s. Who are those prisoners? We have said,--republicans,
patriots, soldiers of the law, innocent men, martyrs. Their sufferings
have already been proclaimed by generous voices, and one has a glimpse
of the truth. In our special volume on the 2nd of December, it shall be
our task to tear asunder the veil. Do you wish to know what is taking
place?--Sometimes, when endurance is at an end and strength exhausted,
bending beneath the weight of misery, without shoes, without bread,
without clothing, without a shirt, consumed by fever, devoured by
vermin, poor artisans torn from their workshops, poor husbandmen
forcibly taken from the plough, weeping for a wife, a mother, children,
a family widowed or orphaned, also without bread and perhaps without
shelter, overdone, ill, dying, despairing,--some of these wretched
beings succumb, and consent to "ask for pardon!" Then a letter is
presented for their signature, all written and addressed: "To
Monseigneur le Prince-President." We give publicity to this letter, as
Sieur Quentin Bauchart avows it.

"I, the undersigned, declare upon my honour, that I accept _most
thankfully_ the pardon offered me by Prince Louis-Napoleon, and I
engage never to become a member of any secret society, to respect the
law, and be _faithful_ to the Government that the country has chosen
by the votes of the 20th and 21st of December, 1851."

Let not the meaning of this grave performance be misunderstood. This is
not clemency granted, it is clemency implored. This formula: "Ask us
for your pardon," means: "Grant us our pardon." The murderer, leaning
over his victim and with his knife raised, cries: "I have waylaid you,
seized you, hurled you to the earth, despoiled and robbed you, passed
my knife through your body, and now you are under my feet, your blood
is oozing from twenty wounds; _say you repent_, and I will not finish
you." This _repentance_ exacted by a criminal from an innocent man, is
nothing else than the outward form which his inward remorse assumes.
He fancies that he is thus safeguarded against his own criminality.
Whatever expedient he may adopt to deaden his feelings, although he may
be for ever ringing in his own ears the seven million five hundred
thousand little bells of his plebiscite, the man of the _coup d'etat_
reflects at times; he catches vague glimpses of a tomorrow, and
struggles against the inevitable future. He must have legal purgation,
discharge, release from custody, quittance