his side held in his hand his hat full of five-franc
pieces, which he distributed among the lookers-on, saying: "_Shout,
Long live the Emperor!_"

The grenadier Geoffroy, in his evidence, characterises in these words
the attempt made on his mess by an officer and a sergeant who were in
the plot: "The sergeant had a bottle in his hand, and the officer a
sabre." In these few words is the whole 2nd of December.

Let us proceed:--

"Next day, June 17, the commandant, Mesonan, who I thought had gone,
entered my room, announced by my aide-de-camp. I said to him,
'Commandant, I thought you were gone!'--'No, general, I am not gone. I
have a letter to give you.'--'A letter? And from whom?'--'Read it,
general.'

"I asked him to take a seat; I took the letter, but as I was opening
it, I saw that the address was--_a M. le Commandant Mesonan_. I said to
him: 'But, my dear Commandant, this is for you, not for me.'--'Read it,
General!'--I opened the letter and read thus:--

"'My dear Commandant, it is most essential that you should
immediately see the general in question; you know he is a man of
resolution, on whom one may rely. You know also that he is a man
whom I have put down to be one day a marshal of France. _You will
offer him, from me, 100,000 francs_; and you will ask him into what
banker's or notary's hands _I shall pay 300,000 francs_ for him, in
the event of his losing his command.'

"I stopped here, overcome with indignation; I turned over the leaf, and
I saw that the letter was signed, 'LOUIS NAPOLEON.'

"I handed the letter back to the commandant, saying that it was a
ridiculous and abortive affair."

Who speaks thus? General Magnan. Where? In the open Court of Peers.
Before whom? Who is the man seated on the prisoners' bench, the man
whom Magnan covers with "scorn," the man towards whom Magnan turns his
"indignant" face? Louis Bonaparte.

Money, and with money gross debauchery: such were his means of action
in his three enterprises at Strasburg, at Boulogne, at Paris. Two
failures and a success. Magnan, who refused at Boulogne, sold himself
at Paris. If Louis Bonaparte had been defeated on the 2nd of December,
just as there were found on him, at Boulogne, the 500,000 francs he had
brought from London, so there would have been found at the Elysee, the
twenty-five millions taken from the Bank.

There has, then, been in France,--one must needs speak of these things
coolly,--in Fra