A successful coup d’etat does not stand upon ceremony.  This kind of success permits itself everything.

Facts abound.  But we must abridge, we will only present them briefly.

There were two species of Justice; the Military Commissions and the Mixed Commissions.

The Military Commissions sat in judgment with closed doors.  A colonel presided.

In Paris alone there were three Military Commissions:  each received a thousand bills of indictment.  The Judge of Instruction sent these accusations to the Procureur of the Republic, Lascoux, who transmitted them to the Colonel President.  The Commission summoned the accused to appear.  The accused himself was his own bill of indictment.  They searched him, that is to say, they “thumbed” him.  The accusing document was short.  Two or three lines.  Such as this, for example,—­

Name.  Christian name.  Profession.  A sharp fellow.  Goes to the Cafe.  Reads the papers.  Speaks.  Dangerous.

The accusation was laconic.  The judgment was still less prolix.  It was a simple sign.

The bill of indictment having been examined, the judges having been consulted, the colonel took a pen, and put at the end of the accusing line one of three signs:—­

     — + o

     — signified consignment to Lambessa.

     + signified transportation to Cayenne. (The dry guillotine.  Death.)

     o signified acquittal.

While this justice was at work, the man on whose case they were working was sometimes still at liberty, he was going and coming at his ease; suddenly they arrested him, and without knowing what they wanted with him, he left for Lambessa or for Cayenne.

His family was often ignorant of what had become of him.

People asked of a wife, of a sister, of a daughter, of a mother,—­

“Where is your husband?”

“Where is your brother?”

“Where is your father?”

“Where is your son?”

The wife, the sister, the daughter, the mother answered,—­“I do not know.”

In the Allier eleven members of one family alone, the Preveraud family of Donjon, were struck down, one by the penalty of death, the others by banishment and transportation.

A wine-seller of the Batignolles, named Brisadoux, was transported to Cayenne for this line in his deed of accusation:  his shop is frequented by Socialists.

Here is a dialogue, word for word, and taken from life, between a colonel and his convicted prisoner:—­

“You are condemned.”

“Indeed!  Why?”

“In truth I do not exactly know myself.  Examine your conscience.  Think what you have done.”

“I?”

“Yes, you.”

“How I?”

“You must have done something.”

“No.  I have done nothing.  I have not even done my duty.  I ought to have taken my gun, gone down into the street, harangued the people, raised barricades; I remained at home stupidly like a sluggard” (the accused laughs); “that is the offence of which I accuse myself.”