poleon BONAPARTE.

"For the Representatives of the People,

"VICTOR HUGO, President.

"SCHOELCHER, Secretary."

This last placard, printed on little squares of paper, was distributed
abroad, says an historian of the _coup d'etat_, by thousands of copies.

For their part the criminals installed in the Government offices replied
by threats: the great white placards, that is to say, the official
bills, were largely multiplied. On one could be read:--

"WE, PREFECT OF THE POLICE,

"Decree as follows:--

"ARTICLE I. All meetings are rigorously prohibited. They will be
immediately dispersed by force.

"ARTICLE II. All seditious shouts, all reading in public, all posting
of political documents not emanating from a regularly constituted
authority, are equally prohibited.

"ARTICLE III. The agents of the Public Police will enforce the execution
of the present decree.

"Given at the Prefecture of Police, December 3, 1851.

"DE MAUPAS, Prefect of Police.

"Seen and approved,

"DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."

On another could be read,--

"THE MINISTER OF WAR,

"By virtue of the Law on the State of Siege,

"Decrees:--

"Every person taken constructing or defending a barricade, or carrying
arms, WILL BE SHOT.

"General of Division,

"Minister of war,

"DE SAINT-ARNAUD."

We reproduce this Proclamation exactly, even to the punctuation. The
words "Will be shot" were in capital letters in the placards signed "De
Saint-Arnaud."

The Boulevards were thronged with an excited crowd. The agitation
increasing in the centre reached three Arrondissements, the 6th, 7th,
and the 12th. The district of the schools began to disorderly. The
Students of Law and of Medicine cheered De Flotte on the Place de
Pantheon. Madier de Montjau, ardent and eloquent, went through and
aroused Belleville. The troops, growing more numerous every moment,
took possession of all the strategical points of Paris.

At one o'clock, a young man was brought to us by the legal adviser of
the Workmen's Societies, the ex-Constituent Leblond, at whose house the
Committee had deliberated that morning. We were sitting in permanence,
Carnot, Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself. This young man, who
had an earnest mode of speaking and an intelligent countenance, was
named King. He had been sent to us by the Committee of the Workmen's
Society, from whom he was delegated. "The Workmen's Soci