Hortense Part 18

Vive la liberte!_?'

"A thousand affirmative cries responded to me. We then commenced our march, music in front. Joy and hope beamed from every countenance. The plan was, to hasten to the house of the general, and to present to him, not a dagger at his throat, but the eagle before his eyes. It was necessary, in order to reach his house, to traverse the whole city.

While on the way, I had to send an officer with a guard to publish my proclamations; another to the prefect, to arrest him. In short, six received special missions, so that when I arrived at the general's, I had voluntarily parted with a considerable portion of my forces.

"But had I then necessity to surround myself with so many soldiers?

could I not rely upon the partic.i.p.ation of the people? and, in fine, whatever may be said, along the whole route which I traversed I received unequivocal signs of the sympathy of the population. I had actually to struggle against the vehemence of the marks of interest which were lavished upon me; and the variety of cries which greeted me showed that there was no party which did not sympathize with my feelings.

"Having arrived at the court of the hotel of the general, I ascended the stairs, followed by Messieurs Vaudrey, Parguin, and two officers. The general was not yet dressed. I said to him,

"'General, I come to you as a friend. I should be sorry to raise our old tri-color banner without the aid of a brave soldier like you. The garrison is in my favor. Decide and follow me.'

"The eagle was presented to him. He rejected it, saying, 'Prince, they have deceived you. The army knows its duties, as I will prove to you immediately.'

"I then departed, and gave orders to leave a file of men to guard him.

The general afterwards presented himself to his soldiers, to induce them to return to obedience. The artillerymen, under the orders of M.

Parguin, disregarded his authority, and replied to him only by reiterated cries of _Vive l'Empereur_. Subsequently the general succeeded in escaping from his hotel by an unguarded door.

"When I left the hotel of the general, I was greeted with the same acclamations of _Vive l'Empereur_. But this first check had already seriously affected me. I was not prepared for it, convinced as I had been that the sight alone of the eagle would recall to the general the old souvenirs of glory, and would lead him to join us.

"We resumed our march. Leaving the main street, we entered the barracks of Finkematt, by the lane which leads there through the Faubourg of Pierre. This barrack is a large building, erected in a place with no outlet but the entrance. The ground in front is too narrow for a regiment to be drawn up in line of battle. In seeing myself thus hedged in between the ramparts and the barracks, I perceived that the plan agreed upon had not been followed out. Upon our arrival, the soldiers thronged around us. I harangued them. Most of them went to get their arms, and returned to rally around me, testifying their sympathy for me by their acclamations.

"However, seeing them manifest a sudden hesitation, caused by the reports circulated by some officers among them who endeavored to inspire them with doubts of my ident.i.ty, and as we were also losing precious time in an unfavorable position, instead of hastening to the other regiments who expected us, I requested the colonel to depart. He urged me to remain a little longer. I complied with his advice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ARREST.]

"Some infantry officers arrived, ordered the gates to be closed, and strongly reprimanded their soldiers. The soldiers hesitated. I ordered the arrest of the officers. Their soldiers rescued them. Then all was confusion. The s.p.a.ce was so contracted that each one was lost in the crowd. The people, who had climbed upon the wall, threw stones at the infantry. The cannoneers wished to use their arms, but we prevented it.

We saw clearly that it would cause the death of very many. I saw the colonel by turns arrested by the infantry, and rescued by his soldiers.

I was myself upon the point of being slain by a mult.i.tude of men who, recognizing me, crossed their bayonets upon me. I parried their thrusts with my sabre, trying at the same time to calm them, when the cannoneers rescued me from their guns, and placed me in the middle of themselves.

"I then pressed forward, with some subaltern officers, towards the mounted artillery men, to seize a horse. All the infantry followed me. I found myself hemmed in between the horses and the wall, without power to move. Then the soldiers, arriving from all parts, seized me and conducted me to the guard-house. On entering I found M. Parguin. I extended my hand to him. He said to me, speaking in tones calm and resigned, 'Prince, we shall be shot, but it will be in a good cause.'

"'Yes,' I replied, 'we have fallen in a grand and a glorious enterprise.'

"Soon after General Voirol arrived. He said to me, upon entering,

"'Prince, you have found but one traitor in the French army.'

"'Say rather, general,' I replied, 'that I have found one Labedoyere.'

Some carriages were soon brought, and we were transported to the new prison.

"Behold me, then, between four walls, with barred windows, in the abode of criminals. Ah! those who know what it is to pa.s.s in an instant from the excess of happiness, caused by the n.o.blest illusions, to the excess of misery, which leaves no hope, and to pa.s.s over this immense interval without having one moment to prepare for it, alone can comprehend what was pa.s.sing in my heart.

