The Recollections Of Alexis De Tocqueville Part 2

[4: See the speech of M. Duvergier de Hauranne, 7 February 1848.--Cte. de T.]

[5: The minister replied to M. Leon de Mandeville. He quoted the laws of 1790 and 1791, which empowered the authorities to oppose any public meetings which seemed to threaten danger to the public peace, and he declared that the Government would be failing in its duty if it were to give way before manifestations of any description. At the end of his speech he again brought in the phrase "blind or hostile pa.s.sions," and endeavoured to justify it.--Cte. de T.]

[6: Replying to M. Odilon Barrot, M. Hebert maintained that, since the right of public meeting was not laid down in the Charter, it did not exist.--Cte. de T.]

The result of this heated discussion was a sort of challenge to mortal combat exchanged between the Government and the Opposition, the scene of the duel to be the law-courts. It was tacitly agreed that the challenged party should meet at one final banquet; that the authorities, without interfering to prevent the meeting, should prosecute its organizers, and that the courts should p.r.o.nounce judgment.

The debates on the Address were closed, if I remember rightly, on the 12th of February, and it is really from this moment that the revolutionary movement burst out. The Const.i.tutional Opposition, which had for many months been constantly pushed on by the Radical party, was from this time forward led and directed not so much by the members of that party who occupied seats in the Chamber of Deputies (the greater number of these had become lukewarm and, as it were, enervated in the Parliamentary atmosphere), as by the younger, bolder, and more irresponsible men who wrote for the democratic press. This change was especially apparent in two princ.i.p.al facts which had an overwhelming influence upon events--the programme of the banquet and the arraignment of Ministers.

On the 20th of February, there appeared in almost all the Opposition newspapers, by way of programme of the approaching banquet, what was really a proclamation calling upon the entire population to join in an immense political demonstration, convoking the schools and inviting the National Guard itself to attend the ceremony in a body. It read like a decree emanating from the Provisional Government which was to be set up three days later. The Cabinet, which had already been blamed by many of its followers for tacitly authorising the banquet, considered that it was justified in retracing its steps. It officially announced that it forbade the banquet, and that it would prevent it by force.

It was this declaration of the Government which provided the field for the battle. I am in a position to state, although it sounds hardly credible, that the programme which thus suddenly turned the banquet into an insurrection was resolved upon, drawn up and published without the partic.i.p.ation or the knowledge of the members of Parliament who considered themselves to be still leading the movement which they had called into existence. The programme was the hurried work of a nocturnal gathering of journalists and Radicals, and the leaders of the Dynastic Opposition heard of it at the same time as the public, by reading it in the papers in the morning.

And see how uncertain is the course of human affairs! M. Odilon Barrot, who disapproved of the programme as much as anyone, dared not disclaim it for fear of offending the men who, till then, had seemed to be moving with him; and then, when the Government, alarmed by the publication of this doc.u.ment, prohibited the banquet, M. Barrot, finding himself brought face to face with civil war, drew back. He himself gave up this dangerous demonstration; but at the same time that he was making this concession to the men of moderation, he granted to the extremists the impeachment of Ministers. He accused the latter of violating the Const.i.tution by prohibiting the banquet, and thus furnished an excuse to those who were about to take up arms in the name of the violated Const.i.tution.

Thus the princ.i.p.al leaders of the Radical Party, who thought that a revolution would be premature, and who did not yet desire it, had considered themselves obliged, in order to differentiate themselves from their allies in the Dynastic Opposition, to make very revolutionary speeches and fan the flame of insurrectionary pa.s.sion. On the other hand, the Dynastic Opposition, which had had enough of the banquets, had been forced to persevere in this bad course so as not to present an appearance of retreating before the defiance of the Government. And finally, the ma.s.s of the Conservatives, who believed in the necessity of great concessions and were ready to make them, were driven by the violence of their adversaries and the pa.s.sions of some of their chiefs to deny even the right of meeting in private banquets and to refuse the country any hopes of reform.

One must have lived long amid political parties, and in the very whirlwind in which they move, to understand to what extent men mutually push each other away from their respective plans, and how the destinies of this world proceed as the result, but often as the contrary result, of the intentions that produce them, similarly to the kite which flies by the antagonistic action of the wind and the cord.

