The Memoirs of Victor Hugo Part 27

Hardly had he uttered the words, however, when he awoke from his dream.

The past had bewitched him for a moment. In recounting the incident to me he said:

"I went away shamefacedly, and apologizing to the porter."

V. THE DAYS OF JUNE.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES.

The insurrection of June presented peculiar features from the outset.*

It suddenly manifested itself to terrified society in monstrous and unknown forms.

* At the end of June, four months after the proclamation of the Republic, regular work had come to a standstill and the useless workshops known as the "national workshops" had been abolished by the National a.s.sembly. Then the widespread distress prevailing caused the outbreak of one of the most formidable insurrections recorded in history. The power at that time was in the hands of an Executive Committee of five members, Lamartine, Arago, Ledru Rollin, Garnier-Pages and Marie. General Cavaignac was Minister of War.

The first barricade was erected in the morning of Friday, the 23rd, at the Porte Saint Denis. It was attacked the same day. The National Guard marched resolutely against it. The attacking force was made up of battalions of the First and Second Legions, which arrived by way of the boulevards. When the a.s.sailants got within range a formidable volley was fired from the barricade, and littered the ground with National Guards.

The National Guard, more irritated than intimidated, charged the barricade.

At this juncture a woman appeared upon its crest, a woman young, handsome, dishevelled, terrible. This woman, who was a prost.i.tute, pulled up her clothes to her waist and screamed to the guards in that frightful language of the lupanar that one is always compelled to translate:

"Cowards! fire, if you dare, at the belly of a woman!" Here the affair became appalling. The National Guard did not hesitate. A volley brought the wretched creature down, and with a piercing shriek she toppled off the barricade. A silence of horror fell alike upon besiegers and besieged.

Suddenly another woman appeared. This one was even younger and more beautiful; she was almost a child, being barely seventeen years of age.

Oh! the pity of it! She, too, was a street-walker. Like the other she lifted her skirt, disclosed her abdomen, and screamed: "Fire, brigands!"

They fired, and riddled with bullets she fell upon the body of her sister in vice.

It was thus that the war commenced.

Nothing could be more chilling and more sombre. It is a hideous thing this heroism of abjection in which bursts forth all that weakness has of strength; this civilization attacked by cynicism and defending itself by barbarity. On one side the despair of the people, on the other the despair of society.

On Sat.u.r.day the 24th, at 4 o'clock in the morning, I, as a Representative of the people, was at the barricade in the Place Baudoyer that was defended by the troops.

The barricade was a low one. Another, narrow and high, protected it in the street. The sun shone upon and brightened the chimney-tops. The tortuous Rue Saint Antoine wound before us in sinister solitude.

The soldiers were lying upon the barricade, which was little more than three feet high. Their rifles were stacked between the projecting paving-stones as though in a rack. Now and then bullets whistled overhead and struck the walls of the houses around us, bringing down a shower of stone and plaster. Occasionally a blouse, sometimes a cap-covered head, appeared at the corner of a street. The soldiers promptly fired at it. When they hit their mark they applauded "Good!

Well aimed! Capital!"

They laughed and chatted gaily. At intervals there was a rattle and roar, and a hail of bullets rained upon the barricade from roofs and windows. A very tall captain with a grey moustache stood erect at the centre of the barrier, above which half his body towered. The bullets pattered about him as about a target. He was impa.s.sible and serene and spoke to his men in this wise:

"There, children, they are firing. Lie down. Look out, Laripaud, you are showing your head. Reload!"

All at once a woman turned the corner of a street. She came leisurely towards the barricade. The soldiers swore and shouted to her to get out of the way:

"Ah! the strumpet! Will you get out of that you w--! Shake a leg, d.a.m.n you! She's coming to reconnoitre. She's a spy! Bring her down. Down with the moucharde!"

The captain restrained them:

"Don't shoot, it's a woman!"

After advancing about twenty paces the woman, who really did seem to be observing us, entered a low door which closed behind her.

This one was saved.

At 11 o'clock I returned from the barrier in the Place Baudoyer and took my usual place in the a.s.sembly. A Representative whom I did not know, but who I have since learned was M. Belley, engineer, residing in the Rue des Tournelles, came and sat beside me and said:

"Monsieur Victor Hugo, the Place Royale has been burned. They set fire to your house. The insurgents entered by the little door in the Cul-de-sac Guemenee."

"And my family?" I inquired.

"They are safe."

"How do you know?"

"I have just come from there. Not being known I was able to get over the barricades and make my way here. Your family first took refuge in the Mairie. I was there, too. Seeing that the danger was over I advised Mme. Victor Hugo to seek some other asylum. She found shelter with her children in the home of a chimney-sweep named Martignon who lives near your house, under the arcades."

I knew that worthy Martignon family. This rea.s.sured me.

"And how about the riot?" I asked.

"It is a revolution," replied M. Belley. "The insurgents are in control of Paris at this moment."

I left M. Belley and hurriedly traversed the few rooms that separated the hall in which we held our sessions and the office occupied by the Executive Committee.

It was a small salon belonging to the presidency, and was reached through two rooms that were smaller still. In these ante-chambers was a buzzing crowd of distracted officers and National Guards. They made no attempt to prevent any one from entering.

I opened the door of the Executive Committee's office. Ledru-Rollin, very red, was half seated on the table. M. Gamier-Pages, very pale, and half reclining in an armchair, formed an ant.i.thesis to him. The contrast was complete: Garnier-Pages thin and bushy-haired, Ledru-Rollin stout and close-cropped. Two or three colonels, among them Representative Charras, were conversing in a corner. I only recall Arago vaguely. I do not remember whether M. Marie was there. The sun was shining brightly.

Lamartine, standing in a window recess on the left, was talking to a general in full uniform, whom I saw for the first and last time, and who was Negrier. Negrier was killed that same evening in front of a barricade.

I hurried to Lamartine, who advanced to meet me. He was wan and agitated, his beard was long, his clothes were dusty.

He held out his hand: "Ah! good morning, Hugo!"

Here is the dialogue that we engaged in, every word of which is still fresh in my memory:

"What is the situation, Lamartine?"

"We are done for!"

"What do you mean by that?"