limits it traces out to me." Again, speaking on a public occasion, at the opening of a railway, he had alluded to the events that led to his incarceration in the fortress of Ham, and had unreservedly taken blame to himself for his hare-brained Boulogne enterprise, saying: "To-day, when by the election of the whole of France I have become the legitimate chief of this great nation, I cannot glorify myself on an imprisonment caused by an attack upon an established government. And over and over again he had declared, that in view of the terrible evils inseparable from even the most justifiable of revolutions, he could hardly understand the audacity of the man who could take upon himself the terrible responsibility of a change. Everywhere, and on all occasions, he had paraded his respect for the Constitution, and the paramount duty imposed on the chief of the state of maintaining the order of things as by law established. No wonder, then, that the people stood bewildered and indignant before this extraordinary commentary on those reiterated assurances of good faith.

The troops assembled in Paris were set in motion early in the morning, in expectation of the excitement these things might be expected to cause. As five o'clock sounded from the cupola of the Invalides, the troops in barracks there were aroused, and ordered quietly to take their arms. At the same hour the various regiments in different parts of the capital received the same order. The object of this early movement was twofold,-partly the troops would be required to overawe Paris, and enforce the decree closing the Assembly; partly, in case things went wrong, to provide for the safety of the plotters at the Elysée. The latter duty was assigned especially to the cavalry, of whom a division under General Korte, and a brigade under Reybell, with an infantry brigade under General Canrobert, were stationed near the palace. Other infantry brigades were posted at various points, such as the Place de la Concorde, the Quai d'Orsay, and the Tuileries Gardens, under Generals Cotte, Forey, and Dulac. Somewhat later another eventuality was provided for. Three travelling carriages were kept in readiness, with horses harnessed, and postillions in waiting, ready to start at a moment's notice from the courtyard of the Elysée. For a betrayed city, especially such a city as Paris, has been known to rise in fury against its betrayers; and sudden flight might be necessary, after all.

FORCIBLE CLOSING OF THE ASSEMBLY ARREST OF MEMBERS.

The projectors of the coup d'état evidently counted for success in a great measure upon the bewilderment of the Parisians, who would

be very imperfectly aware of the real state of affairs; the newspapers, which would have informed them, being promptly seized and stopped. Another hope was in the unpopularity of the Assembly; for the workmen of Paris looked somewhat suspiciously upon representatives paid for service at the rate of a pound sterling a day; and were as likely to take part against as with "les vignt-cinq francs," if properly manipulated, and especially if dazzled with anything like a Napoleonic spectacle; and thus it was that the famous ride through Paris was undertaken, to which allusion has been made; and which in itself fell as flat as the Strasburg and Boulogne attempts.

A point of great importance was the closing of the Assembly; for this could hardly be expected to go off without opposition on the part of the ejected members. At this parody of the 18th of Brumaire the President took care not to be present, warned, perhaps, by his experiences of the parodies of the return from Elba. The space outside the Hall of the National Assembly was occupied by several regiments of troops. From an early hour the deputies began to arrive; in high indignation at the arrests that had been made, and anxious that a sitting should commence at once. But this was exactly the thing that Dupin, the president, appeared anxious to avoid. In the morning, when one of the deputies had come to him with the astounding news, and had conjured him immediately to summon the representatives at their houses, he had replied that he could not see the urgency of the case; and now, when an impatient deputy asked him why the Assembly was not yet convoked, seeing what things were being perpetrated, he replied with a shrug of the shoulders that there was nothing to be done. There was no mistaking the purport of this answer. M. Dupin was thoroughly frightened, and would do nothing. His colleagues understood him. "That's enough," was the observation of M de Rességnier; and Eugène Sue added: "It's too much." By eight o'clock a formidable force had invested the legislative palace, all the avenues of approach being guarded, and the doors closed. But a little entrance, called the Porte Noire, in the Rue de Bourgogne, had been left open by accident or design until twelve o'clock, though the street was crowded with troops; and various representatives managed to pass through it into the Hall of Assembly. In the great avenue of the Champs Elysées several cavalry regiments were posted.

