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The History of a Crime, a novel by Victor Hugo |
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The Second Day - The Struggle - Chapter 3. The St. Antoine Barricade |
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_ CHAPTER III. THE ST. ANTOINE BARRICADE This is what had happened. During that same night, and as early as four o'clock in the morning, De Flotte was in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He was anxious, in case any movement took place before daylight, that a Representative of the People should be present, and he was one of those who, when the glorious insurrection of Right should burst forth, wished to unearth the paving-stones for the first barricade. But nothing was stirring. De Flotte, alone in the midst of this deserted and sleeping Faubourg, wandered from street to street throughout the night. Day breaks late in December. Before the first streaks of dawn De Flotte was at the rendezvous opposite the Lenoir Market. This spot was only weakly guarded. The only troops in the neighborhood were the post itself of the Lenoir Market, and another post at a short distance which occupied the guard-house at the corner of the Faubourg and the Rue de Montreuil, close to the old Tree of Liberty planted in 1793 by Santerre. Neither of these posts were commanded by officers. De Flotte reconnoitred the position. He walked some time up and down the pavement, and then seeing no one coming as yet, and fearing to excite attention, he went away, and returned to the side-streets of the Faubourg. For his part Aubry (du Nord) got up at five o'clock. Having gone home in the middle of the night, on his return from the Rue Popincourt, he had only taken three hours' rest. His porter told him that some suspicious persons had inquired for him during the evening of the 2d, and that they had been to the house opposite, No. 12 of the same street, Rue Racine, to arrest Huguenin. This determined Aubry to leave his house before daylight. He walked to the Faubourg St. Antoine. As he reached the place of rendezvous he met Cournet and the others from the Rue Popincourt. They were almost immediately joined by Malardier. It was dawn. The Faubourg was solitary. They walked along wrapt in thought and speaking in a low voice. Suddenly an impetuous and singular procession passed them. They looked round. It was a detachment of Lancers which surrounded something which in the dim light they recognized to be a police-van. The vehicle rolled noiselessly along the macadamized road. They were debating what this could mean, when a second and similar group appeared, then a third, and then a fourth. Ten police vans passed in this manner, following each other very closely, and almost touching. "Those are our colleagues!" exclaimed Aubry (du Nord). In truth the last batch of the Representatives, prisoners of the Quai d'Orsay, the batch destined for Vincennes, was passing through the Faubourg. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. Some shops were being opened and were lighted inside, and a few passers-by came out of the houses. Three carriages defiled one after the other, closed, guarded, dreary, dumb; no voice came out, no cry, no whisper. They were carrying off in the midst of swords, of sabres, and of lances, with the rapidity and fury of the whirlwind, something which kept silence; and that something which they were carrying off, and which maintained this sinister silence, was the broken Tribune, the Sovereignty of the Assemblies, the supreme initiative whence all civilization is derived; it was the word which contains the future of the world, it was the speech of France! A last carriage arrived, which by some chance had been delayed. It was about two or three hundred yards behind the principal convoy, and was only escorted by three Lancers. It was not a police-van, it was an omnibus, the only one in the convoy. Behind the conductor, who was a police agent, there could distinctly be seen the Representatives heaped up in the interior. It seemed easy to rescue them. Cournet appealed to the passers-by; "Citizens," he cried, "these are your Representatives, who are being carried off! You have just seen them pass in the vans of convicts! Bonaparte arrests them contrary to every law. Let us rescue them! To arms!" A knot formed of men in blouses and of workmen going to work. A shout came from the knot, "Long live the Republic!" and some men rushed towards the vehicle. The carriage and the Lancers broke into a gallop. "To arms!" repeated Cournet. "To arms!" repeated the men of the people. There was a moment of impulse. Who knows what might have happened? It would have been a singular accident if the first barricade against the _coup d'etat_ had been made with this omnibus, which, after having aided in the crime, would this have aided in the punishment. But at the moment when the people threw themselves on the vehicle they saw several of the Representative-prisoners which it contained sign to them with both hands to refrain. "Eh!" said a workman, "they do not wish it!" A second repeated, "They do not wish for liberty!" Another added, "They did not wish us to