On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Dec. 27, 1851.] m^t TL C ilDC V. 1225
-
1'nriH, IMnmluy, DiMicinlxir ~~ , IHfM. ...
-
COPY OF THE BULLETIN GIVEN AWAY BY THE A...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Paris, Fridav, December 19,1851. My Dear...
Two travelling Englishmen ( that fatal species !) requested Lord Normanby to present them last Monday at the Elysee . The desire to be introduced to the President was , on the part of the one at least , mere vain curiosity ; the other ( and elder of the two ) is I believe , one of those old fools who fancy they belong by right of birth , to the " Great Party of Order . " The younger of the two is a Legitimist in symp athy , and detests Louis Napoleon . Well ! presented they were . Louis , " the impenetrable , " received them " with effusion , " and said he was glad to find the English did not listen to the reports of their journals !
Now , here you see the injury done to our national character by two vain flunkeys : the Elysee believes that England supports him ; and the visit of the two gentlemen is exploite as a proof thereof ! This is a fact . Poor Lamartine is a prisoner to his bed at Macon , and a frightful sufferer from acute rheumatism of the joints . He has dictated a letter repudiating all connection with Le Pays since the 2 nd of December . The Government are publishing what they call proofs of a Parliamentary plot , seized at the house of the Questors of the Assembly . Now , what was this plot ? Simply to carry out effectually the right of the President of the Assembly to require as many troops for the defence of the Representatives as he might deem necessary , and to dispose of them as he might
think fit . I am not at all sorry , nor ( so far as I can learn ) are any of the Republican Opposition , that the proposition of the Questors was rejected . I still think it was no better policy of the Opposition to reject it , as it could only have hastened the President ' s coup d ' etat , and as the first dispersion would in the eyes of many have been just that shadow of quasi moral sanction and justification to it which now it is entirely destitute of . As it is , the whole aggression and the whole crime is the President ' s ; and remember , that under the Constitution ( a very bad and foolish one , I allow , but still the Constitution sworn to by him ) , the President was not the supreme , but the second , power of the state . The whole accusation of a plot on the part of the President ( even if it existed ) , is a monstrous assumption .
At our Embassy , it seems , they " certainly expected a coup d ' etat soon or late , but not so sudden and violent ; nor so comprehensive and complete " ! What sort of a coup d ' etat then , did they expect ? *• Of course we can ' t approve of it ; but now we had better accept " of it as afact , and be conciliatory" ! This is fact . A young man presented himself in a drawing-room on the Thursday night of the massacre , having almost miraculously escaped from death . It seems he found himself in the midst of a crowd of inoffensive persons , when the soldiers deliberately fired down the street upon them . Finding himself not killed , he thought the best thing he could do would be to
hrow himself fiat upon the ground , as if killed , among the killed , to escape another volley . Presently , however , the soldiers , mad with brandy , with the thirst of blood , and the fumes of powder , ran up to " finish" { pour achever ) as they called it , the the wounded , an operation consisting of firing into the bodies on the ground , at random ; and wherever a ring or a jewel appeared , hacking off a finger or two to get it , and emptying the pockets of any cash . This young inan had two shots fired through the heels of his boots , and one through his clonk , and came off quite unhurt , and presented himself in a drawing-room just in the tattered state in which he lay in the street . A fact .
Another person wan coming over one of the bridges , when he was rudely arrested by soldiers and searched , binding a pistol in one of his pockets ( which he had taken with him in self-defence ) , they iired four shots at him , and missed him ; they then knocked him down witli the butt ends of their muskets , and actually tried to throw him over into the Seine . Fortunately others came up and rescued him from a certain and bnrlmrouH death . lie was taken to" the Prefecture do 1 ' olice and released , half dead . A fact .
Only this week the police paid a domiciliary visit to the apartments of an Italian lady resident here , whose home Home of the Republican members of the Assembly hud been accustomed to frequent . They penetrated into her bedroom , made her get out of bed , and when her delicacy resisted such a brutal insult , they tore her out with violence , and made her open all her boxen , which they ransacked . This is the State of Siege in Paris under the " . Deliverer of France from pillage and violence . " It is afact .
An English gentleman , whom I asked whether the troops were drunk , Hnid he Haw with his own eyes a lancer fall off his horse like a abut , when the horse was trotting gently along , and neither pranced nor stumbled . Tin ; man shook himself an if h « was drunk , and then clumsily mounted again und rode on . Adieu .
