The scene of the dark comedy which we are now about to describe was laid in the old princely courtyard. At two o'clock of a cold winter's night (January 21-22, 1798), a strong detachment of soldiers under command of Daendels occupied the buildings where the assembly met. At four o'clock of the morning the six members of the committee on foreign affairs, under suspicion as aristocrats and enemies of the union, were hauled out of their beds and, shivering, were informed that they must consider themselves under arrest and must not leave their homes. Thereupon they were allowed to go back to bed. At half-after seven the sleepy town opened its curious shutters, noticed that something unusual was in the air, and decided to take a day off. At quarter to eight of the morning, the fifty extreme unionists who were in the plot met at the hotel which had been formerly occupied by the delegates to the Estates from the good town of Haarlem. At eight o'clock sharp their procession started upon its way. Preceded by two cannon, and accompanied and surrounded by trustworthy civil guards and Batavian regulars, the fifty conspirators, the president of the assembly in his official sash at the head of them, walked in state to their meeting hall. At the entrance they were met by General Daendels in full gold lace. Silently the members entered the building, and immediately guards were posted to refuse admission to all those whose names did not appear upon a specially prepared list. The committee on the constitution, however, was allowed to be present in its entirety. At nine o'clock the Speaker of the assembly, Middenrigh by name, in executive session, declared that the country was in danger. ("Hear! hear!") Not an hour was to be lost. (Great excitement.) He appealed to all members to do their full duty to their country. Whereupon the members of the assembly, or such of them as had not been caught by the guard and according to orders had been locked up in the coatroom, arose from their seats and openly avowed their horror of the Stadholdership, of federalism, of anarchy, and of aristocracy. At that moment, however, it was discovered that ten black sheep had strayed into the meeting. They were given the choice between an immediate retraction of their federalist sentiments or leaving the room. They left. At eleven o'clock the executive session was changed into a regular one. The galleries were immediately filled with noisy holiday-makers. The federalist members were released from the coatroom and sadly walked home. They had been informed that from that moment on they had officially ceased to be members of the assembly, that they must not leave The Hague until they were permitted to do so by the military authorities, and that they must not enter into any correspondence with their partisans outside of the city.