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THE THIRD DAY--THE MASSACRE.
CHAPTER I.
THOSE WHO SLEEP AND HE WHO DOES NOT SLEEP
During this night of the 3d and 4th of December, while we who were
overcome with fatigue and betrothed to calamity slept an honest slumber,
not an eye was closed at the Elysée. An infamous sleeplessness reigned
there. Towards two o'clock in the morning the Comte Roguet, after Morny
the most intimate of the confidants of the Elysée, an ex-peer of France
and a lieutenant-general, came out of Louis Bonaparte's private room;
Roguet was accompanied by Saint-Arnaud. Saint-Arnaud, it may be
remembered, was at that time Minister of War.
Two colonels were waiting in the little ante-room.
Saint-Arnaud was a general who had been a supernumerary at the Ambigu
Theatre. He had made his first appearance as a comedian in the suburbs.
A tragedian later on. He may be described as follows:--tall, bony, thin,
angular, with gray moustaches, lank air, a mean countenance. He was a
cut-throat, and badly educated. Morny laughed at him for his pronunciation
of the "Sovereign People." "He pronounces the word no better than he
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