At nine o’clock in the morning, at the moment when the Courbevoie garrison was descending upon Paris, the placards of the coup d’etat being still fresh upon the walls, Louis Bonaparte had left the Elysee, had crossed the Place de la Concorde, the Garden of the Tuileries, and the railed courtyard of the Carrousel, and had been seen to go out, by the gate of the Rue de l’Echelle.  A crowd assembled at once.  Louis Bonaparte was in a general’s uniform; his uncle, the ex-King Jerome, accompanied him, together with Flahaut, who kept in the near.  Jerome wore the full uniform of a Marshal of France, with a hat with a white feather; Louis Bonaparte’s horse was a head before Jerome’s horse.  Louis Bonaparte was gloomy, Jerome attentive, Flahaut beaming.  Flahaut had his hat on one side.  There was a strong escort of Lancers.  Edgar Ney followed.  Bonaparte intended to go as far as the Hotel de Ville.  Georges Biscarrat was there.  The street was unpaved, the road was being macadamized; he mounted on a heap of stones, and shouted, “Down with the Dictator!  Down with the Praetorians!” The soldiers looked at him with bewilderment, and the crowd with astonishment.  Georges Biscarrat (he told me so himself) felt that this cry was too erudite, and that it would not be understood, so he shouted, “Down with Bonaparte!  Down with the Lancers!”

The effect of this shout was electrical.  “Down with Bonaparte!  Down with the Lancers!” cried the people, and the whole street became stormy and turbulent.  “Down with Bonaparte!” The outcry resembled the beginning of an execution; Bonaparte made a sudden movement to the right, turned back, and re-entered the courtyard of the Louvre.

Georges Biscarrat felt it necessary to complete his shout by a barricade.

He said to the bookseller, Benoist Mouilhe, who had just opened his shop, “Shouting is good, action is better.”  He returned to his house in the Rue du Vert Bois, put on a blouse and a workman’s cap, and went down into the dark streets.  Before the end of the day he had made arrangements with four associations—­the gas-fitters, the last-makers, the shawl-makers, and the hatters.

In this manner he spent the day of the 2d of December.

The day of the 3d was occupied in goings and comings “almost useless.”  So Biscarrat told Versigny, and he added, “However I have succeeded in this much, that the placards of the coup d’etat have been everywhere torn down, so much so that in order to render the tearing down more difficult the police have ultimately posted them in the public conveniences—­their proper place.”

On Thursday, the 4th, early in the morning, Georges Biscarrat went to Ledouble’s restaurant, where four Representatives of the People usually took their meals, Brives, Bertlhelon, Antoine Bard, and Viguier, nicknamed “Father Viguier.”  All four were there.  Viguier related what we had done on the preceding evening, and shared my opinion that the closing catastrophe should be hurried on, that the Crime should be precipitated into the abyss which befitted it.  Biscarrat came in.  The Representatives did not know hire, and stared at him.  “Who are you?” asked one of them.  Before he could answer, Dr. Petit entered, unfolded a paper, and said,—­