“All, all!” exclaimed the members of the Assembly.  After much hesitation the commissaires de police decided to act.  They caused each of the two Presidents to be seized by the collar.  The whole body then rose, and, arm in arm, two and two, they followed the Presidents, who were led off.  In this order they reached the street, and were marched across the city, without knowing whither they were going.

Care had been taken to circulate a report among the crowd and the troops that a meeting of Socialist and Red Republican Deputies had been arrested.  But when the people beheld among those who were thus dragged through the mud of Paris on foot, like a gang of malefactors, men the most illustrious by their talents and their virtues—­ex-ministers, ex-ambassadors, generals, admirals, great orators, great writers, surrounded by the bayonets of the line—­a shout was raised, “Vive l’Assemblee nationale!” The Representatives were attended by these shouts until they reached the barracks of the Quai d’Orsay, where they were shut up.

Night was coming on, and it was wet and cold.  Yet the Assembly was left two hours in the open air, as if the Government did not deign to remember its existence.  The Representatives here made their last roll-call in presence of their phonographer, who had followed them.  The number present was two hundred eighteen, to whom were added about twenty more in the course of the evening, consisting of members who had voluntarily caused themselves to be arrested.  Almost all the men known to France and to Europe, who formed the majority of the Legislative Assembly, were gathered in this place.  Few were wanting, except those who, like M. Mole, had not been suffered to reach their colleagues.

There were present, among others, the Duc de Broglie, who had come, though ill; the father of the House, the venerable Keratry, whose physical strength was inferior to his moral courage, and whom it was necessary to seat in a straw chair in the barrack yard; Odilon Barrot, Dufaure, Berryer, Remusat, Duvergier de Hauranne, Gustave de Beaumont, De Tocqueville, De Falloux, Lanjuinais, Admiral Laine and Admiral Cecille, Generals Oudinot and Lauriston, the Due de Luynes, the Due de Montebello; twelve ex-ministers, nine of whom had served under Louis Napoleon himself; eight members of the Institute—­all men who had struggled for three years to defend society and to resist the demagogic faction.

When two hours had elapsed this assemblage was driven into barrack-rooms upstairs, where most of them spent the night, without fire and almost without food, stretched upon the boards.  It only remained to carry off to prison these honorable men, guilty of no crime but the defence of the laws of their country.  For this purpose the most distressing and ignominious means were selected.  The cellular vans, in which convicts are conveyed to prison, were brought up.  In these vehicles were shut up the men who had served and honored their country, and they were conveyed like three bands of criminals, some to the fortress of Mont Valerien, some to the prison Mazas in Paris, and the remainder to Vincennes.  The indignation of the public compelled the Government two days afterward to release the greater number of them; some remained in confinement, unable to obtain either their liberty or a trial.