Alas! in the midst of this dense gloom, in these fatal complications of circumstances by which the _coup d'état_ profited so odiously and so perfidiously, in that mighty misunderstanding which comprised the whole situation, for kindling the revolutionary spark in the heart of the people, Danton himself would not have sufficed. The _coup d'état_ entered into this meeting impudently, with its convict's cap on its head. It possessed an infamous assurance there, as well as everywhere else. There were in this majority three hundred Representatives of the People. Louis Napoleon sent a sergeant to drive them away. The Assembly, having resisted the sergeant, he sent an officer, the temporary commander of the sixth battalion of the Chasseurs de Vincennes. This officer, young, fair-haired, a scoffer, half laughing, half threatening, pointed with his finger to the stairs filled with bayonets, and defied the Assembly. "Who is this young spark?" asked a member of the Right. A National Guard who was there said, "Throw him out of the window!" "Kick him downstairs!" cried one of the people. This Assembly, grievous as were its offences against the principles of the Revolution--and with these wrongs Democracy alone had the right to reproach it--this Assembly, I repeat, was the National Assembly, that is to say, the Republic incarnate, the living Universal Suffrage, the Majesty of the Nation, upright and visible. Louis Bonaparte assassinated this Assembly, and moreover insulted it. A slap on the face is worse than a poniard thrust. The gardens of the neighborhood occupied by the troops were full of broken bottles. They had plied the soldiers with drink. They obeyed the "epaulettes" unconditionally, and according to the expression of eyewitnesses, appeared "dazed-drunk." The Representatives appealed to them, and said to them, "It is a crime!" They answered, "We are not aware of it." One soldier was heard to say to another, "What have you done with your ten francs of this morning?" The sergeants hustled the officers. With the exception of the commander, who probably earned his cross of honor, the officers were respectful, the sergeants brutal. A lieutenant showing signs of flinching, a sergeant cried out to him, "You are not the only one who commands here! Come, therefore, march!" M. de Vatimesnil asked a soldier, "Will you dare to arrest us--us, the Representatives of the People?" "Assuredly!" said the soldier. Several soldiers hearing some Representatives say that they had eaten nothing since the morning, offered them their ration bread. Some Representatives accepted. M. de Tocqueville, who was unwell, and who was noticed to be pale and leaning on the sill of a window, received from a soldier a piece of this bread, which he shared with M. Chambolle.