d'Orsay. They went in one by one.

The quay was thronged with soldiers. A regiment was bivouacking there
with their arms piled.

The Councillors of State soon numbered about thirty. They set to work to
deliberate. A draft protest was drawn up. At the moment when it was about
to be signed the porter came in, pale and stammering. He declared that he
was executing his orders, and he enjoined them to withdraw.

Upon this several Councillors of State declared that, indignant as they
were, they could not place their signatures beside the Republican
signatures.

A means of obeying the porter.

M. Bethmont, one of the Presidents of the Council of State, offered the
use of his house. He lived in the Rue Saint-Romain. The Republican
members repaired there, and without discussion signed the protocol which
has been given above.

Some members who lived in the more distant quarters had not been able to
come to the meeting. The youngest Councillor of State, a man of firm
heart and of noble mind, M. Edouard Charton, undertook to take the
protest to his absent colleagues.

He did this, not without serious risk, on foot, not having been able to
obtain a carriage, and he was arrested by the soldiery and threatened
with being searched, which would have been highly dangerous. Nevertheless
he succeeded in reaching some of the Councillors of State. Many signed,
Pons de l'Herault resolutely, Cormenin with a sort of fever, Boudet after
some hesitation. M. Boudet trembled, his family were alarmed, they heard
through the open window the discharge of artillery. Charton, brave and
calm, said to him, "Your friends, Vivien, Rivet, and Stourm have signed."
Boullet signed.

Many refused, one alleging his great age, another the _res angusta domi_,
a third "the fear of doing the work of the Reds." "Say 'fear,' in short,"
replied Charton.

On the following day, December 3d, MM. Vivien and Bethmont took the
protest to Boulay de la Meurthe, Vice-President of the Republic, and
President of the Council of State, who received them in his dressing-gown,
and exclaimed to them, "Be off! Ruin yourselves, if you like, but without
me."

On the morning of the 4th, M. de Cormenin erased his signature, giving
this unprecedented but authentic excuse: "The word _ex_-Councillor of
State does not look well in a book; I am afraid of injuring my
publisher."

Yet another characteristic detail. M. Behic, on the morning of the 2d,
had arrived while they were draw