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To-day captivity, transportation, expatriation, exile, the axe has
fallen on nearly all these heads.
I am one of those who have had no other merit in this struggle than to
rally into one unique thought the courage of all; but let me here
heartily render justice to those men amongst whom I pride myself with
having for three years served the holy cause of human progress, to this
Left, insulted, calumniated, unappreciated, and dauntless, which was
always in the breach, and which did not repose for a single day, which
recoiled none the more before the military conspiracy than before the
parliamentary conspiracy, and which, entrusted by the people with the
task of defending them, defended them even when abandoned by themselves;
defended them in the tribune with speech, and in the street with the
sword.
When the Committee of Resistance in the sitting at which the decree of
deposition and of outlawry was drawn up and voted, making use of the
discretionary power which the Left had confided to it, decided that all
the signatures of the Republican Representatives remaining at liberty
should be placed at the foot of the decree, it was a bold stroke; the
Committee did not conceal from itself that it was a list of proscription
offered to the victorious coup d'état ready drawn up, and perhaps in
its inner conscience it feared that some would disavow it, and protest
against it. As a matter of fact, the next day we received two letters,
two complaints. They were from two Representatives who had been omitted
from the list, and who claimed the honor of being reinstated there. I
reinstate these two Representatives here, in their right of being
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