292 BOOK at the Prefecture of Police, and on the Champ de Mars? It is now impossible to tell. The "Moniteur" of August 30, 1852, reckons the number of persons killed at 380. A list of the dead interred in the cemeteries of Paris on the 5th could alone tell us whether the "Moniteur" account is correct. The conservateur of the Montmartre cemetery in 1851 has often told how he received 350 bodies on December 5, with orders to bury them immediately, without even allowing them to be identified.'1 6 M. Delord has not been able to obtain more than this flimsy gossip on the subject; but, knowing nothing, he is careful to suggest to the reader that midnight butcheries may have taken place. Mr. Kinglake fortifies his bolder statement by the testimony of a man widely known,' but whom he does not name. Prosper Mérimée, who looked on at the coup d'état in his own light, cool, and indifferent manner, writing to a friend on December 20, with no idea of after-publication, said: 'De brutalités, il n'y en a pas eu. . . . La bataille fut peu de chose. . J'oubliais de vous dire que notre Président avait un des premiers repris sa sérénité et son sang-froid normand.' Of Hugo he observed contemptuously that he was not gratified with the prestige of imprisonment. It has been the fashion-and it has been the interest of the Orleanists and Republicans to talk and write about the violences of the coup d'état as though they have had no parallel before or since in the annals of the history of France. The truth is that it was a military promenade compared with the insurrection of June 1848 and the Commune of 1871.2 1 See Appendix III. 2 The transportation voted by the Constituent Assembly, under the influence of the terror and hate which followed the insurrection of June, applied only to insurgents taken with arms in their hands and arrested before June 17; but, by a singular abuse of arbitrary power, General Cavaignac and his worthy Ministers VI. After the days of June the Constituent Assembly CHAP. ordered the transportation en masse, and without trial, of 6,000 insurgents. The report of General Appert on the action of military tribunals after the defeat of the Commune shows that on January 1, 1875, 13,313 persons had been condemned to punishments ranging from death to fines. Of these 217 were sentenced to death, 410 to travaux forcés, 7,480 to transportation, and 4,692 to various terms of imprisonment. A glance at the Bonapartes lodged at the Invalides affords an instructive side-view of December 4. At six in the evening Prince Napoleon-the 'Prince of the Mountain-returned to dinner after his day in the streets in the midst of the leaders of the insurrection. There is not much credit due to the army,' he said sullenly. It has been an easy victory. The societies have not stirred.' Then the Prince de Canino entered with an Italian demagogue who acted as his aide-de-camp, and made mysterious propositions aside to King Jerome. The old man was wily and cool. After dinner he sent one of his officers to the Elysée to obtain news of the President, and, above all, to see how matters stood. The officer, before leaving, had agreed with his companions, who detested the atmosphere of intrigue and of hateful ingratitude in which they were placed, and could hardly show the commonest forms of civility to the Prince of the Mountain, that the report should be in any case an unwelcome one. He found the President's rooms filled with distinguished people-Marshal Exelmans was surrounded with generals, all talking in the highest spirits. MM. Sénard and Marie had applied it indiscriminately to all who had been arrested since that time, on denunciations more or less well founded or on suspicions more or less justifi- BOOK As for the Prince, he was presiding over a council of his Ministers. The news was not welcome at the Invalides. It was becoming clear that the cause of the President was secure against the attacks of mobs led by representatives of the Mountain and stimulated by Orleanists and Legitimists. Prince Napoleon hereupon made a last move against his victorious cousin. He persuaded King Jerome to write a letter to the President, imploring him to complete the restoration of universal suffrage by making the vote secret-a course which the President and his Ministers had already adopted. Prince Napoleon hoped to be able to show that this reform had been adopted under the pressure of his representations; but he was disappointed. Jerome's messenger found the Prince President smoking his cigarette in the salon vert of the Élysée. As he opened the letter he asked how his uncle was; and having read it, he smiled, then wrote an answer, in which he informed his good relatives of the Invalides that a resolution had been taken more than an hour before making the vote of the 20th by ballot. Prince Louis never mentioned Prince Napoleon's name, being thoroughly informed on the proceedings of this misguided, impracticable, disloyal, but intelligent and cultivated kinsman. He distinguished clearly between father and son, and believed that his uncle wished merely to appear as a benevolent intermediary between the people and the Élysée. Jerome played his cards well. In the event of his nephew's defeat he would appear as the adviser who had besought him to put entire confidence in the people; in the event of his success, he would assume the part of the courageous old man who had ridden by his side through the streets on the morning of the 2nd. Let us now see what was the fate of the members of the Parliamentary Opposition, and of the Socialist chiefs, whom De Saint-Arnaud and De Morny felt bound to put VI. under lock and key on the morning of the 2nd. M. CHAP. Thiers, after a few days at Mazas, where he was treated with marked consideration, was conducted beyond the Rhine frontier and left at liberty. On the 3rd Generals Bedeau, Eugène Cavaignac, Changarnier, Lamoricière, and Le Flô, Colonel Charras, and MM. Royer and Baze were transferred by De Saint-Arnaud, without consulting De Morny, to the Château of Ham. Here the prisoners were treated with extreme leniency and attention, had access to their families, and within a month were set at liberty. On January 8 General Changarnier went to Mons, Colonel Charras to Brussels, General Le Flô to Boulogne, and M. Baze to Aix-la-Chapelle. On the 9th General Lamoricière, who had been detained by a slight indisposition, set out for Cologne, and General Bedeau for Mons. Generals Changarnier, Bedeau, and Lamoricière were soon afterwards handsomely housed as the guests of Count Louis de Mérode in his hôtel at Brussels. The representatives who were sent to Mont Valérien and Vincennes had been liberated within a few days, many within a few hours, of their arrest. BOOK CHAPTER VII. THE JACQUERIE IN THE PROVINCES. 6 'ON the fourth night after the coup d'état,' Captain Gronow remarks, my daughter and myself were present at a ball, given by the Duchess of Hamilton in honour of the Prince President, at the Hôtel Bristol, Place Vendôme. At ten o'clock precisely the President entered the ballroom, accompanied only by Count Bacciocchi, when a quadrille was formed; the Prince dancing with the Duchess of Hamilton, Lady Poltimore and the Duke of Hamilton being the vis-à-vis. The second quadrille soon followed, when the Prince chose the Princess Mathilde as his partner, Lord Poltimore and Lady Cowley making the vis-à-vis. The Prince appeared perfectly cool and collected; he conversed with a great many persons, but more particularly with Lord Cowley, who had only arrived in Paris that morning to fill his post of British Ambassador. Lords Francis Gordon, Strangford, Halliburton, and Ernest Bruce, with their wives, were present, together with many foreigners of distinction. The instant the clock struck twelve, Count Bacciocchi, in a low whisper, said that the Prince's carriage was ready; whereupon the Duke of Hamilton, taking two wax candles, conducted his imperial guest downstairs, and handed him into his plain brougham. On the return of the Duke to the ball-room, he observed to several friends who had collected round him: "How extraordinary! there were neither military nor police |