Mathieu (de la Drome) came in as the workman concluded.  “I bring news,” he exclaimed.  A profound silence ensued.

As I have already said, we vaguely knew since the morning that the Right were to have assembled, and that a certain number of our friends had probably taken part in the meeting, and that was all.  Mathieu (de la Drome) brought us the events of the day, the details of the arrests at their own houses carried out without any obstacle, of the meeting which had taken place at M. Daru’s house and its rough treatment in the Rue de Bourgogne, of the Representatives expelled from the Hall of the Assembly, of the meanness of President Dupin, of the melting away of the High Court, of the total inaction of the Council of State, of the sad sitting held at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, of the Oudinot, fiasco, of the decree of the deposition of the President, and of the two hundred and twenty forcibly arrested and taken to the Quai d’Orsay.  He concluded in a manly style:  “The duty of the Left was increasing hourly.  The morrow would probably prove decisive.”  He implored the meeting to take this into consideration.

A workman added a fact.  He had happened in the morning to be in the Rue de Grenelle during the passage of the arrested members of the Assembly; he was there at the moment when one of the commanders of the Chasseurs de Vincennes had uttered these words, “Now it is the turn of those gentlemen—­the Red Representatives.  Let them look out for themselves!”

One of the editors of the Revolution, Hennett de Kesler, who afterwards became an intrepid exile, completed the information of Mathieu (de la Drome).  He recounted the action taken by two members of the Assembly with regard to the so-called Minister of the Interior, Morny, and the answer of the said Morny:  “If I find any of the Representatives behind the barricades, I will have them shot to the last man,” and that other saying of the same witty vagabond respecting the members taken to the Quai d’Orsay, “These are the last Representatives who will be made prisoners.”  He told us that a placard was at that very moment being printed which declared that “Any one who should be found at a secret meeting would be immediately shot.”  The placard, in truth, appeared the next morning.

Baudin rose up.  “The coup d’etat redoubles its rage,” exclaimed he.  “Citizens, let us redouble our energy!”

Suddenly a man in a blouse entered.  He was out of breath.  He had run hard.  He told us that he had just seen, and he repeated, had seen with “his own eyes,” in the Rue Popincourt, a regiment marching in silence, and wending its way towards the blind alley of No. 82, that we were surrounded, and that we were about to be attacked.  He begged us to disperse immediately.

“Citizen Representatives,” called out Cournet, “I have placed scouts in the blind alley who will fall back and warn us if the regiment penetrates thither.  The door is narrow and will be barricaded in the twinkling of an eye.  We are here, with you, fifty armed and resolute men, and at the first shot we shall be two hundred.  We are provided with ammunition.  You can deliberate calmly.”