have it, they do not wish it for themselves." All was said, and the omnibus was allowed to pass on. A moment afterwards the rear-guard of the escort came up and passed by at a sharp trots and the group which surrounded Aubry (du Nord), Malardier, and Cournet dispersed. The Cafe Roysin had just opened. It may be remembered that the large hall of this _cafe_ had served for the meeting of a famous club in 1848. It was there, it may also be remembered, that the rendezvous had been settled. The Cafe Roysin is entered by a passage opening out upon the street, a lobby of some yards in length is next crossed, and then comes a large hall, with high windows, and looking-glasses on the walls, containing in the centre several billiard-tables, some small marble-topped tables, chairs, and velvet-covered benches. It was this hall, badly arranged, however, for a meeting where we could have deliberated, which had been the hall of the Roysin Club. Cournet, Aubry, and Malardier installed themselves there. On entering they did not disguise who they were; they were welcomed, and shown an exit through the garden in case of necessity. De Flotte had just joined them. Eight o'clock was striking when the Representatives began to arrive. Bruckner, Maigne, and Brillier first, and then successively Charamaule, Cassal, Dulac, Bourzat, Madier de Montjau, and Baudin. Bourzat, on account of the mud, as was his custom, wore wooden shoes. Whoever thought Bourzat a peasant would be mistaken. He rather resembled a Benedictine monk. Bourzat, with his southern imagination, his quick intelligence, keen, lettered, refined, possesses an encyclopedia in his head, and wooden shoes on his feet. Why not? He is Mind and People. The ex-Constituent Bastide came in with Madier de Montjau. Baudin shook the hands of all with warmth, but he did not speak. He was pensive. "What is the matter with you, Baudin?" asked Aubry (du Nord). "Are you mournful?" "I?" said Baudin, raising his head, "I have never been more happy." Did he feel himself already chosen? When we are so near death, all radiant with glory, which smiles upon us through the gloom, perhaps we are conscious of it. A certain number of men, strangers to the Assembly, all as determined as the Representatives themselves, accompanied them and surrounded them. Cournet was the leader. Amongst them there were workmen, but no blouses. In order not to alarm the middle classes the workmen had been requested, notably those employed by Derosne and Cail, to come in coats. Baudin had with him a copy of the Proclamation which I had dictated to him on the previous day. Cournet unfolded it and read it. "Let us at once post it up in the Faubourg," said he. "The People must know that Louis Bonaparte is outlawed." A lithographic workman who was there offered to print it without delay. All the Representatives present signed it, and they added my name to their signatures. Aubry (du Nord) headed it with these words, "National Assembly." The workman carried off the Proclamation, and kept his word. Some hours afterwards Aubry (du Nord), and later on a friend of Cournet's named Gay, met him in the Faubourg du Temple paste-pot in hand, posting the Proclamation at every street corner, even next to the Maupas placard, which threatened the penalty of death to any one who should be found posting an appeal to arms. Groups read the two bills at the same time. We may mention an incident which ought to be noted, a sergeant of the line, in uniform, in red trousers, accompanied him and protected him. He was doubtless a soldier who had lately left the service. The time fixed on the preceding evening for the general rendezvous was from nine to ten in the morning. This hour had been chosen so that there should be time to give notice to all the members of the Left; it was expedient to wait until the Representatives should arrive, so that the group should the more resemble an Assembly, and that its manifestation should have more authority on the Faubourg. Several of the Representatives who had already arrived had no sash of office. Some were made hastily in a neighboring house with strips of red, white, and blue calico, and were brought to them. Baudin and De Flotte were amongst those who girded on these improvised sashes. Meanwhile it was not yet nine o'clock, when impatience already began to be manifested around them.[9] Many shared this glorious impatience. Baudin wished to wait. "Do not anticipate the hour," said he; "let us allow our colleagues time to arrive." But they murmured round Baudin, "No, begin, give the signal, go outside. The Faubourg only waits to see your sashes to rise. You are few in number, but they know that your friends will rejoin you. That is sufficient. Begin." The result proved that this undue haste could only produce a failure. Meanwhile they considered that the first example which the Representatives of the People ought to set was personal courage. The spark must not be allowed to die out. To march the first, to march at the head, such was their duty. The semblance of any hesitation would have been in truth more disastrous than any degree of rashness. Schoelcher is of an heroic nature, he has the grand impatience of