selves that we commit a
crime."

"Well, then," he continued, "his glory has survived a first blow, a
second will kill it. I do not wish it. I hate the first Eighteenth
Brumaire; I fear the second. I wish to prevent it."

He paused again, and continued,--

"That is why I have come to you to-night. I wish to succor this great
wounded glory. By the advice which I am giving you, if you can carry it
out, if the Left carries it out, I save the first Napoleon; for if a
second crime is superposed upon his glory, this glory would disappear.
Yes, this name would founder, and history would no longer own it. I will
go farther and complete my idea. I also save the present Napoleon, for he
who as yet has no glory will only have come. I save his memory from an
eternal pillory. Therefore, arrest him."

He was truly and deeply moved. He resumed,--

"As to the Republic, the arrest of Louis Bonaparte is deliverance for
her. I am right, therefore, in saying that by what I am proposing to you
I am saving my family and my country."

"But," I said to him, "what you propose to me is a _coup d'etat_."

"Do you think so?"

"Without doubt. We are the minority, and we should commit an act which
belongs to the majority. We are a part of the Assembly. We should be
acting as though we were the entire Assembly. We who condemn all
usurpation should ourselves become usurpers. We should put our hands upon
a functionary whom the Assembly alone has the right of arresting. We, the
defenders of the Constitution, we should break the Constitution. We, the
men of the Law, we should violate the Law. It is a _coup d'etat_."

"Yes, but a _coup d'etat_ for a good purpose."

"Evil committed for a good purpose remains evil."

"Even when it succeeds?"

"Above all when it succeeds."

"Why?"

"Because it then becomes an example."

"You do not then approve of the Eighteenth Fructidor?"

"No."

"But Eighteenth Fructidors prevent Eighteenth Brumaires."

"No. They prepare the way for them."

"But reasons of State exist?"

"No. What exists is the Law."

"The Eighteenth Fructidor has been accepted by exceedingly honest minds."

"I know that."

"Blanqui is in its favor, with Michelet."

"I am against it, with Barbes."

From the moral aspect I passed to the practical aspect.

"This said," resumed I, "let us examine your plan."

This plan bristled with difficulties. I pointed them out to him.

"Count on the National Guard! Why, General Lawoes