"DECREE.
"The Representatives of the People remaining at liberty considering
that the Representative Baudin has died on the barricade of the
Faubourg St. Antoine for the Republic and for the laws, and that he
has deserved well of his country, decree:
"That the honors of the Panthéon are adjudged to Representative Baudin.
"Given in Permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."
After honor to the dead and the needs of the conflict it was necessary in my opinion to enunciate immediately and dictatorially some great popular benefit. I proposed the abolition of the octroi duties and of the duty on liquors. This objection was raised, "No caresses to the people! After victory, we will see. In the meantime let them fight! If they do not fight, if they do not rise, if they do not understand that it is for them, for their rights that we the Representatives, that we risk our heads at this moment—if they leave us alone at the breach, in the presence of the coup d'état—it is because they are not worthy of Liberty!"
Bancel remarked that the abolition of the octroi duties and the duty on liquors were not caresses to the People, but succor to the poor, a great economical and reparatory measure, a satisfaction to the public demand—a satisfaction which the Right had always obstinately refused, and that the Left, master of the situation, ought hasten to accord. They voted, with the reservation that it should not be published until after victory, the two decrees in one; in this form:—
"DECREE.
"The Representatives remaining at liberty decree:
"The Octroi Duties are abolished throughout the extent of the
territory of the Republic.
"Given in permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."
Versigny, with a copy of the Proclamations and of the Decree, left in search of Hetzel. Labrousse also left with the same object. They settled to meet at eight o'clock in the evening at the house of the former member of the Provisional Government Marie, Rue Neuve des Petits Champs.
As the members of the Committee and the Representatives withdrew I was told that some one had asked to speak to me. I went into a sort of little room attached to the large meeting-room, and I found there a man in a blouse, with an intelligent and sympathetic air. This man had a roll of paper in his hand.
"Citizen Victor Hugo," said he to me, "you have no printing office. Here are the means which will enable you to dispense with one."
He unfolded on the mantel-piece the roll which he had in his hand. It was a species of blotting-book made of very thin blue paper, and which seemed to be slightly oiled. Between each leaf of blue paper there was a sheet of white paper. He took out of his pocket a sort of blunt bodkin, saying, "The first thing to hand will serve your purpose, a nail or a match," and he traced with his bodkin on the first leaf of the book the word "Republic." Then turning over the leaves, he said, "Look at this."
The word "Republic" was reproduced upon the fifteen or twenty white leaves which the book contained.
He added, "This paper is usually used to trace the designs of manufactured fabrics. I thought that it might be useful at a moment like this. I have at home a hundred books like this on which I can make a hundred copies of what you want—a Proclamation, for instance—in the same space of time that it takes to write four or five. Write something, whatever you may think useful at the present moment, and to-morrow morning five hundred copies shall be posted throughout Paris."