He entreated us to go elsewhere.  M. Grevy’s brother, consulted by us, stated that he could not answer for the people of his house.

But what was to be done?  Hunted now for two days, we had exhausted the goodwill of nearly everybody, one refuge had been refused on the preceding evening, and at this moment no house was offered to us.  Since the night of the 2d we had changed our refuge seventeen times, at times going from one extremity of Paris to the other.  We began to experience some weariness.  Besides, as I have already said, the house where we were had this signal advantage—­a back outlet upon the Rue Fontaine-Moliere.  We decided to remain.  Only we thought we ought to take precautionary measures.

Every species of devotion burst forth from the ranks of the Left around us.  A noteworthy member of the Assembly—­a man of rare mind and of rare courage—­Durand-Savoyat—­who from the preceding evening until the last day constituted himself our doorkeeper, and even more than this, our usher and our attendant, himself had placed a bell on our table, and had said to us, “When you want me, ring, and I will come in.”  Wherever we went, there was he.  He remained in the ante-chamber, calm, impassive, silent, with his grave and noble countenance, his buttoned frock coat, and his broad-brimmed hat, which gave him the appearance of an Anglican clergyman.  He himself opened the entrance door, scanned the faces of those who came, and kept away the importunate and the useless.  Besides, he was always cheerful, and ready to say unceasingly, “Things are looking well.”  We were lost, yet he smiled.  Optimism in Despair.

We called him in.  Landrin set forth to him his misgivings.  We begged Durand-Savoyat in future to allow no one to remain in the apartments, not even the Representatives of the People, to take note of all news and information, and to allow no one to penetrate to us but men who were indispensable, in short, as far as possible, to send away every one in order that the goings and comings might cease.  Durand-Savoyat nodded his head, and went back into the ante-chamber, saying, “It shall be done.”  He confined himself of his own accord to these two formulas; for us, “Things are looking well,” for himself, “It shall be done.”  “It shall be done,” a noble manner in which to speak of duty.

Landrin and Durand-Savoyat having left, Michel de Bourges began to speak.

“The artifice of Louis Bonaparte, imitator of his uncle in this as in everything,” said Michel de Bourges, “had been to throw out in advance an appeal to the People, a vote to be taken, a plebiscitum, in short, to create a Government in appearance at the very moment when he overturned one.  In great crises, where everything totters and seems ready to fall, a People has need to lay hold of something.  Failing any other support, it will take the sovereignty of Louis Bonaparte.  Well, it was necessary that a support should be offered to the people, by us, in