Arago....................................... 725 Gamier Pages................................ 715 Marie ..................................... 702 Lamartine .................................. 643 Ledru Rollin..........,..................... 598
“Those five members having obtained the required majority, were proclaimed members of the executive committee. M. Louis Blanc, M. Albert, and M. Flocon were entirely excluded—a fact which the peuple and the ‘communists’ cherished in vindictive remembrance. M. Ledru Rollin, whose violence had alarmed the majority, though not excluded, was at the bottom of the list; and M. de Lamartine, who had lent his high name and great popularity to support M. Ledru Rollin, was placed next lowest—all of them being most significant facts to show the spirit of the assembly, and the probable policy to be hereafter expected from it.”
The discontent of the ouvriers gathered strength, and on the 15th of May they rose in insurrection. After much severe fighting the insurgents were defeated, the loyalty of the troops, national guards, and garde mobile to the republic sustaining the cause of order. The garde mobile had been organised from the very lowest classes in Paris— classes below the workmen—and was composed of mere youths, who distinguished themselves beyond all other forces by their heroic courage throughout that eventful day. The result to the leaders of the socialists was that many of them, such as Albert, Barbes, Blanqui, Raspail, and Sobrier were consigned to prison. Louis Blanc had a very narrow escape of being numbered among them.
The suppression of the clubs and of the atteliers nationaux, followed this success on the part of the government, but still more exasperated the workmen. In this condition of affairs Prince Louis Napoleon was elected for Paris, as representative in the room of one of the double returns made in the general election. He was also elected for three departmental vacancies, caused also by double returns in the general election. It at once became the fashion to laud the prince. All parties, except the “republicans pure and simple,” seemed to think that Napoleonism offered a refuge from anarchy. The “reds” favoured him from hatred to the party of the executive committee, or rather the majority of that party; but in reality no faction hated Louis Napoleon at heart so much as they. At all events, his name became a rallying word for nearly all the lovers of order, who were not believers in the theory of philosophical republicanism. The most ominous thing connected with these demonstrations was the appearance of a journal entitled Le Napoléonien. Placards also appeared with the words “Louis Napoleon! Vive l’Empereur! A bas la République!” and crowds, shouting the name of Buonaparte, collected in various parts of Paris, the générale and the rappel were beaten, troops assembled, and the guards, sédentaires and mobile, were frequently assembled to protect the government and the representatives. Shots were fired, some lives were lost, and the panic became general throughout Paris. Lamartine took advantage of this, and proposed to the assembly that the laws of 1816 and 1832 should be enforced, forbidding the entrance of any of the Buonaparte family into France. This motion was received by the assembly with loud shouts of “Vive la République!” Many who joined in that shout would have shouted still more cordially for Louis Philippe or the representative of the older branch of the Bourbon family. The cry of the republic answered their present purpose of committing the executive committee to imprudent measures, and of excluding the Buonapartists, who were regarded as more formidable rivals to the Bourbons than the republicans, old or new. The assembly was not able to carry out its own resolution; after coquetting with public opinion and persisting for a time, the exclusion of the Buonapartes was given up as impracticable; and the prince, again elected for Corsica and other electoral districts, took his place in the legislative assembly, accepted the oaths to the republic, and before the year expired was president. Before that was accomplished France was doomed to undergo fresh trials, and Paris to witness still more sanguinary scenes.
The question of labour-regulation continued, under every improvement and modification that was devised, to embarrass the government; and it was at last resolved to remove from Paris great numbers of the workmen to distant parts of the country, to be engaged there on various public works. This the men determined to resist, and to subvert a government which dared to suggest such a measure. The government was, however, forced to adopt at once some plan to rid itself of the peril and imminent ruin of the atteliers. In the National Assembly, Victor Hugo, M. Léon Faucher, and others, denounced the connivance of the executive committee with a state of things that must speedily destroy France. The number of workmen then engaged in the government workshops of Paris was one hundred and twenty thousand. On the night of the 22nd of June, cries of “Down with the Assembly!” were raised by the ouvriers in the streets. In the morning, signs of disturbance were indicated in many quarters. In the course of a few hours the workmen began to erect barricades. Fighting began between the national guards and the constructors of the barricades at the Porte Saint-Denis. Throughout the day barricades were demolished by the national guards and gardes mobiles, but only after fierce and deadly conflict. During the night of the 23rd new barricades were raised as if by magic, and on the morning of the 24th, a system of ingenious and powerful defences existed through a large extent of Paris, behind which and commanding which, from the windows and house-tops, well-armed and determined men were placed. Happily the government consigned to General Cavaignac, minister of war, all the functions of a dictator. He was ably seconded by General Lamoricière, and other officers of rank, several of whom sealed their fidelity in death. During the 24th, terrible battle raged in the streets of Paris, but the troops and civic soldiery stormed the barricades and conquered. Mortars were used, from which showers of shells were discharged, which bursting behind the barricades shattered these defences, ponderous although they were, scattering them, and the bodies of the brave men who defended them to the last. Shells also were thrown into the houses, whence a fire was kept up upon the military in the streets: many of these houses were torn to pieces, burying the defenders in their ruins. In some streets the troops had to cut their way from house to house, the sappers knocking down the party-walls: the contest in these directions resembled that at Saragossa, where, amidst crumbling walls and blazing roofs, men fought foot to foot, in the agonies of valour, fanaticism, and despair. Throughout the 25th and 26th the conflict raged, but was terminated on the evening of that day. Twenty thousand men were killed or wounded. General Cavaignac was elected by the assembly president of the council. The gallant general conducted his administration with justice and wisdom.