"At the lodge we met again. M. de Querelles, pressing my hand, said to me in a loud voice, 'Prince, notwithstanding our defeat, I am still proud of what we have done.' They subjected me to an interrogation. I was calm and resigned. My part was taken. The following questions were proposed to me:

"'What has induced you to act as you have done?'

"'My political opinions,' I replied, 'and my desire to return to my country, from which a foreign invasion has exiled me. In 1830, I demanded to be treated as a simple citizen. They treated me as a pretender. Well, I have acted as a pretender.'

"'Did you wish,' it was asked, 'to establish a military government?'

"'I wished,' was my reply, 'to establish a government based on popular election.'

"'What would you have done if successful?'

"'I would have a.s.sembled a national Congress.'

"I declared then, that I alone having organized every thing, that I alone having induced others to join me, the whole responsibility should fall upon my head alone. Reconducted to prison, I threw myself upon a bed which had been prepared for me, and, notwithstanding my torments, sleep, which soothes suffering, in giving repose to the anguish of the soul, came to calm my senses. Repose does not fly from the couch of the unfortunate. It only avoids those who are consumed by remorse. But how frightful was my awaking. I thought that I had had a dreadful nightmare.

The fate of the persons who were compromised caused me the greatest grief and anxiety. I wrote to General Voirol, to say to him that his honor obliged him to interest himself in behalf of Colonel Vaudrey; for it was, perhaps, the attachment of the colonel for him, and the regard with which he had treated him, which were the causes of the failure of my enterprise. I closed in beseeching him that all the rigor of the law might fall upon me, saying that I was the most guilty, and the only one to be feared.

"The general came to see me, and was very affectionate. He said, upon entering, 'Prince, when I was your prisoner, I could find no words sufficiently severe to say to you. Now that you are mine, I have only words of consolation to offer.' Colonel Vaudrey and I were conducted to the citadel, where I, at least, was much more comfortable than in prison. But the civil power claimed us, and at the end of twenty-four hours we were conveyed back to our former abode.

"The jailer and the director of the prison at Strasburg did their duty; but they endeavored to alleviate as much as possible my situation, while a certain M. Lebel, who had been sent from Paris, wis.h.i.+ng to show his authority, prevented me from opening my windows to breathe the air, took from me my watch, which he only restored to me at the moment of my departure, and, in fine, even ordered blinds to intercept the light.

"On the evening of the 9th I was told that I was to be transferred to another prison. I went out and met the general and the prefect, who took me away in their carriage without informing me where I was to be conducted. I insisted that I should be left with my companions in misfortune. But the Government had decided otherwise. Upon arriving at the hotel of the prefecture, I found two post-chaises. I was ordered into one with M. Cuynat, commander of the gendarmerie of the Seine, and Lieutenant Thiboutot. In the other there were four sub-officers.

"When I perceived that I was to leave Strasburg, and that it was my lot to be separated from the other accused, I experienced anguish difficult to be described. Behold me, then, forced to abandon the men who had devoted themselves to me. Behold me deprived of the means of making known in my defense my views and my intentions. Behold me receiving a so-called favor from him upon whom I had wished to inflict the greatest evil. I vented my sorrow in complaints and regrets. I could only protest.

"The two officers who conducted me were two officers of the Empire, intimate friends of M. Parguin. Thus they treated me with the kindest attentions. I could have thought myself travelling with friends. Upon the 11th, at two o'clock in the morning, I arrived at Paris, at the hotel of the Prefecture of Police. M. Delessat was very polite to me. He informed me that you had come to France to claim in my favor the clemency of the king, and that I was to start again in two hours for Lorient, and that thence I was to sail for the United States in a French frigate.

"I said to the prefect that I was in despair in not being permitted to share the fate of my companions in misfortune; that being thus withdrawn from prison before undergoing a general examination (the first had been only a summary one), I was deprived of the means of testifying to many facts in favor of the accused. But my protestations were unavailing. I decided to write to the king. And I said to him that, having been cast into prison after having taken up arms against his Government, I dreaded but one thing, and that was his generosity, since it would deprive me of my sweetest consolation, the possibility of sharing the fate of my companions in misfortune. I added that life itself was of little value to me; but that my grat.i.tude to him would be great if he would spare the lives of a few old soldiers, the remains of our ancient army, who had been enticed by me, and seduced by glorious souvenirs.

"At the same time I wrote to M. Odillon Barrot[N] the letter which I send with this, begging him to take charge of the defense of Colonel Vaudrey. At four o'clock I resumed my journey, with the same escort, and on the 14th we arrived at the citadel of Port Louis, near Lorient. I remained there until the twenty-first day of November, when the frigate was ready for sea.

[Footnote N: A distinguished advocate in Paris.]

