The History of a Crime


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filthy walls and low ceilings, furnished with wooden tables and benches.  
These were the "apartments." These garrets, which adjoin each other, all  
open on the same corridor, a narrow passage, which runs the length of the  
main building. In one of these rooms they saw, thrown into a corner,  
side-drums, a big drum, and various instruments of military music. The  
Representatives scattered themselves about in these rooms. M. de  
Tocqueville, who was ill, threw his overcoat on the floor in the recess  
of a window, and lay down. He remained thus stretched upon the ground for  
several hours.  
These rooms were warmed very badly by cast-iron stoves, shaped like  
hives. A Representative wishing to poke the fire, upset one, and nearly  
set fire to the wooden flooring.  
The last of these rooms looked out on the quay. Antony Thouret opened a  
window and leaned out. Several Representatives joined him. The soldiers  
who were bivouacking below on the pavement, caught sight of them and  
began to shout, "Ah! there they are, those rascals at 'twenty-five francs  
a day,' who wish to cut down our pay!" In fact, on the preceding evening,  
the police had spread this calumny through the barracks that a  
proposition had been placed on the Tribune to lessen the pay of the  
troops. They had even gone so far as to name the author of this  
proposition. Antony Thouret attempted to undeceive the soldiers. An  
officer cried out to him, "It is one of your party who made the proposal.  
It is Lamennais!"  
In about an hour and a half there were ushered into these rooms MM.  
Vallette, Bixio, and Victor Lefranc, who had come to join their  
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