Nothing is more to be desired than that the people who were at the 
head of the active party, whether before the revolution in the secret 
societies or the press, or afterwards in official positions, should at 
long last be portrayed in the stark colours of a Rembrandt, in the full 
flush of life. Hitherto these personalities have never been depicted as 
they really were, but only in their official guise, with buskins on their 
feet and halos around their heads. All verisimilitude is lost in these 
idealised, Raphaelesque pictures. 

It is true that the two present publications dispense with the 
buskins and halos in which the “great men” of the February 
Revolution hitherto appeared. They penetrate the private lives of 
these people, they show them to us in informal attire, surrounded by 
all their multifarious subordinates. But they are for all that no less 
far removed from being a real, faithful representation of persons 
and events. Of their authors, the one is a self-confessed long-time 
mouchard? of Louis Philippe, and the other a veteran conspirator by 
profession whose relations with the police are similarly very 
ambiguous and of whose powers of comprehension we have an early 
indication in the fact that he claims to have seen “that splendid chain 
of the Alps whose silver peaks dazzle the eye” between Rheinfelden 
and Basle, and “the Rhenish Alps whose distant peaks are lost on the 
horizon” between Kehl and Karlsruhe. From such people, especially 
when in addition they are writing to justify themselves, we can of 
course only expect a more or less exaggerated chronique scandaleuse of 
the February Revolution. 

M. de la Hodde, in his pamphlet, attempts to portray himself after 
the manner of the spy in Cooper’s novel.? He has, he claims, earned 
society's gratitude by paralysing the secret societies for eight years. 
But Cooper’s spy is a very far cry from M. de la Hodde. M. de la 
Hodde, who worked on Le Charivari, was a member of the Central 
Committee of the Société des nouvelles saisons from 1839,?37 was 
co-editor of La Réforme from its foundation and at the same time a 
paid spy of the Prefect of Police, Delessert, is compromised by no one 
more than by Chenu. His publication is a direct response to Chenu’s 
revelations, but it takes very good care not to say even a syllable in 
reply to Chenu’s allegations concerning de la Hodde himself. That 
part of Chenu’s memoirs at least is therefore authentic. 

“On one of my nocturnal excursions,” recounts Chenu, “I noticed de la Hodde 
walking up and down the quai Voltaire.... It was raining in torrents, a circumstance 
which set me thinking. Was this dear fellow de la Hodde also helping himself from the 
cash-box of the secret funds, by any chance? But I remembered his songs, his 
magnificent stanzas about Ireland and Poland, and particularly the violent articles he 
wrote for the journal La Réforme” (whereas M. de la Hodde tries to make out he 
tamed La Réforme). “ ‘Good evening, de la Hodde, what on earth are you up to here at 

this hour and in this fearful weather?’—'I am waiting for a rascal who owes me some 
money, and as he passes this way every evening at this time, he is going to pay me, or 
else’-—and he struck the parapet of the embankment violently with his stick.” 

De la Hodde attempts to get rid of him and walks towards the Pont 
du Carrousel. Chenu departs in the opposite direction, but only to 
conceal himself under the arcades of the Institut. De la Hodde soon 

comes back, looks round carefully in all directions and once more 
walks back and forth. 

‘“‘A quarter of an hour later I noticed the carriage with two little green lamps which 
my ex-agent had described to me” (a former spy who had revealed a large number of 
police secrets and identification signs to Chenu in prison). “It stopped at the corner of 
the rue des Vieux Augustins. A man got out; de la Hodde went straight up to him; 
they talked for a moment, and I saw de la Hodde make a movement as though putting 
money into his pocket.— After this incident I made every effort to have de la Hodde 
excluded from our meetings and above all to prevent Albert falling into some trap, for 
he was the cornerstone of our edifice [...]. Some days later La Réforme rejected an 
article by de la Hodde. This wounded his vanity as a writer. I advised him to avenge 
himself by founding another journal. He followed this advice and with Pilhes and 
Dupoty he even published the prospectus of a paper, Le Peuple, and during that time 
we were almost completely rid of him.” (Chenu, pp. 46-48 [p. 55).) 

