple tint is blood. Yes, that man has reached \ 
 
 * See Annexes, No. I., Per social Confessions of the Assassins 
 of December, ,. 
 
4 IMMOEALITT OF KINGS. 
 
 power througli aught but innocent means. Triumpliant 
 r" democracy, ever honest and generous, had allowed him to 
 
 I return to France, and he had seemed to requite that be- 
 nefit by the most solemn oaths of fidelity to the Eepub- 
 
 \ lie. He has deceived his native country, and violated his 
 
 \ word ; he has stolen his spurious crown on a cold and 
 dark night — as highwaymen plunder a travelling-coach ; 
 that which is termed his government is a long series of con- 
 fiscations, briberies, iniquities, and acts of violence, for, 
 according to the words of Macbeth himself, " Things bad 
 begun make strong themselves by ill." For this reason, 
 all the highly intellectual and the honest men, whom 
 France possesses, wander painfully in exile or stand aloof 
 with dignity ; he is supported solely by disreputable cha- 
 racters ; and even M. Dupin himself, who has wallowed 
 in the dust of every regime, has resigned under the pre- 
 sent one. Judge what an amount of "Bonapartism " it 
 must be, which staggers the conscience of such a magis- 
 trate ! 
 
 And yet, what do we see? — Kings and emperors 
 stretch out their hands to the reprobate man, they 
 adopt him as one of theirs! The King of Piedmont 
 dispatches his own brother to pay him a visit; the 
 Duke of Saxe-Coburg frequents his dwelling ; the Em- 
 peror of E/Ussia offers him a " sincere friendship," and 
 the King of the Belgians makes him "amicable advances." 
 
 rin fine, at the very moment when, after two years of 
 power, he still delivers up to the sultry guillotine of Cay- 
 enne 130 citizens, whose only crime is that of having 
 
 ] defended the constitution of the country — a statesman, 
 
 LLord Palmerston, exclaims — " The age of Augustus is 
 now beginning anew in Paris !" 
 
 The age of Augustus ! Shades of the mothers, young 
 girls and little children, massacred by a fanatic soldiery, 
 you have heard it from the depths of your tombs, — ^hur- 
 
IMMOEALITT OF KINGS. ^ 
 
 rah for Augustus ! Leflo, Bedeau, Lamoriciere, Chaur 
 garnier, you, the generals of "order," surprised in the 
 midst of your sleep by galley-keepers armed to the 
 teeth, snatched from your beds and dragged into the 
 common felon's van, you have heard it from the solitudes 
 of your exile — crave the pardon of Augustus ! 
 
 Cicero says, somewhere : — " If Antony be a consul, 
 Brutus is an enemy ; but if Brutus be a saviour and 
 preserver of the Commonwealth, Antony is an enemy : 
 none but robbers count him a consul." We would fain 
 say, in our turn: — "If M. Napoleon III. be made 
 Augustus of, the four exiled generals are then enemies, 
 since he has been afraid of them and still dreads them ; 
 but if the four generals be supporters of the cause of 
 "honest people," M. Napoleon is, in this case, an 
 enemy, and robbers alone can consider him an emperor. 
 
 The Times said : — " The Emperor, we shall see, will 
 be Punch I. ; the empire, we shall see, will be that of the 
 hero of the streets, who, after a noisy and impudent 
 performance of tricks, blasphemies, and blows, is carried 
 off by devils." 
 
 It was on November 2, 1852, hardly eighteen months 
 ago, that the Titnes said this, and to-day they call Punch 
 I. "Augustus" ! 
 
 How ! with reference to the imperial parody which is 
 now being played at the Tuileries ; with reference to a 
 government which escapes from ridicule but through 
 horror, some one does not hesitate to speak to us of the 
 age of Augustus, — of an age which represents generosity 
 and grandeur, because the glory of the flatteries of Virgil 
 and Horace, while passing through centuries, has made 
 people forget that Augustus was still the monster named 
 Octavius ! The age of Augustus ! Ah ! he who uttered 
 these words is, manifestly, ignorant of the circumstances 
 of the case ; let him but read the Annex No. I. of this 
 
b IMMOEALITT OF KllS^aS. 
 
 pamphlet : — " Personal Confessions of the Assassins of 
 Decemher ;^^ therein is wrapped up the whole of the 
 new reign. "We do not balance to affirm this as a fact : 
 whoerer reads the history of the second of December, 
 not even in our books, but in its very panegyrists, and 
 its own journals, will say that the Elysean conspirators 
 are indeed malefactors. 
 
 The reign of Augustus ! Such a title given to the 
 government which makes the sovereign power subserve 
 the nolle purposes we will here mention for the appreci- 
 ation of our readers : — An actress made her delut, and 
 failed. The newspapers had, for some particular reason, 
 we must suppose, orders from the government not to say 
 a word of that failure, and they, consequently, were si- 
 lent! After relating the occurrence, the Paris corre- 
 spondent of the Times (March 22), hastened to add: — 
 " It may be doubted that the Emperor or his ministers 
 approve of that prohibition, so favourable to the debu- 
 tante.''^ This corrective of a rank want of tact, only 
 discloses a sincere desire of saving from all blame the 
 Augustus of back scenes. The English newspaper, con- 
 verted as it is, doubtless believes him to have become 
 already divus, because, during the last carnival, he, with 
 his friends and their female mates, exhibited themselves 
 lightly attired, as gods and goddesses of Olympus. 
 
 The unbounded power of the new Augustus is not 
 only employed to protect from the publicity of the press 
 actresses who fall short of success before an audience ; 
 it is also made use of to protect likewise sharpers who 
 succumb before justice. A certain Yieyra, at the very 
 moment when Csesarion was selecting him as one of his 
 accomplices, and appointing him chief of the staff of the 
 National Gruard of Paris, was being condemned by the 
 tribunals as guilty of stellionafe, or as fraudulent vendor.* 
 ♦ See the AnxVexes, No. II., Bonapartist Biographies, 
 
IMMOEALITT OF KINGS. 7 
 
 He appealed from their sentence, after December, in the 
 hope that his position among the conquerors would inti- 
 midate the judges ! But all that they could do, in spite 
 of their servility, was to deliver in his favour, on the 10th 
 of June, 1852, a verdict couched in these terms : — 
 
 " The Court, admitting the motives of the former judges^ 
 but considering nevertheless that, however talse and 
 FRAUDULENT be the declaration of Yieyra and his wife, 
 in the transaction in question, it falls without the pale 
 of art. 2059 of the civil code ; that therefore it is errone- 
 ously that the former judges have declared them guilty 
 of stellionate, — opine that there is no ground for declaring 
 Yieyra and his wife guilty bf stellionate, and consequently 
 relieve them from the warrant issued against them.'* 
 
 "Will it be believed ? The French newspapers received 
 orders not to mention that verdict ; it appeared only in 
 the Independance Beige of June 29, 1852 ; but the Inde- 
 pendance Beige was not allowed, on that day, to make its 
 way to the public of France ! 
 
 Let us then glorify this reign of Augustus, where the 
 master dotes upon a convict to such an extent as to for- 
 bid the publication of the judicial decisions which brand 
 him ! Honour then that reign of Augustus, under which 
 some companion of his lewd pranks can and dares enjoin 
 the entire press not to speak of the failure of an actress ! 
 Is not that, forsooth, what is called to '' skilfully" make 
 the influence of power subservient to the amelioration of 
 morals ? 
 
 "What a shame, to state it by the way, for the French 
 journalists who still write, not to renounce the profession 
 at last, rather than submit to such impudent behests. 
 Behold whereto the age of Augustus has led certain souls 
 formed for slavery ! The greatest misfortune which pro- 
 ceeds from the triumph of vice, is not only the mischief 
 the latter does, but also that which it incites others to 
 
^ 
 
 8 IMMOBALITT OF KINGS. 
 
 perpetrate. Despotism, by opening the race to the worst 
 passions, lowers the public spirit as much as liberty ele- 
 vates it. Caesar and Augustus were the first steps of the 
 Recline of Eome ; the last was Heliogabalus ; and when 
 the great people died miserably under the blows of the 
 barbarians, these were surprised at finding it destitute 
 even of the warlike virtues which had formerly seemed to 
 be its exclusive privilege. 
 
 But let us turn from the age of Augustus, and consider 
 the princes of the day. We say that it is easy to judge 
 of their morality by their actual behaviour. They do, on 
 the very throne, that which the most insignificant citizen 
 could not do without being decried by all his neighbours ; 
 they do that which no consideration, whether private or 
 political, could render excusable ; they frequent a criminal 
 notoriously sullied by murders and lies. One thing only 
 has been wanting to Cartouche and to Mandrin;* that 
 was, t(5 be enabled to buy up some Magnans, some Saint- 
 Arnauds, some Canroberts, and other generals of that 
 kind, for them to have received crowned embraces, instead 
 of having been broken alive upon the wheel. 
 
 There can be no misconstruction put upon our precise 
 meaning: the kings do not simply limit themselves to 
 tolerate state relations with the government de facto, 
 which our terrorized country still allows to exist ; they 
 profess besides their afiection towards the very person 
 of the abettor of the Decembrisades, to approach whom 
 any one who possesses the least particle of self-respect 
 would consider a disgrace. 
 
 Such are the examples which the great of the world 
 give to nations. "Was it not with reason that Milton 
 said : " Kings commonly are the worst of men ? " f They 
 ought to be beacons of nobleness to the world ; and they 
 
 ♦ Celebrated French higliway robbers. 
 
 t A Defence of the People of England, Chapter II. 
 
IMMOEALITY OF KIKGS. Q 
 
 are posts of nefariousness. They seem to have lost even 
 the bluntest sense of shame. Some terrible laws condemn 
 any one who offends them, and they are the most forward 
 to insult themselves by their personal actions. They have 
 pretensions to the respect of their " subjects," according 
 to their expression, and they fail in respecting them- 
 selves. Their proud majesty discards from its presence 
 every mortal, and yet it rushes to meet the first vagabond 
 whom crime makes somebody. 
 
 We, the "Eed Eepublicans," understand virtue quite 
 differently to how potentates do; we equally hate that 
 which is evil, either under the purple of an emperor, or 
 under the garment of a convict. If some fatal circum- 
 stances permit to some bandits to heap up so many 
 corpses as that they can use them as steps towards a 
 throne, to take possession of it like burglars, such a 
 spectacle distresses, but abates us not. We brave 
 fatality — we make no concessions to those victors; our 
 conscience ever reproves them, our arm is ever ready to 
 combat them, our honest heart ever relies on justice. 
 There are still some vigorous souls; and it is specially 
 with regard to highway emperors that Pascal has truth- 
 fully said : " The means by which we raise ourselves are 
 very often those by which we fall." 
 
 One thing comforts us in the midst of the bitter 
 thoughts of exile. Were kings, statesmen, and the 
 sellers in the temple, to prostrate themselves all together 
 still lower before the privileged of treason and assassi- 
 nation, these would not any less for that remain stigma- 
 tized. Victor Hugo has branded them on the shoulder 
 with indelible marks. His genius has engraved the 
 " CHATiMENTS " ou plates of iudestructible brass, and 
 thereby destined them to live as glaring as on the first 
 day, till the last hour of the last of centuries. As long 
 as there subsists on the globe a glimmer of intelligence, 
 
10 CAK A PEOPLE EYEE BE ALLIED 
 
 the men he has chastised will be despised. Honour is 
 provoked, virtue blushes, morality grows indignant, at 
 the testimonies of respect lavished on the ridiculous 
 conspirator of Boulogne, on the cowardly conspirator of 
 Strasbourg, on the sanguinary conspirator of December. 
 Those testimonies of respect, proceeding though they be 
 from crowned heads, wiU never be able to render great 
 the inept man who is the object of them; they will 
 simply bear witness to the baseness of those who bestow 
 them. After all, we do not complain of them ; we like 
 to see certain kings lower themselves : the peoples will 
 but the sooner do away with them. Kings, as has been 
 said by a royalist poet, in his whines, " kings are becom- 
 ing extinct, kings are becoming extinct." 
 
 II. 
 
 CATf A PEOPLE EYEK BE ALLIED WITH NOTOEIOTTS 
 CEIMINALS ? 
 
 It follows from the foregoing, that the behaviour of 
 the monarchs towards the runaway prisoner of Ham, 
 undoubtedly degrades them ; but, at the same time, we 
 cannot deny the fact, that it strengthens, without ele- 
 vating, the sway of the men of December. 
 J" Alas ! It must be confessed, the alliance which England 
 ^ has contracted with them strengthens them still more. 
 It may be said of their representative, as Eichmond says 
 of Grloucester, in E/ichard III. : — 
 
 " For what is he they follow ? 
 Truly, gentlemen, a bloody tyrant and a homicide, 
 One raised in blood, and in blood established. 
 One that made means to come by what he hath. 
 And slaughtered those that were the means to help him ; 
 A base, foul stone, made precious by the foil 
 Of England's chair, where he is falsely set." 
 
WITH NOTOEIOTJS CBIMI^^ALS ? 11 
 
 Are we not justified in deploring that Great Britain 
 should have deemed it morally possible to make use of 
 that "base stone/' were it even but to hurl it at the head 
 of the invader of the Danubian provinces ? "Without 
 wishing to forget all the reserve to which we are bound 
 by our position, we venture to inquire whether this fact 
 does not impair the honour of the English nation ? For 
 is not that singular JEmperor with whom England contracts 
 an alliance for a joint warfare, the same man who said on 
 the 21st of December, 1848 : — " In the presence of 
 
 GOD I SWEAR TO REMAIN EAITHEUL TO THE DEMO- 
 CRATIC, ONE, AND INDIVISIBLE EePUBLIC ?" Is he 
 
 not the same man who, in order to secure the triumph 
 of his perjury, has wantonly shed blood ? Is he not*" 
 the same man of whom the Times said, on the 20th of 
 December, 1851 : — " Conspirator successful by the foulest 
 treachery, the purchase of the soldiery, and the butchery 
 of thousands, he must, if not cut short in his career, 
 go all the lengths of tyranny ?" And does he not run, 
 as he is doomed to do, all the lengths of tyranny ? 
 
 Is he not the same man whose coup d^etat the Times 
 of January 9, 1852, appreciated in these terms : — " Chris- 
 tendom had imagined that the progress of humanity had 
 assured the victory of reason over force, of enlightenment 
 over superstition, of morality over the baser vices, and 
 of justice over the fouler crimes ? The success of this 
 revolution would establish just the contrary. Let those 
 who will, assert that the monstrous attempt is right ; let 
 those who can, suppose that it will prove triumphant. 
 "We shall believe it when we see the brute assume do- 
 minion over man, and the powers of hell prevail against 
 the God of heaven." Is he not the same man whose; 
 government also the Times of November 18, 1852, sum-! 
 marily qualified " the most abject servitude ?" 
 
 Does it become a great, honest, and free people, to 
 
12 CAN A PEOPLE EVEE BE ALLIED 
 
 strengthen by its alliance with a government which may- 
 be termed tJie most ahject servitude, a revolution which 
 gives the victory to force over reason, to the baser vices 
 over morality, to the brute over man, and to hell over 
 heaven? 
 
 Is he not, finally, the same man of whom the same news- 
 paper also said, scarcely two years ago, on the 7th of^ 
 May, 1852 — " The Napoleonian star is Mercury, the 
 Grod of deportation, theft and lies^ Is not that which 
 was true then, any longer true now ? Are not the 
 misdeeds which have justified these thundering apostro- 
 phes, still extant, as facts, irremovable, indestructible ? 
 Can a nation which has any claim to self-respect, accept 
 as an ally a man who symbolizes the god of deportation, 
 theft and lies f 
 
 The crimes of December have been proved real facts ; 
 the newspapers of Europe have written them down in 
 their columns with horror and disgust. No one will 
 ever be able to tear ofi* that frightful, that shameful 
 leaf from the history of the 19th century. Look at the 
 forehead of England's ally; you will see it furrowed 
 with the blur which the whole of the English press, and 
 the two tribunes of the English Parliament, lately im- 
 printed on it for avenging mankind.^ A crown may hide 
 these terrible marks, it can never efiace them. 
 
 ♦ MM. rialin, Bonaparte, and St. Arnaud inserted in the 
 Moniteur a few extracts from the speeches pronounced here against 
 them, and caused them to be distributed in the barracks of tl^e 
 " buccaniers " (a word uttered in the Upper House), at the time 
 when those nephews of the Emperor were meditating the accom- 
 plishment of their views in contemplating the column of Bou- 
 logne ; when M. St. Arnaud was saying, in a report on the military 
 circonscriptions, inserted in the Moniteur of December 25, 1851 : — 
 *' The sixth military division is that of Strasbourg, destined never 
 to change as long as the frontiers themselves will undergo no altera^ 
 tion." Some people affirm that Messrs. Bonaparte and Co. had 
 
WITH KOTORIOTIS CRIMINALS ? IS 
 
 Strange and baneful effect of political looming ! Of 
 all the members of the Aberdeen Ministry, there is not 
 one who, father of a family, would not deem his son 
 imperilled by forming such a liaison as that into which 
 they collectively have dragged their country ! That which 
 King Bomba has done in Naples ; that which, in the noble 
 revelations of Mr. Grladstone, has most deeply moved 
 England and Europe, the Stell- President now does in 
 Erance. Mr. Gladstone is one of Lord Aberdeen's 
 colleagues : would he join King Bomba for any common 
 work whatever ? 
 
 A refugee in England, we reject far from us the thought 
 of giving the least offence to any of the persons who 
 compose the English cabinet, and who, by the very union 
 among themselves, which they offer as a good example to 
 political parties, prove that the reasons of state often 
 prevail, in political matters, over individual inclinations. 
 However, sacrifices of this nature ought not, in our opi- 
 nion, to be carried so far as to stifle the most imperious 
 impulses of conscience. We are, it is true, nothing but 
 an obscure friend to justice ; yet we shpall never be 
 brought to the belief that it is a wise and noble policy 
 for a man who is at the head of affairs in his country, 
 to associate it with individuals, all contact with whom 
 he would, in the usual relations of private life, sedulously 
 shun. 
 
 The English people, nevertheless, seem to approve of 
 such an association! "Why? Statesmen only consider 
 the advantages attached to the aim, without taking the 
 means into account. This moral insensibility constitutes, 
 
 collected in a safe place the speeches and articles that were most 
 true, published against them, in order that they might be able to 
 say, when the time had come to fall out with the English Cabinet : 
 — "These are the insults you have allowed your Houses of Par- 
 liament and your newspapers to circulate against us." 
 
14 CAK A PEOPLE EYEE BE ALLIED 
 
 as is said, their genius. The masses, commonly, have not 
 so much genius ; but thej are endowed with a more deli- 
 cate sense of that which is honest. Tet there exists in 
 England a noble quality, sometimes carried as high as the 
 genius of the statesman ; an admirable feeling, sometimes 
 also carried to aberration : it is, patriotism — Mule Bri- 
 tannia, From the Queen to the meanest beggar, there 
 is not one English man or woman who is not a patriot 
 all over — Rule Britannia. Take here for example a bar- 
 rister, a journalist, a military man, a cleanser of wells, a 
 ragpicker, a duke, a workman, a lord, a tradesman, a 
 clerk, a young girl, an old female, a lady, a chambermaid, 
 a poor man, a rich one, an atheist, a believer, a chartist, 
 a whig, a tory, there is one thing common to all, and which 
 they are prior to anything else, and that is English to the 
 core ; one thing which they will have prior to anything 
 else, and at any cost, and that is the influence, the prestige 
 of England — Bule Britannia, This is why the men in 
 power, here, never make any attempt against the public 
 liberties ; they know that such attempts would be sure to 
 lead to conflicts which could not but weaken England. 
 This is why the English Parliament never consented to 
 vote for a numerous army ; they know that an influence 
 gained through bayonets, ever blind and ever servile, might 
 tempt the ambition of some, and dissolve the national 
 union which constitutes essentially the strength of Eng- 
 land. This is why the English aristocracy do not oppose 
 to the last moment useful reforms, and know how to yield 
 when the hour is come of giving up a privilege; they 
 are aware that, in the contrary case, they must inevit- 
 ably light up civil broils which would hamper the soaring 
 of England. This is why Nelson made, at Trafalgar, a 
 Nelson of even the lowest of his sailors, by simply telling 
 them all : " England expects every one of her children to 
 do his duty." — Bule Britannia. The elevation of England ; 
 
WITH ]^fOTOEIOUS CRIMINALS ? 15 
 
 for this result Englishmen make a sacrifice of everything, 
 and to such a degree that, in their eyes, evil itself, when 
 the violence of their ruling passion still allows them to 
 preserve a sense of it, becomes excusable as soon as it 
 can be turned to the advantage of England : perfidy be- 
 comes self-devotedness, as soon as it can subserve the 
 interests of England; generosity becomes madness, as 
 soon as it may hurt these same interests. — Bule Britannia. 
 This national egotism is at once sublime and monstrous. 
 The absorption of every inhabitant into this dominant idea, 
 joined to the insular condition of the country and to its 
 wooden walls, have founded the paramount greatness of 
 England ; but, it must be owned, they have not at all times 
 acquired for her an enviable renown. It is still now this 
 same idea which renders popular the alliance with the 
 DScemhriseurs ; the advantage which England finds therein 
 prevents her from pausing to consider what amount of 
 guilt there is in it. — Bule Britannia, 
 
 We will do no one the injustice of believing that the 
 infamous Napoleonic traditions, so faithfully applied now- 
 a-days in France, reckon a single partisan among the 
 people, or even among the Grovernment of England ;^ but 
 
 * A striking occurrence has just taken place at Drury Lane 
 Theatre, during Passion week. A concert was being given there, 
 on the programme of which the Marseillaise had been announced, 
 as a sort of homage to the Anglo-French alliance. In one of those 
 theatrical addresses, the familiarity of which is a characteristic fea- 
 ture of this country, it was said, as the Marseillaise was mentioned : 
 " The audience are requested to join in, whilst the French are, on 
 their side, singing at home our national anthem." The Marseil- 
 laise, therefore, is still, in the views of the English people, the 
 symbol of France, as the ** God save the Queen" is the symbol of 
 England, and it is sung in chorus as such. There is, however, 
 a somewhat unlucky misunderstanding in this, for the music of 
 imperialist France is " Partant pour la Syrie^" a rather paltry and 
 a very languid air, whereas the Marseillaise is, in these days, very 
 vigorously prohibited as a signal of sedition ; and whoever, con- 
 
16 CAN A PEOPLE ETEE BE ALLIED 
 
 an alliance contracted with them will procure, it is 
 believed, the means of driving more easily the Russians 
 from Constantinople, of destroying a fleet and harbours 
 which tend to constitute a new maritime power; and that 
 is sufficient to make the English forget what their allies 
 are. 
 
 Every one knows with what energy of indignation the 
 press of this country has unanimously chastised the 
 cowardice, the dishonesty, the ferociousness of the chief of 
 the " six thousand knaves"* during December, and since 
 then the savage brutality of that which is called his govern- 
 ment. Yet there is not, at this very moment, a single 
 English newspaper which would venture to utter one word 
 likely to offend him. The Morning Advertiser itself has 
 declared that, although it still adheres to its own opinion 
 concerning the past, it will henceforth treat tbat man 
 J'with respect!'' He is the ally of England. But what 
 of eternal principles ? There are no other principles for 
 an Englishman than the aggrandizement of England. It 
 is thus that the people of this country have provisionally 
 laid aside even the deplorable antipathy which divides 
 the two neighbouring nations, and which will disappear, 
 finally and sincerely, from purer motives. Eor the last 
 three months, especially, Erench persons, wearers of 
 beards and moustaches, have ceased to be exposed to 
 malevolent manifestations on the part of the less enlight- 
 ened classes here. Lately, an English gentleman told us 
 
 sequently, sings it here, thereby insults the Empire No. III., just 
 as much as it would be an insult to England to sing officially in 
 Paris the song of the Irish Ribhonmen ; but John Bull could not 
 be made to believe that any sympathy exists between France and 
 the somniferous ** Partant pour la Syrie." John Bull protests 
 against the Empire without being aware of it : wishing to pay his 
 respects to France he strikes up the Marseillaise ! 
 
 * An expression applied to the Bonapartists at the very tribune 
 of'ihe National Assembly of France, by M. Jules Lasteyrie. 
 
ynTK ITOTOBIOUS CEIMINALS ? 17 
 
 very coolly:— ''I know what M. Bonaparte is, yet his death ( 
 would be, under the present circumstances, a EuropeanX 
 disaster y We should not have been more astounded at 
 hearing some one announce as a public calamity the death 
 of a mad dog! Yet — a no less characteristic thing — 
 let the Buler of France change the direction of his broad- 
 sides, and he will immediately becoine again " the sangui- 
 nary brigand of December ;" he will be anew, " the curse 
 of nations ;" the marks of enmity, among ill-bred persons, 
 will retake their wonted course in the more populous 
 neighbourhoods ; and nobody will be puzzled to account 
 for such a radical change of feelings ; scarcely even will 
 any one be conscious of it ; for, at bottom, it will still be 
 nothing more than the expression of one identical and 
 constant mode of thinking. — Rule Britannia. 
 
 We state in all humility, that however much this 
 national passion may contain that is worthy of admira- 
 tion, does not conceal from our appreciation what in it is 
 deserving of blame. There exists an interest, of a superior 
 order to that of all material interests of one*s native 
 country ; it is that of her honour. To sacrifice honour to 
 a material advantage is always a step towards decay, for 
 states as well as for individuals. JSTot to oppose, at all times 
 and inflexibly, to iniquity the horror which it must needs 
 inspire, is to perpetuate the results of its dangerous ten- 
 dencies ; not to have against it — whether it be sitting 
 upon a throne or cast into the galleys — ^that burning 
 hatred spoken of by the Alceste of the French drama, is 
 literally to excuse it ; not to isolate it, as the leprous were 
 formerly isolated,.is literally to encourage it in its doings ; 
 to admit it into the company of virtue, is to implicitly 
 say that no difference is made between them — is to per- 
 petuate the reign of egotism. How many weak souls, 
 fluctuating between duty and crime, addict themselves to 
 crime which procures enjoyments, because they see that 
 
 
 
18 CAN A PEOPLE EVER :6E ALLIED 
 
 we do not lose the esteem of the world by leaving the 
 path of duty, where sacrifices must be undergone ? 
 
 Let this religious country look into the depths of its 
 treaty with the men of December, and it will acknowledge 
 that, to have signed it is equivalent to having signed in 
 the face of the world and of posterity the following decla- 
 ration : " It requires* only to take possession of power, 
 through any means whatever, not excepting even perjury, 
 laying of ambushes, and murder, to become in case of 
 need the ally of the English nation." 
 
 O religion, what art thou, then, if the most faithful 
 can do such things without any uneasiness of con- 
 science ! O respect of holy things, what art thou, if 
 thou inspirest not an austere aversion to infamous deeds! 
 ye, leaders of the people, men of little faith, what 
 example are you then giving to this world, still a prey to 
 the ignorance of the masses and to brutal force ! Tou 
 unsheath the strong sword of old England, to defend civili- 
 zation, and you derive support from barbarians who have 
 trampled, who still daily trample under their feet all the 
 laws of civilization ! You appoint a day of humiliation 
 and prayer throughout the realm, to beseech God to pour 
 his blessings on your arms, and you go to war hand in 
 hand with unrepenting ofi'enders of Grod, with wicked 
 men whose sole importance on earth is owing to their 
 having violated all the commandments of God put to- 
 gether ; with miscreants whom you yourselves, hardly a 
 ^few days since, declared doomed to vengeance : " Yen- 
 \ geance must one day overtake the system of govern- 
 ment of Napoleon."— (Tew^5, November 18, 1852.) 
 If somebody came to ask your assistance in an enterprise 
 in which you knew him to be implicated with a convict, 
 who was not merely a notorious assassin, but also the 
 most treacherous and the most cowardly of your foes, 
 would you not think that such a man means only to insult 
 
WITH NOTORIOUS CEIMIN^ALS ? 19 
 
 you in your very house, or that he has lost all moral 
 sense ? Is this not, however, just the sort of proposal you 
 now accede to ? We are not seeking here to cast a slur 
 upon your intentions or your sentiments ; but we say, in 
 earnest, that, in doing so, you offend God, unconsciously, 
 and lead at the same time your people into error. 
 
 What we now witness is strange indeed, and if the 
 direction of affairs was left to "wise and practical" men, 
 the world would very soon lose every sound notion of 
 good and evil, fortunately, we are not yet standing so 
 low down that some things, situated as they are on elevated 
 ground, should deceive us as to their nature. The acts of 
 politicians have no longer in our days the power of pro- 
 ducing optical illusions in the vulgar. The light of the 
 19th century darts its rays upon them and exhibits them 
 to everybody in all their ugliness, should they assume 
 that complexion. Thanks to the self-sacrifices of the mar- 
 tyrs of Truth — may their sublime courage be blessed for 
 this ! — the conscience of the least educated or intelligent 
 man is sufficiently enlightened, in our epoch, for him to 
 discriminate what, in the arcana of the reasons of state, 
 may be contrary to honesty. Who, for instance, is now 
 incapable of appreciating inconsistencies like the follow- 
 ing ? — You bombard Odessa, a merchant sea-port, only 
 because the garrison has fired into one of your ships 
 bearing a flag of truce,* and you act so with what auxilia- 
 ries ? — with the tools of a government which has estab- 
 lished its fortunes by shooting estafets and prisoners ! f 
 Eeasons of State! What will the Cossacks think of 
 this ? 
 
 * The Russians deny that they sliot at the bearer of the flag of 
 truce, and the Gazette Officielle de St. Petersbourg calls the bombard- 
 ment of Odessa ** an odious act of barbarism and sacrilege." 
 
 t See Annexes, No. I. : Personal Confessions of the Assassins of 
 December. 
 
26 CAN A PEOPLE ETEE BE ALLIED 
 
 But when one compares those high reasons of state 
 with the dealings of ordinary life, one is enabled to judge 
 still better of their morality. Let us therefore make use, 
 for an operation of this kind, of an article from the Times, 
 from that practical journal which professes a sovereign 
 contempt for " dreamers." 
 
 Three Irishmen have just been executed at Dublin, for 
 having murdered a landowner. The exhortations of the 
 priests have led them to die as good Christians. "When 
 they were asked if they had anything to say respecting 
 the crime for which they were to suffer death, one of them 
 replied, " No ; our Sayioue said nothing when he was 
 executed." "They partook largely of an excellent break- 
 fast before they ascended the scaffold." On this circum- 
 stance the Times, which never entertained any very great 
 love for its countrymen the Irish, said with indignation 
 (April I5th, 185 i) :— 
 
 " At a time when there is a good deal of controversy as 
 to the best and surest and pleasantest way of getting to 
 heaven, our readers will thank us for informing them, on 
 respectable authority, of one which seems to answer these 
 conditions. Tou have only to shoot some person whose 
 notions of property or justice have given you inconve- 
 nience, and you will either satisfy an earthly feeling or 
 secure a heavenly possession — that is, you will either es- 
 cape justice or be translated to the skies. If your landlord 
 wants his rent, or his bailiff is troublesome ; if a creditor 
 bores you, or a magistrate has turned a deaf ear to your 
 pleas or your threats, waylay him and dash out his brains, 
 fire at him as he is alighting from his gig, or sitting with 
 his wife and children, at his fire-side, and your salvation 
 is safe. The parting address of the Eev. Mr. Smith was, 
 ' Eemember the penitent thief on the Cross ; in one moment 
 you'll he in Heaven-, you have eternal happiness within your 
 reach.' Is it really the doctrine of our Churches, that 
 
WITH NOTORIOUS CEIMINALS ? 3^ 
 
 a murderer may obtain bis passport to the skies by a 
 private arrangement witb bis priest, without making the 
 smallest amends for his crime ? We may be permitted 
 to point out the obvious fact, that this form of spiritual 
 treatment puts the Christian religion very much on a level 
 with the most degrading and dangerous superstitions." 
 
 Very good ! but how can the Times treat as abominable 
 in others that very thing which itself does every day ? 
 For has not the Times taught morning after morning, for 
 the last six months, " on its own respectable authority, 
 that the best, the surest, and pleasantest way" of becoming 
 an emperor worthy of the alliance of powerful England, 
 worthy "to partake largely of an excellent breakfast" 
 withH. E. H. the Duke of Cambridge, is "to shoot" not 
 one person only, but thousands of persons "whose notions 
 of justice, of constitutional right, and of respect for the 
 plighted faith, give you inconvenience ; is to dash out their 
 brains when they turn a deaf ear to your threats, while 
 augmenting considerably the tang of such crimes by a dose 
 of sedition ?" Does not that journal teach that the way 
 of hearing one's self absolved by the Eev. Smith, of the 
 Times, after two years of a reign filled with acts of vio- 
 lence and baseness, is "to fire upon honest citizens during 
 the night," or when they look at a con^ d^etat rushing 
 through the streets, " or when they are sitting by their 
 fire-sides, with their wives and children ?" Does it not 
 teach, every morning, that "it suffices that a murderer 
 should make a private arrangement" with England, and 
 join the troops which murders have procured him, to the 
 troops of the Queen, for the Times to style his govern- 
 ment " the noblest representative of right, of justice, 
 and of MORAL as well as material progress ;" (Times ^ 
 April 14, 1854;) for the Times, at length, to "exalt to the ^ 
 skies" the sanguinary spoliator of other people's property, 
 " without his having made the smallest amends ?" 
 
2i 
 
 CAN A PEOPLE EYER BE ALLIED 
 
 "W"e saj that the hero of the Decembrisades is a huger 
 criminal than the three hanged Irish convicts. The Times 
 rightfully treated him in 1851 and 1852, with more con- 
 tempt still than it treats here the three unfortunate men 
 given up to the executioner. We have not forgotten that 
 in August, 1 852, it stigmatized again the assassinations of 
 December with so much truth that the Moniteur tried to 
 defend itself by promptly-exposed lies ; and when we now 
 See that very same journal offer up its reputed incense to 
 such a hero, we think we may be permitted to point out 
 the obvious facts " that this mode of considering the neces- 
 sities of state puts the political sciences very much on a 
 level with the most dangerous doctrines." "We will not 
 allow ourself to add, "and also the most degrading;" yet 
 we will readily conclude like the Times, with but slight 
 variations : — 
 
 " When we are called on to believe that a creature of 
 the description of the Decembriseurs' chief is to be thus 
 glorified without any real sorrow for his crimes, any actual 
 disgust of his former life, and any proof of a resolution to 
 change, then we cannot help feeling that it is our credulity 
 rather than our honour that is appealed to. If the way to 
 the throne and to the English alliance is murder, backed 
 up with a sufficient amount of indifierence, why not teach 
 the new way of life more directly ? Let us have Thuggee 
 at once, with its worship, its priests, and its temples. A 
 scrupulous morality is a very uncomfortable thing ; para- 
 lyzing the strong, and fettering the flight of genius. 
 Grreat politicians appear to manage things better. The 
 crown of an emperor, and the glory of saving civilization 
 in the East, is a return for a life of vicious indulgence 
 and stolid indifference." 
 
 Let great politicians do that ; let " practical" men 
 forget that the three Irishmen have been convicted of 
 murder, as soon as they become strong enough to rule in 
 
WITH NOTOEIOUS CEIMINALS ? 23 
 
 the house of their victim ; we wonder at this, but we are 
 firmly determined not to participate in that culpable 
 forbearance. The spangles with which vice contrives to 
 deck itself, have no power to dazzle us, and the might 
 of criminals will never induce us to absolve their mis- 
 deeds. Had assassins 500,000 men of the imperial guard, 
 they should none the less be, in our eyes, but assassins, 
 and w^e would none the less remain on the breach, than 
 we now do and ever will do, unceasingly repeating to 
 them : Tou are but assassins, curse unto you ! and call- 
 ing out to those who go hand in hand with them : Tou 
 give your hands to assassins ! How ! it will be right to 
 say during two full years to the thcee Irishmen: 
 " You have violated all Divine and human laws, your 
 symbol is Mercury, the god of deportation, theft, and 
 murder ; we contemn you ; we detest you ; vengeance is 
 hanging over your heads;" and then, because they have 
 been made emperors, it will be right to render them 
 homage ; because they have succeeded in corrupting an 
 army and in bringing it to be at their disposal, it will be 
 equally right to invite them to join in the exercise of the 
 police of nations ! ! But what will become of morality, 
 should such doctrines obtain, and the leaders of peoples be 
 the first to put them in practice? There is something 
 more dangerous still than the triumph of brute force ; and 
 that is, the acclamations which it elicits from the weak- 
 minded ; but such acclamations actually imperil society, 
 w^hen they proceed from those very individuals who govern 
 men. There would soon be on earth no other right than 
 that of the strongest, if there did not remain some inflexi- 
 ble souls, resolved constantly to protest against an evil of 
 that magnitude, to dissipate with their breath all fetid 
 incense, to remind that there exists a law, the supreme 
 law of nations as of individuals— the Divine law of justice. 
 
24 WHAT WEEE, AIS^D WHAT STILL ABE, 
 
 III. 
 
 WHAT WERE, AKD WHAT STILL AEE, THE ASSASSINS 
 OF DECEMBER. 
 
 "What ! England, that nation which entertains so admi- 
 rable a respect for legality, forms an alliance with the 
 gang of December ! Is this possible ? Listen to what 
 follows : — 
 
 At the first news of the insurrection fanned by the 
 President of tjie Eepublic, the competent judges assem- 
 bled at the Palais de Justice, as they were prescribed to 
 do by the Constitution, and issued the subjoined decree : 
 " In virtue of the sixty-eighth article of the Constitu- 
 tion, the High Court of Justice declares — 
 
 "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte accused of the crime of 
 Jiigh'treason ; — 
 
 " Convocates the high national jury, in order to proceed 
 without delay with the judgment, — and intrusts to M. 
 Counsellor Eenouard the functions of public prosecutor 
 for the High Court. 
 
 " Griven at Paris, the 2nd of December, 1851. 
 " Signed : HAEDoriN, President ; Delapalme, Pa- 
 TAiLLE, MoREAU (de la Seine), CArcHT, Judges." 
 
 This decree had just been signed, when some municipal 
 guards, sent by the insurgents, entered armed into the 
 room where the deliberations were being held, and upset the 
 magistrates from their curule chairs. 
 
 "We had already, before these events, some experience 
 of "honest'' governments; and, forsooth, these did not 
 represent to us the golden age. But hitherto, at least, 
 whilst carrying on wicked and base enterprizes, they 
 sought to palliate them through awe of public decency. 
 
THE ASSASSINS OF DECEMBEE. 25 
 
 The Elyseans, on the contrary, are ashamed of nothing 
 whatever ; they boast in the broad light of day, of their 
 most monstrous actions, as galley-slaves relate to one 
 another, during their evenings in the dungeons, their 
 midnight exploits. They no more made a secret of their 
 attempt against the court of justice than of the rest ; and 
 the manner in which they speak of it is well worth men- 
 tioning, in order to our thorough knowledge of them : — 
 
 " Two commissaries, accompanied with a eew munici- 
 pal GUAEDS, entered the deliberations room, and enjoined 
 the counsellors to withdraw, under penalty of being im- 
 mediately arrested. The court obeyed in silence, with that 
 sense of individual duty, which, amidst the perils of the 
 commonwealth, has a louder voice even in the heart of a 
 magistrate, than the most evident right and the most precise 
 law a " (History of the 2nd December, by P. Mayer, 
 page 91.) Mathieu Mole ! 
 
 , The vile wretches who are now lauded for the " services 
 they have rendered to order, and for their cleverness," 
 have then, as we have just seen, trampled everything under 
 their feet, — humanity, morality, right, and the laws, to 
 satiate their sordid passions. They have soiled, profaned 
 justice in her very temple. And yet, it is we who are 
 denounced and dreaded by the official world, as being 
 enemies to social order ! Let the worshippers of success 
 say all they like ; let traitors call themselves emperors as 
 long as they can; let men who care not for purity of 
 means, proclaim themselves wise as long as they choose, 
 the facts of the case will none the less be what they 
 are ; it will none the less be ascertained that the chief 
 of that triumphant faction remains still now under the 
 weight of a decree of the High Court of Justice of France, 
 which declares him ^^ accused of the crime of high treason,''^ 
 Either justice is but a word, or that decree has a meaning. 
 Por this reason, and if we may be allowed to do so with- 
 
26 WHAT WERE, ATS^D WHAT STILL ABE, 
 
 out evading the exigencies of our position as a refugee, 
 we put this question to the Lord Chancellor of the present 
 administration :— Has a person accused of a criminal 
 action, onlj to throw his judges out of the windows with 
 the butt-end of a gun, in order to be acquitted and wel- 
 comed to friendly intercourse with the head of the judicial 
 body in England ? 
 
 The English nation allied with the men of December ! 
 Let us examine the case. Let us suppose, for instance 
 (and the more impossible and absurd the hypothesis, 
 the more those English parties concerned, and also the 
 English nation, will forgive it us) — ^let us suppose that 
 there had been in this country a man, the apocryphal bearer 
 of one of those names carried through legends to posterity 
 and striking the imagination of the masses, and whom we 
 shall call Eob Roy; — let us suppose that Eob Eoy, a 
 man destitute of all personal worth, without intelligence, 
 without feeling or courage, loaded with debts and wal- 
 lowing in debauchery, to have become Prime Minister 
 through the only magic of his name ; — let us suppose 
 him, conspiring when in that post, with sharpers of the 
 lowest standing,* to have gained access to the Exchequer 
 by bribing the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exche- 
 quer, and to have thus been enabled to purloin a million 
 sterling from the Bank of England ; — let us suppose that, 
 once in possession of that money, he had bought off the 
 body of the London police and the inferior generals of the 
 army, jealous of their elder colleagues ; — let us suppose 
 that with that force, he had rushed, during the quiet of 
 night, upon Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, Lord 
 Aberdeen, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, Lord Hardinge, 
 
 * See the Annexes, No. 2, Biographical Notices on some of the 
 Conspirators of December. Read those biographical sketches, and 
 say whether there exists one single honest family who would not 
 drive from their fire-side even the least base of those base wretches. 
 
THE ASSASSINS OP DECEMBEE. 27 
 
 and a few other men among the most influential and most 
 devoted servants of the Crown ; that he had dragged them 
 all in prisoners* vans, to Newgate, made^emptj of its usual 
 inmates, that it might receive them ; — let us suppose 
 him to have sent a gang of pretorians to strike and turn 
 out of the temple of justice the supreme court of Eng- 
 land, assembled, with the Lord Chancellor at their head, 
 for the purpose of sitting in judgment upon him ; — let us 
 suppose that, afterwards, he had swept away the Imperial 
 Parliament, and locked up in the barracks of the Horse 
 Gruards, those peers, and those members of the House 
 of Commons who had endeavoured to hold a meeting ; — 
 let us suppose that, abusing the passive obedience of the 
 troops commanded by the Minister of "War, his accom- 
 plice, he had ordered a wholesale carnage to be perpe- 
 trated of every wayfarer in Eegent-street, without spar- 
 ing either women or children ; — let us suppose that, in 
 order to the better stifling of the least resistance, he had 
 cannonaded houses in London, and that the soldiery, 
 drunk with gin, gunpowder, and blood, had fired even 
 upon young girls looking out of their windows ; — let us 
 suppose him to have murdered with his own hand an 
 ofiicer who had remained faithful to his duty ; — let us sup- 
 pose him to have ordered Queen Victoria to be shot,* 
 and to have exiled, mingled up in the galleys with for- 
 gers and poisoners, the most wealthy,t the most honest 
 
 * We find, with, the honour of a salient place between what 
 is called in the language of the press, two ** rules," the following 
 paragraph in the Moniteur Parisieiiy a Decembrist journal (No. of 
 December 6) : — " A working- woman, who had about her twenty- 
 five poniards, has been arrested to-night, and shot by the soldiers 
 of the 36th regiment of the line.'* 
 
 t Citizen Souesme, who is still at Cayenne — if the moral tor- 
 tures and the climate under which prisoners labour in that place, 
 have not already killed him — is not only, as well as all the 
 banished of December, a highly respectable man, and one full of 
 
28 WHAT WERE, AND WHAT STILL ABE, 
 
 and respectable men in the United Kingdom ; — let us 
 suppose, at length, that, after he had thus rendered 
 himself master of the position, in the midst of a distracted 
 nation seeing the guns of a formidable army directed 
 against her breast, his comrades had proclaimed him 
 Emperor of England, by the name of Eob Eoy III. 
 
 JN'ow, we candidly ask, were we to admit the actual 
 occurrence of this frightful fiction, is there a single true 
 Englishman in the world, who would not shudder at the 
 idea of hearing a foreign minister say of the razzia of 
 E-ob Eoy : " The age of Augustus is being revived in 
 London ?" Is there a single true Englishman in the 
 world, who would not be overwhelmed with grief at 
 the idea of seeing a foreign government contract an 
 alliance with the treacherous and sanguinary usurper of 
 the throne of Queen Victoria ? Is there a single true 
 Englishman in the world, who would not grow indignant 
 to the recesses of his heart, at the idea that a prince of 
 the royal blood, belonging to the family of a Queen distin- 
 guished for her irreproachable political probity and the 
 exquisite purity of her private life, should go and sit at 
 the table of Eob Eoy III., as well as accept, and seek 
 after, his fetes^ and should officially pay a visit to his 
 cousin, a woman, the numerous episodes of whose adul- 
 terous life are too notorious not to justify any one in say- 
 ing that they scandalize the least scrupulous people ? 
 
 Is there a single true Englishman in the world, who 
 would not feel deeply afflicted at the idea that the 
 Queen herself, of whom we have spoken, should repair to 
 
 courage, but is also one of the richest proprietaires of the de- 
 partment of Loiret ; M. Fagot, condemned to death after having 
 fortunately been able to escape from those butchers, does not 
 possess less than half-a-million francs* worth of property in the 
 department of Allier. The defenders of property have seized 
 upon his, by confiscating the whole of it ! ! 
 
THE ASSASSIKS OF DECEMBEB. 29 
 
 a ball given by the agent that Eob Eoy would haye at 
 her court ? And yet, what an agent ! — We pity with all 
 our soul those so-called "high" personages, if any policy 
 really compels them thus to sacrifice their noblest feelings, 
 and their most legitimate sentiments of reluctance. 
 
 Yet, is not the series of monstrous deeds which we 
 have just unfolded as being the hypothetical work of 
 Eob Eoy III., the faithful picture, the identical repre- 
 sentation, in all its features, of that which the murderer 
 of Captain Col-Puygelier has done in Trance ? 
 
 The Queen of England, nay. Queen Victoria, the most 
 upright woman in all her kingdoms, in the house of a 
 Walewski ! — Can this be true ? Could it not possibly 
 be some strange illusion ? O, reasons of state ! Eor 
 what day is fixed the visit of the I^rincess Mathilde to 
 Buckingham Palace ? 
 
 There is not one inhabitant of the United Kingdom^ 
 who, on the 20th of December, 1851, even after the fa- 
 mous vote of the famous plebiscitum, at a time when blood I 
 was still reeking in Paris, would not have considered as/ 
 an ofience any proposition of intercourse with the but-j 
 chers. How is it that this intercourse can be held now?/ 
 Is there anything changed in the notorious facts ? Do 
 there exist two honesties, one for private individuals, and 
 the other for nations ? Are the calls of conscience less 
 imperious on any one particular day than they are on 
 another ? Did the voice from the burning bush say that 
 one of its chief commandments, "Thou shalt do no 
 murder"— might be transgressed? Does success render 
 excusable an act vile in itself? Does the name of 
 "decree," given to the deeds of bandits, legalize them? 
 Does brutal force sanctify sacrilege ? Can any circum- 
 stance whatever transform the assassin into a worthy 
 partner ? Can any lapse of time legitimate the violation 
 of all Divine as well as human laws? 
 
30 WHAT WEKE, AKD WHAT STILL AEE, 
 
 Time, after all, has not modified the nature of the De- 
 cembriseurs. They still are, what they ever have been ; 
 still perjurers, they make a sport even of their sham Con- 
 stitution ; still assassins, they slay the citizens who fly from 
 arbitrary arrest;^ still robbers, they confiscate the property 
 of those they have exiled and of those they yet exile ; 
 still perpetrators of sacrilegious deeds, they hypocriti- 
 cally kneel down on corpses and return thanks to Grod 
 for the success of their crimes. Those who have been 
 sentenced by the courts -martial, for having given asylum 
 to some of the banished, yet remain under hard labour, t 
 Those who have been transported without a trial, for 
 having defended the constitution, or even for having been 
 Eepublicans under the Eepublic, yet linger in the deadly 
 galleys of Oued-Boutan, or of Cayenne. Here, read this 
 letter, published by the journal L' Homme of Jersey, 
 (April 26th, 1854,) and borrowed from the JRe^uhlican, 
 of New York : — 
 
 " Cayenne, Hot St. Joseph, (one of the islets of Salva- 
 tion,) Oct. 1853. — We are undergoing the regime of 
 galley-slaves. 8ame regulations^ same director^ comjpidsory 
 labour without remuneration of any hind whatever. In our 
 colony we hear nothing but threats, witness nothing but 
 punishments, stinting of food,:j: prison, fetters, gags, whij^s 
 always ready. Several constantly carry more than 25 
 
 * See the Annex No. 1, Personal Confessions of the Assassins 
 of December. 
 
 t We earnestly request our readers not to omit perusing the 
 Annex : Personal Coiifessions of the Assassins j &c. They will per- 
 ceive therein some proofs in support of all that which may seem . 
 to them most incredible in what we here assert. 
 
