“REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION.”

It was the advertisement of a pamphlet, published two or three days previous to the coup d’etat, without any author’s name, demanding the Empire, and was attributed to the President of the Republic.

The Representatives entered and the doors were closed upon them.  The shouts ceased; the crowd, which occasionally has its meditative moments, remained for some time on the quay, dumb, motionless, gazing alternately at the closed gate of the Barracks, and at the silent front of the Palace of the Assembly, dimly visible in the misty December twilight, two hundred paces distant.

The two Commissaries of Police went to report their “success” to M. de Morny.  M. de Morny said, “Now the struggle has begun.  Excellent!  These are the last Representatives who will be made prisoners.”

[5] The Gerontes, or Gerontia, were the Elders of Sparta, who constituted the Senate.

[6] The “bureau” of the Assembly consists of the President, for the time being of the Assembly, assisted by six secretaries, whose duties mainly lie in deciding in what sense the Deputies have voted.  The “bureau” of the Assembly should not be confounded with the fifteen “bureaux” of the Deputies, which answer to our Select Committees of the House of Commons, and are presided over by self-chosen Presidents.

[7] An allusion to the twenty-five francs a day officially payable to the members of the Assembly.

CHAPTER XIII.

LOUIS BONAPARTE’S SIDE-FACE

The minds of all these men, we repeat, were very differently affected.

The extreme Legitimist party, which represents the White of the flag, was not, it must be said, highly exasperated at the coup d’etat.  Upon many faces might be read the saying of M. de Falloux:  “I am so satisfied that I have considerable difficulty in affecting to be only resigned.”  The ingenuous spirits cast down their eyes—­that is becoming to purity; more daring spirits raised their heads.  They felt an impartial indignation which permitted a little admiration.  How cleverly these generals have been ensnared!  The Country assassinated,—­it is a horrible crime; but they were enraptured at the jugglery blended with the parricide.  One of the leaders said, with a sigh of envy and regret, “We do not possess a man of such talent.”  Another muttered, “It is Order.”  And he added, “Alas!” Another exclaimed, “It is a frightful crime, but well carried out.”  Some wavered, attracted on one side by the lawful power which rested in the Assembly, and on the other by the abomination which was in Bonaparte; honest souls poised between duty and infamy.  There was a M. Thomines Desmazures who went as far as the door of the Great Hall of the Mairie, halted, looked inside, looked outside, and did not enter.  It would be unjust not to record that others amongst the pure Royalists, and above all M. de Vatimesnil, had the sincere intonation and the upright wrath of justice.