As we see, this spy a la Cooper turns out to be a political prostitute 
of the vilest kind who hangs about in the street in the rain for the 

payment of his cadeau? by the first officier de paix” who happens to 
come along. We see furthermore that it was not de la Hodde, as he 
would have us believe, but Albert who was at the head of the secret 
societies. This follows from Chenu’s whole account. The mouchard 
“in the interests of order” is here suddenly transformed into the 
offended writer who is angry that the articles of the Charivari 
correspondent are not accepted without question by La Réforme, and 
who therefore breaks with La Réforme, a real party organ in which he 
was able to be of some use to the police, to found a new paper in 
which at best he was able to satisfy his vanity as a writer. Just as 
prostitutes make use of sentiment of a kind, so this mouchard sought 
to make use of his literary pretensions in order to escape from his 
dirty role. Hatred for La Réforme, which pervades his whole 
pamphlet, is resolved into the most trivial writer’s vindictiveness. In 
the end we see that during the most important period of the secret 
societies, shortly before the February Revolution, de la Hodde was 
being increasingly forced out of them; and this explains why they, 
according to his account, quite contrary to Chenu, declined more 
and more in this period. 

We now come to the scene in which Chenu describes the exposure 
of de la Hodde’s treacheries after the February Revolution. The 
Réforme party had assembled with Albert in the Luxembourg at 
Caussidiére’s invitation. Monnier, Sobrier, Grandménil, de la 
Hodde, Chenu, etc., were present. Caussidiére opened the meeting 
and then said: 

“*There is a traitor among us. We shall form a secret tribunal to try him.’— 
Grandménil, as the oldest of those present, was appointed chairman, and Ti- 
phaine secretary. ‘Citizens,’ continued Caussidiére as public prosecutor, ‘for a long 
time we have been accusing honest patriots. We were far from suspecting what a 
serpent had slipped in among us. Today I have discovered the real traitor: it is Lucien 
de la Hodde!’—The latter, who hitherto had sat quite unperturbed, leapt up at so 
direct an accusation. He made a move towards the door. Caussidiére closed it quickly, 
drew a pistol and shouted: ‘One move and I’ll blow your brains out!’—De la Hodde 
passionately protested his innocence. ‘Very well,’ said Caussidiére. ‘Here is a file 
containing eighteen hundred reports to the Prefect of Police’... and he gave each of us 
the reports specially concerning him. De la Hodde obstinately denied that these 
reports, signed Pierre, originated with him until Caussidiére read out the letter 
published in his memoirs, in which de la Hodde offered his services to the Prefect of 
Police and which he had signed with his real name. From then on the wretched man 
stopped denying and tried to excuse himself on the grounds of poverty which had 
given him the fatal idea of throwing himself into the arms of the police. Caussidiére 
held out to him the pistol, the last means of escape left to him. De la Hodde then 
pleaded with his judges and whimperingly begged for mercy, but they remained 

inflexible. Bocquet, one of those present, whose patience was exhausted, seized the 
pistol and offered it to him three times with the words: ‘Allons,* blow your brains out, . 
you coward, or I'll kill you myself!’— Albert snatched it out of his hand, saying, ‘But 
just think, a pistol-shot here in the Luxembourg would bring everybody running 
here!’—That’s true,’ cried Bocquet, ‘we need poison.’ ‘Poison?’ said Caussidiére. ‘I 
brought poison with me—of every kind.’ He took a glass, filled it with water, which he 
sugared, then poured in a white powder and offered it to de la Hodde, who recoiled in 
horror: ‘You want to kill me then?’—‘Yes we do,’ said Bocquet, ‘drink.’—De la 
Hodde was fearful to look at. His features were ashen, and his very curly, well-kempt 
hair stood on end on his head. His face was bathed in sweat. He implored, he wept: ‘I 
don’t want to die!’ But Bocquet, inflexible, still held out the glass to him. ‘Allons, 
drink,’ said Caussidiére, ‘it will be all over before you know what has hap- 
pened.’—‘No, no, I will not drink.’ And in his deranged state of mind he added with a 
terrible gesture: ‘Oh, I shall have my revenge for all these torments!’ 

“When it was seen that no appeal to his point d’honneur had any effect, de la 
Hodde was finally pardoned on Albert’s intercession, and was taken to the 
Conciergerie prison.” (Chenu, pp. 134-36 [pp. 147-50).) 

