Gindrier had already rendered the same service to the ex-Constituent James Demontry.  In 1850 James Demontry died in exile at Cologne.  Gindrier started for Cologne, went to the cemetery, and had James Demontry exhumed.  He had the heart extracted, embalmed it, and enclosed it in a silver vase, which he took to Paris.  The party of the Mountain delegated him, with Chollet and Joigneux, to convey this heart to Dijon, Demontry’s native place, and to give him a solemn funeral.  This funeral was prohibited by an order of Louis Bonaparte, then President of the Republic.  The burial of brave and faithful men was unpleasing to Louis Bonaparte—­not so their death.

When Baudin had been laid out on the bed, the women came in, and all this family, seated round the corpse, wept.  Gindrier, whom other duties called elsewhere, went downstairs with Duteche.  A crowd had formed before the door.

A man in a blouse, with his hat on his head, mounted on a kerbstone, was speechifying and glorifying the coup d’etat.  Universal Suffrage re-established, the Law of the 31st May abolished, the “Twenty-five francs” suppressed; Louis Bonaparte has done well, etc.—­Gindrier, standing on the threshold of the door, raised his voice:  “Citizens! above lies Baudin, a Representative of the People, killed while defending the People; Baudin the Representative of you all, mark that well!  You are before his house; he is there bleeding on his bed, and here is a man who dares in this place to applaud his assassin!  Citizens! shall I tell you the name of this man?  He is called the Police!  Shame and infamy to traitors and to cowards!  Respect to the corpse of him who has died for you!”

And pushing aside the crowd, Gindrier took the man who had been speaking by the collar, and knocking his hat on to the ground with the back of his hand, he cried, “Hats off!”

CHAPTER VI.

THE DECREES OF THE REPRESENTATIVES WHO REMAINED FREE

The text of the judgment which was believed to have been dawn up by the High Court of Justice had been brought to us by the ex-Constituent Martin (of Strasbourg), a lawyer at the Court of Cassation.  At the same time we learned what was happening in the Rue Aumaire.  The battle was beginning, it was important to sustain it, and to feed it; it was important ever to place the legal resistance by the side of the armed resistance.  The members who had met together on the preceding day at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement had decreed the deposition of Louis Bonaparte; but this decree, drawn up by a meeting almost exclusively composed of the unpopular members of the majority, might have no effect on the masses; it was necessary that the Left should take it up, should adopt it, should imprint upon it a more energetic and more revolutionary accent, and also take possession of the judgment of the High Court, which was believed to be genuine, to lend assistance to this judgment, and put it into execution.