In the Allier eleven members of one family alone, the Préveraud family of Donjon, were struck down, one by the penalty of death, the others by banishment and transportation. A wine-seller of the Batignolles, named Brisadoux, was transported to Cayenne for this line in his deed of accusation: _his shop is frequented by Socialists_. Here is a dialogue, word for word, and taken from life, between a colonel and his convicted prisoner:-- "You are condemned." "Indeed! Why?" "In truth I do not exactly know myself. Examine your conscience. Think what you have done." "I?" "Yes, you." "How I?" "You must have done something." "No. I have done nothing. I have not even done my duty. I ought to have taken my gun, gone down into the street, harangued the people, raised barricades; I remained at home stupidly like a sluggard" (the accused laughs); "that is the offence of which I accuse myself." "You have not been condemned for that offence. Think carefully." "I can think of nothing." "What! You have not been to the _café_?" "Yes, I have breakfasted there." "Have you not chatted there?" "Yes, perhaps." "Have you not laughed?" "Perhaps I have laughed." "At whom? At what?" "At what is going on. It is true I was wrong to laugh." "At the same time you talked?" "Yes." "Of whom?" "Of the President." "What did you say?" "Indeed, what may be said with justice, that he had broken his oath." "And then?" "That he had not the right to arrest the Representatives." "You said that?" "Yes. And I added that he had not the right to kill people on the boulevard...." Here the condemned man interrupted himself and exclaimed,-- "And thereupon they send me to Cayenne!" The judge looks fixedly at the prisoner, and answers,--"Well, then?" Another form of justice:-- Three miscellaneous personages, three removable functionaries, a Prefect, a soldier, a public prosecutor, whose only conscience is the sound of Louis Bonaparte's bell, seated themselves at a table and judged. Whom? You, me, us, everybody. For what crimes? They invented crimes. In the name of what laws? They invented laws. What penalties did they inflict? They invented penalties. Did they know the accused? No. Did they listen to him? No. What advocates did they listen to? None. What witnesses did they question? None. What deliberation did they enter upon? None. What public did they call in? None. Thus, no public, no deliberation, no counsellors, no witnesses, judges who are not magistrates, a jury where none are sworn in, a tribunal which is not a tribunal, imaginary offences, invented penalties, the accused absent, the law absent; from all these things which resembled a dream there came forth a reality: the condemnation of the innocent. Exile, banishment, transportation, ruin, home-sickness, death, and despair for 40,000 families. That is what History calls the Mixed Commissions.