The material and moral impossibility of the _coup d'état_ was manifest to all. To outrage the National Assembly! To arrest the Representatives! What madness! As we have seen, Charras, who had long remained on his guard, unloaded his pistols. The feeling of security was complete and unanimous. Nevertheless there were some of us in the Assembly who still retained a few doubts, and who occasionally shook our heads, but we were looked upon as fools. [1] Colonel Charras was Under-Secretary of State in 1848, and Acting Secretary of War under the Provisional Government. CHAPTER II. PARIS SLEEPS--THE BELL RINGS On the 2d December, 1851, Representative Versigny, of the Haute-Saône, who resided at Paris, at No. 4, Rue Léonie, was asleep. He slept soundly; he had been working till late at night. Versigny was a young man of thirty-two, soft-featured and fair-complexioned, of a courageous spirit, and a mind tending towards social and economical studies. He had passed the first hours of the night in the perusal of a book by Bastiat, in which he was making marginal notes, and, leaving the book open on the table, he had fallen asleep. Suddenly he awoke with a start at the sound of a sharp ring at the bell. He sprang up in surprise. It was dawn. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. Never dreaming what could be the motive for so early a visit, and thinking that someone had mistaken the door, he again lay down, and was about to resume his slumber, when a second ring at the bell, still louder than the first, completely aroused him. He got up in his night-shirt and opened the door. Michel de Bourges and Théodore Bac entered. Michel de Bourges was the neighbor of Versigny; he lived at No. 16, Rue de Milan. Théodore Bac and Michel were pale, and appeared greatly agitated. "Versigny," said Michel, "dress yourself at once--Baune has just been arrested." "Bah!" exclaimed Versigny. "Is the Mauguin business beginning again?" "It is more than that," replied Michel. "Baune's wife and daughter came to me half-an-hour ago. They awoke me. Baune was arrested in bed at six o'clock this morning." "What does that mean?" asked Versigny. The bell rang again. "This will probably tell us," answered Michel de Bourges. Versigny opened the door. It was the Representative Pierre Lefranc. He brought, in truth, the solution of the enigma. "Do you know what is happening?" said he. "Yes," answered Michel. "Baune is in prison." "It is the Republic who is a prisoner," said Pierre Lefranc. "Have you read the placards?" "No." Pierre Lefranc explained to them that the walls at that moment were covered with placards which the curious crowd were thronging to read, that he had glanced over one of them at the corner of his street, and that the blow had fallen. "The blow!" exclaimed Michel. "Say rather the crime." Pierre Lefranc added that there were three placards--one decree and two proclamations--all three on white paper, and pasted close together.