morning all this had been accomplished.
The Parisians awoke to find their walls placarded by proclamations
signed by Prince Louis Napoleon as President, De Morny as Minister
of the Interior, De Maupas as Prefect of Police, and Saint-Arnaud
as Minister of War.

These proclamations announced,--

I. The dissolution of the Assembly.
II. The restoration of universal suffrage.
III. A general election on December 14.
IV. The dissolution of the Council of State.
V. That Paris was in a state of siege.

This last meant that any man might be arrested, without warrant,
at the pleasure of the police.

Another placard forbade any printer, on pain of death, to print
any placard not authorized by Government; and death likewise was
announced for anyone who tore down a Government placard.

Louis Napoleon followed this up by an appeal to the people. He said
he wished the people to judge between the Assembly and himself.
If France would not support him, she must choose another president.
In place of the constitution of 1848 he proposed one that should
make the presidential term of office ten years; he also proposed
that the president's cabinet should be of his own selection.

Louis Napoleon had entire confidence that all elections by universal
suffrage would be in his favor. He had just made extensive tours in
the provinces, and had been received everywhere with enthusiasm.

Thus far I have given the historical outline of the story; but if
we look into Victor Hugo's "Histoire d'un Crime," and disentangle
its facts from its hysterics, we may receive from his personal
narrative a vivid idea of what passed in Paris from the night of
Dec. 1, 1851, to the evening of December 4, when all was over.

Roused early in the morning by members of the Assembly, who came
to announce the events of the night, Victor Hugo, to whom genuine
republicans who were not Socialists looked as a leader, was, like
all the rest of Paris, taken completely by surprise. One of his
visitors was a working-man, a wood-carver; of him Hugo eagerly
asked: "What do the working-men--the people--say as they read the
placards?" He answered: "Some say one thing, some another. The
thing has been so done that they cannot understand it. Men going
to their work are reading the placards. Not one in a hundred says
anything, and those who do, say generally, 'Good! Universal suffrage
is reestablished. The conservative majority in the Assembly is
got rid of,--that