The Memoirs of Victor Hugo Part 22

"France must be informed of events."

"Yes, but meanwhile Paris is making events. Alas! has it finished making them? The Regency is all very well, but it has got to be sanctioned."

"Yes, by the Chamber. The d.u.c.h.ess d'Orleans ought to take the Count de Paris to the Chamber."

"No, since the Chamber has been dissolved. If the d.u.c.h.ess ought to go anywhere, it is to the Hotel de Ville."

"How can you think of such a thing! What about the danger?"

"There is no danger. A mother, a child! I will answer for the people.

They will respect the woman in the princess.

"Well, then, go to the Tuileries, see the d.u.c.h.ess d'Orleans, advise her, enlighten her."

"Why do you not go yourself?"

"I have just come from there. n.o.body knew where the d.u.c.h.ess was; I could not get near her. But if you see her tell her that I am at her disposal, that I await her orders. Ah! Monsieur Victor Hugo, I would give my life for that woman and for that child!"

Odilon Barrot is the most honest and the most devoted man in the world, but he is the opposite of a man of action; one feels trouble and indecision in his words, in his look, in his whole person.

"Listen," he goes on, "what must be done, what is urgent, is that the people should be made acquainted with these grave changes, the abdication and Regency. Promise me that you will proclaim them at your mairie, in the faubourg, and wherever you possibly can."

"I promise."

I go off, with M. Moreau, towards the Tuileries.

In the Rue Bellecha.s.se are galloping horses. A squadron of dragoons flashes by and seems to be fleeing from a man with bare arms who is running behind them and brandishing a sword.

The Tuileries are still guarded by troops. The Mayor shows his sash and they let us pa.s.s. At the gate the concierge, to whom I make myself known, apprises us that the d.u.c.h.ess d'Orleans, accompanied by the Duke de Nemours, has just left the chateau with the Count de Paris, no doubt to go to the Chamber of Deputies. We have, therefore, no other course than to continue on our way.

At the entrance to the Carrousel Bridge bullets whistle by our ears.

Insurgents in the Place du Carrousel are firing upon the court carriages leaving the stables. One of the coachmen has been killed on his box.

"It would be too stupid of us to stay here looking on and get ourselves killed," says M. Ernest Moreau. "Let us cross the bridge."

We skirt the Inst.i.tute and the Quai de la Monnaie. At the Pont Neuf we pa.s.s a band of men armed with pikes, axes and rifles, headed by a drummer, and led by a man brandishing a sabre and wearing a long coat of the King's livery. It is the coat of the coachman who has just been killed in the Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre.

When we arrive, M. Moreau and I, at the Place Royale we find it filled with an anxious crowd. We are immediately surrounded and questioned, and it is not without some difficulty that we reach the Mairie. The ma.s.s of people is too compact to admit of our addressing them in the Place. I ascend, with the Mayor, a few officers of the National Guard and two students of the Ecole Polytechnique, to the balcony of the Mairie. I raise my hand, the crowd becomes silent as though by magic, and I say:

"My friends, you are waiting for news. This is what we know: M. Thiers is no longer Minister and Marshal Bugeaud is no longer in command (applause). They have been replaced by Marshal Gerard and M. Odilon Barrot (applause, but less general). The Chamber has been dissolved. The King has abdicated (general cheering). The d.u.c.h.ess d'Orleans is Regent."

(A few isolated bravos, mingled with low murmurs.)

I continue:

"The name of Odilon Barrot is a guarantee that the widest and most open appeal will be made to the nation; and that you will have in all sincerity a representative government."

My declaration is responded to with applause from several points, but it appears evident that the great bulk of the crowd is uncertain as to what view of the situation they ought to take, and are not satisfied.

We re-enter the hall of the Mairie.

"Now," I say to M. Ernest Moreau, "I must go and proclaim the news in the Place de la Bastille."

But the Mayor is discouraged.

"You can very well see that it is useless," he says sadly. "The Regency is not accepted. And you have spoken here in a quarter where you are known and loved. At the Bastille your audience will be the revolutionary people of the faubourg, who will perhaps harm you."

"I will go," I say, "I promised Odilon Barrot that I would."

"I have changed my hat," the Mayor goes on, "but remember my hat of this morning."

"This morning the army and the people were face to face, and there was danger of a conflict; now, however, the people are alone, the people are the masters."

"Masters--and hostile; have a care!"

"No matter, I have promised, and I will keep my promise."

I tell the Mayor that his place is at the Mairie and that he ought to stay there. But several National Guard officers present themselves spontaneously and offer to accompany me, among them the excellent M.

Launaye, my former captain. I accept their friendly offer, and we form a little procession and proceed by the Rue du Pas de la Mule and the Boulevard Beaumarchais towards the Place de la Bastille.

Here are a restless, eager crowd in which workingmen predominate, many of them armed with rifles taken from the barracks or given up to them by the soldiers; shouts and the song of the Girondins: "Die for the fatherland!" numerous groups debating and disputing pa.s.sionately. They turn round, they look at us, they interrogate us:

"What's the news? What is going on?" And they follow us. I hear my name mentioned coupled with various sentiments: "Victor Hugo! It's Victor Hugo!" A few salute me. When we reach the Column of July we are surrounded by a considerable gathering. In order that I may be heard I mount upon the base of the column.

I will only repeat the words which it was possible for me to make my turbulent audience hear. It was much less a speech than a dialogue, but the dialogue of one voice with ten, twenty, a hundred voices more or less hostile.

I began by announcing at once the abdication of Louis Philippe, and, as in the Place Royale, applause that was practically unanimous greeted the news. There were also, however, cries of "No! no abdication, deposition!

deposition!" Decidedly, I was going to have my hands full.

When I announced the Regency violent protests arose:

"No! no! No Regency! Down with the Bourbons! Neither King nor Queen! No masters!"

I repeated: "No masters! I don't want them any more than you do. I have defended liberty all my life."

"Then why do you proclaim the Regency?"

"Because a Queen-Regent is not a master. Besides, I have no right whatever to proclaim the Regency; I merely announce it."

"No! no! No Regency!"

A man in a blouse shouted: "Let the peer of France be silent. Down with the peer of France!" And he levelled his rifle at me. I gazed at him steadily, and raised my voice so loudly that the crowd became silent: "Yes, I am a peer of France, and I speak as a peer of France. I swore fidelity, not to a royal personage, but to the Const.i.tutional Monarchy.

As long as no other government is established it is my duty to be faithful to this one. And I have always thought that the people approved of a man who did his duty, whatever that duty might be."

There was a murmur of approbation and here and there a few bravos.

But when I endeavoured to continue: "If the Regency--" the protests redoubled. I was permitted to take up only one of these protests. A workman had shouted: "We will not be governed by a woman." I retorted quickly:

"Well, neither will I be governed by a woman, nor even by a man. It was because Louis Philippe wanted to govern that his abdication is to-day necessary and just. But a woman who reigns in the name of a child! Is that not a guarantee against all thought of personal government? Look at Queen Victoria in England--"