in the officers were recommended, in case of
an uprising, to give no quarter to the traitors in their own ranks,
to shoot them down on the spot, and to refuse troops to the National
Assembly, should it make a requisition for such. On January 3, 1851,
the Cabinet was interpellated on this order. The Cabinet demands for the
examination of the affair at first three months, then one week,
finally only twenty-four hours' time. The Assembly orders an immediate
explanation Changarnier rises and declares that this order never
existed; he adds that he would ever hasten to respond to the calls of
the National Assembly, and that, in case of a collision, they could
count upon him. The Assembly receives his utterances with inexpressible
applause, and decrees a vote of confidence to him. It thereby resign its
own powers; it decrees its own impotence and the omnipotence of the Army
by committing itself to the private protection of a general. But the
general, in turn, deceives himself when he places at the Assembly's
disposal and against Bonaparte a power that he holds only as a fief from
that same Bonaparte, and when, on his part, he expects protection from
this Parliament, from his protege', itself needful of protection. But
Changarnier has faith in the mysterious power with which since January,
1849, he had been clad by the bourgeoisie. He takes himself for the
Third Power, standing beside the other Powers of Government. He shares
the faith of all the other heroes, or rather saints, of this epoch,
whose greatness consists but in the interested good opinion that their
own party holds of them, and who shrink into every-day figures so soon
as circumstances invite them to perform miracles. Infidelity is, indeed,
the deadly enemy of these supposed heroes and real saints. Hence their
virtuously proud indignation at the unenthusiastic wits and scoffers.

That same evening the Ministers were summoned to the Elysee; Bonaparte
presses the removal of Changarnier; five Ministers refuse to sign the
order; the "Moniteur" announces a Ministerial crisis; and the party of
Order threatens the formation of a Parliamentary army under the command
of Changarnier. The party of Order had the constitutional power hereto.
It needed only to elect Changarnier President of the National Assembly
in order to make a requisition for whatever military forces it needed
for its own safety. It could do this all the more safely, seeing that
Changarnier still stood at the