The Map of Life / Conduct and Character

by William Edward Hartpole Lecky

What he did is well known. Before daybreak on December 2, some of the most eminent statesmen in France, including eighteen members of the Chamber, were, by his orders, arrested in their beds and sent to prison, and many of them afterwards to exile. The Chamber was occupied by soldiers, and its members, who assembled in another place, were marched to prison. The High Court of Justice was dissolved by force. Martial law was proclaimed. Orders were given that all who resisted the usurpation in the streets were at once, and without trial, to be shot. All liberty of the press, all liberty of public meeting or discussion, were absolutely destroyed. About one hundred newspapers were suppressed and great numbers of their editors transported to Cayenne. Nothing was allowed to be published without Government authority. In order to deceive the people as to the amount of support behind the President, a 'Consultative Commission' was announced and the names were placarded in Paris. Fully half the persons whose names were placed on this list refused to serve, but in spite of their protests their names were kept there in order that they might appear to have approved of what was done.[45] Orders were issued immediately after the Coup d'état that every public functionary who did not instantly give in writing his adhesion to the new Government should be dismissed. The Préfets were given the right to arrest in their departments whoever they pleased. By an ex post facto decree, issued on December 8, the Executive were enabled without trial to send to Cayenne, or to the penal settlements in Africa, any persons who had in any past time belonged to a 'secret society,' and this order placed all the numerous members of political clubs at the mercy of the Government. Parliament, when it was suffered to reassemble, was so organised and shackled that every vestige of free discussion for many years disappeared, and a despotism of almost Asiatic severity was established in France.

It may be fully conceded that the tragedy of December 4, when for more than a quarter of an hour some 3,000 French soldiers deliberately fired volley after volley without return upon the unoffending spectators on the Boulevards, broke into the houses and killed multitudes, not only of men but of women and children, till the Boulevards, in the words of an English eye-witness, were 'at some points a perfect shambles,' and the blood lay in pools round the trees that fringed them, was not ordered by the President, though it remained absolutely unpunished and uncensured by him. There is conflicting evidence on this point, but it is probable that some stray shots had been fired from the houses, and it is certain that a wild and sanguinary panic had fallen upon the soldiers. It is possible too, and not improbable, that the stories so generally believed in Paris that large batches of prisoners, who had been arrested, were brought out of prison in the dead hours of the night and deliberately shot by bodies of soldiers, may have been exaggerated or untrue. Maupas, who was Préfet of Police, and who must have known the truth, positively denied it; but the question what credence should be attached to a man of his antecedents who boasted that he had been from the first a leading agent in the whole conspiracy may be reasonably asked.[46] Evidence of these things, as has been truly said, could scarcely be obtained, for the press was absolutely gagged and all possibility of investigation was prevented. For the number of those who were transported or forcibly expelled within the few weeks after December 2, we may perhaps rely upon the historian and panegyrist of the Empire. He computes them at the enormous number of 26,500.[47] After the Plébiscite new measures of proscription were taken, and, according to Émile Ollivier, one of the most enthusiastic and skilful eulogists of the Coup d'état, in the first months of 1852 there were from 15,000 to 20,000 political prisoners in the French prisons.[48] It was by such means that Louis Napoleon attained the empire which had been the dream of his life.

Like many, however, of the great crimes of history, this was not without its palliations, and a more detailed investigation will show that those palliations were not inconsiderable. Napoleon had been elected to the presidency by 5,434,226 votes out of 7,317,344 which were given, and with his name, his antecedents, and his well-known aspirations, this overwhelming majority clearly showed what were the real wishes of the people. His power rested on universal suffrage; it was independent of the Chamber. It gave him the direction of the army, though he could not command it in person, and from the very beginning he assumed an independent and almost regal position. In the first review that took place after his election he was greeted by the soldiers with cries of 'Vive Napoléon! Vive l'Empereur!' It was soon proved that the Constitution of 1848 was exceedingly unworkable. In the words of Lord Palmerston: 'There were two great powers, each deriving its existence from the same source, almost sure to disagree, but with no umpire to decide between them, and neither able by any legal means to get rid of the other.' The President could not dissolve the Chamber, but he could impose upon it any ministry he chose. He was himself elected for only four years, and he could not be re-elected, while by a most fatuous provision the powers of the President and the Chamber were to expire in 1852 at the same time, leaving France without a government and exposed to the gravest danger of anarchy.