danger. "Let us go," he cried; "our friends will join us, let us go outside." They had no arms. "Let us disarm the post which is over there," said Schoelcher. They left the Salle Roysin in order, two by two, arm in arm. Fifteen or twenty men of the people escorted them. They went before them, crying, "Long live the Republic! To arms!" Some children preceded and followed them, shouting, "Long live the Mountain!" The entrances of the closed shops were half opened. A few men appeared at the doors, a few women showed themselves at the windows. Knots of workmen going to their work watched them pass. They cried, "Long live our Representatives! Long live the Republic!" Sympathy was everywhere, but insurrection nowhere. The procession gathered few adherents on the way. A man who was leading a saddled horse joined them. They did not know this man, nor whence this horse came. It seemed as if the man offered his services to any one who wished to fly. Representative Dulac ordered this man to be off. In this manner they reached the guard-house of the Rue de Montrenil. At their approach the sentry gave the alarm, and the soldiers came out of the guard-house in disorder. Schoelcher, calm, impassive, in ruffles and a white tie, clothed, as usual, in black, buttoned to the neck in his tight frock coat, with the intrepid and brotherly air of a Quaker, walked straight up to them. "Comrades," he said to them, "we are the Representatives of the People, and come in the name of the people to demand your arms for the defence of the Constitution and of the Laws!" The post allowed itself to be disarmed. The sergeant alone made any show of resistance, but they said to him, "You are alone," and he yielded. The Representatives distributed the guns and the cartridges to the resolute band which surrounded them. Some soldiers exclaimed, "Why do you take away our muskets! We would fight for you and with you!" The Representatives consulted whether they should accept this offer. Schoelcher was inclined to do so. But one of them remarked that some Mobile Guards had made the same overtures to the insurgents of June, and had turned against the Insurrection the arms which the Insurrection had left them. The muskets therefore were not restored. The disarming having been accomplished, the muskets were counted; there were fifteen of them. "We are a hundred and fifty," said Cournet, "we have not enough muskets." "Well, then," said Schoelcher, "where is there a post?" "At the Lenoir Market." "Let us disarm it." With Schoelcher at their head and escorted by fifteen armed men the Representatives proceeded to the Lenoir Market. The post of the Lenoir Market allowed themselves to be disarmed even more willingly than the post in the Rue de Montreuil. The soldiers turned themselves round so that the cartridges might be taken from their pouches. The muskets were immediately loaded. "Now," exclaimed De Flotte, "we have thirty guns, let us look for a street corner, and raise a barricade." There were at that time about two hundred combatants. They went up the Rue de Montreuil. After some fifty steps Schoelcher said, "Where are we going? We are turning our backs on the Bastille. We are turning our backs upon the conflict." They returned towards the Faubourg. They shouted, "To arms!" They Where answered by "Long live our Representatives!" But only a few young men joined them. It was evident that the breeze of insurrection was not blowing. "Never mind," said De Flotte, "let us begin the battle. Let us achieve the glory of being the first killed." As they reached the point where the Streets Ste. Marguerite and de Cotte open out and divide the Faubourg, a peasant's cart laden with dung entered the Rue Ste. Marguerite. "Here," exclaimed De Flotte. They stopped the dung-cart, and overturned it in the middle of the Faubourg St. Antoine. A milkwoman came up. They overturned the milk-cart. A baker was passing in his bread-cart. He saw what was being done, attempted to escape, and urged his horse to a gallop. Two or three street Arabs--those children of Paris brave as lions and agile as cats--sped after the baker, ran past his horse, which was still galloping, stopped it, and brought back the cart to the barricade which had been begun. They overturned the bread-cart. An omnibus came up on the road from the Bastille. "Very well!" said the conductor, "I see what is going on." He descended with a good grace, and told his passengers to get down, while the coachman unharnessed his horses and went away shaking his cloak. They overturned the omnibus. The four vehicles placed end to end barely barred the street of the Faubourg, which in this part is very wide. While putting them in line the men of the barricade said,-- "Let us not injure the carts more than we can help." This formed an indifferent barricade, very low, too short, and which left the pavements free on either side. At this moment a staff officer passed by followed by an orderly, saw the barricade, and fled at a gallop. Schoelcher calmly inspected the overturned vehicles. When he reached the peasant's cart, which made a higher heap than the others, he said, "that is the only good one." The barricade grew larger. They threw a few empty baskets upon it, which made it thicker and larger without strengthening it. They were still working when a child came up to them shouting, "The soldiers!" In truth two companies arrived from the Bastille, at the double, through the Faubourg, told off in squads at short distances apart, and barring the whole of the street. The doors and the windows were hastily closed. During this time, at a corner of the barricade, Bastide, impassive, was gravely telling a story to Madier de Montjau. "Madier," said he, "nearly two hundred years ago the Prince de Conde, ready to give battle in this very Faubourg St. Antoine, where we now are, asked an officer who was accompanying him, 'Have you ever seen a battle lost?'