XIV.

CHAP. that any one who threw a doubt on the loyalty of the acts of the Government should be arrested.* These are samples of the means which generals and prefects and sub-prefects adopted for insuring the result; but it is hardly to be believed that all this base zeal was really needed, because from the very first, the brethren of the Elysée had taken a step which, even if it had stood alone, would have been more than enough to coerce the vote. They fixed for the 20th and 21st of December the election to which civilians were invited; but long before this, the army had been ordered to vote (and to vote openly without ballot), within fortyeight hours from the receipt of a despatch of the 3d of December. So all the land - forces of Contrivance France had voted, as it were, by beat of drum, the election and the result of their voting had been made of the army. known to the whole country, long before the time

for coercing

by the vote

fixed for the civilians to proceed to election. France, therefore, if she were to dare to vote against the President, would be placing herself in instant and open conflict with the declared will of her own army, and this at a time when, to the extent already stated, she was under martial law. Surprised, perplexed, affrighted, and all un

* Arrêté du Sous-préfet de Valenciennes.

+'Annuaire,' Appendix, p. 67. M. St Arnaud's circular to the generals of Division ordered that the vote of the soldiers be taken within forty-eight hours, and also said, 'The President ' reckons on the support of the nation and of the army; and, so 'far as concerns your Division, on the energy of your attitude, 'the prompt and severe repression of the slightest attempt at 'disturbance.' Ibid.-Note to 4th Edition, 1863.

XIV.

France

armed and helpless, France was called upon CHAP. either to strive to levy a war of despair against the mighty engine of the French executive govern- succumbed. ment, and the vast army which stood over her, or else to succumb at once to Louis Bonaparte and Morny and Maupas and Monsieur Le Roy St Arnaud. She succumbed. The brethren of the Elysée had asked the country to say 'Yes' or 'No:' should Louis Bonaparte alone build a new Constitution for the governance of the mighty nation? and when, in the way already told, they had obtained the 'Yes' from herds and flocks of men whom they ventured to number at nearly eight millions,* it was made known to Paris that the person who had long been the favourite subject of her jests was now become sole lawgiver for Prince Louis her and for France. In the making of such laws of France. as he intended to give the country, Prince Louis was highly skilled, for he knew how to enfold the creation of a sheer Oriental autocracy in a nomenclature taken from the polity of Free European States. With the advice and consent of Morny, and no doubt with the full approval of all the rest of the plotters, he virtually made it the law The laws he that he should command, and that France should gave her. pay him tribute and obey.†

*7,439,216, against 640,737 noes.

p. 95.-Note to 4th Edition.

'Annuaire,' Appendix,

+ The free way in which the purse of France was laid open by the success of the coup d'état may be in some measure gathered from the long catalogue of decrees opening supplementary and extraordinary credits, which is given in the Appendix to the Annuaire,' pp. 95 et seq. As was mentioned in a

sole lawgiver

CHAP.
XIV.

Importance of the massacre on the

its cause.

XIX.

It has been seen that the success of the plot of the 2d of December resulted from the massacre which took place in the Boulevard on the followBoulevard. ing Thursday; and since this strange event became the foundation of a momentous change in Inquiry into the polity of France, and even in the destinies of Europe, it is right for men to know, if they can, how and why it came to pass. At three o'clock on the afternoon of the 4th of December, the ultimate success of the plot had seemed to become almost hopeless by reason of the isolation to which Prince Louis and his associates were reduced. But at that hour the massacre began, and before the bodies were cleared away, the brethren of the Elysée had Paris and France at their mercy. It was natural that wronged and angry men, seeing this cause and this effect, should be capable of believing that the massacre was wilfully planned as a means of achieving the result which it actually produced. Just as the Cambridge theologian maintained that he who looked upon a watch must needs believe in a watchmaker, so men who had seen the massacre were led to infer a demon. They saw that the massacre brought wealth and blessings to the Elysée, and they thought it a safe induction to say that the man

former note (ante, p. 311), the 'concessions' to railway and other companies began so early as the 10th of December. See the Appendix to the 'Annuaire.'-Note to 4th Edition, 1863.

XIV.

who gathered the harvest as though it were his CHAP. own must have sown the seed in due season. Yet, so far as one knows, this argument from design is not very well reinforced by external proof; and perhaps it is more consistent with the principles of human nature to believe that the slaughter of the Boulevard resulted from the mixed causes which are known to have been in operation, than from a cold design on the part of the President to have a quantity of peaceful men and women killed in order that the mere horror of the sight might crush the spirit of Paris. Without resorting to this dreadful solution, the causes of the massacre may be reached by fair conjecture.

The army, as we have seen, was burning with hatred of the civilians, and its ferocity had been carefully whetted by the President and by St Arnaud. This feeling, apart from other motives of action, would not have induced the brave soldiery of France to fire point-blank into crowds of defenceless men and women; but a passion more cogent than anger was working in the bosoms of the men at the Elysée and the Generals in command, and from them it descended to the troops.

of terror.

According to its nature, and the circumstances The passion in which it is placed, a creature struck by terror may either lie trembling in a state of abject prostration, or else may be convulsed with hysteric energy; and when terror seizes upon man or beast in this last way, it is the fiercest and most blind of all passions. The French unite the delicate,

VOL. I.

X

СНАР.

XIV.

State of Prince Louis Bonaparte during the period of danger.

nervous organisation of the south with much of
the energy of the north; and they are keenly
susceptible of the terror that makes a man kill
people, and the terror that makes him lie down
and beg. On that 4th of December, Paris was
visited with terror in either form.
The army

raged and the people crouched; but army and
people alike were governed by terror. It is very
true that in the Boulevard there were no physical
dangers which could have struck the troops with
this truculent sort of panic; for even if it is
believed that two or three shots were fired from
a window or a house-top, an occurrence of that
kind, in a quarter which was plainly prepared for
sight-seeing and not for strife, was too trivial of
itself to be capable of disturbing prime troops.
But the President and his associates, though they
had succeeded in all their mechanical arrange-
ments, had failed to obtain the support of men of
character and eminence. For that reason they
were obviously in peril; and if Morny and Fleury
still remained in good heart, there is no reason
for doubting that on the 4th of December the
sensations of the President, of the two other
Bonapartes, of Maupas, of St Arnaud, and of
Magnan, corresponded with the alarming circum-
stances in which they were placed.

The state of the President seems to have been very like what it had been in former times at Strasburg and at Boulogne, and what it was years afterwards at Magenta and Solferino. He did not on any of these five occasions so give way