The other man was growing gray, and was about forty-eight. He also was a man of pleasure and of murder. Despicable as a citizen; brave as a soldier. He was one of the first who had sprung into the breach at Constantine. Plenty of bravery and plenty of baseness. No chivalry but that of the green cloth. Louis Bonaparte had made him colonel in 1851. His debts had been twice paid by two Princes; the first time by the Duc d'Orléans, the second time by the Duc de Némours. Such were these colonels. Saint-Arnaud spoke to them for some time in a low tone. CHAPTER II. THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE As soon as it was daylight we had assembled in the house of our imprisoned colleague, M. Grévy. We had been installed in his private room. Michel de Bourges and myself were seated near the fireplace; Jules Favre and Carnot were writing, the one at a table near the window, the other at a high desk. The Left had invested us with discretionary powers. It became more and more impossible at every moment to meet together again in session. We drew up in its name and remitted to Hingray, so that he might print it immediately, the following decree, compiled on the spur of the moment by Jules Favre:-- "FRENCH REPUBLIC. "_Liberty, Equality, Fraternity_. "The undersigned Representatives of the People who still remain at liberty, having met together in an Extraordinary Permanent Session, considering the arrest of the majority of their colleagues, considering the urgency of the moment; "Seeing that the crime of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte in violently abolishing the operations of the Public Powers has reinstated the Nation in the direct exercise of its sovereignty, and that all which fetters that sovereignty at the present time should he annulled; "Seeing that all the prosecutions commenced, all the sentences pronounced, by what right soever, on account of political crimes or offences are quashed by the imprescriptible right of the People; "DECREE: "ARTICLE I. All prosecutions which have begun, and all sentences which have been pronounced, for political crimes or offences are annulled as regards all their civil or criminal effects. "ARTICLE II. Consequently, all directors of jails or of houses of detention are enjoined immediately to set at liberty all persons detained in prison for the reasons above indicated. "ARTICLE III. All magistrates' officers and officers of the judiciary police are similarly enjoined, under penalty of treason, to annul all the prosecutions which have been begun for the same causes. "ARTICLE IV. The police functionaries and agents are charged with the execution of the present decree. "Given at Paris, in Permanent Session, on the 4th December, 1851."