and commander of the troops of the first military division.  He also drew up other decrees in the same form which purported to promote to higher ranks all the military officers he intended to make instruments in the execution of his enterprise.

He ordered one regiment to close all the barriers of Paris, and allow no person to pass through them.  This was done:  so that in all the neighbouring towns from which assistance, in case of need, might have been obtained, nothing was known of the transactions in Paris.  He sent the other regiments to occupy the Bank, the Treasury, and different Ministerial offices.  At the Treasury some resistance was made.  The minister of that Department was on the spot, and he employed the guard of his household in maintaining his authority.  But in the whole of the two regiments of the Qnard not a single, objection was started to the execution of Mallet’s orders (Memoirs of the Duc de Rivogo, tome vi. p. 20.)]—­

I learned from the porter that the Due de Rovigo had been arrested and carried to the prison of La Force.  I went into the house and was informed, to my great astonishment, that the ephemeral Minister was being measured for his official suit, an act which so completely denoted the character of the conspirator that it gave me an insight into the business.

Mallet repaired to General Hulin, who had the command of Paris.  He informed him that he had been directed by the Minister of Police to arrest him and seal his papers.  Hulin asked to see the order, and then entered his cabinet, where Mallet followed him, and just as Hulin was turning round to speak to him he fired a pistol in his face.  Hulin fell:  the ball entered his cheek, but the wound was not mortal.  The most singular circumstance connected with the whole affair is, that the captain whom Mallet had directed to follow him, and who accompanied him to Hulin’s, saw nothing extraordinary in all this, and did nothing to stop it.  Mallet next proceeded, very composedly, to Adjutant-General Doucet’s.  It happened that one of the inspectors of the police was there.  He recognised General Mallet as being a man under his supervision.  He told him that he had no right to quit the hospital house without leave, and ordered him to be arrested.  Mallet, seeing that all was over, was in the act of drawing a pistol from his pocket, but being observed was seized and disarmed.  Thus terminated this extraordinary conspiracy, for which fourteen lives paid the forfeit; but, with the exception of Mallet, Guidal, and Lahorie, all the others concerned in it were either machines or dupes.