 X A certain Mallet, captain of a ship, and in command of the 
 Buguesclin^ towards the middle of 1853, took a turn to the islet of 
 the Mother, where the political prisoners still were, and said to 
 them : ** Ah ! you are unwilling to work ! You shall be compelled 
 by hunger." And this was done. 
 
THE ASSASSINS OF DECEMBER. 31 
 
 and 40 pounds' weight of iron, with bullets at their feet ! 
 With such an apparatus, one is constrained to work eight 
 hours a day, in a scorching sun, dressed in tatters, with- 
 out a hat or shoes on. Every complaint is met by threats 
 or punishments. 
 
 " We pine away, doomed to infamous and nameless tor- 
 tures ;* we are dying in a slow agony. Our pecuniary re- 
 mittances are stopped for the use of others .f We have 
 nothing that can sustain our courage!" 
 
 "Nov. 9, 1853. — The political prisoners work everyday 
 for an hour more than the galley-slaves ; the galley- 
 keepers set over them, under the command of a lieutenant 
 of the navy named Larucherie,J exact from their victims 
 a continuous labour, and one far above their strength, 
 under penalty of being deprived of food. . . . 
 
 " When a political prisoner presents himself at the medi- 
 cal man's inspection, to request a few days' rest, they first 
 deprive him, in order to restore his strength, of his wine, 
 and afterwards he is left at the disposal of the gaolers, 
 who tax their ingenuity to find out new tortures for 
 those who do not make their appearance in the yards. 
 
 * A brigadier, eager to exhibit his zealotry, in order to be pro- 
 moted to the rank of quartermaster of gendarmerie^ had received 
 orders to remove one of the transported prisoners. As he squeezed 
 too hard in tying the prisoner's thumbs, "You hurt me," exclaimed 
 the poor man ; ♦* I know that very well," replied the other, and 
 squeezed two notches more. . . . The unfortunate man's 
 thumb was dislocated. 
 
 t Nothing plainer and more natural than to rob men doomed 
 to die in less than two years. (Intimate conversations of some 
 Napoleonic employes of the place.) 
 
 X This Larucherie, or Laricherie, formerly a proprietor of slaves 
 at Martinico, and provided, as a matter of course, with the Cross of 
 the Legion of Honour, is the director of the galleys of Cayenne, 
 which situation he obtained at his own request. He is present at thp 
 infliction of punishments ; he counts the blows, and often causes 
 them to be repeated — just to try ! 
 
82 WHAT WERE, AND WHAT STILL ARE, 
 
 Thus, the sick, the infirm, the old, whose condition 
 disables them for every sort of work, are compelled to 
 get up at five o'clock in the morning, as well as those who 
 labour. They are crowded in the chapel. Thej are for- 
 bidden to read, smoke, or sew, and even to take with them 
 their blankets for lying along the forms. In short, they 
 are forbidden to do any thing whatever. It is sought, by 
 these vexations, to compel all those loungers to go and get 
 hilled hy the ardency of the sun (style of Larue herie, 
 director of the bagnio.) They divide among the sur- 
 vivors the remaining chattels of the dead ; the rags of 
 those among the latter who have succumbed to the 
 treatment undergone in the bagilio, are also given to 
 us ! "We wait with patience and resignation!" 
 
 "We cannot transcribe this account of the tortures of 
 our brethren without grief mingled with anger ! Ah ! 
 veneration and love for the martyrs who endure them ! 
 Woe to those cruel men who order them, woe to those 
 cruel men who practise them ! 
 
 And England forms an alliance with such execrable 
 tormentors ! 
 
 iNo, the Decembriseurs have not changed ; they have 
 assumed an irresponsible absolute power without either 
 counterpoise or control. They still exile and transport, 
 without trials. They govern solely by the help of 
 spies ; so much ^ so that, at every fire-side, every one 
 fears to find an informer in a friend. They have made of 
 the magistracy a section of the police for their own safety ; 
 they have corrupted it to such an extent that it ratifies 
 the violation of the secrecy of private correspondence.* 
 
 * Every day, some French refugees receive letters whose seals 
 are broken, and on which are written the words : " Opened by judi- 
 cial authority.** Wliat do you think of that justice which repairs 
 to the post-office, to pry into the directions of letters confided 
 to the good faith of a public administration, and which violates 
 the secrets of those addressed imder such or such name ? . . Some of 
 
THE ASSASSINS OF DEOEMBEB. 33 
 
 They have not left standing so much as the shadow of 
 one liberty ; they have brought into a fresh vigour the 
 Lettres de cachet, and it is the Prefect of Police who 
 signs them. Their legislative assembly is nothing but an 
 insulting and permanent mimicry of the parliamentary 
 system. The elects of universal suffrage are not even 
 suffered to publish their speeches, and the newspapers 
 are inhibited from inserting the reports of their delibe- 
 rations ! On the 5th of April, 1852, we read in the 
 Paris correspondence of the Indejpendance Beige, which 
 gave an account of a sitting oJ^ the Imperial deputies : — 
 
 " The private regulations of the Assembly have been 
 rigorously observed. M. Casimir Perier, who was present 
 in a tribune, having talcen some words down, had to leave 
 the house immediately, on the injunction of an usher 1" 
 So they think of forbidding to write dowoi a few of the 
 words uttered in a deliberating Assembly, during a sitting 
 of elects by universal suffrage ! What a profundity of 
 governmental conception ! ! 
 
 To crown this work of darkness, the barbarians have 
 transformed the newspapers into slaves, who most unac- 
 countably pride in showing how one can practise dancing 
 with a chain around every limb. The press, in Prance, 
 is in the very hands or under the immediate dependence 
 of the police ; it publishes or writes only that which it is 
 allowed to publish or to write. It may be said again, as 
 the first Bonaparte cynically said of what was occurring 
 under his odious reign : " The press is in the most abso- 
 lute bondage ; the police puts aside and suppresses works, 
 at its liking. Nothing could be more irregular, more 
 arbitrary than this regime." * 
 
 those communications polluted by French justice are being pre- 
 served here by the recipients. Some day or other, that sort of 
 justice shall be called to account for its proceedings. 
 * Works of M. L. N. Bonaparte, vol. i. p. 282. 
 
 D 
 
34 WHAT WEEE, AND WHAT STILL ABE, 
 
 Hear what one of the conspirators has himself declared 
 on this point : " The government of the 2nd December 
 has enacted against the press a law ivJiose only object is to 
 annihilate it. That legislation not merely imposes upon it 
 the most scaring penalties ; it moreover imposes upon it 
 the heaviest fiscal burdens ; so that the editors of news- 
 papers have been compelled to considerably increase the 
 prices of subscriptions, at a moment when newspapers 
 afford the least interest on account oit\i2it prudent reserve 
 to which they are bound; it follows therefrom that, in 
 point of editing, they are all alike. The government 
 has not rested there ; it has further desired to oppose 
 to the newspapers a competition for low prices, by re- 
 ducing the price of a subscription to the Moniteur to the 
 rate of forty francs a year." Statements of M. Veron to 
 the Superintending Council of the " Constitutionnel ; " 
 Aug. 19th, 1852. — {Fapers for legal evidence on behalf 
 of the shareholders of the ''Constitutionnel :^'' To our 
 judges,) 
 
 Everything, not excepting foreign newspapers, suffices 
 to frighten that so-called strong government. The Morning 
 Advertiser, maugre the "respect" it imposes on itself 
 towards the ally of England, is still stopped two or three 
 times a week in Erance, without its being able even to 
 imagine the reason thereof. 
 
 f Is this a kind of usurpation which can claim any for- 
 /giveness on account of its liberalism, and to which a great 
 / and free people ought to give a certain steadiness by 
 forming an alliance with it ? 
 
 Some persons here deem " skilful" this noble way of 
 administering a country ! 
 
 What skill is there, then, to manage freely a man 
 whose arms and legs have been treacherously tied? 
 To term " skill" massacres and terror, the grossest abuse 
 of brute force, and espionage systematically organized, 
 
THE ASSASSINS OT DECEMBER. 35 
 
 is, indeed, to assign a very low rank to intellect. Alas ! 
 no, it does not require even to be skilful to oppress. 
 Nothing is easier, thanks to the weakness and ignorance 
 of the masses, thanks to the cowardice of material in- 
 terests, thanks to the stupid passive obedience of stand- 
 ing armies ! Almost every tyrant has been a fool pos- 
 sessed only of the cunning of the beast of prey. Did 
 not James II. impose upon England, vrith Jeffreys, as 
 humiliating a yoke as that which now vilifies France ? 
 
 This renown for "skill," which we have perceived 
 dawning around M. Bonaparte, since the alliance, is a 
 melancholy symptom. Let us in two words explain our 
 meaning on this point : — 
 
 To judge solely from successes wbuld be the height of 
 nonsense, even were it not the height of abjection ; it is 
 the uprightness of the means employed for each success 
 that we must look to. For it is, unfortunately, but too true 
 {we particularly have had a test of this in 1848), that honest 
 scruples are obstacles, vrhereas, in many circumstances, 
 and at least temporarily, crime is a force. Attaining the 
 aim pursued, by renouncing, for the sake of virtue, the 
 numberless resources which lying, perjury, corruption, 
 and assassination afford, — therein skill consists. Any 
 idiot whatever can cut the Gordian knot. Who will be 
 bold enough to pretend that assassination, corruption, 
 perjury, and lying are talents ? This is, however, what 
 the admirers of Elysean skills are unconsciously doing. 
 Suppose a man endowed with real genius, but honest, 
 in the stead of M. Bonaparte, on the 2nd ^f December, 
 would he have become emperor, even had he desired it ? 
 No, because a sense of shame at the idea of breaking his 
 word would have checked him ; because he would have 
 recoiled from the hateful necessity of perverting public 
 functionaries, of buying off generals, and fuddling poor 
 ignorant soldiers, in order to hurl them against the 
 
36 WHAT WEEE, AND WHAT STILL ARE, 
 
 citizens : no, because, previously, the image of Paris over- 
 flowing with blood would have affrighted him. 
 
 It is a direful error to ascribe to mediocrity of intel- 
 lect the noble impotence originating from a respect for 
 justice; but what an error, more direful still, to term 
 intelligence the ignominious audacity of criminal attempts 
 and of cheat ! The republicans who failed after 1848 
 are now declared to be incapable of governing a country. 
 History will glorify their fall, by reminding that, under 
 the exclusive influence of a deep sense of right, they were 
 unwilling to exceed the bounds of legality ; that they 
 nobly refused to assume a dictature, and, always honest, 
 never consented to make use of the unfair weapons through 
 which they were finaWy conquered. 
 
 The son of Admiral Yerhuel has succeeded. Well, 
 even leaving aside that heap of corpses which has served 
 him as a footstool, we say that his success is the most 
 striking proof of the mediocrity of his intelligence. His 
 coup d^etat, as we have written in the Sistory of the 
 Crimes of the 2nd December, has been possible but be- 
 cause it was impossible. What man, endowed with a 
 mind accustomed to embrace in its ken all things around 
 its point of observation, would have dared, we candidly 
 ask, what the Admiral's son unhesitatingly dared to 
 do, with the help of his Mephistopheles, M. Persigny? 
 "What man of truly superior worth would not have for- 
 borne, were it but through his aptitude to perceive all the 
 phases of such an enterprise, and to foresee all its proba- 
 ble consequences? But the hero of the Decembrisades 
 wended his vray straight before him, with brutal bold- 
 ness, precisely because he was incapable of descrying 
 anything else than the point corresponding to his fixed 
 idea. The overplus of his mad audacity was in the same 
 ratio as his deficiency in sagacity ; and for this reason it 
 
THE ASSASSINS OF DECEMBEE. 37 
 
 was that, crime helping, he won the game. And yet, 
 perhaps, would he not have played it, had he not heen 
 put at bay, like all his accomplices, — had he had any 
 other prospect than the debtors* prison on his leaving 
 the house of Presidency. "We all know that the Bourse 
 has called the 2nd of December " the bold stroke of 
 insolvents." 
 
 People do not sufficiently notice one thing ; it is, that 
 to prosperously conspire is an easy task, when the con- 
 spirators have the government for them instead of having 
 it against them. The President of the Eepublic, having 
 at his disposal, in that quality, all the forces of the State 
 and the resources of the Treasury — thus possessed of 
 wherewith to bribe through goodly ready sums the avid 
 race of petty generals — M. Bonaparte lorded it over the • 
 nation. Very well ; but look at him conspiring as a 
 common individual. "What a wretched conception ! What 
 an improvidence ! What an ineptitude in the measures 
 he takes ! What a lack cf contrivance ! At Boulogne, 
 a live eagle ; at Strasbourg an accoutrement of " little 
 corporal :"* nowhere will you find such stark tomfoolery ! 
 On the 2nd of December, the conqueror was the Presi- 
 dent; at Strasbourg, at Boulogne, there was no Presi- 
 dent, there was M. L. N. Bonaparte by himself; and 
 therefore, in spite of the enormous prestige of that name, 
 what happened? Why, our "skilful" gentleman mis- 
 carried each time in a miserable and cowardly manner ; 
 he fell so flat on the ground each time, in less than half 
 an hour, and so ludicrously, that he became the laughing- 
 stock of Europe. We recommend this comparison to the 
 amazed panegyrists of the Anglo-Decembrist alliance. 
 
 * The nickname oi petit-caporal was given by the French €irmy 
 to the uncle, whose redingote grise had become as familiar as pro- 
 verbial among them. 
 
38 WHAT WERE, AND WHAT STILL ABE, 
 
 To govern requires undoubtedly some skill, when you 
 liave to give a daily account to a free press, which 
 analyzes you — to a jealous legislature, which controls 
 you — when the hardness of the times has given rise to 
 hostile and powerful parties which attack you. But what 
 is easier than governing, when the only thing you have to 
 do, is to give a watchword to the police, to corporals, and 
 to gendarmes, in the midst of a cast-down people ? How- 
 ever, between weakness and strength, between armed 
 tyranny and baseness or fear, there are still opportunities, 
 ever so few, for the display of administrative talents. 
 Now, what has M. Napoleon III. done, since his nameH 
 the forethoughtless and perpetual rage of the majority ] 
 of the last Assembly, the crime of December, and the ] 
 blindness of pretorians, procured him an unlimited power ? I 
 What has he done ? Nothing ; or, if anything, puerile 
 acts, as the decrees on court costumes and tail gowns! 
 The only measures of any consequence carried out by this 
 day-fly, are found on inspection to be but awkward pla- 
 giarisms of Socialism ; e. g. the conversion of stocks, and 
 the establishment of the credit fonder. And it was he 
 who came to save the world from the perils of an agrarian 
 law ! A thing which he has not borrowed from Socialism, 
 is the confiscation of the property of the Socialists and 
 of that of Messrs. d' Orleans. But we do not suppose 
 that England places spoliation in the number of " skilful" 
 deeds. 
 
 To give us as skilful the clumsy individual who be- 
 thought himself of taking to Boulogne a live eagle in 
 a cage, for the purpose of seducing the garrison ! * 
 
 * This is a fact of the most incontrovertible authenticity, how- 
 ever ludicrous it may appear. In his report on the Boulogne trip, 
 the Prefect of Pas-de-Galais, M. Gauja, says : — " We have found 
 a live eagle on board the Edinburgh Castle ; it belonged to Louis 
 Bonaparte . " ( Ti'ial of Napoleon Louis Bonaparte and of his Ac com- 
 
THE ASSASSINS OF DECEMBER. 39 
 
 Verily, this is too bad ! That which must astonish him 
 more than all the rest in his astonishing fortune, is, 
 certainly, the renown for cleverness which some people 
 here are pleased to make him. He may say, with the 
 mitromane of Piron — 
 
 " Et j'avais cinquante ans quand cela m'arriva."* 
 
 His blunt majesty must be much amused on this account : 
 cheats laugh at their dupes ; they laugh at everything 
 and everybody, but above all at those who admire them. 
 What invests the despotism of December with a more 
 silly character than any other, is that there is not 
 one of its means which M. Bonaparte has not himself 
 branded beforehand by reproaching the government of 
 Louis-Philippe with having' made use of it ! Let us take ' 
 one example among thousands. We have just seen that 
 he violates the secrecy of private correspondence at the 
 post-office; his police — and this is a fact equally well 
 ascertained — violently search every dwelling ; they carry 
 their system of visites domiciliaires so far as to enter 
 women's apartments, rummaging with a lewd hand even 
 their chamber linen, picking the locks of secretaires, and 
 casting an impure look into the most private papers. 
 Whoever has travelled in Prance fully knows, likewise, 
 that the detestable system of passports is there more 
 vexatious now than it ever was — more inquisitorial than 
 anywhere else. Well, here is an extract from what 
 M. Bonaparte himself wrote shortly before the Revolution 
 of February : — " In England, the attitude of those whose 
 duty , it is to enforce the law, is always moderate and 
 always legal ; for this reason no such thing is known there, 
 as those violations of the private dwelling of the citizen, 
 
 plices before the Court of Peers ; 1 vol., published by Pagnerre, 
 Paris, 1840, p. 28.) 
 
 * And I was fifty years old when that happened to me. 
 
40 WHAT WEKE, AND TVHAT STILL AEE, 
 
 to which one is so subject in France, under the name of 
 visites domiciliaires : the secrets of families are respected, 
 as letters are never opened by the constituted authorities ; 
 nothing impedes the most important of all liberties — that 
 of going wherever you please, for no such a thing is re- 
 quired of anybody as those passports, an oppressive inven- 
 tion, which are an embarrassment and an obstacle to 
 peaceful citizens, whilst they are no check whatever to 
 those who wish to delude the vigilance of the authorities." 
 {Works, vol. iii. p. 265.) 
 
 In another place, M. Bonaparte, directly addressing 
 the Conservative parti/, whom he treated in a very harsh 
 tone, said to them indignantly, among other fustian: 
 " Tour police are busy about disquieting your families, 
 and your violence incessanfly outrages the domestic 
 hearth." (Yol. iii. p. 257.) 
 
 Could ever anything — we leave aside here the moral 
 side of the question — could ever anything be more awk- 
 ward, than to write such passages whilst aiming at being 
 that government of the 2nd December, which so heinously 
 rends asunder every law protective of the domestic hearth ? 
 
 " The skilful Louis Napoleon " is after this fashion in 
 continual discrepancy with himself Out of the fixed 
 idea of an empire, he turns with every wind. Hear him 
 again: — "In 1830, the French government solicited the 
 acknowledgment and alliance of England. The latter 
 answered : ' We will support your ideas in the face 
 of Europe, but give up to us your interests; acknow- 
 ledge the treaties of 1815 and the supremacy of our 
 navy ; bind yourselves to allow our influence to settle in 
 the East and in the Mediterranean.* These promises were 
 made ; our government pledged, upon its own authority, 
 our future condition ; and, for the interest of a dynasty, 
 delivered up the great interests of the country." ( WorJcSy 
 vol. iii. p. 42.) M. Bonaparte has therefore published 
 
THE ASSASSINS OF DECEMBER. 41 
 
 beforehand, that the alliance of England is bought "at the 
 cost of the acknowledgment of the treaties of 1815," and 
 that to acknowledge those treaties " is to sacrifice to the 
 interest of a dynasty the great interests of the country !" 
 
 Now, he is this very day the ally of England ! What 
 a nephew of the emperor ! 
 
 Now, is that being skilful to trace out thus at every 
 page of a hotch-potch of bombastic rigmarole the an- 
 ticipated condemnation of all one intends to commit ? 
 Is that being skilful, to allow one's self to be caught 
 in the snares one has laid, in person; to betake one's 
 self to some inextricable position, and leave one's self 
 no other resource than that of saying with confusion: 
 " I WAS TELLii^G LIES," to the first honest man who may 
 thunder down your own words upon your own acts ? 
 We had, it is true, already heard the name of simpleton 
 applied to the poor fellow who lets himself be coaxed 
 by the tales of a street-quack, accoutred as an Emperor 
 Augustus, but we had never heard yet the quack called 
 a skilful man. 
 
 Does it not, verily, seem, from what certain persons 
 say, as though infamous, fiilthy, and base actions, and 
 impudent lies, served only to show ofi" "skill," as 
 clear-obscures in a picture add to the brightness of the 
 enlightened parts ? Come, don't bestow the epithet of 
 skilful on men who rule by dint of blows with clubs, in 
 the dumbness of fear over a dejected people. They have 
 not even the adroitness of their drawing-room competi- 
 tors, of those grecs, (" hell"-heroes) who so well cheat 
 at cards that no one can detect them. In any case, were 
 they skilful, that would be for them no title to our esteem ; 
 they should, on the contrary, be in our eyes the more 
 heinous, for they would then be more dangerous still than 
 they are. 
 
 It is a fact, that, shielded by the dread which the 
 
42 WHAT WEEE, AND WHAT STILL AEE, 
 
 400,000 blindly subservient bayonets under their com- 
 mand inspire, the Bonapartists maintain their ground in 
 France solely as conquerors in a hostile country, like 
 the Austrians in Italy. Eor our part, we feel as much 
 ashamed at seeing them masters of Paris as we should 
 do were we to see the Cossacks there. This is a third 
 invasion, which France has been undergoing ever since 
 
 1851, with all the moral and material disasters attendant 
 upon an invasion. May the fatal Napoleonic prejudice, 
 which has already brought on us the two former ones, as 
 well as the present, not subject us to a fourth at some 
 future period ! 
 
 It IS but too true: the "six thousand knaves" rule 
 over France as they have conquered her — by terror, by 
 means which offend alike morality and civilization. Alas ! 
 alas ! they have made of our native country the most de- 
 cayed nation in the world ! And, strange to say, they 
 have unwittingly confessed that the dignity of France is 
 now compromised. The Constitutionnel of September 25, 
 
 1852, said : " Some wounded prides, some influential char- 
 acters laid aside, bitterly accuse our society of degradation, 
 of heedlessness to its rights, and almost of servility ^ To 
 which that journal contented itself with answering : " You, 
 who so boldly snub a whole nation, have you always pro- 
 tected, always respected those rights ?" A clever shift, 
 this! So, the barbarians themselves state that, under 
 their domination, unfortunate France is rightly arraigned 
 with DEGEADATiON and SEEYiLiTT ! 'Wq therefore exag- 
 gerate in nowise. But, should any one hesitate to credit 
 this our assertion, from a refugee's lips, let him listen to 
 M. Montalembert. Assuredly, he is not a demagogue ! 
 an incorrigible bigot, a niggardly soul without a parallel, 
 he had declared himself the witness of the Shell- President, 
 and he still styles us " the party of crime." Such a 
 
THE ASSASSINS OF DECEMBEU. 43 
 
 personage has, however, been at last made accessible to 
 disgust by the acta of his friends. He has himself just 
 summarily portrayed the "skiHVd" Dictatorship of Decem- 
 ber : — " It is the revival of the Lower Empire, a system 
 which condemns all intellects to nothingness, all charac- 
 ters to degradation, all consciences to silence or prevari- 
 cation.''* 
 
 This is the thing to which constitutional England lends 
 her support ; this is the thing which her ministers deem 
 
 * Letter to M, Dupin. — M. Montalembert, an imperial deputy, 
 has been given up to the upright M. Roullaud, the Decembrist 
 attorney, who prosecutes for this letter ** published in a foreign 
 country without the participation of the author." The imperial 
 deputies were unwilling to leave their colleague in the lurch ; they 
 even had appointed, in the committees, a commission opposed to 
 the authorization to prosecute ; but the ** master" sent word that 
 such a refusal would dissatisfy Aim, and the whole pack obeyed ! 
 The former friends of the delinquent practise but little the for- 
 giveness of truths ; it would be curious to see them send him off 
 to join, in Algeria, the republicans whose transportation without 
 a trial was determined by his vote in the Constituent Assembly.* 
 At all events, it will be pleasant news to learn that the honest 
 M. Montalembert has been summoned before an imperial court, 
 and to hear the president, a Rouher or a Troplong of some sort 
 or other, M. Frank- Carr^ for instance, who thus apostrophized 
 the defendant Bonaparte in the trial relative to Boulogne : " You 
 have distributed money to purchase treason !" — it will be pleasant 
 for us to hear the same Frank- Carre, now a magistrate of the 
 same Bonaparte (what people these are !) say with the same indig- 
 nation : " Montalembert, you are accused of incitation to hatred 
 against my emperor ; rise, and answer." And should M. Mont- 
 alembert be unwilling to get up in presence of a magistrate who 
 administers justice in the name of a man sentenced in 1840 ** for 
 having purchased treason," and declared in 1851, by a solemn 
 
 • In order to sbow better how much the "skilful" government of perjurers 
 contains that is consistent, we will say, since the opportunity otters, that the con- 
 demned of June, 1848, are still imprisoned under " the empire of December," as 
 " guilty of having attempted to subvert the republic ! ! " 
 
THE ALLIANCE IS MADE 
 
 themselves at this moment bound to excuse ; nay, this is 
 the thing they denominate the age of «»Augustus ! 
 
 lY. 
 
 IT IS ITNDOIIBTEDLT WITH THE DECEMBRISEFES, AND NOT 
 WITH EEANCE, THAT THE ALLIANCE IS MADE. 
 
 Tor must not say that politics exclude "matters of 
 feeling ;" that they take and should take established 
 governments such as these are ; that if France pleases " to 
 revive the Lower Empire in her bosom," England has no 
 business therewith ; that France, by now accepting that 
 which is at her head, frees you from all moral responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 No, you have no such excuse. Our country, vanquished 
 by the rebellion of the executive power, which had bribed 
 all the authorities, does not accept the impure production 
 of ambushes ; she undergoes Caesarism until she is able 
 to drive it again into the hovels whence it would never 
 have come out without the treason of the generals who 
 misled the army. 
 
 The English easily grow enthusiastic on such or such 
 event of the day, but below the superficies their opinion 
 is heavy to move ; what they once have admitted, adheres 
 to them for a long while. John Bull now begins at last 
 to believe that the French sometimes eat something else 
 than frogs, but he still deems us to be a people of " ver- 
 satile disposition." Thus it is that some Englishmen are 
 
 decision, " convicted of the crime of high-treason'* — if, we said, M. 
 Montalembert should be unwilling to get up, the faithless magis- 
 trate will call out to the gendarmes'. *' Compel Montalembert to 
 get up," and the gendarmes will obey. That will be, forsooth, a 
 highly interesting spectacle. 
 
WITH THE DECEilBEISEUES. 45 
 
 sincerely persuaded that France is in favour of the con- 
 spirators of December ; they wonder at it, but they ac- 
 count for it on the assumption of " our versatile disposi- 
 tion." Mistake, grievous mistake ! The prolongation of 
 the imperial "pantomime of power," in the words of the 
 Times (November 17, 1852,) is a wholly factitious reality 
 it is the result of the want of equilibrium, which exists 
 among us, between public opinion entirely disarmed, and 
 the influence disproportionately accumulated, through an 
 excessive centralization, in the hands of the government. 
 It is this want of equilibrium which begets in France so 
 many revolutions. The nation possessing no means of 
 enforcing her will, the executive power, thanks to the 
 exorbitant influence it enjoys, commits abuses without , 
 anybody being able to resist it. But there often comes a 
 day when the public feelings, exasperated, break out and 
 violehtly smash that which they have been precluded from 
 peacefully meliorating. Our revolutions do not indicate 
 a defect in the sequence of our ideas ; they prove, on the 
 contrary, their fixity, for they always tend to the same 
 aim, viz.. Liberty and Equality. Let not the liberals of 
 this country allow themselves to be any longer the dupes 
 of old prejudices; aristocrats, when they call the French 
 *' an ungovernable people," judge still from the same point 
 of view as James II. did when he termed the English " a 
 poisoned people." ^ 
 
 Is it seriously believed that there is a nation in thel 
 world, sufficiently an enemy to herself for giving seven \ 
 millions of votes to the slaughter of December, for crown- I 
 ing a heap of crimes ? The correspondents of the Eng- \ 
 lish newspapers, and particularly that of the Times, have ^ 
 related, as eye-witnesses, the acts of violence, the lies, the 
 frauds, whence has arisen the voting of the 20th Decem- 
 ber, a voting practised during the terror of recent mas- 
 
46 THE ALLIANCE IS MADE 
 
 i sacres, of a pitiless state of siege, and of menaces of 
 I transportation hanging over every head.* 
 
 * "We have exposed these facts in our History of the Crimes of 
 the 2nd December, (1 vol. 8vo.) With a view to give an idea of 
 them, we shall confine ourselves here with reproducing two or 
 three extracts, emanating from the Napoleonic administration : — 
 
 Decree of the Prefect of Haute- Garonne : 
 
 ** Every distributor or hawker of voting bulletins will be prose- 
 cuted if he be not provided with especial authorization from the 
 mayor or the magistrate." 
 
 Decree of the Prefect of Bas-Rhin : 
 
 **The distribution of voting bulletins during the 20th and 21st 
 of December, is expressly forbidden,*' 
 
 *'The gendarmerie have just conveyed to the gaol of Valenci- 
 ennes, M. Parent, jun., accused of having prompted some in- 
 * habitants of Avesnes-le-sec to vote against the President of the 
 Republic . " — ( Memorial d' Amiens . ) 
 
 ** M. Saupique, a barrister, has just been arrested at Vassy ; he is 
 accused of having distributed some negative bulletins at the time of 
 the ballot of the 20th and 21st December." — (Union de la Sarthe,) 
 
 Who, after that, will be bold enough to say that the voting was 
 a free one ? 
 
 Since we are about it, let us transcribe two pages written by an 
 Englishman, who has witnessed in what way the voting on the 
 20th December was proceeded with. This picture, drawn by a 
 hand free from suspicion, may open the eyes of those who, in this 
 country, sincerely believe (since there are still such ones) that 
 seven millions of Frenchmen have ratified the Decembrist blood- 
 shed ! The bitter strain of the author's appreciations is a sure 
 guarantee that he has no blind partiality towards the terrorized 
 people he speaks of : — 
 
 *' At length came out the famous proclamation, by which every 
 person who was at that time, or ever had been, a member of a 
 secret society, was condemned to transportation beyond the seas ! 
 In this way at least two millions of persons were made liable to 
 exile ; and as there was to be no judgment, it was felt that the 
 government intended to reserve to itself the power of transporting 
 whoever should be bold enough to offer any opposition. The 
 terror that spread in the then condition of minds may easily be 
 imagined ; and no other explanation than this is required of the 
 immense majority that voted ** Yes '* a few days afterwards, and 
 
WITH THE DECEMBBISEUBS. 47 
 
 But it requires only to consider what the insurgents 
 themselves confess relatively to the events of the struggle, 
 in order to be convinced that they calumniate Trance by 
 saying that she approves of and forgives them. — If the 
 criminal attempt had been the sole means of saving the 
 country from "the plunderers and demagogues," how 
 did it happen that the jeopardized class was precisely the 
 one most dreaded by the sa\aours, precisely the one 
 from which they encountered the fiercest resistance ? 
 
 Let us recall here to mind a few facts, forgotten, as we 
 believe, by the English people. It matters it should be 
 proved that, doubtless unconsciously, it is actually with 
 
 tliat in the very provinces most menaced ; on the spots where the 
 government papers laid the scene of a mythological Jacquerie, 
 the people voted unanimously with open bulletins for the usurp- 
 ation. Every one was afraid of being transported. 
 
 '* It is customary to praise Louis Napoleon for the admirable 
 manner in which he carried out the plans which he had previously 
 laid down. The fact is, that he proceeded in a totally different 
 manner from what he had intended, and worked with different 
 instruments upon different elements. He believed himself to be 
 more popular in Paris than he really was, but expected a more 
 vigorous armed resistance. He anticipated that the majority of 
 the country would vote against him, and therefore began by an- 
 nouncing the suppression of the ballot, and by ordering the people 
 to come up and openly say ** Yes " or ** No " under the bayonets 
 of his soldiers. When, however, he saw that it was possible to 
 frighten the whole nation out of all ideas of honour and liberty, 
 he determined to enjoy the pleasure of an apparently free voting ; 
 and, during a whole fortnight, directed his efforts solely to deepen 
 and strengthen the feeling of terror throughout the whole length 
 of the land. I know that at the voting there was much fraud and I 
 much violence. The voters were marshalled into columns by the 
 priests and the mayors, and headed by a few of the most enthu- \ 
 siastic Bonapartists, who pinned their bulletins to their hats, and 
 thus by example compelled the others to do likewise ; for whO' \ 
 ever hesitated was instantly assailed hy the accusation of socialism^ I 
 atid threatened with transportation," *— (^Purple Tints, by Bayle 1 
 St. John, 2nd vol., page 326.) J 
 
43 THE ALLIANCE IS MADE 
 
 tlie Decembriseurs, and not with Trance, that they form 
 an alliance. 
 
 Every one knows that there exists among us a body 
 of civic militia (the Garde Rationale), essentially destined 
 to preserve order in the interior of the country. Now, 
 here is an occurrence related by M. P. Mayer {History 
 of Bee, 2, page 47) : — " On the Monday evening, the 
 President was holding his usual reception of that day. 
 No one had yet any suspicion. About ten o'clock, Louis 
 Napoleon beckoned to Colonel Yieyra,* appointed the day 
 previous chief of the staff of the National Guard. * Co- 
 lonel,' said he to him, smiling, ^ can you sufficiently con- 
 trol the expression of your countenance not to let any 
 sign of a great emotion appear on it?' — *I think so, 
 prince,' answered M. Yieyra. — * Yery well, then ; ' and, 
 with a more glowing smile, * It is for to-night,' said he 
 in a whisper. * Can you positively promise me that to- 
 morrow the drums shall beat the rappel nowhere ? and 
 that no convocation of the National Gruard shall take 
 place ?' — * Yery easily, provided I have ordinances enough 
 at my disposal.' — * You must see for that the Minister of 
 War. You had better go thither now ; but not just yet ; 
 people might fancy I have given you an order.' " 
 
 This revelation is precious. Whether M. Mayer had, 
 as he seems to admit, a finger in the pie or not, this does 
 not alter the case as to his being well informed. By a 
 thousand intimate details which abound in his book, it 
 may be perceived that the master, according to his own 
 expression, has told him some secrets, and he may be 
 credited on matters of that kind. 
 
 Is it not a significant fact to see " the providential 
 man," — the name with which the venerable bishops of 
 
 * It will be seen in the Annex No. 2, Bonapartist Biographies y 
 that this Vieyra is a man of the lowest description. 
 
WITH THE DECEMBRISEURS. 49 
 
 December christened him — dread so much the nation 
 under arms ? Observe also that the National Gruard no 
 longer reckoned at that period any but " friends of order'* 
 in its ranks. It had been " purified" long ago from the 
 popular elements which the Eevolution of February had 
 introduced thereinto. The government, fallen in the hands 
 of the reaction, after June, 1848, had eliminated from it 
 all workmen — all those whom our adversaries are agreed 
 to denominate "dangerous" men. It had disbanded en 
 masse and disarmed the artillery, the seventh, eighth, and 
 twelfth legions, the major part of which was more pecu- 
 liarly republican. 
 
 Behold then some people who get up a coup d'etat 
 for the salvation of religion, family, and property, and 
 whose first feat is to coop up in their houses, to reduce 
 to powerlessness, a whole voluntary army, exclusively 
 composed of religious men, of fathers of families, of pro- 
 prietors, merchants, tradesmen, who had exhibited proofs of 
 hatred and courage, in 1848, against the " Socialists," the 
 "brigands," the " property-par titioners," {partageux,) &c. 1 
 The two traitors, placed at the head of the stafiF of the 
 ]N'ational Gruard, General Lawcestine and M. Yieyra, 
 actually took measures that the rappel should not be 
 beaten anywhere. A letter from G-eneral Lawcestine to 
 the majors of each legion (who are the oiAj paid officers), 
 ordered them to render the drums unfit for use, forbade 
 them to allow the rappel to be beaten, and enjoined them 
 to prevent any meeting of the National Gruard taking 
 place. An officer of the third legion, who repaired to his 
 mairie at nine o'clock in the morning, saw that letter. 
 There, the major had caused the pelts of the drums to be 
 taken ofi", and had also burst some. 
 
 The National Guard, in consequence, could not suc- 
 ceed in assembling. But, if the so-called high classes 
 were unable to take up arms in a body, they manifested, 
 
 E 
 
50 THE ALLIANCE IS MADE 
 
 nevertheless, the stanchest opposition to the presiden- 
 tial attempt. The fact has been authenticated especially 
 by two episodes of the 3rd and 4th December, which we 
 relate at the Ai^^nex, Fersonal Confessions of the Assas- 
 sins of December. Captain Mauduit, an ardent pane- 
 gyrist of the military conspiracy, says himself, whilst 
 narrating those two episodes of the exploits of a certain 
 Colonel E^ochefort : — "There were in the groups y^ii; indi- 
 viduals in blouses, — the men who congregated were well 
 dressed, — the bawlers wore over-coats, — the corpses were 
 covered -svith. fine clothes''^ And all newspapers, all books, 
 of Elysean hue, accord on this point. M. Granier Cas- 
 sagnac also mentions this with that cynicism whose proto- 
 type he is :-^" The second arrondissement of Paris is the 
 most wealthy, the most elegant ; the one which displays 
 most luxury. It did not show itself the most sensible. 
 History will register that scandal, that the aristocracy of 
 wealth made itself an auxiliary to the plunderers. When 
 the corpses of the insurgents were picked up, what sorts of 
 persons were found to be in a majority among them ? 
 Notorious ruffians, and perfect dandies .'" (Becit complet 
 des 6v6nements de Decembre, page 99.) 
 
 Nothing here, therefore, implicating the " vile multi- 
 tude!" It w^as, then, unmistakedly, what is termed in 
 a certain sphere the sound, respectable, honest portion 
 of society which was cut down on the Boulevards 
 throughout the 3rd and 4th of December, because they 
 exclaimed ; " Hurrah for the Eepublic ! Down with the 
 traitors !" All this shows besides what is to be thought 
 of the "red spectre," evoked by the quacks and terror- 
 ists of order, when they do not hesitate to say that 
 " the most wealthy and the most elegant population of 
 Paris associated with plunderers." 
 
 * Revolution Militaire du 2 Decembre ; pages 176 to 178, and 
 217 to 218. 
 
WITH THE DECBMBEISBtlES. 51 
 
 It behoves to take heed likewise of that which the 
 annalist of the Elysean wars, Captain Mauduit, has not 
 been able to conceal, viz. : — On the 3rd of December, 
 " on the Boulevard du Temple, Colonel Eochefort found 
 himself in presence of a compact and mnumerable crowds 
 who were calling out: ^Yive la Eepublique!" On th« 
 4th, on the Boulevards des Capucines and des Italiens, 
 " he was in the midst of an immense concourse of the popvr 
 lation evincing the most decided hostility, under cover of 
 the cry, \sic'] ^Yive la Eepublique ! ' " Thus, at every 
 step, the avowal escapes the conspirators, that the whole 
 population detested them. If they have succeeded, it is 
 simply owing to the terror arising from the massacres 
 with which the French army will for ever reproach itself. 
 
 And now, recollect that they had arrested beforehand, 
 and did exile subsequently, MM. Baze, Bedeau, Changar- 
 nier, Duvergier-Hauranne, Lamoriciere, Lasteyrie, Leflo, 
 Eemusat, Thiers, &c. — all, more or less reactionary indi- 
 viduals, from whom they would assuredly have had nothing 
 to fear had they undertaken against the Republic anything 
 bordering ever so little on honesty ! 
 
 And, after that, tell us whether it is reasonable to 
 suppose that the nation has ratified the burglary of 
 December ? 
 
 Had France had the least bent towards the Empire, 
 would the conspirators have constantly ensconced them- 
 selves behind the Bepublic, to accomplish their stroke ; 
 would they have then placed themselves under its auspices, 
 to paralyze the resistance of the masses in making them 
 believe that they were endeavouring to preserve the 
 Eepublic ? "What did M. Bonaparte say in his appeal to 
 the people, on the 2nd December ? — " In our days, when 
 the men who have ruined two monarchies strive to fetter 
 me in order to oyeethrow the Eeptjblic, my duty is 
 to baffle their perfidious projects, to maintain the 
 
52 THE ALLIANCE IS MADE 
 
 Eepublic, and to save the country." What said M. 
 Momy, on Dec. 2nd, at 8 o'clock in the morning, in his 
 telegraphic dispatch to the prefects of departments ? — 
 " The President of the Eepublic makes an appeal to the 
 nation ; he MAmTAiNS the republic." What said 
 M. St. Arnaud, on Dec. 4, in his address to the army ? — 
 "Toir HATE SATED THE Eepublic." Do not declara- 
 tions so formal as these, and made in such a circumstance, 
 testify to the strong inclination which the traitors found 
 to exist in the immense majority of the nation towards 
 a democratic government ? 
 
 If the criminal attempt of December had been in ac- 
 cordance with the wishes of France, would the conspira- 
 tors, to secure their position, have found it needful to im- 
 prison one hundred thousand citizens, and to banish, de- 
 port, transport, Skudinterner* twenty-eight thousand ?" f 
 If France accepted the Empire, would the heads of her 
 most illustrious generals, as well as those of her humblest 
 working-men, remain struck with proscription ? If France 
 agreed with the conquerors, would they have suppressed 
 de facto the National Gruard, which now exists only nomi- 
 nally, and is not called to any service ? If the Empire 
 only wore a respectable appearance, would all the nota- 
 bilities of the country who are most in favour of "order," 
 and most hostile to the "Eed Eepublicans," scrupulously 
 stand aloof from it ? If the " six thousand knaves " had 
 in their behalf seven millions of votes, would they be 
 obliged to keep up in Paris an army of 100,000 men as a 
 guard for themselves ? Let them just do as the Provi- 
 
 * InterneVy in French, is to compel one to reside exclusively 
 in a determined place, arbitrarily selected, in the interior of the 
 country. 
 
 t In our work, Government af the Decembriseurs^ we have proved 
 the truthfulness of these monstrous numbers, by authentic returns 
 derived from the executioners themselves. Pages QQ and 126. 
 
WITH THE DECEMBEISEUBS. 53 
 
 sional G-overnment did, let them send back all the troops 
 without retaining a single regiment, a single company, a 
 single soldier, or even one gendarme,* and we shall see 
 how stand the seven millions of votes ; two hours will 
 not have elapsed ere the trestles of the Empire disappear 
 under the public hatred and disgust. 
 
 And do not say that the congratulatory addresses of 
 the general and municipal councils f protest against what 
 we state here. James II. received like ones relative to 
 those acts of his government which most clashed with 
 public opinion. "We must judge of them that are delivered 
 to the Decembriseurs in the same way as M. Bonaparte, 
 himself, and Hallam, judge of those which were delivered 
 to James II. " Addresses," says the former, " are the ever 
 fallacious homages of the oppressed." — (Works, vol. 
 iii. p. 34.) — "Now," says the second, "that we are ac- 
 quainted with the predominating spirit of the people at 
 that epoch, we should have to blush for the cowardice or 
 the hypocrisy of our ancestors, if we knew that those 
 addresses were at bottom but the work of a small num- 
 ber." — {Constitutional History, vol. iii. page 101.) 
 
 Inquire even of English travellers who return from 
 our country ; they all chime together in saying that the 
 present government there is detested, that Erance still 
 lies under the domineering influence of the fright of the 
 Decembrisades. Thus, we read in the Furple Tints, two 
 volumes published three or four months ago, and issued 
 from the pen of an eye-witness, Mr. Bayle St. John: — " I 
 understood, for the first time, on the 2nd of December, 
 what was meant by a ^ reign of terror.' Throwing aside 
 
 * This confidence was construed into an insult to the army, 
 which, was said to be exiled from the capital ! 
 
 t It is but justice, nevertheless, to remind our readers, that a 
 very great number of ancient members of these councils sent in 
 their resignation after December. 
 
54 THE ALLIANCE IS MADE, ETC. 
 
 all ideas of right, by the very manner of its appearance, 
 the new order of things could only exist by naked vio- 
 lence, by appealing to the meanest sentiments of our 
 nature — the fear of death. All the proclamations which 
 covered the walls that day and the following ones, were 
 calculated to produce that state of mind. The object of 
 the dictator was to stifle at once the opposition that might 
 arise from what virtue and enthusiasm were still left in 
 France. The slightest attempt at discussion was to be 
 punished instantly. * Kill, kill, kill ! ' — this was the 
 panacea adopted. It had its effect ; and the impression 
 of terror produced in the minds of the vast majority of 
 that gallant nation of France was so great, that it has not 
 yet disappeared. I Jcnow individuals who still continue to 
 tremble physically, from the horror produced at those 
 times." (Vol. ii., p. 309.) 
 
 England sees it ; — it is, here, again, an Englishman who 
 tells it her — the government she may chance to confirm 
 by her present policy is founded on terror. 
 
 No — a thousand times, no ! Erance has no sympathy 
 or connexion whatever with the gang of debauchees, cJie' 
 valiers dHndustrie ("swell-mob,") and terrorists, who press 
 upon her ! No, Erance does not trust the government 
 whose panacea is " Kill, kill, kill !" No, Erance does not 
 wish for " the revival of the Lower Empire." Nobody can 
 believe it ; nobody does believe it. She is invaded by ene^ 
 mies ; she writhes among400,000 bayonets, always directed 
 towards her ; "more alive to her shame than to her suffer- 
 ings, she is humiliated at the disgrace of that very sol- 
 diery, which has been employed in sabring her," as has 
 been said by the Times (Jan. 9, 1852) ; and, like all con- 
 quered nations, she waits for a propitious hour to free 
 herself. 
 
 To have dealings with the government de facto, which is 
 propped up there by the blind force of an army, submissive 
 
EONAPABTISM, REIlirFOECED, ETC. 55 
 
 to discipline as a wheel is to the steam, is therefore to deal 
 exclusively with the Decemhriseurs, and not with her. 
 If the English people will have this, so be it ; but let the 
 case be well understood by them— let them not labour 
 or hope to bring others under illusions. We conceive 
 that no one nation should have the insolent pretension 
 of meddling with the internal affairs of France; our 
 patriotism energetically deprecates every sort of foreign 
 interference, whether direct or indirect, in her interior 
 policy ; but we persist in the opinion, that the eternal 
 laws of morality forbid every civilized government to 
 make a compact with those rulers, the living personifica- 
 tion of immorality, rejected by all parties, and left outside 
 the nation until she is able, at no remote period, to fell 
 them to the ground. 
 
 Y. 
 
 BONAPAETISM, EEINPOECED, ALEEADT PEOFFEES ITS 
 SEEYICES TO ABSOLUTISM. 
 
 As&UEEDLT England, a free nation, proud of her respect 
 for constitutional rights, is mistaken in not leaving those 
 accursed beings in the loneliness of the accursed. Her 
 alliance with them, however localized it may be, is in 
 direct contrariety with what ought to be the essence of 
 modern politics — that is to say, with the general inter- 
 ests of mankind, the defence of the liberties and of the 
 notions of justice accrued to the world. It must not be 
 concealed, but it must be boldly averred, that this alliance 
 strengthens a detestable sway, won through murder, per- 
 petuated through violence, whose internal system is an 
 unbounded arbitrariness, and for whose existence evil is 
 necessary. 
 
 Already, thanks to the additional energy recently ira- 
 
56 BONAPARTISM, EEIlfrOECEB, 
 
 parted to it by the moral support of the English alliance, 
 it threatens to spread its bayonets abroad. Already it 
 has let its guilty projects ooze out ! Did not the Moni- 
 ' teur say, on the 22nd of February last : — " The revolu- 
 tionary spirit may profit by the circumstances for showing 
 itself and suscitating disturbances ; it becomes henceforth 
 the imperious duty of the government to declare openly 
 and candidly that it would not leave unrepressed, should 
 the flags of Austria and France become united in the 
 East, any attempt which might take place with a view 
 to divide them in the West." 
 
 These advances to the ruthless despotism of Austria 
 have already begun to operate. Citizen Manin, the Vene- 
 tian patriot, wrote at the end of March a public letter, 
 wherein he confined himself to say : — " The aim which the 
 Italians have in prospect is to be freed from Austria ; it 
 is to remain masters in their own country." Yerily, an 
 Italian could not say less. However, the newspaper 
 which inserted this letter, and all those who reproduced 
 it, received one of those warnings, three of which suffice 
 to annihilate a journal, and which was grounded on the 
 assumption that " this publication, in a direct opposition 
 to the government, has for its object to create distrust 
 between two allied powers !" 
 
