But it was really an issue of reasoning! Cries were raised against any project intended to manage transitions. They wanted NONE OF THAT. They said it very quietly at first, and then they cautiously contented themselves with raising deaf opposition to the government’s acts. Soon afterwards, they got braver and decided to run the risk of a terrible struggle. The voice incessantly repeating that they would have none of it, which could be heard behind the doors of national assembly offices, troubled and exasperated the masses. However, the workers, already far enough past the time when they were assigned to a three month term with the agricultural-industrial organisation, all agreed to return to their employers, the only guarantee given to them being the new law on industrial tribunals [prud’hommes], voted in on then-minister of commerce Flocon’s initiative.
Some work! Some useful work! Such were the cries of the united and unanimous voices of 800 workers raised throughout the month of June.
“Yes!” cried Trélat, in one of the finest inspirations the French podium has had: “the national assembly must decree work just as the convention decreed victory before!” This noble language brought a smile to the Malthusians’ lips. In agreement with the minister, Director Lalanne vainly tried to announce that we were reaching a catastrophic point to a national assembly commission on June 18th and a labour committee on the 20th. Their ears remained closed to the truth, their eyes shut to the light. The spell was cast! Dissolution was decided and would be carried out at all costs. At the June 23rd session, citizen de Falloux came to read the report, which concluded with the immediate dismissal of the workers, in return for an unemployment benefit of three million francs, or about 30 francs per worker! Thirty francs for trampling on the revolution! Thirty francs for monopoly’s ransom! Thirty francs in exchange for an eternity of misery! It was like the 30 pieces of silver Judas was paid for the blood of Jesus Christ! In response to the offer, the workers took to the barricades.
I said that it was up to the partisans of the national workshops to reach a peaceful conclusion. As a loyal historian, I am going to give the other side of the story so that the reader knows what each side’s intentions and responsibility were in this dismal drama.
All my documents are taken from Le Moniteur.
In a hurry to terminate [the matter], the government, through a ministerial decision, at first offered workers between the ages of 17 and 25 the alternative of joining the army or, if they refused, of being excluded from the national workshops—starvation or slavery: that is how the doctrinaires intended to proceed with dissolving the national workshops.
On June 21st, the executive commission gave orders for the enlistment to begin right away. Le Moniteur reported:
“The public and the workers themselves will see with pleasure that, through this measure, we are finally approaching a solution to this serious question. The national workshops were an unavoidable necessity for some time: now they are an obstacle to the re-establishment of industry and work. Therefore, it is important, in the most urgent interest of the workers themselves, that the workshops are dissolved, and we are convinced that the workers will understand this painlessly, thanks to the common sense and intelligent patriotism that they have so often demonstrated.”
On June 22nd, the government informed the workers that, according to the legislation, enlistment could only be contracted at age 18 but that, to facilitate the dissolution of the national workshops, a draft decree before the national assembly at that time lowered the minimum age for voluntary enlistment to 17.
The age of apprenticeship became the age of conscription! What touching concern! What a commentary on Malthus’ theory!
While the executive commission attended to this urgent concern and the workers committee buried itself in investigations, reports, discussions and projects, the Jesuitical reaction harassed the minister of public works and terrified the national assembly on the communist consequences of the repurchase of the railroads, that it was clear that the hand of the state prepared to seize free labour and property. M. de Montalembert, with the most treacherous opportunism, quoted the following passage from the newspaper La République written under the influence of the prevailing theory of governmental initiative:
“We will not try to avoid the problem; nothing is gained by trickery with businessmen... Yes, it is an issue of your property and of your society in which it acts. Yes, it is about substituting legitimate property for usurped property, the association of all members of the human family in the political city, for the city of wolves against wolves which is the cause of your sorrows. Yes, the return of the public domain of transportation to the State, which you have dispossessed, is the first link in the chain of social questions that the Revolution of 1848 holds within the folds of its virile robe.”504
But, honest Jesuit, take for the execution and exploitation of the railroads any system you like, provided that the country is not robbed, that transportation is conducted at a low price, that the workers work; and leave the République behind with the Gazette and the Constitutionnel !
But it was in the June 23rd session, where each speech, each sentence arising from the podium made you hear the boom of the cannons and rumble of the gunfire and where it was necessary to follow the plot of the Jesuitical coalition.
The session began with a military bulletin. The speaker informed the National Assembly that the republican guard, marching with the national guard, had just removed two Rue Planche-Mibray barricades and that line troops had fired several volleys on the boulevards.
After that communiqué, citizen Bineau asked for the floor for a motion of procedure. The day before, after the session, the minister of public works had presented a six million franc request for credit for work to be performed on the railroad between Châlon and Lyon around Collongé. In both Lyons and Paris, there were many workers demanding work, and the best the minister could do was use them on that line, the production of which was permanently stopped. However, citizen Bineau objected that the credit could not be granted because the repurchase law had not been voted in yet, and it would not be acceptable to start the work before allocating the credit.
