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
They carried him into his room, which was in order, and just as he had
left it on the morning of the 2d. The bed, on which he had not slept the
preceding night, had not been disturbed. A book which he had been
reading had remained on the table, open at the page where he had left
off. They unrolled the shroud, and Gindrier cut off his shirt and his
flannel vest with a pair of scissors. They washed the body. The ball had
entered through the corner of the arch of the right eye, and had gone out
at the back of the head. The wound of the eye had not bled. A sort of
swelling had formed there; the blood had flowed copiously through the
hole at the back of the head. They put clean linen on him, and clean
sheets on the bed, and laid him down with his head on the pillow, and
his face uncovered. The women were weeping in the next room.
Gindrier had already rendered the same service to the ex-Constituent
James Demontry. In 1850 James Demontry died in exile at Cologne.
Gindrier started for Cologne, went to the cemetery, and had James
Demontry exhumed. He had the heart extracted, embalmed it, and enclosed
it in a silver vase, which he took to Paris. The party of the Mountain
delegated him, with Chollet and Joigneux, to convey this heart to Dijon,
Demontry's native place, and to give him a solemn funeral. This funeral
was prohibited by an order of Louis Bonaparte, then President of the
Republic. The burial of brave and faithful men was unpleasing to Louis
Bonaparte--not so their death.
When Baudin had been laid out on the bed, the women came in, and all
this family, seated round the corpse, wept. Gindrier, whom other duties
called elsewhere, went downstairs with Dutèche. A crowd had formed
before the door.
A man in a blouse, with his hat on his head, mounted on a kerbstone, was
speechifying and glorifying the _coup d'état_. Universal Suffrage
re-established, the Law of the 31st May abolished, the "Twenty-five
francs" suppressed; Louis Bonaparte has done well, etc.--Gindrier,
standing on the threshold of the door, raised his voice: "Citizens!
above lies Baudin, a Representative of the People, killed while
defending the People; Baudin the Representative of you all, mark that
well! You are before his house; he is there bleeding on his bed, and
here is a man who dares in this place to applaud his assassin! Citizens!
shall I tell you the name of this man? He is called the Police! Shame
and infamy to traitors and to cowards! Respect to the corpse of him who
has died for you!"
And pushing aside the crowd, Gindrier took the man who had
been speaking by the collar, and knocking his hat on to the ground with
the back of his hand, he cried, "Hats off!"
CHAPTER VI.
THE DECREES OF THE REPRESENTATIVES WHO REMAINED FREE
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