 He who now displays that ardent love for foreign domi- 
 nation in Italy, figured in 1831 among the Italians who 
 rose in insurrection at Bologna, marched in arms against 
 the Pope, and were dispersed by an Austrian army.^ 
 The former volunteer of the Eoman independence is a 
 true Christian, he entertains no rancour against his con- 
 querors. The very same man who wrote in 1836 : — "The 
 glorious remains of our great armies are in Italy the chiefs 
 
 * It was in that expedition that the brother of M. L. N. Bo« 
 naparte, attacked with a fever of that country, was compelled to 
 stop at Forli, where he died. 
 
PEOFFEES ITS SEETICES TO ABSOLUTISM. 57 
 
 of that unfortunate youth who aspire to liberty,"^ is ready 
 to hurl the army of December upon the Italian youth 
 and the glorious remains of our great armies ! " What 
 a clever fellow !" will exclaim here again some great poli- 
 ticians ; " how boldly he does deny all his past words and 
 deeds ! what a haughty disdain for the vulgar notions of 
 constancy ! he is, indeed, the wonder of the age !" Had 
 we not to admire such a genius, we should descant upon 
 all the unworthiness of such a defection ; but cui hono ? — 
 the hero is known. That which ought to be mentioned 
 is, that the ally of England already hesitates no longer 
 to tender his services to the savage Austrian despotism. 
 "The Empire is Peace" . . . with Austria, not with 
 oppressed nationalities rising against their tyrants ! The 
 Morning Advertiser^ ever the vigilant champion of the 
 interests of European liberty, has protested against the 
 declarations of the Bonapartist Moniteur. " We do not 
 hesitate," said that journal, " to declare that, one of the 
 chief reasons for which the impending war is generally so 
 popular in this country, is that almost every one is con- 
 vinced that in the midst of the future imbroglio, the 
 oppressed nationalities will be able to shake off the yoke. 
 Who does not at least hope, that, in the confusion, Italy, 
 Poland, and Hungary will succeed in the attempts they 
 will not fail to make for regaining their independence ? 
 How many of us, who have for war the greatest horror, 
 are reconciled to the coming conflict, because they beheve 
 that one of its first results will be the deliverance of 
 peoples ! We loudly proclaim, for our part, that we share 
 in these hopes with all our soul." 
 
 To a certainty, these are the sentiments of the immense 
 majority of the English nation. But how will her govern- 
 ment be able to respond to them? WiU it follow the 
 
 * (Euvres de L. N, Bonaparte, tome I., page 180. 
 
58 BONAPA.ETISM, BEINFOECED, 
 
 French Eadetzkis and Haynaus into Lombardy and 
 Hungary, to afford assistance to floggers of women and to 
 hangers of generals prisoners of war ? Will it deem iO 
 self at least obliged to let the Napoleonic absolutism nailJ 
 again in her tomb Italy, about to revive, as the Russian' 
 absolutism was allowed to prey upon resuscitated Hun4 
 gary ? "We do not think so ; but may not G-reat Britaini 
 already ascertain whether her goodwill towards the De- < 
 cembriseurs does not give them an audacity which they 
 would not otherwise have ? 
 
 Ah! we wish that '*the Empire is Peace" may not 
 bring more harm on France and England than the latter 
 thinks ! Meanwhile, to view things with sincerity, one is 
 compelled to acknowledge that, if the swords are now 
 drawn, it is owing to the silly and Jesuitical velleity of 
 the protection of the Holy Places. The cowp d'Stat burglar 
 was desirous of carrying on a religious coup d'etat in 
 the Holy Land ; he threatened the Porte with cannon, in 
 case she should not comply with his caprice ; things went 
 so far that Nicholas offered an army to the Sultan to de- 
 fend him.* It is true that, on the remonstrances of the 
 Cabinet of St. James's, the Decembriseurs, who are aware 
 that France is ready to get rid of them on the first 
 favourable opportunity, yielded from the fear of having 
 on their back England and Eussia together ; they gave 
 up their pretensions, they even sacrificed their unlucky 
 ambassador, M. Lavalette, under the plea that he had 
 exceeded his instructions. We have here, by the way, an 
 instance of the pride wherewith our " nephews of the 
 emperor " observe his traditions respecting dignity. But 
 it is not the less a fact, that their Latin exigencies in the 
 East aroused the concupiscence of the Czar, and incited 
 
 * Revelations of the secret correspondence of Sir Hamilton 
 Seymour. 
 
PROrrEBS ITS SEEVICES TO ABSOLUTISM. 59 
 
 him to set forth the Grreek requisitions, whence the war 
 has proceeded. We advise those who might be doubtful 
 of this, to peruse over again the following declaration of 
 Lord John Eussell, in the House of Commons : — 
 
 " As long as the question was only relative, between 
 France and Eussia, to the affair of the Holy Places, our 
 government had no interest to decide who was wrong and 
 who was right. But from the day when the threat of a 
 recourse to force was heard, the matter became of interest 
 to Grreat Britain. 
 
 "The preparations which were made in Eussia were 
 justified by invoking the pretext that the Ambassador of 
 France had tJireatened to use violence for constraining the 
 Sultan to accede to demands which Eussia declared to 
 be incompatible with agreements entered into by her. I 
 myself was informed by Lord Eedcliffe, that M. Lavalette 
 had declared that if these exigencies were not met, he would 
 call the French fleet to enforce their satisfaction. From 
 the moment when such threats were made, there was 
 reason to examine whether the English government was 
 to require explanations from the French government. I 
 must say that the French government received our re- 
 quest in the most open and fairest manner. It gave up 
 its pretensions, because they might give rise to counter- 
 pretensions on the part of Eussia. The French govern- 
 ment understood that its ambassador had exceeded the 
 limits of its wishes ; that he had gone heyond his instruc- 
 tions, (who can believe that ?) and conducted the nego- 
 tiation in a way oppressive and alarming to the Sultan. 
 In consequence, it recalled its ambassador, and abstained 
 from insisting on its pretensions. From that moment, 
 we obtained the great advantage of acting with a com- 
 mon understanding in the interest of . . . Turkey. 
 It was impossible for us to help France in vindicating 
 her pretensions regarding the Holy Places." 
 
60 GEEAT BRITAIN WILL BE BETRAYED 
 
 VI. 
 
 GEEAT BRITAIN WILL BE BETEATED BY THE 
 DECEMBEISEUES. 
 
 "Will the pretension which the former insurgent of 
 Bologna and Torli puts forth at this moment, to inter- 
 fere against a general rising in Italy and Hungary, occa- 
 sion a fresh struggle, wherein England will have to join 
 her arms ? We know not. Whatever this may be, she is 
 enabled henceforth to judge as to whether she has been 
 right to select that retrograde ally. With other means 
 than those of diplomacy fit to openly conduct public 
 affairs, the autocrats of France and Eussia have already 
 written to each other confidential letters, in which they 
 mutually encourage themselves " to defend order." 
 They will stick to this ; the natural accomplices of each 
 other, war between them is an anomaly. 
 
 Let them this day publish their autographic correspon- 
 dence ; let them give to themselves reciprocally the lie 
 that blemishes ; let Nicholas outrageously say to his like, 
 " If you intended to make yourself the auxiliary of my 
 enemies, it would have been more honoxjrable (loyal) 
 to frankly declare it beforehand." That is of no con- 
 sequence. Their present quarrel is one of those which 
 arise in caves, and which are no obstacle on the morrow 
 to a fresh union for rushing upon the passers-by. They 
 will be reconciled some way or other, and some day or 
 other ; for those people have no faith, and consequently 
 no resentment of offences. 
 
 The fate of the coming battles may quickly determine 
 that step. Nicholas acknowledges that he has nothing to 
 hope from England, whose people hissed him formerly, 
 whose ministers at present overwhelm him scornfully 
 with the most pungent truths, whose newspapers set him 
 
BY THE PECEMBEISErES. 61 
 
 under even a Louis Napoleon.* It has been seen by 
 his intimate correspondence, that after all he has no 
 absolute antipathy for the parvenu of the Decembrisades. 
 After the first reverse, he will propose him again to 
 agree together for ''maintaining order."" The other, se- 
 duced by the golden bridge which Nicholas will not fail 
 to erect for him, will accept. He will sacrifice his 
 present ally as the uncle sacrificed Poland, which had 
 shed for him her purest blood ;— like uncle, like nephew. 
 It is but too notorious that the Elysean generals are all 
 venal characters. A few handsome endowments will 
 gain them over to the Cossack projects. — Dishonesty has 
 taken refuge into the camps. Cossacks and pre- 
 torians are twins. — In virtue of the absurd doctrine of 
 passive obedience, the Trench army will perform, as they 
 did in December, whatever they are bid ; and the two 
 Czars, with their pretorians and Cossacks, will turn back 
 against England, dragging along with them the King 
 of Prussia, the Emperor of Austria, and the other abso- 
 lutist Powers of Europe. They will form together the 
 Holy Alliance of Order. 
 
 And it will so happen, because it will be in harmony with^ 
 the dictates of their common interest, because the chief 
 fountain-head of disorder (December and its organs have 
 made no secret of this) is, according to their views, parlia- 
 mentarism, whose stronghold England is. It will so happen, 
 because, excepting Queen "Victoria, there is not now one 
 socialist emperor, one king by right divine, one constitu- / 
 tional prince, one reigning grand duke, more or less petty,) 
 
 * The Times, in its capacity of the organ of good company, 
 now treats Nicholas oi Pickpocket (No. of April 11, 1854). Two 
 years ago, it contented itself with, calling — more appropriately — 
 Napoleon III., Cartouche. These are not the only instances on 
 record of this coarse insulter of republicans and refugees furnish- 
 ing them with such compensations. 
 
62 GEEAT BEITAIN WILL BE BETEAYED 
 
 jwho does not pant after absolutism, and does not possess 
 bayonets sharpened on the grindstone of passive obe- 
 
 I dience. It will so happen, because England is the only 
 European obstacle to tlieir wishes, the only country on 
 this hemisphere that enjoys a free press always prepared 
 to blight despotism, a free tribune, whence truth can be 
 elicited, and a hearth, generously opened, where the 
 
 1 victims, escaped from ever}^ tyranny, find a safe shelter. 
 
 \ It will so happen, at length, because it is in the logic of 
 
 \ men and events. 
 
 See already, now that the hour of earnest hostilities 
 is come, behold Austria and Prussia, which were relied 
 upon, declaring their neutrality! Moreover, the secret 
 intercourse of autographs has begun between the young 
 hanger of Austria and the slaughterer of Erance. What 
 kind of mischief can that be which is concocted therein ? 
 "We fully know that the ^ood friend of Nicholas does 
 not spare himself in the opinion of Grreat Britain. He 
 has even carried audacity, — matters being once in a dis- 
 ruption with the Autocrat, — so far as to declare that he 
 also, as well as Sir Hamilton Seymour, had received 
 from the Eussian government some dishonest proposals, 
 more or less direct communications, and which are not 
 without analogy Avith those made to England." We do 
 not believe a word of this. He is not ignorant — he, a 
 notorious liar — that no one gives credence to his sayings ; 
 therefore, if any such overtures had been made to him, 
 he would have adduced some proof thereof. His de- 
 claration is only an engine in the English alliance — a 
 way of seeming to engage himself without reservation ; 
 but his parole, most solemnly pledged, weighs less than 
 the sere leaf. All his protestations will not prevail over 
 the advantage which he may find in forgetting them. 
 The past teUs as to the future. Was it not during the 
 completion of all his preparations for treason that he 
 
BT THE DECEMBEISEUES. 63 
 
 lavished the warmest assurances of his devotedness to the 
 Eepublic ? "Was he not in the act of bribing the generals 
 of " Little" Africa when he said at Tours : — " It has been, 
 and is still pretended, that the government meditates 
 some enterprise, similar to that of the 18th Brumaire. 
 But are we in like circumstances ? Have confidence in 
 the future, without thinking or coups-d'etat and 
 INSTJERECTIONS. Cov^ps d^ 6tat laclc now even a ^pretext V 
 
 Could the man whom such asseverations had no power 
 to refrain, be ref]*ained by the treaty which he has just 
 signed with England ? We do not suppose the Cabinet 
 of St. James's naive enough to believe it ; and we even 
 ask within ourselves what reason can have induced them 
 to consign to writing the stipulated conventions ? Of 
 what use is that ? Has not the gallant " Prince Louis " 
 declared beforehand his own Napoleonic ideas on the 
 subject ? — " In a small state, the phantom of neutrality 
 is but a chimera which in nowise protects independence. 
 One relies upon a treaty signed by all powers, but the 
 various states are never refrained by the cold observ- 
 ance of treaties ; it is the irresistible force of the cir- 
 cumstance which unites or divides them." — {(Euvres of 
 L. N. Bonaparte, tome I. p. 37.) 
 
 The remembrance of the force which the English 
 impart to their ally of December, will no more bind him 
 than oaths or treaties. The Republic had opened to him the 
 doors of France in 1848 ; he stabbed her in the back, in 
 1851 ! After the adventure of Strasbourg, Louis- Philippe 
 contented himself with sending him to America ; a let- 
 ter was then published, from the future ally of Queen 
 Victoria, Vvherein he declared himself, with the humility 
 peculiar to people of that stamp, "impressed with the 
 generosity and clemency of the king." This letter was dated 
 1836, and in 1840 he attacked anew the government of 
 the "generous and clement king!" G-ratitude is, to 
 
64 GEEAT BRITAIN WILL BE BETBATED 
 
 those degraded beings, what cblour is to the born blind, 
 a meaningless word ; it is in their nature to be ungrate- 
 . ful, just as it is in their nature to breathe. It can- 
 not even be said that they are wicked-hearted, for they 
 have no heart. 
 
 After all, the English Ministers are fully conscious of 
 the dangers they run. They have not forgotten the so- 
 oft-repeated declarations of the Decembriseurs' chief; 
 they have not forgotten that he said at his trial for the 
 Boulogne affray, before the Court of Peers : — " I repre- 
 sent a defeat — that of "Waterloo — and I will atenge 
 IT ; " they have not forgotten that he exclaimed a short 
 while ago : — " There are only two parties in France, the \ 
 vanquished and the victors of Waterloo " {Works, vol. ii. 
 p. 349.) ; they have not forgotten that he wrote in 1843 : 
 " If the ministry had not sixty thousand men in Paris, ' 
 the defenders of the treaties of 1815 could not re-j 
 main a single day in power" {Works, vol. iii. p. 88); \ 
 they have not forgotten that he set forth again, at the : 
 same epoch, these odd words of the uncle : — " Trance i 
 descends from her part whenever she complies with the i 
 obligations of any alliance whatever" (vol. iii. p. 40); 
 they have not forgotten that he cares for being thought 
 to be " the emperor's nephew," that his partisans are 
 enthusiastic on the score of "the great man," according 
 to their expression, and that it forms part and parcel of 
 their views, as well as of his own, to avenge " the prisoner 
 of St. Helena." The English Ministers have no illusioiv 
 hereon ; they know that if the interest of his shaking 
 fabric shamefully ranks at present the imperial quack 
 among " ^Ae victors of Waterloo^'' and the ''^ defenders of 
 the treaties of 1S15,^^ some other interest may likewise, at 
 some future period, make him relapse into his " emperor's 
 nephew ' ' chronic disease . We never know what we are to 
 believe of a liar's twaddle ; and no foundation is durable 
 
BY THE DECEMBEISEI7ES. 65 
 
 which stands on the barren ground of the desert of lies. 
 The first punishment of bad connexions is the want of con- 
 fidence which arises out of them. Tlie Cabinet of St. 
 James's, like those old men who have formed a dangerous 
 liaison, is all anxiety, and this is to us an additional proof 
 of the justness of our appreciations. It has no faith in the 
 bonds wherein it has engaged itself. If it maintained the 
 contrary, we would answer : Why, then, has this govern- 
 ment, so jealous of its dignity, so haughty in its external 
 relations, evinced so much condescension towards the Czar 
 violating treaties and setting his foot in Turkey? "Why 
 has it used so much obsequiousness in seeking the" sup- 
 port of Austria and Prussia, whom it does not like ? 
 "What had it to fear if it firmly counted on France ? "Why 
 those protracted vacillations of a Cabinet habitually so 
 prompt and so resolute in such occurrences ? Why, at 
 length is it unable to hide its uneasiness? Why does 
 it incessantly exalt, ever and anon, the honesty of its 
 ally in the East, with an exaggeration which would not 
 a little offend a gentleman? Lord Palmerston, despite 
 his eccentric 'penchant for the 2nd December, carried so 
 far as to the dinner at the Eeform Club the hyperbolical 
 eulogy on " the uprightness, the good faith, the openness 
 free from every after- thought,manifested by the Tuileries." 
 Lord Aberdeen also found, on the 25th of March, in the 
 annual Lord Mayor's dinner, an occasion for saying, that 
 "he could attest the perfect cordiality, sincerity, an 
 honesty of M. Napoleon III." Then the English to ap- 
 plaud, about in the same way as those folks who sing 
 when fear overtakes them. The Gazette de Gotha, the 
 official organ of the Ducal Grovernment, publishes, on 
 another hand, a paragraph destined to secure the Belgian 
 crown of Leopold- Coburg from the rapacious Elysean 
 perfidiousness, during the approaching contest : — "In the 
 visit which the Emperor of the French paid on the 3rd 
 
 r 
 
66 GREAT BEITAIjS^ WILL BE BETRAYED 
 
 of March to the Duke of Coburg, his Majesty, [the Ma- 
 jesty of Boulogne ! — risum teneatis ?'] in a conversation, 
 which lasted more than an hour and a half, on the political 
 questions of the day, expressed, among other things, his 
 lively satisfaction at being able to assert, loudly and un- 
 reservedly, before the person of a German sovereign, the 
 honesty, the sou7idness, and the sincerity of his views !" 
 
 People do not usually insist with so much redundancy 
 on certifying the uprightness of those in whom they 
 really place any confidence. These are measures of 
 safety, taken in the expectation of some dreaded coup de 
 jurnac ; it is sought to compromise the traitor as much as 
 possible, in order to give him to fear the shame attach- 
 ing to the forgetfulness of such perfect engagements. 
 Vain precautions ! The former pardoned prisoner of 
 Louis-Philippe, and ex-President of the Prench Eepub- 
 lic, has no scruples of this nature. The encomium passed 
 on his honesty, besides, far from checking him, will, on 
 the contrary, serve to satisfy him with but too much 
 ground that dishonest dealings can be carried on with 
 impunity. Nor ought people to be unmindful of the fact, 
 that the son of Admiral Verhuel is a fatalist ; he wears 
 amulets, he believes in his star, the rogue fancies himself 
 charged with a mission,* and it is even this fixed idea 
 which, maugre his mediocrity of intellect, has led him 
 where he is through madness and blood. How passionate • 
 must be, at this time, after such a miraculous success, 
 his faith in the fatidical realization of his programme ! 
 ^Now, what is wanting to its realization? A revenge of 
 
 * ** I take God as a witness, that it is not to gratify any 
 personal ambition, but because I believe I have a mission to fulfil ^ 
 that I risk what is to me dearer than life — the esteem of my 
 fellow-citizens." (Words of M. Bonaparte to one of his accom- 
 plices, on the eve of the adventure of Strasburg ; Works^ vol. 
 iii. p. 185.) 
 
BY THE DECEMBRISETJRS. ^f 
 
 tlie "prisoner of St. Helena! " The hero of December 
 will take it anyhow : he is not in the habit of troubling 
 himself about the nature of means ; the more he will 
 creep, even in order to obtain it, the more he will deem 
 himself faithful to his mission. It behoves the English 
 to weigh this. 
 
 They have besides another thing to consider. How- 
 ever destitute of a sense of shame the patron of the 
 "six thousand knaves '' be, it is impossible to admit that 
 he should very cordially accept the alliance of a nation, 
 whose two parliamentary tribunes, and whose most 
 credited newspapers, gave him so many marks of con- 
 tempt throughout the year 1852. Indeed, after his first 
 velleities of "the emperor's nephew," which have super- 
 induced here the organization of a militia, the necessity 
 of leaving his state of isolation must have appeared to him 
 very imperious that he should have made a compact with 
 "the defenders of the treaties of 1815," who denonnced 
 him to the curse of nations ; yet it must have been painful 
 to him, and it is consequently reasonable to suppose that 
 he will seize the earliest opportunity of being revenged, 
 both for the contempt repeatedly expressed towards him, 
 and the abjection wherewith he has brooked it. 
 
 Whither, besides, is not likely to lead him the mission 
 he has received of realizing the Napoleonic ideas ? Na* 
 poleon said, at St. Helena: — "Within fifty years hence, 
 Europe will be either Eepublican or Cossack." Napoleon 
 is a Messiah, and M. L. Bonaparte is his prophet. 
 Evidently, the prophet of December is far from longing 
 to see Europe become republican ; he must therefore en- 
 deavour to make it turn Cossack, with a view to realize 
 the word of the Messiah of the 18th Brumaire. Take 
 care lest you should laugh at this too much : lunatics 
 have their own logic, and, when they are made emperors 
 it grows dangerous. 
 
6S WITH THE OPPEESSED PEOPLES 
 
 A thousand other powerful motives urge him to prefer 
 E/Ussia to England. England is a constitutional country ; 
 everything is carried on there in the hroad light of day : 
 E/Ussia, far from that, is the governmental type to which 
 the transporters without a trial aspire ; everything there 
 is transacted noiselessly and in the midst of Siberian 
 prospects. England and the 2nd of December have 
 been able to form but a special alliance — they repel one 
 another like adverse elements. England, besides, will 
 never consent to accord to the Decembriseurs that which 
 they most passionately desire, viz. the expulsion of the 
 Erench refugees. With E-ussia, on the contrary, they 
 will have more rope. ISTapoleonism and Czarism have 
 natural affinities with each other ; they are brothers, they 
 have nothing to refuse one another. It is therefore a 
 matter of course that M. Napoleon III. should prefer 
 Nicholas, for Nicholas, in case of need, would lend him 
 Cossacks to stay him on his tottering throne, as he has 
 lent some to Austria ; and what M. Napoleon wishes for, 
 above everything, is to keep his throne, because a good 
 cheer and a gay life are to be enjoyed there, and because 
 all the wicked appetites, all the pruriencies of a vulgar 
 and sensual soul, are to be there extensively gratified. 
 
 Let, therefore. Great Britain beware : let her be 
 watchful, for her sake and for that of other nations! 
 The liberty of Europe is threatened! 
 
 YII. 
 
 IT IS WITH THE OPPRESSED PEOPLES THAT A FEEE PEOPLE 
 OUGHT TO EOEM AN ALLIAlfCE. 
 
 But it will be said, perhaps, — Tou who blame an alto- 
 gether special alliance, what would you have England 
 do ? The peril was imminent ; the " Colossus of the 
 
A FEEE PEOPLE SHOULD FORM A^N ALLIAI^CE. 69 
 
 North " had already one foot upon the Ottoman terri- 
 tory ; however admirable the patriotic energy and warlike 
 courage have been, which were displayed by the Turks, 
 they would unquestionably have been inadequate to pre- 
 vent Nicholas, with his innumerable military resources, 
 from occupying Constantinople. Where would England, 
 remote as she is from the theatre of war, have found the 
 strength needful for averting this danger, if she had not 
 sought auxiliaries among the established governments ? 
 To this we answer : That necessary strength, she would 
 have found it, sound, prompt, efficient, in an alliance 
 with the peoples, viz. Democracy ; for Democracy is yet 
 all-powerful. 
 
 Let us demonstrate that this opinion is not the 
 hallucination of a vanquished combatant, still dreaming 
 of victory : — 
 
 Democracy, everywhere triumphant after 1848, with a 
 magnanimity without a parallel in history, is now every- 
 where crushed, spoliated, decimated. The Emperor of 
 Austria, driven out of Vienna, has re-entered it with the 
 executioner, and retracted all his engagements ; the 
 King of Prussia has violated the solemn oaths he had 
 taken while saluting the funerals of the martyrs of 
 Liberty; after the example of these honest potentates, 
 . all the principicules of Grermany have rent to pieces the 
 constitutions which had been forced out of them; the 
 Pope, restored by our sacrilegious arms, has regained 
 more than he had lost ; King Bomba has become again 
 master of Naples and Messina, riddled with grape-shot ; 
 glorious Italy is anew, in her entireness, and alive, lying 
 in a tomb ; heroic Hungary, felled to the ground by 
 the Czar and by treason, has lost the fruit of her victo- 
 ries; the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, which we had 
 seen rising with admirable patriotic mettle, have been 
 riveted a second time to the Danish monarchy, thanks 
 
70 WITH THE OPPRESSED PEOPLES 
 
 to the Austro-Prussian soldiers ; Prance bends under 
 such an ignoble yoke that Nicholas has thought the 
 moment come of glutting upon the accomplishment of the 
 old Eussian projects as to Constantinople ; Belgium, sub- 
 missive to the Decembriseurs with base servility, is no 
 longer a land of refuge ; Piedmont imprisons its journal- 
 ists, disperses or cowardly insults the exiles who ask it 
 an asylum ; Switzerland disgraces herself so far as to 
 interdict on her territory the sale of books wherein the 
 Bonapartist crimes are made public ; Spain is busy with 
 making a 2nd of December, as though it were written 
 that every throne shall be occupied by a perjurer : in 
 short, England and Holland are the only countries still 
 now enjoying freedom, and having hitherto preserved 
 their self-respect! 
 
 Thus never did an idea appear more hopeless than 
 seems to be the democratic idea, with all its chiefs 
 wandering, proscribed, scattered throughout the world. 
 However, see: governmental Europe, threatened in her 
 equilibrium, outraged by the Russian ambition, has 
 brooked everything, lest the slightest movement should 
 break the chains of the revolutionary lion ; it has required 
 the most grievous insults to induce her to defend herself; 
 and, peruse the monarchical, absolutist, constitutional 
 journals, they all said, and say again, that they were 
 willing to avoid war chiefly because it offers chances to 
 the partageux, the anarchists, the demagogues, the ene- 
 mies of family and of property, &c., &c. We know what 
 polite appellations are bestowed qn the republicans by 
 the refined taste, full of rage, of the ^^ moderes.''^ 
 
 The attitude which this fear has led the great powers 
 to assume in the Eastern question, is truly pitiful. 
 Nicholas, after daring to do under Mie empire what he 
 would never have attempted under the republic, after 
 stretching out his bear's paw towards Turkey, stopped 
 
A FREE TEOPLE SHOULD EOEM AN ALLIANCE. 71 
 
 dastardized because he saw that his design met with op- 
 position ; but for the fanaticism of the old Eussian party 
 which actuated him, he would have recoiled, it is said, and 
 even now that the war is declared, he takes Heaven to 
 witness that he is attacked. The French government and 
 Grreat Britain, united together, have feared for eight or 
 ten months to tell him : — Withdraw your troops from the 
 Principalities where their presence violates the famous 
 treaties of the Holy Alliance! (The emperor's nephew 
 is now a great friend to the treaties of the Holy Alliance 
 — he has implicitly acquiesced in them by allying himself 
 with England.) The Erench government and England, 
 united together, have first incited the Porte to resist- 
 ance, and then prompted ber to concessions : they have 
 begun by advising the invaded nation herself not to treat 
 as a casus belli the occupation of her territory, and they 
 now make war against the invader because he will not 
 leave it ! Austria and Prussia acted, in the first instance, 
 in unison with England and Erance, then to retrench 
 themselves at last in an indefinite and inexplicable 
 neutrality. Austria, which sees the Muscovite domi- 
 nation extending towards the Danube — the artery, ^ar 
 excellence, of Vienna — still tries to come to arrangements 
 with her imperious protector, for want of self-confidence 
 to repel him ; and Prussia, wavering between both alter- 
 natives, has never been able to make up her mind to say 
 "yes," or "no." This hesitation would be of the most 
 honourable kind were it the result of a great repugnance 
 to have any connexion whatever with the butchers of 
 December ; but such are not the sentiments of the King 
 of Prussia ; he well knows which one he prefers, though 
 he does not seem to know yet to which he shall give 
 himself ISTor do Erance and England take it ill that 
 any one should treat them so disdainfully. These four 
 governments, drawn for a moment near each other by a 
 
72 WITH THE OPPRESSED PEOPLES 
 
 common interest, affected not to perceive that honour 
 also was implicated, and they for a long while heaped up 
 projects of agreement over the corpses and ashes re- 
 maining from the vanguard skirmishes. One day the 
 combined fleets, provoked by an act of infamous piracy, 
 enter with a threatening attitude into the Black Sea 
 — but, as they hasten to state, it is Avith peaceable in- 
 tentions ! Then the Czar, whom they forbid to let his 
 ships of war navigate, inquires of the invaders, whether 
 they mean this as a beginning of hostilities ! Tou strike 
 me in the face, sir ; do you mean it as an insult ? 
 
 And ever since has it not been the same ? Do they 
 know what they want whilst they prepare their spears ? 
 From the commencement to«the end how many hesita- 
 tions, tergiversations, shameful revelations, retreatings, 
 how many reams of waste paper, how much time lost, 
 what a lack of dignity ! Behold, then, those famous 
 statesmen who call the Republicans hunglers ! Behold 
 tlien those great politicians who clumsily declare demo- 
 crats incapable of governing a country ! Yerily, it is 
 inexcusable to be so far beneath mediocrity of talent ! 
 Does it not look as though a superior power had deprived 
 them even of common sense, to exhibit them in all their 
 wretchedness to humanity, upon which they have prac- 
 tised ? 
 
 The spectacle which they have presented for the last 
 twelve months is the most paltry which the world ever 
 witnessed. It seems, when casting an eye on Europe, as 
 if one saw it from the larger end of a spy-glass ; every- 
 thing therein is lessened in size — it is become the king- 
 dom of Lilliput ; and that, through fear of the revolu- 
 tionists, who are denounced as a handful of brigands, 
 with savage instincts, and without either wits or valour ! 
 
 If we are few, why do emperors, kings, and aristocra- 
 cies, with all their armies, fear to that pitch lest they 
 
A TEEE PEOPLE SHOULD FORM AN ALLIAIS^CE. 73 
 
 should see our triumph arise out of their struggles ? If 
 our principles are disorder, pillage, and anarchy, how is 
 it that these principles have succeeded in gaining so 
 many proselytes that their victory is deemed almost 
 insured the moment the soldiers who compress peoples 
 will repair to battle-fields for the feud of princes ? Is 
 the mass of the various nations no longer composed of 
 anything but wretches impatient of putting in practice 
 monstrous doctrines and of running to chaos ? 
 
 Ah ! the present terrors of all despots and all despot- 
 isms suffice of themselves to convince those who may 
 still doubt that justice is on our side, and that cast-do \\ti 
 Democracy yet exerts her sway over her conquerors. 
 
 We are therefore justified to assert this : the support 
 England wanted against the Eussians, she would have 
 been sure to find among the various peoples ; and it is 
 there she ought to have looked for it. It was of Ledru- 
 HoUin, Kossuth, and Mazzini, that she was to ask for it, 
 rather than of William of Prussia, the cheat, of Francis 
 Joseph, the hanger, and of M. Bonaparte, the Shell- 
 President. She would have more easily, more infallibly, 
 and at the cost of less blood, repelled the Eussians from 
 the Danube, had she said to Poland, " Up to arms, retake 
 your liberty !" and had she sent to that country her own 
 soldiers instead of dispatching them to Constantinople.* 
 
 We do not regret to see them at Constantinople, but 
 we had rather see them assisting the Poles at Warsaw, 
 
 * It must be well understood that neither from afar nor with- 
 in easy hearing, do we solicit this assistance for our country. 
 France is like the solitary God of Mahomet : she can provide 
 for herself. If we wish for a foreign help given to Poland, it 
 is because Poland, conquered by foreign powers, has nothing to 
 suffer, nationally speaking, from a succour of this nature. France, 
 on another hand, conquered by her own soldiers, must free her- 
 self by her own efforts, or dwindle into nought through the ener- 
 vating turpitudes of Bonapartism, as it befell on imperial Rome 
 for the example of peoples who allow themselves to be enthralled. 
 
74 WITH THE OPPEESSED PEOPLES 
 
 where, besides, tliej would the more efficiently defend 
 the Turks. 
 
 What we have just stated seems to us to implicitly 
 answer those who say: — The chief point was to prevent 
 the Eussians from settling in Constantinople, for, 
 once there, despotism, whose veritable representative 
 Nicholas is, would soon be sealed upon the world. For 
 our part, we think that the chief point was to prevent 
 the chancre of Bonapartism from sticking to France. 
 "We do not hesitate to declare, that we had much rather 
 see the Eussians in Constantinople than the Decem- 
 briseurs in Paris. The Decembriseurs in Paris com- 
 press the democratic development of all Europe ; there 
 lies the evil. Give again full scope to the French Ee- 
 public, and you will at once witness the formation of a 
 Eepublic of the United States of Europe, without the 
 Eussians being able to help it, even were they at Con- 
 stantinople. Nay, more, Nicholas will in this case fleetly 
 return to Petersburg, where he will experience great 
 difficulties in maintaining his position against the revo- 
 lutionists of his country. Our opinion is, that in the 
 Eastern war, despotism is to be found on both sides, and 
 the kind of despotism which is most to be dreaded for 
 Europe is not that which presses upon a still barbarous 
 people, but is that which fetters and tends to degrade 
 the nation wherefrom proceeds the initiative of every 
 progress, both political and moral. 
 
 The Napoleonic Cossackism is more hateful still than 
 that of Nicholas ; it wounds more deeply those who suffer 
 by it, because they have had a taste of independence ; it 
 is more dangerous to civilization, for it strikes root in the 
 very core of progress, in order to stifle it. The recon*- 
 stitution of the kingdom of Poland and the deliverance 
 of Hungary — this is enough not to fear Nicholas, were 
 he occupying the Grolden Horn ; whereas the absolutism 
 
A FREE PEOPLE SHOULD FORM AIS" ALLIANCE. 75 
 
 now raging in Paris secures every sort of despotism, and 
 cannot but facilitate, soon or late, the definitive establish- 
 ment of the Czar on the shores of the Bosphorus. 
 
 To request that England should lend her forces to those 
 peoples ready to emancipate themselves will appear, we 
 are aware of this, in the judgment of the friends to order, 
 a very extravagant idea, (though not more so than their 
 own ideas seem to us to be devoid of sense and feeling) ; 
 but that does not prevent us from opining that England 
 would thus have better served her dignity, her liberal 
 doctrines, her reputation, and her material interests. 
 She would then have been consistent with her long- 
 manifested appreciation of the criminal attempt of 
 December, and the last will of Peter I. would have 
 found its way back into Nicholas's pocket, without 
 being of use, perhaps, even for lighting a prime. How, 
 on another hand, could we doubt but that it would have 
 been more glorious for her to read in history, — G-reat 
 Britain scorned the alliance of a government of assassins, 
 she emancipated Poland, Italy, Hungary, and with those 
 people she drove back from Constantinople another inva- 
 sion of the barbarians ? Instead of this, it will be said, 
 — Great Britain, having it in her power to enfranchise 
 three nationalities, has chosen to form an alliance with 
 their oppressors, and with the gang of "six thousand 
 knaves," whose yoke is more "cruel, morje destructive 
 still, than that of the barbarians. People may use all 
 the sounding words they choose, trammel the question 
 with all the sophisms of political schoolmen, they will 
 find it impossible to annihilate an established fact, — viz. 
 that to go and fight any country whatever, with despotic 
 governments such as Austria, Prussia, and France, is to 
 foster despotism. Is that really what the English nation 
 means to do ? 
 
 "But," some one may perhaps tells us, "how can you 
 
76 WITH THE OPPRESSED PEOPLES 
 
 ask a government, which is in the hands of an aris- 
 tocracy — however enlightened that aristocracy may be — 
 to negotiate vdth democrats, to revolutionize Europe?" 
 This, we grant, would be an act which would subvert all 
 its notions ; but it is one inherent in the force of cir- 
 cumstances, one which forms part of the exigencies of 
 honour; and, exorbitant though such an extreme step 
 may appear to emerited conservatives, it is assuredly 
 preferable to that of associating with cut-throats and 
 scoundrels. It is at least singular that England should 
 fear to stir up Poland, while the Autocrat of all the 
 Eussias does not fear to stir up Grreece.* Assuredly, 
 it will be a strange and a sad fact in the annals of the 
 native country of Milton, that she did, at the end of 
 the last century, combat a outrance the old Gaul freed 
 from absolute power, and that in 1854 she did strengthen 
 for a few days an abject military despotism in the hands 
 of a man destitute of intellect as well as of probity. 
 
 Is it, then, indifferent to the government of a free 
 people to join pretorians who have just chained a free 
 people ? Is it, then, indifferent to an honest people to 
 
 * In a circular of March 2, addressed to the diplomatic agents 
 of Russia, M. Nesselrode thus expresses himself: — ". . . at a 
 time when others than ourselves begin to give rise in the East to 
 complications and calamities, which press with their whole weight 
 upon our co-religionists and incite them to an unequal struggle, 
 we cannot assuredly refuse them our sympathy and assista^ice, 
 ... If the insurrection which is pointed out to us should acquire, 
 besides, a greater extension ; if it should become a war to the 
 knife and of long duration, like that of the Greeks in 1821, — no 
 Christian power, we think, could concur in replacing these popu- 
 lations under the Ottoman yoke, without hurting its conscience. 
 The Emperor could not^ in any case, join in these efforts. During 
 our war, as at the period when peace shall have become possible, 
 their fate shall be the object of the Emperor s solicitude. Such 
 is, sir, the point of view in which we have thought it right to 
 consider the disturbances in Epirus." 
 
A TEEE PEOPLE SHOULD FOEM AK ALLIANCE. 77 
 
 be allied with a dishonest despotism ? Does not an 
 alliance of this nature injure the very libert}* of him who 
 contracts it ? Does England believe the populations of 
 the continent — those generous populations of 1848 — to 
 be dead for ever ? Does she think that their demo- 
 cratic aspirations are a vanished breath ? Let her see 
 bow distracted are the princes of absolutism ! Will not 
 the English people regret, at the waking hour, to have 
 imparted strength to the enemies of the Erench people — 
 to those pirates who hold a bayonet on its throat ? Does 
 it not fear lest history should impute to it as a crime 
 to have solidiiBed the gory mud in which slipped the 
 Decembriseurs ? Could it then be true, alas ! that 
 England loves liberty but for her own self? We are un- 
 willing to believe it. Could it be true that her leaders 
 find a jealous and fatal joy in our depression ? They 
 might have, perhaps, good grounds sorely to repent it one 
 day. Eor indeed there is a consideration which seems, 
 to our great astonishment, to have hitherto escaped the 
 notice of influential men in this country. Allied with a 
 despotic government, Grreat Britain abandons to a certain 
 extent her destiny to the caprice of one man ; she stakes 
 her fate, and that of other nations, in the dark : allied 
 with a democracy, wherein everything is transacted in the 
 broad light of the sun, she would know what she does 
 and whither she goes. Between the former kind of 
 alliance and the latter, we trace the difference which 
 exists between a policy of adventurers and a policy of 
 genuine statesmen. Through the medium of the British 
 Parliament, thanks to its debates, to the publication of 
 its recorded reports, and to the unbounded freedom of 
 the English press, Messrs. Persigny and Bonaparte are 
 made perfectly cognizant of all that takes place in the 
 councils of this country ; but that which is going on in 
 the heads of those break-necks, England does not and 
 
78 THE REYOLUTIONTSTS 
 
 cannot know. Is this an equal match? Let people 
 therein interested consider this. It is chiefly in ad- 
 versity that ministers feel the want of their country- 
 men's esteem. What a reproach would not the English 
 nation address to her Secretaries of State, should the 
 immoral alliance bring some disaster ! What terrible 
 accounts would not those, who might have jeopardized 
 her fortunes whilst compromising her dignity, have to 
 give unto her ! 
 
 YIII. 
 
 THE EETOLTJTIONISTS AEE PUEELT AGENTS OF PEOGRESS. 
 
 UNroBTTJNATELT England, and especially her aristo- 
 cracy, which governs her, dread the revolutionists. They 
 are wrong. 
 
 To the monarchical factions, which had unmercifully 
 gagged our mouths, the revolution granted, on the 
 morrow of their defeat in February, the unlimited liberty 
 of the press. They took advantage of it to calumniate 
 the Eepublic, disfigure all its acts, and present us un- 
 der the most odious light. As for us, we do not regret 
 that liberty was granted to them; we are only grieved 
 that they should have so basely used it, to the detriment 
 both of their honour and of the country's safety. The 
 Eoyalists have been the first victims of their own per- 
 fidy ; December has ousted them from every situation ; 
 the brave men among them have been banished ; and the 
 honourable ones now weep with us over France, given 
 up to a power more violent, more bloodthirsty, more 
 anarchical than that w^hich they calumniously announced 
 as being the inevitable result of the accession of So- 
 cialism. 
 
 England would not have less reason for regret were she 
 
ARE PURELY AGENTS OF PROGRESS. 79 
 
 to allow herself to be any longer falsely alarmed by the 
 scarecrow of Socialism. She already repines but too 
 much at having believe'd in it. If, in spite of the most 
 commendable reluctance, she has formed a^ special alliance 
 with the Tuileries ; if, in spite of the horror of such an 
 intercourse, she has placed her hand in the hand of vile 
 cut-throats ; if, dreading to be betrayed at the decisive 
 moment by those faithless, lawless men, she has not re- 
 buffed from the outset, in a manner more conformable 
 to her greatness, the wily insolence of the autocrat, — is 
 it not solely because she has feared the rising of the revo- 
 lutionists amid a general war ? The secret correspond- 
 ence of Sir Hamilton Seymour leaves no doubt on this 
 point. " The danger to me," says Sir Hamilton to 
 Nicholas, " is not now Turkey, but it is that revolution- 
 ary spirit which broke out four years ago, and which, 
 in several countries, still roars underground. There the 
 danger lies, and doubtless a war in Turkey would be the 
 signal of fresh explosions in Italy, Hungary, and else- 
 where. We see what is going on at Milan." The English 
 minister adds, a little farther on : — " The government of 
 the Queen is desirous of supporting the Turkish empire, 
 because of its conviction that not one great question can 
 be agitated in the East, without becoming a source of 
 disorders in the West ; and that all the great Fowers in 
 the West will assume a revolutionary character^ and en- 
 compass a revision of the whole social system, for which 
 the continental governments are evidently unprepared. 
 The Emperor Nicholas perfectly knows the matters in 
 constant fermentation under the surface of society, and 
 their dispositions to break out even in time of peace." 
 
 These are untoward preoccupations, and which are alike 
 fatal, and contrary to the true interests of England and 
 of civilization. England had, we repeat it, two means of 
 opposing the Muscovite ambition, — to make an alliance 
 
80 THE EEYOLTJTIONISTS 
 
 either witli Poland, Hungary, and Italj, or with the 2nd 
 of December, side by side witli the Emperor of Austria 
 and the King of Prussia. It is d fact, that the would-be 
 Emperor of the Erench, like the Emperor of Austria, 
 governs through means, for which mankind will for ever 
 blush. It is also a fact, that the King of Prussia has 
 forfeited his honour, by violating all his oaths, in order 
 to remain an absolute king. It is likewise a fact, that all 
 the revolutionary governments — Italian, Polish, Erench, 
 Hungarian, Grerman — have each and all exhibited in their 
 dealings a generosity, which will stand as an object of 
 admiration in history. 
 
 The English minister has, however, chosen to unite 
 with the former, rather than with the latter ; with • the 
 oppressors, sooner than with the oppressed ! — an uncon- 
 ceivable preference on the part of statesmen, who glory 
 in being the support of constitutional and parliamentary 
 principles — on the part of honourable men who hate 
 improbity ! 
 
 Yerily it must be acknowledged, the conservative world 
 judge of men and things after a strange fashion ! They 
 ^re pleased, to their great shame, to accuse us republi- 
 cans with ravingly thinking but of the guillotine, although 
 we abolished it when we had the upper hand. Our thirst 
 for blood is with them a favourite and an infamous theme. 
 They incessantly have on their lips against us the assas- 
 sination of General Brea, for which the Bonapartists alone 
 are to be held responsible,*' and that of M. Eossi, still now 
 unaccounted for, — ^two crimes which are foreign to us, 
 and which, in any case, remain absolutely isolated, en- 
 tirely individual. That is enough for them to ejaculate 
 the most terrible objurgations against the Democrats of 
 184!8. But they willingly forget the assassination of 
 
 * See the Annexes No. 3, The assassination of General Brea 
 was committed by the Bonapartists. 
 
AEE PIJEELT AGENTS OF PROGRESS. 81 
 
 Robert Blum, a deputy on a mission of truce ! ! * of Bat- 
 thyani, and a host of others. At length, they feel not the 
 least repugnance to play into the hands of the govern- 
 ment of the Decembriseurs and of that of Austria, which 
 have slaughtered more democrats than M. Bossi and 
 General Brea had hairs on their heads ! . . . 
 
 "Weigh also the following simple simile: — The defenders 
 of order sway through the most frenetic acts of violence, 
 and through scaifolds. The defenders of property have 
 enriched themselves, as Magnan, with a stipend for blood- 
 shed; as Morny, by a series of notorious embezzlements; 
 as L. jN'apoleon, by mfeans of the confiscation of the de- 
 mesnes of Messrs. d' Orleans and those of banished demo- 
 crats ; as Francis- Joseph, through the confiscation likewise 
 of two hundred millions of francs' worth of property be- 
 longing to the partageux of Lombardy. The defenders of 
 family spend a shameless life with concubines, as M. 
 Duces, for instance, the December Minister of the JN^avy, 
 who is known to be possessed of two Madame Duces. 
 And it is we, whom "wise" people style the enemies to 
 order, property, and family ; it is we, of whom they are 
 afraid ! ! Is not that somewhat odd ? What is it then 
 they want, those "wise" men ? 
 
 The mischief which is being accomplished is not uncon- 
 sciously done. The conservatives of this country know 
 that the world is fraught with elements of emancipation 
 ready to overflow ; the passage we have just quoted from 
 the Hamilton-Seymour Correspondence is an avowal of 
 
 * Robert Blum is venerated in Germany as a martyr. It was 
 with, his head uncovered that a man showed us at Vienna the 
 spot whereon he was shot, about the ditches of the city. At 
 Prankfort the desk before the seat he occupied, in the principal 
 room of the Assembly of the States, has already disappeared two 
 or three times under the cuts of patriotic visitors, each of whom 
 will take away with him a small piece of it. 
 
 G 
 
S2 THE BETOLXJTIONIST& 
 
 this. The principal organ of EDglish Bonapartism said it 
 in a manner not less explicit. Incensed at the hesita- 
 tion of Prussia and of Austria to enter into the coalition 
 against Eussia, it has exhibited before them the image 
 of the peoples quivering with impatience : it has menaced 
 Francis Joseph with Italy and Hungary, whilst remind- 
 ing the King of Prussia " that he ought to beware, be- 
 cause his subjects have not forgotten how much he de- 
 ceived them." — {Times, Peb. 3, 1854.) England, the 
 only erect champion which the liberties of Europe still 
 have, fully knows, therefore, that she need only utter 
 one word to raise them up. "Would it be too bold of us, 
 to say that, while endeavouring, on the contrary, to unite 
 with the three great despotic factions of the Continent, 
 she imperils those liberties, to be now the depositary of 
 whieh it has fallen to her glorious lot ? 
 
 But she does not thereby injure solely the moral in- 
 terests of mankind ; she likewise injures her own in- 
 terests. At bottom, the Eussian, Austrian, Prussian, 
 and Prench governments, and all petty tyrants in their 
 fcrain, hate her because she alone holds up the consti- 
 tutional banner, and because their tendency, their ruling 
 idea, is absolutism. AVe think we have sufficiently de- 
 monstrated it above, — as long as there stands a tribune 
 somewhere, they cannot be at peace. Let them become 
 strong; let them succeed in stifling the revolutionary 
 element through proscription, imprisonment, transport- 
 ation, hanging ; let them have no longer to fear at 
 home the enemies of evil, — and they will soon league 
 themselv.es against Great Britain. When she alone 
 remains free in Europe, however powerful she may be, it 
 will be no easy matter for her to withstand the coalition 
 of the enemies of good. She has in reality but one na- 
 tural ally, viz. the great revolutionary party, the great 
 party of progress, the great party of the abolition of 
 
ABE PUBELY AGENTS OF PEOGEESS. 83 
 
 slavery and capital punishment. The democrats of all 
 nations will always draw near to her and ever defend 
 her; they can have no conceivable interest in siding 
 against her, either at present or in future, since she pro- 
 tects liberty, since she loves progress, since she is a 
 Eeformist, in spite of her aristocratic constitution. They 
 cannot but be grateful to her in their triumph, from the 
 remembrance of the courageous hospitality which they 
 always have found with her in their distress. Who but 
 herself would receive them all ? Whither can they go, 
 but to her ? To the United States ? The democratic 
 colossus of the New- World, lofty, fiery, full of faith in 
 its great destinies, will one day save the Old- World 
 from imperial and royal tyrannies, if the English should 
 relinquish this noble task ; but it will previously require 
 to be cured of the leprosy of slavery. Until then, the 
 conquered champions of Liberty, to whom North America 
 opens her powerful arms, are, in that land, not only far 
 from their fondest hopes ; they must also, alas, inevitably 
 witness the dire servitude of three millions of their 
 fellow-creatures ! 
 
