The treatment inflicted upon the generals arrested in the morning of
December 2d was still more disgraceful. Cavaignac, Lamoricière, Bedeau,
Changarnier, the conquerors of Africa, were shut up in these infamous
cellular vans, which are always inconvenient and become almost
intolerable on a lengthened journey. In this manner they were conveyed
to Ham--that is, they were made to perform more than a day's journey.
Cavaignac, who had saved Paris and France in the days of
June--Cavaignac, the competitor of Louis Napoleon at the last elections,
shut up for a day and a night in the cell of a felon! I leave it to
every honest man and every generous heart to comment on such facts. Such
were the indignities offered to eminent men.
Let me now review the series of general crimes. The liberty of the press
is destroyed to an extent unheard of even in the time of the empire.
Most of the journals are suppressed, those which appear cannot say a
word on politics or even publish any news. But this is by no means all.
The Government has stuck up a list of persons who are formed into a
"consultative commission." Its object is to induce France to believe
that the Executive is not abandoned by every man of respectability and
consideration among us. More than half the persons on this list have
refused to belong to the commission; most of them regard the insertion
of their names as dishonor. I may quote, among others, M. Léon Faucher,
M. Portalis, First President of the Court of Cassation, and the Duc de
Albuféra, as those best known. Not only does the Government decline to
publish the letters in which these gentlemen refuse their consent, but
even their names are not withdrawn from the list which dishonors them.
The names are still retained in spite of their repeated remonstrances. A
day or two ago, one of them, M. Joseph Perier, driven to desperation by
this excess of tyranny, rushed into the street to strike out his own
name, with his own hands, from the public placards, taking the
passers-by to witness that it had been placed there by a lie.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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