It has been well said, that for once the Assembly was thoroughly unanimous in the feeling of profound indignation and contempt at the unworthy statetrick played by Louis Napoleon and his accomplices. The num

ber of armed men who were gradually invading the interior, as they had already occupied the precincts of the palace, increased every minute; and the deputies felt sure that the nefarious game was being played against the republic, while they were wasting time, and that not a moment was to be lost. They sought Dupin, their "official man," whose presence was necessary to give full legal force to their deliberations; but that prudent personage was nowhere to be found. He

had consulted his own safety, and had displayed the better part of valour by creeping away at the first opportunity; and while conjecture was still busy as to the cause of his absence the door of the room opened, and an officer in uniform entered, and summoned the deputies to leave their own hall.

His demand was met with a shout of indignant refusal; and he retired. But presently a company of the "gendarmerie mobile," led on by a captain with his sword drawn, appeared in the hall to which the sixty representatives present had betaken themselves. The resolute protest made by the deputies at this lawless intrusion seemed to stagger the soldiers for a moment; but the commanding officer, after announcing to the deputies that he had orders to desire them to withdraw, and, in case of their refusal, to expel them, proceeded, on the arrival of a fresh detachment, to put this order in force in the most literal manner, turning the representatives of the people out of their hall by violence, with brutal roughness and blows. Twelve of them, who were most energetic in their protests, were carried away prisoners. The rest were pushed into the street through the different doors.

CLOSING OF THE HIGH COURT of Justice.

Meanwhile a commissary of police had been despatched with a detachment of thirty-five municipal guards to the High Court of Justice, which was dispersed in the same unceremonious fashion, the judges being threatened with arrest if they hesitated to obey. And, yielding to the peremptory summons, the court broke up, after passing a decree of impeachment to be served upon the President of the Republic.

The members of the Assembly, driven from their hall, betook themselves to the mayoralty of the 10th arrondissement. There,

amid a passionate storm of indignation, under the leadership of the famous advocate Berryer, they decreed the deposition of the President, Louis Napoleon; and by a second decree pronounced every one guilty of a crime who had interfered with the inviolability of the Assembly, and peremptorily. demanded that the imprisoned members should be set at liberty. While this was

going on, a battalion of Chasseurs de Vincennes had been quietly marched into the garden of the mayoralty. Again the deputies were ordered to disperse. They refused, declaring they would yield only to physical force; whereupon they were marched off, to the number of more than two hundred, as prisoners, between the Chasseurs de Vincennes. It is a significant fact that the courtyard of the mayoralty was afterwards found strewn with broken wine bottles; and there is abundant evidence that on this occasion, as well as during the more tragic scenes that followed, the soldiers were under the influence of drink; many of them being in a stupidly heavy condition, others fierce and brutal, and nearly all incapable of listening to reasoning, or of anything but a stolid obedience to any one who wore an epaulet.

THE ASSEMBLY CARRIED AWAY CAPTIVE.

As the members of the Assembly emerged in the courtyard as prisoners, the National Guards on duty presented arms, and cried: "Long live the Assembly! Long live the representatives of the people!" They were at once disarmed by the Chasseurs de Vincennes. And then the march of the French Parliament, led captive through the streets of Paris, began. It is said that the first intention of those who ordered their arrest had been to lodge the representatives in the prison of Mazas; but if so, the order was countermanded; and, indeed, it would have been a venturesome thing to parade such a sight in broad daylight, in the eyes of the numerous and excitable inhabitants of the streets between the mayoralty of the 10th arrondissement and Mazas. The barracks of the Quay D'Orsay presented a convenient domicile for lodging the captives; and thither, accordingly, the procession took its way, reaching its destination at about half-past three in the afternoon.

On their way they had encountered sympathizing glances, and here and there had been saluted with encouraging cries; but the general aspect of the spectators was one of blank astonishment as they thus saw the representatives of French liberty marched off in the custody of soldiers. The French are accustomed to act in masses, under leaders in whom they have confidence, and whom, at a crisis, they implicitly obey; and the sinister ingenuity of the plotters of the coup d'état had taken care that the accredited leaders of the people, those to whom the nation could have turned with faith and strong belief at a time when its liberties were invaded,―men like Cavaignac, Thiers, and others,-should be safely under lock and key, before the great blow against the liberty and honour of France was struck.

THE PRISONErs and the Cellular Vans; MAZAS AND VINCENNES.