 The repulsion which the official world, in this country, 
 feel with regard to Eepublicanism, has no real founda- 
 tion ; it is an obsolete prejudice. We say so with certi- 
 tude, if they will look at the phantom of Socialism in 
 the face, they will be surprised at the vainness of the 
 coarse images which they dread. 
 
 That there may have been produced in France in 1848, 
 and amid the bubbling up peculiar to every period of 
 renovation, some but little sound ideas, some venturous 
 discourses, some strange or even blamable theories, is 
 credible ; we admit this without having the pretension 
 of judging of them, but what does it matter, so long 
 as they remained individual? There exist everywhere 
 exaggerations of that kind; the doctrine of the right 
 
84 THE EEYOLTJTIOKISTS AEE AGEKTS OE PEOGEESS* 
 
 divine, and religion too, swarm with such. Was it not 
 M. de Maistre, the great theorist of Eoyalism, who 
 wrote : — " The executioner is the axis of society ? " 
 "Was it not M. Romieu, an Orleanist, turned since a 
 high Decembrist functionary, who slavered forth the fol- 
 lowing slaughter-house sentence, in his Spectre Bouge : 
 ~" In our days, logic lies in grape-shot ; cannonading 
 alone can settle the questions agitated in this age, and 
 it will settle them, were it to come from Eussia ?" The 
 constitutional system itself, maugre its pretensions to a 
 just medium, does not lack somewhat eccentric doctors, 
 that say, for instance : — " Legality is killing us." ^^ Did 
 not some honest Prussian conservatives lately ask, whilst 
 the reactionary party were, as they still are, about it, for 
 the re-establishment of the punishment of flogging, not 
 only for men, but also for women ! Did they not pro- 
 claim the right to flogging, over the ruins of the terrible 
 party which carried demagogy so far as to proclaim the 
 right to labour ?t 
 
 Such appeals to the lash strike us with horror, but 
 our wish is that every one should be at liberty to pub- 
 lish them. This is a necessary consequence of the in- 
 dependence of the human mind. Every one gives out his 
 
 * M. Troplong, a jurisconsult of the Bonapartist sort, has 
 taken to himself this idea, and said, in his address of installation 
 as first president of the Court of Cassation : — " On the 2nd of 
 December society felt itself dying of a legality made against it." 
 Behold what are our saviours of the principle of authority ; the 
 chief himself of their magistracy declares in the very temple of 
 the laws that one dier> of legality ! See, Englishmen, see in what 
 company you were trusting yourselves ! 
 
 t M. Gerlack, a deputy to the second legislative chamber 
 in Prussia, said, in the sitting of March 7th, 1854 : — " There is no 
 honesty without the correction, and the outcry against the lash is 
 shallow liberalism : punishment is a right of the criminal^ which 
 cannot be refused him.*' 
 
THE AIJ^AECHISTS, ETC. 85 
 
 tTiougbt, whether wise or foolish, in clubs, newspapers, 
 books, and at the tribune ; the emancipation of man re- 
 quires that it should be so ; and it must not be otherwise. 
 If you pretend to interdict bad doctrines, you will thereby 
 take away inevitably from the good ones the liberty of 
 springing forth. The danger of repression is a thousand 
 times greater than the evil itself. Just show us a law 
 whatsoever, restrictive of the liberty of the press and of 
 speech, which could not reach the Grospel itself, and con- 
 demn to the pillory the Imitation of Jesus Christ, A 
 political school ought not to be judged of by the more or 
 less heterogeneous propositions which So and So may ad- 
 vance, but by the credit which is granted to them. Now, 
 we challenge anybody to prove that any idea aiming at 
 the fundamental bases of society, or at the eternal laws of 
 morality, ever had among us a sufficient number of secta- 
 tors for the justification of a blame attaching therefore to 
 the republicans ; we challenge anybody to mention any 
 system, the general acceptance of which amidst democrats, 
 is of a nature to distract sound minds. It is by their acts 
 that it becomes us to appreciate parties ; now, we chal- 
 lenge again anybody to adduce grounds for reproaching 
 ours, when it had everything in its power, with any act 
 likely to inspire the world with reasonable fears. Our 
 antagonists will never dare to offer us a similar challenge. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE AlfARCHISTS AIS^D THE PBOPERTY-PARTITIOITEES 
 (" PARTAGEUX "). 
 
 It is high time, indeed, that people should have done 
 away with all those silly accusations set forth by hatred, 
 propagated by dishonesty, and admitted by foolish credu- 
 lity. They would vanish into thin air if submitted to any — 
 
86 THE AKAECHISTS 
 
 tlie least examination. We feel in nowise disposed to ask 
 for mercy ; we especially do not apply to the perverse 
 men, who attack ns because they hate us, as thieves hate 
 daylight ; those we despise, but we should be glad if our 
 honest adversaries took the trouble of reflecting that the 
 tale of the Ogre is purely a tale, and that it is scarcely 
 excusable to believe in it beyond the first period of infancy. 
 Will then the ^^ friends to order" always labour under 
 that culpable purblindness, putting Jesus on the Cross, 
 and allowing themselves to be cozened by the Pharisees 
 and the doctors of the law ? 
 
 Finally, to speak here but of France, the Democratic 
 E/Cpublic there has rallied to itself the great intellects 
 named Francois Arago, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, La- 
 mennais, Michelet, Eugene Sue, within the political world; 
 can the monarchical principle, on the other hand, boast of 
 acquisitions of a like worth ? Let monarchists answer, 
 and show names of republicans gained over to their 
 cause, even in the midst of its prosperous times. Political 
 passion may estimate by its ovna standard the other not 
 less eminent and more ancient heads of democracy; we 
 will not abuse by defending them ; but we will put this 
 plain question to every upright and sensible conservative, 
 to whatever country he may belong: — Can you really be- 
 lieve that the above-mentioned men would have brought 
 their minds and hearts from more or less remote views to 
 the E/cpublic, have served it as they did, and have crowned 
 it with their universal glory, if our party were " the party 
 of crime," in the words of some rogues whenever they 
 harangue on this topic the flock of boobies ? Would they 
 still now claim loudly the title of Eepublicans, if the 
 republicans were a stolid heap of anarchists, property- 
 partitioners, and terrorists ? 
 
 Anabchists ! — M. Bonaparte himself has dealt de- 
 
AND THE PEOPEETY-PAETITIONEES. 87 
 
 servedly with tkat trite expression, turned by retrogrades 
 of all countries against republicans of all shades: — "Others 
 urged on the Prince of Orange to seize the crown, by re- 
 presenting to him the dangers of anarchy ^t^m^ convenient 
 
 PHANTOM WHICH ALWAYS SERYES AS AN EXCUSE FOB 
 
 TYEANNY. William remained inj3.exible." — {(Euvres, 
 tome ii. page 29.) The anarchical spirit of the demo- 
 crats is nothing else than that phantom of which, we 
 hope, sensible persons will not suffer themselves to be 
 any longer the dupes. — Those persons who excite the 
 anger of peoples and provoke civil discords, by rending 
 asunder the constitutions which they have granted or 
 sworn to, in the face of Heaven and of the earth; those 
 who banish pure conservatives like M. Baze, the fiery 
 champion of religion, family, and property, like Gene- 
 rals Bedeau, Leflo, Changarnier, Lamoriciere, like Father 
 Ventura, and so many others, known as desiring only what 
 is termed a reasonable liberty ; those who drive from 
 their seats, with the help of a pack of pretorians, magis- 
 trates in the fulfilment of their duties ; those who light 
 up war in Europe, from the ambition of annexing Turkey 
 to their states ; those are the real, the sole anarchists, — ' 
 there are positively no others. 
 
 Propeety-Partitionees! — Those who quartered gene- 
 rous Poland, and retain its shreds ; those who send for- 
 ward their Cossacks into the Danubian Principalities in 
 utter disregard of the treaties guaranteeing the general 
 peace ; those who take possession, after deliberating with 
 their state councils, of the important legacy of the last 
 Conde to the soldiers of the army of Conde ; those who 
 confiscate the property of MM. d' Orleans and the posts 
 of ministerial officers faithful to their duty; those who 
 confiscate in Lombardy property to the amount of 200 
 millions of francs (Times, May 22, 1854,) belonging to 
 
88 THE ANARCHISTS 
 
 the revolutionists, these great enemies of property; thosq 
 are the real, the sole property-partitioners — there are 
 positively no others. 
 
 . Tekeoeists ! — Those who accomplished the massacre 
 of December, and those who render themselves solidary 
 thereof; those who transport without trials ; those who 
 chain at Cayenne and Naples the best of citizens together 
 with convicts ; those who have raised up again in France 
 the guillotine, pulled down by the "Eed Eepublicans " of 
 Pebruary; in Germany the scaffold, overturned by the 
 democratic Assembly of Erankfort ; at Eome the gallows, 
 smashed by the Roman revolutionists ; those, at last, 
 whose sanguinary fury still strews with gibbets, day after 
 day, Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Austria ; those are the 
 real, the sole terrorists — there are positively no others. 
 
 As to the revolutionists ; we shall state it again in con- 
 cluding, they are neither anarchists, nor property-parti- 
 tioners, nor terrorists. They have sufficiently proved it in 
 Pebruary ; it is not they who ought to be made responsible 
 for social struggles, but it is those who provoke such 
 struggles by constantly clinging behind the car. If the 
 retrogressists did not strive to perpetuate darkness; if 
 they did not stand in the way of general education, 
 democracy, which is the highest modern expression of 
 progress, would peaceably establish itself without any 
 commotion ; for it has in its favour, not only the most 
 generous natures, the most ingenuous hearts, the most 
 upright souls, but also the immense majority of enlight- 
 ened minds. 
 
 When one sees England, the leading nation, politi- 
 cally speaking, in Europe, harbour so many unreason- 
 able prejudices against the revolutionists, and obstinately 
 persist in fearing them, maugre the moderation and 
 wisdom they manifested everywhere in 1848 ; when 
 one sees peoples so full of ignorance that universal suf- 
 
AND THE PEOPEETY-PAETITIOKERS. 89 
 
 " frage has produced in our country a reactionary legis- 
 lative majority; when one sees wealth, and of conse- 
 quence, knowledge, concentrated into the hands of 
 privileged beings ; when one sees the enormous mass of 
 material interests opposed to any change, however bene- 
 ficial ; when one considers that despotism possesses three 
 millions of bayonets, stupidly docile to its least orders ; 
 at length, when one reflects on the immense power of 
 current antiquated notions, — one does not wonder that 
 the democratic revolution should have been thrice de- 
 feated in France, but one wonders that it should have 
 been there thrice victorious. In these three victories, we 
 find the demonstration of the inexhaustible vigour of 
 progress, and we derive therefrom the certitude that be- 
 tween life and death, between good and evil, the definitive 
 triumph will accrue to good and to life — in a word, to 
 the Eevolution. The revolutionists are simply the agents 
 of progress under compression, which explodes in virtue 
 of a law of the moral world, as steam under compression 
 explodes in virtue of a law of the physical world. 
 
 "It was commonly said," relates St. John Chry- 
 sostom, " in the time when St. Paul preached, that the 
 doctrine of the apostles was seditious; that these 
 endeavoured to shake the settled laws and government 
 of the universe ; that such was what they aimed at in all 
 they said and did."* The glutted ones, whom any mo- 
 tion disturbs in their exclusive comfort ; the privileged 
 ones, who disguise their selfishness under the name of 
 prudence ; the happy ones, who pamper themselves, and 
 glide alongside abuses, taking great care not to notice 
 them, and not to believe in them, so as to be dispensed 
 from the obligation of blaming and combating them, — 
 have thus at all times attributed anarchical ideas to the 
 reformers, that is to say, to the revolutionists. You call 
 
 * Cited by Milton, in A Defence of the People of England, 
 
00 PERSOKAL EXPLAKATI02?"S OT THE ATJTHOE, 
 
 the revoiutionists Demagogues ; we answer, on our side, 
 that there never would be revolutionists if there were 
 no Absolutists; and when we see the Bonapartists in 
 Prance, and the Austrians in Italy, we say with M. 
 G-uizot, speaking of " the despotism of Athalie, and of 
 the cupidity of her villanous courtiers :" " that is indeed 
 what calls for the revolts of peoples, and incites to con^ 
 spirucies the lowermost defenders of their liberties." — 
 {SJiahspere and his Times.) 
 
 Let men of earnest purpose cease at last to ca- 
 lumniate and dread the revolutionists ; in the words of 
 M. G-uizot, speaking as an historian, and forgetting then 
 his political antipathies, to justify the revolutionist Joad, 
 " it is only the despotism and cupidity -of courtiers which 
 incite revolutionists to revolts;'' they have in view solely 
 the liberty of their respective countries and of the 
 world. 
 
 As for us, personally, we feel within ourself no other 
 ambition than that one ; but it is unrelenting, insu- 
 perable, and to satisfy it we will shed, if needed, to the 
 very last drop of our blood ; we will sacrifice to the very 
 last atom of our being ; we will give to the very last 
 obole of our purse ; we will join every honourable man 
 ready to inscribe on his banner: — JVo sanguinary vengeance^ 
 no confiscations, no dictature ; Justice and right, in 
 other words, the Eeptjblic and the "Will of the 
 
 PEOPLE-SoTEREiaN ! 
 
 X. 
 
 PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS OF THE AUTHOR, A REFUGEE IN 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 One word more before concluding. 
 
 Compelled to quit our country — driven out of Belgium 
 
A E1:FTJGEE IK EKaLAKD. 91 
 
 — ^rejected from Spain — we take the liberty of censuring 
 an alliance which England has thought proper to con- 
 tract. Is this abusing the hospitality which the latter 
 country gives us ? "We trow not. The larger, the more 
 liberal, and unconditional this hospitality is, the more 
 reserve it imposes on tlie refugee — we are aware of that ; 
 but the less also does it shackle his conscience. Is it 
 not, besides, respecting our host, and acknowledging his 
 nobleness, to speak the truth to him under his roof? 
 Such is the thought which has actuated our pen. We 
 entreat every English reader of ours, should there 
 happen to be one to whom our boldness might at first 
 sight seem offensive, to view it in the light we take it, 
 namely as an homage to the liberty we enjoy. You are 
 here among a generous and sturdy people, we were told ; 
 in reaching this land you acquire all the rights of every 
 loyal subject of the Queen, without excepting the most 
 essential one of speaking and writing ; you may do all 
 that the law does not forbid. This is why we have not 
 hesitated to send this work to print. 
 
 With reference to the attacks directed against the 
 allies of England, — besides that the unmistakable privi- 
 leges which the English nation deigns to confer on us 
 authorized us to make them, — we must add that they were 
 dictated especially by our intimate conviction that this 
 country is being deceived. These men, after all, are still 
 they who, though bound by the sanctity of the oath, to 
 the Republic, drowned it in a stream of blood. Eacts are 
 facts : there they stand ; nothing could expunge them. 
 By recalling them to mind, as the sentinel utters his 
 " Beware ! " we yield, so to speak, to a power superior 
 to ourself, albeit we have no ''mission^ Let vice, per- 
 jury, and murder raffle a grotesque crown, instead of 
 deservedly getting the green cap of the Toulon galleys, 
 this is no reason for us to commit ourself with them ; far 
 
92 PEESONAL EXPLANATIONS OF THE AUTHOE. 
 
 from that, their monstrous elevation renders them the 
 more hateful to us ; no consideration could prevent us 
 from repeating to them : — Tour names have not changed 
 with your tinsel; you are still vice, still perjury, still 
 murder. To remind everybody of this has been an irre- 
 sistible want of our soul ; to protest against that which 
 strengthens despotism in Europe has appeared to us a 
 duty, incumbent on every one, even among the most 
 humble, towards the human family. That duty we have 
 fulfilled. If to do so be a fault, in any situation of life 
 whatever, let him who perchance will deem us guilty 
 condemn us. 
 
 Do thy duty, come what may ! 
 
 V. SCHOELCHEE, 
 
ANNEXES. 
 
 No. I. — Personal Confessions of the Assassins of 
 December. 
 
 We are enabled to prove, if need be, all that we have 
 asserted, by the personal avowals of the criminals. We will 
 give here a few examples thereof, in order not to leave the 
 shadow of a doubt in the minds of our readers. 
 
 The Moniteur of January 22, 1852, — the official news- 
 paper! — gave a minute account of one of those men-hunting 
 parties spoken of at page 2. The expedition was composed 
 of the gendarmerie brigade of Crest, and 20 soldiers of in- 
 fantry, in search of patriots who had taken refuge in the 
 mountain of St. Bancas, in the commune of Gisors, (department 
 of the Drome) : '' A detachment of that troop having perceived, 
 after an ambuscade of five hours, two insurgents, pursued 
 them for an hour, and fired EIGHT shots without being able to 
 hit a single one," says with regret the Bonapartist chronicler. 
 The 3Iomteur subsequently relates that nineteen sJiots were 
 fired by a second detachment upon three other insurgents, but 
 ^^ without 7'esult!" At length, again on the avowal of the 
 official journal, eighteen shots were fired upon a last insur- 
 gent, who was wounded. The Moniteur afterwards mentioned 
 the gendarmes who had distinguished themselves ! 
 
 It is the French army, the French army! which they 
 employ in those sanguinary lurkings, and which disgraces 
 itself so far as to obey such orders ! 
 
 But the six unarmed men who fly from rock to rock, upon 
 whom forty-five shots are fired, of what are they guilty? 
 The Moniteur itself applies to them no other epithet than 
 
94 ANNEXES. 
 
 that of insurgents. And yet, what insurgents are they ? The 
 ministerial organ, from a scruple rather extraordinary on its 
 part, does not dare to state it. The Courrier de la Drome 
 of January 18, from which it borrowed its recital, had no such 
 bashfulness ; it concluded its article by simply saying this : — 
 *' They have succeeded in apprehending M. Jean Goutier, 
 assistant to the mayor of the commune of Suze, and M. Claude 
 Caban, the son of the mayor of Suze, the former an insurgent 
 chief, the second accused of insurrection^^ Behold then muni- 
 cipal officers, elects of universal suffrage, accused of insurrec- 
 tion for having opposed a coup d'etat, and fired at, as the bird 
 which flies away is fired at by the poacher ! 
 
 When, in those frightful battues, prisoners were made, those 
 of tJie greatest note among them were brought back with ropes 
 round their necks, through mere refinement of cruelty ! " A 
 general evolution of troops was ordered for searching the 
 department of the Nievre ; the infantry and the cavalry ex- 
 plored all the villages which had taken part in the insur- 
 rection, and effected numerous arrests ; several mayors, among 
 others those of Billy and Pousseaux, were brought back with 
 ropes round their nechs at the head of the insurgents of their 
 villages." (P. Mayer, Hist, of Dec. 2, page 231.) 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an 
 alliance 1 
 
 The brigands have followed that ruthless system of terror 
 so far as to kill, even in the heart of towns, citizens who 
 attempted to run away when they came to arrest them arbi- 
 trarily. Under this government of savages, whoever does not 
 deliver himself up at discretion is a dead man. See rather : — 
 "The movable corps which has its centre at Pezenas repaired 
 last night to Serveau, with a view to put into execution several 
 warrants. The dwellings of the accused were surrounded. One 
 of them tried to escape. The warnings of the sentinel were 
 ineffectual to persuade him to stop, and he fell deadly wounded 
 by a shoty [Journal de Lot-et- Garonne, Dec. 29, 1851.) 
 
 In our book. The Government of the 2nd December,* we 
 have cited sixteen assassinations of this kind, committed within 
 an interval of seventy days! All are undeniable, being all 
 borrowed, like the present one, from the journals of the inva- 
 sion themselves. 
 
 * At Mr. Jeffs' s, bookseller, Burlington Arcade. 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. 95 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an 
 alliance ! 
 
 It is not less undeniable that the punishment of the galleys 
 has been pronounced for the crime of hospitality ! On the 
 29th of December, the battalion chief, Bourrely, thus Bona- 
 partized the department of Lot-et-Garonne :> — 
 *' General Quarter of Agen, 
 
 " We, «&:c., after concerting matters with the Prefect of the 
 Department : 
 
 ** Decree : 
 
 *' 1st. Shall continue to be actively looked after, in every 
 commune of the department, individuals who have formed 
 part, either of the insurgent hands, or of the riotous meetings 
 which have attacked or menaced the authorities, or of the 
 secret societies from which the perturbators have sprung. 
 
 *' 2nd. Whosoever gives a refuge to the delinquents under 
 prosecution^* or favours their escape, will he considered as an 
 accomplice, and as such summoned before the court-martial. 
 " Signed, Bourrely." 
 
 Six days after the publication of this ordinance, the journal 
 w^hich was the accomplice of M. Bourrely said, with a tri- 
 umphant air : — 
 
 " A first sanction has just been given to the decree of Com- 
 mandant Bourrely relative to the receivers of runaways. In 
 the evening of the 12th of this month, the gendarmes of 
 Lavardac arrested a man named Bertrand Fournier, carpenter 
 and innkeeper, who was receiving in his house another man 
 named Jean Dufaure, an insurgent. — Signed, L. Noubel." 
 , {Journal de Lot-et-Garonne of Jan. 5, 1852.) 
 
 To receive a man, like stolen property ! Tliis is an expres- 
 sion of the black code of 1685. By a rather natural coin- 
 cidence, they have found anew, without being conscious of it, 
 after the lapse of two centuries, the very language of slavery ! 
 
 The Napoleonists had already been, for a month, masters of 
 the country, w^hen they practised these minute acts of venge- 
 ance ! 
 
 Another colonel, named Fririon, published, in the Basses- 
 Alpes, on the 5th of January, 1852, a decree w^herein he 
 declared : — 
 
 * The battalion chief, Bourrely, decides beforehand that all 
 those under prosecution are guilty. He is very lucky that he is 
 not prosecuted. 
 
96 ANNEXES. 
 
 " Article 4. Every individual found guilty of having fur- 
 nished succours either in victuals or in money to an insurgent, 
 or of having given him an asylum in his own house, will he 
 considered as an accomplice in the insurrection, and as such 
 will be prosecuted, arrested, and punished with ALL THE 
 RIGOUR of the laws which regulate the state of sieged 
 
 " Even in victuals or in money ! " Exile, transportation, 
 death, the punishment of the accomplice, — for a glass of water, 
 for a shilling given, not to so much as a condemned, but to a 
 simple fugitive, whose innocence would perhaps be proved, 
 were he not afraid of the courts-martial ! It is the excommu- 
 nication of the middle-ages revived in the midst of the 19th 
 century ; it is the interdiction of bread, fire, and shelter, which 
 the Popes pronounced, seven or eight centuries ago, against 
 those who disobeyed the Holy Church ! 
 
 But, our readers will say, such abominable proscriptions 
 have been made only to frighten; they never were executed: 
 it is impossible ! Let them read : — " In its sitting of Decem- 
 ber 30, the second council of war of Lyon, under the j^resi- 
 dency of Colonel Ambert, sentenced a man named Brun, a 
 landowner at Grasse (Drome), to ten years' detention for having, 
 as an accomplice, received some persons whom he knew to have 
 committed crimes involving corporal and infamous punish- 
 ments (peines afflictives et infamantes) ; Astier, a field-keeper 
 at Loriol (Drome), to twenty years^ hard labour for having 
 given an asylum to those who had attacked the gendarmes, 
 knowing of the crime committed by them." [Courrier de 
 Lyon.) 
 
 Putting aside the scandal of these prosecutions for oppo- 
 sition to a flagrant violation of the law, what could be more 
 savage than these penalties pronounced for receiving guilty 
 persons f That which has hitherto constituted a virtue in all 
 countries and in all ages, even at the times of the least culti- 
 vation, and among the most inhuman pepples, — holy hospi- 
 tality towards the unfortunate, — is now, under the empire of 
 the former fugitive of Ham, chastised as a misdeed. They no 
 longer prosecute, in France, only for political acts and 
 opinions, but actually for friendship, pity, humanity, charity. 
 The asylum given to vanquished people is punished with 
 TWENTY years' HARD LABOUR! And that, too, when the 
 strife is over, when blood no longer boils in the veins, when 
 one cannot even plead the exasperation of the struggle! We 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. 97 
 
 must go back to the Inquisition, nay to Tiberius, to meet with 
 anything as ferocious as this. 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an 
 alliance ! 
 
 We have said that the assassins of December had thrown 
 the wounded into the water. The proof of this is found in 
 the Revolution MUitaire du 2 Decemhre^ by Captain Mauduit 
 (page 238) : — " An individual, who carried arms under his 
 blouse, having been arrested at the moment he attempted to 
 infringe the orders not to pass on, was SHOT AT near one end 
 of ^the Pont-Neuf, and immediately FLUNG INTO THE Seine. 
 But having only had his thigh broken, that unfortunate man 
 possessed still strength and presence of mind sufficient to 
 cling to one of the cables of the Samaritaine floating bath- 
 house, when one of the attendants of the establishment ran 
 to his assistance, and rescued him. His name was Berger, 
 and he was a gardener at Passy. He recovered from his 
 wound, and dared to declare Jmnself innocent, saying that his 
 carbine was unfit for use, whereas it was loaded." 
 
 It will be seen here that, in the eyes of that gallant captain, 
 the fact of carrying a loaded carbine is enough to justify 
 bandits in firing upon you and throwing you into the water 
 when you are still breathing ! ! 
 
 Poor Berger is not the only person who was thus Bona- 
 partized ; M. Mauduit has also undertaken to prove this, in 
 the following terms : " No event of any consequence took 
 place in the city [the most ancient part of Paris] ; the only 
 things which occurred there were — that a rioter got killed, 
 and that three individuals arrested for carrying arms, am- 
 munitions, proclamations, and false news, were PUT TO THE 
 SWORD AND THROWN INTO THE Seine." (Mauduit, page 240.) 
 - No event of any consequence! They only slew one, and 
 sTew and flung into the water three of their fellow-creatures, 
 because these carried false news ! ! ! Oh, the " moderate," the 
 " moderate !".... 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an 
 alliance ! 
 
 Alas ! the dead are perhaps the least to be pitied. Several 
 of those who were caught are gone to expiate their courage in 
 bagnios ! Example : On the 30th of January, 1852, a council 
 of war was trying in Paris {they call that *' trying") citizen 
 Edouard Mallet, a joiner, and formerly a military man, 
 
98 ANNEXES. 
 
 accused of '' having had a hand, during the affrays of De- 
 cember, in an attempt at proi'ohing civil war by prompting the 
 citizens to take up arms against 07ie another ; of having placed 
 himself at the head of armed ha?ids which had invaded the 
 commune of Bonny, in the Loiret ; of having, besides, murdered 
 with premeditation and by means of ambushes the gendarme 
 Denizeau." Citizen Mallet was, of course, declared guilty, 
 and a sentence of death was passed upon him. 
 
 "Accused of having had a hand, during the affrays of Decem- 
 ber, in an attempt," &c. ! How ! It was not the executive 
 power, it was Mallet, who, on the 2nd of December, made 
 '* an attempt at provoking civil war " ? How ! It was not 
 General Magnan, it was Mallet, who " placed himself at the 
 head of armed bands to back the attempt " ? Indeed, never 
 did any one deny more audaciously the light of the sun. As 
 to the *' murder," perpetrated " with premeditation and by 
 means of ambushes," that also is the legal formula ! * Mallet 
 killed a gendarme in a fight between good citizens and the 
 men of the Presidential insurrection, this is the fact ; and 
 therefore. Mallet was condemned to capital punishment by 
 the very soldiers of the insurrection, who had become his 
 judges ! ! ! . . . 
 
 Now% let us read the Journal de Lot-et-(xaro7ine^ (No. of 
 Aug. 19, 1852) : 
 
 *' A train of convicts has left the prison of La Roquette, in 
 Paris, to be marched towards the galleys at Brest. In that 
 train is Edouard Mallet, of Bonny, sentenced on the 30th of 
 January last to the punishment of death. The President 
 having commuted the punishment pronounced against Mallet 
 into that of hard labour for life (Oh, Napoleonic mansuetude!) 
 this convict has been clothed in the habiliments of the galleys, 
 and after the usual ironing, has taken his seat, the first in 
 the prisoners* van. Mallet will shortly be on his way to 
 Cayenne." 
 
 We therefore witness here a highly honourable citizen, 
 wearing the garments of a galley-slave, chained like a galley- 
 slave, and sent to the bagnio with galley-slaves, thence to be 
 transported to Cayenne in the midst of galley-slaves, because 
 
 * The English legal expression which answers best, though 
 not exactly, to that formula of the French penal code, (meurtre, 
 avec premeditation et guet-a-pens,) is wilful and deliberate murder. 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. 99 
 
 lie slew, in a fight, a gendarme who was in open and armed 
 rebellion against the laws of his country ! ! 
 
 In vain do the insurgents repeat that this convict is a 
 murderer. He no more deserves that name than the soldier on 
 the battle-field, for he was the soldier of right and the Con- 
 stitution. M. L. N. Bonaparte, on another hand, once fired 
 close upon Captain Col-Puygelier, who was repulsing him. He 
 is then, in deed and in truth, a murderer. Well, what would 
 he have said, what should every one have said, had he been 
 sent to work in a bagnio with galley-slaves ? Such is, how- 
 ever, the torture to which this perverse man subjects now 
 some individuals whom the rebelled army has vanquished, and 
 who, if they are murderers, are so in the same manner as, 
 though less than, he himself is ! 
 
 Others, besides Mallet, have had to undergo the same fate. 
 The Bonapartists, several of whom are political convicts, make 
 no difierence between political convicts and those blurred by 
 the ordinary courts of justice. They have also sentenced some 
 republicans to reclusion, an ignominious punishment like hard 
 labour, and they have enforced those detestable verdicts. Our 
 friends, thrust into the central prisons, wear there the costume 
 and partake of the fare of thieves ! The Constitution de V Yonne^ 
 an Orleanist newspaper, said still on the 9th of September, 
 1853 : *' For several days past, some trains of political prisoners 
 have been going through Auxerre, escorted so far as to that 
 town by the gendarmerie of Nevers, each train being composed 
 of from six to ten prisoners, who are marched from Auxerre 
 towards Troyes, and thence towards Clairvaux. It is in the 
 prison of that town that these convicts are to suffer their 
 punishment. Among them have been noticed several of the 
 ringleaders of the insurrection in the Nievre, and particularly 
 ihe famous Guerbet, Cuisinier, jun., and Millelot. The num- 
 ber of prisoners who are to pass through Auxerre is estimated 
 at dihoMt forty." 
 
 The famous Guerbet (!) is a respectable ironmonger of 
 Clamecy (Nievre). 
 
 There is, perhaps, in these base acts of vengeance, some- 
 thing still more cowardly, more ferocious, than in the carnage 
 of the struggle. Where is there a truly honest man, who, how- 
 ever great his hatred to the Socialists may be, will not brand 
 with all his indignation these contacts, the only idea of which 
 makes one giddy ? The barbarity of former ages tied living 
 
100 ANNEXES. 
 
 men ta corpses ; the Napoleonic barbarity has improved there- 
 upon, it ties respectable people together with parricides. . . . 
 
 These are the men with whom England enters into an 
 alliance ! 
 
 That they have not spared the property any more than the 
 life, of their adversaries, is what will be proved to the most 
 indisputable evidence by, among other testimonies, two pro- 
 clamations of their executioners. 
 
 " Considering that Doctor Giraud de Nolhac, Terrier, a soli- 
 citor^ &c., have taken the most active part in the insurrection 
 which has broken out in the department of Allier, on the 3rd 
 and 4th of December, 1851 ; that the judicial inquiry now be- 
 gun LEAVES NO DOUBT IN THIS REGARD ; 
 
 " It is decreed : 
 
 " Article I. — The property of all the culprits designated 
 above, are placed under confiscation, 
 
 " General Eynard, 
 " Commander of the state of siege in the department 
 of Allier. 
 " Moulins, December 18, 1851." 
 — Whereas the judicial inquiry now begun leaves no 
 doubt, Szc. — The inquiry is only just begun, and — behold a 
 defender of property who, upon his own authority, confiscates 
 the chattels of the culprits ! ! Was ever the profligacy of 
 arbitrariness and of violence carried any farther than it was 
 then by that man called Eynard ? 
 
 Colonel Fririon complicated his confiscations by the ad- 
 junction of the system of the tax-gatherer's bailifi*, at the ex- 
 pense of the fugitives ! — 
 
 " Whereas, in consequence of the insurrection which has 
 broken out in the department of Basses-Alpes, those criminals 
 more particularly involved in the pillage of the public treasury 
 and of the possessions of the State,* as well as the leaders of 
 the armed insurrection, have escapejd by flight from the just 
 vengeance of the laws ; 
 It is decreed : 
 
 *' Article I. — Within the interval of three days from the 
 publication of the present ordinance, some bailiffs shall be 
 
 * We have demonstrated in a peremptory manner, in our 
 volume entitled History of the Crimes of the 2nd of December, 
 that this pretended pillage is an infamous calumny. 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. 101 
 
 placed in the houses of all individuals who have taken flight 
 / in consequence of the insurrection^ and who have not satisfied to 
 the writs issued against them. These hailifFs will be main- 
 tained at their expense^ until they have abeyed the law. 
 
 *' Article II. — Within the lapse of ten days, the property of 
 those culprits who have fled, shall he confiscated and adminis- 
 tered by the director of the public demesnes of the department 
 of Basses-Alpes, conformably to the civil and the military 
 laws, &c. 
 
 " Colonel Fririon, 
 " Commander of the state of siege in the department 
 *' of Basses-Alpes. 
 
 " Digne, January 5, 1851." 
 
 If this be not theft vi et armis, we should like to know what 
 it is. 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an 
 alliance ! 
 
 These things would be horrible, even were criminals con- 
 cerned ; but what can be said of them, when the so-called in- 
 surgents, pursued with the firing of carbines, like wild boars, 
 and destroyed on the threshold of their abode when they seek 
 to save at least their liberty, thrown into the water when 
 wounded, chained with galley-slaves when spared at all, ex- 
 communicated, stripped of their property when their persons 
 cannot be reached, — were all good citizens who had fulfilled 
 (often, as has been seen, under the very guidance of their 
 magistrates,) a sacred duty, that of defending from assaults 
 the constitution of their country ! ! 
 
 Our intention is not to detail the events of the for ever 
 nefarious day of the 4th December in Paris. Those who 
 may be willing to get acquainted with all its horrors, have 
 only to read our History of the Crimes of the 2nd of December, 
 We merely wish to replace here a few facts under the eyes 
 of the English people, as these seem to have very quickly for- 
 gotten that the Decembriseurs are of those wilful and deter- 
 mined murderers who are commonly hanged at the Old Bailey. 
 
 The Times (quantum mutatus ab illo !) published on Decem- 
 ber 6th, 1851, a letter from one of its regular writers, who 
 related in these terms the invading of a large house, situate 
 in the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens and the Rue 
 Richelieu : — 
 
102 ANNEXES. 
 
 " It was in the balcony which appertains to the magasin of 
 M. Brandus, that I was stationed in company with seven or 
 eight others, watching the evolutions of the troops, the magni- 
 tude and variety of which surprised every body in a quarter of 
 the Boulevards from which usually little danger is anticipated 
 in revolutionary times. It was not till two tremendous volleys 
 of musketry made the boulevard ring again that we became 
 aware of the peril to which we stood exposed, and scrambled 
 through the windows of the premier Stage. To our astonish- 
 ment and no small discomfort, our escape from the balcony had 
 only interposed the walls and windows between our persons 
 and the threatened danger. The fire was now immediately 
 directed against the house in which we were ; and the smashing 
 of windows speedily incited to a move upstairs, where it was 
 imagined we should be out of immediate peril. No such thing, 
 however. Musket-shots penetrated even the bed-room of M. 
 Brandus. The consternation was as general as the cause of the 
 aggression was incomprehensible. 
 
 " In a short time, while everybody was doing his best to get 
 out of reach of the shot, the screams of the female servants 
 in the lower department of the house, announced a fresh event, 
 and the shouts of a hundred voices outside, ci-ying *' Ouvrez! 
 Quvrez ! declared the intentions of the military to enter the 
 building. No one daring to descend to obey the mandate, after 
 a short period the door was broken open ; then a number of 
 soldiers rushed up-stairs, and demolishing every obstacle, 
 searched each room in succession, until they approached the 
 " quatrieme etage^'' where M. Brandus and his friends had 
 repaired for safety. There information was given that a shot 
 had been fired from the house upon the troops, and that the 
 business of the invaders was to visit every apartment and 
 examine the persons of all present. The scrutiny proved un- 
 availing, but the soldiers insisting upon the fact of the shot 
 having proceeded from the house, the whole party was forth- 
 with arrested and taken before the general on the Boulevards. 
 One of them, happened, luckily, to be M. Sax, the well-known 
 inventor and manufacturer of the instruments that bear his 
 name. Being recognized by the general, the protest of M. 
 Sax was accepted, and the party allowed to escape into the 
 * Passage de I'Opera,' but not to re-enter the ho^ise. 
 
 " It afterwards appeared that the suspected shot was attri- 
 buted to the house next door to that of M. Brandus, and subse- 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. lOS 
 
 quently to the * Cafe Anglais,' which was, in its turn, almost 
 demolished. 
 
 " Whether, on such a shallow pretext, the house of a peace- 
 able citizen ought to be destroyed, the lives of its occupants 
 endangered, and a heavy loss entailed upon its proprietor for 
 repaii-s, I leave for those whom it concerns to answer. The 
 search for arms could surely have been effected without shat- 
 tering the windows of the house with fusillades. How con- 
 temptihle must the explorers have felt when they discovered 
 nothing better in the whole building than a rust j fusil, unfit 
 for use, which had served M. Brandus in 1848, when he offi- 
 ciated as one of the most zealous and active officers of the 
 * Garde Nationale,' and helped to maintain peace and tranquil- 
 lity in the capital ! " 
 
 Another correspondent of the Times wrote (No. of the 13th 
 of December) : " To give any true idea of the number of persons 
 killed and wounded is impossible, since there is no available 
 means of making facts public. Among the deaths which have 
 caused the most regret is that of M. Jollivard, the landscape 
 painter, who, quietly occupied in his artistic labours (at his 
 lodgings near the Boulevard Bonne-nouvelle) was struck by a 
 bullet, which killed him on the spot. In the house at the 
 corner of the Rue de Richelieu, the attack upon which was 
 minutely described by one of your correspondents, Louis, an old 
 servant of M. Brandus. was shot dead, at the very moment when 
 that gentleman and his friends had rushed upstau's into an 
 adjoining room for shelter. The windows of the room in 
 which the deceased was killed, were all broken, and the balls 
 entered the room in all directions, which may be plainly per- 
 ceived by the marks on the walls. 
 
 " The Hotel de Castillo was also entered by the soldiery. 
 Whether the troops were really fired upon from any house 
 whatever, on the Boulevard des Italiens, appears to be a matter 
 of much doubt, although many state that it was positively the 
 case from the * Cercle Grammont.' That the reprisals of the 
 troops were indiscriminate, however, is beyond a question, and 
 for this reason they were indefensible. 
 
 " The general before whom M. Brandus and his party w^ere 
 taken was L. Reybell, who is said to have observed to one of 
 the party : * JEt moi aussi je fais un pen de musique en ce mo- 
 ment,'' a very apt pleasantry at such a time." 
 
 This correspondent of the Times ought to have added that 
 
104 ANNEXES. 
 
 the jocular General Reybell was completely drunk, according 
 to his wont. 
 
 Is that enough of savage firing for a single supposed shot? 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an 
 alliance ! 
 
 It is impossible not to believe those narrators, for besides 
 their personal disinterestedness as foreigners, it is difficult to 
 be less impassioned than they seem to be. But the following 
 letter also must be read from Mr. William Jesse, captain 
 in the service of the Queen, inserted in the Times of 
 December 13, 1851. Captain Jesse resided on the Boulevard 
 Montmartre, and at the corner of the Rue Montmartre, in 
 an hotel, whence the^eye reached from the Rue Richelieu to 
 the farthest end of the Boulevard Bonne-nouvelle. He saw a 
 great deal : — 
 
 " At half-past 2 on the 4th of December, the guns were dis- 
 tinctly heard in the direction of the Faubourg Saint Denis at 
 three o'clock. I went to the balcony, at which my wife was 
 standing, and remained there watching the troops. The whole 
 boulevard, as far as the eye could reach, was crowded with 
 them, artillery , infantry, in subdivisions, at quarter distance, with 
 here and there a batch of 12-pounders and howitzers, some of 
 which occupied the rising ground of the Boulevard Poissonniere. 
 The officers were smoking their cigars. The windows were 
 crowded with people, principally women, tradesmen, servants, 
 and children, or, like ourselves, the occupants of apartments. 
 Suddenly, as I was intently looking with my glass at the 
 troops in the distance eastward, a few musket-shots were fired 
 at the head of the column, which consisted of about 3000 men. 
 In a few moments it spread, and, after hanging a little, came 
 down the boulevard in a waving sheet of flame. So regular, 
 however, was the fire, that at first I thought it was a feu de 
 Joie for some barricade taken in advance, or to signal their 
 position to some other division ; and it was not till it came 
 within fifty yards of me that I recognized the sharp, ringing 
 report of ball-cartridge; but even then I could scarcely 
 believe the evidence of my ears, for, as to my eyes, I could not 
 discover any enemy to fire at; and I continued looking at the 
 men until the company below me were actually raising their 
 firelocks, and one vagabond, sharper than the rest, — a mere 
 lad, without either whisker or moustache, — had covered me. 
 In an instant I dashed my wife, who had just stepped back. 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. lOo 
 
 -against the pier between the windows, when a shot struck the 
 ceiling" immediately over our heads, and covered us with dust 
 and broken plaster. In a second after, I placed her upon the 
 floor, and in another a volley came against the whole front of the 
 house, the balcony, and windows ; one shot broke the mirror 
 over the chimney-piece, another the shade of the clock; every 
 pane of glass but one was smashed, the curtains and window- 
 frames cut ; the room, in short, was riddled. The iron balcony, 
 though rather low, was a great protection ; still, Jive halls 
 entered the room, and in the pause for reloading I drew my 
 wife to the door, and took refuge in the back-rooms of the 
 house. The rattle of musketry was incessant for more than a 
 quarter of an hour after this ! and in a very few minutes the 
 guns were unlimherecL and pointed at the ' magasin ' of M. SaU 
 landrouze, five houses on our right. 
 
 " What the object or meaning of all this might be, was a 
 perfect enigma to every individual in the house, French or 
 foreigner. Some thought the troops had turned round and 
 joined the Reds* others suggested that they must have been 
 fired upon somewhere, though they certainly had not from our 
 house, or any other 07i the Boulevard Montmartre, or we must 
 have seen it from the balcony. Besides which, in the temper in 
 which the soldiers proved to be, had that been the case, they 
 would never have waited for any signal from the head of the 
 column 800 yards off. This wanton fusillade must have been 
 the result of a panic, lest the windows should have been lined 
 with concealed enemies, and they wanted to secure their skins 
 by the first fire, or it was a sanguinary impulse ; either motive 
 being equally discreditable to them as soldiers in the one case, 
 or citizens in the other. As a military man, it is with the 
 deepest regret that I feel compelled to entertain the latter 
 opinion. 
 
 *' The men, as I have already stated, fired volley upon volley 
 for more than a quarter of an hour without any return ; they 
 shot down many of the unhappy individuals who remained on 
 the boulevard, and could not obtain an entrance into any 
 house ; some persons were killed close to our door, and their 
 
 * This supposition is very offensive to the " Reds/* and con- 
 sequently is an absurd one ; but we willingly forgive it to 
 Captain Jesse, since he has been candid enough to make public 
 the assassinations perpetrated by the '* Non-Reds." 
 
106 ANNEXES. 
 
 blood lay in tlie hollows round the trees the next morning 
 when we passed at 12 o'clock. The Boulevards and the ad- 
 jacent streets were at some points a perfect shamble. That 
 picture has been engraved by the bayonet in the minds of the 
 people inhabiting this quarter of Paris, who cannot but dread 
 for the future the protection of their own soldiers. 
 
 " The soldiers entered houses whence no shots ever came ; and 
 though * La Patrie,^ the newspaper of the Elysee, pretended to 
 specify them by name, it was, in a subsequent number, 
 obliged to deny its own scandalous imputations. But let us 
 admit that a few shots were fired from two or three houses on 
 the other boulevard — that a few French soldiers were killed : 
 was that a reason for this murderous onslaught on the houses 
 and persons of their fellow-citizens to the extent of nearly a 
 mile of one of their most populous thoroughfares ? 
 
 ** The loss of innocent lives must have been great, very great, 
 more than ever will be known. 
 
 "Signed, William Jesse, 
 
 Ingatestone, Essex." 
 
 Those are the men with w^hom England enters into an 
 alliance ! 
 
 If Captain Jesse should join the English expedition to the 
 East, he may perhaps be commanded by the very individual 
 wiio ordered him as well as his wife to be shot at ! For, 
 indeed, it was the cowardly General Canrobert who occupied 
 the Boulevard Poissonniere, and commanded M. Sallandrouze's 
 warehouse to be cannonaded. 
 
 The Patrie alleges that there had been some provocatio7i, that 
 the troops had been fired upon ; but it does not deny the abomi- 
 nable Bonapartizades committed by the soldiers, even so far as 
 inside some houses. Let civilized Europe listen to the account 
 of the Elysean paper : " A fire of tirailleurs, SUPPORTED by a 
 HOWITZER, was instantaneously dii'ected against the houses 
 whence the firing had proceeded. The windows and fronts 
 were partly destroyed. Then, some detachments entered the 
 houses, and put to the sword every person who was found 
 concealed in them. Six individuals in blouses, who were dis- 
 covered behind carpets which they had heaped up so as to 
 avoid the bullets of the troops, and to fire upon these without 
 danger, were shot on the staircase of the Joannes house, 
 which is now a depot of carpets from the Sallandrouze manu- 
 factory. Several scenes of a similar nature occurred in the 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. lOY 
 
 neighbourhood of the theatre of the Varietes, and the troops 
 SETTLED IT ALL RIGHT with their assassins" 
 
 " The troops settled it all right with their assassins ! " 
 Could it he declared with a more odious cruelty, that the 
 troops had indiscriminately butchered all that had fallen within 
 their reach ? 
 
 Admitting even that the troops were fired upon : in what 
 civilized country does a government, and specially a govern- 
 ment risen in insurrection, demolish with cannon houses 
 whence a few shots may have proceeded? Bat the terrorists 
 have not even the paltry excuse with which they seek to 
 shield themselves. The three correspondents of the Times 
 who have just been heard, each of them assuredly quite disin- 
 terested in the question, since they are foreigners, and, more- 
 over, "hostile to the Red Republicans," concur in saying 
 that not one shot was fired from the windows. The Patrie, 
 as Captain Jesse relates, was compelled to recant its own 
 statements on this point; and at leugth, it is inadmissible that 
 a gentleman should have been so crazy as to fire from his own 
 drawing-room, alone as he was, upon the masses of soldiers 
 who thronged the carriage-way, and particularly so on the 
 part of M. Sallandrouze, a manufacturer notorious as a 
 ** friend to order," allied to the Elysee. Could tw^o or three 
 shots, besides, fired on the Boulevards Poissonniere and des 
 Italiens, account for that " waving sheet of flame " which 
 Captain Jesse saw coming down from the Boulevard Bonne- 
 nouvelle to the corner of the Rue Montmartre, where he 
 resided ? 
 
 No; that huge massacre, for which an army entering a 
 town taken by storm would blush, has been perpetrated with- 
 out provocation of any sort whatever. It was an atrocious 
 means coolly employed in order to stupify the various classes of 
 the population, which exhibited dispositions to resistance. 
 This is what is also asserted by another English gentleman, 
 Mr. Bayle St. John, in his work entitled * Purple Tints ' (vol. 
 ii. page 319). 
 
