CHAP. the casemates of the fortresses and huddled down XIV. between the decks of the Canada and the Duguesclin. These hapless beings were, for the most part, men attached to the cause of the Republic. It would seem that of the two thousand men whose sufferings are the most known, a great part were men whose lives had been engaged in literary pursuits; for amongst them there were authors of some repute, editors of newspapers, and political writers of many grades, besides lawyers, physicians, and others whose labours in the field of politics had been mainly labours of the intellectual sort. The torments inflicted upon these men lasted from two to three months. It was not till the second week in March that a great many of them came out into the light and the pure air of heaven. Because of what they had suffered they were hideous and terrible to look upon. The hospitals received many. It is right that the works which testify of these things should be indicated as authorities on which the narrator founds his passing words; but unless a man be under some special motive for learning the detailed truth, it would be well for him to close his eyes against those horrible pages; for if once he looks and reads, the recollection of the things he reads of may haunt him and weigh upon his spirit till he longs and longs in vain to recover his ignorance of what, even in this his own time, has been done to living men. At length the time came for the operation of * Le Coup d'Etat,' par Xavier Durrieu, ancien Representant du Peuple. Histoire de la Terreur Bonapartiste,' par Hippolyte Magen. XIV. biscite. tion im what was called the Plebiscite. The arrangements CHAP. of the plotters had been of such a kind as to allow France no hope of escape from anarchy and utter The Plechaos, except by submitting herself to the dictatorship of Louis Bonaparte; for although the Presi- Causes rendering dent in his Proclamation had declared that if the free eleccountry did not like his Presidency they might possible. choose some other in his place, no such alternative was really offered. The choice given to the electors did not even purport to be anything but a choice between Louis Bonaparte and nothing. According to the wording of the Plebiscite, a vote given for any candidate other than Louis Bonaparte would have been null. An elector was only permitted to vote 'Yes,' or vote 'No;' and it seems plain that the prospect of anarchy involved in the negative vote would alone have operated as a sufficing menace. Therefore, even if the collection of the suffrages had been carried on with perfect fairness, the mere stress of the question proposed would have made it impossible that there should be a free election: the same central power which, nearly four years before, had compelled the terrified nation to pretend that it loved a republic, would have now forced the same helpless people to kneel, and say they chose for their one only lawgiver the man recommended to them by Monsieur de Morny. Having the army and the whole executive power in their hands, and having preordained the question to be put to the people, the brethren of the Elysée, it would seem, might have safely allowed the proceeding XIV CHAP. to go to its sure conclusion without further coercing the vote; and if they had done thus, they would have given a colour to the assertion that the result of the Plebiscite was a national ratification of their act. But, remembering what they had done, and having blood on their hands, they did not venture upon a free election. What they did was this: they placed thirtytwo departments under martial law; and since they wanted nothing more than a sheet of paper and a pen and ink in order to place every other department The elec in the same predicament, it can be said without straining a word, that potentially, or actually, the whole of France was under martial law. tion under martial law. Violent measures coercing the election. Therefore men voted under the sword. But martaken for tial law is only one of the circumstances which constitute the difference between an honest election and a Plebiscite of the Bonaparte sort. Of course, for all effective action on the part of multitudes, some degree of concert is needful; and on the side of the plotters, using as they did the resistless engine of the executive government, the concert was perfect. To the adversaries of the Elysée all effective means of concerted action were forbidden by Morny and Maupas. Not only could they have no semblance of a public meeting, but they could not even venture upon the slightest approach to those lesser gatherings which are needed for men who want to act together. Of course, in these days, the chief engine for giving concerted and rational action to bodies of men is the Press. But, except for the uses of the Elysée, there was no Press. All journals hostile to the plot were XIV. silenced. Not a word could be printed which was CHAP. unfavourable to Monsieur Morny's candidate for the dictatorship. Even the printing and distributing of negative voting-tickets was made penal; and during the ceremony which was called an election,' several persons were actually arrested, and charged with the offence of distributing negative voting - tickets, or persuading others to vote against the President. It was soon made clear that, so far as concerned his means of taking a real part in the election, every adversary of the Elysée was as helpless as a man deaf and dumb. In one department it was decreed that any one spreading reports or suggesting fears tending to disquiet the people, should be instantly arrested and brought before a court-martial.* In another, every society, and indeed every kind of meeting, however few the persons composing it might be, was in terms prohibited ; and it was announced that any man disobeying the order would be deemed to be a member of a secret society within the meaning of the terrible decree of the 8th of December, and liable to transportation. In the same department it was decreed, that every one hawking or distributing printed tickets, or even manuscripts, unless authorised by the mayor or the juge de paix, should be prosecuted; and the same prefect, in almost mad rage against freedom, proclaimed that any one who was caught in an en * Arrêté du Général d'Alphonse, Commandant l'état de siège dans le Departement du Cher, Article 4. + Arrêté du Préfet de la Haute Garonne, Articles 1, 2, 3. Ibid., Article 3. CHAP. deavour to propagate an opinion' should be deemed XIV. guilty of exciting to civil war, and instantly handed * over to the judicial authority. In another depart ment the sub-prefect announced that any one who threw a doubt on the loyalty of the acts of the Government should be arrested.t 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 forty-eight hours from the receipt of a despatch of the 3d of December. So all the land-forces of France had voted, as it were, by beat of drum, and the result of their voting had the army. been made known to the whole country long before the time 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. Contriv ance for coercing the election by the vote of France succumbed. Surprised, perplexed, affrighted, and all unarmed and helpless, France was called upon either to strive * Arrêté du Préfet de la Haute Garonne, Article 4. |