When the prisoners had been safely deposited in the barrack square, they were left to themselves for a time, and walked to and fro, discussing the situation. Community of misfortune is a great peacemaker; and the members of the "right" and "left," bitter opponents until then, fraternised and exchanged opinions with great cordiality. The number of the prisoners had been increased during their march by several members who joined them voluntarily; and they now met those who had been taken prisoners in the morning, so that they amounted to more than two hundred and thirty. They had among them the illustrious writer De Tocqueville, Thouret, Casimir, Perier, Berryer the advocate, Sainte-Beuve, and many other men of❘ high standing and reputation. They put the best face possible on their position, jested with one another on the strange fortune that had brought them together as prisoners, managed to procure a dinner, by a general subscription from the neighbouring Café D'Orsay, and prepared to sleep in the large comfortless barrack-rooms on the upper storey. But a further indignity was in store for them. At ten o'clock that night there came rolling into the courtyard a prisoner's van, surrounded by an escort of gaolers, carrying torches. A squadron of lancers then entered the court, and drew up in line. Other similar vehicles arrived at a later hour; and in these cellular vans, and in a supplementary omnibus, the representatives of the people were driven away in batches; some to Vincennes, others to Mazas, and the rest to Mont Valérien. A more cynically insulting proceeding it would be difficult to imagine. At Mazas, especially, the imprisoned representatives were treated like the robbers among whom they were incarcerated; threatened and browbeaten by the gaolers, and fed on the nauseous prison diet that they could scarcely swallow.

STATE OF PARIS; DISCOURAGEMENT; COMMITTEE OF RESISTANCE.

It might be supposed that here was provocation enough to urge a far less inflammable population than that of Paris to insurrection; but the Parisians were not in a humour, or, indeed, in a condition, to win their cause by fighting. The ablest and fiercest barricade men had perished in the tremendous struggle of June 1848, or had been transported, or, at any rate, disarmed, after the defeat of that formidable rising; and those who remained were unable to act for want of leaders; for among the arrests made on the night of the 1st December had been included Barbès and the chief democratic

and socialist leaders. Moreover, there had been a widespread terror of the "spectre rouge," among the more respectable of the lower and the whole of the middle class community, who were rather inclined, in spite of the indignation awakened by the proceedings of the President and his accomplices, rather to bear those ills they had than fly to others that they knew not of; especially as the very extravagance of illegality in the acts committed by the knot of conspirators at the Elysée seemed a guarantee that such a power could not last long. Some kind of armed opposition, however, was organised. The celebrated Victor Hugo, Baudin, Schoelcher, Duval, Malardier, and other members of the constituent Assembly who had escaped imprisonment, formed themselves into a committee of resistance, and attempted to bring about a rising in the Faubourg St. Antoine; but they found the people, though favourably inclined to their cause, not ripe for resistance. A barricade was indeed constructed in the Rue St. Marguerite, but it was slight and weak, and utterly inadequate to stand against an attack by regular troops. Baudin made a heroic but hopeless attempt to influence the soldiery by moral force and the sense of right. With six other deputies, all wearing scarves to show that they were members of the Assembly, he advanced to meet the approaching column of infantry, waving in his hand a copy of the book of the Constitution of 1848; and began to harangue the soldiers on the duty of obeying the law. For a moment they were staggered by his extreme boldness and heroic contempt of danger; but presently, at a word or sign from the officer in command, the soldiers fired a volley, and Baudin fell dead. They then charged right through the row of deputies, who were thrown down, and the barricade was taken within a few minutes.

FAILURE OF the Struggle. Proclamations were issued by the committee of resistance, declaring Louis Napoleon a traitor, outlawing him, and calling on all good citizens to support the law. Barricades were erected in the streets between the Boulevard and the Hotel de Ville; but they were not the old solid constructions of pavingstones of former days, for in many instances the streets had been lately macadamized; and overturned carriages, omnibuses, railings, and hoardings, and a quantity of flimsy material were necessarily used. The number of men to defend these barricades, and the supply of guns and ammunition among the insurgents was also limited; the troops had no difficulty in carrying the barricades whenever they chose to charge. The absence of their leaders also damped the spirits of the insurgents. It was a puny insurrection com

