I communicated these details to the Committee. Other reports came in. A few concerned the Press. Since the morning of the 4th the Press was treated with soldierlike brutality. Serrière, the courageous printer, came to tell us what had happened at the _Presse_. Serrière published the _Presse_ and the _Avénement du Peuple_, the latter a new name for the _Evénement_, which had been judicially suppressed. On the 2d, at seven o'clock in the morning, the printing-office had been occupied by twenty-eight soldiers of the Republican Guard, commanded by a Lieutenant named Pape (since decorated for this achievement). This man had given Serrière an order prohibiting the printing of any article signed "Nusse." A Commissary of Police accompanied Lieutenant Pape. This Commissary had notified Serrière of a "decree of the President of the Republic," suppressing the _Avénement du Peuple_, and had placed sentinels over the presses. The workmen had resisted, and one of them said to the soldiers, "_We shall print it in spite of you_." Then forty additional Municipal Guards arrived, with two quarter-masters, four corporals, and a detachment of the line, with drums at their head, commanded by a captain. Girardin came up indignant, and protested with so much energy that a quarter-master said to him, "_I should like a Colonel of your stamp_." Girardin's courage communicated itself to the workmen, and by dint of skill and daring, under the very eyes of the gendarmes, they succeeded in printing Girardin's proclamations with the hand-press, and ours with the brush. They carried them away wet, in small packages, under their waistcoats. Luckily the soldiers were drunk. The gendarmes made them drink, and the workmen, profiting by their revels, printed. The Municipal Guards laughed, swore and jested, drank champagne and coffee, and said, "_We fill the places of the Representatives, we have twenty-five francs a day_." All the printing-houses in Paris were occupied in the same manner by the soldiery. The _coup d'état_ reigned everywhere. The Crime even ill-treated the Press which supported it. At the office of the _Moniteur Parisien_, the police agents threatened to fire on any one who should open a door. M. Delamare, director of the _Patrie_, had forty Municipal Guards on his hands, and trembled lest they should break his presses. He said to one of them, "_Why, I am on your side_." The gendarme replied, "_What is that to me?_" At three o'clock on the morning of the 4th all the printing-offices were evacuated by the soldiers. The Captain said to Serrière, "We have orders to concentrate in our own quarters." And Serrière, in announcing this fact, added, "Something is in preparation."