 " The 3rd of December, towards evening, Paris somewhat 
 recovered the elasticity of its mind. I went, with a small 
 party, in the direction of the Boulevards. The entrance to the 
 Carrousel was stopped up by lines of soldiers. Artillery occu- 
 pied the place. We walked round by St. Germain FAuxerrois 
 to the Palais Royal. The court was filled with soldiers, hi- 
 
108 ANNEXES. 
 
 vouacking in the open air. Everything showed that Paris was 
 in the hands of a pretorian insurrection. When we reached 
 the Boulevards, they were absolutely crammed from side to 
 side. I was surprised to find here no trace of the fear of the 
 morning. The people seemed to have awakened as from a 
 dream. They could scarcely believe the possibility of what 
 had happened. The words ' perjurer,' ' usurper,' * tyrant,' 
 were bandied about as freely as if there were nothing to 
 dread. The uppermost feeling, however, seemed not to be 
 anger, but contempt. There were more jokes than menaces. 
 The general impression was, thai? it was impossible so violent 
 an act could be tolerated for more than twenty-four hours ; 
 and that as soon as France had time to collect its ideas it 
 would shake off so stupid a usurpation with the utmost ease. 
 Two or three, perhaps a dozen, individuals, in the crowd 
 through which we passed from the Hue Vivienne to the 
 Porte St. Martin, ventured to raise their voices in favour of the 
 coup d'etat. They were instantly silenced. Just as we 
 reached the Porte St. Denis, a column of infantry was march- 
 ing down amidst a perfect hurricane of exclamations on either 
 hand : * A has le tyran ! a has le parjure ! ' 
 
 " It was the experience of that evening that convinced the 
 •new government that, although threatening words might 
 strike terror for a time into all, yet, in order to demoralize the 
 nation completely, it was necessary that blood should be shed 
 in a sufficiently public and unscrupulous manner to produce 
 the impression that they were determined to shrink from 
 nothing. Then was formed the scheme of that bloody massacre 
 by which, on the next day but one, Paris was frightened into 
 a submission from which it has not yet escaped. I make 
 this proviso, because I meet some people who still affect to 
 disbelieve in the fact of a massacre, and who pretend that the 
 whole affair was an ordinary emeute. To convince these 
 sceptics is, perhaps, impossible. However, the official returns 
 of the killed on the army side are eloquent. They state that 
 only twenty-four soldiers and one officer lost their lives, 
 ^vhilst the lowest estimate of the loss on the side of the 
 supposed insurgents is a thousand. In all other cases, when 
 the people have fought behind barricades, their loss has been 
 less than that of the troops." 
 
 From these various testimonies, which cannot be of du- 
 bious veracity in the appreciation of an English reader, since 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. 109 
 
 they come from countrymen of his, it is plain that the Decem- 
 briseurs are not only rebels who have vanquished through 
 open violence, with arms in their hands, but assassins who 
 have perpetrated deliberately, at a pre-fixed hour, a wholesale 
 carnage of peaceful citizens, with a view to succeed in their 
 attempt against the public liberties. 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an 
 alliance ! 
 
 In order that England may still better be edified as to 
 what those gory days were, we will place under her eyes 
 two episodes related by Captain Mauduit, an historian worthy 
 of the subject, being one as little French in point of style as 
 in point of feeling : — 
 
 " On the 3rd of December, towards half-past ten in the 
 evening, Colonel Rochefort, of the 1st Lancers, received an 
 order to go with two squadrons only, to maintain the com- 
 munication on the Boulevards, from the Rue de la Paix to 
 the Boulevard du Temple. The colonel, foreseeing what 
 would happen, had forewarned his detachment not to be sur- 
 prised at the crowd they would have to pass through, or at 
 the cries uttered. He issued orders to his Lancers to remain 
 calm and passive till the moment when he should command a 
 charge: and, when once the fight was begun, to spare no one 
 whatever. He had scarcely reached the boulevard, at the corner 
 of the Rue de la Paix, when he found himself in presence of an 
 immense concourse of the population, evincing the most decided 
 hostility, under cover of the cry, ' Vive la Republique ! ' These 
 predetermined shouts were accompanied with threatening 
 gestures. 
 
 *' With his eye and his ear on the alert, and thereby prepared 
 to order a charge at the first seditious cry, the colonel continued 
 to advance slowly, pursued by frightful howling, to the 
 Boulevard du Temple. The colonel having received an order to 
 charge all groups which he might meet on the carriage way, 
 EMPLOYED A ' RUSE DE GUERRE,' the result of which was, to 
 punish a certain number of those bawlers in paletots. 
 
 " In order to put them on a wrong scent, and make them 
 believe he was engaged somewhere near the Bastille, he con- 
 cealed his squadrons, for a few moments, near the Chateau 
 d'Eau; and then making a. sudden half-turn without being 
 perceived, and ordering the trumpeters and vanguard to fall 
 again in line, he recommenced a slow march, till he reached 
 
110 ANNEXES. 
 
 the thickest part of that compact and innumerable crowd, with 
 the intention of cutting through all who might oppose his 
 passage. 'I'he most audacious, emboldened, perhaps, by the 
 pacific appearance of those two squadrons, placed themselves 
 in front of the colonel, and uttered the insulting cries of ' Vive 
 TAssemblee Nationalel ! ! Abas les traitres! ' Viewing those cries 
 as a provocation, Colonel E-ochefort rushed, like an infuriated 
 lion, to the group whence it had come, striking with point, 
 blade, and lance. Several corpses remained on the ground. 
 
 " In those groups there were "hwifew individuals in blouses, ' 
 
 " The Lancers endured this hard moral ordeal with admirable 
 calmness" — [Revolution Militaire du 2 Decembre, pp. 176 — 
 178.) 
 
 Thus they were already making a prelude, on the third of 
 December, to the massacres which were to take place on the 
 fourth. 
 
 What would seem almost incredible, did we not know how 
 those people are struck by the dizziness of blood, — the slaugh- 
 terers themselves, with big epaulets, and their panegyrists, 
 are profuse in recounting the feelings of grief and astonish- 
 ment experienced by the unfortunate soldiers who were em- 
 ployed in such an atrocious work. " The Lancers endured this 
 hard inoral ordeal with admirable calmness, their confidence 
 was not shaken for a single instant." M. Mauduit consequently 
 sees that there is something extraordinary in these barbarous 
 deeds, and in the calmness with which the executioners endured 
 the moral ordeal of committing them. He declares that the 
 soldiers, although moved, did not lose their confidence in the 
 chief who caused them to shed innocent blood ! Whither will 
 such confidence and calmness lead the French army ? 
 
 Will not a day come when mankind will have passed 
 through its state of childhood ? Will not a day come when 
 the Lancers will refuse to apply the energy of their mind, to 
 killing unwillingly their unarmed fellow citizens, merely be- 
 cause a colonel may order them to do so ! 
 
 But what can we think of that enlightened, well-educated 
 man, occupying one of the highest ranks in the army, who at 
 the head of two powerful squadrons seeks for blood to shed, like 
 a famished tiger ; who employs a " ruse de guerrej'' in order to 
 bring on a dreadful slaughter; who hides his horses and lances, 
 in order to lay a snare for inoffensive citizens ; and who, sud- 
 denly, after having prescribed to his satellites, not to spare 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. lU 
 
 ANY ONE, rushes on unarmed and defenceless citizens, and 
 leaves on the ground the dead bodies of those who had been 
 misguided by his sanguinary stratagem ? 
 
 This Rochefort is a real Bonapartist Trestaillon.* Here is 
 the other exploit of his, narrated likewise by his friend 
 Captain Mauduit : — 
 
 " On the 4th of December, at the corner of the Rue Taitbout, 
 Colonel Rochefort noticed a considerable crowd both at the en- 
 trance of the street and on the footway near Tortoni's. These 
 men were all well dressed ; several were armed.f On his 
 making his appearance, the war-cries were heard which had 
 been adopted for the last two days, of * Vive la Republique ! 
 Vive la Constitution ! A has le Dictateur ! ' At this last cry, 
 with the rapidity of lightning, at a single bound. Colonel 
 Rochefort jumped over the chairs and the footway, and rushed 
 to the midst of the group, where he soon cleared the space 
 around him. His Lancers galloped after him, one of his adju- 
 tants struck down two individuals with his sabre : in a twink- 
 ling of an eye the crowd was dispersed. All who could fly 
 decamped in all directions, leaving a good number on the 
 ground. — The colonel went on driving before him all he met. 
 He encountered no opposition till he reached the Faubourg 
 Poissonniere. There, he began to experience a fire from the 
 windows.^ The infantry returned the fire. He made a charge, 
 himself at the head of a small detachment, and about thirty 
 corpses remained on the ground, ahnost all dressed in fine 
 clothes^ — [Revolution Militaire du 2 Decemhre, pp. 217 and 
 218.) 
 
 Read the Latin historians ; you will not find so hateful a 
 page in the sack of Rome by the Barbarians. 
 
 * Trestaillon, who persecuted and murdered the Bonapartists 
 in the south of France after the restoration of the Bourbons. 
 
 t M. Mauduit, in saying that these well-dressed men were 
 armed, evidently endeavours to palliate the baseness of the act 
 which he cries up. It is clear that no one would have been 
 mad enough to come with arms on the Boulevards in public,- 
 and in presence of 50,000 troops. 
 
 X Once more ; even had a few shots been fired, this would by 
 no means constitute an excuse for the massacre of thirty persons ; 
 but we have proved above that this attack is a mere contrivance. 
 
llSl ANNEXES. 
 
 And take heed of this, Englishmen, the facts we here 
 adduce are related not by us, but by a courtier of the army of 
 December, whose book has been published in Paris ! You 
 cannot therefore surmise their minute accuracy. You shudder 
 at them ; well, know this, namely, that the same Rochefort, 
 as a requital for such services, has been raised to the rank of 
 general by your ally ! . . A noble ally, forsooth ; it was 
 he who wrote, adverting to the uncle's reign — " The imperial 
 eagle never was soiled with French blood, shed by French 
 soldiers," ( Works of L. N. Bonaparte, vol. i., p. 287,) and who 
 now rewards murderous colonels and counts to the French 
 troops the massacres of December as a year's service ! . . . . 
 
 That women themselves were not spared in those cold- 
 blooded butcheries, is also a fact which the Bonapartist writer 
 undertakes with abominable delight to authenticate : ** The 
 usual population of the Boulevards (that is, the bourgeoisie) 
 will not so soon forget the charges of the 1st Lancers, and will 
 know that, if there be any courage in fighting on a barricade, 
 firing /rom the farthest end of a snug drawing-room* or even 
 from behind the breast of a pretty woman, against troops 
 armed solely with spears and pistols, is not an act which can 
 always be perpetrated with impunity. Many a bravo of this 
 kind has paid dearly for his insults and firings a la Jarnac ; 
 MANY AN AMAZON of the Boulevards has likewise paid 
 DEARLY for her imprudent collusion with that new sort of 
 barricade. May they profit thereby, as a lesson for the future ! " 
 (Mauduit, page 278.) 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an alli- 
 ance ! 
 
 Neither the invasion of 1814, nor that of 1815, exhibited, 
 by far, the character of savage cruelty for which the invasion 
 of 1851 is notorious. The Prussian and the Cossack generals • 
 had not declared, in the proclamations to their armies, " that 
 every citizen found with arms in his hands, or helping in a 
 work of defence, would be shot immediately." This is what 
 M. St. Arnaud, the Minister-at-War of December, did ; and it 
 is but too true that he found French officers to obey him. The 
 general-in-chief of the new barbarians said, without the least 
 
 * M. Mauduit still takes here for granted that somebody fired 
 from the windows ; is it necessary for us to repeat over again 
 that this allegation is as devoid of truth as it is of likelihood ? 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. 113^ 
 
 shame, speaking of their operations in the Quartier Beaubourg : 
 " All obstacles were removed by merely running through them, '. 
 and those who defended them were passed to the sword." 
 {Report of General Magnan on the Affrays of December^ 
 Momteur of Dec. 9, 1851.) 
 
 The Patrie of December 6, also says, speaking of the barri- 
 cade of the Porte St. Martin, taken after two assaults : " Our 
 
 troops HAVE NOT SPARED ONE INSURGENT." 
 
 But not only did they Bonapartize every good citizen 
 vanquished and made prisoner on the field of battle ; the 
 combat once at an end, they no more spared those they man- 
 aged to catch ! It is here again one of theirs who avows it : 
 *' On the 4th of December, about nine o'clock in the evening, 
 a column of the 51st took, not without losses, all the barricades 
 which had just been raised in the rues Montorgueil and 
 du Petit-Carreau. Searches were immediately ordered to be 
 effected in the public houses : a hundred prisoners were made 
 in them, the most part of whom had their hands still black 
 with gunpowder, an evident proof of their participation in the 
 contest. How then was it possible not to execute, with regard 
 to A GOOD MANY OF THEM, the terrible prescriptions of the state 
 of siege f (Mauduit, Revolution Militaire, &.c,, page 248.) 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an alli- 
 ance ! Like cannibals, they kill their prisoners ; like cannibals, 
 they know of no other warfare than extermination. 
 
 But consider whether they be not more ferocious still than 
 cannibals. Listen to the narrative of one of their organs, the 
 Moniteur Parisien (of Dec. 6) : — " A man, formerly belonging 
 to the Parisian police, was passing to-day, at about two- o'clock 
 p.m., on the Pont St. Michel, when he threatened the 
 guards who were standing sentry on that spot. On his 
 being arrested, and taken to the Prefecture of Police 
 ammunitions of war and two poniards were found in his 
 possession.* As he offered a vigorous resistance to the guards 
 
 * To hear the journals of the invasion, those unfortunate men 
 who are murdered by authority, have always poniards about 
 them. This individual had two ; the woman shot by the 36th 
 of the line had no less than twenty-five. We have but one word 
 to say to that : it is, that a poniard is an arm almost entirely 
 unknown in our country ; without cabinets of curiosities, there 
 are perhaps not so many as twenty-seven poniards in all Prance. 
 
 I 
 
114 ANNEXES. 
 
 tvho led him away^ persisting in his bullying and menacing 
 even the life of the guardians of the law, the officer of the 
 station * ORDERED HIM TO BE SHOT hy two of his soldiers, at 
 the corner of the rue de Jerusale?n. He had a wound in his 
 right arm, and his hands were still all begrimed with the 
 gunpowder of the barricades." 
 
 It is useless for any one to say that that unfortunate man's 
 hands were still all begrimed with the gunpowder of the 
 barricades, when for twenty-four hours there had no longer 
 been any barricades ; it is useless to say that, alone as he was, 
 and with two poniards about him, he insulted a whole body of 
 soldiers ; we inquire what difference there is between this 
 infernal murder and that of General Brea, so much and so per- 
 fidiously taken advantage of by the reactionary party against 
 the Republic, albeit it was committed by Bonapartists ? f 
 
 O you, Englishmen, who rightfully carry the respect of 
 personal liberty so far as to release a thief caught flagrante 
 delicto, if nobody will accept the responsibility of his arrest- 
 ation by incriminating him, are you not struck with horror at 
 this puny chef de poste who, on his own authority, shoots a 
 citizen at the corner of a street, because the unfortunate man 
 may have offered some resistance, or employed some abusive 
 language at the time he was being arrested ? 
 
 Those are the meji with whom England enters into an alli- 
 ance ! 
 
 How could the soldiers consent to fill these executioner's 
 offices, when they had not the incentive of promotion and pecu- 
 niary remuneration which their chiefs found therein? One 
 would almost be at a loss to imagine it, were it not knowm how 
 sovereign and besotting are the effects of passive obedience. 
 Besides, in order that their consciences should not shrink 
 from the most frightful services which were required of them, 
 their chiefs, who did not shrink from the most hellish con- 
 
 * Chef de paste ; it is the commander of those sorts of military 
 police stations, termed in France pastes or corps de garde, which 
 are, in every arro^idissement of large towns, respectively under 
 the immediate authority of a commissaire de police, and have to 
 take delinquents into custody at the requisition of the injured 
 parties. 
 
 t We have proved this fact in our History of the Crimes of the 
 2nd December. — See also Annex No. III. 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. 115 
 
 ceptions, drowned them in potations. It is a fact, and one but 
 too true, that the army of Paris, in December, were seized 
 with a kind of frantic mania : the drunkenness produced by- 
 alcohol and gunpowder had deprived them of all human sense.. 
 A scene of carnage, related by the official newspaper, th€ 
 Moniteur (Dec. 9), will show that they had no longer any con- 
 trol over themselves : — 
 
 "A bookseller, M. Lefilleul, established for several years 
 past on the Boulevard Poissonniere, was occupied in closing 
 his shop, a little before the commencement of the drama of the 
 4:th December, when a pistol-shot fired by a clerk belong- 
 ing to the neighbourhood, on a trumpeter of the line, dis- 
 persed the crowd around the house and left an opening for the 
 insurgent to enter the shop. He was closely followed by the 
 trumpeter, who succeeded in stretching him dead on the ground 
 behind a counter, hut fell himself on the corpse. Other soldiers 
 came to his rescue, and wounded the unfortunate bookseller, 
 who had seen nothing, but whom they took for an adversary. 
 A dreadful struggle then took place between M. Lefilleui 
 and a captain. The former was again twice wounded in 
 the thigh and in the arm, but the latter fell dead under 
 the thrusts of the soldiers who endeavoured to defend him, 
 M. Lefilleul, who, notwithstanding his wounds, still retained 
 his strength and his presence of mind, profited by this terrible 
 moment to free himself, and get out of the shop, leaving 
 behind him three dead bodies. It is to be hoped that the 
 life of M. Lefilleul, an honest tradesman, and a complete 
 stranger to political passions, may be saved." 
 
 The assassins, in their rage, killed one another ! 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an alli- 
 ance! 
 
 How many human lives has the butchery on the Boule- 
 vards sacrificed? It will perhaps never be ascertained. 
 In a statistical return of the dead in consequence of the 
 coup d'etat, given as authentic by the Prefecture of Police, 
 and published by M. P. Mayer, we find fifty names with 
 this note : " Killed on the Boulevard des Italians, Mont- 
 martre, or Poissonniere." If the conspirators themselves 
 own fifty victims, we may safely affirm that the real 
 number is at least twice or thrice that: we have just seen 
 that, according to Capt. Mauduit's own statement, his worthy 
 friend Colonel Rochefort butchered thirty persons in a solitary 
 
116 ANNEXES. 
 
 circumstance. But let us admit, as it stands, the estimate of 
 the factious. How will they ever be able to clear themselves 
 from the shedding of such a quantity of blood in the midst of 
 that part of Paris, the most wealthy and the most peaceful, 
 and one besides, where, as is agreed on all hands, not one 
 single barricade was raised, nor the slightest resistance 
 attempted ? And do you know what they say ? They say 
 that if fifty inoffensive persons were struck down dead, it 
 was their own fault! Hear on this point the confident 
 of the Shell-President, the most intimate historiographer of 
 the faction of slaughterers : — " The proclamation of M. Maupas 
 was intended, as it ought to have been, to tell every one except 
 the deaf and blind, * There will be to-day a great fight, let 
 those who do not wish to be killed abstain from going to th€ 
 field of the conflict.' This document answers, and has answered, 
 all the reproaches of inhumanity , all the declamation about the 
 shedding of innocent blood, which adverse political parties, 
 since the fatal fight of the Boulevard Poissonniere, have tried 
 to raise against the government." " The Prefect of Police had 
 said clearly to everybody : * Do not go on the Boulevards, /or 
 any gathering together of the people will be dispersed by force 
 of arms, and without previous summons, &c.' That says every- 
 thing, and justifies everything !" (P. Mayer, Histoire du 
 2 Decembre, pages 151 and 171.) 
 
 The saviours of society have no other funeral oration than 
 this to pronounce over ^^ fifty or sixty unfortunate victims" 
 (P.. Mayer) immolated without distinction of age or sex ! 
 
 Those are the men with w^hom England enters into an 
 alliance ! 
 
 And do not think that Paris alone has been the spectator and 
 the victim of those barbarities appertaining to another epoch. 
 The government, rebelled against the people, had breathed 
 everywhere the spirit of hatred and homicide into its military 
 agents. These did not observe, in the departments, with a less 
 savage punctuality the watch- w^ord ' shoot and terrorize ' 
 — Kill ! Kill ! Kill ! as said the English eye-witness, Mr. 
 St. John. There also, it was with cannon that they over- 
 came the resistance of the populations which had risen for 
 the vindication of their rights and the Constitution. Let us 
 quote : — 
 
 " The insurgents — [in the provinces, as well as in Paris, the 
 rebels of the 2nd of December affect to give this name, which 
 
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS OF THE ASSASSINS. ll? 
 
 they aloiie deserve, to the citizens armed for the defence of the 
 laws] — the insurgents, at a mile and a quarter from Crest 
 (Drome), were seen deploying in long files to the right and left 
 of the reconnoitring party ; their numbers were not less than 
 eighteen hundred or two thousand, and their cries and threats 
 could be distinctly heard. Two liowitzer shots, well aimed, 
 stopped them at first. But the firing soon began, and two of 
 the artillery horses wei-e wounded. These madmen, advancing 
 with great courage to turn the position, the commander ordered 
 a retreat, and fortified himself strongly in a barricade forming 
 a ' tete de pont ' on a bridge over the Drome, where the eight- 
 pounder stood ready to fire. 
 
 '' The howitzer was placed on the interior quay of the town, 
 so as to command the road. The defenders of the other 
 works around the town, also occupied their assigned points, 
 and all stood ready to do their duty. 
 
 " Twenty minutes afterwards, a column of insurgents pre- 
 sented itself in good order, and advanced in a compact mass to 
 debouche on the little square where was situated the first barri- 
 cade, on the bridge. The howitzer fired, and the grape shot, at 
 less than two hundred yards, did great execution. A great num- 
 ber of the enemy fell, and from that moment the road was aban- 
 doned, and no band dared to show itself on it. But other crowds 
 of insurgents had reached the banks of the Drome, and were 
 resolutely advancing over the dyke. The howitzer was then 
 pointed on that side, &c." — [Report of General Lapene, De- 
 cember 13.) • 
 
 " The insurgents of Clamecy sent some of theirs to parley 
 who were not listened to, and then a reconnoitring party, who 
 were seized and shot. They then decided on attacking the 
 troops," &c. — [Patrie, 15th December.) 
 
 " They write from Aups, 12th of December : The rebels fled 
 across the fields, and the 100 horsemen who were joined with 
 the infantry, pursued them, and made a great slaughter 
 OF THEM. On the roads to Lorgues, Salern«, Tourtour, and 
 Aups, the bodies of many insurgents were found. The column 
 
 SHOT ALMOST ALL THE REBELS IT MET WITH. The troOpS 
 
 were at a short distance from Aups, when they perceived a 
 man on horseback, who, on seeing them, started off at full 
 gallop. The horsemen rushed after him, overtook him, and 
 discovered him to be an estafet, who was going to announce 
 their arrival to the insurgents. To take him and SHOOT HIM, 
 occupied butun instant J^ (Moniteur, 17th December.) 
 
118 ANNEXES. 
 
 ** Marseilles, 12tli of December : — All the news received from 
 the reconnoitring columns, in the Basses-Alpes and in the Var, 
 are most favourable : wherever they meet hands of insurgents 
 they attack them and put to the swoud aU those who are taken 
 with arms in their handsP [Constitutionnel, 16th December.) 
 
 " Informed at midnight, by a gendarme who had been shot 
 at, that there was, at two-thirds of a mile fram Avignon, an 
 assemblage who were waiting for the hands from Apt, I sent 
 a troop of infantry and cavalry to disperse them. The chief 
 
 RECEIVED AN ORDER TO SHOOT EVERY INDIVIDUAL TAKEN 
 
 WITH ARMS IN HIS HANDS. Having heard at Lisle (near 
 Avignon) that there were some bands in the neighbourhood of 
 Cavaillon, Commander De France went to look for them ; he 
 met one near Cavaillon, killed a few men, took back the 
 standards taken from the mairie of Lisle, and ordered two 
 OR THREE INDIVIDUALS TO BE SHOT who fell into his hands" 
 {Report of General d'Antist, 7th of December ; Patrie, 19th of 
 December.) 
 
 " At St. Etienne, the column of Commander Vinoy has also 
 made valuahle captures ; EIGHT individuals, caught, arms in 
 hand, have been shot on the spot." [Patrie, 22nd of Decem- 
 ber.) 
 
 " Nevers, 8th December : Some disturbances have taken 
 place at Neury ; a small parish in the arrondissement of 
 Cosne. They have been repressed vigorously. Three insur- 
 gents seized with anns in their hands have heen SHOT." [Jour- 
 nal de Lot-et- Garonne, 11th of December.) 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an 
 alliance ! 
 
 By what has just been read, any one may judge of the 
 amount of cowardice and ferocity which has signalized the 
 invasion of the Bonapartists in France. Now, tell us, was 
 there ever one savage tribe on earth, one horde of barbarians, 
 that committed more hideous acts ? In contempt of every 
 honest feeling, they have treacherously turned against the 
 Republic the armed forces which it had entrusted to them 
 that they might protect her. In contempt of all the laws of 
 war, they, the very insurgents, who declared that " they were 
 not within the precincts of legality," have unmercifully mas- 
 sacred the defenders of the Constitution, who had fallen into 
 their hands ! And they confess it, they subscribe their names 
 to it!! . . . Ah! whatever may chance to happen to us, 
 nothing in the world will be able to hinder us from saying ; 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (ST. ARNAUD.) 119 
 
 The people which forms an alliance with those butchers, all 
 dripping with the blood of estafets, of reconnoitring parties, 
 and of prisoners, deeply stains its national honour. . . . 
 
 It will perhaps be marvelled at, that the Decembriseurs have 
 so frequently published their homicidal deeds. In order to be 
 in a position to account for this cynicism of murder, one ought 
 to recollect that their object was to strike France with un- 
 heard-of terror. There was no other means of securing their 
 domination in that country. It was therefore required, for such 
 a design, not only to slaughter anybody whatever who should 
 oppose them, but also to show openly, and in the face of all, 
 that they were slaughterers. Their ambition was to behold 
 every one trembling at their approach as at the approach of the 
 executioner. 
 
 We are far from having stated all on the subject, but we 
 could not, without exceeding the usual limits of a pamphlet, 
 multiply these gory citations. Those we have brought forward, 
 besides, are, but too unfortunately, sufficient for our purpose. 
 
 We here claim anew the attention of the English people, for 
 we are anxious to convince them : They should not be forgetful 
 of the fact, that we have made it binding upon ourselves, 
 throughout this account, to record exclusively the personal 
 CONFESSIONS of the criminals. Not one, positively not one, of 
 those dreadful barbarities can therefore be denied or doubted 
 as having no other guarantee than the word of an enemy. We 
 have let the slaughterers themselves speak, in the intoxication 
 of their fury. It is now for England to say whether she chooses 
 to strengthen, by her alliance, for any aim whatever, a 
 government of assassins whose avowed acts cannot escape 
 universal execration. 
 
 No. 11. — BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES ON SOME OF THE 
 DECEMBER CONSPIRATORS. 
 
 MARSHAL LEROY, alias DE ST. ARNAUD. 
 
 A private correspondent of the Independance Beige (March 
 30) says : " It is rumoured that they are likely to have some 
 squabbling in the East about the supreme command of the 
 
120 ANNEXES. 
 
 forces. Lord Raglan and Omer Pacha are unwilling to be 
 under the orders of Marshal de St. Arnaud." 
 
 What reason is there to apprehend this '' squabbling " ? Is 
 not respect due to the Marshal of December, on the part of 
 the two head commanders of the English and Turkish forces ? 
 Let them only read the history of his life : 
 
 " La, dans un long tissu de belles actions, 
 lis verront comma il faut dompter les nations, 
 Attaquer une place, ordonner une armee, 
 Et sur de grands exploits fonder sa renommee.'** 
 And in the first place, the worthy Marshal has no more 
 right to call himself *' Achille de St. Arnaud" than the mistress 
 of the nearest **heH" has to call herself "Madame de St. 
 Phar." His real name is Jacques Arnaud Leroy, born on the 
 20th August, ISOl.f His titles of nobility come from himself, 
 which constitutes at once a meanness and a forgery. That 
 scoundrel has stolen even his very Christian names ; Jacques 
 has been changed into Achille, maugre his godfather's former 
 wish. 
 
 Through his father-in-law, M, Forcade, Juge de Paix, at 
 PariSjJ he entered the Gardes du Corps of Louis XVHI. at an 
 early age. Certain protections, and a hot zealotry for royalism, 
 were then sufficient to cause anyone to be admitted into that 
 military body, without any military title. " He was entered 
 on the matriculation register under the name of Leroy alone. 
 The register, which is still in the offices of the war-ministry, 
 proves this."§ 
 Leroy, alias de St. Arnaud, began to wander from the 
 
 * There, through a series of noble deeds, they shall learn how 
 to subdue nations, storm a stronghold, command an army, and 
 found one's fame upon great exploits. 
 
 t Biographies Bonapartistes^ by Berjeau, London and Jersey. 
 The perfect honesty of the author of that little work, his grave 
 character, the minute precision of his information, and the 
 authenticity of the documents which he furnishes, forbid us to 
 entertain the slightest doubt but that his revelations originate 
 with some person very closely acquainted with M. Leroy, alias 
 De St. Arnaud. 
 
 X Biographies Bonapartistes, 
 
 § Les Trots Mare'chatix, a pamphlet published at Brussels, and 
 attributed to a writer well versed in all military affairs. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (ST. ARNAIJD.) 121 
 
 straight path almost at the very entrance on his career. He 
 was expelled from the Gardes du Corps on account of serious 
 misbehaviour. What was the precise act he committed matters 
 but little; one thing is certain, and that is, that he was 
 expelled under disgraceful circumstances. " The register says, 
 * Discharged without pay [Reforme sans traitementy That 
 was the legal branding expression of the period."* 
 
 Notwithstanding this affair, his family succeeded in making 
 him enter as under-lieutenant the legion of Corsica, or of the 
 Bouches-du-Rhone ; but there again he was soon " suspended 
 without pay {^nis en non-activite sans solde)" an expression 
 which was then applied to turned out officers. Whence we 
 may conclude that he liad not proved himself there, any 
 more than at the Gardes du Corps, submissive to the exigencies 
 of delicacy. 
 
 He then fell into a very irregular career of embarrassments 
 and expedients, during which occurred a visit to London, in 
 disreputable company. As, however, we cannot speak posi- 
 tively concerning this episode, we will abstain from specifying 
 the rumours that have reached us; but the following document, 
 at all events, throws not a dubious light upon the extremities 
 to which this irregular mode of existence had naturally 
 reduced the illustrious sword of the new empire : — 
 
 " Engagement. — Madame Decrenice, commissionaire at 
 the Mont de Piete, No. 17, rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs. 
 Article 347 of the 7th January, 1824. Sum advanced, eighteen 
 francs. 
 
 " I acknowledge that the following objects have been en- 
 trusted to me, to convey and deposit the same in the Mont de 
 Piete, in pledge for the sum which may be lent thereon^ 
 namely : one square woollen shawl, and two women^s shifts, one 
 linen and one calico ; and I bind myself to deliver the ticket 
 of the Mont de Piete, and the sum that may have been lent, 
 to the person named in the register, and who will return the 
 present within ten days. — Signed : Decrenice." [Biographies 
 Bonapartistes,) 
 
 On the back of this pawn-ticket, is written, in the finest hand 
 of Leroy, already become St. Arnaud : " To be redeemed. — 
 St. Arnaud," without the de. He was evidently destined to 
 be one day Marshal of the coup d^etat of insolvents. 
 
 * Les Trois Marechaux, 
 
122 ANNEXESr. 
 
 We have seen and handled the document in question ; it is 
 in the possession of our political friend, Citizen Berjeau. 
 
 We leave it to be inferred what must have been the sort of 
 life led by a young man who pawned two loomerCs shifts, one 
 linen and the other calico ! The ticket does not mention 
 whether the two shifts were marked with the same name or 
 initials. 
 
 Far be it from us to reproach St. Arnaud with having been 
 poor. We have witnessed close enough the misery of very 
 honest men to sympathize with and respect it always. It is 
 not, therefore, for having had recourse to the Mont de Piete, 
 at any period whatever of his life, that we taunt the garde du 
 corps discharged without pay ; it is for having pawned women! s 
 shifts. 
 
 At any rate, his lady-friends stripped themselves in vain for 
 his sake, even of their chemises ; they could not save our hero 
 from being imprisoned for debt. It was from such a place 
 that, in 1827, he wrote the following letter, and which is also 
 in the hands of Citizen Berjeau. 
 
 " Sir, — What gratitude do I not owe to you, since you are 
 about to rescue me from the infamous abode wherein I have 
 languished for the last seventeen months. Add to the service 
 which you render me, Sir, that not less great of freeing me 
 without delay. You know how a poor prisoner sighs for his 
 liberty, and curses his bars. A day, an hour, is a great deal 
 to him. Use then, I beseech you, all your endeavours that 
 to-morrow, Monday, I may breathe the air of freedom. The 
 hour matters nothing, even were it ten o'clock at night ! At 
 least in the following morning I shall not be saddened, on 
 awaking, by the dire sound of bolts, &c. Signed, de St. 
 Arnaud." 
 
 How many guiltless persons has not the writer of this letter 
 put under lock and key since his treasons and those of the 
 army have made him a " saviour of his country !" Cruel and 
 pitiless, he has thrust from his memory what experience had 
 taught him of the sufferings of the prisoners. 
 
 Rescued from the prison of Ste. Pelagic, and at his wits' 
 ends, Jacques Arnaud revisited his family, who, to get rid of 
 him and by dint of requests, obtained his redintegration as 
 under-lieutenant, in the 49th regiment of the line. But 
 scarcely had he rejoined the corps, when the battalion of 
 which he formed a part received orders to embark for 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (ST. ARNAUD.) 123 
 
 Guadaloupe. "Whether the new under-lieutenant did not feel 
 sufficient courage to brave the yellow-fever, or whether from 
 any other cause, he was found missing at the moment of 
 embarking, after having gone so far as Rochefort, and he 
 was accordingly struck off the rolls, " as a deserter."* His 
 position was becoming in consequence very critical, when the 
 Revolution of July broke out. 
 
 Leroy, alias de St. Arnaud, no doubt passed off his mis- 
 chances as an officer, for political disfavours ; for, in February, 
 1831, he obtained his re-entry into the service with the rank 
 of sub-lieutenant, his then constant military ne plus ultra. He 
 was placed in the 34th regiment of the line. He was thirty 
 years of age, and although he had spent two or three years 
 within the walls of a prison, he accepted the p^st of aide-de- 
 camp to General Bugeaud, when the latter was not ashamed to 
 become the keeper of Madame de Berry. In point of truth, 
 the ex-garde du corps of Louis XVIII. was little better, at 
 Blaye, than a spy upon the daughter-in-law of Charles X. ! 
 The Orleanist writers of the Bulletin Frangais (M. d'Haus- 
 •sonville and M. Thomas) were unwilling to utter the word 
 spy, out of deference to M. Bugeaud, the illustrious sword of 
 the Orleanists ; but they say that their general-gaoler " con- 
 sidered M. St. Arnaud proper to fulfil at Blaye some subaltern 
 offices which everybody would not have undertaken.^' It is not 
 flattering, but it is very clear. Citizen Louis Blanc has had 
 occasion to relate an instance of the ignoble functions with 
 which the future Marshal sullied his epaulets. After 
 describing the manner in which General Bugeaud granted M. 
 Choulot permission to see the mother of M. Chambord, the 
 author of the Histoire de Dix Ans continues : — 
 
 " After a short appearance in the chamber of his prisoner, 
 the general returned to M. Choulot ; and, by an inconceivable 
 want of tact, he questioned him as to the pregnancy of the 
 Duchess de Berry. M. Choulot replied, as might naturally 
 be expected, that he had not come to the citadel to hold 
 inquests .of that nature, and that he had noticed nothing. At 
 these words the general's face flamed up. What he wanted 
 was only the evidence of witnesses whose sincerity the 
 Legitimists themselves could not be justified to suspect. He 
 
 * Les Trois MarechauXy page 6. — Biographies BotiapartisteSt 
 page 49. 
 
124 ANNEXES. 
 
 had reckoned too sanguinely on M. Choulot ; and, on finding 
 his expectations frustrated, he could scarcely contain his rage, 
 and sent his aide-de-camp, M. St. Arnaud, to the princess, to 
 request her to exhibit her person, while standing iq) and walking, 
 to M. Choulot. However offensive such a proposal might be, 
 the Duchess de Berry did not dare to reject it."* 
 
 Had the aide-de-camp been anybody at the time these lines 
 were being written, no doubt Citizen Louis Blanc would have 
 added : However dishonourable the duty entrusted to M. de 
 St. Arnaud, he performed it. 
 
 What can be more detestable than the sight of these 
 warriors torturing an unhappy woman — nay doing more, com- 
 pelling her to inflict torture upon herself within the walls of 
 her dungeon ! 
 
 When the ciisgraceful drama of Blaye had been brought to 
 a conclusion, M, St. Arnaud returned to his regiment with 
 the rank of lieutenant. But his brother-officers, indignant at 
 the part he had been playing, put him in quarantine, that is 
 to say, not one would exchange a word with him except on 
 matters of duty. 
 
 To escape from this contemptuous treatment he entered the 
 Foreign Legion, a regiment composed of men from all parts of 
 the world. This corps had been formed solely and entirely 
 for Algeria, for which it departed very shortly after. On 
 arriving in Africa, St. Arnaud had to experience an afiront 
 very hurtful to his haughty pretensions to the attributes of a 
 high-born gentleman. The pay-officer took it into his head to 
 refuse receiving on his pay-lists the name of De St. Arnaud. 
 That ill-bred man alleged that a harrowed name could not 
 serve as a sufficient security for his responsibility as an 
 accountant. The other was in consequence obliged to submit, 
 which provoked the laughter of the corps, where the aris- 
 tocratic airs which Jacques Leroy had assumed had met with 
 anything but a favourable reception. The dismasked lordling 
 then addressed to the government a request, which may be 
 seen at the Bulletin des Lois (1839) where it was inserted in 
 accordance with the law; a request by which *'le sieur 
 Jacques Arnaud Leroy expresses the desire to be allowed to 
 bear the name of Achille de St. Arnaud, hy which he has called 
 hi7nself since his infancy" The authorization was granted, 
 for the simple reason that such a thing is never refused. 
 
 * Histoire de Dix Ans, vol. iv. p, 54. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (ST. ARNAUD.) 125 
 
 St. Arnaud found himself placed, at the Foreign Legion, 
 under the orders of General Bedeau, then lieutenant-colonel. 
 The latter, an austere, good, and pious warrior, conceived a 
 charitable affection for the sinner ; he hoped to lead him back 
 into the path of honesty, and, to use a common phrase, he 
 brought him forward. In 1837 he procured him the cross of 
 the Legion of Honour. He saved his life when they returned 
 from the siege of Constantino. St. Arnaud, attacked with 
 cholera, was to be left in the camp of Nechmaya, where, 
 almost to a certainty, he would have died in consequence of 
 the conjunctures and conditions wherein the camp happened 
 to be placed. M. Bedeau, acting much more still as a friend 
 than as a chief, would not abandon him; he himself undertook 
 to have him conveyed in the train of the army, and the sick 
 man recovered. M. Bedeau did more than save his life. St. 
 Arnaud had become captain by virtue of length of service, 
 but he had not lost his dishonest habits. The colonel of the 
 corps, informed that he had contracted debts of a most dis- 
 reputable kind, made to the inspector-general Rulliere a 
 report in which he proposed that the captain " should he sus- 
 pended altogether" (which is a punishment for misdemeanour). 
 After due consideration. General Ilulliere deemed it indis- 
 pensable to accede to the formal request of the colonel. " The 
 report to the Minister was ready," says the pamphlet on Les 
 Trois MarechauXy *• and M. de St. Arnaud was for ever a 
 ruined man, had not Lieutenant-colonel Bedeau, moved by the 
 despair of his inferior, interceded in his behalf, and, by dint 
 of supplications, disarmed the just rigour of the inspector- 
 general," 
 
 When, after December, St. Arnaud became master of the 
 army, the first thing he did was to dismiss on half-pay General 
 Rulliere. The latter, indignant, wrote the following letter, 
 which has been published by the Bulletin Frangats ; " In 1837, 
 General Rulliere refused to break the sword of Captain Leroy 
 de St. Arnaud, unwilling as the general was to disgrace him ; 
 in 1851, the Minister-at-War, M. Leroy de St. Arnaud, unable 
 to disgrace General Ilulliere, has broken the latter's sword." - 
 
 This letter was not sent to St. Arnaud. The general 
 yielded to the entreaties of his friends, who feared for him 
 some revenge on the part of the transporters without trials ; 
 but he was not chary of showing it about, and it was thus 
 that the Bulletin Frangais was enabled to take cognizance 
 
126 ANNEXES. 
 
 of it. The letter does not exist, de facto^ since it was not 
 forwarded to its address ; but that it was written cannot be 
 doubted, for in spite of its gravity it never was contradicted. 
 The motives whereupon it is founded now belong, therefore, to 
 the history of the marshal of the Lower Empire ! We have 
 placed entire reliance respecting this on the well-informed 
 author of Les Trois Marechaux. 
 
 If since that aflPair an accusation of embezzlement, brought 
 upon Colonel St. Arnaud, and of which we shall speak by-and- 
 by, was hushed up, perhaps for this again was St. Arnaud 
 indebted to the generous weakness of his former protector in 
 the foreign legion. 
 
 Every one knows the return that General Bedeau met with 
 for so many acts of kindness. It was by the direct order of his 
 incorrigible protege that the stanch soldier of Africa was im- 
 prisoned at Mazas in a felon's cell, from there transferred to 
 the fortress of Ham in the common police-van, and lastly 
 led forth between two galley-keepers, and thrust across the 
 frontier into exile ! 
 
 .The brave and open-hearted General Leflo, whom chance 
 frequently brought into contact with M. de St. Arnaud in 
 Algeria, where they lived together as comrades on the greatest 
 terms of military intimacy, was not less shamefully treated than 
 General Bedeau. The double sacrifice of a benefactor and of a 
 friend, would have been more than sufficient to prevent a nature 
 less vicious than that of the under-turnkey of Blaye from enter- 
 ing into a conspiracy of which MM. Bedeau and Leflo were de- 
 signated as the first victims. But there is nothing human left 
 in this vile wretch; even gratitude and friendship have no 
 voice for him. In any state of affairs, his conduct would still 
 have been infamous ; but the personal and undeniable circum- 
 stances which we have mentioned, render it peculiarly de- 
 testable. 
 
 However, through the kindness of General Bedeau, and 
 specially through the protection of his former accomplice 
 of Blaye, Marshal Bugeaud, since become governor-general 
 of Algeria, Leroy, alias de St. Arnaud, obtained a rapid ad- 
 vancement. In 1837, he was captain ; in 1840, chef de bataillon ; 
 in 1844, colonel and commandant of the subdivision of Orleans- 
 ville ; and in 1847, general of brigade. 
 
 While thus making his way upwards in rank, he was equally 
 successful in business matters. Without any private fortune, 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (ST. ARNAUD.) 127 
 
 and although one fifth of his pay * was regularly stopped for 
 debts, he found means to spend 40,000 or 50,000 francs a year. 
 At Orleansville his luxury and dissipation increased still fur- 
 ther. Nothing was heard of but fetes, balls, and banquets. He 
 even caused a theatre to be erected there, where the male parts 
 were generally performed by sub -officers, but where the female 
 parts were played by actresses brought from Algiers at a great 
 expense. In summer, he went, as has been related to us hy an eye- 
 witness,to establish himself at Tenez, a seaport in the subdivision, 
 to enjoy sea-bathing, where he caused his troop of actresses to 
 follow him. There was in this a flagrant example of shameful 
 immorality, and the camp life must indeed allow many licences, 
 as the chiefs never inquired into the deeds of that mock-Sar- 
 danapalus, who now adds to all his vices that of setting him- 
 self up as a paragon of devotion ! Besides these prodigalities, 
 " it was suddenly heard," says the author of Zes Trois 
 Marechaux^ " that the colonel had satisfied his creditors and 
 lent 75,000 francs to the colonists of Orleansville, and that 
 he was about to contract a second marriage, having made 
 magnificent presents to the object of his choice. Wonderful 
 man ! with an expenditure of 40,000 or 50,000 francs a year, 
 he had paid off 60,000 or 80,000 francs of debts, and saved 
 as much more — all that with a pay of only 10,000 francs !" 
 " How these marvels were effected may be easily imagined ; 
 but to arrive at the certainty, we do not hesitate to put the 
 following questions. We take upon ourselves all the responsi- 
 bility of so doing : 
 
 Is it true, yes or no, that in 1845 a sub-lieutenant of the 
 63rd of the line, attached to the Arab office of Orleansville, 
 accused in writing to the governor- general of Algeria, M. St. 
 Arnaud, his colonel, of having appropriated to his own . use 
 considerable sums arising from the Arab contributions of the 
 subdivision .^ 
 
 Is it true, yes or no, that this accusation was transmitted by 
 the governor-general to General Levasseur, commandant of 
 the division of Algiers, with orders to examine into it ? 
 
 Is it true, yes or no, that the accusing sub-lieutenant, having 
 been summoned to Algiers, was placed in Fort I'Empereur, and 
 liberated after a journey to Algiers by Colonel St. Arnaud, 
 
 * The part liable to be seized in virtue of the French military 
 legislation. 
 
128 ANNEXES. 
 
 although the military law imperatively required that the sub- 
 lieutenant should have been brought before a council of war for 
 insulting his superior officer ? 
 
 Is it true, yes or no, that everybody was scandalized at 
 seeing the inquiry suspended, and that the unanimous feeling 
 of the whole army of Africa was that the young under-lieu- 
 tenant had spoken the truth ? 
 
 These questions are supported by a passage in the pamphlet 
 Les Trois Marechaux, too clear and too detailed not to bring 
 conviction to every mind : 
 
 ..." M. de St. Arnaud was still hesitating, when an unfore- 
 seen event compelled him to surrender himself, body and soul, 
 to the conspirators. 
 
 *' For some time past a councillor of the Court of Appeal of 
 Algiers had been engaged at Orleansville in making an inquiry 
 into certain disorders which had been discovered in the ad- 
 ministration of a commandant of that fortress. The transactions 
 called in question went back to the period when M. St. Arnaud 
 was at the head of a subdivision, at which time the commandant 
 referred to performed the functions of civil commissary and 
 magistrate. Hence it so happened that, in the course of his 
 investigations, the councillor fell upon the name of the general 
 compromised in a very serious manner. The affair immediately 
 oozed out and spread abroad. The Atlas, an Algiers republican 
 journal, and the Nationalfhoth mentioned it. It was impossible 
 to stifle it, even if justice had been willing to participate in 
 doing so. The governor wrote to the minister upon the subject 
 without delay, and all that could be done then was to put a 
 stop to the inquiry under some pretext or other that I do not 
 remember. The matter, however, was not destined to rest 
 there ; it was speedily and unavoidably to be revived. 
 
 "M. de St. Arnaud, on being apprised of the blow with 
 which he was menaced, immediately accepted the office of 
 Minister of War, resolved to do everything to escape the hands 
 of justice, which were already stretched out to seize him." 
 
 If the author of Les Trois Marechaux published a new edi- 
 tion of his pamphlet, he might add the following well-authen- 
 ticated particular. — The commandant of the fortress in question, 
 is M. Martin, chef d'escadron of the staff of fortresses. He 
 was condemned in June, 1852, to be imprisoned for one year, 
 by the first council of war of the division of Algiers, after they 
 had removed from the papers designed for legal evidence all 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (ST. ARNAUD.) 129 
 
 that concerned too directly St. Arnaud. The accusation from 
 which it was impossible to save Martin, so much publicity had 
 the facts acquired, was always followed, in the origin, by the 
 punishment of the galleys to the convict. They patched up 
 things in such a way as to reduce it to small proportions, in 
 order to obtain at least from Martin an absolute silence on his 
 financial transactions with the Elysean minister of war. The 
 law-proceedings of commandant Martin, entrusted at first to 
 the 2nd council of war of the division of Oran, were withdrawn 
 from the latter in all haste, because it was perceived that 
 the commissary of the government, acting with that council, 
 was a man of great moral worth, of high probity, inac- 
 cessible to bribery, — Captain Montagut he was, the same who 
 was struck off the army list, shortly after December, for having 
 refused to take the oath. It is, indeed, certain that, in spite 
 of the clearing of the legal papers effected at Algiers, St. 
 Arnaud could not fail to be compromised if the commissary of 
 the government had been willing to conscientiously search for 
 the truth. When the affair was stealthily taken away from 
 the hands of Captain Montagut, Martin, who had been trans- 
 ferred from the prison of Algiers to that of Oran, was brought 
 back from Oran to Algiers, where his examination before 
 the law terminated as we have just mentioned. 
 
 It is easy to see, by the nature of these details, that we hold 
 them from good sources. After all, we know that St. Arnaud 
 has it in his power to bring an action against us for libel ; let 
 him do so, if he dare ! 
 
 The second of December came, and with its bloody sponge 
 wiped out the record of these peculations ; but it may be 
 plainly perceived that the commander-in-chief of the French 
 forces sent to Constantinople had at the time many urgent 
 personal motives to e^ter into the Elysean conspiracy, in which 
 one of the main objects was to lay hands upon the public 
 purse. 
 
 It will be at once felt that such a man could not possess the 
 least sincerity of speech. To paint his character completely, 
 we must quote a striking example of his peculiar truthlessness. 
 When the discussion took place relative to the proposal of the 
 questors to invest the President of the Assembly with the right 
 of calling for the troops, St. Arnaud read to the Assembly a 
 discourse which concluded with the following words : *' Thus 
 inopportunely and unconstitutionally the proposition evinces 
 
130 ANNEXES. 
 
 an unjust mistrust of the executive power. In the name of the 
 public safety^ we call upon you not to take it into considera- 
 tion." In this we see that, on the 19th of November, at the 
 very moment he was putting the last touches to the plot, he 
 complained in the tribune — he, the minister of war — of being 
 suspected! .... 
 
