When Sieur Primorin had finished writing, M. Baze said, “Now, you will be good enough to receive my protest, and add it to your official report.”  “It is not an official report,” objected the Commissary, “it is simply an order for committal.”  “I intend to write my protest at once,” replied M. Baze.  “You will have plenty of time in your cell,” remarked a man who stood by the table.  M. Baze turned round.  “Who are you?” “I am the governor of the prison,” said the man.  “In that case,” replied M. Baze, “I pity you, for you are aware of the crime you are committing.”  The man turned pale, and stammered a few unintelligible words.

The Commissary rose from his seat; M. Baze briskly took possession of his chair, seated himself at the table, and said to Sieur Primorin, “You are a public officer; I request you to add my protest to your official report.”  “Very well,” said the Commissary, “let it be so.”  Baze wrote the protest as follows:—­

“I, the undersigned, Jean-Didier Baze, Representative of the People, and Questor of the National Assembly, carried off by violence from my residence in the Palace of the National Assembly, and conducted to this prison by an armed force which it was impossible for me to resist, protest in the name of the National Assembly and in my own name against the outrage on national representation committed upon my colleagues and upon myself.

  “Given at Mazas on the 2d December 1851, at eight o’clock in the
  morning.

  “BAZE.”

While this was taking place at Mazas, the soldiers were laughing and drinking in the courtyard of the Assembly.  They made their coffee in the saucepans.  They had lighted enormous fires in the courtyard; the flames, fanned by the wind, at times reached the walls of the Chamber.  A superior official of the Questure, an officer of the National Guard, Ramond de la Croisette, ventured to say to them, “You will set the Palace on fire;” whereupon a soldier struck him a blow with his fist.

Four of the pieces taken from the Cour de Canons were ranged in battery order against the Assembly; two on the Place de Bourgogne were pointed towards the grating, and two on the Pont de la Concorde were pointed towards the grand staircase.

As side-note to this instructive tale let us mention a curious fact.  The 42d Regiment of the line was the same which had arrested Louis Bonaparte at Boulogne.  In 1840 this regiment lent its aid to the law against the conspirator.  In 1851 it lent its aid to the conspirator against the law:  such is the beauty of passive obedience.

[2] The Questors were officers elected by the Assembly, whose special duties were to keep and audit the accounts, and who controlled all matters affecting the social economy of the House.

CHAPTER IV.

OTHER DOINGS OF THE NIGHT