Then he set forth with that clearness, complicated at times with paradoxes, which is one of the resources of his remarkable mind, the situation, at the same time desperate and strong, in which we were placed.
This situation, which moreover I realized as well as he himself, was this:--
The Right of the a.s.sembly was composed of about 400 members, and the Left of about 180. The four hundred of the majority belonged by thirds to three parties, the Legitimist party, the Orleanist party, the Bonapartist party, and in a body to the Clerical party. The 180 of the minority belonged to the Republic. The Right mistrusted the Left, and had taken a precaution against the minority.
A Vigilance Committee, composed of sixteen members of the Right, charged with impressing unity upon this trinity of parties, and charged with the task of carefully watching the Left, such was this precaution. The Left at first had confined itself to irony, and borrowing from me a word to which people then attached, though wrongly, the idea of decrepitude, had called the sixteen Commissioners the "Burgraves." The irony subsequently turning into suspicion, the Left had on its side ended by creating a committee of sixteen members to direct the Left, and observe the Right; these the Right had hastened to name the "Red Burgraves." A harmless rejoinder. The result was that the Right watched the Left, and that the Left watched the Right, but that no one watched Bonaparte. They were two flocks of sheep so distrustful of one another that they forgot the wolf.
During that time, in his den at the Elysee, Bonaparte was working. He was busily employing the time which the a.s.sembly, the majority and the minority, was losing in mistrusting itself. As people feel the loosening of the avalanche, so they felt the catastrophe tottering in the gloom.
They kept watch upon the enemy, but they did not turn their attention in the true direction. To know where to fix one"s mistrust is the secret of a great politician. The a.s.sembly of 1851 did not possess this shrewd certainty of eyesight, their perspective was bad, each saw the future after his own fashion, and a sort of political short-sightedness blinded the Left as well as the Right; they were afraid, but not where fear was advisable; they were in the presence of a mystery, they had an ambuscade before them, but they sought it where it did not exist, and they did not perceive where it really lay. Thus it was that these two flocks of sheep, the majority, and the minority faced each other affrightedly, and while the leaders on one side and the guides on the other, grave and attentive, asked themselves anxiously what could be the mewing of the grumbling, of the Left on the one side, of the bleatings of the Right on the other, they ran the risk of suddenly feeling the four claws of the _coup d"etat_ fastened in their shoulders.
My visitor said to me,-
"You are one of the Sixteen!"
"Yes," answered I, smiling; "a "Red Burgrave.""
"Like me, a "Red Prince.""
And his smile responded to mine.
He resumed,--
"You have full powers?"
"Yes. Like the others."
And I added,--
"Not more than the others. The Left has no leaders."
He continued,--
"Yon, the Commissary of Police, is a Republican?"
"Yes."
"He would obey an order signed by you?"
"Possibly."
"_I_ say, without doubt."
He looked at me fixedly.
"Well, then, have the President arrested this night."
It was now my turn to look at him.
"What do you mean?"
"What I say."
I ought to state that his language was frank, resolute, and self-convinced, and that during the whole of this conversation, and now, and always, it has given me the impression of honesty.
"Arrest the President!" I cried.
Then he set forth that this extraordinary enterprise was an easy matter; that the Army was undecided; that in the Army the African Generals counterpoised the President; that the National Guard favored the a.s.sembly, and in the a.s.sembly the Left; that Colonel Forestier answered for the 8th Legion; Colonel Gressier for the 6th, and Colonel Howyne for the 5th; that at the order of the Sixteen of the Left there would be an immediate taking up of arms; that my signature would suffice; that, nevertheless, if I preferred to call together the Committee, in Secret Session, we could wait till the next day; that on the order from the Sixteen, a battalion would march upon the Elysee; that the Elysee apprehended nothing, thought only of offensive, and not of defensive measures, and accordingly would be taken by surprise; that the soldiers would not resist the National Guard; that the thing would be done without striking a blow; that Vincennes would open and close while Paris slept; that the President would finish his night there, and that France, on awakening, would learn the twofold good tidings: that Bonaparte was out of the fight, and France out of danger.
He added,--
"You can count on two Generals: Neumayer at Lyons, and Lawoestyne at Paris."
He got up and leaned against the chimney-piece; I can still see him there, standing thoughtfully; and he continued:
"I do not feel myself strong enough to begin exile all over again, but I feel the wish to save my family and my country."
He probably thought he noticed a movement of surprise in me, for he accentuated and italicized these words.
"I will explain myself. Yes; I wish to save my family and my country. I bear the name of Napoleon; but as you know without fanaticism. I am a Bonaparte, but not a Bonapartist. I respect the name, but I judge it. It already has one stain. The Eighteenth Brumaire. Is it about to have another? The old stain disappeared beneath the glory; Austerlitz covered Brumaire. Napoleon was absolved by his genius. The people admired him so greatly that it forgave him. Napoleon is upon the column, there is an end of it, let them leave him there in peace. Let them not resuscitate him through his bad qualities. Let them not compel France to remember too much. This glory of Napoleon is vulnerable. It has a wound; closed, I admit. Do not let them reopen it. Whatever apologists may say and do, it is none the less true that by the Eighteenth of Brumaire Napoleon struck himself a first blow."
"In truth," said I, "it is ever against ourselves that we commit a crime."
"Well, then," he continued, "his glory has survived a first blow, a second will kill it. I do not wish it. I hate the first Eighteenth Brumaire; I fear the second. I wish to prevent it."
He paused again, and continued,--
"That is why I have come to you to-night. I wish to succor this great wounded glory. By the advice which I am giving you, if you can carry it out, if the Left carries it out, I save the first Napoleon; for if a second crime is superposed upon his glory, this glory would disappear.
Yes, this name would founder, and history would no longer own it. I will go farther and complete my idea. I also save the present Napoleon, for he who as yet has no glory will only have come. I save his memory from an eternal pillory. Therefore, arrest him."
He was truly and deeply moved. He resumed,--
"As to the Republic, the arrest of Louis Bonaparte is deliverance for her. I am right, therefore, in saying that by what I am proposing to you I am saving my family and my country."
"But," I said to him, "what you propose to me is a _coup d"etat_."
"Do you think so?"
"Without doubt. We are the minority, and we should commit an act which belongs to the majority. We are a part of the a.s.sembly. We should be acting as though we were the entire a.s.sembly. We who condemn all usurpation should ourselves become usurpers. We should put our hands upon a functionary whom the a.s.sembly alone has the right of arresting. We, the defenders of the Const.i.tution, we should break the Const.i.tution. We, the men of the Law, we should violate the Law. It is a _coup d"etat_."
"Yes, but a _coup d"etat_ for a good purpose."
"Evil committed for a good purpose remains evil."
"Even when it succeeds?"
"Above all when it succeeds."
"Why?"
"Because it then becomes an example."