This extermination, which an English witness, Captain William Jesse, calls “a wanton fusillade,” lasted from two till five o’clock.  During these three terrible hours, Louis Bonaparte carried out what he had been premeditating, and completed his work.  Up to that time the poor little “middle-class” conscience was almost indulgent.  Well, what of it?  It was a game at Prince, a species of state swindling, a conjuring feat on a large scale; the sceptics and the knowing men said, “It is a good joke played upon those idiots.”  Suddenly Louis Bonaparte grew uneasy and revealed all his policy.  “Tell Saint-Arnaud to execute my orders.”  Saint-Arnaud obeyed, the coup d’etat acted according to its own code of laws, and from that appalling moment an immense torrent of blood began to flow across this crime.

They left the corpses lying on the pavements, wild-looking, livid, stupefied, with their pockets turned inside out.  The military murderer is thus condemned to mount the villainous scale of guilt.  In the morning an assassin, in the evening a thief.

When night came enthusiasm and joy reigned at the Elysee.  These men triumphed.  Conneau has ingeniously related the scene.  The familiar spirits were delirious with joy.  Fialin addressed Bonaparte in hail-fellow-well-met style.  “You had better break yourself of that,” whispered Vieillard.  In truth this carnage made Bonaparte Emperor.  He was now “His Majesty.”  They drank, they smoked like the soldiers on the boulevards; for having slaughtered throughout the day, they drank throughout the night; wine flowed upon the blood.  At the Elysee they were amazed at the result.  They were enraptured; they loudly expressed their admiration.  “What a capital idea the Prince had had!  How well the thing had been managed!  This was much better than flying the country, by Dieppe, like D’Haussez; or by Membrolle, like Guernon-Ranville; or being captured, disguised as a footboy, and blacking the boots of Madame de Saint Fargeau, like poor Polignac!” “Guizot was no cleverer than Polignac,” exclaimed Persigny.  Fleury turned to Morny:  “Your theorists would not have succeeded in a coup d’etat.”  “That is true, they were not particularly vigorous,” answered Morny.  He added, “And yet they were clever men,—­Louis Philippe, Guizot, Thiers—­” Louis Bonaparte, taking his cigarette from his lips, interrupted, “If such are clever men, I would rather be an ass—­”

“A hyena in an ass’s skin,” says History.

[24] No. 20, Cite Rodier.

[25] Rue Caumartin.  See pages 142, 145-148.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE APPOINTMENT MADE WITH THE WORKMEN’S SOCIETIES

What had become of our Committee during these tragic events, and what was it doing?  It is necessary to relate what took place.

Let us go back a few hours.