On the preceding day he wrote:--"Where are the Representatives? The communications are cut. The quays and the boulevards can no longer be crossed. It has become impossible to reunite the popular Assembly. The people need direction. De Flotte in one district, Victor Hugo in another, Schoelcher in a third, are actively urging on the combat, and expose their lives a score of times, but none feel themselves supported by any organized body: and moreover the attempt of the Royalists in the Tenth Arrondissement has roused apprehension. People dread lest they should see them reappear when all is accomplished." Now, this man so intelligent and so courageous recovered confidence, and he wrote,-- "Decidedly, Louis Napoleon is afraid. The police reports are alarming for him. The resistance of the Republican Representatives is bearing fruit. Paris is arming. Certain regiments appear ready to turn back. The Gendarmerie itself is not to be depended upon, and this morning an entire regiment refused to march. Disorder is beginning to show itself in the services. Two batteries fired upon each other for a long time without recognition. One would say that the _coup d'état_ is about to fail." The symptoms, as may be seen, were growing more reassuring. Had Maupas become unequal to the task? Had they resorted to a more skilful man? An incident seemed to point to this. On the preceding evening a tall man had been seen, between five and seven o'clock, walking up and down before the café of the Place Saint-Michel; he had been joined by two of the Commissaries of the Police who had effected the arrests of the 2d of December, and had talked to them for a long time. This man was Carlier. Was he about to supplant Maupas? The Representative Labrousse, seated at a table of the café, had witnessed this conspirators' parley. Each of the two Commissaries was followed by that species of police agent which is called "the Commissary's dog." At the same time strange warnings reached the Committee; the following letter[18] was brought to our knowledge. "3d December. "MY DEAR BOCAGE, "To-day at six o'clock, 25,000 francs has been offered to any one who arrests or kills Hugo. "You know where he is. He must not go out under any pretext whatever. "Yours ever, "AL. DUMAS."