In 1849, Louis Bonaparte had assassinated the sovereignty of the People

in the person of its Roman Representatives; in 1851 he assassinated it in

the person of its French Representatives. It was logical, and although it

was infamous, it was just. The Legislative Assembly bore at the same time

the weight of two crimes; it was the accomplice of the first, the victim

of the second. All these men of the majority felt this, and were humbled.

Or rather it was the same crime, the crime of the Second of July, 1849,

ever erect, ever alive, which had only changed its name, which now called

itself the Second of December, and which, the offspring of this Assembly,

stabbed it to the heart. Nearly all crimes are parricidal. On a certain

day they recoil upon those who have committed them, and slay them.

At this moment, so full of anxiety, M. de Falloux must have glanced round

for M. de Montalembert. M. de Montalembert was at the Elysée.

When Tamisier rose and pronounced this terrifying word, "The Roman

Question?" distracted M. de Dampierre shouted to him, "Silence! You kill

us!"

It was not Tamisier who was killing them--it was Oudinot.

M. de Dampierre did not perceive that he cried "Silence!" to history.

And then without even reckoning the fatal remembrance which at such a

moment would have crushed a man endowed in the highest degree with great

military qualities, General Oudinot, in other respects an excellent

officer, and a worthy son of his brave father, possessed none of those

striking qualities which in the critical hour of revolution stir the

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The History of a Crime