The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-WitnessHugo, Victor
History
The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-Witness
Hugo, Victor
France -- History -- 1789-1900
The poor women still hoped. Perhaps the wound was serious, but Baudin
was young, and had a good constitution. "They will save him," said they.
Gindrier was silent. At the office of the Commissary of Police the truth
was revealed.--"How is he?" asked Madame L---- on entering. "Why?" said
the Commissary, "he is dead." "What do you mean? Dead!" "Yes; killed on
the spot."
This was a painful moment. The despair of these two women who had been
so abruptly struck to the heart burst forth in sobs. "Ah, infamous
Bonaparte!" cried Madame L----. "He has killed Baudin. Well, then, I will
kill him. I will be the Charlotte Corday of this Marat."
Gindrier claimed the body of Baudin. The Commissary of Police only
consented to restore it to the family on exacting a promise that they
would bury it at once, and without any ostentation, and that they would
not exhibit it to the people. "You understand," he said, "that the sight
of a Representative killed and bleeding might raise Paris." The _coup
d'état_ made corpses, but did not wish that they should be utilized.
On these conditions the Commissary of Police gave Gindrier two men and a
safe conduct to fetch the body of Baudin from the hospital where he had
been carried.
Meanwhile Baudin's brother, a young man of four-and-twenty, a medical
student, came up. This young man has since been arrested and imprisoned.
His crime is his brother. Let us continue. They proceeded to the
hospital. At the sight of the safe conduct the director ushered Gindrier
and young Baudin into the parlor. There were three pallets there covered
with white sheets, under which could be traced the motionless forms of
three human bodies. The one which occupied the centre bed was Baudin. On
his right lay the young soldier killed a minute before him by the side of
Schoelcher, and on the left an old woman who had been struck down by a
spent ball in the Rue de Cotte, and whom the executioners of the _coup
d'état_ had gathered up later on; in the first moment one cannot find out
all one's riches.
The three corpses were naked under their winding sheets.
They had left to Baudin alone his shirt and his flannel vest. They had
found on him seven francs, his gold watch and chain, his Representative's
medal, and a gold pencil-case which he had used in the Rue de Popincourt,
after having passed me the other pencil, which I still preserve. Gindrier
and young Baudin, bare-headed, approached the centre bed. They raised the
shroud, and Baudin's dead face became visible. He was calm, and seemed
asleep. No feature appeared contracted. A livid tint began to mottle his
face.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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