Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com .-^ oV'^^MH^"- ^1>' '''MIM^r^. ^^^r^ ""^ ^.' *^j^ A^ '^ Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com « ^ A, • ^^ .^^^ • '^ <V^ * A^^A'' "^vn «v*" * fills r^ A^ * (<^^^ V "^ » ©lira * AT '^ o VJIaf * -e/ "^ » ^"î^ '-^^ ^„ --^MIM^^. r.'^ Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com '^ <?> c /* Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com NAPOLEON THE LITTLE. Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com DEPOSED BY THE WISH OF LAW. Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com THE DESTROYER OF The Second Republic; BEING NAPOLEON THE LITTLE. i»:»t)wea«>H»f«]0ca<N| By victor HUGO. TRANSLATED BY A CLERGYMAN OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCO- PAL CHURCH, FROM THE SIXTEENTH FRENCH EDITION. y NEW YORK: SHELDON & COMPANY, 498 AND 500 Broadway. 1870. Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year isro. By SHELDON & COMPANY, In the Office of the Llbrarlan of Congress, at Washinpftoa. THE LIBRARYi OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON AN ^^,0 ^ Stereotyped by Little, Rennir & Co. Printed by the Union Printing Housk, «4i and 647 Broadway, N. Y. 7» John Street, N. Y. Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. When the translator first began spending leisure hours on this book, he felt little interest, and would have spoken of his occupation in the tone of apology. He was wrong. He has almost unconsciously given to the American public a great work full of the burning genius of a great author. If this volume is not read and valued, it will not be its own fault ; for if it has any fault, and it has many, the first among them appears to him to be the worthy one, that it is too keen in its delicate satire, too fine in its exquisite wit for the dull ears, or, we should rather say, the dull eyes of too many who will look into it. When judged among Victor Hugo's works, it will take rank as one of the most complete. Not possessing the sensational and popular interest of a novel, it acquires dignity from its purely historical character and intense power from the fact that its author was an eye-witness of the events which he records, and a participant in the sufferings which he resents. Seldom do we have an historical mono- gram of more value. When judged on its own merits, with- out a comparison with other works by the author, it may be said that, notwithstanding its occasional extravagance of style, and its continual use of the nominative absolute, making it hard for the reader and an affliction to the translator ; and notwithstanding also its enormous French vanity, occasionally swelling to sacred allusions, which in another would be called Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com 6 Translator s Preface, blasphemy, the book is of value in an artistic and scientific point of view, as containing passages of incomparable elo- quence, as being graphic and readable throughout, and as affording in its later portions a masterly analysis of crime. As to its moral tone, notwithstanding an occasional coarse is, allusion, it may be said to be everywhere high ; that every argument is based on morals and on conscience, and never do we discover the writer yielding a vulgar homage to success. Many of its predictions* have been singularly although tardily verified, and we can read in the light of "iSyo many prophesies with wonder, which in 1869 would have provoked a smile. The translator hopes that the work will be of benefit politically and morally, as well as intellectu- ally, and as a source of recreation ; although he cannot agree with all the positions taken in its pages, he does not consider any of them so far astray as to mar the general value of its conclusions. As to the character of the transla- tion, he may have committed errors through haste, for which he will ask pardon; but as to the general plan and style in which the work has been completed, those who know what is proper in the translation of languages will see that they are correct; as to the opinion of others he is not anxious. He will add one remark, and only one, and that is, that he has endeavored to confine his work to spare intervals, and that it has not encroached seriously upon consecrated time. * The work was first published in 185a. Hartford, Conn., Nov. i\ih^ 1870. Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com — TABLE OF CONTENTS. BOOK FIRST.—THE MAN. I. The 20th of December, 1848. —II. Commission of the Representatives. —III. Forced to silence. —IV. Men will awake.—V. Biography. —VI. Portrait. —VII. To make a sequel to the Panegyrics. ÇS^ BOOK SECOND.—THE GOVERNMENT. I. The Constitution. — II. The Senate. —III. The Council of State and the Corps Législatif. —IV. The Finan- ces. —V. The Liberty of the Press.