The Legislative Assembly, which was elected in May, 1849, was, it is true, far from being a revolutionary one. It contained a minority of desperate Socialists, it was broken into many factions, and like most democratic French Chambers it showed much weakness and inconsistency; but the vast majority of its members were Conservatives who had no kind of sympathy with revolution, and its conduct towards the President, if fairly judged, was on the whole very moderate. He soon treated it with contempt, and it was quite evident that there was no national enthusiasm behind it. The Socialist party was growing rapidly in the great towns; in June, 1849, there was an abortive Socialist insurrection in Paris, and a somewhat more formidable one at Lyons. They were easily put down, but the Socialists captured a great part of the representation of Paris, and they succeeded in producing a wild panic throughout the country. It led to several reactionary measures, the most important being a law which by imposing new conditions of residence very considerably limited the suffrage. This law was presented to the Chamber by the Ministers of the President and with his assent, though he subsequently demanded the reestablishment of universal suffrage, and made a decree effecting this one of the chief justifications of his Coup d'état. The restrictive law was carried through the Chamber on May 31, 1850, by an immense majority, but it was denounced with great eloquence by some of its leading members, and it added seriously to the unpopularity of the Assembly, and greatly lowered its authority in contending with a President whose authority rested on direct universal suffrage. More than once he exercised his power of dismissing and appointing ministries absolutely irrespective of its votes and wishes, and in each case in order to fill all posts of power with creatures of his own. The newspapers supporting him continually inveighed against the Chamber, and dwelt upon the danger of anarchy to which France would be exposed in 1852 and upon the absolute necessity of 'a Saviour of Society.' In repeated journeys through France, and in more than one military review, the President gave the occasion of demonstrations in which the cries of 'Vive l'Empereur!' were often heard, and which were manifestly intended to strengthen him in his conflict with the Chamber.

The man from whom he had most to fear was Changarnier, who since the close of 1848 had been commander of the troops in Paris, and whose name, though far less popular than that of Napoleon, had much weight with the army. He was a man with strong leanings to authority, and was much courted by the monarchical parties, but was for some time in decided sympathy with Napoleon, from whom, however, in spite of large offers that had been made him, he gradually diverged. He issued peremptory orders to the troops under his command, forbidding all party cries at reviews. He declared in the Chamber that these cries had been 'not only encouraged but provoked,' and when the intention of the President to prolong his presidency became apparent, he assured Odilon Barrot that he was prepared, if ordered by the minister and authorised by the President of the Chamber, to anticipate the Coup d'état by seizing and imprisoning Louis Napoleon.[49] The President succeeded in removing him from his command, and in placing a creature of his own at the head of the Paris troops; but though Changarnier acquiesced without resistance in his dismissal, he remained an important member of the Assembly; he openly declared that his sword was at its service, and if an armed conflict broke out it was tolerably certain that he would be its representative. The President had an official salary of 48,000 l.—nearly five times as much as the President of the United States. The Chamber refused to increase it, though they consented by a very small majority, and at the request of Changarnier, to pay his debts.

The demand for a revision of the Constitution, making it possible for the President to be re-elected, was rising rapidly through the country, and there can be but little doubt that this was generally looked forward to as the only peaceful solution, and that it represented the real wish of the great majority of the people. Petitions in favour of it, bearing an enormous number of signatures, were presented to the Chamber, and the overwhelming majority of the Conseils Généraux of which the Deputies generally formed part voted for revision. The President did not so much petition for it as demand it. In a message he sent to the Chamber, he declared that if they did not vote Revision the people would, in 1852, solemnly manifest their wishes. In a speech at Dijon, June 1, 1851, he declared that France from end to end demanded it; that he would follow the wishes of the nation, and that France would not perish in his hands. In the same speech he accused the Chamber of never seconding his wishes to ameliorate the lot of the people. He at the same time lost no opportunity of showing that his special sympathy and trust lay with the army, and he singled out with marked favour the colonels of the regiments which had shown themselves at the reviews most prominent in demonstrations in his favour.[50] The meaning of all this was hardly doubtful. Changarnier took up the gauntlet, and at a time when the question of Revision was before the Chamber he declared that no soldier would ever be induced to move against the law and the Assembly, and he called upon the Deputies to deliberate in peace.

