PRINCE ALBERT.
(From a photograph by Mayall and Co., Limited.)
The plan was accepted on the 26th of July, 1850; and Messrs. Fox, Henderson, and Co. became the contractors, for the sum of £79,800, if the materials should remain their property, they being at the expense of removal; or £150,000 if the materials became the property of the Commissioners. It actually cost £176,030. The first column was fixed on the 26th of September, 1850; the contract to deliver over the building complete to the Commissioners on the 31st of December was virtually performed; and on the 1st of January, 1851, the Commissioners occupied the vast space with their carpenters, painters, and various artisans. The Crystal Palace excited universal admiration, from the wonderful combination of vastness and beauty, from its immense magnitude united with lightness, symmetry, and grace, as well as admirable adaptation to its purpose. And when it was fully furnished and open to the public, on the 1st of May, 1851, the visitor felt as if he had entered a fairy-like scene of enchantment, a palace of beauty and delight, such as one might suppose mortal hands could not create. The effect on the beholder far surpassed all that its most sanguine projectors could have anticipated.
The scene was impressive on the opening on that beautiful May morning by the Queen and Prince Albert, followed in procession through the building by a long train of courtiers, Ministers of State, foreign ambassadors, and civic dignitaries; while the sun shone brightly through the glass roof upon trees, flowers, banners, and the picturesque costumes of all nations, the great organ at the same time pealing gloriously through the vast expanse, which was filled by a dense mass of human beings, representing the grandeur, wealth, beauty, intelligence, and enterprise of the civilised world. The number of exhibitors exceeded 17,000, of whom upwards of 3,000 received medals. It continued open from the 1st of May till the 15th of October, altogether 144 days, during which it was visited by 6,170,000 persons, giving an average daily attendance of 42,847. The greatest number in one day (October 8th) was 109,760. The greatest number in the Palace at any one time was 93,000, which surpassed in magnitude any number ever assembled together under one roof in the history of the world. The charges for admission were half-a-crown on particular days, and one shilling on ordinary days. The receipts, including season tickets, amounted to £505,107, leaving a surplus of about £150,000, after paying all expenses; so that the Exhibition was in every sense pre-eminently successful. However, it did not, as was anticipated, inaugurate an era of peace.
We have already seen that Louis Napoleon, when President of the French Republic, solemnly and vehemently vowed to maintain the Constitution. These vows were repeated from time to time in his speeches and declarations, which he was always ready to volunteer. The National Assembly, however, had suspected him for some time to be entertaining treasonable designs, and plotting the ruin of the republic. One of the symptoms of this state of mind was found in the rumours propagated in France about the failure of Parliamentary government, and the designs of the Red Republicans. In this way vague fears were generated that another bloody revolution was impending, and that, in order to save the State, it was necessary to have a strong Government. In fact, the conviction somehow gained ground that a monarchical régime was the best fitted for France. The army was probably inclined the same way. The first thing the President did, of course, was to sound its disposition, and ascertain how far he might be able to wield its irresistible power against the liberties of his country. But however the soldiers might be disposed to aid his designs, it was well known that its generals would not allow a shot to be fired without orders from the Minister of War; and the man who held that post was not a character likely to lend himself as the instrument of a treasonable plot. Louis Napoleon therefore found it necessary to enlist others in his service. The principal of these were daring and needy adventurers, namely—his half-brother M. de Morny, a great speculator in shares; Major Fleury, a young officer who had squandered his fortune in dissipation, entered the army as a common soldier, and risen from the ranks; St. Arnaud, an Algerian officer; M. Maupas, who had been a prefect, and had been guilty of conspiracy to destroy innocent persons by a false accusation of treason; and Persigny, alias Fialin, who had entered the army as a non-commissioned officer. St. Arnaud was made Minister of War, and Maupas Prefect of Police. General Magnan, the Commander-in-Chief of the army at Paris, readily entered into the plot which was originally fixed for September but postponed on the advice of Fleury. On the 27th of November 1851 he invited twenty generals who were under his command to meet at his house. There they matured their plans, and after vows of mutual fidelity, they solemnly embraced one another. In the meantime the common soldiers were pampered with food and wine, stimulated by flattery and exasperated by falsehood against the "Bedouins" of Paris. On Monday night, the 1st of December, the President had an assembly at the Elysée, which included Ministers and others who were totally ignorant of the plot. The company departed at the usual hour, and at eleven o'clock only three of the guests remained—Morny, who had shown himself at one of the theatres, Maupas, and St. Arnaud.
