“By this act alone, the President is deprived of all authority; the citizens are bound to withhold their obedience, the executive power passes in full right to the National Assembly.  The judges of the High Court of Justice will meet immediately, under pain of forfeiture; they will convoke the juries in the place which they will select to proceed to the judgment of the President and his accomplices; they will nominate the magistrates charged to fulfil the duties of public ministers.

“And seeing that the National Assembly is prevented by violence from exercising its powers, it decrees as follows, viz.:  Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is deprived of all authority as President of the Republic.  The citizens are enjoined to withhold their obedience.  The executive power has passed in full right to the National Assembly.  The judges of the High Court of Justice are enjoined to meet immediately, under pain of forfeiture, to proceed to the judgment of the President and his accomplices; consequently, all the officers and functionaries of power and of public authority are bound to obey all requisitions made in the name of the National Assembly, under pain of forfeiture and of high treason.

“Done and decreed unanimously in public sitting, this second day of December, 1851.”

After this first decree was voted, another was unanimously passed, naming General Oudinot commander of the public forces, and M. Tamisier was joined with him as chief of the staff.  The choice of these two officers, each having distinct shades of political opinion, showed that the Assembly was animated by one common spirit.

These decrees had hardly been signed by all the members present, and deposited in a place of safety, when a band of soldiers, headed by their officers, sword in hand, appeared at the door, without, however, daring to enter the apartment.  The Assembly awaited them in perfect silence.  The President alone raised his voice, read the decrees which had just been passed to the soldiers, and ordered them to retire.  The poor fellows, ashamed of the part they were compelled to play, hesitated.  The officers, pale and undecided, declared that they should go for further orders.  They retired, contenting themselves with blockading the passages leading to the apartment.  The Assembly, not being able to go out, ordered the windows to be opened, and caused the decrees to be read to the people and the troops in the street below, especially that decree which, in pursuance of the sixty-eighth article of the constitution, declared the deposition and impeachment of Louis Napoleon.

Soon, however, the soldiers reappeared at the door, preceded this time by two commissaires de police.  These men entered the room and, amid the unbroken silence and total immobility of the Assembly, summoned the Representatives to disperse.  The President ordered them to retire themselves.  One of the commissaires was agitated and faltered; the other broke out in invectives.  The President said to him:  “Sir, we are here the lawful authority and sole representatives of law and of right.  We know that we cannot oppose to you material force, but we will leave this chamber only under constraint.  We will not disperse.  Seize us and convey us to prison.”