--'No, sire.' 'Well, then, you will see one now.'--Madier, I tell you to-day,--you will speedily see a barricade taken." In the meanwhile those who were armed had assumed their places for the conflict behind the barricade. The critical moment drew nigh. "Citizens," cried Schoelcher, "do not fire a shot. When the Army and the Faubourgs fight, the blood of the People is shed on both sides. Let us speak to the soldiers first." He mounted on one of the baskets which heightened the barricade. The other Representatives arranged themselves near him on the omnibus. Malardier and Dulac were on his right. Dulac said to him, "You scarcely know me, Citizen Schoelcher, but I love you. Let me have the charge of remaining by your side. I only belong to the second rank in the Assembly, but I want to be in the first rank of the battle." At this moment some men in blouses, those whom the Second of December had enlisted, appeared at the corner of the Rue Ste. Marguerite, close to the barricade, and shouted, "Down with the 'Twenty-five francs!'" Baudin who had already selected his post for the combat, and who was standing on the barricade, looked fixedly at these men, and said to them,-- "You shall see how one can die for 'twenty-five francs!'" There was a noise in the street. Some few doors which had remained half opened were closed. The two attacking columns had arrived in sight of the barricade. Further on could be seen confusedly other lines of bayonets. They were those which had barred my passage. Schoelcher, raising his arm with authority, signed to the captain, who commanded the first squad, to halt. The captain made a negative sign with his sword. The whole of the Second of December was in these two gestures. The Law said, "Halt!" The Sabre answered, "No!" The two companies continued to advance, but slowly, and keeping at the same distance from each other. Schoelcher came down from the barricade into the street. De Flotte, Dulac, Malardier, Brillier, Maigne, and Bruckner followed him. Then was seen a grand spectacle. Seven Representatives of the People, armed only with their sashes, that is to say, majestically clothed with Law and Right, advanced in the street beyond the barricade, and marched straight to the soldiers, who awaited them with their guns pointed at them. The other Representatives who had remained at the barricade made their last preparations for resistance. The combatants maintained an intrepid bearing. The Naval Lieutenant Cournet towered above them all with his tall stature. Baudin, still standing on the overturned omnibus, leaned half over the barricade. On seeing the Representatives approach, the soldiers and their officers were for the moment bewildered. Meanwhile the captain signed to the Representatives to stop. They stopped, and Schoelcher said in an impressive voice,-- "Soldiers! we are the Representatives of the Sovereign People, we are your Representatives, we are the Elect of Universal Suffrage. In the name of the Constitution, in the name of Universal Suffrage, in the name of the Republic, we, who are the National Assembly, we, who are the Law, order you to join us, we summon you to obey. We ourselves are your leaders. The Army belongs to the People, and the Representatives of the People are the Chiefs of the Army. Soldiers! Louis Bonaparte violates the Constitution, we have outlawed him. Obey us." The officer who was in command, a captain named Petit, did not allow him to finish. "Gentlemen," he said, "I have my orders. I belong to the People. I am a Republican as you are, but I am only an instrument." "You know the Constitution?" said Schoelcher. "I only know my instructions." "There is an instruction above all other instructions," continued Schoelcher, "obligatory upon the Soldier as upon the Citizen--the Law." He turned again towards the soldiers to harangue them, but the captain cried out to him,-- "Not another word! You shall not go on! If you add one word, I shall give the order to fire." "What does that matter to us?" said Schoelcher. At this moment an officer arrived on horseback. It was the major of the regiment. He whispered for a moment to the captain. "Gentlemen! Representatives!" continued the captain, waving his sword, "withdraw, or I shall fire." "Fire!" shouted De Flotte. The Representatives--strange and heroic copy of Fontenoy--took off their hats, and faced the muskets. Schoelcher alone kept his hat on his head, and waited with his arms crossed. "Fix bayonets," said