pared with that of June 1848, and in the Faubourg St. Antoine it simply died out for want of support. The number of troops in and about Paris amounted, according to the tabular statement of Mauduit, a partisan of Louis Napoleon, to 48,000. The insurrection was confined to one quarter of the city, upon which troops could easily converge from various points. During part of the 3rd of December, and the morning of the 4th, the troops maintained an almost passive attitude. The men who erected the barricades were too weak in number to occupy the houses around, and thus lost one of the strongest points of street fighting. After a truce the troops withdrew, and made no effort to hold the barricades they had taken, or to prevent their reconstruction. This seemingly unaccountable conduct loses its strangeness when looked at in the light of the horrible event of the afternoon of the 4th of December, and can only be explained as part of a settled plan to deal with the upholders of the republic, and, indeed, with the Parisians generally, in a new and unheard of fashion. It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that the massacre with which the day's proceedings terminated was premeditated. PROCEEDINGS Of the Government; DISCONTENT MET BY A CAVALRY CHARGE. From the early morning notices had been placarded by order of the government, setting forth that any one found with arms in his hands, upon, around, or in the neighbourhood of a barricade, would at once be shot; that any one found attempting to reconstruct a barricade would be instantly shot. Another placard declared that all groups or crowds of citizens, of whatever nature they might be, would be dispersed at once by force, without summons.

The barricade fighting, it has been said, was confined to one quarter of Paris: the Boulevards were free; and at about one o'clock on the 4th of December they were suddenly occupied throughout their entire length by cavalry and infantry; almost an entire division, consisting of the five brigades of Cotte, Bourgon, Canrobert, Dulac, and Reibell, being present, to the number of 16,400 men, extending from the Rue de la Paris to the Faubourg Poissonière. Each brigade was accompanied by its battery of artillery. A great crowd on the sidewalks and at the windows gazed with astonishment upon this enormous concourse of the military. According to one witness, the men were talking and laughing; several, including an old officer used to their ways and appearance, declared that they were intoxicated.

The people were dissatisfied with the aspect of things; and, indeed, it is considered that the President and his companions at the Elysée were seriously disconcerted at the

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isolation in which they were left. It seemed to dawn on the Parisians that their position was humiliating. Cries were raised of “À bas Louis Bonaparte! Vive la République ! and even the insulting words, "À bas ported to have remarked, “ Ceci va tourner à Soulouque!" were heard. An officer is rela charcuterie" (This will turn to butcher's work). What was the temper of the troops and their officers will be seen in the following incident, whose occurrence has been vouched for by Captain Mauduit, the apologist of the coup d'état, who complacently adds that "a good number of them remained on the field; it was the affair of an instant."

This affair of an instant was the following: When the first regiment of Lancers, under the command of Colonel Rochefort, came on the scene, a number of the inhabitants of the quarter,-merchants, artists, journalists, men and women, some of the latter leading young children by the hand,covered the asphalte of the Boulevard. As the regiment went by, cries were raised of "Vive la Constitution! Vive la loi! Vive la Republique !" and at this entirely legal cry from the crowd-the narrator tells us, and he is confirmed by Captain Mauduit— the Colonel rode into the middle of the group, across the chairs placed on the pavement; the lancers followed him, and men, women, and children were sabred indiscriminately. Such was Captain Mauduit's "affair of an instant,"'-a sinister token of the greater calamity that was immediately to happen.

THE MASSACRE ON THE BOULEVARDS.

Near the Gymnase the tre a little barricade, formed chiefly of planks and scenery taken from the theatre, and occupied by some twenty men, had been erected. The head of the column of troops was turned towards this little barricade. The vast mass of troops stretched away westward along the Boulevard to the Madeleine; and on the southern pavement a great crowd had assembled, a very ordinary crowd of men, women, and children, looking at the military spectacle, and many of them no doubt wondering what so imposing a display of forces could mean; for though a few languid shots were exchanged with the barricade at the Gymnase, all along the western line there was no sign of an enemy against whom the troops could have to contend. Accordingly not only was the Boulevard itself covered with spectators, but all the windows of the houses were crowded with heads, looking down at the strange spectacle.

Suddenly, at a little after three o'clock, a shot was fired near the corner of the Rue du Sentier. Some witnesses declare it came from a soldier, who fired straight up into the