sse_ and the _Avenement du Peuple_, the latter a new name for
the _Evenement_, which had been judicially suppressed. On the 2d, at
seven o'clock in the morning, the printing-office had been occupied by
twenty-eight soldiers of the Republican Guard, commanded by a
Lieutenant named Pape (since decorated for this achievement). This man
had given Serriere an order prohibiting the printing of any article
signed "Nusse." A Commissary of Police accompanied Lieutenant Pape.
This Commissary had notified Serriere of a "decree of the President of
the Republic," suppressing the _Avenement du Peuple_, and had placed
sentinels over the presses. The workmen had resisted, and one of them
said to the soldiers, "_We shall print it in spite of you_." Then forty
additional Municipal Guards arrived, with two quarter-masters, four
corporals, and a detachment of the line, with drums at their head,
commanded by a captain. Girardin came up indignant, and protested with
so much energy that a quarter-master said to him, "_I should like a
Colonel of your stamp_." Girardin's courage communicated itself to the
workmen, and by dint of skill and daring, under the very eyes of the
gendarmes, they succeeded in printing Girardin's proclamations with the
hand-press, and ours with the brush. They carried them away wet, in
small packages, under their waistcoats.

Luckily the soldiers were drunk. The gendarmes made them drink, and
the workmen, profiting by their revels, printed. The Municipal Guards
laughed, swore and jested, drank champagne and coffee, and said, "_We
fill the places of the Representatives, we have twenty-five francs a
day_." All the printing-houses in Paris were occupied in the same manner
by the soldiery. The _coup d'etat_ reigned everywhere. The Crime even
ill-treated the Press which supported it. At the office of the _Moniteur
Parisien_, the police agents threatened to fire on any one who should
open a door. M. Delamare, director of the _Patrie_, had forty Municipal
Guards on his hands, and trembled lest they should break his presses. He
said to one of them, "_Why, I am on your side_." The gendarme replied,
"_What is that to me?_"

At three o'clock on the morning of the 4th all the printing-offices were
evacuated by the soldiers. The Captain said to Serriere, "We have orders
to concentrate in our own quarters." And Serriere, in announcing this
fact, added, "Something is in preparation."

I had had since the previous night several conve