There were vague rumours of his election to the Presidency of the Republic. Colonel Fleury had known the Prince in England before he entered the army. He now joined the Prince's cause; and two months before he was elected Chief Magistrate he offered him his sword, at the risk of compromising his position in the army. Fleury took no part in the political or Parliamentary events which led up to the coup d'état; but when he saw that the time. must come when the Prince would have to save France from another revolution, he volunteered to find the man, the general, who should be his principal and indispensable instrument-in a word, his Minister of War. During four years at Orleansville Fleury had served under the orders of Colonel de Saint-Arnaud; and he had seen in him that enterprising, bold, firm, and courageous character necessary to the service to be rendered. Fleury proposed to the Prince to go to Algeria and win over De Saint-Arnaud. The offer was accepted, and he succeeded with De Saint-Arnaud, and also with other old companions in arms, notably with Bosquet, the hero of Inkerman, Canrobert, Espinasse, De Lourmel, Bourbaki, &c. In short, most of the superior officers who stood by the Prince during the coup d'état were the Algerian companions in arms of De Saint-Arnaud and Fleury. To describe all these officers as a band of base adventurers is to show ignorance of their past and to forget their subsequent services. M. Magne, Minister of Public Works, was no unknown man when he rallied resolutely to the President's cause. He had sat for Périgueux, his native place, from 1843 to 1848, and had made a reputation as a financier, especially on Algerian affairs. When M. Guizot proposed to create a Minister for Algeria, M. Magne was indicated for the position. During the Presidency he had already held office as Minister of Public Works from April to СНАР. V. BOOK VIII. October 1851; so that he had not been out of office more than three months when he joined the coup d'état Ministry. The Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, M. Lefèvre-Duruflé, was an eminent manufacturer who had been a Deputy during the Monarchy of July, and who had sat in the Legislative Assembly on the Conservative benches since 1849. M. Achille Fould, Minister of Finance, had been an authority on financial subjects, as Deputy for Tarbes, during the last six years of Louis Philippe's reign, and had been a steady supporter of M. Guizot. After the Revolution he sat in the Constituent and National Assemblies, where his authority as an eminent financier was of great weight in the settlement of the many difficult money questions which transpired. His work during the Presidency was immense; and the country owed to his knowledge and his courage in the use of it the many useful items of financial legislation which were carried between 1848 and 1851. During this time he accepted office as Finance Minister four times. His assumption of office, then, on December 2 was an important accession of strength. Such were the elements of that coup d'état Cabinet, which reckless writers have described as composed of unknown or desperate men. In addition to this Ministry the Prince formed a Consultative Commission, consisting of Frenchmen of note and authority. The publication of the first list of Commissioners gave rise to several public protests, of which the Prince's enemies made excellent use. But these protests were chiefly acts of timidity on the part of men who wished to stand aloof until after the ratification of the Prince's powers by the national vote on December 20. The formation of the Commission was entrusted to M. Baroche, and on December 14 the definitive list was V. issued.1 It included twenty-two ex-Ministers (of the CHAP. Republic or of the Monarchy of July), one marshal, the first president of the Cour des Comptes, the first president of the Court of Appeal, the first president of the Court of Cassation, the Governor of the Bank, the Chancellor of the Legion of Honour, twenty-three generals, two ex-procureurs généraux, two ex-prefects under Louis Philippe, and 134 ex-Deputies. These had all rallied to the cause of the Prince before the nation had absolved him from the responsibility of the coup d'état, and these were of the band of adventurers who, according to Mr. Kinglake, stood by Prince Louis Napoleon while he appealed from the National Assembly. to the nation. 1 The Consultative Commission had been definitively constituted by a decree of December 13. This decree confirmed most of the nominations already published, and added several new members to the list. We remark hardly any withdrawals save those of M. Léon Faucher (who BOOK CHAPTER VI. DECEMBER 3 AND 4. ON December 15 M. de Maupas concentrated his daily reports to the President on the coup d'état in one comprehensive statement. This document was produced at the request of the Prince. On the 7th, being at the Opera in company with De Morny, Magnan, De Saint-Arnaud, and De Maupas, the Prince received the visits of the representatives of foreign Courts. He remarked that the manner of some was constrained; and in a conversation with the English ambassador he discovered that the wildest exaggerations were current as to the bloodshed of the 3rd. It was said that thousands had perished. The Prince, greatly moved, turned to De Maupas, and having obtained from him a formal denial of the facts, or alleged facts, submitted by the ambassador, ordered a complete and an exact report on the events of December 3 and 4 to be drawn up.1 Of course such a report puts matters in the best light, but there exists no reason why it should not be good evidence against the monstrous and ridiculous exaggerations of the Prince's political enemies, who have delighted to describe the morrow of the coup d'état as a day of reckless bloodshed. The violence of party passion immediately after December 2 excuses some of the charges which were made against the Prince President, his Ministers and 1 Rapport du Préfet de Police sur les Événements du 3 Décembre 1851. 1853. Unpublished. agents; and at the same time it explains their wildness. Slander was the only weapon left in the hands of the generals, politicians, and expectant placemen who were completely circumvented and crushed by the Prince's triumph. The most extravagant stories stole abroad from Mazas and Vincennes. It was reported that honourable-nay, illustrious-public men had been treated with wanton indignity; that prisoners had been made by the thousand; 1 that there had been wholesale executions; that a drunken soldiery had enjoyed a battue of peaceful citizens along the boulevards; and that hosts of inoffensive Frenchmen had been deported, and would not be heard of again. The blow which was struck in the cause of order was a severe and decisive one; and they who could not retaliate in deeds were venomous of tongue. The slanders they disseminated fell on fertile ground. The Republicans and Orleanists found nothing too atrocious for the credulity they affected. The Prince President, in their coteries and cafés, became an inhuman monster; and his satellites were presented to terrified women and children as gorged with the blood of their kindred. Stories that now look like grotesque inventions, calculated rather to raise a laugh than to excite indignation, were swallowed by the gobe-mouches of the faubourgs, who furtively foregathered in silent, unregarded places; and these were carried to their houses on trembling lips, where Louis Napoleon was erected into an ogre, whose threatened appearance kept the children quiet. This terrorism, created by the factions whom the Prince President had defeated, was used years afterwards to defile his name, to distort his most patriotic acts, and to sap the foundations of his throne. It was based on wilful falsehood, and yet statesmen of honourable repute 1 Le personnel de la police ne permet que soixante ou quatre-vingts arrestations simultanées.'- Rapport du Préfet de Police sur les Événements CHAP. VI. |