The self-styled spy a la Cooper becomes increasingly pathetic. We 
see him here in all his ignominy, only able to stand up to his 
opponents by cowardice. What we reproach him for is not that he 
did not shoot himself but that he did not shoot the first comer 
amongst his opponents. He seeks to justify himself after the event by 
means of a pamphlet in which he attempts to represent the whole 
revolution as a mere escroquerie.© The title of this pamphlet ought to 
be: The Disillusioned Policeman. It demonstrates that a true revolution 
is the exact opposite of the ideas of a mouchard, who like the “men of 
action” sees in every revolution the work of a small coterie. Whilst all 
movements which were to a greater or lesser extent arbitrarily 
provoked by coteries did not go beyond mere insurgency, it is clear 
from de la Hodde’s account itself that on the one hand the official 
republicans at the beginning of the February days still despaired of 
achieving the republic, and that on the other hand the bourgeoisie 
was obliged to help achieve the republic without wanting it, and thus 
that the February Republic was brought about by the force of 
circumstances driving the proletarian masses, who were outside any 
coterie, out into the streets and keeping the majority of the 
bourgeoisie at home or forcing them into common action with the 
proletarians.— What de la Hodde reveals apart from that is scanty 
indeed and amounts to no more than the most banal gossip. Only 
one scene is of interest: the meeting of the official democrats on the 
evening of February 21 on the premises of La Réforme, at which the 
leaders declared themselves firmly opposed to an attack by force. 

The content of their speeches testifies by and large to what was for 
that date still a correct understanding of the situation. They are 
ridiculous only because of their pompous style and the later claims of 
the same people to have consciously and deliberately worked towards 
the revolution from the start. And the worst thing, incidentally, that 
de la Hodde can say of them is that they tolerated him for so long in 
their midst. 

Let us turn to Chenu. Who is M. Chenu? He is a veteran 
conspirator, took part in every insurgency since 1832 and is 
well known to the police. Conscripted for military service, he soon 
deserted and remained undiscovered in Paris, despite his repeated 
participation in conspiracies and the 1839 revolt.” In 1844 he 
reported to his regiment, and strangely enough, despite his 
well-known record, he was spared a court-martial by the divisional 
general. And that was not all: he did not serve his full time with the 
regiment but was allowed to return to Paris. In 1847 he was 
implicated in the incendiary bomb conspiracy; he escaped an 
attempted arrest, but for all that remained in Paris, although he had 
been sentenced to four years in contumaciam? Only when his 
fellow-conspirators accused him of being in league with the police 
did he go to Holland, whence he returned on February 21, 1848. 
After the February Revolution he became a captain in Caussidiére’s 
guards. Caussidiére soon suspected him (a suspicion having a high 
degree of probability) of being in league with Marrast’s special police 
and dispatched him without much resistance to Belgium and later to 
Germany. M. Chenu submitted willingly enough to successive 
enrolments in the Belgian, German and Polish volunteer corps. And 
all this at a time when Caussidiére’s power was already beginning to 
totter and although Chenu claims to have had complete control over 
him; thus he maintains he forced Caussidiére by means of a 
threatening letter to free him immediately when he had once beer 
arrested. So much for our author’s character and credibility. 

The quantities of make-up and patchouli beneath which prosti- 
tutes attempt to smother the less attractive aspects of their physical 
being have their literary counterpart in the bel esprit with which de la 
Hodde perfumes his pamphlet. The literary qualities of Chenu’s 
book on the other hand frequently remind one of Gil Blas” by their 
naivety and the vivacity of their presentation. Just as in the most 
varied adventures Gil Blas always remains a servant and judges 
everything by a servant’s standards, so Chenu always remains, from 

the 1832 revolt up to his dismissal from the prefecture, the same 
low-ranking conspirator, whose own particular form of narrow- 
mindedness can incidentally be very clearly distinguished from the 
dull ruminations of the literary “faiseur” apportioned to him by the 
Elysée. It is clear that there can be no question of any understanding 
of the revolutionary movement in Chenu’s case either. For this 
. reason the only chapters in his book which are of any interest are 
those in which he describes things more or less uninhibitedly from 
his own observation: the Conspirators and Caussidiére the Hero. 

