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people of Paris, they solemnly embraced one an- CHAP. other.*

From time to time the common soldiery were gratified with presents of food and wine, as well as with an abundance of flattering words; and their exasperation against the civilians was so well kept alive, that men used to African warfare were brought into the humour for calling the Parisians' Bedouins.' There was massacre in the very sound. The army of Paris was in the temper required.

It was necessary for the plotters to have the concurrence of M. St Georges, the director of the State printing-office. M. St Georges was suborned. Then all was ready.

XIV.

The Army raged in

encou

its hatred

of the

people.

at the

errand.

On the Monday night between the 1st and the 2d Assembly of December the President had his usual assembly at Elysée on Monday the Elysée. Ministers who were loyally ignorant of night. what was going on were mingled with those who were in the plot. Vieyra was present. He was spoken to by the President, and he undertook that the National Vieyra's Guard should not beat to arms that night. He went away, and it is said that he fulfilled his humble task by causing the drums to be mutilated. At the usual hour the assembly began to disperse, and by eleven o'clock there were only three guests who remained. These were Morny (who had previously taken care Before to show himself at one of the theatres), Maupas, and several of St Arnaud, formerly Le Roy. There was, besides, an federates orderly officer of the President, called Colonel Be- assemble ville, who was initiated in the secret. Persigny, it room.

* Granier de Cassaignac, vol. ii.

midnight

the con

CHAP. seems, was not present. Morny, Maupas, and St XIV. Arnaud went with the President into his cabinet;

Colonel Beville followed them.* Mocquard, the private secretary of the President, was in the secret, but it does not appear that he was in the room at this time. Fleury too, it seems, was away; he was probably on an errand which tended to put an end to the hesitation of his more elderly comrades, and drive them to make the venture. They were to strike the blow that night. They deliberated, but in the absence of Fleury their council was incomplete, because at the very moment when perhaps their doubts and fears were inclining them still to hold back, Fleury, impetuous and resolute, might be taking a step which must needs push them forward. By-and-by they were apprised that an order which had been given for the movement of a battalion of gendarmerie had duly taken effect without exciting remark. It is probable that the execution of this delicate movement was the very business which Fleury had gone to witness with his own eyes, and that it was he who brought the intelligence of its complete success to the Elysée. Perhaps also he showed that, after the step which had just been taken, it would be dangerous to stop short, for the plotters now passed into action. The Presi- The President intrusted a packet of manuscripts to Colonel Beville, and despatched him to the State printing-office.

dent intrusts a

packet to Colonel Beville.

It was in the streets which surround this building that the battalion of gendarmerie had been collected.

* Granier de Cassaignac, vol. ii,

XIV.

printing

When Paris was hushed in sleep, the battalion came CHAP. quietly out, and folded round the State printingoffice. From that moment until their work was done tion at the printers were all close captives, for no one of the State them was suffered to go out. For some time they office. were kept waiting. At length Colonel Beville came from the Elysée with his packet of manuscripts. These papers were the proclamations required for the early morning, and M. St Georges, the Director, gave orders to put them into type. It is said that there was something like resistance; but in the end, if not at first, the printers obeyed. Each compositor stood whilst he worked between two policemen, and the manuscript being cut into many pieces, no one could make out the sense of what he was printing. By these proclamations the President asserted. that Tenor of the Assembly was a hotbed of plots; declared it mations. dissolved; pronounced for universal suffrage; proposed a new constitution; vowed anew that his duty was to maintain the Republic; and placed Paris and the twelve surrounding departments under martial law. In one of the proclamations he appealed to the army, and strove to whet its enmity against civilians by reminding it of the defeats inflicted upon the troops in 1830 and 1848.*

the Procla

The President wrote letters dismissing the mem- Letters bers of the Government who were not in the plot; Ministers

dismissing

not in the

* Granier de Cassaignac, vol. ii. See also the Annuaire for 1851. plot. This last publication (which must be distinguised from the Annuaire des Deux Mondes) gives an account of the events of December, written in a spirit favourable to the Elysée; but the Appendix contains a full collection of official documents.

CHAP. but he did not cause these letters to be delivered XIV. until the following morning. He also signed a paper appointing Morny to the Home Office.

Hesitation

at the Elysée.

Fleury

drags them on.

At three o'clock the

The night was advancing. Some important steps had been taken, but still, though highly dangerous, it was not absolutely impossible for the plotters to stop short. They could tear up the letters which purported to dismiss the Ministers, and although they could not hope to prevent the disclosures which the printers would make as soon as they were released from captivity, it was not too late to keep back the words, and even the general tenor, of the Proclamations. But the next steps were of such a kind as to be irrevocable.

It is said that at this part of the night the spirit of some of the brethren was cast down, and that there was one of them who shrank from farther action; but Fleury, they say, got into a room alone with the man who wanted to hang back, and then, locking the door and drawing a pistol, stood and threatened his agitated friend with instant death if he still refused to go on.*

What is certain is, that, whether in hope or whether order from in fear, the plotters went on with their midnight task.

the Minis

is in the

ter of War The order from the Minister of War was probably signed by half-past two in the morning, for at three it was in the hands of Magnan.t

hands of

Magnan.

I have thought it right to introduce this account under a form indicating that it is based on mere rumour, but I entertain no doubt that the incident has been declared to be true by one of the two persons who stood face to face in that room.

+ Granier de Cassaignac, vol. ii.

XIV.

arrange

ments for

arrests.

At the same hour Maupas (assigning for pretext the CHAP. expected arrival of foreign refugees) caused a number of Commissaries to be summoned in all haste to the Maupas's Prefecture of Police. At half-past three in the morn- the ining these men were in attendance; Maupas received tended each of them separately, and gave to each distinct instructions. It was then that for the first time the main secret of the confederates passed into the hands of a number of subordinate agents. During some hours of that night every one of those humble Commissaries had the destinies of France in his hands; for he might either obey the Minister, and so place his country in the power of the Elysée; or he might obey the law, denounce the plot, and bring its contrivers to trial. Maupas gave orders for the seizure at the same minute of the foremost Generals of France, and several of her leading Statesmen. Parties of the police, each under the orders of a Commissary, were to be at the doors of the persons to be arrested some time beforehand, but the seizures were not to take place until a quarter past six.*

troops.

At six o'clock a brigade of infantry, under Forey, Disposi occupied the Quai d'Orsay; another brigade, under Dulac, occupied the garden of the Tuileries; another brigade, under Cotte, occupied the Place de la Concorde; and another brigade of infantry under Canrobert, with a whole division of cavalry under Korte, and another brigade of cavalry under Reybell, was posted in the neighbourhood of the Elysée.t It would seem that the main objects aimed at by * Granier de Cassaignac, vol. ii. VOL. I.

+ Ibid.

R

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