“Romieu will be a senator.”

Emile Pean asked,—­

“What will become of the Red Spectre?”

“He will enter the priesthood,” answered Antony Thouret, “and will turn into the Black Spectre.”

Other exclamations which the historians of the Second of December have spread abroad were not uttered.  Thus, Marc Dufraisse never made the remark with which the men of Louis Bonaparte have wished to excuse their crimes:  “If the President does not shoot all those among us who resist, he does not understand his business.”

For the coup d’etat such a remark might be convenient; but for History it is false.

The interior of the police-vans was lighted while the Representatives were entering.  The air-holes of each compartment were not closed.  In this manner Marc Dufraisse through the aperture could see M. du Remusat in the opposite cell to his own.  M. du Remusat had entered the van coupled with M. Duvergier de Hauranne.

“Upon my word, Monsieur Marc Dufraisse,” exclaimed Duvergier de Hauranne when they jostled each other in the gangway of the vehicle, “upon my word, if any one had said to me, ‘You will go to Marzas in a police-van,’ I should have said, ‘It is improbable;’ but if they had added, ’You will go with Marc Dufraisse,’ I should have said, ‘It is impossible!’”

As soon as the vehicle was full, five or six policemen entered and stood in the gangway.  The door was shut, the steps were thrown up, and they drove off.

When all the police-vans had been filled, there were still some Representatives left.  As we have said, omnibuses were brought into requisition.  Into these Representatives were thrust, one upon the other, rudely, without deference for either age or name.  Colonel Feray, on horseback, superintended and directed operations.  As he mounted the steps of the last vehicle but one, the Duc de Montebello cried out to him, “To-day is the anniversary of the battle of Austerlitz, and the son-in-law of Marshal Bugeaud compels the son of Marshal Lannes to enter a convict’s van.”

When the last omnibus was reached, there were only seventeen places for eighteen Representatives.  The most active mounted first.  Antony Thouret, who himself alone equalled the whole of the Right, for he had as much mind as Thiers and as much stomach as Murat; Antony Thouret, corpulent and lethargic, was the last.  When he appeared on the threshold of the omnibus in all his hugeness, a cry of alarm arose;—­Where was he going to sit?

Antony Thouret, noticing Berryer at the bottom of the omnibus, went straight up to him, sat down on his knees, and quietly said to him, “You wanted ‘compression,’ Monsieur Berryer.  Now you have it.”

[8] Michel de Bourges had thus characterized Louis Bonaparte as the guardian of the Republic against the Monarchical parties.

CHAPTER XV.

MAZAS