n had answered, "I cannot, I am guarded."
Jerome Bonaparte burst out laughing. In fact, no one had deigned to
place a sentinel at M. Dupin's door; they knew that it was guarded by
his meanness.

It was only later on, towards noon, that they took pity on him. They
felt that the contempt was too great, and allotted him two sentinels.

At half-past seven, fifteen or twenty Representatives, among whom were
MM. Eugene Sue, Joret, de Resseguier, and de Talhouet, met together in
M. Dupin's room. They also had vainly argued with M. Dupin. In the
recess of a window a clever member of the Majority, M. Desmousseaux de
Givre, who was a little deaf and exceedingly exasperated, almost
quarrelled with a Representative of the Right like himself whom he
wrongly supposed to be favorable to the _coup d'etat_.

M. Dupin, apart from the group of Representatives, alone dressed in
black, his hands behind his back, his head sunk on his breast, walked up
and down before the fire-place, where a large fire was burning. In his
own room, and in his very presence, they were talking loudly about
himself, yet he seemed not to hear.

Two members of the Left came in, Benoit (du Rhone), and Crestin. Crestin
entered the room, went straight up to M. Dupin, and said to him,
"President, you know what is going on? How is it that the Assembly has
not yet been convened?"

M. Dupin halted, and answered, with a shrug which was habitual with him,--

"There is nothing to be done."

And he resumed his walk.

"It is enough," said M. de Resseguier.

"It is too much," said Eugene Sue.

All the Representatives left the room.

In the meantime the Pont de la Concorde became covered with troops.
Among them General Vast-Vimeux, lean, old, and little; his lank white
hair plastered over his temples, in full uniform, with his laced hat on
his head. He was laden with two huge epaulets, and displayed his scarf,
not that of a Representative, but of a general, which scarf, being too
long, trailed on the ground. He crossed the bridge on foot, shouting to
the soldiers inarticulate cries of enthusiasm for the Empire and the
_coup d'etat_. Such figures as these were seen in 1814. Only instead of
wearing a large tri-colored, cockade, they wore a large white cockade.
In the main the same phenomenon; old men crying, "Long live the Past!"
Almost at the same moment M. de Larochejaquelein crossed the Place de la
Concorde, surrounded by a hundred men in blouses, who followed him