enced, all the sentences
pronounced, by what right soever, on account of political crimes or
offences are quashed by the imprescriptible right of the People;

"DECREE:

"ARTICLE I. All prosecutions which have begun, and all sentences which
have been pronounced, for political crimes or offences are annulled as
regards all their civil or criminal effects.

"ARTICLE II. Consequently, all directors of jails or of houses of
detention are enjoined immediately to set at liberty all persons
detained in prison for the reasons above indicated.

"ARTICLE III. All magistrates' officers and officers of the judiciary
police are similarly enjoined, under penalty of treason, to annul all
the prosecutions which have been begun for the same causes.

"ARTICLE IV. The police functionaries and agents are charged with the
execution of the present decree.

"Given at Paris, in Permanent Session, on the 4th December, 1851."

Jules Favre, as he passed me the decree for my signature, said to me,
smiling, "Let us set your sons and your friends at liberty." "Yes," said
I, "four combatants the more on the barricades." The Representative
Duputz, a few hours later, received from our hands a duplicate of the
decree, with the charge to take it himself to the Conciergerie as soon
as the surprise which we premeditated upon the Prefecture of Police and
the Hotel de Ville should have succeeded. Unhappily this surprise
failed.

Landrin came in. His duties in Paris in 1848 had enabled him to know the
whole body of the political and municipal police. He warned us that he
had seen suspicious figures roving about the neighborhood. We were in the
Rue Richelieu, almost opposite the Theatre Francais, one of the points
where passers-by are most numerous, and in consequence one of the points
most carefully watched. The goings and comings of the Representatives
who were communicating with the Committee, and who came in and out
unceasingly, would be inevitably noticed, and would bring about a visit
from the Police. The porters and the neighbors already manifested an
evil-boding surprise. We ran, so Landrin declared and assured us, the
greatest danger. "You will be taken and shot," said he to us.

He entreated us to go elsewhere. M. Grevy's brother, consulted by us,
stated that he could not answer for the people of his house.

But what was to be done? Hunted now for two days, we had exhausted the
goodwill of nearly everybody, one