The propensity of the Latin peoples to conspiracy and the part 
which conspiracies have played in modern Spanish, Italian and 
French history are well known. After the defeat of the Spanish and 
Italian conspirators at the beginning of the twenties, Lyons and 
especially Paris became the centres of revolutionary clubs. It is a 
well-known fact that the liberal bourgeoisie headed the conspiracies 
against the Restoration up to 1830. After the July Revolution the 
republican bourgeoisie took their place; the proletariat, trained in 
conspiracy even under the Restoration, began to dominate to the 
extent that the republican bourgeoisie were deterred from conspir- 
ing by the unsuccessful street battles. The Société des saisons, through 
which Barbés and Blanqui organised the 1839 revolt, was already 
exclusively proletarian, and so were the Nouvelles saisons, formed 
after the defeat, whose leader was Albert and in which.Chenu, de la 
Hodde, Caussidiére, etc., participated. Through its leaders the 
conspiracy was constantly in contact with the petty-bourgeois 
elements represented by La Réforme, but always kept itself strictly 
independent. These conspiracies never of course embraced the 
broad mass of the Paris proletariat. They were restricted to a 
comparatively small, continually fluctuating number of members 
which consisted partly of unchanging, veteran conspirators, regular- 
ly bequeathed by each secret society to its successor, and partly of 
newly recruited workers. 

Of these veteran conspirators, Chenu describes virtually none but 
the class to which he himself belongs: the professional conspirators. 
With the development of proletarian conspiracies the need arose for 
a division of labour; the members were divided into occasional 
conspirators, conspirateurs d’occasion, i.e. workers who engaged in 
conspiracy alongside their other employment, merely attending 
meetings and holding themselves in readiness to appear at the place 
of assembly at the leaders’ command, and professional conspirators 
who devoted their whole energy to the conspiracy and had their 
hving from it. They formed the intermediate stratum between the 
workers and the leaders, and frequently even infiltrated the latter. 

The social situation of this class determines its whole character 
from the very outset. Proletarian conspiracy naturally affords them 
only very limited and uncertain means of subsistence. They are 
therefore constantly obliged to dip into the cash-boxes of the 
conspiracy. A number of them also come into direct conflict with civil 
society as such and appear before the police courts with a greater 
or lesser degree of dignity. Their precarious livelihood, dependent 
in individual cases more on chance than on their activity, their 
irregular lives whose only fixed ports-of-call are the taverns of the 
marchands de vin?—the places of rendezvous of the conspirators — 
their inevitable acquaintance with all kinds of dubious people, place 
them in that social category which in Paris is known as la bohéme. 
These democratic bohemians of proletarian origin—there are also 
democratic bohemians of bourgeois origin, democratic loafers and 
piliers d’estaminet’—are therefore either workers who have given up 
their work and have as a consequence become dissolute, or 
characters who have emerged from the lumpenproletariat and bring 
all the dissolute habits of that class with them into their new way of 
life. One can understand how in these circumstances a few repris de 
justices are to be found implicated in practically every conspiracy 
trial. 

The whole way of life of these professional conspirators has a most 
decidedly bohemian character. Recruiting sergeants for the conspir- 
acy, they go from marchand de vin to marchand de vin, feeling the 
pulse of the workers, seeking out their men, cajoling them into the 
conspiracy and getting either the society’s treasury or their new 
friends to foot the bill for the litres inevitably consumed in the 
process. Indeed it is really the marchand de vin who provides a roof 
over their heads. It is with him that the conspirator spends most of 
his time; it is here he has his rendezvous with his colleagues, with 
the members of his section and with prospective recruits; it is here, 
finally, that the secret meetings of sections (groups) and section 
leaders take place. The conspirator, highly sanguine in character 
anyway like all Parisian proletarians, soon develops into an absolute 
bambocheur* in this continual tavern atmosphere. The sinister 
conspirator, who in secret session exhibits a Spartan self-discipline, 
suddenly thaws and is transformed into a tavern regular whom 
everybody knows and who really understands how to enjoy his wine 

and women. This conviviality is further intensified by the constant 
dangers the conspirator is exposed to; at any moment he may be 
called to the barricades, where he may be killed; at every turn the 
police set snares for him which may deliver him to prison or even to 
the galleys. Such dangers constitute the real spice of the trade; the 
greater the insecurity, the more the conspirator hastens to seize the 
pleasures of the moment. At the same time familiarity with danger 
makes him utterly indifferent to life and liberty. He is as at home in 
prison as in the wine-shop. He is ready for the call to action any day. 
The desperate recklessness which is exhibited in every insurrection 
in Paris is introduced precisely by these veteran professional 
conspirators, the hommes de coups de main.2 They are the ones who 
throw up and command the first barricades, who organise resistance, 
lead the looting of arms-shops and the seizure of arms and 
ammunition from houses, and in the midst of the uprising carry out 
those daring raids which so often throw the government party into 
confusion. In a word, they are the officers of the insurrection. 

