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the Republic," suppressing the Avénement du Peuple, and had placed
sentinels over the presses. The workmen had resisted, and one of them
said to the soldiers, "We shall print it in spite of you." Then forty
additional Municipal Guards arrived, with two quarter-masters, four
corporals, and a detachment of the line, with drums at their head,
commanded by a captain. Girardin came up indignant, and protested with
so much energy that a quarter-master said to him, "I should like a
Colonel of your stamp." Girardin's courage communicated itself to the
workmen, and by dint of skill and daring, under the very eyes of the
gendarmes, they succeeded in printing Girardin's proclamations with the
hand-press, and ours with the brush. They carried them away wet, in
small packages, under their waistcoats.
Luckily the soldiers were drunk. The gendarmes made them drink, and
the workmen, profiting by their revels, printed. The Municipal Guards
laughed, swore and jested, drank champagne and coffee, and said, "We
fill the places of the Representatives, we have twenty-five francs a
day." All the printing-houses in Paris were occupied in the same manner
by the soldiery. The coup d'état reigned everywhere. The Crime even
ill-treated the Press which supported it. At the office of the Moniteur
Parisien, the police agents threatened to fire on any one who should
open a door. M. Delamare, director of the Patrie, had forty Municipal
Guards on his hands, and trembled lest they should break his presses. He
said to one of them, "Why, I am on your side." The gendarme replied,
"
What is that to me?"
At three o'clock on the morning of the 4th all the printing-offices were
evacuated by the soldiers. The Captain said to Serrière, "We have orders
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