after so many smiles bestowed on absolution, the entire Party of Order arrested in a body and taken to prison by the _sergents de ville_! One day, or rather, one night, the moment having come to save society, the _coup d'état_ abruptly seizes the Demagogues, and finds that it holds by the collar, Whom? the Royalists. They arrived at the barracks, formerly the barracks of the Royal Guard, and on the pediment of which is a carved escutcheon, whereon are still visible the traces of the three _fleurs de lis_ effaced in 1830. They halted. The door was opened. "Why!" said M. de Broglie, "here we are." At that moment a great placard posted on the barrack wall by the side of the door bore in big letters-- "REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION." It was the advertisement of a pamphlet, published two or three days previous to the _coup d'état_, without any author's name, demanding the Empire, and was attributed to the President of the Republic. The Representatives entered and the doors were closed upon them. The shouts ceased; the crowd, which occasionally has its meditative moments, remained for some time on the quay, dumb, motionless, gazing alternately at the closed gate of the Barracks, and at the silent front of the Palace of the Assembly, dimly visible in the misty December twilight, two hundred paces distant. The two Commissaries of Police went to report their "success" to M. de Morny. M. de Morny said, "Now the struggle has begun. Excellent! These are the last Representatives who will be made prisoners." [5] The Gerontes, or Gerontia, were the Elders of Sparta, who constituted the Senate. [6] The "bureau" of the Assembly consists of the President, for the time being of the Assembly, assisted by six secretaries, whose duties mainly lie in deciding in what sense the Deputies have voted. The "bureau" of the Assembly should not be confounded with the fifteen "bureaux" of the Deputies, which answer to our Select Committees of the House of Commons, and are presided over by self-chosen Presidents. [7] An allusion to the twenty-five francs a day officially payable to the members of the Assembly. CHAPTER XIII. LOUIS BONAPARTE'S SIDE-FACE The minds of all these men, we repeat, were very differently affected.