When those on the barricade of the Petit Carreau saw Dussoubs fall, so gloriously for his friends, so shamefully for his murderers, a moment of stupor ensued. Was it possible? Did they really see this before them? Such a crime committed by our soldiers? Horror filled every soul.
This moment of surprise did not last long. "Long live the Republic!" shouted the barricade with one voice, and it replied to the ambuscade by a formidable fire.
The conflict began. A mad conflict on the part of the coup d'état, a struggle of despair on the side of the Republic. On the side of the soldiers an appalling and cold blooded resolution, a passive and ferocious obedience, numbers, good arms, absolute chiefs, pouches filled with cartridges. On the side of the People no ammunition, disorder, weariness, exhaustion, no discipline, indignation serving for a leader.
It appears that while Dussoubs was speaking, fifteen grenadiers, commanded by a sergeant named Pitrois, had succeeded in gliding in the darkness along the houses, and, unperceived and unheard, had taken up their position close to the barricade. These fifteen men suddenly formed themselves together with lowered bayonets at twenty paces from the barricade ready to scale it. A volley received them. They fell back, leaving several corpses in the gutter. Major Jeannin cried out, "Finish them off." The entire battalion which occupied the Mauconseil barricade, then appeared with raised bayonets upon the uneven crest of this barricade, and from there without breaking their line, with a sudden, but regulated and inexorable movement, sprang into the street. The four companies, in close order, and as though mingled and hardly visible, seemed like a wave precipitating itself with a great noise from the height of the barricade.
At the barricade of the Petit Carreau they noted the manoeuvre, and had paused in their fire. "Present," cried Jeanty Sarre, "but do not fire; wait for the order."
Each put his gun to his shoulder, then placed the barrels between the paving-stones, ready to fire, and waited.
As soon as it had quitted the Mauconseil redoubt, the battalion rapidly formed itself into an attacking column, and a moment afterwards they heard the intermittent sound of an advance at the double. It was the battalion which was coming upon them.
"Charpentier," said Jeanty Sarre, "you have good eyes. Are they midway?"
"Yes," said Charpentier.
"Fire," said Jeanty Sarre.
The barricade fired. The whole street was filled with smoke. Several soldiers fell. They could hear the cries of the wounded. The battalion, riddled with balls, halted and replied by platoon firing.
Seven or eight combatants whose bodies reached above the barricade, which had been made hastily and was too low were hit. Three were killed on the spot. One fell wounded by a ball in his stomach, between Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier. He shrieked out with pain.
"Quick, to the ambulance:" said Jeanty Sarre.
"Where?"
"In the Rue du Cadran."
Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier picked up the wounded man, the one by the feet, the other by the head, and carried him to the du Cadran through the passage in the barricade.
During all this time there was continued file firing. There no longer seemed anything in the street but smoke, the balls whistling and crossing each other, the brief and repeated commands, some plaintive cries, and the flash of the guns lighting up the darkness.
Suddenly a loud void died out, "Forwards!" The battalion resumed its double-quick march and threw itself upon the barricade.
Then ensued a horrible scene. They fought hand to hand, four hundred on the one side, fifty on the other. They seized each other by the collar, by the throat, by the mouth, by the hair. There was no longer a cartridge in the barricade, but there remained despair. A workman, pierced through and through, snatched the bayonet from his belly, and stabbed a soldier with it. They did not see each other, but they devoured each other. It was a desperate scuffle in the dark.
The barricade did not hold out for two minutes. In several places, it may be remembered, it was low. It was rather stridden over than scaled. That was all the more heroic. One of the survivors28 told the writer of these lines, "The barricade defended itself very badly, but the men died very well."
All this took place while Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier were carrying the wounded man to the ambulance in the Rue du Cadran. His wounds having been attended to, they came back to the barricade. They had just reached it when they heard themselves called by name. A feeble voice close by said to them, "Jeanty Sarre! Charpentier!" They turned round and saw one of their men who was dying leaning against a wall, and his knees giving way beneath him. He was a combatant who had left the barricade. He had only been able to take a few steps down the street. He held his hand over his breast, where he had received a ball fired at close quarters. He said to them in a scarcely audible voice, "The barricade is taken, save yourselves."