CHAPTER III

TROUBLES OF THE 22ND OF FEBRUARY--THE SITTING OF THE 23RD--THE NEW MINISTRY--OPINIONS OF M. DUFAURE AND M. DE BEAUMONT.

I did not perceive anything on the 22nd of February calculated to give rise to serious apprehensions. There was a crowd in the streets, but it seemed to be composed rather of sight-seers and fault-finders than of the seditiously inclined: the soldier and the townsman chaffed each other when they met, and I heard more jokes than cries uttered by the crowd. I know that it is not safe to trust one's self to these appearances. It is the street-boys of Paris who generally commence the insurrections, and as a rule they do so light-heartedly, like schoolboys breaking up for the holidays.

When I returned to the Chamber, I found a seeming listlessness reigning there, beneath which one could perceive the inner seething of a thousand restrained pa.s.sions. It was the only place in Paris in which, since the early morning, I had not heard discussed aloud what was then absorbing all France. They were languidly discussing a bill for the creation of a bank at Bordeaux; but in reality no one, except the man talking in the tribune and the man who was to reply to him, showed any interest in the matter. M. Duchatel told me that all was going well. He said this with an air of combined confidence and nervousness which struck me as suspicious. I noticed that he twisted his neck and shoulders (a common trick with him) much more frequently and violently than usual; and I remember that this little observation gave me more food for reflection than all the rest.

I learnt that, as a matter of fact, there had been serious troubles in many parts of the town which I had not visited; a certain number of men had been killed or wounded. People were no longer accustomed to this sort of incident, as they had been some years before and as they became still more a few months later; and the excitement was great. I happened to be invited to dine that evening at the house of one of my fellow-members of Parliament and of the Opposition, M. Paulmier, the deputy for Calvados. I had some difficulty in getting there through the troops which guarded the surrounding streets. I found my host's house in great disorder. Madame Paulmier, who was expecting her _accouchement_ and who had been frightened by a skirmish that had taken place beneath her windows, had gone to bed. The dinner was magnificent, but the table was deserted; out of twenty guests invited, only five presented themselves; the others were kept back either by material impediments or by the preoccupations of the day. We sat down with a very thoughtful air amid all this abundance. Among the guests was M. Sallandrouze, the inheritor of the great business house of that name, which had made a large fortune by its manufacture of textile fabrics. He was one of those young Conservatives, richer in money than in honours, who, from time to time, made a show of opposition, or rather, of captious criticism, mainly, I think, to give themselves a certain importance. In the course of the last debate on the Address, M. Sallandrouze had moved an amendment[7] which would have compromised the Cabinet, had it been adopted. At the time when this incident was most occupying attention, M.

Sallandrouze one evening went to the reception at the Tuileries, hoping that this time, at least, he would not remain unrecognized in the crowd.

And, in fact, no sooner had King Louis-Philippe seen him than he came up to him with a very a.s.siduous mien, and solemnly took him aside and began to talk to him eagerly, and with a great display of interest, about the branch of manufacture to which the young deputy owed his fortune. The latter, at first, felt no astonishment, thinking that the King, who was known to be clever at managing men's minds, had selected this little private road in order to lead round to affairs of State. But he was mistaken; for, after a quarter of an hour, the King changed not the conversation but the person addressed, and left our friend standing very confused amid his carpets and woollen stuffs. M. Sallandrouze had not yet got over this trick played upon him, but he was beginning to feel very much afraid that he would be revenged too well. He told us that M.

emile Girardin had said to him the day before, "In two days, the Monarchy of July will have ceased to exist." This seemed to all of us a piece of journalistic hyperbole, and perhaps it was; but the events that followed turned it into an oracle.

[7: M. Sallandrouze de Lamornaix' amendment proposed to modify the expression "blind or hostile pa.s.sions," by adding the words: "Amid these various demonstrations, your Government will know how to recognise the real and lawful desires of the country; it will, we trust, take the initiative by introducing certain wise and moderate reforms called for by public opinion, among which we must place first parliamentary reform. In a Const.i.tutional Monarchy, the union of the great powers of the State removes all danger from a progressive policy, and allows every moral and material interest of the country to be satisfied."--Cte. de T.]

