had all the air of a man about town, who had just come from the opera,

and, in fact, he had come from thence, after having passed through a den.

He came from the Elysée. It was De Morny. For an instant he watched the

soldiers piling their arms, and then went on to the Presidency door.

There he exchanged a few words with M. de Persigny. A quarter of an hour

afterwards, accompanied by 250 Chasseurs de Vincennes, he took possession

of the ministry of the Interior, startled M. de Thorigny in his bed, and

handed him brusquely a letter of thanks from Monsieur Bonaparte. Some

days previously honest M. De Thorigny, whose ingenuous remarks we have

already cited, said to a group of men near whom M. de Morny was passing,

"How these men of the Mountain calumniate the President! The man who

would break his oath, who would achieve a coup d'état must necessarily

be a worthless wretch." Awakened rudely in the middle of the night, and

relieved of his post as Minister like the sentinels of the Assembly, the

worthy man, astounded, and rubbing his eyes, muttered, "Eh! then the

President is a ----."

"Yes," said Morny, with a burst of laughter.

He who writes these lines knew Morny. Morny and Walewsky held in the

quasi-reigning family the positions, one of Royal bastard, the other of

Imperial bastard. Who was Morny? We will say, "A noted wit, an intriguer,

but in no way austere, a friend of Romieu, and a supporter of Guizot

possessing the manners of the world, and the habits of the roulette

table, self-satisfied, clever, combining a certain liberality of ideas

with a readiness to accept useful crimes, finding means to wear a

gracious smile with bad teeth, leading a life of pleasure, dissipated but

reserved, ugly, good-tempered, fierce, well-dressed, intrepid, willingly

The History of a Crime