—VI. Novelties in point of legality. —VII. The Adherents. VIII. Mens agitât molem.—IX. Omnipotence. X. The two Profiles of M. Bonaparte.— XL Reca- pitulation. 5^~95 BOOK THIRD—THE CRIME. Chapter taken from an unpublished, book entited T/ie Crime of the 2d of Dece^nber, by Victor Hugo. 96-140 BOOK FOURTH.—THE OTHER CRIME. I. Sinister Questions. —II. A Succession of Crimes. —III. What 1852 might have been. —IV. Jacquerie. 141-175 BOOK FIFTH.—PARLIAMENTARISM. I. 1789.—II. Mirabeau.—III. The Tribune.—IV. The Orators.—V. Power of Speech.—VI. What the Orator is.—VII. What the Tribune was doing. —VIII. Par- liamentarism.— IX. The Tribune destroyed. 176-199 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com — 8 Contents. BOOK SIXTH.—THE ABSOLUTION. FIRST FORM: THE 7,500,000 VOTES. \. The Absolution. —II. The Stage-coach. —III. Sifting of the Vote. The Recalling of Facts.—IV. Who really voted for M. Bonaparte. —V. Concession. VL The Moral Side of the Question. —VII, Expla- nation to M. Bonaparte. —VIII. Axioms.—IX. In what M. Bonaparte is deceived. 200-231 BOOK SEVENTH.—THE ABSOLUTION. SECOND FORM : THE OATH. I. Upon an oath, an oath and a-half.—II. Difference of prices. —III. The oath of the men of letters and science. —IV. Curiosities of the thing. —V. The 5th of April, 1852.—VI. Oath everywhere. 232-252 BOOK EIGHTH.—THE PROGRESS INVOLVED IN THE COUP D'ETAT. L The quantity of Good which the Evil contained. II. The Four Institutions which oppose the Future. —III. Slowness of Normal Progress.—IV. What an Assembly ought to have done. —V. What Providence has done. —VI. What the Ministers, the Army, the Magistracy, and Ihe Clergy did. —VII. God's forms of government. ..... 253-269 CONCLUSION.—FIRST PART. Littleness of the Master, baseness of the Situation. 270-289 SECOND PART. Mourning and Faith. 290-308 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com — NAPOLEON THE LITTLE. BOOK FIRST.—THE MAN. CHAPTER I. THE 20TH OF DECEMBER, 1 848. On Thursday, the 20th of December, 1848, the Constit- uent Assembly was in session, surrounded at the moment by an imposing array of troops. A report of the representative Waldeck Rousseau, made in the name of the committee charged with giving an ab- stract of the vote for the election to the presidency of the Republic, had just been read. In that report one remarked this phrase, which summed up all its meaning : ''It is the seal of the inviolable power of the nation, that by this per- fect execution given to the fundamental law, she plants herself on the Constitution, in order to render it holy and inviolable." Following this, in the midst of the profound silence of nine hundred constituents, assembled in a mass and almost to the entire number of the body, Armand Marrast, the President of the National Constituent Assembly, arose and said : " In the name of the French people : " Seeing that the citizen Charles-Louis-Napoleon-Bona- Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com — lo Napoleon the Little, parte, born in Paris, fulfills the conditions of eligibility article Constitution prescribed by the 44th of the ; "Seeing that in the open ballot held throughout the entire extent of this territory of the Republic, for the elec- tion of the President, he has united the absolute majority of suffrages ; "In virtue of the 47th and 48th articles of the Consti- tution, the National Assembly proclaims him President of the Republic, from the present day till the second Sunday of May, 1852." A movement was seen on the benches and in the tribunes, which were full of people. The President of the Constitu- ent Assembly added : "According to the terms of the decree, I invite the citizen President of the Republic to be pleased to present himself at the tribune, there to make oath." The representatives, who were encumbering the lobby, went up to their places and left the passage free. It was about four o'clock in the evening, night was falling, and the vast hall of the Assembly was half plunged in shadow. The lights descended from the ceilings, and the attendants had just placed the lamps upon the tribune. The President made a sign, and the door at the right opened. A man, still young, dressed in black, having on his coat the badge and the great cord of the Legion of Honor, was then seen to enter the hall and rapidly ascend the tribune. Every face turned toward the man. A wan face, whose thin and bony angles the lamps from the skylight made peculiarly distinct ; a nose thick and long ; mustaches ; a lock of hair curled on a narrow fore- head ; the eye small and without clearness ; the attitude Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com 1 Napoleon the Little.