r
procession passed them.

They looked round. It was a detachment of Lancers which surrounded
something which in the dim light they recognized to be a police-van. The
vehicle rolled noiselessly along the macadamized road.

They were debating what this could mean, when a second and similar group
appeared, then a third, and then a fourth. Ten police vans passed in
this manner, following each other very closely, and almost touching.

"Those are our colleagues!" exclaimed Aubry (du Nord).

In truth the last batch of the Representatives, prisoners of the Quai
d'Orsay, the batch destined for Vincennes, was passing through the
Faubourg. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. Some shops were
being opened and were lighted inside, and a few passers-by came out of
the houses.

Three carriages defiled one after the other, closed, guarded, dreary,
dumb; no voice came out, no cry, no whisper. They were carrying off in
the midst of swords, of sabres, and of lances, with the rapidity and
fury of the whirlwind, something which kept silence; and that something
which they were carrying off, and which maintained this sinister
silence, was the broken Tribune, the Sovereignty of the Assemblies, the
supreme initiative whence all civilization is derived; it was the word
which contains the future of the world, it was the speech of France!

A last carriage arrived, which by some chance had been delayed. It was
about two or three hundred yards behind the principal convoy, and was
only escorted by three Lancers. It was not a police-van, it was an
omnibus, the only one in the convoy. Behind the conductor, who was a
police agent, there could distinctly be seen the Representatives heaped
up in the interior. It seemed easy to rescue them.

Cournet appealed to the passers-by; "Citizens," he cried, "these are
your Representatives, who are being carried off! You have just seen
them pass in the vans of convicts! Bonaparte arrests them contrary to
every law. Let us rescue them! To arms!"

A knot formed of men in blouses and of workmen going to work. A shout
came from the knot, "Long live the Republic!" and some men rushed
towards the vehicle. The carriage and the Lancers broke into a gallop.

"To arms!" repeated Cournet.

"To arms!" repeated the men of the people.

There was a moment of impulse. Who knows what might have happened? It
would have been a singular accident if the first barricade against the
_coup d'etat_ had been made with thi