On the next day, the 23rd of February, I learnt, on waking, that the excitement in Paris, so far from becoming calmer, was increasing. I went early to the Chamber; silence reigned around the a.s.sembly; battalions of infantry occupied and closed the approaches, while troops of Cuira.s.siers were drawn up along the walls of the Palace. Inside, men's feelings were excited without their quite knowing the reason.

The sitting had been opened at the ordinary time; but the a.s.sembly had not had the courage to go through the same parliamentary comedy as on the day before, and had suspended its labours; it sat receiving reports from the different quarters of the town, awaiting events and counting the hours, in a state of feverish idleness. At a certain moment, a loud sound of trumpets was heard outside. It appeared that the Cuira.s.siers guarding the Palace were amusing themselves, in order to pa.s.s the time, by sounding flourishes on their instruments. The gay, triumphant tones of the trumpets contrasted in so melancholy a fashion with the thoughts by which all our minds were secretly disturbed, that a message was hurriedly sent out to stop this offensive and indiscreet performance, which caused such painful reflections to all of us.

At last, it was determined to speak aloud of what all had been discussing in whispers for several hours. A Paris deputy, M. Vavin, commenced to question the Cabinet upon the state of the city. At three o'clock M. Guizot appeared at the door of the House. He entered with his firmest step and his loftiest mien, silently crossed the gangway, ascended the tribune, throwing his head almost back from his shoulders for fear of seeming to lower it, and stated in two words that the King had called upon M. Mole to form a new ministry. Never did I see such a piece of clap-trap.

The Opposition kept their seats, most of them uttering cries of victory and satisfied revenge; the leaders alone sat silent, busy in communing with themselves upon the use they would make of their triumph, and careful not to insult a majority of which they might soon be called upon to make use. As to the majority, they seemed thunderstruck by this so unexpected blow, moved to and fro like a ma.s.s that sways from side to side, uncertain as to which side it shall fall on, and then descended noisily into the semi-circle. A few surrounded the ministers to ask them for explanations or to pay them their last respects, but the greater number clamoured against them with noisy and insulting shouts.

"To throw up office, to abandon your political friends under such circ.u.mstances," they said, "is a piece of gross cowardice;" while others exclaimed that the members ought to repair to the Tuileries in a body, and force the King to re-consider his fatal resolve.

This despair will arouse no astonishment when it is remembered that the greater number of these men felt themselves attacked, not only in their political opinions, but in the most sensitive part of their private interest. The fall of the Government compromised the entire fortune of one, the daughter's dowry of another, the son's career of a third. It was by this that they were almost all held. Most of them had not only bettered themselves by means of their votes, but one may say that they had lived on them. They still lived on them, and hoped to continue to live on them; for, the Ministry having lasted eight years, they had accustomed themselves to think that it would last for ever; they had grown attached to it with the honest, peaceful feeling of affection which one entertains for one's fields. From my seat, I watched this swaying crowd; I saw surprise, anger, fear and avarice mingle their various expressions upon those bewildered countenances; and I drew an involuntary comparison between all these legislators and a pack of hounds which, with their jaws half filled, see the quarry withdrawn from them.

I grant, however, that, so far as many of the Opposition were concerned, it only wanted that they should be put to a similar test in order to make the same display. If many of the Conservatives only defended the Ministry with a view to keeping their places and emoluments, I am bound to say that many of the Opposition seemed to me only to attack it in order to reap the plunder in their turn. The truth--the deplorable truth--is that a taste for holding office and a desire to live on the public money are not with us a disease restricted to either party, but the great, chronic ailment of the whole nation; the result of the democratic const.i.tution of our society and of the excessive centralization of our Government; the secret malady which has undermined all former powers, and which will undermine all powers to come.

At last the uproar ceased, as the nature of what had happened became better known: we learnt that it had been brought about by the insurrectionary inclinations of a battalion of the Fifth Legion and the applications made direct to the King by several officers of that section of the Guard.

So soon as he was informed of what was going on, King Louis-Philippe, who was less p.r.o.ne to change his opinions, but more ready to change his line of conduct, than any man I ever saw, had immediately made up his mind; and after eight years of complacency, the Ministry was dismissed by him in two minutes, and without ceremony.

