then reclosed. The arrivals were a company of the Gendarmerie Mobile, the
fourth of the first battalion, commanded by a captain named La Roche
d'Oisy. As may be remarked by the result, for all delicate expeditions
the men of the _coup d'état_ took care to employ the Gendarmerie Mobile
and the Republican Guard, that it is to say the two corps almost entirely
composed of former Municipal Guards, bearing at heart a revengeful
remembrance of the events of February.

Captain La Roche d'Oisy brought a letter from the Minister of War, which
placed himself and his soldiers at the disposition of the manager of the
National Printing Office. The muskets were loaded without a word being
spoken. Sentinels were placed in the workrooms, in the corridors, at the
doors, at the windows, in fact, everywhere, two being stationed at the
door leading into the street. The captain asked what instructions he
should give to the sentries. "Nothing more simple," said the man who had
come in the _fiacre_. "Whoever attempts to leave or to open a window,
shoot him."

This man, who, in fact, was De Béville, orderly officer to M. Bonaparte,
withdrew with the manager into the large cabinet on the first story, a
solitary room which looked out on the garden. There he communicated to
the manager what he had brought with him, the decree of the dissolution
of the Assembly, the appeal to the Army, the appeal to the People, the
decree convoking the electors, and in addition, the proclamation of the
Prefect Maupas and his letter to the Commissaries of Police. The four
first documents were entirely in the handwriting of the President, and
here and there some erasures might be noticed.

The compositors were in waiting. Each man was placed between two
gendarmes, and was forbidden to utter a single word, and then the