It need scarcely be added that these conspirators do not confine 
themselves to the general organising of the revolutionary proletariat. 
It is precisely their business to anticipate the process of revolutionary 
development, to bring it artificially to crisis-poimt, to launch a 
revolution on the spur of the moment, without the conditions for a 
revolution. For them the only condition for revolution is the 
adequate preparation of their conspiracy. They are the alchemists of 
the revolution and are characterised by exactly the same chaotic 
thinking and blinkered obsessions as the alchemists of old. They leap 
at inventions which are supposed to work revolutionary miracles: 
incendiary bombs, destructive devices of magic effect, revolts which 
are expected to be all the more miraculous and astonishing in effect 
as their basis is less rational. Occupied with such scheming, they have 
no other purpose than the most immediate one of overthrowing the 
existing government and have the profoundest contempt for the 
more theoretical enlightenment of the proletariat about their class 
interests. Hence their plebeian rather than proletarian irritation at 
the habits noirs,” people of a greater or lesser degree of education 
who represent that aspect of the movement, from whom, however, 
they can never make themselves quite independent, since they are 
the official representatives of the party. The habits noirs also serve at 
times as their source of money. It goes without saying that the 

conspirators are obliged to follow willy-nilly the development of the 
revolutionary party. 

The chief characteristic of the conspirators’ way of life is their 
battle with the police, to whom they have precisely the same 
relationship as thieves and prostitutes. The police tolerate the 
conspiracies, and not just as a necessary evil: they tolerate them as 
centres which they can keep under easy observation and where the 
most violent revolutionary elements in society meet, as the forges of 
revolt, which in France has become a tool of government quite as 
necessary as the police themselves, and finally as a recruiting place 
for their own political mouchards. Just as the most serviceable 
rogue-catchers, the Vidocqs and their cronies, are taken from the 
class of greater and lesser rascals, thieves, escrocs? and fraudulent 
bankrupts, and often revert to their old trade, in precisely the same 
way the humbler political policemen are recruited from among the 
professional conspirators. The conspirators are constantly in touch 
with the police, they come into conflict with them all the time; they 
hunt the mouchards, just as the mouchards hunt them. Spying is one of 
their main occupations. It is no wonder therefore that the short step 
from being a conspirator by trade to being a paid police spy is so 
frequently made, facilitated as it is by poverty and prison, by threats 
and promises. Hence the web of limitless suspicion within the 
conspiracies, which completely blinds their members and makes 
them see mouchards in their best people and their most trustworthy 
people in the real mouchards. That these spies recruited from among 
the conspirators mostly allow themselves to become involved with the 
police in the honest belief that they will be able to outwit them, that 
they succeed in playing a double role for a while, until they succumb 
more and more to the consequences of their first step, and that the 
police are often really outwitted by them, is self-evident. Whether, 
incidentally, such a conspirator succumbs to the snares of the police 
depends entirely on the coincidence of circumstances and rather on 
a quantitative than a qualitative difference in strength of character. 

These are the conspirators whom Chenu parades before us, often 
in a most lively manner, and whose characters he sometimes eagerly 
and sometimes reluctantly describes. He himself, incidentally, is the 
epitome of the conspirator by trade, right down to his somewhat 
ambiguous connections with Delessert’s and Marrast’s police. 

To the extent that the Paris proletariat came to the fore itself as a_ 
party, these conspirators lost some of their dominant influence, they 

were dispersed and they encountered dangerous competition in 
proletarian secret societies, whose purpose was not immediate 
insurrection but the organisation and development of the pro- 
letariat. Even the 1839 revolt was decidedly proletarian and 
communist. But afterwards the divisions occurred which the veteran 
conspirators bemoan so much; divisions which had their origin in the 
workers’ need to clarify their class interests and which found 
expression partly in the earlier conspiracies themselves and partly in 
new propagandist associations. The communist agitation which 
Cabet began so forcefully soon after 1839 and the controversies 
which arose within the Communist Party soon had the conspirators 
out of their depth. Both Chenu and de la Hodde admit that at the 
time of the February Revolution the Communists were by far the 
strongest party group among the revolutionary proletariat. The 
conspirators, if they were not to lose their influence on the workers 
and thus their importance as a counterbalance to the habits noirs, 
were obliged to go along with this trend and adopt socialist or 
communist ideas. Thus there arose even before the February 
Revolution that conflict between the workers’ conspiracies, rep- 
resented by Albert, and the Réforme people, the same conflict which 
was reproduced shortly afterwards in the Provisional Government. 
We would of course never dream of confusing Albert with these 
conspirators. It is clear from both works that Albert knew how to 
assert his own independent position above them, his tools, and he 
certainly does not belong to that category of people who practised 
conspiracy to earn their daily bread. 