the captain. And turning towards the squads, "Charge!" "Vive la Republique!" cried out the Representatives. The bayonets were lowered, the companies moved forward, the soldiers came on at the double upon the motionless Representatives. It was a terrible and superb moment. The seven Representatives saw the bayonets at their breasts without a word, without a gesture, without one step backwards. But the hesitation which was not in their soul was in the heart of the soldiers. The soldiers felt distinctly that this was a double stain upon their uniform--the outrage upon the Representatives of the People--which was treason, and the slaughter of unarmed men, which was cowardice. Now treason and cowardice are two epaulets to which a general sometimes becomes reconciled, the soldier--never. When the bayonets were so close to the Representatives that they touched their breasts, they turned aside of their own accord, and the soldier's by an unanimous movement passed between the Representatives without doing them any harm. Schoelcher alone had his coat pierced in two places, and in his opinion this was awkwardness instead of intention. One of the soldiers who faced him wished to push him away from the captain, and touched him with his bayonet. The point encountered the book of the addresses of the Representatives, which Schoelcher had in his pocket, and only pierced his clothing. A soldier said to De Flotte, "Citizen, we do not wish to hurt you." Nevertheless a soldier came up to Bruckner and pointed his gun at him. "Well," said Bruckner, "fire." The soldier, touched, lowered his arm, and shook Bruckner's hand. It was singular that, notwithstanding the order given by the officers, the two companies successively came up to the Representatives, charged with the bayonet, and turned aside. Instructions may order, but instinct prevails; instructions may be crime, but instinct is honor. Major P---- said afterwards, "They had told us that we should have to deal with brigands, we had to deal with heroes." Meanwhile those on the barricade were growing uneasy, and seeing their colleagues surrounded, and wishing to succor them, they fired a musket shot. This unfortunate shot killed a soldier between De Flotte and Schoelcher. The officer who commanded the second attacking squad passed close to Schoelcher as the poor soldier fell. Schoelcher pointed out the fallen man to the officer, and said to him, "Lieutenant, look!" The officer answered by a gesture of despair,-- "What would you have us do?" The two companies replied to the shot by a general volley, and rushed to the assault of the barricade, leaving behind them the seven Representatives astounded at being still alive. The barricade replied by a volley, but it could not hold out. It was carried. Baudin was killed. He had remained standing in his position on the omnibus. Three balls reached him. One struck him in the right eye and penetrated into the brain. He fell. He never regained consciousness. Half-an-hour afterwards he was dead. His body was taken to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital. Bourzat, who was close to Baudin, with Aubry (du Nord), had his coat pierced by a ball. We must again remark a curious incident,--the soldiers made no prisoner on this barricade. Those who defended it dispersed through the streets of the Faubourg, or took refuge in the neighboring houses. Representative Maigne, pushed by some affrighted women behind a door, was shut in with one of the soldiers who had just taken the barricade. A moment afterwards the soldier and the Representative went out together. The Representatives could freely leave this first field of battle. At this solemn moment of the struggle a last glimmer of Justice and of Right still flickered, and military honesty recoiled with a sort of dread anxiety before the outrage upon which they were entering. There is the intoxication of good, and there is an intoxication of evil: this intoxication later on drowned the conscience of the Army. The French Army is not made to commit crimes. When the struggle became prolonged, and ferocious orders of the day had to be executed, the soldiers must have been maddened. They obeyed not coldly, which would have been monstrous, but with anger, and this History will invoke as their excuse; and with many, perhaps, despair was at the root of their anger. The fallen soldier had remained on the ground. It was Schoelcher who raised him. A few women, weeping, but brave, came out of a house. Some soldiers came up. They carried him, Schoelcher holding his head, first to a fruiterer's shop, then to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital, where they had already taken Baudin. He was a conscript. The ball had entered his side. Through his gray overcoat buttoned to the collar, could be seen a hole stained with blood. His head had sunk on his shoulder, his pale countenance, encircled by the chinstrap of his shako, had no longer any expression, the blood oozed out of his mouth. He seemed barely eighteen years old. Already a soldier and still a boy. He was dead. This poor soldier was the first victim of the _coup d'etat_. Baudin was the second. Before being a Republican