helpless. XIV. At the sight of what was done on that CHAP. 4th of December the great city was struck down as though by a plague. A keen-eyed Englishman, who chanced to come upon some of the people retreating from these scenes of slaughter, declared that their countenances were of a strange livid hue which he had never before seen. This was because he had never before seen the faces of men coming straight from the witnessing of a massacre. They say that the shock of being within sight and hearing the shrieks broke down the nervous strength of many a brave though tender man, and caused him to burst into sobs as though he were a little child. Before the morning of the 5th the armed insurrection had ceased. From the first it had been feeble. On the other hand, the moral resistance which was opposed to the acts of the President and his associates had been growing in strength; and when the massacre began on the afternoon of the 4th of December, the power of this moral resistance was in the highest degree formidable. Yet it came to pass that, by reason of the strange prostration of mind which was wrought by the massacre, the armed insurrection dragged down with it in its fall the whole policy of those who conceived that by the mere force of opinion and ridicule they would be enabled to send the plotters to Vincennes. The Cause of those who intended to rely upon this scheme of moral resistance, was in no way mixed up with the attempts of the men of the barricades, but still it was a Cause which depended upon the high spirit of the people; XIV. CHAP. to be much steeped in what was done. The colonel of one of the regiments engaged in this slaughter spoke whilst the business was fresh in his mind. It would be unsafe to accept his statement as accurate, or even as substantially true; but as it is certain that the man had taken part in the transactions of which he spoke, and that he really wished to gain credence for the words which he uttered, his testimony has a kind of value as representing (to say the least of it) his idea of what could be put forward as a credible statement by one who had the means of knowing the truth. What he declared was that his regiment alone had killed two thousand four hundred men. Supposing that his statement was anything like an approach to the truth, and that his corps was at all rivalled by others, a very high number would be wanted for recording the whole quantity of the slaughter.* Total loss of the army in killed. Effect upon the people of Paris. In the army which did these things, the whole number of killed was twenty-five. † Of all men dwelling in cities the people of Paris are perhaps the most warlike. Less almost than any other Europeans are they accustomed to overvalue the lives of themselves and their fellow-citizens. With them the joy of the fight has power to overcome fear and grief, and they had been used to great street-battles; but they had not been used of late to witness the slaughter of people unarmed and * The number of regiments operating against Paris was between thirty and forty, and of these about twenty belonged to the divisions which were actively employed in the work. + Including all officers and soldiers killed from the 3d to the 6th of December. The official return, 'Moniteur,' p. 3062. XIV. helpless. At the sight of what was done on that CHAP. 4th of December the great city was struck down as though by a plague. A keen-eyed Englishman, who chanced to come upon some of the people retreating from these scenes of slaughter, declared that their countenances were of a strange livid hue which he had never before seen. This was because he had never before seen the faces of men coming straight from the witnessing of a massacre. They say that the shock of being within sight and hearing the shrieks broke down the nervous strength of many a brave though tender man, and caused him to burst into sobs as though he were a little child. Before the morning of the 5th the armed insurrection had ceased. From the first it had been feeble. On the other hand, the moral resistance which was opposed to the acts of the President and his associates had been growing in strength; and when the massacre began on the afternoon of the 4th of December, the power of this moral resistance was in the highest degree formidable. Yet it came to pass that, by reason of the strange prostration of mind which was wrought by the massacre, the armed insurrection dragged down with it in its fall the whole policy of those who conceived that by the mere force of opinion and ridicule they would be enabled to send the plotters to Vincennes. The Cause of those who intended to rely upon this scheme of moral resistance, was in no way mixed up with the attempts of the men of the barricades, but still it was a Cause which depended upon the high spirit of the people; CHAP. and it had happened that this spirit-perplexed and XIV. baffled on the 2d of December by a stratagem and a night attack-was now crushed out by sheer horror. Effect of the massacre in remov- personal For her beauty, for her grandeur, for her historic fame, for her warlike deeds, for her power to lead the will of a mighty nation, and to crown or discrown its monarchs, no city on earth is worthy to be the rival of Paris. Yet, because of the palsy that came upon her after the slaughter on the Boulevard, this Paris-this beauteous, heroic Paris-this queen of great renown, was delivered bound into the hands of Prince Louis Bonaparte, and Morny, and Maupas or De Maupas, and St Arnaud formerly Le Roy. And the benefit which Prince Louis derived from the massacre was not transitory. It is a maxim of French politics that, happen what may, a man seeking to be a ruler of France must not be ridiculous. From 1836 until 1848 Prince Louis had never ceased to be obscure except by bringing upon himself the laughter of the world; and his election into the chair of the Presidency had only served to bring upon him a more constant outpouring of the scorn and sarcasm which Paris knows how to bestow. * Even the suddenness and perfect success of the blow struck in the night between the 1st and the 2d of December had failed to make Paris think of him with gravity. But it was otherwise after three o'clock on the A glance at the 'Charivari' for '49, '50, and the first eleven months of '51, would verify this statement. The stopping of the 'Charivari' was one of the very first exertions of the supreme power which was seized in the night of the 2d of December. XIV. 4th of December; and it happened that the most CHAP. strenuous adversaries of this oddly fated Prince were those who, in one respect, best served his cause; for the more they strove to show that he, and he alone, of his own design and malice had planned and ordered the massacre,* the more completely they relieved him from the disqualification which had hitherto made it impossible for him to become the supreme ruler of France. Before the night closed in on the 4th of December, he was sheltered safe from ridicule by the ghastly heaps on the Boulevard. of the The fate of the provinces resembled the fate of the The fate capital. Whilst it was still dark on the morning of provinces. the 2d, Morny, stealing into the Home Office, had intrusted his orders for instant and enthusiastic support to the zeal of every prefect, and had ordered that every mayor, every juge de paix, and every other public functionary who failed to give in his instant and written adhesion to the acts of the President, should be dismissed. In France the engine of State is so constructed as to give to the Home Office an almost irresistible power over the provinces, and the means which the Office had of coercing France were reinforced by an appeal to men's fears of anarchy, and their dread of the sect called 'Socialists.' Forty thousand communes were suddenly told that they must make swift choice between Socialism and anarchy and rapine on the one hand, and on the other a virtuous dictator and lawgiver, recommended and * It will be seen (see post) that I question the truth of this charge against him. |