The 1847 bomb affair, a matter in which direct police action was 
greater than in any previous case, finally scattered the most obstinate 
and contrary-minded of the veteran conspirators and drove their 
former sections into the proletarian movement proper. 

These professional conspirators, the most violent people in their 
sections and the détenus politiques* of proletarian origin, mostly 
veteran conspirators themselves, we find again as Montagnards in 
the Prefecture of Police after the February Revolution. The 
conspirators however form the core of the whole company. It is 
understandable that these people, suddenly armed and herded 
together here, mostly on quite familiar terms with their prefects and 
their officers, could not fail to form a somewhat turbulent corps. Just 
as the Montagne in the National Assembly was a parody of the 
original Montagne and by its impotence proved in the most striking 
manner that the old revolutionary traditions of 1793 no longer 

suffice today, so the Montagnards in the Prefecture of Police, the 
new version of the original sansculottes, proved that in the modern 
revolution this section of the proletariat is also insufficient and that 
only the proletariat as a whole can carry the revolution through. 

Chenu describes the sansculotte life-style of this honourable 
company in the Prefecture in a most lively manner. These comic 
scenes, in which M. Chenu was obviously an active participant, are 
sometimes rather wild, but very understandable in view of the 
character of the old conspiratorial bambocheurs, and form a necessary 
and even a healthy contrast to the orgies of the bourgeoisie in the last 
years of Louis Philippe. 

We will quote just one example from the account of how they 
established themselves in the Prefecture. 

“When the day broke, I saw the group leaders arrive one after the other with their 
men, but for the most part unarmed [...]. I drew Caussidiére’s attention to this. ‘I'll get 
arms for them,’ he said. ‘Look for a suitable place to quarter them in the Prefecture.’ I 
carried out this order at once and sent them to occupy that former police guardroom 
where I had once been so vilely treated myself. A moment later I saw them come 
running back. ‘Where are you going?’ I asked them. “The guardroom is occupied by a 
crowd of policemen,’ Devaisse replied to me; ‘they are fast asleep and we’re looking 
for something to waken them with and throw them out.’—They now armed 
themselves with whatever came to hand, ramrods, sabre-sheaths, straps folded double 
and broom-sticks. Then my lads, who had all had greater or lesser reason to complain 
of the insolence and brutality of the sleepers, fell on them with fists flying and for over 
half an hour taught them such a harsh lesson that some of them took a considerable 
time to recover. At their cries of terror I dashed up, and I only managed with 
difficulty to open the door which the Montagnards wisely kept locked on the inside. It 
was a sight for sore eyes to see the policemen dashing half-undressed into the 
courtyard. They jumped down the stairs in one bound, and it was lucky for them they 
knew every nook and cranny in the Prefecture and were able to escape from the sight 
of their enemies hard on their heels. Once masters of the place whose garrison they 
had just relieved with such courtesy, our Montagnards decked themselves out 
triumphantly in what the vanquished had left behind, and for a long time they were to 
be seen walking up and down the courtyard of the Prefecture, swords by their sides, 
coats over their shoulders and their heads resplendent in the three-cornered hats once 
so feared by the majority of them.” (Pp. 83-85 [pp. 95-96].) 

Now we have made the acquaintance of the Montagnards, let us 
turn to their leader, the hero of the Chenu saga, Caussidiére. Chenu 
parades him all the more frequently before us as the whole book ‘is 
actually directed against him. 

