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
"Bonaparte has an object in view. The Republic has made the People. He
wishes to restore the Populace. He will succeed and you will fail. He
has on his side force, cannons, the mistake of the people, and the folly
of the Assembly. The few of the Left to which you belong will not
succeed in overthrowing the _coup d'état_. You are honest, and he has
this advantage over you--that he is a rogue. You have scruples, and he
has this advantage over you--that he has none. Believe me. Resist no
longer. The situation is without resources. We must wait; but at this
moment fighting would be madness. What do you hope for?"
"Nothing," said I.
"And what are you going to do?"
"Everything."
By the tone of my voice he understood that further persistence was
useless.
"Good-bye," he said.
We parted. He disappeared in the darkness. I have never seen him since.
I went up again to Lafon's rooms.
In the meantime the copies of the appeal to arms did not come to hand.
The Representatives, becoming uneasy, went up and downstairs. Some of
them went out on the Quai Jemmapes, to wait there and gain information
about them. In the room there was a sound of confused talking the
members of the Committee, Madier de Montjau, Jules Favre, and Carnot,
withdrew, and sent word to me by Charamaule that they were going to No.
10, Rue des Moulins, to the house of the ex-Constituent Landrin, in the
division of the 5th Legion, to deliberate more at their ease, and they
begged me to join them. But I thought I should do better to remain. I
had placed myself at the disposal of the probable movement of the
Faubourg St. Marceau. I awaited the notice of it through Auguste. It was
most important that I should not go too far away; besides, it was
possible that if I went away, the Representatives of the Left, no
longing seeing a member of the committee amongst them, would disperse
without taking any resolution, and I saw in this more than one
disadvantage.
Time passed, no Proclamations. We learned the next day that the packages
had been seized by the police. Cournet, an ex-Republican naval officer
who was present, began to speak. We shall see presently what sort of a
man Cournet was, and of what an energetic and determined nature he was
composed. He represented to us that as we had been there nearly two
hours the police would certainly end by being informed of our
whereabouts, that the members of the Left had an imperative duty--to
keep themselves at all costs at the head of the People, that the
necessity itself of their situation imposed upon them the precaution of
frequently changing their place of retreat, and he ended by offering us,
for our deliberation, his house and his workshops, No. 82, Rue
Popincourt, at the bottom of a blind alley, and also in the neighborhood
of the Faubourg St. Antoine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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