plice by its obscurity. What it lacked at certain points in
order to make it perfectly dark they added. How? By force. Purely and
simply. By decree. _Sic jubeo_. The decree of the 17th of February was a
masterpiece. This decree completed the proscription of the person, by
the proscription of the name. Domitian could not have done better. Human
conscience was bewildered; Right, Equity, Reason felt that the master
had over them the authority that a thief has over a purse. No reply.
Obey. Nothing resembles those infamous times.

Every iniquity was possible. Legislative bodies supervened and instilled
so much gloom into legislation that it was easy to achieve a baseness in
this darkness.

A successful _coup d'etat_ does not stand upon ceremony. This kind of
success permits itself everything.

Facts abound. But we must abridge, we will only present them briefly.

There were two species of Justice; the Military Commissions and the
Mixed Commissions.

The Military Commissions sat in judgment with closed doors. A colonel
presided.

In Paris alone there were three Military Commissions: each received a
thousand bills of indictment. The Judge of Instruction sent these
accusations to the Procureur of the Republic, Lascoux, who transmitted
them to the Colonel President. The Commission summoned the accused to
appear. The accused himself was his own bill of indictment. They
searched him, that is to say, they "thumbed" him. The accusing document
was short. Two or three lines. Such as this, for example,--

Name. Christian name. Profession. A sharp fellow. Goes to the Cafe.
Reads the papers. Speaks. Dangerous.

The accusation was laconic. The judgment was still less prolix. It was a
simple sign.

The bill of indictment having been examined, the judges having been
consulted, the colonel took a pen, and put at the end of the accusing
line one of three signs:--

- + o

- signified consignment to Lambessa.

+ signified transportation to Cayenne. (The dry guillotine. Death.)

o signified acquittal.

While this justice was at work, the man on whose case they were working
was sometimes still at liberty, he was going and coming at his ease;
suddenly they arrested him, and without knowing what they wanted with
him, he left for Lambessa or for Cayenne.

His family was often ignorant of what had become of him.

People asked of a wife, of a sister, of a daughter, of a mother,--

"Where is your hus