The main accusations levelled against Caussidiére relate to his 
moral life-style, his cavalier dealings in bills of exchange and other 
modest attempts to rustle up money such as any spirited Parisian 
commis voyageur in debt may and does resort to. Indeed, it is only the 
amount of capital which determines whether the cases of fraud, 
profiteering, swindling and stock-exchange speculation on which the 

whole of commerce is based, impinge to any degree on the Code 
pénal. With regard to stock-exchange coups and the Chinese fraud 
which are especially typical of French commerce, it is worth referring 
for instance to Fourier’s spicy descriptions in the Quatre mouvements, 
the Fausse industrie, the Traité de l’unité universelle and his posthum- 
ous works.”*° M. Chenu does not even try to prove that Caussidiére 
exploited his position as Prefect of Police for his own ends. Indeed a 
party can congratulate itself if its victorious opponents can do 
nothing more than expose such pathetic instances of commercial 
immorality. What a contrast between the petty dabblings of the 
commis voyageur Caussidiére and the grandiose scandals of the 
bourgeoisie in 1847! The only reason for the whole attack is that 
Caussidiére belonged to the Réforme party, which sought to conceal 
its lack of revolutionary energy and understanding behind protesta- 
tions of republican virtue and an attitude of sombre gravity. 
Caussidiére is the only entertaining figure amongst the leaders of 
the February Revolution. In his capacity as loustic* to the revolution, 
he was a most appropriate leader for the veteran professional 
conspirators. Sensual and endowed with a sense of humour, a 
regular of long standing in cafés and taverns of the most varied kind, 
happy to live and let live, but at the same time a brave soldier, 
concealing beneath broad-shouldered bonhomie and lack of inhibi- 
tion great cunning, astute thought and acute observation, he 
possessed a certain revolutionary tact and revolutionary energy. At 
that time, Caussidiére was a genuine plebeian who hated’ the 
bourgeoisie instinctively and. shared all the plebeian passions to a 
high degree. Scarcely was he established in the Prefecture when he 
was already conspiring against the National, but without in so doing 
neglecting his predecessor’s cuisine or cellar. He immediately 
organised a military force for himself, secured himself a newspaper, 
launched clubs, gave people parts to play and generally acted from 
the first moment with great self-confidence. In twenty-four hours 
the Prefecture was transformed into a fortress from which he could 
defy his enemies. But all his schemes either remained mere plans or 
amounted in practice to no more than plebeian pranks leading to 
nothing. When the conflicts became more acute, he shared the fate 
of his party, which remained indecisively in the middle between the 
National people and the proletarian revolutionaries such as Blanqui. 
His Montagnards split; the old bambocheurs grew too big for him 
and were no longer to be restrained, whilst the revolutionary section 
went over to Blanqui. Caussidiére himself became increasingly 

bourgeois in his official position as Prefect and representative; on 
May 15*' he kept prudently in the background and excused himself 
in the Chamber in an irresponsible manner; on June 23 he deserted 
the insurrection at the crucial moment. As a reward he was naturally 
removed from the Prefecture and shortly afterwards sent into exile. 

We now go on to some of the most significant passages from 
Chenu and de la Hodde concerning Caussidiére. 

Scarcely was de la Hodde established on the evening of February 
24 as General Secretary to the Prefecture under Caussidiére when 
the latter said to him: 

““T need reliable people here. The administrative side of things will always take 
care of itself more or less; for the time being I have kept on the old officials; as soon as 
the patriots have been trained, we shall send them packing. That is a secondary matter. 
What we must do is to make the Prefecture the stronghold of the revolution; give our 
men instructions to that effect; bring them all here. Once we have a thousand trusty 
comrades here, we shall have the whip hand. Ledru-Rollin, Flocon, Albert and I 
understand each other, and I hope everything will turn out all right. The National is 
for the high jump. And after that we shall republicanise the country all right, whether 
it likes it or not.’ 

“Thereupon Garnier-Pagés, the Mayor of Paris, under whose command the 
National had placed the police, arrived on a visit and suggested to Caussidiére he 
might prefer to take over command of the castle at Compiégne instead of the 
unpleasant post at the Prefecture. Caussidiére replied in that thin high-pitched voice 
of his which contrasted so strangely with his broad shoulders: ‘Go to Compiégne? Out 
of the question. I am needed here. I have got several hundred merry lads down there 
doing a splendid job; I am expecting twice as many again. If you at the Hotel de Ville 
haven’t enough good will or courage, I'll be able to help you.... Ha, ha, la révolution fera 
son petit bonhomme de chemin, il le faudra bien!’*—‘The revolution? But it’s 
over!’—‘Pshaw, it’s not even started yet!"—The poor Mayor stood there looking like 
_an utter ninny.” (De la Hodde, p 72 [pp. 103-05].) 