During the month of June, a committee appointed by the assembly was engaged in drawing up a constitution; they presented a report to the following effect:—They proposed that there should be a president elected by universal suffrage for a period of four years; he was to be a French citizen, not less than thirty years of age. The legislature to consist of one chamber; that chamber to consist of seven hundred and thirty members. The ministers to be appointed and dismissed at the pleasure of the president. A council of state to be appointed out of the assembly, forty in number, and chosen by the assembly itself; that body to draw up the projects of law which the government might think fit to bring in. The punishment of death for political offences was interdicted. Slavery to be abolished in all French colonies. The press to be free. All religions to be allowed, and their ministers to be paid by the state. Public instruction to be free, subject to the superintendence of the state. Substitutes for the army and navy to be disallowed. The national debt to be deemed sacred. Property inviolable. Algeria, and all other French colonies, to be integral parts of the French soil, but to be governed by laws peculiar to themselves. Trials to be public, and the office of judge to be permanent.
This project of constitution was accepted as a base for further consideration. Subsequently it was modified, but not in any way essentially to alter its principles. The resolution regarding colonial slavery roused the whole colonial interest of France against the republic. That which forbid substitutes for the army and navy created wide-spread dissatisfaction. The former of these provisions of the constitution was so just and humane, that it deserved to be carried out at any cost; the other was impolitic, as it deprived large numbers who would not serve in the army or navy of the opportunity of avoiding that service, if they fell under the ballot, by nominating a substitute willing to serve if remunerated.
The question of the adoption of the constitution was finally put on the 4th of November, and carried, thirty voices being dissident. In the evening of the same day, one hundred and one cannon shots announced to Paris and its environs that the work of preparing the constitution had been completed. The public made no manifestation of feeling. Only the old republican party valued so free a constitution. The ouvriers cared not for it, nor for anything short of socialism. The Absolutists hated liberty in every form. The Buonapartists regarded it as an instrument that might be made available for reconstituting the empire. The Orleanists received it with more malignant hostility than any other class. They professed the theory of a constitutional monarchy; but the free and just and noble constitution of the republic contrasted so advantageously with the corrupt practices and doctrinaire theories of Louis Philippe and his favourites, that the Orleans party betrayed the most malevolent feelings to the republican leaders, such as Cavaignac and Lamartine, and the uttermost repugnance to the republic itself. Louis Philippe, in England, entertained his friends with garrulous accounts of his own wisdom in all the measures he had adopted, predicting that France, enamoured of the glory of his reign, would repent and return to him again! His queen, equally incapable of appreciating France, dwelt only upon the injury inflicted upon religion by the conduct of the French people in dethroning their king, and making an indiscriminate establishment of all churches a feature of the constitution. Her silence, gravity, and the religious view she took of the event were strangely in contrast to the vanity, levity, and self-gratulation with which the king talked of his temporarily humbled fortunes.
The proclamation of the constitution failed in quieting enemies, restoring public confidence in the state of affairs, or reviving material prosperity, notwithstanding all that so many eloquent orators of the old republican party predicted to that effect. The Presse at this juncture gave a most melancholy account of the sufferings of the poor, and the distress of the commercial classes:—“It will be necessary to feed at the public expense two hundred and sixty-three thousand persons during the present month, two hundred and eighty thousand during the month of December, three hundred thousand during the month of January, three hundred thousand during the month of February, three hundred thousand during the month of March, and two hundred and eighty thousand during the month of April next; and the sum granted by the assembly will not afford each individual more than 12 centimes (1d. and 2/5ths) per day each to exist upon. At the same time the revenue of the city of Paris has fallen off by a sum of 16,000,000 fr. (£640,000), which must be made good by an addition to the assessed taxes of more than 50 per cent.”
The Socialists were not without hope that matters would turn to their account; and although they did not dare to defy the republic in action, they became more resentful in language than ever. They continued to hold meetings, in which opinions at variance with all morality and civil order were expressed, and which would have alarmed every government in Europe, had not recent events been of a character to confine the attention of these governments to domestic affairs. A banquet, under the title of “The Confederation of the People of Europe,” was held, at which eight hundred men, French, Poles, Belgians, Germans, and Italians assembled; the most furious threats to kings, governments, persons of property, and to all persons everywhere not favourable to communistic projects, were uttered. One blasphemous toast will show the animus of the assembly, and of its orators. It was delivered by M. Saint Just:—“To the men strong, courageous, and valiant in the cause of humanity. To those whose names serve as a guide, a support, and an example to the degenerate beings—to all those whom history calls heroes!... To Brutus, to Catiline, to Jesus Christ, to Julian the Apostate, to Attila!... To all the thinkers of the middle age.... To unfortunate thinkers!... To Jean Jacques Rousseau, and his pupil, Maximilian Robespierre!” This enumeration of names was received with a triple salvo of applause, and was encored, with which request M. Saint Just complied. The banquet concluded with the “Marseillaise” and the “Chant du Départ” sung by the entire company.