nd finally runs away. He is taken into custody;
there are found on his person 500,000 francs, in gold and
bank-notes;[4] the procureur-general, Franck-Carre, says to him in
the Court of Peers: "You have been tampering with the soldiers, and
distributing money to purchase treason." The peers sentenced him to
perpetual imprisonment. He was confined at Ham. There his mind seemed
to take refuge within itself and to mature: he wrote and published some
books, instinct, notwithstanding a certain ignorance of France and of
the age, with democracy and with progress: "The Extinction of
Pauperism," "An Analysis of the Sugar Question," "Napoleonic Ideas," in
which he made the Emperor a "humanitarian." In a treatise entitled
"Historical Fragments," he wrote thus: "I am a citizen before I am a
Bonaparte." Already in 1852, in his book "Political Reveries," he had
declared himself a republican. After five years of captivity, he
escaped from the prison of Ham, disguised as a mason, and took refuge
in England.

[2] Court of Peers. Attempt of the 6th August, 1840, page 140,
evidence of Geoffroy, grenadier.

[3] Captain Col. Puygellier, who had said to him: "You are a
conspirator and a traitor."

[4] Court of Peers. Evidence of the witness Adam, Mayor of
Boulogne.

February arrived; he hailed the Republic, took his seat as a
representative of the people in the Constituent Assembly, mounted the
tribune on the 21st of September, 1848, and said: "All my life shall
be devoted to strengthening the Republic;" published a manifesto which
may be summed up in two lines: liberty, progress, democracy, amnesty,
abolition of the decrees of proscription and banishment; was elected
President by 5,500,000 votes, solemnly swore allegiance to the
Constitution on the 20th of December, 1848, and on the 2nd of December,
1851, shattered that Constitution. In the interval he had destroyed
the Roman republic, and had restored in 1849 that Papacy which in 1831
he had essayed to overthrow. He had, besides, taken nobody knows how
great a share in the obscure affair of the lottery of the gold ingots.
A few weeks previous to the _coup d'etat_, this bag of gold became
transparent, and there was visible within it a hand greatly resembling
his. On December 2, and the following days, he, the executive power,
assailed the legislative power, arrested the representatives, drove
out the assembly, dissolved the Council of State, expelle