On either side of the quay a file of soldiers of the Line, elbow to elbow, kept back the spectators.

In the middle of the space left vacant, the members of the Assembly slowly advanced between a double file of soldiers, the one stationary, which threatened the people, the other on the march, which threatened tire Representatives.
Serious reflections arise in the presence of all the details of the great crime which this book is designed to relate.

Every honest man who sets himself face to face with the _coup d'etat_ of Louis Bonaparte hears nothing but a tumult of indignant thoughts in his conscience.

Whoever reads our work to the end will assuredly not credit us with the intention of extenuating this monstrous deed.

Nevertheless, as the deep logic of actions ought always to be italicized by the historian, it is necessary here to call to mind and to repeat, even to satiety, that apart from the members of the Left, of whom a very small number were present, and whom we have mentioned by name, the three hundred Representatives who thus defiled before the eyes of the crowd, constituted the old Royalists and reactionary majority of the Assembly.