Cabinet Makers appeared to shun us, the torpor of the Faubourg St.

Antoine was manifest, the inertness of the Faubourg St. Marceau was not

less so. I ought to have received notice from the engineer before eleven

o'clock, and eleven o'clock was past. Our hopes died away one after

another. Nevertheless, all the more reason, in my opinion, to astonish

and awaken Paris by an extraordinary spectacle, by a daring act of life

and collective power on the part of the Representatives of the Left, by

the daring of an immense devotion.

It will be seen later on what a combination of accidental circumstances

prevented this idea from being realized as I then purposed. The

Representatives have done their whole duty. Providence perhaps has not

done all on its side. Be it as it may, supposing that we were not at

once carried off by some nocturnal and immediate combat, and that at the

hour at which I was speaking we had still a "to-morrow," I felt the

necessity of fixing every eye upon the course which should be adopted

on the day which was about to follow.--I spoke.

I began by completely unveiling the situation. I painted the picture in

four words: the Constitution thrown into the gutter; the Assembly driven

to prison with the butt-end of a musket, the Council of State dispersed;

the High Court expelled by a galley-sergeant, a manifest beginning of

victory for Louis Bonaparte, Paris ensnared in the army as though in a

net; bewilderment everywhere, all authority overthrown; all compacts

annulled; two things only remained standing, the coup d'état and

ourselves.

"Ourselves! and who are we?"

207

The History of a Crime