If it were possible to forget, that--whatever were their errors, whatever were their faults, and, we venture to add, whatever were their illusions--these persons thus treated were the Representatives of the leading civilized nation, were sovereign Legislators, senators of the people, inviolable Deputies, and sacred by the great law of Democracy, and that in the same manner as each man bears in himself something of the mind of God, so each of these nominees of universal suffrage bore something of the soul of France; if it were possible to forget this for a moment, it assuredly would be a spectacle perhaps more laughable than sad, and certainly more philosophical than lamentable to see, on this December morning, after so many laws of repression, after so many exceptional measures, after so many votes of censure and of the state of siege, after so many refusals of amnesty, after so many affronts to equity, to justice, to the human conscience, to the public good faith, to right, after so many favors to the police, after so many smiles bestowed on absolution, the entire Party of Order arrested in a body and taken to prison by the _sergents de ville_! One day, or rather, one night, the moment having come to save society, the _coup d'etat_ abruptly seizes the Demagogues, and finds that it holds by the collar, Whom?
the Royalists.
They arrived at the barracks, formerly the barracks of the Royal Guard, and on the pediment of which is a carved escutcheon, whereon are still visible the traces of the three _fleurs de lis_ effaced in 1830.

They halted.

The door was opened.

"Why!" said M.de Broglie, "here we are." At that moment a great placard posted on the barrack wall by the side of the door bore in big letters-- "REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION." It was the advertisement of a pamphlet, published two or three days previous to the _coup d'etat_, without any author's name, demanding the Empire, and was attributed to the President of the Republic.
The Representatives entered and the doors were closed upon them.

The shouts ceased; the crowd, which occasionally has its meditative moments, remained for some time on the quay, dumb, motionless, gazing alternately at the closed gate of the Barracks, and at the silent front of the Palace of the Assembly, dimly visible in the misty December twilight, two hundred paces distant.
The two Commissaries of Police went to report their "success" to M.de Morny.