 But he had been even more explicit before the committee 
 charged to examine the proposition. The members of that 
 committee have not forgotten his reiterated assurances of 
 respect for the Assembly and for the Constitution, nor the 
 indignation he displayed at the idea that people could surmise 
 his good faith ! " I, gentlemen," said he actually, among other 
 things, " I, attack the Constitution ! But instead of that I 
 should court the honour of being first in arms to defend it." 
 These words, taken down by a member of the committee who 
 cited them to us since, were uttered with his hand close to 
 his heart, and with a certain dramatic tone of voice peculiar 
 to the fellow, and which he never fails to assume in great 
 emergencies. 
 
 He even exhibits this ignoble impudence of lying in the 
 midst of carnage. We shall shortly behold him felicitating 
 his praetorians on having " saved the Hepublic J" This, how- 
 ever, is a trait peculiar to the conspirators of December. Read 
 all they said or wrote then, all they have said or written since 
 then, and you will see that, in order the better to deceive the 
 people and the army together, they invariably invoke the 
 Republic, even in those very measures which were intended 
 to destroy it. 
 
 The part played by St. Arnaud in December is marked by 
 the stamp of savage ferocity. It reeks blood. On the night of 
 the 1st of December the compositors of the National Printing 
 Office were locked in to set up the placards for the insur- 
 rection, every outlet being guarded by gendarmes mobiles. 
 " Captain de la Roche Doisy," coolly says the historiographer of 
 the Elysee himself, " ordered them to load their muskets quietly, 
 and gave the instructions sent by the 3£inister of War. They 
 were plain : ' To shoot all who should attempt to get out, or 
 approach a window.^ Nothing could be plainer, but at the 
 same time nothing could be more necessary." — (P. Mayer, 
 Histoire du 2 Decembre, page 50.) 
 
 On the 3rd, St. Arnaud issued the following proclamation : 
 
 " The Minister of War, 
 
 ** Considering the law on the state of siege. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (ST. ARNAUD.) 131 
 
 ** Orders : 
 
 " Every person taken constructing barricades, or defending a 
 barricade, or with arms in his hands, will be SHOT. Paris, 3rd 
 Dec. 1851. " Signed, 
 
 " De Saint Arnaud." 
 
 On the 7th he wrote to the generals commanding the 
 military divisions : " All armed insurrection has ceased in 
 Paris, through a vigorous repi-ession. The same energy will 
 produce the same result everywhere. All who resist must be 
 shot, in the name of society, in legitimate defence. 
 
 *' Signed, 
 
 " De Saint Arnaud." 
 
 It is the warfare of cannibals. No prisoners ! 
 
 If anything could surpass the hideousness of these blancs- 
 seings, ready for murder, given to the first drunken corporal, 
 against every good citizen defending the laws, it would be the 
 proclamation to the army, after this butchery of the 4th 
 December, which still horrifies the world : 
 
 " The French Republic, Paris, Dec. 4, 1851. 
 
 " Soldiers, — You have accomplished to-day a great act of 
 your military life. You have preserved the country from 
 anarchy and pillage, and saved the Republic. France 
 ADMIRES YOU AND THANKS YOU. In every garrison your 
 comrades are proud of you, and, in case of need, would 
 follow your example J / 
 
 '' Signed, 
 
 '■ De St. Arnaud." 
 
 But to continue. Leroy, alias de St. Arnaud, the legitimist 
 ex-garde du corps, owed some share of his military success to 
 MM. d'Orleans, with whom he was very assiduous in Algeria. 
 He had been one of the most demonstrative courtiers of their 
 father, which however did not prevent him from being one of 
 the first to *' offer his sword," to the Revolution of February. 
 And yet when his comrade of the Elysee confiscated the 
 property of MM. d'Orleans, he thought it incumbent on him 
 to offer an example of stoicism. He made a show of tender- 
 ing his resignation as Minister, which, however, as may be 
 understood, was not accepted. We read, regarding this affair, 
 in the Bulletin Frangais, a publication well-informed upon 
 everything relative to the residents at Claremont : 
 
 " M. St. Arnaud was so much a valuable man, fit for every' 
 kind of work, and ready for every chance, that, on board the 
 very ship which brought him back to Toulon, overburdened 
 
132 ANNEXES. 
 
 with the laurels of * Little ' Kabylia, and with his eyes fixed 
 on those which were awaiting him in a less honourable 
 warfare, he wrote — as is now known — to one of the exiled 
 princes with whom he had served in African campaigns. He 
 renewed to the prince, in this letter, the assurances of his 
 attachment, and besought him ever to count upon services on 
 his part which no one thought of asking from him. Now, is 
 not this really being armed for every event ? Admire to what 
 perfection the profession of condottiere may be carried even in 
 these days ! Read the Moniteur ! M. St. Arnaud demanded 
 that it should be therein acknowledged, that in order not to 
 associate himself in the spoliation of the House of Orleans, he 
 had begged for the acceptance of his resignation. Meanwhile 
 it is a strange sight presented by this power, so sovereignly 
 virtuous and reparatory, to behold it unblushingly parading 
 the sad conditions of its precarious existence in the very face 
 of the country. The prince retains ministers who compel him 
 to allow them to publish their resignations in the Moniteur as 
 an evidence of the displeasure which his wishes cause them ; 
 and at the very moment they offer to give up office these 
 ministers reconsider the matter, and resign themselves to keep 
 their places to carry out precisely the very measures, which, a 
 little before, seemed so much to disgust them ! " 
 
 St. Arnaud, it must be acknowledged, finds some very pretty 
 pickings in this line of business. At this moment he receives 
 130,000 francs as Minister of War ; 100,000 francs as Grand 
 Equerry ; 40,000 francs as Marshal of France ; and 30,000 
 francs as senator ; altogether 300,000 francs a year. What a 
 conqueror oi partageux ! 
 
 Such are, however, the men whom honest people congratu- 
 late on their having saved France from " piljage ! " It is true 
 that the plunderers, when they were in power, ceded their 
 emoluments to the exchequer.* O, honest people, you are 
 very guilty ! 
 
 One would fancy that a chevalier d'industrie, who in his 
 early days had pawned a woollen shawl and two women's 
 chemises for eighteen francs, might content himself with 
 '^OOjOOO francs a year, especially so when his companion, the 
 
 * We care not to adduce proper names here ; but this fact is 
 of the utmost authenticity. It has been recorded in the report 
 of M. Ducos to the Constituent Assembly on the expenses of the 
 Provisional Government. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (ST. ARNAUD.) 133 
 
 so-called Emperor, has just presented his daughter with a 
 dowry of 300,000 francs, for whom he had been able to find a 
 husband in the army. Nothing of the sort. No position can 
 raise such fellows above their charactei*. They have a sort of 
 morbid craving for certain matters of a venturesome nature. 
 St. Arnaud, marshal and minister, still gambles at the Bourse. 
 A loss of 800,000 francs, which he had sustained in consequence 
 of one of those stock-jobbing speculations, and which he did 
 not show any very great eagerness to discharge, raised a good 
 deal of scandal in the course of last year. M. Bonaparte, to 
 stifle the ugly rumours which spread abroad, in spite of the 
 servility of the press, paid it for him, it is said, and the 
 following appeared in the Moniteur of Jan. 13, 1853 : 
 
 ** Public opinion has recently been directed to the situation 
 of the Bourse, and to certain operations in which the name of a 
 very high functionary has been implicated. The JSmperor, who 
 desires to found the influence of his administration on the 
 respect inspired by the probity and dignity of the functionaries 
 of every degree, has been concerned at the reports which have 
 reached him. He has been anxious to learn the truth as to 
 their nature and origin, and has ordered investigations, which 
 have furnished the most incontestable proof that these reports 
 have no kind of foundation, and are the result of an odious 
 calumny." 
 
 Is not this good bail ? A Bonaparte guaranteeing the in- 
 tegrity of a St. Arnaud ! Are we at the Italian playhouse ? 
 Of course we affirm nothing this time ; but we may simply 
 state that the affair found in Paris very few unbelievers, and 
 that the note of the Moniteur confirmed it for those who still 
 had any doubts. We do not apologize for relating that edi- 
 fying circumstance, since the Moniteur has made it public. 
 At best, what a government must that be under which the 
 official journal is employed to defend the personal honesty 
 of the Minister of War ! ! 
 
 As a soldier, the worthy minister is more than incompetent. 
 To prove this assertion, we shall content ourselves with quoting 
 the following extract from Les Trots Marechaux^ the author of 
 which is well fitted to speak on such a subject. Mentioning 
 the campaign in Kabylia, which the Ely see entrusted to 
 St. Arnaud, for the purpose of giving a sort of illustriousness 
 to its general at the time when he had to carry out their 
 scheme, the author says : 
 
 " Professional men think very little of the talent displayed 
 
IH ANNEXES. 
 
 in these operations. They consider the plan to have heen 
 hadly conceived, and badly executed. They perceive that, 
 whether from ignorance of this species of warfare, or from 
 a desire to exaggerate the difficulties overcome, M. de St. 
 Arnaud almost invariably had recourse to direct attack where 
 he ought to have turned the enemy's positions by manoeuvring. 
 In no other way can it be explained how the number of killed 
 and wounded always amounted to one-tenth of the effective 
 force of the column, a proportion previously unknown in the 
 war in Africa, even in Kabylia, when the operations were con- 
 ducted by skilled generals." 
 
 As commander of an army, St. Arnaud possesses less than 
 insufficient qualifications. " He never studied anything, and 
 he knows nothing," says on this point again the author of Zes 
 Trois Marechaux.^ The disorderly state wherein he has left 
 the Ministry of War on setting out for Turkey, does not 
 tell less as to his administrative incapacity than as to his 
 ignorance of every detail connected with organization. 
 
 The pamphlet of Les Trots Marechaux says that St. Arnaud 
 is personally brave. We doubt it ; we hold the belief that 
 men devoid of honour are cowards. But be this as it may, 
 the following episode of his military life proves plainly that 
 he is without moral courage. — The Revolution of February 
 found him on leave of absence at Paris, gaily enjoying the 
 honeymoon of a second marriage. At the beginning of the 
 struggle, he hastened to offer his services to the Ministry of 
 War. As one of the most devoted servants of the younger 
 branch, he received on the 22nd of February the command of 
 a brigade of the army of Paris, with the duty of defending 
 the Prefecture of Police. On the 24th, his position ceased to 
 be tenable, and he was ordered to fall back on the Place du 
 Carrousel. To force a passage through the now partly-armed 
 masses of the people was not an easy task. He parleyed with 
 them, promising not to take part in any hostilities against 
 them if they would allow him a free passage. These proposi- 
 tions were accepted, but on one express condition, to which he 
 had the cowardice and the infamy to submit : it was to give 
 up a detachment of foot and mounted municipal guards which 
 formed part of his brigade. The brutal rage of the municipal 
 guards in the repression of emeutes under Louis-Philippe, their 
 provoking attitude, their annoying, and frequently even cruel, 
 conduct in the discharge of their police duties, the resistance 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (ST. ARNAUD.) 135 
 
 which they had everywhere offered during the previous two 
 days to the reform manifestations, and which had rendered 
 them justly odious to the Parisian population, — all united to 
 draw down terrihle reprisals upon these wretched men whom 
 General St. Arnaud was then delivering up. He, however, 
 gave no thought to this; but, fortunately, some amongst the 
 crowd raised their voices in their behalf. The people, always 
 sensible to an appeal to their generosity, spared them, satisfied 
 with having imposed a dishonourable capitulation on the 
 officer who commanded them. Unfortunately, however, some 
 had fallen victims during the first few minutes.* 
 
 Such is the man under whose orders Lord Raglan and Omer 
 Pacha seem indisposed to place themselves ! We can imagine 
 their scruples. And who could persist in giving them credit 
 for the elevation of their character, if such scruples found no 
 seat, or were stifled in their breasts? After reading this 
 statement of facts, every Englishman worthy of the name 
 will blush for the soldiers of Great Britain to be commanded 
 by a fellow of that kind, and will fear to see them given up 
 in some embarrassing circumstance, as he abandoned the 
 municipal guards. Let us speak plainly : Jacques Leroy, alias 
 Achille de St. Arnaud, is an arrant scoundrel; his elevation 
 to the rank of marshal is one of the deepest stains imprinted 
 by the Bonapartists on our army ; and if the government of 
 the 2nd December had the least shame, it would have spared 
 Queen Victoria the insult of putting him at the head of the 
 French force in the joint expedition to the war in Turkey. 
 Unhappy are the times, when a rascal of so low a description 
 acts one of the principal parts ! England, constrained to put 
 up with him, receives henceforth the first chastisement for an 
 alliance so unworthy of her. 
 
 Since the above was written, we have read in the news- 
 papers that the generals of the combined forces in the East, 
 had not only consented to fight in company with Master St. 
 Arnaud, but had besides tendered him the head command. 
 We simply put the following three questions. — 1. Did St. 
 Arnaud forswear his most sacred duties on the 2nd De- 
 cember ? Yes, or no ? Nobody will think of denying it. 
 2. Were not the prisoners of the civil war on the 4th December 
 
 * Las Trois Marechaux. Biographies Bonapartistes, 
 
136 ANNEXES. 
 
 shot by St. Arnaud's orders ? Yes, or no ? His own father, 
 himself, would answer. Yes. 3. Did St. Arnaud commit 
 audacious embezzlements in Africa ? Yes, or no ? His own 
 mother, herself, would not answer, No. It is regrettable 
 that Lord Raglan and H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge should 
 be unacquainted with such facts ; else they would certainly 
 not have so willingly placed themselves under the command 
 of an officer who has violated honour, and slaughtered 
 prisoners ; and who, moreover, is a desperate thief ! 
 
 It is a thing well agreed upon— we, republicans, are plun- 
 derers ; we think only of partitioning the possessions of the 
 rich, without even leaving them any share thereof; we spend 
 our lives in pot-houses ; we have not the least notion of 
 what is a gentlemanly bearing; at length, we are very ill- 
 bred people, for we sometimes happen to give an offence in 
 return for an offence, and to say to those who call us dema- 
 gogues, You are cowardly liars. That is a well-understood 
 thing. But it must also be owned that there are to be seen 
 under the wainscots of high society, connexions which at first 
 sight, at least, do not seem quite honourable ; and that there 
 occur among " well-bred and honest people," facts, whose 
 appearance at least is not honest. Well, after all, we'll have 
 the public-house, since they preserve there the tradition of 
 those vulgar things called self-respect, the worthiness of one's 
 name, and contempt for traitors. 
 
 M. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 We have mentioned, in this pamphlet, the chief titles of 
 M. Bonaparte to the esteem of the world. The people of thisi 
 country are aware how irregular was the life he led in England, 
 during his sojourn here. We will therefore confine ourselves 
 to a statement of facts less known than those which have 
 brought the conspirator of Boulogne to be " the good friend^* 
 of Nicholas, and the ally of England. The first is furnished 
 by the Pennsylvanian Freeman of Philadelphia (No. of Dec. 9, 
 1852) :— 
 
 " The editor of the Brooldyn Advertiser says he knew Louis 
 Napoleon, the would-be emperor of France, when the latter 
 was residing some years ago in New York — * very poor, and 
 very dissipated.' " The Brooklyn Advertiser adds : — " Louis 
 Napoleon was frequently expelled from certain places in which 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, (l. N. BONAPARTE.) 137 
 
 he intruded himself, and more than a dozen times was the 
 occupant of a cell at the Old Jail in the Park, long since torn 
 down. Not long prior to his leaving the United States, he was 
 arrested for a misdemeanor committed by him at the house of 
 a woman whose establishment he often visited ; and the writer 
 of this article was employed professionally by him to save him 
 from the threatened consequences of bis recklessness and indis- 
 cretion. We little supposed, at that time, that the thoughtless 
 young man who was then our client, (and who is still indebted 
 to us for counsel fees and disbursements,) would become Em- 
 peror of France.'' * 
 
 These habits of debauchery of all sorts are inherent in M. 
 Bonaparte ; we shall see with what gravity, and in what com- 
 pany and disposition of mind, he came to take possession of his 
 empire, in 1840. Mr. James Crow, the captain of the ^Edinburgh 
 Castle, (the steam-ship which brought to Boulogne M. Bona- 
 parte and his live eagle,f) was called as a witness at the time 
 of the law-proceedings consequent upon that ludicrous prank. 
 Here is an extract from his examination : — 
 
 " Q. Did you perceive that these gentlemen drank during the 
 last hours they remained on board your ship ? 
 
 " A. They drank considerably; I never saw any one drink more 
 than they did, (it is an Englishman who speaks !) — and of all 
 sorts of wines. 
 
 " Q. Are you aware that the travellers who were on board 
 your ship carried with them large sums of money ? 
 
 " A. It appeared to me they had much money ; and I noticed 
 that, as soon as they embarked, they handed 100 francs to each 
 soldier." {Moniteur, August 9, 1840.) 
 
 * These recollections of America are entirely in keeping with 
 the opinion which the Emperor's nephew has given of himself, 
 in France. The people of Paris, always so marvellously right in 
 the application of their nicknames, call him Badinguet ; this is 
 the name applied, in workshops, to the debauchees and drunk- 
 ards among workmen, and who, involved in debt,, regularly 
 waste Mondays, (besides Sundays,) without the barriers, in places 
 of amusement. 
 
 t We have seen above (page 39) that the ridiculous act of 
 carrying a live eagle with him, with a view to take possession of 
 France, was positively done by the fellow whom deep English 
 politicians gravely call *'the clever ruler of France ! '* 
 
138 ANNEXES. 
 
 The prefect of Pas-de-Calais, M. Gauja, says in his general 
 report to the Minister : 
 
 " The captain of the steamer told us that the rebels had 
 drunk sixteen dozen bottles of wine during their passage from 
 London to Wimereux, without counting brandy and liqueurs. 
 The soldiers of the 42nd, who were present at the contest, and 
 whom we have interrogated, have assured us that the rebels 
 were almost all tipsy." {Proces de N. L. Bonaparte, &c., 1 
 vol. published by Pagnerre, 1840, p. 28.) At length, the 
 prefect of Boulogne, M. Launay-Lejjrevot, says in addition, 
 in his private report : — " L. Bonaparte and suite seem to have 
 landed this morning at about three or four o'clock, at a 
 distance of two miles and a half from the city of Boulogne. 
 During their march towards the town, they stopped to drinks 
 {Proces, &c., p. 7.) It must be owned that those are not 
 very temperate emperor's nephews. Wine and gold — such 
 constitute all the genius of the modern Augustus. We have not 
 forgotten the libations in the plain of Satory, where the troops 
 were for the first time made to call out : Vive I'Empereur ! 
 
 One might be inclined to believe that that conqueror was 
 still under the influence of liquor when he confiscated the pro- 
 perty of the house of Orleans. How could he, under any other 
 supposition, have exposed himself to the sad revelations which 
 such an act could not but draw down on his head ? The motives 
 alleged by the decree of spoliation were insulting to the memory 
 of Louis-Philippe. His four sons stigmatized them in a letter, 
 wherein one reads, among other things : . . . " It has 
 appeared to us that, to such imputations, the silence of scorn 
 was the fittest answer. We will not, therefore, lower ourselves 
 to dwell on the more peculiar heinous character of those 
 calumnies, when set forth again, as they now are, by him 
 who has twice been placed in a position to appreciate the 
 magnanimity of King Louis-Philippe, and whose family has 
 received from the latter nothing but heneflts. We are happy 
 to be justified in stating that those shameful decrees, and their 
 alleged motives, more shameful still, have dared to come to 
 light only under the ' regime ' of the state of siege, and after 
 the suppression of all guarantees of protection to the liberties 
 
 of the nation, &c 
 
 *' Signed, Louis d' Orleans, 
 
 (Heretofore Due de Nemours.) 
 
 FitAN90is d' Orleans, 
 
 (Heretofore Prince de Joinville.)" 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (L. N. BONAPARTE.) 139 
 
 Messrs. Henri and Antoine d' Orleans (heretofore Due d'Au- 
 male and Duo de Montpensier) wrote, for their own part, the 
 former from Naples, the other from Madrid, that "they shared 
 in the sentiments of their brothers and repelled those calumnies 
 with painful indignation" 
 
 There are, in these letters, some expressions intentionally 
 and directly insulting. M. Bonaparte has kept the whole — 
 the insults as well as the money. 
 
 The word benejits, which Messrs. d'Orleans are contented 
 with only dropping with a contemptuous discretion, has been 
 naturally explained by their friends in the 11th No. of the 
 Nouveau Bulletin Franqais (p. 201). It cannot but be in- 
 ferred therefrom, that the conduct of the pardoned prisoner of 
 Louis-Philippe is still worse than an act of political in- 
 gratitude : — 
 
 " Some newspapers," say they, '' have adverted to a precious 
 necklace worn by H. R. H. the Duchess of Montpensier, at an 
 evening party of H. M. Queen Victoria. They have men- 
 tioned that that necklace had been sold to the Queen Marie- 
 Amelie by the Countess of St. Leu, the mother of Prince 
 Louis Bonaparte. They said nothing respecting the conditions 
 of the bargain. The Countess of St. Leu having sent word 
 to the Tuileries, that she was reduced to the deepest misery^ 
 and had no other resource left but that necklace, which she 
 entreated the royal family to purchase of her, she was asked, 
 in answer, at what price she would dispose of it. This was 
 leaving her at liberty to fix herself whatever sum she might 
 want. 8he largely used that discretion^ and demanded 
 400,000 francs (16,000/.) ; they sent to her 700,000 francs 
 (28,000/.) Prince Bonaparte is a good son ; he avenges his 
 mother as he avenges himself: he no more forgives the House 
 of Orleans for the magnificent alms given to his mother than 
 he forgives the clemency with which he himself has been 
 remitted." 
 
 This fact has not been gainsayed; it is undoubtedly au- 
 thentic, for the Bulletin Franqais is known to be in the inti- 
 macy of the residents at Claremont. Let praetorian generals 
 acclaim a Csesarion, let the Church proclaim him " the elect of 
 God ; " for our part, a man capable of thus forgetting an act 
 of charity done towards his mother, will always seem to us 
 less deserving of a crown than of the aversion reserved for 
 the ungrateful. " Seneca," says Citizen Pascal Duprat, " tells 
 us of a lion which, seeing its benefactor exposed in the circus, 
 
140 ANNEXES. 
 
 ran to his assistance. That lion must be considered a very- 
 stupid animal, by the hero of the 2nd of December." (Le$ 
 Tables de Proscription de L. Bonaparte et de ses Complices ; 2 
 vols. Liege, 1852.) 
 
 There is another reason why M. Bonaparte should find that 
 lion stupid : it is, that the lion is a courageous animal. For 
 indeed that man unites to all his vices that of cowardice. He, 
 whom some people in England call clever, is not even in- 
 telligent enough to make a display of bravery. And this is 
 one more motive of astonishment that the French army 
 should have chosen him to raise him to power. 
 
 We have just seen what provocations from Messrs. 
 d'Orleans he has endured without a single word of answer 
 thereto. — At Boulogne he trembled to such a degree that he 
 missed Captain Col-Puygelier, with the muzzle of his pistol 
 close to the latter.* — At Strasbourg he quaked again. The 
 
 * This is how the accused L. N. Bonaparte sought, at the 
 time of the law proceedings relative to the Boulogne affair, to 
 clear himself from the charge of attempt at assassination. He 
 himself confesses, as we shall presently see, that fright had 
 deprived him of his senses. Before the magistrate, when the 
 private examination took place, he said : *• Perceiving that my 
 undertaking had failed, / fell into a kind of despair ^ and, — as I 
 will never conceal any act of mine, — I took a pistol, seemingly 
 
 WITH THE INTENTION OF GETTING RID OF THE CAPTAIN ; and, be- 
 fore I was willing to fire, the pistol went oif and the shot hit a 
 grenadier, as I was subsequently informed." At the audience 
 the accused repeated almost the same thing : '* I have said before 
 that there are moments when one is unable to account to one's self for 
 one's intentions ; when I saw the tumult beginning at the barracks, 
 I took my pistol, and it went off" without any intention, on my part, 
 of directing it against anybody whatever." These wretched 
 explanations suffice to establish that M. Bonaparte had really 
 fired upon the captain. This cannot be doubtful, for Captain 
 Col-Puygelier has declared it in his report in the most express 
 manner : — *' Whilst I was setting my troops in order," says he, 
 "these individuals tried to get in ; I intimated to them to with- 
 draw or I was going to use material compulsion. As I was 
 particularly addressing Prince Louis, he fired a pistol at me, 
 whose shot hit a grenadier in the mouth." Assuredly, between 
 the affirmation of Captain Col-Puygelier and the denial of a 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (L. N. BONAPARTE.) 141 
 
 general of artillery, Radoult-Lafosse, has related half-a-score 
 of times to our honourable companion in exile, Citizen 
 Dubruel, (we are authorized to repeat it,) that M. Napoleon 
 III. had behaved there as the meanest of men. The affair 
 having failed, a few compromised officers assembled in the 
 yard of the barracks. Expecting to be soon forced, they at 
 once prepared to make a defence, resolved to fight for their 
 lives to the last. M. Bonaparte, instead of joining them, 
 and placing himself at their head, hid himself in a corner of 
 the yard, behind a few horses that happened to be there. It 
 is known how he was caught with his mates. — On the 2nd 
 of December, he was to be seen in no spot where there was 
 any danger to run ; he disdained too much his barricade 
 enemies to consent to approach them. Since the praetorians 
 were so anxious about making an emperor of that inde- 
 fatigable runaway, they should have proclaimed him under 
 his true name, Claudius II. 
 
 If, after cowardice, lying be the most contemptible of all 
 vices, the present ally of Great Britain is the most contemptible 
 of all men, for his life is nought but a long and continuous lie. 
 He lies in all places, he lies above all things, he lies as to all 
 things, he lies in the face of all men, he lies at all times. — Con- 
 demned on the 6th of October, 1840, to imprisonment for life, 
 he exclaimed in a stoical strain : "At least, I shall not be 
 deprived of the happiness of dying in France." ( Works of 
 L. N. Bonaparte, vol. i. p. 28.) He afterwards descants at 
 random on this theme. In August, 1842, in connexion with 
 the sugar question, he finds an opportunity for saying : "I 
 thank Heaven every day for allowing me to remain on the 
 French soil, the object of all my love, and which I will not 
 leave on any account, not even for the sake of imj liberty.^'' 
 (vol. ii. p. 119.) In April, 1843, he w^rites to the Progres du 
 Pas de Calais : '' If I should be offered to exchange my pre- 
 sent condition for that of exile, I would refuse, for it would be, 
 in my eyes, an aggravation of punishment. I had rather he a 
 
 L. N. Bonaparte, nobody will hesitate to credit the captain. 
 Withal, his report is found to be confirmed by the following 
 deposition. Sergeant Rinck : ** In that moment the captain 
 called out to me, *' Grenadiers , up and at them ! " All of a 
 sudden, Prince Louis fired a pistol upon the captain ; he 
 missed him, and the shot hit a grenadier standing in his rank." 
 
142 ANNEXES. 
 
 captive on the soil of France than a free man in a foreign 
 country." (vol. i. p. 30.) In the month of October, 1844, his 
 Revue de V Empire thus expresses itself under his dictation : 
 " An amnesty would replace the Prince under proscription. 
 It would give him up anew to all the pangs, to all the bitter- 
 ness, to all the sufferings of exile.* The fortress of Ham is 
 preferable ; it is a prison, the Prince said so, but it is a prison 
 in France, and that is better than liberty in exile. An am- 
 nesty would therefore be to him a real aggravation." ( Works, 
 &c., vol. iii. p. 298.) 
 
 Pure lying, all this ! When the government is sufficiently 
 wheedled by this so persevering patriotic quackery, the noble 
 Prince scampers in 1846, to hastily seek in London, in a mason's 
 attire, the aggravation of exile!! — We find it quite natural 
 that a prisoner should make his escape ; but we deem it un- 
 worthy of a man of honour to pretend in that Case that he 
 has no intention of doing so. 
 
 Under what heap of lies, again, has not M. Bonaparte dis- 
 guised his imperial designs ! In order to become an emperor, 
 that man had the mean courage of proclaiming himself a 
 republican for twenty consecutive years ! ! He began in 1832 : 
 *' From the opinions I set forth," said he, in a publication of 
 that time, " it can be seen that my principles are entirely re- 
 publican." {Works of L. N. Bonaparte, vol. i. p. 76.) He 
 afterwards adds : " The great bulk of the French nation, who 
 never allow themselves to be corrupted by the men in power, 
 are the patriots, and the patriots of our days are for the most 
 part republican" ( Works, vol. i. p. 80.) 
 
 In everything he has written, he loudly professes the same 
 sentiments : ** I do not stickle for the principle of the revolu- 
 tion of the 18th Brumaire, nor the brutal manner in which 
 it was effected; (vol. iii. p. 141) as a citizen, as a man 
 devoted to the liberties of my country, I make a wide distinc- 
 tion between the Consulate and the Empire; the Empire 
 has clashed with several of our modern notions, and disregarded 
 a few truths ; but the Consulate has remained, in the apprecia- 
 tion of all true patriots, the purest emblem of the Revolution, 
 
 * How many citizens those very men who wrote these lines 
 exiled, only with a view to place their Prince on the throne ! ! 
 And what have they not done since, in the way of evU, for 
 lOie purposes ? 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, (l. N. BONAPARTE.) 143 
 
 one of the finest pages in our history. If now-a-days there 
 still exists a sincere and national oi^inion, which has undertaken 
 the mission of bringing bach the republican forms, it is because 
 there still are a great many elevated minds which regret that 
 government composed of two elective assemblies, of a Council 
 of the State, and of a responsible chief with two millions of 
 francs for his liste civile.^^ (Vol. iii. pp. 146 and 152.) The 
 first thing which the writer of these lines did, when once in 
 power, was to adjudge to himself a civil list of 45 millions frcs. 
 
 On every occasion, ever and anon, the future emperor made 
 his appeal, for coaxing public opinion, to the remembrance of 
 the Kepublic : " The soil we tread on, from Moscow to the 
 Pyramids, has been the battle-field wherein the children of the 
 Republic and of the Empire gave a fresh lustre to the title of 
 Frenchman. And, which is perhaps still more glorious, is that if 
 there be, among all foreign peoples, ameliorations in their codes, 
 or useful works, durable labours, benevolent institutions, it was 
 the young battalions of the Republic which prepared the way 
 for these changes." (Vol. i. p. 179.) *' No foundation is 
 secure which is not laid on stones ; and to build on stones in 
 our days is to lay the foundations of government upon a 
 democratic organization." (Vol. iii. p. 128.) 
 
 In 1837, the Council of the Canton of Turgovia having con- 
 ferred upon him the rights of a denizen, M. Bonaparte wrote 
 to the President of the Council of the canton : "Be assured 
 that in all the circumstances of my life, as a Frenchman and as 
 a Bonaparte, I shall be proud of being the denizen of a free 
 State" (Vol. i. p. 11.) At a subsequent period, he said to 
 Switzerland : " I congratulate a people which knows how to 
 govern itself which daily tends to render itself more worthy 
 of freedom and o/" the great name of republic." (Vol. i. 
 p. 180.) 
 
 Every circumstance seemed fit, to that wretched man, for 
 putting on a republican and even a socialist garb ; it was thus 
 that he asked one day for the release from prison of Citizen 
 Barbes, in connexion with an amnesty which had been accorded 
 to several of his own Strasbourg accomplices : " The names of 
 Barbes and several other incriminated persons, on whose behalf 
 the democratic press has rightly lifted up its voice, and whom 
 disease undermines, ought to have figured the first on the 
 amnesty list." . . (Vol. iii. p. 239.) At that period, " Prince 
 Louis" called Abd-el-Kader "a chief of brigands," (vol. iii. 
 
144 ANNEXES. 
 
 p. 109,) and said of General Cubieres : " General Cubi^res, com- 
 mander of the French troops at Ancona, brought no delay in 
 making- himself the spy of the papal government, and delivered 
 up to it the Italians who confided in the man representing the 
 French government." (Vol. iii. p. 107.) It is known that 
 General Cubieres, at first " a spy at Ancona," subsequently in- 
 curred in Paris a condemnation for embezzlement. No sooner 
 all-powerful, the Augustus of our age, who has a decided taste 
 for robbers, hastened to set at liberty Abd-el-Kader and 
 Cubieres, whatever he might have said of them ; but he still 
 keeps in prison Citizen Barbes, whatever may so ^^ justly " have 
 said " the democratic press." — We are aware that our inflexible 
 friend Barbes, a true worthy of the good times of chivalry, 
 would consider as a grievous outrage any manner of discharge 
 proceeding from M. L. N. Bonaparte ; it is in nowise, there- 
 fore, to call for his deliverance, that we readduce the fact ; 
 we only wish to expose all the amount of duplicity there is in 
 the whilom democratic nephew. 
 
 H. M. Napoleon III. was particular about being of a repub- 
 lican origin. To hear him, all the chance kings who are in 
 the family whose name he bears, were democrats, princes 
 against their wills, remaining on the throne as little as possi- 
 ble, and cherishing at the bottom of their hearts the hallowed 
 love of revolutionary principles. *' That which, in our eyes," 
 says he, ** appears to be one of the worthiest acts of Joseph 
 Bonaparte, is that he continued to his last hour a true patriot 
 of 1789. The crowns of Naples and Spain, which he had 
 successively worn, were to him but accessory events ; the 
 Empire itself was, according to his view, but an episode, in 
 the great revolutionary drama, which had moved his whole 
 being, and for which he had faithfully kept all his sympathies.*' 
 (Vol. ii. p. 34?.) 
 
 The King of Holland, Louis Bonaparte, was a still stancher 
 patriot than Joseph, King of Spain; at least, his putative 
 son said so while publicly thanking some old soldiers who had 
 assisted at the removal of the remains of Louis Bonaparte, sen., 
 to St. Leu: "It is not the man, whom hap and victory had 
 made a king of, for several days, that you have intended here 
 to honour with your regrets, but it is the old soldier of the 
 republican armies, the man who remained hut little on the 
 throned (Vol. iii. p. 321.) 
 
 More curious still ! Napoleon had become an emperor only 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (L. N. BONAPARTE.) 145 
 
 to effect a radical propaganda throughout Europe. " French- 
 men ! " exclaims the nephew, *' let us return thanks to Napoleon ; 
 it was he who implanted in France the principles of the Jte- 
 public : the enfranchisement of all peoples — such was the goal 
 to which he was leading us." (Vol. i. p. 72.) " Some persons 
 have termed * brigands ' those men who regretted the demo- 
 cratic power of the plebeian hero, who insured the independence 
 of peoples, and who was the true representative of our Revo- 
 lution" (Vol. iii. p. 321.) — The more singular it is thus to 
 judge of a despot who exclaimed, in giving up his ugly soul : 
 *' Kings will bewail me," the more one is justified to infer 
 therefrom how very anxious the author was to pass himself off 
 for a Republican. 
 
 Meanwhile, our republican publicist aimed, in the inmost 
 recesses of his heart, at the Empire ; for this reason it was, 
 that in a project of constitution which he indites, he gives an 
 Emperor to France, though calling still the Empire ^^the 
 French Republic^ one and indivisible.^* (Vol. i. p. 85.) But 
 that Emperor is " the elect of universal suffrage" (p. 88), he 
 is only the executive power, with two national legislative 
 assemblies, both likewise elected by universal suffrage ; at last, 
 he wears the title of " Emperor of the French Republic, (p. 82). 
 — This paltry logomachy proves only one thing ; it is, that 
 the author, sillily longing for a crown, knew that he had to 
 deal with a thoroughly republican people. 
 
 So true is it, that, up to the last day, he constantly kept 
 secret his projects as to the Empire. When, at Strasbourg, he 
 addressed the artillerymen, he said to them, in shov^ing them 
 an old imperial eagle : *' Behold here the symbol of French 
 glory, destined to become also the emblem of Liberty ; " and 
 concluded by shouting " Vive la France ! Vive la Liberte ! " 
 (Vol. iii. p. 189.) Therefore, no Empire. When, on the eve 
 of the skirmish, he conversed with the officers gained over by 
 Colonel Vaudrey, he enticed them in a still more explicit 
 manner : " As the eldest of Napoleon's nephews, I can con- 
 sider myself the representative of the popular wishes — / 
 will not say of the Fmpire, because for the last twenty years 
 the ideas and wants of France must have undergone a change." 
 (Vol. iii. p. 201.) 
 
 The Revolution of February seemed to arouse all the repub- 
 lican feelings of the ridiculous pretender of Strasbourg ; there- 
 fore, as soon as it broke out, he hastened to write to the Pro- 
 
146 ANNEXES. 
 
 visional Government : '* The people of Paris, having destroyed, 
 through its heroism, the last vestiges of the foreign invasion, 
 I come from exile, to place myself under the banner of the 
 Republic which has just been proclaimed. Without any other 
 ambition than that of serving my country, I come to announce 
 my arrival to the members of the Provisional Government, 
 and to assure them of my devotedness to the cause which they 
 represent, as well as of my sympathy for their persons. Signed 
 L. N. Bonaparte." (Vol. ii. p. 317.) 
 
 The Provisional Government, but little sensible to the 
 devotedness of that humble Prince Louis sent him back to 
 London, until the Constituent Assembly should have come to a 
 decision respecting the fate of the banished families. 
 
 In the Constituent Assembly, it was proposed, on account of 
 his two attempts as a^ disguised pretender, to enforce on his 
 score alone the law of exile which presses upon the Bonaparte 
 family ; it was then that he wrote from London, on the 23rd of 
 May :— 
 
 " Citizens, Representatives of the People, why should 
 I deserve such a punishment? Could it be for . . . 
 Could it be for having refused, from disinterestedness, to avail 
 myself of votes to the Assembly, which were proposed to me, 
 resolved as I have ever been to return to France only when the 
 new Constitution shall be established and the Republic rendered 
 secure f The same reasons which induced me to take up arms 
 against the Government of Louis-Philippe would urge me, 
 should my services be required, to sacrifice myself for the 
 
 DEFENCE OF THE ASSEMBLY, ISSUED FROM UNIVERSAL 
 
 SUFFRAGE. In presence of a king elected solely by two 
 hundred deputies, I might be permitted to recollect that I was 
 the heir to an empire ; in presence of the national Sovereignty, 
 I CANNOT AND WILL NOT claim aught but my rights as a French 
 citizen," &c. (Vol. i. p. 46.) 
 
 Meanwhile, he was elected a Representative, but his name 
 was sufficiently mixed up with the popular agitations of that 
 time for still justifying surmises as to his designs ; he then left 
 Paris, and wrote to the Assembly : — 
 
 "London, June 11, 1848. 
 
 " I hear that my election is made use of as a pretext for 
 grievous misunderstandings. I have not solicited the honour 
 of being a Representative of the People, because I was aware 
 of the offensive suspicions of which I was the object, &c. . . . 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (L. N. BONAPARTE.) 147 
 
 JBut I deprecate all those who attribute to me some amhitious 
 intentions which I have not" (Vol. i., p. 47.) 
 
 To that letter was subjoined a duplicate of his thanks to the 
 electors, in which we read : " I will unite my efforts with those 
 of my colleagues towards the consolidation of democratic 
 institutions. The people has been free ever since the 2ith of 
 February ; it can obtain everything without resorting to brute 
 force. Let us therefore rally round the altar of our native 
 country, u^ider the banner of the Republic." (Vol. i. p. 49.) 
 
 Fully conscious that his intrigues had placed him in a 
 perilous position, he took the resolution to remain in London, 
 and sent in his resignation on the 15th of June, 1848, "on 
 account," said he, " of the offensive suspicions to which his 
 election was giving rise." He added that *'he desired the 
 preservation of a Republic, great, and free from excesses." 
 (Vol. i. p. 50.) 
 
 Informed a few days afterwards, that he had been elected in 
 Corsica, he resigned anew, in a letter dated July 8, 1848, 
 and addressed to the President of the Assembly, wherein he 
 said : ** I think it incumbent on me to wait, before re-entering 
 into my native country, until my presence in France can 
 in nowise serve as a pretext to the enemies of the Repuhlic, 
 I am desirous that those who accuse me of ambition may be 
 convinced of their error. Be pleased to assure the National 
 Assembly of my ardent wishes for the prosperity of the 
 Repuhlic:' (Vol. i. p. 52.) 
 
 When came the new elections of September, 1848, he wrote 
 publicly to General Piat : " I long to return to France, and to 
 sit in the midst of the representatives of the people who are 
 willing to organize the Republic upon broad and sound bases." 
 (Vol. i. p. 53.) 
 
 Once elected, he took his seat in the Assembly, on the left, 
 or opposition benches (vol. i. p. 54), and on the 26th of Sep- 
 tember, he uttered the following words at the tribune : 
 *' Citizens, Representatives, — After thirty- three years of pro- 
 scription and exile, I at last recover both a place in my native 
 country, and all my rights as a denizen. To the Republic 
 I am indebted for this happy circumstance ; let the Republic 
 accept 7ny oath of gratitude, my oath of allegiance ; and let 
 those generous countrymen of mine who have voted me to this 
 Assembly rest assured that I will endeavour to deserve their 
 suffrage, by actively contributing to the development of the demo- 
 
148 ANNEXES^. 
 
 eratic institutions which the people has a right to demand. 
 My conduct, ever inspired hy duty^ ever animated hy respect 
 for the law, will prove, against the passions which have sought 
 to blacken me, with a view to still proscribe me, that no one 
 here is, more than J, resolved to devote himself to the strength- 
 ening of the Republic^ (Vol. i. p. 66.) 
 
 A month after this, on the 26th of October, M. L. N. 
 Bonaparte begged leave to speak in the Assembly, to repel 
 attacks directed against him : "Of what am I accused [said 
 he] ? Of accepting a candidature which I have not courted. 
 Well, yes, I accept this candidature to the Presidency, because 
 three successive elections and the decree of the National As- 
 sembly against the proscription of my family, justify me in the 
 belief that France considers the name I bear as susceptible of 
 contributing TO THE strengthening and to the prosperity 
 OF THE REPUBLIC. How little do those who accuse tne of ambi- 
 tion know the sentiments which actuate me!" (Vol. i. p. 57.) 
 
 In his address {profession de foi) as a candidate for the 
 Presidency, he said : " To recall me from exile, you have 
 elected me a Representative of the People.* There should 
 exist no equivocation between you and me. I am not an 
 ambitious man, aiming now at the Empire and at war, now at 
 the application of subversive theories. Brought up, in free 
 countries, at the school of adversity, I will always remain 
 faithful to the duties which are imposed on me by your suffrage 
 arid by the wishes of the assembly. Were I elected 
 President, I would devote myself entirely, without any after- 
 thought, to the strengthening of a republic, wise by its laws, 
 honest by its intentions, great and strong by its acts. I would 
 consider it an honour /or me to leave, after the lapse of four 
 years, to my successor, power strengthened, liberty untainted, 
 and a real progress accomplished." (Vol. i. p. 60.) 
 
 Elected President, he took the oath required by the Con- 
 stitution, in the following terms : " In the presence of Gob and 
 before the French people, represented by the National Assembly, 
 I swear to remain faithful to the democratic, one, and indi- 
 visible REPUBLIC ; to fulfil all the duties imposed upon me by 
 the Constitution." And scarcely had he uttered this oath, 
 
 * M. Bonaparte, — we think it may not be amiss to record it, — 
 thereby acknowledges that the people have a right to elect a 
 proscribed individual as one of their representatives, with a view 
 to recall him from exile. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, (l. N. BONAPARTE.) 149 
 
 'when he spontaneously added : *' The suffrage of the nation, 
 and the oath which I have just taken^ comtnand my future con- 
 duct. My duty is traced out, I will fulfil it as AN honest 
 
 MAN. I SHALL CONSIDER AS ENEMIES TO MY COUNTRY ALL 
 THOSE WHO SHOULD ATTEMPT TO CHANGE, THROUGH 
 
 ILLEGAL MEANS, THAT WHICH THE WHOLE OF 
 FRANCE HAS ESTABLISHED." 
 
 Is it not beyond all conception, the effrontery of the man 
 who, after taking the above oath, and speaking in the above 
 fashion, with full consciousness of his doings; after saying in 
 his electioneering address, written subsequently to the voting of 
 the Constitution ; " I will always remain faithful to the duties 
 which the wishes of the ^S5€m6/?/ might impose upon me ;" is it 
 not beyond all conception, the bare-faced audacity of the man 
 who, after all that, dared to print, on the 2nd of December, in 
 his appeal to the people : ** The Constitution, you know, had 
 been made with a view to weaken beforehand the power which 
 you were going to entrust to me ? " 
 
 When once President, M. Bonaparte no longer pronounces 
 the word Republic: he discovers numerous defects in the Con- 
 stitution for which he has himself yotedi as Representative, and 
 which he has very freely sworn to as President ; but he 
 lavishes asseverations of faithfully keeping his word pledged 
 to that Constitution. 
 
 On December 31, 1849, he concluded his first message in 
 these terms : " I wish to be worthy of the nation's confidence, 
 hy muintaininy the Constitution to which I have sworn .'" 
 
 The message of November 12, 1850, says the same thing: 
 ** I have often declared, whenever the opportunity offered of 
 freely expressing my sentiment, that I should consider AS 
 HIGHLY GUILTY those who, through personal ambition, should 
 JEOPARDIZE THE LITTLE AMOUNT OF STABILITY WHICH THE 
 CONSTITUTION INSURES TO US. Every one, except myself is 
 allowed to try to hasten the revision of our fundamental law. 
 If the Constitution contains flaws and broods dangers, you all 
 are at liberty to point them out in the interest of the country. 
 I, alone, bound by my oath, shall confine myself within the 
 strict limits w^hich it has marked out. Whatever may be the 
 solutions which time will bring on, let us mutually understand 
 ourselves, in order that it tnay never fall to the lot of passions, 
 surprise, and violence, to decide the fate of a great nation : let 
 us inspire the people with a religious respect for legality, by 
 never ourselves swerving therefrom. That which is especially 
 
laO ANNEXES. 
 
 the object of my eares, believe me^ is not the question as to 
 who shall govern France in 1862; it is, to employ the time 
 which is left to me, so as that the transition, whatever it may 
 be, shall take place without any agitation, and without diffi- 
 culty. The noblest aim, as also the most worthy of an elevated 
 soul, is not to seek, when one is in power t by what expedients 
 one may be able to continue therein ; but it is, to unceasingly . 
 keep an eye on the means of consolidating, in the interests 
 of all the citizens, the principles of authority and morals, 
 which bid defiance to the passions of men and to the insta- 
 bility of the laws. I have fairly opened my heart to you ; you 
 will respond to my frankness by your confidence, to my good 
 intentions by your assistance, and God will do the rest. 
 " Elysee National, Nov. 12, 1850." 
 
 A few months previously, (July 30, 1849,) at Tours, in one 
 of those speeches which were turned by his friends into great 
 events, the President also said : *' I have not come among you 
 with any after-thought, but to show myself such as I am, and 
 not such as calumny represents me to be. It has been, and still 
 is pretended, that the government meditates some enterprise, 
 similar to that of the 18th Brumaire. But are we in like cir- 
 cumstances ? . . . Have confidence in the future, without 
 thinking of coups d* etat and insurrections. Coups d' etat lack 
 now even a pretext. Have confidence in the National Assembly y 
 and in your chief magistrates, who are the elects of the 
 nation." 
 
 He had already expressed the same sentiment, on July 22, 
 1849, while playing the friend of order, on his visit to Ham : 
 " When one has seen how many evils the justest revolutions 
 drag along in their train, one cannot easily understand the 
 audacity of having consented to assume the terrible responsi- 
 bility of a change, I therefore do not complain to have atoned, 
 by six 3 ears' imprisonment, my temerity in having risen against 
 the laws of my native country ; and it is with a sentiment of 
 happiness that, in this very place where I have suffered, I pro- 
 pose to you a toast in honour of every man who is resolved, 
 despite his convictions, to respect the institutions of his country" 
 &c. 
 
 Indeed, every peruser of the foregoing, w^ill own it — no one 
 in the world has, more than M. Bonaparte, vouched the Repub- 
 lic. Maugre this long series of professions of gratitude to- 
 wards her ; maugre these so absolute promises of devotedness 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (L. N. BONAPARTE.) 151 
 
 to her service; maugre these so precise engagements that 
 he would use his endeavours to strengthen her, he over- 
 threw her, and — as if to crown the heap of his treasons, — at 
 the very moment he stabbed in the back that Republic which 
 had reopened to him the doors of his native country, and whose 
 chief magistrate he was, he formally proclaimed that his coup 
 d'etat had no other object than to save her ! " Now," we read 
 in his appeal to the people, on J)ec. 2, " now that the men who 
 have ruined two monarchies strive to tie my hands, in order to 
 overthrow the Reptihlic^ my duty is to baffle their perfidious 
 aims, AND TO maintain the republic." 
 
