All these men of the majority felt this, and were humbled.
Or rather it was the same crime, the crime of the Second of July, 1849, ever erect, ever alive, which had only changed its name, which now called itself the Second of December, and which, the offspring of this Assembly, stabbed it to the heart.

Nearly all crimes are parricidal.

On a certain day they recoil upon those who have committed them, and slay them.
At this moment, so full of anxiety, M.de Falloux must have glanced round for M.de Montalembert.

M.de Montalembert was at the Elysee.
When Tamisier rose and pronounced this terrifying word, "The Roman Question ?" distracted M.de Dampierre shouted to him, "Silence! You kill us!" It was not Tamisier who was killing them--it was Oudinot.
M.de Dampierre did not perceive that he cried "Silence!" to history.
And then without even reckoning the fatal remembrance which at such a moment would have crushed a man endowed in the highest degree with great military qualities, General Oudinot, in other respects an excellent officer, and a worthy son of his brave father, possessed none of those striking qualities which in the critical hour of revolution stir the soldier and carry with them the people.

At that instant to win back an army of a hundred thousand men, to withdraw the balls from the cannons' mouths, to find beneath the wine poured out to the Praetorians the true soul of the French soldier half drowned and nearly dead, to tear the flag from the _coup d'etat_ and restore it to the Law, to surround the Assembly with thunders and lightnings, it would have needed one of those men who exist no longer; it would have needed the firm hand, the calm oratory, the cold and searching glance of Desaix, that French Phocion; it would have needed the huge shoulders, the commanding stature, the thundering voice, the abusive, insolent, cynical, gay, and sublime eloquence of Kleber, that military Mirabeau.