"No," said Jeanty Sarre, "I must unload my gun." Jeanty Sarre re-entered the barricade, fired a last shot and went away.
Nothing could be more frightful than the interior of the captured barricade.
The Republicans, overpowered by numbers, no longer offered any resistance. The officers cried out, "No prisoners!" The soldiers billed those who were standing, and despatched those who had fallen. Many awaited their death with their heads erect. The dying raised themselves up, and shouted, "Long live the Republic!" Some soldiers ground their heels upon the faces of the dead, so that they should not be recognized. There, stretched out amongst the corpses, in the middle of the barricade, with his hair in the gutter, was seen the all-but namesake of Charpentier, Carpentier, the delegate of the committee of the Tenth Arrondissement, who had been killed, and had fallen backwards, with two balls in his breast. A lighted candle which the soldiers had taken from the wine-shop was placed on a paving stone.
The soldiers were infuriated. One would say that they were revenging themselves. On whom? A workman, named Paturel, received three balls and six bayonet-thrusts, four of which were in the head. They thought that he was dead, and they did not renew the attack. He felt them search him. They took ten francs which he had about him. He did not die till six days later, and he was able to relate the details which are given here. We may note, by the way, that the name of Paturel does not figure upon any of the lists of the corpses published by M. Bonaparte.
Sixty Republicans were shut up in this redoubt of the Petit Carreau. Forty-six were killed there. These men had come there that morning free, proud to fight, and joyous to die. At midnight all was at an end. The night wagons carried away on the next day nine corpses to the hospital cemetery, and thirty-seven to Montmartre.
Jeanty Sarre escaped by a miracle, as well as Charpentier, and a third whose name we have not been able to ascertain. They glided along the houses and reached the Passage du Saumon. The grated doors which closed the Passage during the night only reached to the centre of the archway. They climbed it and got over the spikes, at the risk of tearing themselves. Jeanty Sarre was the first to climb it; having reached the summit, one of the spikes pierced his trousers, hooked them, and Jeanty Sarre fell headforemost upon the pavement. He got up again, he was only stunned. The other two followed him, and gliding along the bars, all three found themselves in the Passage. It was dimly lighted by a lamp which shone at one end. In the meanwhile, they heard the soldiers, who were pursuing them, coming up. In order to escape by the Rue Montmartre, they would have to climb the grated gateway at the other end of the Passage; their hands were grazed, their knees were bleeding; they were dying of weariness; they were in no condition to recommence a similar ascent.
Jeanty Sarre knew where the keeper of the Passage lived. He knocked at his window, and begged him to open. The keeper refused.
At this moment the detachment which had been sent in pursuit of them reached the grated gateway which they had just climbed. The soldiers, hearing a noise in the Passage, passed the barrels of their guns through the bars. Jeanty Sarre squeezed himself against the wall behind one of those projecting columns which decorate the Passage; but the column was very thin, and only half covered him. The soldiers fired, and smoke filled the Passage. When it cleared away, Jeanty Sarre saw Charpentier stretched on the stones, with his face to the ground. He had been shot through the heart. Their other companion lay a few paces from him, mortally wounded.
The soldiers did not scale the grated gateway, but they posted a sentinel before it. Jeanty Sarre heard them going away by the Rue Montmartre. They would doubtless come back.
No means of flight. He felt all the doors round his prison successively. One of them at length opened. This appeared to him like a miracle. Whoever could have forgotten to shut the door? Providence, doubtless. He hid himself behind it, and remained there for more than an hour, standing motionless, scarcely breathing. He no longer heard any sound; he ventured out. The sentinel was no longer there. The detachment had rejoined the battalion.
One of his old friends, a man to whom he had rendered services such as are not forgotten, lived in this very Passage du Saumon. Jeanty Sarre looked for the number, woke the porter, told him the name of his friend, was admitted, went up the stairs, and knocked at the door. The door was opened, his friend appeared in his nightshirt, with a candle in his hand.
He recognized Jeanty Sarre, and cried out, "You here! What a state you are in! Where hove you come from? From what riot? from what madness? And then you come to compromise us all here? To have us murdered? To have us shot? Now then, what do you want with me?"