Amongst the most amusing scenes described by Chenu is the 
reception of the police officers and officiers de paix by the new 
Prefect, who was in the middle of a meal when they were announced. 

“Let them wait,’ said Caussidiére, ‘the Prefect is working.’ He went on working for 
a good half-hour more and then set the scene for the reception of the police 
officers who were meanwhile lined up on the great staircase. Caussidiére sat down 
majestically in his armchair, his great sabre at his side; two wild, bloodthirsty-looking 
Montagnards were guarding the door, arms ordered and pipes in their mouths. Two 
captains with drawn sabres stood at each side of his desk. Then there were all the 
section leaders and the republicans who formed his general staff, grouped around the 
room, all of them armed with great sabres and cavalry pistols, muskets and shot-guns. 
Everyone was smoking and the cloud of smoke filling the room made their faces seem 
even more sombre and gave the scene a really frightening aspect. In the centre a space 
had remained clear for the police officers. Each man put on his hat and Caussidiére 
gave the order for them to be brought in. The poor police officers wanted nothing 

better, for they. were exposed to the vulgarity and threats of the Montagnards, who 
would have liked to fricassee them in every sauce known to man. ‘You gang of 
blackguards,’ they bellowed, ‘now it’s our turn to have got you! You won’t get out of 
here, you'll be flayed alive!...’ As they entered the Prefect’s office they felt they were 
exchanging Scylla for Charybdis. The first to set foot on the threshold seemed to 
hesitate a moment. He was uncertain whether to advance or retreat, so menacing were 
all the eyes fixed upon him. At last he ventured a step forward and bowed, another 
step and bowed more deeply, another step again and bowed even more deeply still. 
Each made his entry with deep bows in the direction of the awful Prefect, who 
received all these marks of respect coldly and in silence, his hand resting on the hilt of 
his sabre. The police officers took in this extraordinary scene with eyes like saucays. 
Some of them, beside themselves with fear and no doubt wanting to curry favour with 
us, found the tableau imposing and majestic.— ‘Silence!’ commanded a Montagnard 
in sepulchral tones.— When they had all come in, Caussidiére, who had neither 
spoken nor moved until that moment, broke the silence and said in his most fearful 
voice: 

“A week ago you scarcely expected to find me here in this position, surrounded by 
trusty friends. So they are your masters today, these cardboard republicans, as you 
once called them! You tremble before those whom you subjected to the most ignoble 
treatment. You, Vassal, were the vilest séide* of the fallen government, the most 
violent persecutor of the republicans, and now you have fallen into the hands of your 
most implacable enemies, for there is not one present here who escaped your 
persecutions. If I listened to the just demands that are put to me, I would take 
reprisals. I prefer to forget. Return to your posts again, all of you; but if I ever hear 
that you have lent a hand to any reactionary trickery, I shall crush you like vermin. 
Go!’ 

“The police officers had been through every gradation of terror, and happy to 
escape with a dressing-down from the Prefect, they went off in good spirits. The 
Montagnards who were waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs escorted them to 
the end of the rue de Jérusalem with a hubbub of catcalls and jeers. Scarcely had the 
last of them disappeared when we burst out into a tremendous fit of laughter. 
' Caussidiére was beaming and laughed more than anyone at the magnificent prank he 
had just played on his police officers.” (Chenu, pp. 87-90 [pp. 99-102].) 

After March 17, in which Caussidiére played a big part, he said to 
Chenu: 

““T can raise up the masses and set them against the bourgeoisie whenever I like.’” 

(Chenu, p. 140 [p. 154].) 

Caussidiére never actually went further with his opponents than 
playing at giving them a fright. 

Finally, concerning Caussidiére’s relations with the Montagnards, 
Chenu says: 

“When I mentioned to Caussidiére the excesses his men were indulging in, he 
sighed, but his hands were tied. The majority of them had lived his life with him, he 

had shared their joys and sorrows; several had done him good turns. If he was 
unable to restrain them, it was a consequence of his own past.” (P. 97 [pp. 109-10.) 

We would remind our readers that both these books were written 
at the time of the campaign for elections of March 10.2% Their effegt 
is clear from the election result—the brilliant victory of the reds.