The gardens of the neighborhood occupied by the troops were full of broken bottles.  They had plied the soldiers with drink.  They obeyed the “epaulettes” unconditionally, and according to the expression of eyewitnesses, appeared “dazed-drunk.”  The Representatives appealed to them, and said to them, “It is a crime!” They answered, “We are not aware of it.”

One soldier was heard to say to another, “What have you done with your ten francs of this morning?”

The sergeants hustled the officers.  With the exception of the commander, who probably earned his cross of honor, the officers were respectful, the sergeants brutal.

A lieutenant showing signs of flinching, a sergeant cried out to him, “You are not the only one who commands here!  Come, therefore, march!”

M. de Vatimesnil asked a soldier, “Will you dare to arrest us—­us, the Representatives of the People?”

“Assuredly!” said the soldier.

Several soldiers hearing some Representatives say that they had eaten nothing since the morning, offered them their ration bread.  Some Representatives accepted.  M. de Tocqueville, who was unwell, and who was noticed to be pale and leaning on the sill of a window, received from a soldier a piece of this bread, which he shared with M. Chambolle.

Two Commissaries of Police appeared in “full dress,” in black coats girded with their sash-girdles and their black corded hats.  One was an old man, the other a young man.  The first was named Lemoine-Tacherat, and not Bacherel, as has been wrongly printed:  the second was named Barlet.  These names should be noted.  The unprecedented assurance of this Barlet was remarked.  Nothing was wanting in him,—­cynical speech, provoking gesture, sardonic intonation.  It was with an inexpressible air of insolence that Barlet, when summoning the meeting to dissolve itself, added, “Rightly or Wrongly.”  They murmured on the benches of the Assembly, “Who is this scoundrel?” The other, compared to him, seemed moderate and inoffensive.  Emile Pean exclaimed, “The old man is simply working in his profession, but the young man is working out his promotion.”

Before this Tacherat and this Barlet entered, before the butts of the muskets had been heard ringing on the stones of the staircase, this Assembly had talked of resistance.  Of what kind of resistance?  We have just stated.  The majority could only listen to a regular organized resistance, a military resistance in uniform and in epaulets.  Such a resistance was easy to decree, but it was difficult to organize.  The Generals on whom the Assembly were accustomed to rely having been arrested, there only remained two possible Generals, Oudinot and Lauriston.  General Marquis de Lauriston, ex-peer of France, and at the same time Colonel of the Tenth Legion and Representative of the People, drew a distinction between his duty as Representative and his duty as Colonel.  Summoned by some of his friends of the Right to beat to arms and call together the Tenth Legion, he answered, “As Representative of the People I ought to indict the Executive Power, but as Colonel I ought to obey it.”  It appears that he obstinately shut himself up in this singular reasoning, and that it was impossible to draw him out of it.