"I want you to give me a brush down," said Jeanty Sarre.
His friend took a brush and brushed him, and Jeanty Sarre went away. While going down the stairs, Jeanty Sarre cried out to his friend, "Thanks!"
Such is the kind of hospitality which we have since received in Belgium, in Switzerland, and even in England.
The next day, when they took up the bodies they found on Charpentier a note-book and a pencil, and upon Denis Dussoubs a letter. A letter to a woman. Even these stoic souls love.
On the 1st of December, Denis Dussoubs began this letter. He did not finish it. Here it is:—
Charpentier's note-book only contained this line, which he had written in the darkness at the foot of the barricade while Denis Dussoubs was speaking:—
28 February 18. Louvain.
Yvan had again seen Conneau. He corroborated the information given in the letter of Alexandre Dumas to Bocage; with the fact we had the names. On the 3d of December at M. Abbatucci's house, 31, Rue Caumartin, in the presence of Dr. Conneau and of Piétri, a Corsican, born at Vezzani, named Jacques François Criscelli,29 a man attached to the secret and personal service of Louis Bonaparte, had received from Piétri's own mouth the offer of 25,000 francs "to take or kill Victor Hugo." He had accepted, and said, "That is all very well if I am alone. But suppose there are two of us?"
Piétri had answered,—
"Then there will be 50,000 francs."
This communication, accompanied by urgent prayers, had been made to me by Yvan in the Rue de Monthabor, while we were still at Dupont White's.
This said, I continue my story.
The massacre of the 4th did not produce the whole of its effect until the next day, the 5th. The impulse given by us to the resistance still lasted for some hours, and at nightfall, in the labyrinth of houses ranging from the Rue du Petit Carreau to the Rue du Temple, there was fighting. The Pagevin, Neuve Saint Eustache, Montorgueil, Rambuteau, Beaubourg, and Transnonain barricades were gallantly defended. There, there was an impenetrable network of streets and crossways barricaded by the People, surrounded by the Army.
The assault was merciless and furious.
The barricade of the Rue Montorgueil was one of those which held out the longest. A battalion and artillery was needed to carry it. At the last moment it was only defended by three men, two shop-clerks and a lemonade-seller of an adjoining street. When the assault began the night was densely dark, and the three combatants escaped. But they were surrounded. No outlets. Not one door was open. They climbed the grated gateway of the Passage Verdeau as Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier had scaled the Passage du Saumon, had jumped over, and had fled down the Passage. But the other grated gateway was closed, and like Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier they had no time to climb it. Besides, they heard the soldiers corning on both sides. In a corner at the entrance of the Passage there were a few planks which had served to close a stall, and which the stall-keeper was in the habit of putting there. They hid themselves beneath these planks.
The soldiers who had taken the barricade, after having searched the streets, bethought themselves of searching the Passage. They also climbed over the grated gateway, looked about everywhere with lanterns, and found nothing They were going away, when one of them perceived the foot of one of these three unfortunate men which was projecting from beneath the planks.
They killed all three of them on the spot with bayonet-thrusts. They cried out, "Kill us at once! Shoot us! Do not prolong our misery."
The neighboring shop-keepers heard these cries, but dared not open their doors or their windows, for fear, as one of them said the next day, "that they should do the same to them."
The execution at an end, the executioners left the three victims lying in a pool of blood on the pavement of the Passage. One of those unfortunate men did not die until eight o'clock next morning.
No one had dared to ask for mercy; no one had dared to bring any help. They left them to die there.
One of the combatants of the Rue Beaubourg was more fortunate. They were pursuing him. He rushed up a staircase, reached a roof, and from there a passage, which proved to be the top corridor of an hotel. A key was in the door. He opened it boldly, and found himself face to face with a man who was going to bed. It was a tired-out traveller who had arrived at the hotel that very evening. The fugitive said to the traveller, "I am lost, save me!" and explained him the situation in three words.
The traveller said to him, "Undress yourself, and get into my bed." And then he lit a cigar, and began quietly to smoke. Just as the man of the barricade had got into bed a knock came at the door. It was the solders who were searching the house. To the questions which they asked him the traveller answered, pointing to the bed, "We are only two here. We have just arrived here. I am smoking my cigar, and my brother is asleep." The waiter was questioned, and confirmed the traveller's statement. The soldiers went away, and no one was shot.