Trélat exclaimed that he could not understand such an opposition because, if repurchase were not voted in, then the company would have to reimburse the amount for the work, and therefore nothing prevented the workers from doing it. However, the discussion of the credit proposal was postponed upon finance minister Duclerc’s motion.
The incident then dropped, minister of commerce and agriculture Flocon went to the podium. He spoke about the seriousness of the events and said that the government was ready. Flocon, no doubt believing that the insurgent masses could be held back by casting the insurrection in a dishonourable light, loudly declared, he said, so that he could be heard outside, that the agitators’ only flag was disorder and that there was more than one hidden pretender behind them, supported by foreign interests. Therefore, he begged all good republicans to distance themselves from the cause of despotism.
This unfortunate ploy only managed to inflame the national guards without appeasing the workers and made the repression more merciless.
Once the struggle began, there was no retreating. M. de Falloux chose this moment to deposit the national workshop dissolution report on the podium, the workers being aware of that report’s conclusions for two days, as we have seen. We can say that in this way he lit the fuse setting off the June explosion. Citizen Raynal vainly opposed the reading of the report: “I do not believe,” he cried, “that this is the right time to read it,” but shouts of “Read it! Read it!” arose on all sides.
So M. de Falloux read the report.
Corbon observed that the workers committee, while agreeing with the dissolution, had recognised that it must only be started after the workers were given the guarantees to which they were entitled, and that the committee had prepared a decree for that purpose, the provisions of which the committee announced. The decree was retracted.
Here, the discussion was interrup
ted by a new communiqué from the president on the battle exploits going on outside. It announced that gunfire had started on the boulevards, that barricades were going up in the city and that a working-class woman was wounded in the shoulder. All of Paris was up in arms!
Upon these words, the irrepressible Créton asked for the floor to declare the urgency of the following proposal:
“As soon as possible, the executive commission will file a detailed report of all the receipts and expenses occurring in the 127 days between February 24th and June 1st, 1848.”
This was the process conducted in the provisional government and the executive commission. While it was forced to dissolve the national workshops, the only support it still had, and to please its enemies, shot its own soldiers in the streets, and all of its members risked their lives on the barricades, it was betrayed at the witness box, and its accounts were demanded. The men of God did not waste any time: providence protected them. Urgency was deemed appropriate.
Then the discussion of the railroad repurchase was taken back up. Citizen Jobez had the floor:
“Whatever the seriousness of the circumstances, I believe that this discussion must go through the phases that it would have followed at a calm and peaceful time. A committed partisan of state execution of major public works, I am here to oppose the repurchase plan presented to you and to support the conclusions of your finance commission.”
Now why would this young representative, the most decent and moderate of all the republicans of the future, change his opinion so dramatically?
Ah! Because the government had made it known that it was counting on the adoption of the railroad repurchase plan to give the workers useful work and, by taking that resource from the government, they trapped the revolution between a rock and a hard place. The workers demanded work, but Jobez, who agreed with Bineau, said that there was none. Jobez continued:
“Since the national assembly meeting, every time we talk about the national workshops, you answer us with the railroad repurchase. And when we say that without that purchase, you have 311 million francs worth of work to be performed, all or part of which the national workshops could conduct, you tell us to give you the repurchase law. The arguments are always the same, and by a singular coincidence, it turns out that the national workshop inventory requested since the national assembly meeting has not yet been accomplished and that all the work that was selected is on Paris’ doorstep.”
Pure distraction. It was not an issue of work that the government had to perform (it has work for several billion) but rather of the sums that it could apply to it. However, it believed that the railroad repurchase law before it could procure more money and, above all, more credit, and so that law was eminently favourable to the occupation of the the workers.
On March 17th, the people requested that the provisional government pull back the troops, but that could not be obtained. On June 23rd, the reaction imposed the dispersion of the national workshops on the executive commission: that is, the dispersion of the people, which was granted right away. That rapprochement is revealing.
Citizen Jobez had barely come down from the podium when the minister of war, General Cavaignac, took it to provide new information on the insurrection. The rioters were chased away from the Saint Denis and Saint Martin suburbs and no longer occupied the Saint Jacques and Saint Antoine neighbourhoods. The national guard, the roving guard, the republican guard and finally the line troops (because all the forces at power’s disposal were united against the people) were enlivened with the finest spirit.
Thus, the National Assembly paid the provisional government’s debt with gunfire! Well! I wonder who were guiltier, the insurgents of March, April and May or the June provocateurs, those who solicited the government for work or those who made it expend 2,500,000 cartridges to refuse that work.
But could there have been the cannons against the innocent if there had not been the reinforcement of slander? At the same time that General Cavaignac explained his strategic provisions to the national assembly, the mayor of Paris, A. Marrast, wrote the following circular to the municipalities of 12 wards. You could call it an edict of Diocletian:505
“Paris, June 23, 1848, 3 p.m.