Dec. 27, 1851.] M^T Tl C Ildc V. 1225
Dec . 27 , 1851 . ] m ^ t TL C ilDC V . 1225
1'Nrih, Imnmluy, Dimicinlxir ~~ , Ihfm. ...
1 ' nriH , IMnmluy , DiMicinlxir ~~ , IHfM . My i » wAit Fhiknd , —The " sincere and free expres-Hion of tho People ' s will " on M . Bonaparte ' s " plebiMcitum , " began on Saturday morning , and was closed last evening at six p . m . On the fiist day the votes of the " easy" and lettered classes were , taken ; ycHtcrduy enabled the working cIuhhch to register
monosyllabic suicide . " Ruere in servitium" would have been a fitting motto for these bulletins . I went down with a friend of ours to his " Section , " in order that I might judge with my own eyes of the nature of the operation to which the French People were solemnly invited , under coyer of bayonets . My friend had very deliberately written his emphatic Non on the bulletin , which he was about to drop into the box , before we left his house ; for whatever the Minister of the Interior may order to be written in his journals to the contrary , with the mixture of cynicism and hypocrisy which has presided over every act of this banditti government , it is certain
that at the gates of every Mairie and of every section were men placed , offering freely to all who entered , and to all passers by , bulletins printed " OUI , " but not a ghost of a . printed " NON " was to be seen in the neighbourhood . I inclose two of the Oui tickets , which were put into my own hands with all the supple dexterity that you may have seen practised in the streets of London by the agents of a thousand quacks . But does it for a moment even bear supposition that the actual government of brute force would allow any printing press to issue hostile tickets , or that any printer , even after the ostentatious liberality of M . de Morny ' s permission , would
be so bold as to forfeit , by such an act , the loss of his licence at some not distant day ? You know how absolutely the existence of a printer depends on the Government in France , and" you know what an inclined plane is the regime of arbitrary compression . The present is but a foretaste of the coming depotism . Neither M . Bonaparte himself ; nor any of his adherents and advisers , have any other idea of government than compression , which is every fool ' s weapon . " The vote and the sabre" means , in other words , the vote with the sabre at your breast . The vote of suicide , or the sabre of extermination—such is the era of the Caesars just inaugurated in this country .
How should such men as compose the present ministry of the Elysee , isolated from all the intelligence and honesty of the nation—men bankrupt in purse , reputation , honour—one a ruined spendthrift , another a blackleg , a third a used-up debauchee , a fourth a " Mercadet" of the Bourse—all more or less undesirable acquaintances for any honest man—how should they have any other idea of government than force and brigandage . Talk to them of a wise liberty , of social reform , indeed ! The very desperate game they are playing , and the sense of its desperateness , is to them a kind of new sensation—an intoxication . Well , in the court of the Mairie there was a com-¦ ¦ ¦
pany of infantry with piled arms , a few gendarmes , and a few people—some bourgeois , others in blouses , —passing in and out . The actual deposit of the ticket was a minute ' s work . Three employes behind a table with the ballot-box thereon . Enter voter ; he hands in his carte electorate ( or register ticket ) to an employe , who compares it with the register , and certifies ; then voter drops his folded ticket into the box . I did not hear any remarks in the yard ; but a friend of mine , who voted on Saturday , told me that there was a group of blouses standing in the court of his Mairie with fixed , set looks of concentrated indignation , indicative of anything but " Ouis ; " and that he heard one workman , who was asked by another as lie passed out of the gate whether he had voted , reply in a form of language the
peculiar vivacity of which I cannot exactly translate , that " lie had just been treating him to a JSIon , and no mistake . " I have this morning heard of a bourgeois , who had the temerity to say audibly , " Est ce qui vous allez voter pour cecochon la , " being instantly arrested . At this hour most of the sections are known ; the total result is to be proclaimed at the Hotel de Ville , at six p . m . 1 Hhall be there to see . If you hear of " cheers- and acclumationfl , don ' t be surprised . I happen to know that the best of the working classes intend to keep away . It will be nothing more than the six thousand coquins who formed the society of the 10 th of December of infamous memory , and the elite of whom , by the way , are , if report be true , to be formed into a Prietorian guard for this new Caligula .