 Verily, that saviour of order is felony perambulating, lie 
 incarnated, a phenomenon of duplicity ! In him, the honesty 
 of a public man is as completely wanting as the probity of a 
 private man ! He is an unprincipled man in the full accepta- 
 tion of the term. Who ever was more explicit regarding his 
 duties, at the very instant he prepared to trample on them ? — 
 To declare himself a republican all his life long, until the last 
 moment, so as to purloin a crown ! " What a clever pate ! " 
 some people will perhaps here again exclaim. Such is not 
 our opinion : we deem all that, on the contrary, most cowardly 
 and most silly. 
 
 M. Bonaparte has not only told lies to the Republic vic- 
 torious, he has told lies to France conquered ; he has shame- 
 fully forsworn all the engagements he had entered into re- 
 specting her. Hear him ; *' / represent a defeat — that of 
 Waterloo, — and I will avenge it'' (Boulogne trial.) " There 
 are but two parties in France : the victors and the vanquished 
 of Waterloo." ( Works, vol. ii. p. 349.) " If the ministry had 
 not 60,000 soldiers in Paris, the defenders of the treaties of 
 1815 would not remain a single day in power." (Vol. iii. 
 p. 86.) " What could be more humiliating to us, French- 
 men, than to think that the Holy Alliance hinders us from 
 rebuilding our walls of Huninguef" (Vol. i. p. 177.) "The 
 emperor, my uncle, preferred abdicating the empire to ac- 
 cepting in treaties the restricted boundaries which could, not 
 but expose France to be an object of contempt for other 
 nations. I have not forgotten such lessons for a single day." 
 (Vol. i. p. 26.) 
 
 It must be fully made known, — those men who followed the 
 would-be emperor's nephew in his first exploits, were chiefly 
 allured by the persuasion wherein he kept them,' that his in- 
 
152 ANNEXES. 
 
 tentions were to restore to warlike France her lustre, tarnished 
 by the events of 1814 and 1815. We find again, in an incident 
 of the pleading relative to the Boulogne trial, an echo of those 
 lofty promises, with particular stress laid thereon : — M. Jules 
 Favre was speaking on behalf of the accused Aladenize : 
 " Aladenize (said he) has not adhered to the Prince's party, 
 but to that of the citizen, whom he believed destined to revive 
 the liberties and THE independence of the country. 
 (Groans on some benches in the court.) I am only endea- 
 vouring to interpret the then sentiments of Aladenize ; and, in 
 saying that the Prince who stood before him, led him to hope 
 that he would have one day the power of restoring to France 
 her former boundaries, I have explained what were the illu- 
 sions of Aladenize." Aladenize, rising : — " I approve of these 
 words of my counsel." [Trial, &c., p. 248.) 
 
 The citizen, to whose party M. Aladenize had adhered, is 
 now an emperor and an all-powerful man ; has he raised again 
 the walls of Huningue? Has he torn asunder the treaties of 
 1815 ? Has he remembered those " lessons " which he had not 
 forgotten " for a single day ?" No : he has chosen to acknowledge 
 the restricted boundaries rather than not to become an em- 
 peror. When, after the coup de Jarnac of December, he 
 called out so loud : " The Empire is Peace," he only sought 
 thereby to please ** the defenders of the treaties of 1815." 
 The Cabinet of Berlin, while answering the notifications re- 
 specting the re-establishment of the empire, particularly ex- 
 patiated on the engagement taken by the new Bonaparte, of 
 observing the decrees of the Holy Alliance :...*' These 
 notifications, confirmed by the solemn and public declarations 
 of the Chief of the State, have been received by the King, our 
 august master, with lively satisfaction. H. M., whilst appre- 
 ciating, as they deserve, the services rendered to the cause of 
 order, will consider the above-mentioned declarations of the 
 new government as a pledge of its intention of persevering in 
 the peaceful policy which it has hitherto pursued. For, whilst 
 it shows itself penetrated with a sincere esteem for the rights 
 of all peoples, it binds itself to observe the existing treaties, and 
 to maintain the territorial circonscription whereupon rests the 
 political system placed under the protection of all the Euro- 
 pean powers. These declarations are found to be in perfect 
 accordance with the intentions of the King, our august master. 
 H. M. accepting them as a guarantee of the general peace, 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, (l. N. BONAPARTE.) 153 
 
 acknowledges the accession of the President of the French 
 Republic to the imperial dignity. 
 " Berlin, January 3, 1853. 
 
 " (Signed) Manteuffel." 
 
 lliat M. Bonaparte has acknowledged the existing 
 treaties ; that he has most positively sided with ** the party 
 of the victors at Waterloo;" that the question is no longer 
 with him ** to avenge the defeat which he represents ;" — all 
 this is once more evidenced by his alliance with England, 
 without any stipulation or reservation. For these are the 
 conditions on which he himself says that one can become the 
 ally of England : — "In 1830, the French government solicited 
 the alliance of England, and England answered : — * We will 
 uphold your views, in the face of Europe ; but give up to us 
 your interests: acknowledge the treaties of 1815 and the 
 supremacy of our navy; bind yourselves to allow our in- 
 fluence to settle in the East and in the Mediterranean.' 
 These promises were made : our government did, upon their 
 own authority, pledge our future condition, and, for the in- 
 terest of a dynasty, they delivered up the great interests of our 
 country." (Vol. iii. p. 42.) 
 
 Whatever opinion people may entertain regarding these 
 matters, to whatever nation they may belong, how could they 
 not feel the repulsion of contempt for him who, after holding 
 so many times that language, is actuated by no other care 
 than that of keeping a power threatened by the publiq hatred, 
 and lowers his throne to the feet of the Holy Alliance, with a 
 view to maintain himself upon it ? No one, more than sincere 
 Bonapartists (granting that there were some such) ought to 
 detest the nephew who so deeply humiliates the uncle's ad- 
 mirers. 
 
 Every government has its peculiar character; now, what 
 reason can there any longer be for a revival of the empire, the 
 moment such a revival leaves France in the fetters of the 
 treaties of 1815 ? After all, the hero of the imperial restora- 
 tion is but a political juggler; he presented himself dressed up 
 as a *' little corporal," holding two small flags, whereon he had 
 written, " I will avenge Waterloo, I will rend asunder the 
 treaties of 1815 : " and scarcely was he on the tight-rope of his 
 engagements, when he fell flat on the ground, giving his small 
 flags to England, Austria, and Prussia, in order to induce 
 them to help him in raising himself up. That those who 
 
154 ANNEXES. 
 
 profit by such lowerings should deem them quite right, is very 
 natural ; but to say that France also deems them quite right, 
 is to exhibit more hatred for her than love for truth. 
 
 "Whoever might be desirous of making a comparative list of 
 the engagements of the imperial pretender in disguise, and of 
 the acts of what is termed the Emperor, would see that few 
 men have more disgraced themselves by lying than that one. 
 Time is wanting to us for these comparisons ; we will some 
 day fully enter into them. It is a sad, but curious specimen 
 of how much the human heart can contain that is false. — One 
 cannot help bestowing attention on M. Bonaparte, since the 
 policy of *' honest people" has made him an ally of the 
 Queen of England! 
 
 Here is, at all events, a sample of what is to be found after 
 an investigation of this kind : — 
 
 On the 28th of February, M. Bonaparte writes to the Provi- 
 sional Government : " The people of Paris, having destroyed, 
 through its heroism, the last vestiges of the invasion, I come," 
 &c. On the 23rd of May following, he writes again : " The 
 Constituent Assembly is the production of universal suffrage" 
 On the loth of December, he adds to his presidential oath : " I 
 shall consider as enemies of our native country all those who 
 should attempt to overthrow that which the whole of 
 France has established." Previously to these declarations, he 
 had signed the subjoined sentence : " Where there has been a 
 revolution, where the people has upset an odious power in order 
 to restore liberty, — there to revive afresh that which the people 
 had DESTROYED in its wrath, is what surpasses conception." 
 (Vol. i. p. 68.) — In spite of all this, M. Bonaparte, in collusion 
 with the pretorians, has revived the monarchical principle 
 which the people had destroyed ! 
 
 In the middle of his electioneering address as a candidate for 
 the presidency, may be read what follows : "I, who have known 
 exile and captivity, most anxiously wish for the coming of that 
 day when my native country can without danger put an end to 
 all proscriptions ." That dates from 1848, and in 1851 he lends 
 his name to a military revolution which can be supported only 
 hy proscribing or deporting 15,000 citizens ! — In London, he had 
 addressed the following words to egotists: *'0 you, who never 
 suffered the torments of exile, do you believe that it is a slight 
 punishment to deprive men of their native country? But, 
 know this, exile is a continual martyrdom ; it is death, death 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (L. N. BONAPARTE.) 155 
 
 from consumption, a slow and hideous death, which under- 
 mines you stealthily, and leads you to a deserted tomb. In 
 exile, the air which surrounds you stifles you, and you live 
 only through the weakened breath which reaches you from 
 the remote shores of your native land." (Vol. iii. p. 250.) 
 
 M. Bonaparte, therefore, does not ignore to what tortures an 
 exile is destined ! The Republicans have rescued him from 
 those tortures, their courage and their vote have reopened to 
 him the doors of France, and the first use which he made of 
 power, was to banish 5000 republicans ! * to doom to ** the 
 slow death of exile " those very men who had saved him from 
 it ! ! He also said : " Exile, if you meet with some one of your 
 companions in misfortune, check the impulse which drifts 
 you towards him, do not stretch out your hand to him ; if it 
 were known that he has spoken to you, they would deprive 
 him of the bread which supports his children ! It is a crime 
 in the eyes of the great in our days to he connected with a 
 banished man." (Vol. iii. p. 252.) Could it be believed ? — he 
 who indited these lines, now treats as a crime the sympathy 
 evinced towards exiles ! Some subscriptions were taking place 
 in France, in aid of those who, among us, are poor, and can 
 find no work : he prohibited them, under penalty of transport- 
 ation ! Is not to glorify such an ungrateful wretch, ofiending 
 human nature ? That odious name we find again, therefore, 
 under our pen, while mentioning the pardoned prisoner of 
 Louis Philippe. Our readers may judge whether it be not 
 rightly so. 
 
 Man is imperfect ; he almost always has the defects of his 
 qualities, and sometimes also the qualities of his defects ; but 
 the ungrateful never possesses any kind of quality : Nature, by 
 stamping him with this distinctive badge, seems to have wished 
 to indicate to all, that he is beside mankind. 
 
 The vicious character, the tarnished reputation, the blurred 
 honour of all the companions of M. Bonaparte, would be suffi- 
 cient to prove, were his acts wanting to us, that he has no 
 delicacy of soul, no pride of heart. His unscrupulous ambition 
 is a coarse love of power for the sake of the material enjoy- 
 
 * In our book — Le Gouvemement du 2 Decembre — we have esta- 
 blished by authenticated statistical returns, that out of the 26 or 
 28,000 condemned, of December, there are certainly 5000 exiles. 
 (See pages 127 and 673 of the above-named work.) 
 
156 ANNEXES. 
 
 ments it procures. He has not shrunk even from using the 
 services of men stamped by the tribunals, as was Vieyra when 
 he had the indecency to place him at the head of the National 
 Guard of Paris; at length, one of his accomplices in the 
 Boulogne affray w^as implicated at that very time in an in- 
 crimrnation for uttering false coin. 
 
 Let us explain this. In the month of October, 1841, it was 
 found out at London, that a great number of forged exchequer 
 bills were circulated at the Royal Exchange. An inquest was 
 at once begun, and ended in the arrestation of a Beaumont 
 Smith, who was then holding one of the principal offices in 
 the Exchequer. That man confessed that, ever since 1839, 
 he had issued forged bills to an enormous amount, and circu- 
 lated them through a certain Rapallo. The latter being 
 arrested as an accomplice, got out of scrape by offering to 
 inform against his fellow-prisoner, and, after remaining in 
 prison until the end of the session, he was admitted as " Queen's 
 evidence." [Observer, Dec. 5, 1841.) 
 
 The law proceedings terminated, on the 4th of December, 
 1841, in the condemnation of Beaumont Smith to transportation 
 for life. 
 
 Although Rapallo enjoyed the advantage accorded to dis- 
 closers, by the English law, his culpability was none the less 
 a positive fact in every one's opinion ; so much so, that, when 
 the question of indemnifying the innocent bearers of the forged 
 exchequer bills was discussed in parliament, Lord Monteagle 
 called to the bar of the house of peers, Rapallo, "the accomplice 
 of Smith."— (Sitting of March 4, 1842.) * Sir Thomas Wilde, 
 who had pleaded on behalf of the condemned, said, on another 
 hand, in the House of Commons : " I have some reasons to be- 
 lieve that Kapallo still possesses bills of the same nature to an 
 amount of £100,000; in this case, I think the House ought 
 not to state what course it intends to pursue, for fear that 
 Rapallo, apprized of that course, should induce some persons 
 to accept those bills. The House ought therefore to be very 
 careful, while placing itself in a position to do justice to certain 
 bearers of bills, whose names are very familiar in these 
 respects, that other persons should not come forward and found 
 other claims upon the bills still now in the possession of Ra- 
 pallo." (Sitting of April 4, 1842.) f 
 
 * Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, vol. 41, p. 19. 
 t Ditto do. do. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (L. N. BONAPARTE.) 157 
 
 We shall now see Rapallo, the utterer of false coin, in direct 
 intercourse with the Emperor's false nephew. The Edinburgh 
 Castle J which carried the suspicious fortune of " Augustus " to 
 Boulogne, belonged to the Commercial Steam Navigation 
 Company ; as soon as the rash undertaking was known, that 
 Company wrote to the mayor of the city of Boulogne : " The 
 Directors are anxious to formally and publicly declare, that not 
 one member of their Company could even surmise the criminal 
 and insensate object, the vile and treacherous attempt, for 
 which the boat was freighted. The application for the use of 
 the boat was made by Mr. Kapallo, a member of the Royal 
 Exchange, for the alleged purpose of taking several friends on 
 an excursion along the coasts of England. The Company 
 think it a duty towards themselves to manifest their abhor- 
 rence for an enterprise which might have given up to plunder 
 and slaughter a peaceful and flourishing city." {Trial, &c., 
 p. 43.)* 
 
 Beaumont Smith was not ignorant of the fact, that Rapallo 
 and Bonaparte were friends; from his first examination he 
 declared '* that Rapallo was involved in the expedition of 
 Bonaparte against France." [Observer, Nov. 7', 1841.) 
 
 Has the money derived from the forged exchequer bills been 
 partly invested in the Boulogne attempt ? It is the less 
 to be doubted, after what has just been said, as the dates of 
 the two honest enterprises accord with each other. Was 
 Bonaparte unacquainted with the source of that money? It is 
 difficult to admit it, when one knows that Rapallo was a 
 simple unlicensed broker whose sudden fortune, in 1839, could 
 not be lawfully accounted for. Where, besides, could Bona- 
 
 * "Plunder and slaughter;" from this language, which the 
 Bonapartists have in so cowardly a manner appropriated to their 
 own use after their victory, they had not escaped, as may be 
 seen, after their defeat ! Oh, for the admu-able honesty of the 
 " friends to order " in every country ! M, Bonaparte miserably 
 fails at Boulogne : the Commercial Steam Navigation Company 
 point out the " criminal and insensate object of his vile and 
 treacherous attempt;" they accuse him of having intended to 
 give up that city '* to plunder and slaughter." He succeeds at 
 Paris : Messrs. Masterman organize a manifestation of the 
 London trade, who all run to congratulate him on his having 
 saved France from "plunder and slaughter ;" and the moralists 
 of the Times exalt " the services he has rendered to order " ! ! 
 
158 ANNEXES. 
 
 parte have procured the enormous sums which that brilliant 
 expedition swallowed ? 
 
 Many Englishmen have thought that the present ally of 
 Great Britain had some share, either directly or indirectly, in 
 the affair of the forged exchequer bills. This opinion, which 
 sufficiently justifies us to mention the affair, has been publicly 
 manifested through the following paragraph, in the Observer : 
 ** Since M. Bonaparte is rich now, he ought to try to do some- 
 thing for Beaumont Smith, who is at Botany Bay for the 
 money wherewith Rapallo paid for the Boulogne expedition."* 
 
 This paragraph, so grave in itself, bears an additional im- 
 press of gravity, as coming from the Observer ; for that journal 
 is beKeved to be the semi-official organ of the court. Without 
 material proofs, we cannot positively affirm that Bonaparte 
 actually had a hand in the crime of Smith and Rapallo, al- 
 though we believe him fully capable of such a thing j but our 
 intention here has been to prove, in a very precise manner, 
 the connexion of the enemy of the Republic and of France 
 with the issuer of false coin, because the most grievous infer- 
 ences may be drawn therefrom against him. 
 
 M. Bonaparte is a man odious in every particular. Nothing 
 can serve as an excuse for his criminal attempt of December ; 
 he cannot plead any extenuating circumstance ; for he knew 
 that the Parisian population despised him, and that it would 
 be impossible for him to accomplish his object without its 
 being at the cost of awful murders. The massacre had figured 
 in the calculations of his projects ! Has he, at least, caused 
 any one to forget that his throne is framed upon piles, in a 
 lake of blood? No. He has not had yet, even since the 
 victory, one hour of clemency, one minute of pity. He is 
 inhuman, after as he was before \ His character, as an em- 
 peror, is more repulsive still than his character as a con- 
 spirator. Preluding, at Boulogne, to the assassinations of 
 December, he fired a pistol close upon a captain on duty. 
 
 * We do not pledge ourself as to the wording of this quotation 
 being in perfect accordance with the original text, but we pledge 
 ourself as to the sense of that text being here accurately given. 
 The paragraph in question was inserted some time in the mid- 
 dle of 1852. We cannot verify it, because the collection of the 
 Observer for the year 1852 is wanting in the library of the British 
 Museum. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (L. N. BONAPARTE.) 159 
 
 If that was not rank murder, we had better tear to pieces the 
 penal code, and all the dictionaries in every language. He 
 did, however, — he, the pardoned political assassin — sign orders 
 for the executioner to behead five of the combatants in the 
 civil war which he kindled with his own hand ! 
 
 The 1st of January, 1852, in answer to his fellow-labourer, 
 Baroche, who brought him the result of the ignoble comedy of 
 the plebiscitum, M. Bonaparte said, word for word (that also 
 is in the Moniteur) : " I have exceeded legality to step again 
 within the limits of right ; seven millions of votes have just 
 ABSOLVED me thereof." The Shell-President confesses, there- 
 fore, that he violated the law on the 2nd of December ; he 
 acknowledges besides that it was duly a crime, since he him- 
 self pretends also that he has been absolved of it. And, after 
 thus publicly accusing himself of having *' exceeded legality y^ 
 he terms insurgents those who rushed to the defence of le- 
 gality ; he orders the heads of some to be cut off, whilst he 
 keeps the others in the galleys, or in the central prisons, 
 mingled with forgers and poisoners ! Was ever the indecency 
 of impudence carried further ? 
 
 Brought, in 1840, before the Court of Peers, for an attack 
 by open violence on the government of July, he spoke in these 
 terms: "The representative of a political cause, I cannot 
 accept, as a judge of my intentions and deeds, a political juris- 
 diction. Your forms deceive no one. In the contest which 
 now begins, there is but one victor and one vanquished. If you 
 be the men of the victor, 1 have no justice to expect from you." 
 {Moniteur of Sept. 30, 1840.) 
 
 M. Bonaparte said then, in 1840, to the Peers of France : 
 *' You are a political jurisdiction, in spite oi your forms ; I, the 
 representative of a political cause, cannot accept you as judges ; 
 I except against your tribunal." 
 
 Some unheard-of events place him in 1851, at the rank of 
 the Peers of France of 1840. He can then bring about the 
 triumph of the great principles of equity which he invoked to 
 his advantage, practise towards others the justice which he 
 claimed for himself, refer at least his prisoners to the judgment 
 of the jury, of the people, *' the only sovereign he acknow- 
 ledges." What does he do ? He sends the " vanquished " be- 
 fore " the men of the victor," before courts-martial, before the 
 very soldiers against whom the accused fought on the previous 
 day ! After that, he himself, who holds the string of the fatal 
 
160 ANNEXES. 
 
 steel, lets it fall on the heads of " representatives of a political 
 cause," struck " by a political jurisdiction." Dictator in 1851, 
 he does that which, when a culprit in 1840, he declared to 
 be an iniquity ! ! 
 
 Is there, in those comparisons, a single feature which be not 
 in harmony with the rest ? Among honest people, among even 
 the most degraded of men, is there a single one who will 
 not exclaim : Infamous ! to so unnatural a being ? 
 
 The crown which that infamous wretch ridiculously wears, 
 has not altered him : he has remained himself ; as Lacenaire, 
 had he ascended the throne instead of having mounted on the 
 scaffold, would ever have been Lacenaire. 
 
 Since the remembrance of that celebrated assassin has come 
 to our mind, let us say that the simile between him and M. 
 Bonaparte is perfect, save the accident relative to the name 
 and to the upshot. M. Lacenaire applied to Avril, who was a 
 vagabond, possessing nothing, and offered him 100 francs (4/.) 
 to make him enter into his projects against a cashier's servant ; 
 M. Bonaparte applied to Magnan, who was a general having 
 bayonets at his disposal, and he offered the latter 100,000 
 francs (4000Z.) * with a view to make him enter into his pro- 
 jects against the Republic. M. Lacenaire missed his aim and 
 was beheaded ; M. Bonaparte has succeeded and been 
 crowned. With that difference, — and philosophically con- 
 sidered it is a slight one, — the two men are equal in point of 
 worth; with the same instincts, the same cowardice, they 
 have pursued the same aim by the same means : the en- 
 tire satisfaction of their brutal passions through corruption 
 and murder. 
 
 M. MORNY. 
 
 M. MoRNY, or, again, just as you like, Count De Morny, 
 who filled the office of Minister of the Interior for the insur- 
 gents of December, wrote on the 16th of December to M. 
 Maupas, his Prefect of Police : — 
 
 "Paris, 16th Dec, 1851. 
 
 *' You have made yourself acquainted with the decree given 
 out on the 8th of December, against the retaken escaped convicts 
 and against men found guilty of affiliation to secret societies. 
 
 * See below, Magnan' s Biography. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (mORNY.) 161 
 
 That decree must not be a dead letter. It must he enforced with 
 persevering energy. Be pleased to adopt in this respect, as 
 promptly as possible, all proper measures. We must by all 
 means cleanse the capital from every impure or dangerous 
 element, which result, it is hoped, will be obtained by the 
 resoluteness of the government. We must remove from Paris, 
 and if need be, from France, those ringleaders who misguide 
 w^eak people, and brood revolutions !!.... 
 
 '' (Signed) De Morny." 
 
 Several of our friends have entered secret societies. Morny, 
 by confounding them with convicts has given us the right, in 
 our indignation, not to spare him. We will in consequence 
 begin by stating, that M. Maupas, to obey the letter of his 
 minister, ought to have first of all cleansed the capital from 
 Morny himself. These are our grounds for so saying : of all 
 those " ringleaders who misguide weak people," there are none 
 more infamous than those who drown in blood, as he did, the 
 constitution of their country, by " misguiding " the army ; of 
 all the ** impure elements " of civilization there are none more 
 impure ; among *' bandits," there are none more '* dangerous," 
 than those individuals descended to that pitch of degradation 
 whereto he has fallen. That great defender of family has 
 lived for a long course of years in an adulterous connexion, 
 to which he has given all manner of scandalous notoriety. 
 
 On salt que ce pied plat, digne qu'on le confonde, 
 Par de sales emplois s'est pousse dans le monde.* 
 
 Morny, the signer, with his brother Bonaparte, of all the 
 proclamations of the insurrection, has likewise appended his 
 name to the following telegraphic despatch : — 
 
 " Paris, Dec. 2, 8 o'clock, a.m. 
 
 •' The Minister of the Interior to the Prefects. 
 
 " The peace of France was menaced by the Assembly : the 
 latter has been dissolved. The President of the Kepublic 
 makes an appeal to the nation. He maintains the Kepub- 
 lic, and fairly leaves to the country the care of deciding upon 
 its own fate. 
 
 * Every one knows that that cringing fellow, deserving the 
 gibbet of public exposure, has forced his way up through the 
 world by means of dirty jobs.] 
 
162 ANNEXES. 
 
 " The population of Paris has greeted with enthusiasm that 
 event, which had hecome indispensable."* 
 
 What man could that be, who declared that the coup de 
 Jarnac of the 2nd December was calculated to maintain the 
 Repuhlic ? 
 
 Morny, an obscure deputy under Louis-Philippe, had gained 
 for himself a certain renown for corruption, as having been 
 forward in proposing, on the 25th of June, 1847, the famous 
 ** order of the day of the satis/aits" But he never was a 
 political man. Like all his companions, he is a chevalier 
 (Tindustrie ; his speciality was that of railways, manufactures 
 supported by means of shares, mines worked by means of 
 active and sleeping partners, anonymous commercial com- 
 panies, and all similar financial operations of dubious sound- 
 ness, wherein those concerned fish in troubled waters. — Those 
 people have a taste for underhand dealings; they cannot do 
 without them, whatever their social position may become. In 
 spite of the large sums he had swept out of the coup de main 
 of insolvents, Morny could not make up his mind to abandon 
 his former business. He was one of the most powerful men of 
 the august empire of December, when he still got up in London 
 an enterprise where we find all the turpitudes, all the auda- 
 cious frauds of the far-famed mines of St. Berain. The Times 
 published, on the 13th of June, 1852, a gorgeous prospectus 
 announcing *' the formation of an anonymous company for the 
 working of the coal mines of Aubin (Aveyron)." Unfortunately 
 M. Cabrol, an ancient deputy and an administrator of the 
 forges of Decazeville, deemed it expedient to divulge the snare 
 laid for the English capitalists, in a letter addressed with witty 
 maliciousness to Morny himself. In that letter, inserted in 
 the Siecle of July 22, 1852, the following passages may be 
 observed : — " There are throughout the world some very 
 hazardous announcements ; but never in my life did I see, in 
 point of audacity and cynicism, anything to be compared with 
 that to which I have just called your attention. Your name is 
 prefixed to that production, and I hasten to declare to you 
 that I am convinced it has been made use of without your 
 knowledge ; or, should the contrary perchance be the case, 
 — should you have consented to publicly patronize such an 
 attempt against the purse of our neighbours, the cause of this 
 
 * Journal de Lof-et- Garonne, of Dec. 3. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (MORNY.) 163 
 
 must be that you have been grossly deceived as to both the 
 means and the aim. I say ^rossZy, because the errors contained 
 therein (I will not say the lies) are as gross as mountains are 
 big. When you are apprized of the truth, you will he indignant 
 at the part you have been made to play." 
 
 This was followed by the irrefutable demonstration that the 
 whole affair was an immense cheat, elaborately concocted, so 
 as to make as many dupes as subscribers might be found. M. 
 Cabrol thus concluded his letter : *' While fulfilling an im- 
 perious duty in the name of the metallurgic industry of my 
 country, I.think, sir and ancient colleague, that I am rendering 
 you a signal service by denouncing to' your moral sense a 
 manoeuvre in which your name has been implicated, one which 
 has already been, or may be, successful in making dupes ^ but on 
 which a sad and inevitable reality will not be slow to shed a 
 glaring light, to the shame of those who have planned it in 
 full consciousness of their doings." 
 
 Morny, stunned as he then was, maugre his usual effrontery, 
 hesitated for a few days, and at length he — the man accounted 
 to be keen-sighted — was purblind enough to take proceedings 
 for libel against M. Cabrol. The tribunal of the Seine, in 
 two verdicts dated January 21 and June 30, 1853, found Morny 
 not justified in his claim,* thus leaving the blur to subsist 
 which had been cast upon the commercial operations of that 
 Sully of the Lower-Empire. 
 
 Morny, when passing through Brussels, on his return from 
 that happy visit to England, was invited to the table of H. 
 M. Leopold, the Nestor of kings, which did not prevent him 
 from experiencing, quite lately, a second rebuff at the hands 
 of justice. In a law-suit instituted by the shareholders of the 
 Constitutionnel against MM. Veron, Mires and himself, it 
 was evidenced that Morny, the " clandestine " co-manager of 
 M. Veron, had received 500,000 francs out of the sale 
 of the Constitutionnel to M. Mires. He, however, knew 
 very well that he had no right thereto, and that that 
 sum was the produce of a manifest civil deceit, of fraudulent 
 manoeuvres, according to the expression used before the tri- 
 bunal by the shareholders' counsel; he perfectly knew that 
 the management of a journal which is being sold, cannot be 
 sold, since it ceases to exist from the very fact of the 
 
 * Biographies Bonapartistes, by Citizen Beifjeau. 
 
164 ANNEXES. 
 
 concluded bargain ; he was no less ignorant that a manager 
 who detains, without the knowledge of his associates, the 
 least portion of the sum obtained from the sale for the social 
 fund, commits a theft. One more proof, at length, that he was 
 aware of the impropriety of that profit to himself, is that he, 
 the co-manager, having an equal share in all proceeds, consented 
 to receive 500,000 francs, whilst, to his knowledge, 680,000 
 francs were on the other hand accruing to his partner, Veron. 
 
 It was proven, besides, in those proceedings at law, that 
 Morny had received, in 1847, half of a sum of ] 00,000 francs, 
 deriving from an infamous bargain by which Veron had given 
 up the political opinions and the publicity of the Cotistitu- 
 tionnel to a society of forge proprietors, to uphold the pro- 
 tectionist system! The noble imperial Count has descended 
 lower still. In 1851, having had a quarrel with his acolyte, 
 he impudently claimed from the latter before arbiters, 25,000 
 francs, as half of 50,000 francs received by Veron from the 
 representatives of a certain political opinion. {Reply of M. He- 
 bert, the counsel for the shareholders [plaintiffs] of the Consti- 
 tutionnel, page 23.) What a noble guest for H.M« Leopold I., 
 King of the Belgians ! 
 
 Attempt to find in either of the two hemispheres an honest 
 man who will not class among *' the most impure and dangerous 
 elements of society " this high individual disputing with an ac- 
 complice for the fruit of venality and of a barefaced civil fraud. 
 
 M. Veron. 
 
 Veron, a sort of financier-journalist, had not even sold him- 
 self, he had given himself, body and soul, to the conspiracy of 
 December. He is considered one of the most strong-headed 
 men of the imperial regime, he is thought to be a '* skilful " 
 man. Nevertheless, his operation relative to the sale of the 
 Constitutionnel — a downright coup c?' etat in miniature — was 
 so gross, that the Bonapartist judges could not acquit him, 
 except on pain of dishonouring even themselves in the 
 broad light of day. It will be sufficient for us to analyze 
 that " coup de main," to the exclusion of every other episode 
 in the life of the celebrated speculator on the pdte-Regnault, 
 with a view to show what he is. 
 
 M. Hebert, the lawyer who pleaded on behalf of seven 
 shareholders of the Constitutionnel, against MM. Veron, 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL J^OTICES. (VERON.) 165 
 
 manager, Momy, and Mir^s, exposed the fkcts in an address 
 delivered on the 29th of December, 1853, before the tribunal 
 of First-Instance* of the Seine. His address and the reply- 
 were printed ; we now have them under our eyes. 
 
 ** The origin of these proceedings," said M. Hebert, " is the 
 embezzlement of a social property to the prejudice of the 
 associates." 
 
 Veron, in an article of February 19, 1852, had said, touching 
 the Caesarian legislation on the French Press : " The existence 
 of all the newspapers which are now published, is respected ; 
 in spite of the rumours that have been spread through malevo- 
 lence, political writers will be allowed to live and think under 
 the new law on the Press." On the 19th of August following, 
 Veron, having personally fallen out with the Elysee, came to 
 the superintending committee of his journal, to make the 
 under-mentioned declaration : " The government of the 2nd of 
 December has ettacted against the Press a law whose only aim 
 IS TO RUIN IT," &c. (See supra^ page 34.) A man who is 
 brazenfaced enough to hold without flinching such a double- 
 sided language is considered, in the Bonapartist world, as 
 possessing considerable strength of mind. 
 
 *' The results of the measures of our government against the 
 Press," continued the manager of the Decembriseur news- 
 paper, with the calm of a seemingly good conscience, *' the 
 results of such measures have been speedily produced, and the 
 
 * ConstitutionneP has lost more than 10,000 subscribers within 
 six months. From February next, the condition of the 
 
 * Constitution nel' will be a desperate one, as is now that of 
 the ' Pays.' " 
 
 With a view to support his paper, and remove all chance 
 from its competitors, M. Veron, using his power as manager, 
 reduced the price of a yearly subscription to 32 francs. 
 On the 13th of November, 1852, he came back to the com- 
 mittee, and declared that the fall in the price was leading the 
 Constitutionnel, already under the blows of two warnings, to 
 an inevitable ruin ; that he had in consequence proposed to 
 MM. Mires & Co., proprietors of the Pays, to effect a fusion 
 with the Constitutionnel, and that these gentlemen had refused 
 to do so. " The explanations of the proprietors of the Pays 
 were clear to me," added Veron ; *' they did not even try to 
 
 * An inferior court, in France, for civil causes. 
 
166 ANNEXES. 
 
 conceal from me that, in a high sphere it was desired that my 
 individuality should not reassume the least importance: that the 
 Constitutionnel itself, now so devoted, should not see, in any 
 case, its two warnings expunged by the hand of the government ; 
 and that, moreover, though they v^^ere forbidden to effect a 
 fusion of the Pays with the Constitutionnel, they were 
 authorized to effect one of the Constitutionnel with the Pays."* 
 Authorized by whom ? 
 
 Then Veron made known the proposals submitted to him by 
 Messrs. Mires, the proprietors of the Pays, in their turn; 
 ^'precise proposals which," said he, •' we have been almost 
 enjoined to communicate to you.f — The shares of the Con- 
 stitutionnel are of 3000 francs each ; 180 shares at that price 
 make 540,000 francs; I am directed to offer you 720,000 
 francs for your property, that is 4000 francs per share." 
 And at last, in order to remove all hesitations, and overcome 
 all causes of resistance, M. Veron concluded in these terms : 
 " It is very evident that A superior and MIGHTY will is 
 BEING EXERTED WITH A YIEW TO KEEP UP AT A GREAT COST, 
 against the ' Constitutionnel* A COMPETITION FOR LOW prices, 
 WHICH MAY LESSEN THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS JOURNAL, AND 
 
 FINALLY BRING ON ITS RUIN. It was incumbent on me to 
 furnish you with this information. In such conjunctures, it is 
 positive that every endeavour must fail which will have for its 
 object the prosperity and the future security of your property, 
 the ' Constitutionnel.*" 
 
 The members of the committee, frightened at seeing the 
 government of the Protectors of property so eager after the 
 destruction of their own fortunes, accepted everything ; and, 
 possessed of their signatures, Veron availed himself of the 
 
 * The reader must be well aware that aU which is put between 
 turned commas, in this account of Master Veron' s coup d' etat, is 
 textually borrowed from the two addresses of M. Hebert, in 
 court. 
 
 t Enjoined ! By whom ? Has then the government a hand 
 in this intrigue? Is then M. Mires the ostensible agent of 
 Augustus ! Such must indeed be inferred therefrom. The com- 
 pany of December, being in possession of the ground, have per- 
 haps been willing, through a remainder of collusion, to erect a 
 golden bridge for M. Veron, to expel him from the Constitutionnel, 
 with which he had tried to take some liberties. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (VERON.) 167 
 
 opportunity for requesting, in their own houses^ the consent of 
 the simple shareholders, astounded at such a procedure. 
 
 The trick was played ; 96 hours after, the Constitutionnel 
 was sold to MM. Mires and Co., not at 720,000 francs, as 
 Veron had announced, but at 1,900,000 francs, which these 
 gentlemen thus distributed: — 720,000 francs for the share- 
 holders ; 680,000 francs for Veron under pretext of manage- 
 ment, besides 96,000 francs as the owner of 24 shares ; and at 
 last 500,000 francs to Morny in his capacity of co-manager, 
 although not one shareholder knew anything of him. 
 
 The most curious fact in this affair was, that those honest 
 people, who were thus making a traffic of the property of 
 others, stipulated that the latter should be deprived of the 
 power of opposing the transaction ! Veron promised to M. Mires 
 to bring him the adhesion of every proprietor of the Constitu- 
 tionnel to the proposition of receiving 4000 francs per share. 
 Then they said : " If M. Veron, for some reason or other, could 
 not contrive to procure for M. Mires the recovery of the pos- 
 session of all the shares, and a number of about fifteen of thenj 
 should chance to be found wanting, M. Mires ought not the 
 less for that to be put in possession of the journal, while left 
 at liberty to defend himself, at his peril, against the judicial 
 proceedings which might be taken by the bearers of those 
 fifteen shares, and to suffer alone the pecuniary consequences 
 of such claims. If the number of said shares, instead of being 
 fifteen, was more considerable, M. Veron would partly be 
 held responsible, relatively and proportionately to the number 
 of actions reaching beyond fifteen. It is well agreed that 
 the deficit in the adhesions, whatever IT MAY BE, shall never 
 stand as an obstacle to the execution and the definitive character 
 of the present convention, which shall ever be the law to go by 
 between the contracting parties y* 
 
 Were there ever more arrant rogues ? What are we to 
 think of their audacity? They make your property their 
 own, they barter it with one another, without your having the 
 least suspicion of those dealings, and declare, with the assist- 
 ance of a worthy attorney, M. Schaye, that if the seller does 
 not succeed in bringing your consent to the buyer, the 
 
 * Treaty Mires, Nov. I7th, 1852, Justificative papers of the 
 memoir of the shareholders of the Constitutionnel : "To our 
 Judges." 
 
168 ANNEXES. 
 
 bargain will not the less hold good among them. ! ! How 
 strongly they must rely on the superior and mighty will, that 
 they should sign such transactions ! The *• skilful " ones of the 
 bagnio have not, indeed, carried much further the art of pro- 
 tecting the essential foundation-principles of Society ! 
 
 Meanwhile, the shareholders of the Constitutionnel heard, 
 through advertisements, that in a new commercial company 
 formed for a speculation on the Pays and Constitutionnel 
 united, the latter journal was brought as representing a 
 capital of two millions of francs. They naturally found it 
 strange, in spite of their experience in point oi jobbers on new 
 undertakings, that M. Mires should count as worth two 
 millions to his new associates an object for which he had paid 
 to them only 720,000 francs. They asked for explanations; 
 Veron declined to give any. Dr. Giraudeau, a shareholder, 
 " who, perhaps," says M. Hebert, " because he knew M. 
 Veron better, had the first suspected the fraud " T>i\ Giraudeau 
 threatened to have recourse to the tribunals. Veron " pur- 
 chased his silence for 35,000 francs." MM. Adomali and 
 Foucault brought an action, peremptorily reproaching in their 
 summons Veron with " having obtained the adhesion of the 
 shareholders by means of false allegations, of fraudulent dis- 
 simulations, and of a tissue of manoeuvres which constitute a 
 civil fraud, if even they do not render him liable to he com- 
 mitted to another kind of jurisdiction,^^ 
 
 Mires and Veron hastened to stifle the prosecution of MM. 
 Adomali and Foucault, as they had done with regard to the 
 threats of Dr. Giraudeau. *' They gave them 8000 francs per 
 share, instead of 4000 francs." — {Reply of M. Hebert.) 
 
 It was then that other shareholders, less easily to be bribed, 
 caused the proceedings to be taken which exposed all those 
 turpitudes. 
 
 " There are to be found combined in the deeds of which we 
 now complain," continues M. Hebert, ^^ shrewdness, dishonesty, 
 and the most fraudulent of machinations ; if we have con- 
 sented to receive 4000 francs for our shares, it was because 
 we did believe in the statement made by M. Veron, and 
 which rendered in our eyes our expropriation inevitable, it 
 was because he told us — which we had some reasons to 
 believe — that he had received no more than that sum for our 
 property ; therefore, the payment of 4000 francs proves only 
 one thing, viz. the fraud and the cheat of M. Veron, with the 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (TERON.) 169 
 
 acquiescence of M. Mires. Who does not perceive all the 
 obsessions, deceits, and frauds, implied in these separate adhe- 
 sions, procured most frequently by disreputable means. As 
 to the treaty of Nov. 17, 1852, concluded between MM. Mires 
 and Veron, M. Vatimesnil has inflicted on it the qualification 
 of monstrous; it reveals, of itself, a tissue of manoeuvres 
 common to MM. Mires and Veron. In point of law, the most 
 guilty of fraudulent manoeuvres is dissimulation, deceit, 
 practised hy some parties with a mutual understanding in 
 their deeds, to cozen other parties, and prevent them from 
 vindicating their rights. Well, M. Mires has taken upon 
 himself, in the deed of Nov. 17, all the dissimulations, all the 
 false assertions of M. Veron, all the concealments of the truth, 
 which the latter employed to defraud his partners and appro- 
 priate to himself the funds of the society." 
 
 Never were the stigmatizing words fraud and fraudulent 
 more frequently applied, and in a more overwhelming manner, 
 than to our two emerited defenders of property. In the state- 
 ment addressed by the plaintiffs to the judges, the former say : 
 ** We have been deceived through fraudulent manoeuvres. That 
 which is called' the Mir^s transaction is a positive coup de 
 main : therefore it is that we are now struggling less against 
 aperpetrated spoliation than against an attempt at once violent 
 and fraudulent. M. Mires has bought our property, of a man 
 whom he very well knew to have no right to sell it ; he has 
 been apprized that the said seller was appropriating to him- 
 self, to the prejudice of the proprietors, the major part of 
 the proceeds, and he has facilitated for him the means to do so, 
 MM. Mir^s and Veron are now convicted, ^a^r^n^e delicto, of 
 swindling. If their compact was not radically void in itself, 
 an annullation on account of fraud would be incurred respect- 
 ing it on the part both of M. Mires and M. Veron." 
 
 The foregoing expressions uttered in a court of justice, apply 
 to the two most lofty heads of the Bonapartist journalism. 
 We leave our readers to judge of what must be the less pro- 
 minent of that lot. Veron, it is true, was discharged ; Mires 
 signified to him that the firm " The Emperor's Nephew and 
 Co." would no longer accept his services : but this was not on 
 account of his improbity, it was because, too confiding in the 
 services he had previously rendered, he had twice formally 
 given, in his journal, the lie to M. Napoleon III., and styled 
 him an ungrateful man. Mires, albeit he shares all the brands 
 
110 ANNEXES. 
 
 impressed on his friend, continues the servant of the Tuileries, 
 and keeps for the inmates of that place the shop of the Con- 
 stitutionnel and Pays united into one speculation. noble 
 enemies of the communistic dividers of property ! MM. 
 Aguado have not less inflicted than the other shareholders on 
 M. Veron this dismal \Yord fraud, which, out of the Palais de 
 Justice, is translated into that of theft. In their specific con- 
 clusions {conclusions motivees) we read : " Whereas this dis- 
 tinction of the price into three parts, inscribed in the deed of 
 sale of the 17th November, had no real meaning {n'avait rien 
 de serieux) ; whereas it was only a fictitious and fraudulent 
 means of deceiving the other parties, and especially those 
 possessing claims to the property or to its price, hj frustrating 
 them to the advantage of M. Mires, of the property itself, 
 and to the advantage of M. Veron and his co-interested, from 
 nearly two-thirds of the price obtained," &c. 
 
 But the upright M. Veron, who, according to the expres- 
 sions of the pleader, M. Hebert, formerly a minister of Louis- 
 Philippe, " had opened the columns of the Constitutionnel to the 
 defence of the important interests jeopardized by the revo- 
 lution of 1848," and has frustrated his co-partners not only of 
 two- thirds of what he had received for the sale of their pro- 
 perty, but also of profits, shameful, it is true, but which be- 
 longed to the firm, however shameful they might be. Let us 
 hear again M. Hebert : " It must be acknowledged, the ofiice 
 of manager, which M, Veron pretends he has sold for 680,000 
 francs, had procured him some profits of another nature, and 
 which he shared with M. Morny. My clients have been in- 
 formed, in the course of these proceedings, of three circum- 
 stances which have both surprised and sincerely afiiicted them. 
 The first, &c. ; the third is, that in 1846 and 1847, M. Veron 
 received, as manager of the Constitutionnel, 100,000 francs, 
 partly /or his support of certain political opinions, partly ^br his 
 defence of certain industrial interests. Besides that, M. Veron 
 has derived from trafficking in advertisements, as drinh-money, 
 some profits for which the shareholders reserve to themselves 
 to call him to account. All this was not enough ; he has added 
 to it 25,000 francs, purloined from the shareholders by the 
 sale of all debts due to the company ; and, at length, he has 
 taken for himself, during four years at least, the interest at 3 
 per cent, of the subscription fund, become unemployed, 
 amounting to upwards of 200,000 francs a-year, and deposited 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (VERON.) 171 
 
 by him, under his own name, at the caisse des depots et con- 
 signations^ which interests belonged to the company, and of 
 which he has defrauded them." 
 
 There is scarcely anything dishonest for having proved him 
 guilty of which M. Veron has not good reasons to twit the 
 terrible M. Hebert. With his lawyer's curiosity, M. Hebert 
 would peruse the report of an appraiser entrusted, in 1849, 
 with verifying the accounts of the manager of the Constitu- 
 tionnelf contested by the shareholders ; he saw " in that docu- 
 ment, that considerable errors, of 64,000 francs, for instance 
 on one single item, with often one saine sum repeatedly 
 charged for the same item under different names, were pointed 
 out by the appraiser in the accounts of M. Veron, who could 
 not help acknowledging it to he the fact J^ {fi^P^y of M. Hebert.) 
 To make an error of 64,000 francs, this is a good deal ! 
 
 Assuredly, we recognize here again, the man who, from 1846 
 to 1853, did not cease to addict himself to these honest 
 practices, and was born to be a " defender of the important 
 interests jeopardized by the revolution of 1818." We, however, 
 entreat M. Hebert to free us from the following doubt : Are 
 there, in the central gaols, many convicts who ever did more 
 than this " defender of the important interests jeopardized in 
 1848?" 
 
 Here we naturally meet with a question of the most delicate 
 nature. How is it that Veron, who cheats his co-partners, 
 did not at the same time cheat his co-manager ? How is it 
 that he did not keep the round sum of 1,400,000 francs, instead 
 of giving 500,000 francs to Morny ? To this query also M. 
 Hebert has undertaken to give an answer : " What was the 
 ultimate object of that intervention, so dearly purchased, of 
 M. de Morny? Gentlemen, the boldest individuals may 
 shrink before certain enterprises : MM. Veron and Mires may 
 indeed have feared not to be sufficiently proof against the 
 results of that which you are now acquainted with. Did they 
 think that that enterprise was to be secured by the reinforce- 
 ment of their number ; that three of them would be more 
 powerful than only two ? You shall judge of this. That such 
 alliances should be in general remunerated out of the contribu- 
 tions of those who conceived and profit by them, is a feature 
 of the case which I shall not examine here ; but that any one 
 should be compelled to cement them with his own money, is 
 a point in every way inadmissible." This reasoning of M, 
 
172 ANNEXES. 
 
 Hebert is harsh, but perfectly right. The matter seems to us 
 clear enough. Veron having brought himself into disfavour, 
 and feeling his operation to be vicious, sought to s?iie]d himself 
 under the influence of an intimate friend of Augustus; he 
 thought that the shareholders would not dare to take proceed- 
 ings against so redoubtable an adversary. 
 
 He was mistaken there ; MM. Aguado have felt themselves 
 wealthy enough to challenge him ; by taking the leading part 
 they encouraged others to join in, the law proceedings were 
 boldly undertaken, and the tribunal were morally constrained, 
 by an incontestable evidence, to condemn Veron to restore the 
 1,400,000 francs stolen from his co-partners, w^ith the power 
 left him, however, to take legal steps as to the 500.000 francs 
 graciously presented by him to Morny. — This judgment is at 
 present under consideration in the Court of Appeal. 
 
 We do not desire to be considered as belonging to that class 
 of dangerous levellers whose aim is to upset, for a little amuse- 
 ment, all the most essential bases of society. But we must 
 own that we should not be sorry to witness a change in that 
 essential basis, in virtue of which the poor wretch convicted of 
 fraudulently stealing a paltry silver coin, is condemned to the 
 galleys, while the honest man guilty of fraudulently stealing 
 a sum of 1,400,000 francs is simply condemned to a restitu- 
 tion. 
 
 It is a case of flagrant immorality, that it should suffice to 
 steal a large sum, to escape from the punishment reserved by the 
 law to him who appropriates to himself the property of othei'S. 
 
 M. ViEYRA. 
 
 We have already said^ (page 48 of this pamphlet,)' how and 
 why M. Vieyra was appointed, a few days before the 2nd De- 
 cember, chief of the staff" of the National Guard. That man 
 bore so bad a character, that General Perrot tendered his 
 resignation as superior commander of the National Guard, the 
 very moment he saw him placed by his side.* General Mar- 
 
 * General Perrot said, in his farewell proclamation :— " Some 
 considerations J which the National Guard will understand, have 
 compelled me to tender my resignation as superior commander,'* 
 &c. . . ■ . 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (VIEYRA.) 1*73 
 
 quis of Lawcestine was too stanch a friend of order to have 
 such delicate feelings. He took the place of the resigning 
 officer, and he and M. Viejra agreed very well together. 
 