The Chamber rose without delay, each member thinking only of the change of government, and forgetting about the revolution.

I went out with M. Dufaure, and soon perceived that he was not only preoccupied but constrained. I at once saw that he felt himself in the critical and complicated position of a leader of the Opposition, who was about to become a minister, and who, after experiencing the use his friends could be to him, was beginning to think of the difficulties which their pretentions might well cause him.

M. Dufaure had a somewhat cunning mind, which readily admitted such thoughts as these, and he also possessed a sort of natural rusticity which, combined with great integrity, but rarely permitted him to conceal them. He was, moreover, the sincerest and by far the most respectable of all those who at that moment had a chance of becoming ministers. He believed that power was at last within his grasp, and his ambition betrayed a pa.s.sion that was the more eager inasmuch as it was discreet and suppressed. M. Mole in his place would have felt much greater egoism and still more ingrat.i.tude, but he would have been only all the more open-hearted and amiable.

I soon left him, and went to M. de Beaumont's. There I found every heart rejoicing. I was far from sharing this joy, and finding myself among people with whom I could talk freely, I gave my reasons.

"The National Guard of Paris," I said, "has upset a Cabinet; therefore it is during its good pleasure only that the new Ministers will remain at the head of affairs. You are glad because the Government is upset; but do you not see that it is authority itself which is overthrown?"

This sombre view of the political situation was not much to Beaumont's taste; he was carried away by rancour and ambition.

"You always take a gloomy view of everything," he said. "Let us first rejoice at the victory: we can lament over the results later."

Madame de Beaumont, who was present at the interview, seemed herself to share her husband's elation, and nothing ever so thoroughly proved to me the irresistible power of party feeling. For, by nature, neither hatred nor self-interest had a place in the heart of this distinguished and attractive woman, one of the most truly and consistently virtuous that I have met in my life, and one who best knew how to make virtue both touching and lovable. To the n.o.bility of heart of the La Fayettes she added a mind that was witty, refined, kindly and just.

I, nevertheless, sustained my theory against both him and her, arguing that upon the whole the incident was a regrettable one, or rather that we should see more in it than a mere incident, a great event which was destined to change the whole aspect of affairs. It was very easy for me to philosophize thus, since I did not share the illusions of my friend Dufaure. The impulse given to the political machine seemed to me to be too violent to permit of the reins of government falling into the hands of the moderate party to which I belonged, and I foresaw that they would soon fall to those who were almost as obnoxious to me as the men from whose hands they had slipped.

I was dining with another of my friends, M. Lanjuinais, of whom I shall have to speak often in future. The company was fairly numerous, and embraced many shades of political opinion. Many of the guests rejoiced at the result of the day's work, while others expressed alarm; but all thought that the insurrectionary movement would stop of its own accord, to break out again later on another occasion and in another form. All the rumours that reached us from the town seemed to confirm this belief; cries of war were replaced by cries of joy. Portalis, who became Attorney-General of Paris a few days later, was of our number: not the son, but the nephew of the Chief President of the Court of Appeal. This Portalis had neither his uncle's rare intelligence, nor his exemplary character, nor his solemn dulness. His coa.r.s.e, violent, perverse mind had quite naturally entered into all the false ideas and extreme opinions of our times. Although he was in relation with most of those who are regarded as the authors and leaders of the Revolution of 1848, I can conscientiously declare that he did not that night expect the revolution any more than we did. I am convinced that, even at that supreme moment, the same might have been said of the greater number of his friends. It would be a waste of time to try to discover what secret conspiracies brought about events of this kind. Revolutions accomplished by means of popular risings are generally longed for beforehand rather than premeditated. Those who boast of having contrived them have done no more than turn them to account. They spring spontaneously into being from a general malady of men's minds, brought suddenly to the critical stage by some fortuitous and unforeseen circ.u.mstance. As to the so-called originators or leaders of these revolutions, they originate and lead nothing; their only merit is identical with that of the adventurers who have discovered most of the unknown countries. They simply have the courage to go straight before them as long as the wind impels them.

I took my leave early, and went straight home to bed. Although I lived close to the Foreign Office, I did not hear the firing which so greatly influenced our destinies, and I fell asleep without realizing that I had seen the last day of the Monarchy of July.