“Citizen Mayor
“Since this morning, you have witnessed the attempted efforts of a small number of troublemakers to alarm the public as much as possible.
“The enemies of the republic wear many masks. They exploit all misfortune and all difficulties produced by events.”—(Who then exploited the difficulty if it were not the same people who pretended to complain about it the most?)—“Foreign agents join with them, provoke them and pay them. It is not only civil war that they would like to foment among us, but looting and social disorder. They are preparing the very ruin of France, and we can guess for what purpose.
“Paris is the main seat of these infamous intrigues, but it will not become the capital of disorder. The national guard, which is the chief guardian of the public peace and property, indeed understands that it must, above all, act in its own interests, to its own credit and honour. If it gives way, it would be giving up the entire country to all dangers, exposing families and property to the most terrifying calamities.
“Garrison troops are armed, numerous and perfectly disposed. The national guard is in its quarters along the streets. Authority and the national guard will each do its duty.”
The Senate’s proclamation was even more furious. I will quote only a few of their words:
“They are not demanding the republic! It has already been proclaimed.”
“Universal suffrage? It is completely accepted and practiced!”
“What do they want then? We already know: they want anarchy, arson and looting!”
Was a plot ever carried out with more implacable perseverance? Were famine and civil war ever exploited with more villainous skill? But they would be mistaken if they believed that I accuse all these men of wanting the misery and massacre of 100,000 of their brothers for the interests of a clique. In all of this, there is only one collective thought that develops with all the more furious energy, the less the awareness that each of them who expresses it has of his fateful role, and insofar as, while exercising his right of initiative, he cannot take responsibility for his words. Individuals are capable of clemency, but parties are merciless. There was a great spirit of conciliation among the partisans of the national workshops: they were organised and had men speaking in their name and answering for them, Trélat and Lalanne. The reactionary party, left to its own fanatical instincts, did not want to listen to anything, since it was not represented and acted without answering for its actions. In a political struggle, do you want to murder your adversary without incurring the ignominy of the crime? No deliberation and the secret ballot.
After Cavaignac, Garnier-Pagès, lost soul, his voice full of sobs, took the reactionary elation to its height. “We have to finish them!” he shouted (Yes! Yes!): “We have to finish with the agitators!” (Yes! Yes! Bravo! Bravo!)
Citizen Bonjean proposed that a commission be named to march with the national guard and troops “and die if necessary leading them for the defence of order!” The motion was greeted with delight.
Mauguin asked that the Assembly be permanently constituted. That was adopted. Reports circulated, and news from the battlefield became increasingly serious. Considérant proposed writing a proclamation to the workers to reassure them about their fate and end the fratricidal war, but the parties were merciless. They wanted no reconciliation and did not even allow the author of the proposal to read it. It was withdrawn by the preliminary question. That—“Our duty is to remain unshaken in our position,” the stoic Baze responded, “without deliberating with the mob, without coming to any terms with them whatsoever by discussing a proclamation.”
Caussidières’ blood was boiling. He was incensed.—“I demand,” he shouted, “that some of the deputies, accompanied by a member of the executive commission, go into the heart of the insurrection a
nd make a proclamation by torchlight.” The Montagnard’s words were greeted with cries:—“Order! You are talking like one of the rioters! M. President, suspend the session!” Minister Duclerc, who would soon fall to the blows of the reaction, called the proposal foolish.
Baune agreed with Caussidière. There were more cries of “Suspend the session!”
Upon the new details General Cavaignac provided, Lagrange tried bringing it up again, but there were cries of “Suspend the session!” from every direction. Finally, the outcome approached, and the word of the intrigue was revealed. Pascal Duprat proposed that Paris be declared under a state of siege and all powers granted to General Cavaignac.
—“I am opposed to dictatorship!” shouted Larabit.
Tréveneuc: “All of the national guard is asking for a state of siege.”
Langlois: “It is what the people want.”
Bastide: “Hurry up. In an hour, the Hôtel-de-Ville will be taken.”
Germain Sarrut: “In the name of memories of 1832,506 we protest against the state of siege” (Cries of “Order!”)
Quentin Bauchart and others wanted to add an additional article to Pascal Duprat’s proposal as follows: “The executive commission is ceasing its functions immediately.”—“This is a grievance,” finance minister Duclerc responded disdainfully.
Finally, they announced that the executive commission, which for twenty-four hours had been running from barricade to barricade on behalf of the “decent” and “moderate” and making them fire on their own troops, not waiting for them to depose it, resigned its duties. Now it was up to the sabre to do the rest: the curtain fell on the fourth act of the February Revolution.
“Oh, toiling people! Disinherited, harassed and outcast people! People whom they imprison, judge and kill! Scorned and dishonoured people! Will you not stop lending an ear to these orators of mysticism who, instead of calling upon your initiative, ceaselessly talk to you about heaven and the state, promising salvation soon through religion and government, and whose vehement and hollow words captivate you?
Property Is Theft! Page 55