 It has also been mentioned, (page 6 of this work,) that M. 
 Vieyra had been condemned when he entered into the intimacy 
 of Bonaparte, as a fraudulent vendor [stellionataire), for 
 having sold or mortgaged twice the same property ! Since 
 then, he was stamped by a decision of the Court of Appeal, 
 which we have textually reproduced, (page 7. ) 
 
 In spite of the grasp put on the press, that decision came to 
 the cognizance of the public, the scandal increased in propor- 
 tion to the share the guilty man possessed in the government, 
 and the modern Augustus had to deprive his respectable accom- 
 plice of the post of chief of the staff of the National Guard of 
 Paris. He gave him, in return, the entrepot of tobaccos and 
 snuffs of the Chaussee d' An tin, a profitable sinecure which pays 
 for treason. They accordingly remain friends, although they 
 may be called bashful friends, as the terms " bashful poor" are 
 applied to those who keep their misery secret. In case of 
 need, they both are ready to assist each other. 
 
 Before being placed at the head of the civic militia, 
 M. Vieyra was not altogether unknown. It was he who led, on 
 the 13th of June, 1849, (M. Leon Faucher being then Minister 
 of the Interior,) the bands of the defenders of property which 
 SACKED the offices of the journal Le Peuphy and those of the 
 Vraie 'Repuhlique^ at the same time as the printing establish- 
 ments of MM. Boule and Roux, wherein these two journals 
 were printed. The damages amounted to 120,000 francs 
 (4800/.) It must be stated to the credit of the Bonapartist 
 magistracy, that it gave no heed to the clamours of the anar- 
 chical and anti-propertyist press, which published the names of 
 the devastators; the incorruptible judges declared that the 
 perpetrators of that pillage being unknown, there was no 
 occasion to sue for damages! These acts anarchical to the 
 utmost, are so authentic in all their circumstances, that we 
 have even exposed them at the tribune of the National As- 
 sembfy, without the majority daring to answer us. Here is 
 therefore another unquestionable fact, and one that nobody 
 whatever will venture to doubt. 
 
 We have assuredly stated more than our English readers 
 require to conceive anything but a high esteem towards 
 their ally's friend, and however we have as yet pointed out 
 
174 • ANNEXES. 
 
 but the least titles of M. Vieyra to their contempt. Our 
 repugnance is extreme to stir up the past of all these 
 Bonapartists ; we are ashamed of certain details, but the reader, 
 understanding what our part is, will forgive them to us ; it is 
 the fault of Augustus. We are now writing history ; we are 
 therefore compelled to go and seek our heroes in the ill-famed 
 places they inhabit, as the surgeon dissects a foul tumour for 
 the sake of enriching the art of healing. 
 
 Well, then, in 1827, M. Vieyra, whose name was at that 
 time Vieyra-Molina, was suing in the Correctional Police a 
 certain M. Jaffa, who had long been his partner. *' M. 
 Jaffa," says Citizen Berjeau,* *' in behalf of his defence, pub- 
 lished various memoirs,^ copies of which are in our possession, 
 and brought forth before the tribunal of First-Instance of 
 the Seine, among other papers evincing that M. Vieyra was 
 keeping a house of prostitution, rue Rameau, the following note, 
 wholly in the latter's own handwriting : * 2200 francs due to 
 
 M. Henri 3000 francs for furniture. The six women 
 
 yield a minimum of 1500 francs every quarter .... If M. 
 Henri pays the 3000 francs of Gerard, or takes with that up- 
 holsterer the arrangements he may deem fit, we guarantee to 
 him the profits of the six women, 1500 francs every three 
 months, and we will effect the removal of the furniture of those 
 
 six rooms to M. Henri Let us suppose that as to the 
 
 women there be 1500 francs in arrear, which even could not 
 be recovered, there will still remain 7500 francs which will be 
 
 returned within a year If M. Henri wished to have a 
 
 more substantial security for the sums he would advance, until 
 the furniture be sold, I, Henri Vieyra, would transfer to him 
 the mortgage of 10,000 francs.' .... 
 
 *' At the bottom of that curious paper is written : * Regis- 
 tered on June 9, 1827 ; stamped on June 9, 1827. Original 
 deposited at a solicitor's on June 11.' 
 
 " Jaffa was acquitted from the charge brought against him, 
 by a special judgment passed at Paris on March 13, 1827, 
 visa'd by M. de Belleyme, then the king's attorney, and regis- 
 tered on the 6th of April, 1827." 
 
 It is therefore proven in the most irrefragable manner, and 
 
 * Biographies Bonapartistes , 
 
 t Printed in Paris, by A. Belin, No. 14, Rue des Mathurins 
 St. Jacques. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (SERCElf.) 175 
 
 signed by his own hand, that the friend of the Emperor of the 
 French kept a house of ill-fame ! ! 
 
 And those wretches have the audacity to style themselves 
 the protectors of family ! And some English conservative 
 newspapers are to be found to congratulate them on the ser- 
 vices they have rendered to order ! ! ! 
 
 M. Sercey. 
 
 This individual is one of the smartest colonels of Bona- 
 partism. We will cite two of his exploits. They will corrobo- 
 rate what we have said on the feats of December, and serve 
 to give to the public a full knowledge of all the monstrous 
 details of that victory of barbarism over civilization. It will 
 be learnt anew, thereby, by what means the firm of the 
 " Emperor's Nephews" have reached a position wherein Eng- 
 land thinks it may take them as allies. 
 
 An innkeeper of Riez (Basses-Alpes), M. Gasquet, sen., 
 having claimed from Colonel Sercey, commander of the expedi- 
 tionary corps, the payment of a bill for expenses made at his 
 house by the troops, the colonel, as a kind of answer, levelled 
 a pistol at his chest, threatening to kill him as a chastisement 
 for his insolence ! This fact is affirmed by Citizen Gasquet, 
 jun., now a refugee in Nice. M. Gasquet, sen., who is a man 
 advanced in years, was taken ill in consequence of that Bona- 
 partist afikir, and remained so for almost a fortnight after- 
 wards. 
 
 It has already been seen, by the foregoing biographies, how 
 those gentlemen, Morny, Bonaparte, and Vieyra, respect 
 property and family. We shall presently see how all these 
 conquerors over demagogy proceeded with the re-establishment 
 of the principle of authority. We borrow our narration from 
 the Journal de Lot- et- Garonne (Dec. 30, 1851). 
 
 ** Here is," says that paper, religiously a defender of order, 
 '* here is a sotnewhat lively episode of the expedition of Colonel 
 de Sercey, commander of the corps in the Basses- Alpes. We 
 relate it as we have it from an eye-witness. The corps having 
 arrived in the common of Chateau- Arnoux, the commander in- 
 quired after the mayor. He was answered that the mayor was 
 gone with almost every able-bodied man of the village to join the 
 
176 ANNEXES. 
 
 INSURGENTS. He inquired after the mayor's assistants, and 
 the municipal councillors ; but they were all gone* The chief 
 of the expedition, however, wanted at least some part of the 
 administration of the place, to distribute lodging billets, and 
 order provisions for the troops. M. de Sercey accosted then, 
 on the principal square, a native of the place, whose general 
 appearance was rather respectable : ' Come,' said he to him, 
 * I appoint you mayor.' — ' Colonel, you do me a great honour; 
 but, in such times as those we live in, I cannot accept so 
 perilous a post.' A second, and then a third resident in Cha- 
 teaux-Arnoux, likewise refused, availing themselves of the 
 same plea. M. de Sercey lost all patience ; he ordered for- 
 ward four men and a corporal. — ' Go to the mayoralty, break 
 the door open, install this gentleman,^ said he, in pointing to the 
 third refractory individual, * upon the mayor's seat ; and should 
 he offer the least resistance, LET HIM be shot immediately.' 
 The poor reluctant mayor was obliged to comply. A decree of 
 nomination was at once extemporized, and the common of 
 Chateau- Arnoux endowed with a new municipality." 
 
 And let it not be thought that the foregoing anecdote w^as 
 invented by an enemy ; we repeat it, the Journal de Lot-ei-Ga- 
 ronne is essentially Bonapartist, essentially a defender of the 
 laws and of the principle of authority. It approves of the 
 occurrence, which seems to it lively, it relates it graciously, 
 elaborates its diction, seeks to be witty, and makes itself light. 
 The act of this colonel, handling roughly "the natives in 
 Chateau- Arnoux," it considers to be the height of good taste, 
 it thrills with gladness at the command of breaking open the 
 doors of the mayoralty, and to SHOOT the above-mentioned 
 wayfarer, should he not allow himself to be imposed as a 
 mayor ! . . . We shall not cease to say this : the men of 
 December are degraded beings, who have lost all sense of good 
 and evil. 
 
 Such services insured to Viscount Henri de Sercey a hand- 
 
 * We must observe here, that it is once more authenticated in 
 this instance, by the barbarians' historiographers themselves, that 
 the entire population of a village, with all its municipal authori- 
 ties, marched against the coup d'etat ! And after that, some 
 people boldly tell us, that seven millions of votes have covenanted 
 with the revolt of the executive power ! , 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (MAGNAN.) 177 
 
 some military fortune ; he was going to become general, as 
 his rivals. Colonels Espinasse, Ferey, Lourmel, Rochefort, &c. 
 became, for their part ; unfortunately, he let himself be caught 
 with his hand in the bag in so clumsy a manner, that his com- 
 rades were obliged to give him up to a court-martial, where 
 it was found advisable to condemn him to five years' imprison- 
 ment for swindling ! The trial took place on the 5th of April, 
 1833. 
 
 What an end worthy of a colonel of December ! If justice 
 were to examine into the conduct of all these gentlemen, 
 scarcely one of them would fail to experience the same fate ; 
 the 2nd of December has been the revolution of swindlers. 
 
 M. Magnan. 
 
 General Magnan was in 1814 captain of the Imperial 
 Guard. He left the army, not wishing to serve under the 
 kings brought back by the Cossacks. When Bonaparte, violating 
 the oaths which ought to have kept him in the isle of Elba, 
 returned to France, Captain Magnan re-entered the army, 
 but at the second restoration had no longer any repugnance to 
 remain in active service, as the Napoleonic cause was lost for 
 ever. The captain even gave, shortly after, such proofs of 
 devotedness to the Bourbons, that in 1827 he was made colonel. 
 He was present, in this capacity, at the taking of Algiers, and 
 was comprised in the lists of promotion sent by General Com- 
 mander-in-Chief Bourmont. The Government of July showed 
 but little eagerness to raise to the rank of general a colonel 
 who had signalized himself as a Legitimist. However, the 
 protege of Bourmont did not care about being a Legitimist under 
 Louis-Philippe ; therefore, when he went back to France, he 
 seized the occasion of a fete given by the National Guard of 
 Valence to his regiment, the 49th of the line, for saying : " My 
 regiment bears the same motto as the Citizen Guard : Public 
 order, liberty, and unbounded devotedness to the King of the 
 French:' [Moniteur of Feb. 9, 1831.)* 
 
 In the month of November of that year, the formidable in- 
 surrection of Lyons broke out, during which, — we, as a repub- 
 lican, are proud of recalling it to mind — the people, victorious, 
 having at its disposal the Prefect and General Ordonneau, who 
 
 * Biographies Bonapartistes, by Berjeau. 
 
17-8 ANNEXES. 
 
 had fallen into its hands ; the people, absolute master of the 
 second city of France during eight days, behaved towards its 
 enemies with a moderation, a generosity, which they never 
 imitated towards it. Colonel Magnan happened to be, with 
 the 49th of the line at Montbrison, where, notwithstanding 
 his unbounded devotedness to the King of the French, he had a 
 hand in some Legitimist intrigues. His dealings with the vic- 
 torious workmen wore an aspect suspicious enough for bringing 
 upon him, from General Roguet, commander of the military 
 division at Lyons, the thunder of the following proclama- 
 tion : — 
 
 "At the head-quarters of Reilleux, Nov. 27, 1831. The 
 lieutenant-general, in superior command of the 7th and 19th 
 military divisions, informed that the colonel in command of 
 the 49th regiment has taken upon himself to come to Lyons 
 for parleying and negotiating as to the entrance of his regi- 
 ment into that city, and for quartering his troops there; 
 that in this circumstance, he has issued proclamations, which 
 are of a nature to injure the interests of the army, and the 
 service of the king : — orders General Bauduisson, in command 
 of the department of the Loire, to cause that colonel to be 
 arrested and confined in the prisons of Montbrison. The 
 present measure has been placed under the cognizance of the 
 Minister of War, so that he may apprize us of his decision in 
 reference to that superior officer. 
 
 "(Signed) Count RoGUET." 
 
 The same Count Roguet, so anxious then to serve King 
 Louis-Philippe, is now something like an aide-de-camp of the 
 " Majesty " of Boulogne and Strasbourg. 
 
 Magnan, deeming himself compromised by the revelations 
 of some unknown accomplice, did not think proper to wait for 
 the gendarmes, and he scampered to Brussels. A fortnight 
 after, he was replaced in his command of the 49th, and reduced 
 to leave-pay. He then solicited employment in Belgium, 
 whose independence had just been constituted through a revo- 
 lution, and he entered the Belgian army in the capacity of 
 general of a brigade. He gained therein hardly more than the 
 nickname of " general five-hundred-francs,*' because, loaded 
 with debts, he asked every comer to lend him 500 francs. 
 
 At the end of 1835, the monarchy of July, appeased, raised 
 him to the rank of non-commissioned field-marshal, and a short 
 while after, recalled him into active service, by giving him the 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (MAGNAN.) 1V9 
 
 command of the department of the Nord. His existence in 
 nowise became more honourable since then ; he lived but by- 
 borrowing, and always had that part of his pay which could 
 be seized, stopped by innumerable creditors. " Among other 
 things which are common characteristics of M. Magnan and 
 M. St. Arnaud," says the author of the pamphlet on Les 
 Trots MarSchaux, '' there is this, that it required the 2nd of 
 December for them to know what it was to receive the en- 
 tirety of their salary." Let not moral people suppose this 
 accusation preferred inconsiderately ; the bills of Magnan and 
 St. Arnaud are in the office of the Ministry at War, where 
 they can be verified. 
 
 General Magnan became a stanch Orleanist. At the time 
 of his deposition at the prosecution for the Boulogne affray, he 
 said : ** Since the last eight years I have left my post but to go 
 and thank the king for his marks of kindness ; happy, loaded 
 with favours, never will I break my sworn fidelity to the king." 
 Despite of that, the very morrow of February, he set himself 
 up as a " republican of the eve," and that with so much noise, 
 that the Courrier Francais thought it incumbent on itself to 
 recall him to decency, as he had been " one of the messmates 
 of Louis-Philippe." Magnan ran to the offices of the Courrier 
 Frangais, where he denied more than three times before the 
 cock's crow the prince who had " loaded him with favours ;" 
 made so strong protestations of republicanism, that Citizen Dur- 
 rieu, the chief-editor of the journal, granted him " a rectifica- 
 tion more humiliating to the general than the imputation 
 itself."* This is an act of ingratitude which is attested by 
 the file of the Courrier ; the rechauffe Napoleonist, who is the 
 subject of this biography, cannot deny it. Successively a 
 stanch Bonapartist, Legitimist, and Orleanist, Magnan 
 became then, after 1848, a stanch Republican, and obtained 
 from the Provisional Government the command of Corsica. 
 Now he is again a stanch Bonapartist; to-morrow he will be 
 anew a stanch Republican, if triumphant democracy is willing 
 to give him anything. Apostates by birth always side with 
 the strongest. 
 
 MM. Persigny and Bonaparte are too corrupt to ignore 
 how tottering is always the conscience of men that have run 
 into debt through continual disorders ; they sent to the needy 
 
 * Le Coup'd'etatf by Xavier Burrieu. 
 
180 ANNEXES. 
 
 •* general 500 francs " Commandant Mesonan — that Mesonan 
 is, on this very day, a member of the Legislative body ! ! — 
 who acted then the vile part of procurer , which a certain 
 Fleury undertook in 1850 with the petty generals of Africa. 
 Magnan did not accept the proposals which were then made 
 to him ; but, summoned as a witness in the trial relative to the 
 Boulogne conspiracy, he himself confessed all. His evidence 
 is remarkable in more than one respect. After relating various 
 attempts on the part of procurer Mesonan, to bribe him, he 
 thus expresses himself [Moniteur of Oct. 1, 1840): — "The 
 morrow of the 17th June, commandant Mesonan, whom I 
 believed to be gone, came into my apartment, ushered in as 
 usual 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 for me, and from whom ?' 
 * Read, general.' — I opened the letter, and read : — * Dear com- 
 mandant, it is of a most urgent necessity that you should see 
 immediately the general in question ; you know he is a man 
 whom I have hooked as one of those I destine to he some day 
 marshals of France. You will offer him 100,000 /ra/^cs, on my 
 account, and ask him at which hanker^ s or solicitor's he wishes 
 me to order 300,000 francs to he counted down to him, in the 
 case that he should happen to lose his command. — Signed: 
 L. N. Bonaparte.' I remained stupified, I was as lifeless, / 
 could not find in that moment one word to utter ! Nevertheless, 
 the indignation which I felt, assuaged ; I took the letter in 
 trembling, and said : ' Commandant, to me, to me such a letter ! 
 I thought I had inspired you with more esteem towards me. 
 Never did I violate my oaths, never will I violate them. You 
 must be mad, commandant ; my respect for the remembrance of 
 the emperor will never lead me into the betrayal of my oaths 
 to the king.' I returned the letter to the commandant, telling 
 him that this was a ridiculous and hopeless party. The com- 
 mandant was stunned, pale, uneasy. In spite of my anger, I 
 had pity on him. I own that I did not do then what it was my 
 duty to have done, which was to send to the Minister of War 
 that letter, of which too much of an undue advantage is now 
 taken against me." 
 
 Why did the general reject the proposals of Mesonan ? It 
 was solely because he saw no interest in doing so, but not 
 through a sense of honour ; for, indeed, he joined the conspi- 
 racy of December ! Where could one find contempt enough 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (MAGNAN.) 181 
 
 towards a military chief who, after heing the object of such an 
 outrageous step, lends his sword to the very author of the out- 
 rage ? Which is the viler here, the corrupter or the corrupted ? 
 Where does human nature appear more vilified than in their 
 hearts ? See : Openly, in the assizes of the Peers, the 30th of 
 October, 1840, the general said to the wretched pretender, 
 sitting for his trial : " You have endeavoured to corrupt me, 
 your party is a ridiculous and hopeless one ;" and on the 2nd 
 of December, 1851, they unite for a bold stroke! They do not 
 even reck that the gallery should have seen them and should 
 come to tell them : Scarcely eleven years ago, you, Bonaparte, 
 heard this general scornfully deprecate you, and hurl to your 
 face the grievous taunt of ridiculous ! You, Magnan, charged 
 then this ridiculous pretender with an attempt at corruption 
 for money's sake, perpetrated on your honour ! 
 
 Those are the men with whom England enters into an alli- 
 ance ! 
 
 Magnan received, it is said, 800,000 francs, in two instal- 
 ments, on the 2nd and on the 4th of December.* We have no 
 precise knowledge of the amount ; but that he betrayed, and 
 committed assassinations, for ready money, is a positive fact. 
 This is how : he was one of the most involved in debt among 
 the band ; for many years he had disgraced his military rank 
 by living on shifts, his name was known to all the huissiers 
 (bailiifs) of Liege, Ghent, Lille, and Paris. Until the very date 
 of the 2nd December, that name had resounded each day at the 
 " Justice de Paix" of the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, where 
 tradesmen used to come and claim from him payment for the 
 most puny of invoices ; on the next day he paid off his debts, 
 and the insurrectional journals published that he was providing 
 his daughters with husbands, and giving them dowries of 
 100,000 francs ! 
 
 Magnan, like all the other accomplices of December, has 
 not fallen all at once to that degree of infamy. His past life 
 exhibits less fatal though not less shameful adventures. He 
 was in command of the military division of the Nord, and oc- 
 cupying the post of president of the council of revision in that 
 department, when there happened to be found, among the 
 papers of two agents of military substitution, turned bankrupts, 
 bills of exchange to the amount of 8000 francs, signed Magnan, 
 
 ♦ Les Trois Marechaux, 
 
1S2 ANNEXES. 
 
 and dishonoured. — The French law of military enlistment, 
 which has heen like every other law, made by wealthy indivi- 
 duals, allows him whose number is drawn out of the lots to 
 procure a substitute for the service. Some speculators esta- 
 blish agencies for facilitating the intercourse and transactions 
 between substitutes and those that seek them ; they also insure, 
 on payment of a sum once effected, against the chances of cast 
 lots young men who will have to draw. It may easily be under- 
 stood that those dealers in men, as the people call them, 
 should be very much interested in the president of the coun- 
 cil of revision showing himself well disposed to exempt those 
 of their subscribers whose numbers are drawn, and but little 
 strict in the acceptance of those subjects whom they present as 
 substitutes. 
 
 A protested bill of the general-president of the council of 
 revision, in the hands of brokers of this sort, was the tacit but 
 unmistakable revelation of criminal practices. The papers for 
 the legal evidence were at the recorder's office at the Tribunal 
 of Commerce, and were of course to figure in the inventory. 
 The president of the tribunal, M. Delasalle-Dermet, an ac- 
 quaintance of M. Magnan, warned him that, if he did not in- 
 demnify the creditors of the bankruptcy within forty-eight 
 hours, he was a ruined man, as the ministry of war and the 
 public at the same time could not remain long without being 
 informed of the case. Magnan, in despair, wanting both in 
 resources and credit, knocked at every door, and obtained at 
 last the requisite sum from the well-known kindness of M. 
 Tance, a picture-seller. The bills once paid, the affair went 
 no further, but there soon arose out of it the proof of a fresh 
 act of improbity on the part of the borrower. As a security 
 for the 8000 francs he had received, he had signed the aban- 
 donment to M. Tance of the whole furniture of his house. 
 Shortly afterwards, he was called to Paris ; and what did 
 M. Tance then learn when he preferred his claims to the fur- 
 niture? He learnt that it did not belong to the general; 
 that it was hired of an upholsterer, the sole owner thereof ! 
 M. Tance had generosity enough not ot sue him ; he even 
 suffered " general five-hundred francs" to carry away the few 
 objects he really possessed ; but as soon as the latter reached 
 Paris, the whole was sold! .... In 1850, M. Tance, jun.> 
 a journalist anything but Bonapartistic, seeing his father's 
 debtor a confident of the Shell-President, threatened him with 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (ROMIEU.) 183 
 
 a prosecution if he did not acquit himself towards him, and by 
 so doing M. Tance obtained payment. 
 
 Of this episode, wherein are accumulated so many dirty 
 things, we cannot adduce a material proof, as concerning the 
 rest ; but our information is so authentic that we do not hesitate 
 to assume upon ourselves the responsibility of publishing it, and 
 we are ready to stand the consequences. We have mentioned 
 some proper names ; we challenge the accused to gainsay us. 
 
 Is this not, forsooth, a man well worthy of being nominated 
 marshal of France ! But such a nomination is not only a 
 public scandal, it is moreover a flagrant violation of the French 
 military laws. These laws specify that no one can become a 
 marshal, if he have not served as commander-in-chief of an 
 army. Where did Magnan ever serve in that capacity ? His 
 baton of marshal he has not won on the battle-field ; he has 
 picked it up in the blood-seined mud of December. His 
 elevation 
 
 ** Fait gronder le merite et rougir la vertu." 
 [Makes merit grumble and virtue blush.] 
 
 M. ROMIEU. 
 
 We have seen the Bonapartists acting, let us see them 
 writing. 
 
 M. Romieu, although a member of the society of the 10th of 
 December, is not a fool ; he has some wit, but he has always 
 made a bad use of it. His youth was spent in the midst of 
 jolly fellows, gay feasts, and extravagances. He had rendered 
 himself particularly celebrated by the war of mystification 
 which he had declared to the class of door-keepers [portiers) 
 in Paris ! 
 
 Subsequently he became very gloomy, and published in 1849 
 his famous book Le Spectre Rouge, We read therein such 
 things as these : — 
 
 *' Charlemagne, placed between dying antiquity and the 
 rising new world, had founded the only sound system, — that of 
 material force supported by religious faith. From his work, and 
 as a natural consequence, proceeded /ewt^^^sm, which, of all the 
 systems tried by Europe, you will find withal to be the best." 
 (Page 32.) " It was not enough that the middle classes should 
 be gangrened with this new evil, instruction without education ; 
 
184 ANNEXES. 
 
 the evil -was to extend even to villages, and it was to a sage of 
 our epoch, M. Guizot, that Providence pointed with her finger, 
 that he might carry on disorder to its height. ^^ (Page 60.) 
 
 " Super Jlumina Bahylonis There they he, the prole- 
 
 taires, who chant that canticle of hatred on the banks of the 
 Parisian river, on the brims of every common sewer in France ; 
 they pant after the day when they will hold your little chil- 
 dren and crush them on stones y (Page 9.) "I shall never 
 regret that I lived in these sad times, if I can see once well 
 chastised and whipped the multitude, that cruel and stupid beast 
 which has ever been abhorrent to me." (Page 91.) " Whatever 
 may be the ruler, his part is a plain one : to take in one hand 
 the most absolute dictatorship, and to substitute one's self for 
 all the texts which have governed us for the last sixty years." 
 (Page 93.) " Society, such as the middle classes (bourgeoisie) 
 have made it, must die" (Page 6^.) " The puerile game of a 
 National Guard, at which the 'bourgeoisie' now play, and which 
 served them as a threat ever since the reign of Louis XVI., 
 towards every government, is of no use except to disturb the 
 general peace." (Page 72.) " I tell you, * bourgeois,' that your 
 turn is gone. From 1789 to 1848, it has lasted but too long." 
 (Page 63.) ** Social order has for its sole and real support, 
 not your ridiculous heap of codes, but the strong rampart 
 bristled up with bayonets and artillery, which is called the 
 army." (Page 69.) " O * bourgeois ' ! It is not you who repre- 
 sent 07'der, it is material force alone which is the symbol of it." 
 (Page 68.) " The sabre is become the civilizing element. In our 
 days logic lies in grape-shot. (Page 70.) " We shall see, I hope, 
 an end put to those Saturnalia, in the midst of which we were 
 born. It is in streams of blood that that renovation of the march 
 of humanity will be accomplished." (Page 94.) " This society 
 of attorneys and shopkeepers is in her last throes, and should 
 she be able to raise herself up happy again, it will be only be- 
 cause a soldier will have undertaken her salvation. Cannonading 
 alone can settle the questions agitated in our age, and it will 
 settle them, were it to come from Russia." (Page 20.) 
 
 These appeals to the Russian cannons are familiar to all those 
 enjoying the intimacy of the new Napoleonic government. M. 
 Veron, who was one of the advisers of the Shell-President, 
 also placed the celebrated plebiscitum under the protection of 
 foreign potentates. He menaced France with the Russian 
 cannons if she did not vote for the emperor^ s nephew, " Let us 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. (ROMIEU.) 185 
 
 vote for Bonaparte," said he, " if we care about saving France 
 from barbarism and from the invasion of the kings of civilized 
 Europe" [Constitutionnel of Dec. 16, 1851.) 
 
 The fellest friends of order declared that the jackal shrieks 
 of the Spectre Rouge, its impious invocations to material force, 
 to the army, to ignorance, to the sabre, its savage in citations 
 and dismal doctrines, were the hallucinations of a maniac. We 
 cited a few lines of it one day at the tribune of the National 
 Assembly ; we were answered from the ministerial side of the 
 house, that " M. Romieu was alone in his opinions," that " he 
 was a lunatic !" The most reasonable journals deemed it in- 
 cumbent on them to disclaim any connexion with him ; the 
 Cotistitutionnel itself, we remember this very well, taunted him 
 with having gone rather too far. What did, however, M. Bo- 
 naparte do, as soon as he became the master ? He bestowed 
 on the author of that foul book, on the former persecutor of 
 portiers, one of the most important situations in his govern- 
 ment, he appointed him director of the Beaux Arts! And M. 
 Romieu is this very day the intimate counsellor of M. Fialin, 
 filling the post of Minister of the Interior. It was he who 
 managed the elections of the multitude, that cruel and stupid 
 beast, to the so-called legislative body, and he is in such good 
 favour at the imperial court, that the idea was entertained, a 
 year ago, of making a minister of him. Why not ? Since 
 Morny himself has been one, and Fialin is still one too. 
 
 We will not prosecute any farther this investigation into the 
 Bonapartist high personnel. If it is one repulsive to nausea, 
 our readers will not twit us for this : ours is not a work of art 
 where tints ought to be combined in a certain manner, it is an 
 historical one, and we cannot change aught to the authentic, 
 official, and judicial facts or writings wherewith the former 
 life of those gentlemen has furnished us. As to the worth of 
 the party which possesses such notabilities, we leave it to the 
 appreciation of every candid reader. Let us resume : — Veron, 
 CONDEMNED to disgorge 1,400,000 francs, fraudulently ob- 
 tained from his shareholders ; Vieyra, condemned as 2i fraudu- 
 lent vendor (** stellionataire"), and freed in an appeal from the 
 effects of this verdict, because his fraudulent declaration falls 
 without the pale of the text of the law ; Sercey, condemned to 
 five years' imprisonment for swindling ; St. Arnaud, accused 
 of embezzlement by an officer under his command, whom he did 
 
186 ANNEXES. 
 
 not prosecute ; Morny, accused of an audacious and cynical 
 attempt against the purse of the English, people ; Bonaparte, 
 CONVICTED of a cowardly attempt at assassination on Captain 
 Col-Puygelier ; Magnan, going, more than any one else, along 
 the precipice of the penal code, on account of the sale of pieces 
 of furniture which did not belong to him, and because of pecu- 
 niary dealings with men-mongers ! These are facts ; nothing 
 can extenuate them. Did ever a gang brought before the 
 assizes exhibit worse antecedents than does this dangerous 
 association of debauchees, of condottieri, of swindlers, of 
 blighted, of apostates, and of nephews of the Emperor ? 
 What a company ! ! Scarcely, if ever, can one find in the chaste 
 French language synonymous words for mentioning their 
 deeds without ofiending modesty. M. Bonaparte causes Colonel 
 Vaudrey to be seduced by a woman ; M. Morny lives on dis- 
 creditable terms with a woman; M. St. Arnaud pawns chemises 
 of women; M. Vieyra pledges as a security for a loan the profits 
 of a house of abandoned women ! ! The Times said, with but 
 too much reason, on the 7th of May, 1852, " The Napoleonian 
 star is Mercury, the god of deportation, thefts, and lies." That 
 journal forgot then that Mercury was also the god of " pro- 
 curers ! " To whatever party you may be attached, men of 
 honour who peruse our pages, say whether there be not good 
 reasons for a Frenchman to writhe in despair at seeing France 
 tyrannized and insulted by that heap of men more vile than 
 convicts, by immorality brokers ! Say whether it be not thrice 
 sad to behold a great nation like England contract an alliance 
 with a government thus composed ! 
 
 No. III. THE ASSASSINATION OF GENERAL BB.EA WAS 
 
 COMMITTED BY THE BONAPARTISTS. 
 
 " The death of General Brea," said our companion in exile, 
 Citizen Louis Blanc, in his periodical publication Le Nouveau 
 Monde, " has served as an inexhaustible text for the declama- 
 tions of the reactionary press. What part have politics acted 
 in that assassination ? One of the chief culprits, and also one 
 of the most severely condemned in the afiair, was a " conduc- 
 teur" in the administration of the roads and bridges, named 
 Luc. Now, this is what a witness, Pierre Menand, a corporal 
 
ASSASSINATION OF GENERAL BREA. 187 
 
 in the Garde Mobile, related while giving his evidence: — 
 * I went to the dwelling of Luc ; I found there a gun and a 
 bayonet ; I did not find himself there, but I discovered a letter 
 addressed by him to Napoleon, who was then at Auteuil/ 
 
 *' A long time before the events of June, one of those who were 
 executed, Lahr, loudly proclaimed his devotedness to the cause 
 of Louis Napoleon. He related to his neighbours that, when 
 he was a soldier in a regiment of artillery, and garrisoned in 
 the fortress of Ham, M. Louis Napoleon had once handed him 
 a twenty-franc piece to purchase for him pipes and tobacco, 
 and that when he returned from his errand, the emperor's 
 nephew had generously refused to take back the change. On 
 another hand, Daix, a pauper of Bicetre, complained, during 
 the proceedings in court, that he had made to himself many 
 enemies in a club, by backing too zealously the candidature of 
 M. Pelletan, one of the writers in the Presse newspaper. 
 During their stay in the fortresses, several persons incrimi- 
 nated in the Brea afiair rendered themselves conspicuous by 
 the immoderate nature of their Bonapartist opinions. As- 
 suredly, if it was found advantageous to connect that assassi- 
 nation with politics — and, for our part, we should be ashamed 
 to do so — the Socialists ought not to be made responsible for 
 the blood of General Brea." 
 
 Read now the following letter, which was written to us by 
 our honourable colleague. Citizen Nadaud, after a conversation 
 wherein we had had occasion to speak of the assassination of 
 General Brea. It can be inferred from that letter, that the 
 crime of the Barrier e Fontainebleau, which has so much been 
 turned into an arm for calumniating us, has actually been part 
 and parcel of the long conspiracy which ended in the events 
 of the 2nd December. The murderers of June were the pre- 
 cursors of the December generals, of the St. Arnaud, Magnan, 
 Sauboul, Chapuis, Canrobert, and other assassins, who shot 
 prisoners and a woman ! Before we let Citizen Nadaud himself 
 speak out of his own mouth, we will premise that he is inca- 
 pable of lying, and that his veracity never was questioned by 
 anybody, not even by his bitterest political enemies. 
 
 " I knew Lahr," says Citizen Nadaud, " who was sentenced 
 to death in the affair called of General Brea, in 1848. He was 
 an excellent workman, who, by dint of labour, economy, and 
 sobriety, had succeeded in saving a sum of 4000 francs, which 
 he had employed, in 1847, in purchasing a lodging-house and 
 
188 annexejs. 
 
 wine stores, situate at the Barri^re des Deux-Moulins. Until 
 the revolution of February, he had taken no part whatever 
 in politics. We all know that, at that time, every kind of 
 labour was suspended in a great number of workshops. Many 
 of Lahr's lodgers, deprived of employment, were unable to re- 
 fund him the sums which the keepers of such houses generally 
 are obliged to advance. It was from that same period, that is 
 about the end of April, that he formed a connexion with the 
 most active agents of M. Bonaparte. His brothers, who worked 
 with me, said to me every day that one or several gentlemen 
 repaired to his wine stores, (a main place of rendezvous for 
 German people,) and that all their conversations turned on 
 Louis Napoleon. He at length became so enthusiastic on the 
 score of the emperor's nephew^ as they all styled that man, that 
 he came one day to entice away his three brothers, who were 
 working with me at the mairie of the 12th arrondissement of 
 Paris : I went to look for them at the public-house which is 
 situate at the corner of the rues St. Jacques and Soufflot. As 
 soon as they perceived me, they offered me a glass of wine, 
 and while knocking their glasses together, as a token of health- 
 drinking, at a sign from Lahr they called out three times : 
 * Vive Louis Napoleon ! Vive little Louis ! We wish for him 
 and will have him !^ I have known from some friends of mine, 
 who were present at the struggle of the Barrier e de Fontaine- 
 bleau, that Lahr distributed wine to the combatants, so as to 
 be the more useful to his prince ; for, you can vouch that he 
 had received money. I have this fact from his own brother, 
 and from his best friends. 
 
 " Should this information, dear Citizen Schoelcher, prove 
 susceptible of serving to vindicate the Republicans, who have 
 hitherto been unjustly accused, by the old parties, of having 
 murdered General Brea, make use of it to ascertain that the 
 general was struck by the most zealous agents of M.Bonaparte. 
 
 ** Nadaud, 
 ** London, March 1st, 1862. " Representative of the People." 
 
 Another Calumny 
 of the times, against the republican refugees. 
 
 At the moment we were correcting the last sheets of this 
 pamphlet, we found, in the Times (June 5, 1854) a fresh 
 
CALUMNY OF THE TIMES. 189 
 
 calumny, which we think it behoves us to notice. A French 
 exile, Citizen Boichot, has just been arrested in Paris. The 
 Times states its belief in the existence, at London, Jersey, and 
 Brussels, of three revolutionary committees, of which we have, 
 for our part, not the least knowledge : it asserts that Citizen 
 Boichot was the delegate of one of these hypothetical com- 
 mittees, and that the question was " to make a peaceful demon- 
 stration on hehalf of Russia ; but," pleasantly says that journal, 
 " the time of peaceful demonstrations is gone by." The Times 
 * therefore rejoices that there no longer exists, in France, a 
 liberty from which England has always derived immense po- 
 litical advantages — This is very noble ! That honest Napoleonic 
 paper adds : "All-disposed as the chief plotters may be to get 
 up 2i favourable diversion for Russia^ by exciting insurrection at 
 home and rendering the employment of a sufficiently large 
 force in the East a matter of impossibility, they are spending 
 their time, pains, and money for nothing. The masses of the 
 Parisian population are not Russian." 
 
 We have adduced, in this pamphlet, several testimonies 
 against the Decembriseurs, as culled from the Times. We 
 might have taken them from any journal whatever in this 
 country : the English press swarms with similar ones. We 
 have preferred to borrow them from the Times, because it is 
 become madly fond of Bonapartism. " But," says that journal, 
 as if to disculpate itself, '* France has ratified the 2nd of De- 
 cember, for she permits it to sit majestically in the Tuileries." 
 One might as well say that Italy sanctions the hanging of its 
 best citizens and the flogging practised on its women, because 
 the Austrians are still at Milan, Venice, Verona, and the 
 Decembriseurs' army is still at Rome. 
 
 Besides, if the Times wished to obtain credence in regard to 
 its allegation, that journal ought not to have already written, 
 on December 22, 1851, during the voting of the famous plebis- 
 citum : — " Even the voting tickets are said to be controlled by 
 the police to such a degree, that it is an offence to print the word 
 * Non' on a card, and it is evident from these extraordinary pre- 
 cautions, that L. Napoleon is speculating mainly on the effect 
 of force and fear." And then, on December 24, after the 
 voting : — " The majority is smaller than had been expected, 
 especially in those parts of the country where the independence 
 of the people is not wholly crushed, or all means of correct 
 information withheld." If the Times, such as it is at present, 
 
190 ANNEXES. 
 
 wished to be believed, it ought not to have also inserted, on 
 January 3, 1852, the following report from one of its corre- 
 spondents, concerning the acts of fraud and violence of the 20th 
 December : — " I have had, on this subject, a conversation with 
 one of the most important tradesmen of the Palais-Royal. I will 
 not mention his name, lest I should thereby expose him to some 
 persecutions. He said to me : * I am going to give you an ex- 
 ample of the frauds which have been practised. I have, in my 
 section, forty friends ; we have all voted Non ; I am quite 
 certain of this, for I spoke about it to each of them in particular, 
 and however on the next day the authorities declared that 
 there had been found in the whole section only two negative 
 bulletins.' " 
 
 No! the French people never did sanction the empire of 
 assassins. We had dealt deservedly with that mean quirk, but 
 we are not sorry to see the Times itself gad in the maze of its 
 own lies. That paper now predicates that the attempts at a 
 deliverance made in Paris must result in preventing the 6000 
 knaves from sending a " sufficiently large force to the banks 
 of the Danube." It therefore owns that the new barbarians 
 maintain their ground in France only through the force of 
 bayonets, as the Austrians do in Italy ; whilst, on another hand, 
 it seeks to disculpate itself for contracting an alliance with 
 them, by obstinately affirming that France acknowledges 
 them! . . . What a sincerity! "WTiat an honesty! The 
 Russians are to us enemies less to be feared than the writers, 
 unworthy the name of Englishmen, who act such a part. 
 They cherish against France a very implacable hatred, those 
 who make such desperate efforts to keep it in degradation. 
 
 This being said, let us return to the calumnies of the Ti?nes. 
 "It is whispered," says that paper, "that Russian gold has had 
 something to do with the business. This, it may be presumed, 
 is a calumny, but it is certain that" &c., &c. Farther on, it 
 speaks of ** confessions made by the Representative Boichot^ OR 
 disclosures made by some other person;" and, at length, it 
 adds, after a few heavy jokes : "It is rumoured that the ser- 
 geant had with him, when arrested, his commission, duly 
 sealed and signed, as generalissimo of a future revolutionary 
 army. His seductions were to be especially directed to the 
 stray tourlouroux who might be picked up among the cabarets 
 of the barrieres. Such, it is said, was his mission." 
 
 The prcpent hero of the Times was indeed right to say, 
 
CALUMNY OF THE TIMES. 191 
 
 when proscribed : " Exile, an actual pariah of modem societies, 
 watch every one of thy steps, and weigh every one of thy words, 
 for there are people hired to misrepresent thy actions and dis- 
 figure thy sayings. Justice does not exist for the banished." 
 ( Works of L. N. Bonaparte, vol. iii. p. 253.) 
 
 Now, " Hussian/^ " Confessions ^'^ " a Commission of General- 
 issiino,^^ *^ Cabarets'^; how many nonsensical and malicious 
 allegations, contrived and palmed off together by the knights 
 of the Times ! and that, too, intended for a vanquished fallen 
 in the hands of the enemy ; — that, intended for a representa- 
 tive of the people, for a man who braves, through faithfulness 
 to his political creed, the martyrdom of transportation to the 
 galleys in the midst of convicts ! — that, intended for a party 
 whose members possessed of any private fortune, abandoned 
 their emoluments to the public treasury when they were in 
 power ! Indeed, never was a warfare carried on more unfair 
 than that which the Times is incessantly carrying on against 
 the democrats ! What could be more odious than to deceit- 
 fully represent, in a country engaged in a contest with Russia, 
 the refugees to whom it affords an asylum, as busy intriguing 
 in the interest of Nicholas! We hope there is no man, 
 possessing any feeling, who will reproach us with exceeding 
 the bounds of propriety, when we apply the epithet cowardly, 
 to such an act. Let our readers reflect on what the English 
 people would have thought, if, when they were expelling 
 James II., any one had charged them with being the hirelings 
 of some enemy of England ! 
 
 But one is still better enabled to perceive the ugliness of the 
 English Bonapartist journal's sentiments, when one hears it 
 say : " As Sergeant Boichot has already been condemned par 
 contumace, for participation in the manifestation of the Arts 
 et Metiers (June 13), it is probable that the sentence will be 
 now executed, and that he will be transported." The Times 
 sets forth, as a very simple matter, that a sentence par contu- 
 mace can be executed without a fresh trial ! It seems to that 
 paper quite natm-al that its new proteges, after having over- 
 thrown the Republic, should execute a warrant issued for a 
 so-called attempt against the Republic ! It finds perfectly 
 right that the 2nd of December should strike down the 13th 
 of June ! ! Oh, logic of friends to order ! 
 
 The Times is less lucky when it so funnily invents the com- 
 mission as generalissimo of Sergeant Boichot; it but too much 
 
192 ANNEXES. 
 
 reminds one that its strange eulogies of the Napoleonic govern- 
 ment have caused the giving to the English, as generalissimo 
 in the East, Master St. Arnaud, who is at once one of the most 
 hideous assassins of December, and a robber of the worst 
 description.* When one has such criminal faults to reproach 
 one's self with, one should not venture upon such ridiculous 
 jests about the word generalissimo. 
 
 And since we are now speaking of that honest St. Arnaud, we 
 may state, that the English people have already had a foretaste 
 of the deleterious influence of such a man in the midst of their 
 soldiers. The Illustrated London News, of June 3rd, says : — 
 "We regret to learn that Lord Raglan and Marshal St. 
 Arnaud have come to the resolution of preventing, as far as 
 they can, the transmission of news from the seat of war. The 
 correspondents of the London daily journals have received in- 
 timation that they cannot be allowed to proceed with the army 
 on active service unless they renounce their connexion with 
 the press. The dislike of Marshal St. Arnaud to the press is 
 intelligible ; but Lord Raglan ought to know sufficient of the 
 temper and habits of his countrymen to be aware that any 
 censorship or silence of the newspaper press, which may be 
 tolerated in France, will not be so in England." — We humbly 
 believe that Great Britain would tolerate a censure, just as 
 much as France does, were it imposed on her by 400,000 
 British bayonets ; but this is not the question at issue ; what 
 we wish to be remarked is, that the high staff of the British 
 army are waxing Bonapartized. No sooner is an intercourse 
 begun between them and the bandits of December, than they 
 practise censuring. The nation may judge whether that which 
 we have said in this pamphlet regarding the moral and politi- 
 cal dangers of the alliance be ungrounded. As to the Times, 
 that journal had better defend the liberty of the English press 
 against the noiseless but quite direct attacks of his commander, 
 St. Arnaud, instead of imagining, with as little wit as fairness, 
 a commission of generalissimo for Citizen Boichot. 
 
 We have no connexion whatever with Citizen Boichot, but the 
 nature of the attacks directed against him shocks us to the ut- 
 most. If you believe, we will say to the correspondents and to 
 the literarystaff of the Times — that "Russian gold" is a calumny, 
 
 * See, for proofs of this, the Annex No. III. : Biography of 
 Leroy, alias de St, Arnaud. 
 
CALUMNY OF THE TIMES. 193 
 
 why do you echo it ? Nobody is the dupe of your mental 
 reservation ; you belong to the school of Bazile ; you know 
 that there always remains some ill after a calumny. None 
 but persons paid by " Bonapartist gold," could be found 
 willing to hint what you do hint, and it is only from the 
 common sewers that one " picks up " people base enough to 
 say that the Republicans recruit in cabarets. What object 
 had you in view, when publishing those gross impostures? 
 To vindicate the Decembriseurs ! This is indeed too quickly 
 forgetting that you wrote on the 22nd of December, 1851, 
 when speaking of their deeds : " The retribution which must 
 one day fasten on SUCH crimes exclusively concerns the 
 French nation." Have you not yourselves implicitly de- 
 clared herein, that we alone are at liberty to choose the 
 hour *'of retributing those crimes?" What sort of men are 
 you then ? What are your notions of good and evil ? We 
 should like you to take the trouble of saying what you 
 think of a journal capable of making itself the upholder of a 
 regifne based on " crimes" which that same journal has been 
 the first to record. On December 24, 1851, you wrote the 
 following : — " The result of the vote of the plebiscitum is a 
 conventional arrangement, which may be broken at any time, 
 by either party, with impunity. It is a government without 
 right, a state without laws, a nation without duties" What 
 opinion do you form of the honesty of people who lavish 
 reviles against us, because we endeavour to overthrow a 
 government which they themselves have declared " without 
 right," in the face of *' a nation without duties ?" 
 
 " Cette difficulte vaut bien qu'on la propose." 
 [This perplexing question is worth our putting it.] 
 
 If you were not undeserving the name of Englishmen, you 
 whose patriotism does not recoil from covenanting with assas- 
 sins, you would understand that the French patriots reck in 
 nowise about Nicholas, when preparing the enfranchisement of 
 their country ; for, after all, matters will be easily settled with 
 that " gentleman," were he even at Constantinople, as soon as his 
 rivals, the Decembriseurs, are no longer in Paris. There is an 
 enemy to civilization, more dangerous, more perfidious, more 
 sanguinary still, if possible, than Cossackism : it is the Elysean 
 Bonapartism. You calumniate us when you pretend that we 
 are in favour of Kussia; but, in any case, it is a singular mode 
 
194 ANNEXES. 
 
 of combating her, to associate with, powers still more savage 
 than she is, with the slaughterers of December and the Aus- 
 trian floggers of women. That you should rejoice, as English- 
 men, at having found in the filth of the reactionary party, a 
 Napoleon, who acquiesces in the treaties of the Holy Alliance, 
 seems to us natural ; but that, as honourable men, you should 
 no longer despise him, seems to us unaccountable. It may be 
 pleasant to you to prop up a despotism, of which one of its chief 
 original abettors has just said, — " It is the revival of the Lower 
 Empire." [Letter from M. Montalembert to M. Dupin.) — It 
 may be pleasant to you that France should continue subjected 
 to a regime, styled by yourselves, *' the most abject servi- 
 tude," {Timesy Nov. 18, 1852) ; but everybody will understand 
 that such should not be our taste, and that we should be deter- 
 mined to do anything, at any time, with a view to free ourselves. 
 As to Russia, the past already attests your affection for her ; the 
 future will show the English people which, whether you or we, 
 are disposed to serve her. Therefore, we say it openly to you, 
 who are incessantly abusing the Republican party ; to you, 
 who still insult it so far as to pretend that it acts under the 
 influence of " Russian gold : " — You are very powerful, but you 
 are no gentlemen ! 
 
 fTJHIVBHSITYJ 
 
 W. H. CoLLiNGBiDGE, City Press, Long Lane. 
 
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