uccess of the undertaking to Louis
Napoleon with the two words: "Boxed up." Louis Napoleon hereupon issued the
following decree in the name of the French People:

[Sidenote: Louis Napoleon's manifesto]

"ARTICLE I.--The National Assembly is dissolved.

"II.--Universal suffrage is re-established. The law of May 31 is
abrogated.

"III.--The French People are convoked in their electoral districts
from the 14th December to the 21st December following.

"IV.--The State of Siege is decreed in the district of the first
Military Division.

"V.--The Council of State is dissolved.

"VI.--The Minister of the Interior is charged with the execution of
this decree.

"Given at the Palace of the Elysee, 2d December, 1851.

"LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

"DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."

[Sidenote: A Napoleonic address]

Together with this decree Louis Napoleon issued this appeal to the people:

"FRENCHMEN! The present situation can last no longer. Every day which
passes enhances the dangers of the country. The Assembly, which ought
to be the firmest support of order, has become a focus of
conspiracies. The patriotism of three hundred of its members has been
unable to check its fatal tendencies. Instead of making laws in the
public interest it forges arms for civil war; it attacks the power
which I hold directly from the People, it encourages all bad passions,
it compromises the tranquillity of France; I have dissolved it, and I
constitute the whole People a judge between it and me. The men who
have ruined two monarchies wish to tie my hands in order to overthrow
the Republic; my duty is to frustrate their treacherous schemes, to
maintain the Republic, and to save the Country by appealing to the
solemn judgment of France.

"Such is my firm conviction. If you share it, declare it by your
votes. If, on the contrary, you prefer a government without strength,
Monarchical or Republican, borrowed I know not from what past, or from
what chimerical future, answer in the negative.

"But if you believe that the cause of which my name is the
symbol--that is to say, France regenerated by the Revolution of '89,
and organized by the Emperor, is to be still your own, proclaim it by
sanctioning the powers which I ask from you.

"Then France and Europe will be