d the crime of Louis Bonaparte. I
will not choose my crime."

"But then you will have to endure his."

"I would rather endure a crime than commit one."

He remained thoughtful, and said to me,--

"Let it be so."

And he added,--

"Perhaps we are both in the right."

"I think so," I said.

And I pressed his hand.

He took his mother's manuscript and went away. It was three o'clock in
the morning. The conversation had lasted more than two hours. I did not
go to bed until I had written it out.

[32] 14th of June, 1847. Chamber of Peers. See the work "Avant l'Exile."

CHAPTER XI.

THE COMBAT FINISHED, THE ORDEAL BEGINS

I did not know where to go.

On the afternoon of the 7th I determined to go back once more to 19, Rue
Richelieu. Under the gateway some one seized my arm. It was Madame D.
She was waiting for me.

"Do not go in," she said to me.

"Am I discovered?"

"Yes."

"And taken."

"No."

She added,--

"Come."

We crossed the courtyard, and we went out by a backdoor into the Rue
Fontaine Moliere; we reached the square of the Palais Royal. The
_fiacres_ were standing there as usual. We got into the first we came
to.

"Where are we to go?" asked the driver.

She looked at me.

I answered,--

"I do not know."

"I know," she said.

Women always know where Providence lies.

An hour later I was in safety.

From the 4th, every day which passed by consolidated the _coup d'etat_.
Our defeat was complete, and we felt ourselves abandoned. Paris was like
a forest in which Louis Bonaparte was making a _battue_ of the
Representatives; the wild beast was hunting down the sportsmen. We heard
the indistinct baying of Maupas behind us. We were compelled to
disperse. The pursuit was energetic. We entered into the second phase of
duty--the catastrophe accepted and submitted to. The vanquished became
the proscribed. Each one of us had his own concluding adventures. Mine
was what it should have been--exile; death having missed me. I am not
going to relate it here, this book is not my biography, and I ought not
to divert to myself any of the attention which it may excite. Besides,
what concerns me personally is told in a narrative which is one of the
testaments of exile.[33]

Notwithstanding the relentless pursuit which was directed against us, I
did not think it my duty to leave Paris as long as a glimmer of hope
remained, and as long as an awakening of the people seemed possible.
Ma