The so-called abdication, but really the deposition, of Prince Couza, as it was narrated at the time, was effected as follows.  The conspiracy being ripe, on February 11 [23], 1866, a sufficiently strong body of military, acting under the orders of General Golesco and others, surrounded the palace in which the Prince was lodged, and a number of officers then forced their way inside.  On entering the palace they proceeded to the room of the Prince, arresting on their way thither M. L——­[169] and two officers of the body-guard.  Before they forced the door the Prince, it seems, had a presentiment of some danger, and cried from within, ‘Don’t enter, for I shall fire.’  Before the sentence was finished, however, the door was burst open, and he saw before him the conspirators with revolvers in their hands.  He was cowardly enough (says the narrative) not to fire once.  It is possible that if he had known that they had an order not to fire, whatever might happen, he would have killed one or other of them.[170] Or, perhaps, the presence of Madame ——­[171] prevented him from offering resistance, for she was there undressed.

‘What do you want?’ he asked, trembling.

‘We have brought your Highness’s abdication,’ said Captain C——.  ’Will you sign it?’

‘I have neither pen nor ink,’ he answered.

‘We thought of that,’ said one of the conspirators.

‘I have no table.’

‘For this once, I offer myself as such,’ said Captain P——.

Having no alternative, the Prince then signed the following act of abdication, as it lay on the shoulders of the stooping officer who had condescended to serve as a desk for the occasion.

’We, Alexander, according to the will of the whole nation, and the oath we took on ascending the throne, this day, February 11 [23], 1866, lay down the reins of government and relegate the same to a princely locum-tenens and to the ministry chosen by the people.

(Signed) ‘ALEXANDER JOHN.’

‘This has been my wish for a long time,’ said the Prince after having signed; ’but circumstances not dependent upon myself have caused me to postpone.  Spite of all this, I was willing to do it in May.’

* * * * *

After he had signed the act of abdication the conspirators made him dress, and led him to a carriage where Ch——­, in the dress of a coachman, received him and drove him to the house of M. Ciocarlanu.  Madame ——­, on the other hand, was taken home to her own house after she had habited herself.  Immediately after Couza’s arrest the bells rang out a merry peal, a band of music struck up before the theatre, and masses of people collected before the palace where the Provisional Government had installed itself, and shortly afterwards issued the following proclamation:—­

     ’Roumanians,