"After having entreated M. Odillon Barrot to a.s.sume the defense of the accused, and in particular of Colonel Vaudrey, I added:

"'Monsieur, notwithstanding my desire to remain with my companions in misfortune, and to partake of their lot, notwithstanding my entreaties upon that subject, the king, in his clemency, has ordered that I should be conducted to Lorient, to pa.s.s thence to America. Sensible as I ought to be of the generosity of the king, I am profoundly afflicted in leaving my co-accused, since I cherish the conviction that could I be present at the bar, my depositions in their favor would influence the jury, and enlighten them as to their decision. Deprived of the consolation of being useful to the men whom I have enticed to their loss, I am obliged to intrust to an advocate that which I am unable to say myself to the jury.

"'On the part of my co-accused there was no plot. There was only the enticement of the moment. I alone arranged all. I alone made the necessary preparations. I had already seen Colonel Vaudrey before the 30th of October, but he had not conspired with me. On the 29th, at eight o'clock in the evening, no person knew but myself that the movement was to take place the next day. I did not see Colonel Vaudrey until after this. M. Parguin had come to Strasburg on his own private business. It was not until the evening of the 29th, that I appealed to him. The other persons knew of my presence in France, but were ignorant of the object of my visit. It was not until the evening of the 29th that I a.s.sembled the persons now accused; and I did not make them acquainted with my intentions until that moment.

"'Colonel Vaudrey was not present. The officers of the engineers had come to join us, ignorant at first of what was to transpire. Certainly, in the eyes of the established Government we are all culpable of having taken up arms against it. But I am the most culpable. It is I who, for a long time meditating a revolution, came suddenly to lure men from an honorable social position, to expose them to the hazards of a popular movement. Before the laws, my companions are guilty of allowing themselves to be enticed. But never were circ.u.mstances more extenuating in the eyes of the country than those in their favor. When I saw Colonel Vaudrey and the other persons on the evening of the 29th, I addressed them in the following language:

"'"GENTLEMEN,--You are aware of all the complaints of the nation against the Government. But you also know that there is no party now existing which is sufficiently strong to overthrow it; no one sufficiently strong to unite the French of all parties, even if it should succeed in taking possession of supreme power. This feebleness of the Government, as well as this feebleness of parties, proceeds from the fact that each one represents only the interests of a single cla.s.s in society. Some rely upon the clergy and n.o.bility; others upon the middle-cla.s.s aristocracy, and others still upon the lower cla.s.ses alone.

"'"In this state of things, there is but a single flag which can rally all parties, because it is the banner of France, and not that of a faction; it is the eagle of the Empire. Under this banner, which recalls so many glorious memories, there is no cla.s.s excluded. It represents the interests and the rights of all. The Emperor Napoleon held his power from the French people. Four times his authority received the popular sanction. In 1814, hereditary right, in the family of the Emperor, was recognized by four millions of votes. Since then the people have not been consulted.

"'"As the eldest of the nephews of Napoleon, I can then consider myself as the representative of popular election; I will not say of the Empire because in the lapse of twenty years the ideas and wants of France may have changed. But a principle can not be annulled by facts. It can only be annulled by another principle. Now the principle of popular election in 1804 can not be annulled by the twelve hundred thousand foreigners who entered France in 1815, nor by the chamber of two hundred and twenty-one deputies in 1830.

"'"The Napoleon system consists in promoting the march of civilization without disorder and without excess; in giving an impulse to ideas by developing material interests; in strengthening power by rendering it respectable; in disciplining the ma.s.ses according to their intellectual faculties; in fine, in uniting around the altar of the country the French of all parties by giving them honor and glory as the motives of action."

"'"No," exclaimed my brave companions in reply, "you shall not die alone. We will die with you, or we will conquer together for the cause of the French people."

"'You see thus, sir, that it is I who have enticed them, in speaking to them of every thing which could move the hearts of Frenchmen. They spoke to me of their oaths. But I reminded them that, in 1815, they had taken the oath to Napoleon II. and his dynasty. "Invasion alone," I said to them, "released you from that oath. Well, force can re-establish that which force alone has destroyed."'

"I went even so far as to say to them that the death of the king had been spoken of. I inserted this, my mother, as you will understand, in order to be useful to them. You see how culpable I was in the eyes of the Government. Well, the Government has been generous to me. It has comprehended that my position of exile, that my love for my country, that my relations.h.i.+p to the great man were extenuating causes. Will the jury be less considerate than the Government? Will it not find extenuating causes far stronger in favor of my accomplices, in the souvenirs of the Empire; in the intimate relations of many among them to me; in the enticement of the moment; in the example of Labedoyere; in fine, in that sentiment of generosity which rendered it inevitable that, being soldiers of the Empire, they could not see the eagle without emotion; they preferred to sacrifice their own lives rather than abandon the nephew of the Emperor Napoleon, than to deliver him to his executioners, for we were far from thinking of any mercy in case of failure?

"In view of Madeira, December 12, 1836.