possibility that the Republic would triumph. In the courtyards, in the
bureaus, and in the passages, the clerks and sergents-de-ville began to
talk with affectionate regret of Caussidiere.

[2] A Committee of Resistance, charged with the task of
centralizing the action and directing the combat, had been named
on the evening of the 2nd of December, by the members of the Left
assembled at the house of Representative Lafon, Quai Jemmappes,
No. 2. This committee, which was obliged to change its retreat
twenty-seven times in four days, and which, so to say, sat night
and day, and did not cease to act for a single instant during
the various crises of the _coup d'etat_, was composed of
Representatives Carnot, de Flotte, Jules Favre, Madier de
Montjau, Michel de Bourges, Schoelcher, and Victor Hugo.

"If one can believe what has oozed out from this den, the prefect,
Maupas, who had been so warm in the cause the evening before, and was
put forward so odiously, began to back out and lose courage. It seemed
as if he were listening with terror to the noise, as of a rising flood,
made by the insurrection--by the holy and legitimate insurrection of
the right. He stammered and hesitated while the word of command died
away upon his tongue. 'That poor young man has the colic,' said the
former prefect, Carlier, on leaving him. In this state of consternation,
Maupas clung to Morny. The electric telegraph maintained a perpetual
dialogue from the Prefecture of Police to the Department of the
Interior, and from the Department of the Interior to the Prefecture of
Police. All the most alarming news, all the signs of panic and
confusion were passed on, one after another, from the prefect to the
minister. Morny, who was less frightened, and who is, at least, a man
of spirit, received all these shocks in his cabinet It is reported that
at the first communication he said: 'Maupas is ill;' and to the
question: 'What is to be done,' replied by the telegraph: 'Go to bed!'
To the second question he still replied: 'Go to bed!' and, as the
third, losing all patience he answered: 'Go to bed and be d----d!'

"The zeal of the government agents was fast giving way and beginning to
change sides. A courageous man, who had been despatched by the
Committee of Resistance to rouse Faubourg Saint-Marceau, was arrested
on Rue des Fosses-Saint-Victor, with his pockets filled with the
proclamations and de