We will say this, that the victorious soldiers killed less than on the preceding day. They did not massacre in all the captured barricades. The order had been given on that day to make prisoners. It might also be believed that a certain humanity existed. What was this humanity? We shall see.
At eleven o'clock at night all was at an end.
They arrested all those whom they found in the streets which had been surrounded, whether combatants or not, they had all the wine-shops and the cafés opened, they closely searched the houses, they seized all the men whom they could find, only leaving the women and the children. Two regiments formed in a square carried away all these prisoners huddled together. They took them to the Tuileries, and shut them up in the vast cellar situated beneath the terrace at the waterside.
On entering this cellar the prisoners felt reassured. They called to mind that in June, 1848, a great number of insurgents had been shut up there, and later on had been transported. They said to themselves that doubtless they also would be transported, or brought before the Councils of War, and that they had plenty of time before them.
They were thirsty. Many of them had been fighting since that morning, and nothing parches tire mouth so much as biting cartridges. They asked for drink. Three pitchers of water were brought to them.
A sort of security suddenly fell upon them. Amongst them were several who had been transported in June, 1848, and who had already been in that cellar, and who said, "In June they were not so humane. They left us for three days without food or drink." Some of them wrapped themselves up in their overcoats or cloaks, lay down, and slept. At one o'clock in the morning a great noise was heard outside. Soldiers, carrying torches, appeared in the cellars, the prisoners who were sleeping woke with a start, an officer ordered them to get up.
They made them go out anyhow as they had come in. As they went out they coupled them two by two at random, and a sergeant counted them in a loud voice. They asked neither their names, nor their professions, nor their families, nor who they were, nor whence they came; they contented themselves with the numbers. The numbers sufficed for what they were about to do.
In this manner they counted 337. The counting having come to an end, they ranged them in close columns, still two by two and arm-in-arm. They were not tied together, but on each side of the column, on the right and on the left, there were three files of soldiers keeping them within their ranks, with guns loaded; a battalion was at their head, a battalion in their rear. They began to march, pressed together and enclosed in this moving frame of bayonets.
At the moment when the column set forward, a young law-student, a fair pale Alsatian, of some twenty years, who was in their ranks, asked a captain, who was marching by him with his sword drawn,—
"Where are we going?"
The officer made no reply.
Having left the Tuileries, they turned to the right, and followed the quay as far as the Pont de la Concorde. They crossed the Pont de la Concorde, and again turned to the right. In this manner they passed before the esplanade of the Invalides, and reached the lonely quay of Gros-Caillou.
As we have just said, they numbered 337, and as they walked two by two, there was one, the last, who walked alone. He was one of the most daring combatants of the Rue Pagevin, a friend of Lecomte the younger. By chance the sergeant, who was posted in the inner file by his side, was a native of the same province. On passing under a street-lamp they recognized each other. They exchanged quickly a few words in a whisper.
"Where are we going?" asked the prisoner.
"To the military school," answered the sergeant. And he added, "Ah! my poor lad!"
And then he kept at a distance from the prisoner.
As this was the end of the column, there was a certain space between the last rank of the soldiers who formed the line, and the first rank of the company which closed the procession.
As they reached the lonely boulevard of Gros-Caillon, of which we have just spoken, the sergeant drew near to the prisoner, and said to him in a rapid and low tone,—
"One can hardly see here. It is a dark spot. On the left there are trees. Be off!"
"But," said the prisoner, "they will fire at me."
"They will miss you."
"But suppose they kill me?"
"It will be no worse than what awaits you."
The prisoner understood, shook the sergeant's hand, and taking advantage of the space between the line of soldiers and rear-ground, rushed with a single bound outside the column, and disappeared in the darkness beneath the trees.
"A man is escaping!" cried out the officer who commanded the last company. "Halt! Fire!"
The column halted. The rear-guard company fired at random in the direction taken by the fugitive, and, as the sergeant had foreseen, missed him. In a few moments the fugitive had reached the streets adjoining the tobacco manufactory, and had plunged into them. They did not pursue him. They had more pressing work on hand.
