France -- History -- Coup d'état, 1851; France -- History -- Second Republic, 1848-1852; Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, 1808-1873
What freedom there was in the vote of the 20th of December, we have
just pointed out; we have described that freedom by a striking display
of evidence. We might dispense with adding anything to it. Let each of
those who voted reflect, and ask himself under what moral and physical
violence he dropped his ballot in the box. We might cite a certain
commune of the Yonne, where, of five hundred heads of families, four
hundred and thirty were arrested, and the rest voted "aye;" or a
commune of the Loiret, where, of six hundred and thirty-nine heads of
families, four hundred and ninety-seven were arrested or banished; the
one hundred and forty-two who escaped voted "aye." What we say of the
Loiret and the Yonne might be said of all the departments. Since the
2nd of December, each town has its swarm of spies; each village, each
hamlet, its informer. To vote "no" was imprisonment, transportation,
Lambessa. In the villages of one department, we were told by an
eye-witness, they brought "ass-loads of 'aye' ballots." The mayors,
flanked by gardes-champetres, distributed them among the peasants. They
had no choice but to vote. At Savigny, near Saint-Maur, on the morning
of the vote, some enthusiastic gendarmes declared that the man who
voted "no" should not sleep in his bed. The gendarmerie cast into the
house of detention at Valenciennes M. Parent the younger, deputy
justice of the peace of the canton of Bouchain, for having advised
certain inhabitants of Avesne-le-Sec to vote "no." The nephew of
Representative Aubry (du Nord), having seen the agents of the prefect
distribute "aye" ballots in the great square of Lille, went into the
square next morning, and distributed "no" ballots. He was arrested and
confined in the citadel.
As to the vote of the army, a part of it voted in its own cause; the
rest followed.
But even as to the freedom of this vote of the soldiers, let us hear
the army speak for itself. This is what is written by a soldier of the
6th Regiment of the Line, commanded by Colonel Garderens de Boisse:--
"So far as our company was concerned, the vote was a roll-call. The
subaltern officers, the corporals, the drummers, and the soldiers,
arranged in order of rank, were named by the quartermaster in presence
of the colonel, the lieutenant-colonel, the major, and the company
officers; and as each man named answered, 'Here!' his name was
inscribed by the sergeant-major. The colonel, rubbing his hands, was
saying, 'Egad, gentlemen, this is going on wheels!' when a corporal of
the company to which I belong approached the table at which the
sergeant-major was seated, and requested him to let him have the pen,
that he might himself inscribe his name on the 'no' register, which was
intended to remain blank.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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