Baudin had been a tutor. He came from that intelligent and brave race of schoolmasters ever persecuted, who have fallen from the Guizot Law into the Falloux Law, and from the Falloux Law into the Dupanloup Law. The crime of the schoolmaster is to hold a book open; that suffices, the Church condemns him. There is now, in France, in each village, a lighted torch--the schoolmaster--and a mouth which blows upon it--the cure. The schoolmasters of France, who knew how to die of hunger for Truth and for Science, were worthy that one of their race should be killed for Liberty. The first time that I saw Baudin was at the Assembly on January 13, 1850. I wished to speak against the Law of Instruction. I had not put my name down; Baudin's name stood second. He offered me his turn. I accepted, and I was able to speak two days afterwards, on the 15th. Baudin was one of the targets of Sieur Dupin, for calls to order and official annoyances. He shared this honor with the Representatives Miot and Valentin. Baudin ascended the Tribune several times. His mode of speaking, outwardly hesitating, was energetic in the main. He sat on the crest of the Mountain. He had a firm spirit and timid manners. Thence there was in his constitution an indescribable embarrassment, mingled with decision. He was a man of middle height. His face ruddy and full, his broad chest, his wide shoulders announced the robust man, the laborer-schoolmaster, the peasant-thinker. In this he resembled Bourzat. Baudin leaned his head on his shoulder, listened with intelligence, and spoke with a gentle and grave voice. He had the melancholy air and the bitter smile of the doomed. On the evening of the Second of December I had asked him, "How old are you?" He had answered me, "Not quite thirty-three years." "And you?" said he. "Forty-nine." And he replied,-- "To-day we are of the same age." He thought in truth of that to-morrow which awaited us, and in which was hidden that "perhaps" which is the great leveller. The first shots had been fired, a Representative had fallen, and the people did not rise! What bandage had they on their eyes, what weight had they on their hearts? Alas! the gloom which Louis Bonaparte had known how to cast over his crime, far from lifting, grew denser. For the first time in the sixty years, that the Providential era of Revolutions had been open, Paris, the city of intelligence, seemed not to understand! On leaving the barricade of the Rue Ste. Marguerite, De Flotte went to the Faubourg St. Marceau, Madier de Montjau went to Belleville, Charamaule and Maigne proceeded to the Boulevards. Schoelcher, Dulac, Malardier, and Brillier again went up the Faubourg St. Antoine by the side streets which the soldiers had not yet occupied. They shouted, "Vive la Republique!" They harangued the people on the doorsteps: "Is it the Empire that you want?" exclaimed Schoelcher. They even went as far as to sing the "Marseillaise." People took off their hats as they passed and shouted "Long live the Representatives!" But that was all. They were thirsty and weary. In the Rue de Reuilly a man came out of a door with a bottle in his hand, and offered them drink. Sartin joined them on the way. In the Rue de Charonne they entered the meeting-place of the Association of Cabinet Makers, hoping to find there the committee of the association in session. There was no one there. But nothing discouraged them. As they reached the Place de la Bastille, Dulac said to Schoelcher, "I will ask permission to leave you for an hour or two, for this reason: I am alone in Paris with my little daughter, who is seven years old. For the past week she has had scarlet fever. Yesterday, when the _coup d'etat_ burst forth, she was at death's door. I have no one but this child in the world. I left her this morning to come with you, and she said to me, 'Papa, where are you going?' As I am not killed, I will go and see if she is not dead." Two hours afterwards the child was still living, and we were holding a permanent sitting at No. 15, Rue Richelieu, Jules Favre, Carnot, Michel de Bourges, and myself, when Dulac entered, and said to us, "I have come to place myself at your disposal." [9] "There was also a misunderstanding respecting the appointed time. Some made a mistake, and thought it was nine o'clock. The first arrivals impatiently awaited their colleagues. They were, as we have said, some twelve or fifteen in number at half-past eight. 'Time is being lost,' exclaimed one of them who had hardly entered; 'let us gird on our sashes; let us show the Representatives to the People, let us join it in raising barricades.' We shall perhaps save the country, at all events we shall save the honor of our party. 'Come, let us to the barricades!' This advice was immediately and unanimously acclaimed: one alone, Citizen Baudin, interposed the forcible objection, 'we are not sufficiently numerous to adopt such a resolution.' But he spiritedly joined in the general enthusiasm, and with a calm conscience, after having reserved the principle, he was not the last to gird on his sash."--SCHOELCHER, _Histoire des Crimes du 2d Decembre_, pp. 130-131. _ |
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