My Memoirs, Vol. II, 1822 to 1825

by Alexandre Dumas

You will recollect the troubles of June; the death of young Lallemand, who was killed whilst trying to escape and was accused after his death of having disarmed a soldier of the Royal Guard. It was thought that the dead could be accused with impunity. But his father defended him. The Censorship—sometimes a most infamous thing—prevented the poor father's letter from appearing in the papers. M. Lafitte had to take his letter to the Chambers and to read it there before he could make its contents known to the public. I give it in the form in which Lallemand sent it to the newspapers, when they refused to publish it:—

"SIR,—Yesterday my son was beaten to death by a soldier of the Royal Guard; to-day he is defamed by the Drapeau blanc, the Quotidienne and the Journal des Débats. I owe it to his memory to deny the fact cited by those papers. The statement is false! My son did not attempt to disarm one of the Royal Guard; he was walking past unarmed when he received from behind the blow that killed him. LALLEMAND"

The military conspiracy of 19 August was the outcome of the troubles of June. The chief members of the lodge Des Amis de la Verité were involved in that conspiracy. They afterwards separated. Two of the affiliated members, MM. Joubert and Dugier, set out for Italy. They reached Naples in the midst of the Revolution of 1821—a Revolution during which patriots were shamefully betrayed by their leader, François. The two named above threw themselves into the Revolution and were affiliated to the Italian Carbonari, while Dugier returned to Paris, a member of a higher grade in the Society. This institution, as yet unknown in France, had greatly appealed to Dugier, and he hoped to be able to establish it in France. He set forth the principles and aims of the Society to the executive council of the lodge des Amis de la Vérité on whom they produced a profound impression. Dugier had brought back with him the rules of the Italian Society and he was authorised to translate them. This task he accomplished; but the type of religious mysticism which formed the basis of these rules was not in the least congenial to French minds. They adopted the institution, minus the details which, at that epoch, would have made it unpopular; and M. Buchez—the same who on 15 May had tried to make Boissy-Anglas forgotten—and MM. Bazard and Flottard were deputed to establish the French Carbonari upon a basis better suited to French conditions of mind and thought. On 1 May 1821, three young men, then unknown, none of them thirty years old, met for the first time in the depths of one of the poorest quarters of the capital, in a room which was very far removed from representing, even to its owner, the golden mean spoken of by Horace. They sat at a round table, and with grave and even gloomy faces—for they were not ignorant of the terrible work to which they were going to devote their lives—they defined the first tenets of that Society of Carbonari which changed the France of 1821 and 1822 into one vast volcanic disturbance whose flames' burst out at the most opposite and unexpected quarters, at Effort, la Rochelle, Nantes and Grenoble. What was still more remarkable, the work which these three revolutionary chemists were preparing had only one object in view, namely, to draw up a code for future conspirators, leaving everyone perfectly free to agitate against anything he individually chose, provided he conformed to the main rules of the association. The following is a résumé of these rules: "Since might is not right, and the Bourbons have been brought back by foreigners, the Carbonari band together to secure for the French nation free exercise of their rights—namely, the right to choose what form of government may be most suited to the country's needs."

It will be seen that nothing was clearly defined; but in reality a Republican form of government was being shadowed forth. This, however, was not to be proclaimed until thirty-seven years later, and only then to be struck dead from its birth, by the very hand to which it owed its being. It need hardly be said that the hand was the hand of Napoleon: it is a family tradition of the Napoleons to strangle liberty as soon as it has produced a first consul or a president; even as in the case of those beautiful aloes which only flower once in fifty years and perish when they have brought forth their brilliant but ill-fated blossoms, which are but barren and deadly flowers.

The division of the Carbonari into higher, central and private lodges is well known. None of these lodges was allowed to contain more than twenty members—thus avoiding the penal law directed against societies which comprised over twenty members. The Higher Lodge was composed of the seven founders of the Carbonari. These seven founders were Bazard, Dugier, Flottard, Buchez, Carriol, Joubert and Limperani. Each Carbonaro was expected to keep a pistol and fifty cartridges in his house, and he had to hold himself in readiness to obey orders sent him by his commanders from the Higher Lodge, whether by day or night.