Meanwhile the State printing-office was surrounded by gendarmerie, and the compositors were all made prisoners, and compelled to print a number of documents which had been sent from the President. These were several decrees, which appeared on the walls of Paris at daybreak next morning, to the utter astonishment of the population. They read in them that the National Assembly was dissolved, that the Council of State was dissolved and that universal suffrage was re-established. They read an attack upon the Assembly, in which it was charged with forging arms for civil war, with provocations, calumnies, and outrages against the President. These things were said to be done by the men who had already destroyed two monarchies, and who wanted to overthrow the republic; but he, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, would baffle their perfidious projects. He submitted to them, therefore, a plan of a new Constitution: a responsible chief, named for ten years, Ministers dependent on the executive alone, a Council of State, a Legislative Corps, a Second Chamber. There was also an appeal to the army, which told the soldiers to be proud of their mission, for they were to save their country, and to obey him, the legitimate representative of the national sovereignty.
At half-past six o'clock in the morning M. de Morny took possession of the Ministry of the Interior. The army and the police were distributed through the town and had all received their respective orders. Among these were the arrest of seventy-eight persons, of whom eighteen were representatives and sixty alleged chiefs of secret societies and barricades. All these arrests were effected accordingly. At the appointed minute, and while it was still dark, the designated houses were entered. The most famous generals of France were seized and dragged forth from their beds—Changarnier, Bedeau, Lamoricière, Cavaignac, Leflo—all were placed in carriages, ready at their doors to receive them, and conveyed to prison through the sleeping city. Precisely at the same moment the chief members and officers of the Assembly shared the same fate.
All the trusted chiefs and guides of the people being thus disposed of, De Morny from the Home Office touched the chords of centralisation, and conveyed to every village in France the unbounded enthusiasm with which the still sleeping city had hailed the joyful news of the revolution which had been effected. When the free members of the Assembly heard of the arrest of their brethren, they ran to the Hôtel de Ville, the entrance of which was guarded. Those who had got in by a private passage were rudely expelled, some of them being violently struck by the soldiers. They then reassembled at the Mairie of the 10th Arrondissement, at which they passed a resolution depriving Louis Napoleon of authority, but the Chamber was not long permitted to deliberate in peace. Two commissaries of police soon entered, and summoned the representatives to disperse. "Retire," said the President. After some hesitation the commissaries seized the President by the collar, and dragged him forth. The whole body then rose, 220 in number, and declaring that they yielded to force, walked out, two and two, between files of soldiery. In this way they were marched through the street, into the Quai d'Orsay, where they were shut up in the barracks, without any accommodation for their comfort. During the day eleven more deputies were brought to the barracks, three of whom came for the express purpose of being incarcerated with their brethren. After being left for hours on a winter's evening in the open air, the Assembly were driven into the barrack rooms upstairs, where they were left without fire, almost without food, and were obliged to lie upon the bare boards. At ten o'clock most of the 220 members of Parliament were thrust into large prison vans, like felons, and were carried off, some to the fort of Mont Valérien, some to the fortress of Vincennes, and some to the prison of Mazas. Before dawn on the 3rd of December, all the leading statesmen and great generals of France, all the men who made her name respected abroad, were lying in prison.
The High Court of Justice met on the 2nd of December, and having referred to the placards that had been issued that morning, made provision for the impeachment of Louis Napoleon and his fellow-conspirators. But while the court was sitting, an armed force entered the hall, and drove the judges from the bench. Before they were thrust out, they adjourned the court to "a day to be named hereafter," and they ordered a notice of impeachment to be served upon the President at the Elysée.
These astounding acts did not produce the alarm that might have been expected. Hitherto Louis Napoleon was not regarded with terror, as the inscrutable and the unpitying, but rather with a feeling of contempt and derision by the citizens of Paris. But the citizens had been disarmed; the leaders of the Faubourgs had been carried off by the police. In the absence of such leaders, the members of the Assembly who happened to be at large called upon the people to resist the usurpers. During the night of the 3rd, therefore, barricades were rapidly erected along the streets which lay between the Hôtel de Ville and the Boulevards Montmartre and des Italiens. But the troops were ready for action, 48,000 strong, including cavalry, infantry, artillery, engineers, and gendarmes. They had been supplied with rations, wine, and spirits in abundance. They had been ordered to give no quarter, either to combatants or to bystanders; but to clear the streets at any cost. Magnan's conscience, however, caused him to hesitate long, and was on the point of making a coward of him. There was a small barricade which crossed the boulevard close to the Gymnase Theatre, which was occupied by a small advanced guard of the insurgents; and facing this, fifty yards off, was an immense column of troops, which occupied all the boulevard, and also the whole way to the Madeleine. The windows and balconies along the line were filled with ladies and gentlemen gazing at the grand military spectacle, which seemed only to be a demonstration to overawe the disaffected, there being no visible enemy to contend with.