Besides, confusion might have arisen in their ranks, and to recapture one they risked letting the 336 escape.
The column continued its march. Having reached the Pont d'Iéna, they turned to the left, and entered into the Champ de Mars.
There they shot them all.
These 336 corpses were amongst those which were carried to Montmartre Cemetery, and which were buried there with their heads exposed.
In this manner their families were enabled to recognize them. The Government learned who they were after killing them.
Amongst these 336 victims were a large number of the combatants of the Rue Pagevin and the Rue Rambuteau, of the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache and the Porte Saint Denis. There were also 100 passers-by, whom they had arrested because they happened to be there, and without any particular reason.
Besides, we will at once mention that the wholesale executions from the 3d inst. were renewed nearly every night. Sometimes at the Champ de Mars, sometimes at the Prefecture of Police, sometimes at both places at once.
When the prisons were full, M. de Maupas said "Shoot!" The fusillades at the Prefecture took place sometimes in the courtyard, sometimes in the Rue de Jérusalem. The unfortunate people whom they shot were placed against the wall which bears the theatrical notices. They had chosen this spot because it is close by the sewer-grating of the gutter, so that the blood would run down at once, and would leave fewer traces. On Friday, the 5th, they shot near this gutter of the Rue de Jérusalem 150 prisoners. Some one30 said to me, "On the next day I passed by there, they showed the spot; I dug between the paving-stones with the toe of my boot, and I stirred up the mud. I found blood."
This expression forms the whole history of the coup d'état, and will form the whole history of Louis Bonaparte. Stir up this mud, you will find blood.
Let this then be known to History:—
The massacre of the boulevard had this infamous continuation, the secret executions. The coup d'état after having been ferocious became mysterious. It passed from impudent murder in broad day to hidden murder at night.
Evidence abounds.
Esquiros, hidden in the Gros-Caillou, heard the fusillades on the Champ de Mars every night.
At Mazas, Chambolle, on the second night of his incarceration, heard from midnight till five o'clock in the morning, such volleys that he thought the prison was attacked.
Like Montferrier, Desmoulins bore evidence to blood between the paving-stones of the Rue de Jérusalem.
Lieutenant-Colonel Cailland, of the ex-Republican Guard, is crossing the Pont Neuf; he sees some sergents de ville with muskets to their shoulders, aiming at the passers-by; he says to them, "You dishonor the uniform." They arrest him. They search him. A sergent de ville says to him, "If we find a cartridge upon you, we shall shoot you." They find nothing. They take him to the Prefecture of Police, they shut him up in the station-house. The director of the station-house comes and says to him, "Colonel, I know you well. Do not complain of being here. You are confided to my care. Congratulate yourself on it. Look here, I am one of the family, I go and I come, I see, I listen; I know what is going on; I know what is said; I divine what is not said. I hear certain noises during the night; I see contain traces in the morning. As for myself I am not a bad fellow. I am taking care of you. I am keeping you out of the way. At the present moment be contented to remain with me. If you were not here you would be underground."
An ex-magistrate, General Leflô's brother-in-law, is conversing on the Pont de la Concorde with some officers before the steps of the Chamber; some policemen come up to him: "You are tampering with the army." He protests, they throw him into a vehicle, and they take him to the Prefecture of Police. As he arrives there he sees a young man, in a blouse and a cap, passing on the quay, who is being shoved along by three municipal guards with the butt-ends of their muskets. At an opening of the parapet, a guard shouts to him, "Go in there." The man goes in. Two guards shoot him in the back. He falls. The third guard despatches him with a shot in his ear.
On the 13th the massacres were not yet at an end. On the morning of that day, in the dim light of the dawn, a solitary passer-by, going along the Rue Saint Honoré, saw, between two lines of horse-soldiers, three wagons wending their way, heavily loaded. These wagons could be traced by the stains of blood which dripped from them. They came from the Champ de Mars, and were going to the Montmartre Cemetery. They were full of corpses.
29 It was this same Criscelli, who later on at Vaugirard in the Rue du Trancy, killed by special order of the Prefect of Police a man named Kech, "suspected of plotting the assassination of the Emperor."
