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the matter with you, Baudin?" asked Aubry (du Nord). "Are you mournful?"
I?" said Baudin, raising his head, "I have never been more happy."
"
Did he feel himself already chosen? When we are so near death, all
radiant with glory, which smiles upon us through the gloom, perhaps we
are conscious of it.
A certain number of men, strangers to the Assembly, all as determined as
the Representatives themselves, accompanied them and surrounded them.
Cournet was the leader. Amongst them there were workmen, but no blouses.
In order not to alarm the middle classes the workmen had been
requested, notably those employed by Derosne and Cail, to come in coats.
Baudin had with him a copy of the Proclamation which I had dictated to
him on the previous day. Cournet unfolded it and read it. "Let us at
once post it up in the Faubourg," said he. "The People must know that
Louis Bonaparte is outlawed." A lithographic workman who was there
offered to print it without delay. All the Representatives present
signed it, and they added my name to their signatures. Aubry (du Nord)
headed it with these words, "National Assembly." The workman carried off
the Proclamation, and kept his word. Some hours afterwards Aubry (du
Nord), and later on a friend of Cournet's named Gay, met him in the
Faubourg du Temple paste-pot in hand, posting the Proclamation at every
street corner, even next to the Maupas placard, which threatened the
penalty of death to any one who should be found posting an appeal to
arms. Groups read the two bills at the same time. We may mention an
incident which ought to be noted, a sergeant of the line, in uniform, in
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