The Black Door

M. Dupin is a matchless disgrace.

Later on he had his reward. It appears that he became some sort of an Attorney–General at the Court of Appeal.

M. Dupin renders to Louis Bonaparte the service of being in his place the meanest of men.

To continue this dismal history.

The Representatives of the Right, in their first bewilderment caused by the coup d’état, hastened in large numbers to M. Daru, who was Vice–President of the Assembly, and at the same time one of the Presidents of the Pyramid Club. This Association had always supported the policy of the Elysée, but without believing that a coup d’état was premeditated. M. Daru lived at No. 75, Rue de Lille.

Towards ten o’clock in the morning about a hundred of these Representatives had assembled at M. Daru’s home. They resolved to attempt to penetrate into the Hall where the Assembly held its sittings. The Rue de Lille opens out into the Rue de Bourgogne, almost opposite the little door by which the Palace is entered, and which is called the Black Door.

They turned their steps towards this door, with M. Daru at their head. They marched arm in arm and three abreast. Some of them had put on their scarves of office. They took them off later on.

The Black Door, half-open as usual, was only guarded by two sentries.

Some of the most indignant, and amongst them M. de Kerdrel, rushed towards this door and tried to pass. The door, however, was violently shut, and there ensued between the Representatives and the sergents de ville who hastened up, a species of struggle, in which a Representative had his wrist sprained.

At the same time a battalion which was drawn up on the Place de Bourgogne moved on, and came at the double towards the group of Representatives. M. Daru, stately and firm, signed to the commander to stop; the battalion halted, and M. Daru, in the name of the Constitution, and in his capacity as Vice–President of the Assembly, summoned the soldiers to lay down their arms, and to give free passage to the Representatives of the Sovereign People.

The commander of the battalion replied by an order to clear the street immediately, declaring that there was no longer an Assembly; that as for himself, he did not know what the Representatives of the People were, and that if those persons before him did not retire of their own accord, he would drive them back by force.

“We will only yield to violence,” said M. Daru.

“You commit high treason,” added M. de Kerdrel.

The officer gave the order to charge.

Th............