30 The Marquis Sarrazin de Montferrier, a relative of my eldest brother. I can now mention his name.
Al danger being over, all scruples vanished. Prudent and wise people could now give their adherence to the coup d'état, they allowed their names to be posted up.
Here is the placard:
The name of Bourbousson is found on this list.
It would be a pity if this name were lost.
At the same time as this placard appeared the protest of M. Daru, as follows:—
Some of these members of the Consultative Committee came from Mazas or from Mount Valerien. They had been detained in a cell for four-and-twenty hours, and then released. It may be seen that these legislators bore little malice to the man who had made them undergo this disagreeable taste of the law.
Many of the personages comprised in this menagerie possessed no other renown but the outcry caused by their debts, clamoring around them. Such a one had been twice declared bankrupt, but this extenuating circumstance was added, "not under his own name:" Another who belonged to a literary or scientific circle was reputed to have sold his vote. A third, who was handsome, elegant, fashionable, dandified, polished, gilded, embroidered, owed his prosperity to a connection which indicated a filthiness of soul.
Such people as these gave their adherence with little hesitation to the deed which "saved society."
Some others, amongst those who composed this mosaic, possessed no political enthusiasm, and merely consented to figure in this list in order to keep their situations and their salaries; they were under the Empire what they had been before the Empire, neuters, and during the nineteen years of the reign, they continued to exercise their military, judicial, or administrative functions unobtrusively, surrounded with the right and proper respect due to inoffensive idiots.
Others were genuine politicians, belonging to that learned school which begins with Guizot, and does not finish with Parieu, grave physicians of social order, who reassure the frightened middle-classes, and who preserve dead things.
In this quasi Council of State there were a goodly number of men of the Police, a race of beings then held in esteem, Carlier, Piétri, Maupas, etc.
Shortly after the 2d of December under the title of Mixed Commissions, the police substituted itself for justice, drew up judgments, pronounced sentences, violated every law judicially without the regular magistracy interposing the slightest obstacle to this irregular magistracy: Justice allowed the police to do what it liked with the satisfied look of a team of horses which had just been relieved.
Some of the men inscribed on the list of this commission refused: Léon Faucher Goulard, Mortemart, Frédéric Granier, Marchand, Maillard Paravay, Beugnot. The newspapers received orders not to publish these refusals.
M. Beugnot inscribed on his card: "Count Beugnot, who does not belong to the Consultative Committee."
M. Joseph Périer went from corner to corner of the streets, pencil in hand, scratching out his name from all the placards, saying, "I shall take back my name wherever I find it."
General Baraguay d'Hilliers did not refuse. A brave soldier nevertheless; he had lost an arm in the Russian war. Later on, he has been Marshall of France; he deserved better than to have been created a Marshal by Louis Bonaparte. It did not appear likely that he would have come to this. During the last days of November General Baraguay d'Hilliers, seated in a large arm-chair before the high fireplace of the Conference Hall of the National Assembly, was warming himself; some one, one of his colleagues, he who is writing these lines, sat down near him on the other side of the fireplace. They did not speak to each other, one belonging to the Right, the other to the Left; but M. Piscatory came in, who belonged a little to the Right and a little to the Left. He addressed himself to Baraguay d'Hilliers: "Well, general, do you know what they are saying?"
"What?"
"That one of these days the President will shut the door in our faces."
General Baraguay d'Hilliers answered, and I heard the answer,—"If M. Bonaparte should close the door of the Assembly against us, France will fling it wide open again."
Louis Bonaparte at one moment thought of entitling this committee the "Executive Commission." "No," said Morny to him, "that would be to credit them with courage. They will willingly be supporters; they will not be proscribers."
General Rulhière was dismissed for having blamed the passive obedience of the army.
Let us here mention an incident. Some days after the 4th of December, Emmanuel Arago met M. Dupin, who was going up the Faubourg Saint Honoré.
"What!" said Arago, "are you going to the Elysée?"
M. Dupin answered, "I never go to disreputable houses."
Yet he went there.
M. Dupin, it may be remembered, was appointed Attorney-General at the Court of Cessation.