CHAPTER IV

THE 24TH OF FEBRUARY--THE MINISTERS' PLAN OF RESISTANCE--THE NATIONAL GUARD--GENERAL BEDEAU.

The next morning was the 24th of February. On leaving my bed-room, I met the cook, who had been out; the good woman was quite beside herself, and poured out a sorrowing rigmarole, of which I failed to understand a word, except that the Government was ma.s.sacring the poor people. I went downstairs at once, and had no sooner set foot in the street than I breathed for the first time the atmosphere of revolution. The roadway was empty; the shops were not open; there were no carriages nor pedestrians to be seen; none of the ordinary hawkers' cries were heard; neighbours stood talking in little groups at their doors, with subdued voices, with a frightened air; every face seemed distorted with fear or anger. I met a National Guard hurrying along, gun in hand, with a tragic gait; I accosted him, but I could learn nothing from him, save that the Government was ma.s.sacring the people (to which he added that the National Guard would know how to put that right). It was the same old refrain: it is easily understood that this explanation explained nothing. I was too well acquainted with the vices of the Government of July not to know that cruelty was not one of them. I considered it one of the most corrupt, but also one of the least bloodthirsty, that had ever existed, and I only repeat this observation in order to show the sort of report that a.s.sists the progress of revolutions.

I hastened to M. de Beaumont, who lived in the next street. There I learnt that the King had sent for him during the night. The same reply was given to my enquiry at M. de Remusat's, where I went next. M. de Corcelles, whom I met in the street, gave me his account of what was happening, but in a very confused manner; for, in a city in state of revolution, as on a battle-field, each one readily regards the incidents of which himself is a witness as the events of the day. He told me of the firing on the Boulevard des Capucines, and of the rapid development of the insurrection of which this act of unnecessary violence was the cause or the pretext; of M. Mole's refusal to take office under these circ.u.mstances; and lastly, of the summons to the Palace of Messrs.

Thiers, Barrot and their friends, who were definitely charged with the formation of a cabinet, facts too well known to permit of my lingering over them. I asked M. de Corcelles how the ministers proposed to set about appeasing people's minds.

"M. de Remusat," said he, "is my authority for saying that the plan adopted is to withdraw all the troops and to flood Paris with National Guards." These were his own words.

I have always observed that in politics people were often ruined through possessing too good a memory. The men who were now charged to put an end to the Revolution of 1848 were exactly the same who had made the Revolution of 1830. They remembered that at that time the resistance of the army had failed to stop them, and that on the other hand the presence of the National Guard, so imprudently dissolved by Charles X., might have embarra.s.sed them greatly and prevented them from succeeding.

They took the opposite steps to those adopted by the Government of the Elder Branch, and arrived at the same result. So true is it that, if humanity be always the same, the course of history is always different, that the past is not able to teach us much concerning the present, and that those old pictures, when forced into new frames, never have a good effect.

After chatting for a little while on the dangerous position of affairs, M. de Corcelles and I went to fetch M. Lanjuinais, and all three of us went together to M. Dufaure, who lived in the Rue Le Peletier. The boulevard, which we followed to get there, presented a strange spectacle. There was hardly a soul to be seen, although it was nearly nine o'clock in the morning, and one heard not the slightest sound of a human voice; but all the little sentry-boxes which stand along this endless avenue seemed to move about and totter upon their base, and from time to time one of them would fall with a crash, while the great trees along the curb came tumbling down into the roadway as though of their own accord. These acts of destruction were the work of isolated individuals, who went about their business silently, regularly, and hurriedly, preparing in this way the materials for the barricades which others were to erect. Nothing ever seemed to me more to resemble the carrying on of an industry, and, as a matter of fact, for the greater number of these men it was nothing less. The instinct of disorder had given them the taste for it, and their experience of so many former insurrections the practice. I do not know that during the whole course of the day I was so keenly struck as in pa.s.sing through this solitude in which one saw, so to speak, the worst pa.s.sions of mankind at play, without the good ones appearing. I would rather have met in the same place a furious crowd; and I remember that, calling Lanjuinais'

attention to those tottering edifices and falling trees, I gave vent to the phrase which had long been on my lips, and said:

"Believe me, this time it is no longer a riot: it is a revolution."