The Revision was voted in the Chamber by 446 votes to 278, but a majority of three-fourths was required for a constitutional change, and this majority was not obtained, and in the disintegrated condition of French parties it seemed scarcely likely to be obtained. The Chamber was soon after prorogued for about two months, leaving the situation unchanged, and the tension and panic were extreme. Out of eighty-five Conseils Généraux in France, eighty passed votes in favour of Revision, three abstained, two only opposed.

The President had now fully resolved upon a Coup d'état, and before the Chamber reassembled a new ministry was constituted, St.-Arnaud being at the head of the army, and Maupas at the head of the police. His first step was to summon the Chamber to repeal the law of May 31 which abolished universal suffrage. The Chamber, after much hesitation, refused, but only by two votes. The belief that the question could only be solved by force was becoming universal, and the bolder spirits in the Chamber clearly saw that if no new measure was taken they were likely to be helpless before the military party. By a decree of 1848 the President of the Chamber had a right, if necessary, to call for troops for its protection independently of the Minister of War, and a motion was now made that he should be able to select a general to whom he might delegate this power. Such a measure, dividing the military command and enabling the Chamber to have its own general and its own army, might have proved very efficacious, but it would probably have involved France in civil war, and the President was resolved that, if the Chamber voted it, the Coup d'état should immediately take place. The vote was taken on November 17, 1851. St.-Arnaud, as Minister of War, opposed the measure on constitutional grounds, dilating on the danger of a divided military command, but during the discussion Maupas and Magnan were in the gallery of the Chamber, waiting to give orders to St.-Arnaud to call out the troops and to surround and dissolve the Chamber if the proposition was carried.

It was, however, rejected by a majority of 108, and a few troubled days of conspiracy and panic still remained before the blow was struck. The state of the public securities and the testimony of the best judges of all parties showed the genuineness of the alarm. It was not true, as the President stated in the proclamation issued when the Coup d'état was accomplished, that the Chamber had become a mere nest of conspiracies, and there was a strange audacity in his assertion that he made the Coup d'état for the purpose of maintaining the Republic against monarchical plots; but it was quite true that the conviction was general that force had become inevitable; that the chief doubt was whether the first blow would be struck by Napoleon or Changarnier, and that while the evident desire of the majority of the people was to re-elect Napoleon, there was a design among some members of the Chamber to seize him by force and to elect in his place some member of the House of Orleans.[51] On December 2 the curtain fell, and Napoleon accompanied his Coup d'état by a decree dissolving the Chamber, restoring by his own authority universal suffrage, abolishing the law of May 31, establishing a state of siege, and calling on the French people to judge his action by their vote.

It was certainly not an appeal upon which great confidence could be placed. Immediately after the Coup d'état, the army, which was wholly on his side, voted separately and openly in order that France might clearly know that the armed forces were with the President and might be able to predict the consequences of a verdict unfavourable to his pretensions. When, nearly three weeks later, the civilian Plébiscite took place, martial law was in force. Public meetings of every kind were forbidden. No newspaper hostile to the new authority was permitted. No electioneering paper or placard could be circulated which had not been sanctioned by Government officials. The terrible decree that all who had ever belonged to a secret society might be sent to die in the fevers of Africa was interpreted in the widest sense, and every political society or organisation was included in it. All the functionaries of a highly centralised country were turned into ardent electioneering agents, and the question was so put that the voters had no alternative except for or against the President, a negative vote leaving the country with no government and an almost certain prospect of anarchy and civil war. Under these circumstances 7,500,000 votes were given for the President and 500,000 against him.