While the Society of Carbonari was being organised with its upper lodge of seven members above named, something of the same kind of thing was being established in the Chamber—only less active, vital and determined in character. It was called the Comité directeur, and its title sufficiently indicates its purpose. This Comité directeur was composed of General la Fayette, his son Georges de la Fayette, of Manuel, Dupont (de l'Eure), de Corcelles senior, Voyer-d'Argenson, Jacques Koechlin, General Thiars and of MM. Mérilhou and Chevalier. For military questions the committee added Generals Corbineau and Tarayre. The Comité directeur and the Higher Lodge were in close communication with one another. At first their meetings were only intended for general discussions; for the young Carbonari treated the old Liberals with contempt, and the latter reciprocated the feeling. The Carbonari charged the Liberals with feebleness and vacillation; the Liberals, in their turn, accused the Carbonari of impertinence and frivolity. They might as well have accused one another of youth and age. Furthermore, the Carbonari had organised the whole plot of Béfort without saying a single word to the Comité directeur.

However, Bazard was in league with la Fayette, and well aware of the general's burning desire after popularity. Now, popular feeling in 1821 was on the side of the party in opposition. The farther they advanced, the more popular they became. Bazard wrote to the general asking him to authorise the use of his name as of one in co-operation with them, and the request was granted. La Fayette possessed this admirable characteristic: he yielded at the first pressure, without having taken the initiative personally, and he went farther and more to the point than most people. The secrets of the Upper Lodge were revealed to him and he was asked to join it. He accepted the invitation, was received into their number and became one of the most active conspirators of Béfort. In this he risked his head, just as much as did the humblest of the confederates. The boldest members of the Chamber followed him and enlisted with him in the same cause. These were Voyer-d'Argenson, Dupont (de l'Eure), Manuel, Jacques Koechlin and de Corcelles senior. They did not have long to wait for a recognition of their self-sacrificing devotion. When the Revolution was set afoot they adopted the groundwork of the constitution of the year III. Five directors were appointed, and these five were la Fayette, Jacques Koechlin, de Corcelles senior, Voyer-d'Argenson and Dupont (de l'Eure).

Carbonarism had its military side; indeed it was more military than civil in character. They relied strongly and with good reason upon the army in all their movements. The army was abandoned by the king, abused by the princes, sacrificed to privileged parties and three parts given over to the Opposition. Lodges were established in most regiments, and everything was so well arranged that even the very movements of the regiments served as a means of propaganda. In leaving the town where the president of the military lodge had been quartered for three months, six months or a year, as the case might be, he received half a piece of money, the other half being sent on in advance to the town where his regiment was going—either to a member of the Higher or Central Lodge. The two halves of the coin were fitted together, and the conspirators were thus put into communication. By this means soldiers became commercial travellers, as it were, charged with the spread of revolution throughout France. Thus we shall find that all insurrections which broke out were as much military as civil.

Towards the middle of 1821 all plans were laid for a rising in Bordeaux as well as at Béfort, at Neuf-Brisach as well as at Rochelle, at Nantes and Grenoble, at Colmar and at Toulouse. France was covered with an immense network of affiliated societies, so that the revolutionary influence had expanded, unnoticed but active, into the very heart of social life, from east to west, from north to south. From Paris—that is, from the Higher Lodge—all orders were issued for the animation and support of the propaganda; as the pulsations of the heart send the life-giving blood to all parts of the human body. Everything was in readiness. Information had been received that, thanks to the influence of four young men who had been previously compromised in the rebellion of 19 August, the 29th infantry, a regiment consisting of three battalions, severally stationed at Béfort, Neuf-Brisach and at Huningue, had been won over to the Carbonari. These four young men were a guardsman called Lacombe, Lieutenant Desbordes and Second-Lieutenants Bruc and Pegulu, to whom were joined a lawyer named Petit Jean and a half-pay officer called Roussillon. Furthermore, there was Dermoncourt, who had been placed on half-pay and who lived in the market town of Widensollen, a mile away from Neuf-Brisach; he was engaged in the coming insurrection to lead the light cavalry which was stationed in barracks at Colmar. So much for the military operations.