and their pistols at their heads, rifles their pockets,
forces open their trunks, and takes all the valuables they possess.

The pockets rifled, the trunks pillaged, the _coup d'etat_ completed,
he says to them:--

"Now, in order to set myself right with justice, I have written down on
paper a declaration, that you acknowledge that all I have taken
belonged to me, and that you give it to me of your own free will. I
propose that this shall be your view of the matter. Each of you will
have a pen given you, and without uttering a syllable, without making
the slightest movement, without quitting your present attitude" (belly
on ground, and face in the mud) "you will put out your arms, and you
will all sign this paper. If any one of you moves or speaks, here is
the muzzle of my pistol. Otherwise, you are quite free."

The travellers put out their arms, and sign.

The brigand thereupon tosses his head, and says:--

"I have seven million five hundred thousand votes."

III

SCRUTINY OF THE VOTE.--A REMINDER OF PRINCIPLES.--FACTS

M. Louis Bonaparte is president of this diligence. Let us recall a few
principles.

For a political ballot to be valid, three absolute conditions must
exist: First, the vote must be free; second, the vote must be
intelligent; third, the figures must be accurate. If one of these three
conditions is wanting, the ballot is null. How is it when all three are
wanting?

Let us apply these rules.

First. _That the vote must be free._

What freedom there was in the vote of the 20th of December, we have
just pointed out; we have described that freedom by a striking display
of evidence. We might dispense with adding anything to it. Let each of
those who voted reflect, and ask himself under what moral and physical
violence he dropped his ballot in the box. We might cite a certain
commune of the Yonne, where, of five hundred heads of families, four
hundred and thirty were arrested, and the rest voted "aye;" or a
commune of the Loiret, where, of six hundred and thirty-nine heads of
families, four hundred and ninety-seven were arrested or banished; the
one hundred and forty-two who escaped voted "aye." What we say of the
Loiret and the Yonne might be said of all the departments. Since the
2nd of December, each town has its swarm of spies; each village, each
hamlet, its informer. To vote "no" was imprisonment, transportation,
Lambessa. In the villages of one department, we were told by an
eye-