It is quite likely that he will have two thirds of the votes , even at Paris ; he would have all , if that were not a little too good to be true . For why should a man who has been no little scrupulous hh M . Louis Bonaparte , hesitate to arrange the numbers of Oui and Non according to his good pleasure . ? The universal belief of the elite of the workmen is that the real bulletins were burned in the course of last night , and that the boxes which were opened , and the votes
which were counted this morning , were : carefully prepared beforehand . Now , really this is not at all a wild or unfair suspicion ; at any rate , it is quite as probable as that he would in any emu ; allow the numbers to go against him ,, especially in Paris where a moral sanction is mgst important . All I . can say is , that the vote has been surrounded with no guarantees , oven out ward and visible , of sincerity . In former elections since the Revolution the votes have been
given and counted , as it were , before the public scrutiny . This time it has been with closed doors before u coterie of police , ilanked by . { j ; endurmes . The Legitimists , it is now known , either vote Nan or abstain ; the beat of the Orleuniata ditto ; many of
the bourgeoisie ditto ; the shopkeepers , perhaps mostly Oui , though they feel the degradation of the vote . As for the workmen in the Faubourgs , I know from personal observation that the elite have given ft determined Non ; but what M . Bonaparte ' s offer of two francs a head may have effected among the poorest and most ignorant classes , is another question . Two francs a head was freely offered for a Oui . I cannot describe to you how deep the indignation , the sense of degradation , the detestation of the man are felt . by the elite of the working classes , I mean by such men as represented Prance at our Exposition—men as well educated as polished in manners , and I need not say far more able and cultivated than many statesmen !
But after all , as an eminent writer ( perhaps the most eminent political writer ) said so me this morning , what do a few thousands of votes more or less signify ? Let him have two thirds of his votes , or all , if he will . Let him shout his triumph to all the winds ! What matters it ? No one will believe in its sincerity a bit the more . No one will believe in the duration of his infamous power the more . By all means let him have his fling—il' susera ; il ira son train . Let him have his full swing of compression . The explosion will be sooner and more terrible ! Unfortunately , if he were to fall now , by an accident , it would be a real misfortune to the country , for nothing but civil war and violence is yet ready to succeed ; but if he have even more votes than in December ' 48 , his fall is as certain as Lucifer ' s . He will only attain a greater height" Unde altior esset Casus et excelsse prceceps immane ruinae . " Five or six millions of votes will not give him ideas of Government , and without them or with a turbulent soldiery , and hungry , ambitious hangers-on , what Government can be durable . " Le Chat Huant .
Copy Of The Bulletin Given Away By The A...
COPY OF THE BULLETIN GIVEN AWAY BY THE AGEN'lb AT THE MAIRIES . - m ' ' " ™ " ~ __—^^——^—_— . ^_____— - __——OUI . JSapoloon Chaix et Cic , r . BergOre , 20 . PROSPECTS OF ALLIANCE AND WAR . The correspondent of a contemporary ( who , it should be added , is a Bonapartist and a member of the Church of Home ) says : — " A congress of all the powers who signed the treaties of Vienna of 1815 will be called for , with a view to their revision upon the basis of giving France what is called her old and natural boundaries . It is whispered that Prussia would be offered Hanover as a compensation for her llhenish provinces , and Piedmont made to exchange Savoy for slices of Italian duchies . There is talk , too , of a kingdom of Italy for the Duke of Leuchtenberg , & c . If the Constitutionnel speaks truth , these would be only ytrojocts in the air , but that they are entertained in some heads may be believed . " " I am unable to affirm that Louis Napoleon was assisted by the counsels of Austria before the late catastrophe , " says the Vienna correspondent of the Times , " but I know that M . de Hiibner -was a persona grata at the Elysee . It is universally believed in dip lomatic circles here that the President ' s confidential , if not his ostensible counsellor , was M . de Kisseloff , the ltussian Minister at Paris . As long as things were in suspense in Erance , the Northern Powers were unable to carry out their plans for bringing the continental nations as completely under the yoke as they wore before the Revolution of 1 HI < S ; but now that the President has succeeded in establishing a military government , and all resistance appears impossible , the long-cherished plan will soon b Austrian States , as long as the just complaints of the Imperial ( jlovernnient are not attended to in London , and an organised communication between the Revolutionary party in Mnghuul and all the continental Stales is carried on , under the protection ol the law . The Mnglish will have the less cause to complain , as the duration of the measure will depend On themselves . " The 7 V ' wc ' . v of Monday contained a very dull , ambiguous , shifty , but . important article on the relations of foreign ( jovcrnments to France . Tin ; former part thrown tlust in the eyes of the vulgar and uninitiated ;
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 27, 1851, page 5, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27121851/page/5/
-