the men of the coup d'état took care to employ the Gendarmerie Mobile

and the Republican Guard, that it is to say the two corps almost entirely

composed of former Municipal Guards, bearing at heart a revengeful

remembrance of the events of February.

Captain La Roche d'Oisy brought a letter from the Minister of War, which

placed himself and his soldiers at the disposition of the manager of the

National Printing Office. The muskets were loaded without a word being

spoken. Sentinels were placed in the workrooms, in the corridors, at the

doors, at the windows, in fact, everywhere, two being stationed at the

door leading into the street. The captain asked what instructions he

should give to the sentries. "Nothing more simple," said the man who had

come in the fiacre. "Whoever attempts to leave or to open a window,

shoot him."

This man, who, in fact, was De Béville, orderly officer to M. Bonaparte,

withdrew with the manager into the large cabinet on the first story, a

solitary room which looked out on the garden. There he communicated to

the manager what he had brought with him, the decree of the dissolution

of the Assembly, the appeal to the Army, the appeal to the People, the

decree convoking the electors, and in addition, the proclamation of the

Prefect Maupas and his letter to the Commissaries of Police. The four

first documents were entirely in the handwriting of the President, and

here and there some erasures might be noticed.

The compositors were in waiting. Each man was placed between two

gendarmes, and was forbidden to utter a single word, and then the

documents which had to be printed were distributed throughout the room,

The History of a Crime