CHAPTER VI.


"PLACARDS"

On leaving these brave men I could read at the corner of the Rue de la
Tour d'Auvergne and the Rue des Martyrs, the three infamous placards
which had been posted on the walls of Paris during the night.

Here they are.

"PROCLAMATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC.

"_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 Constitution, as you know, was constructed with the object of
weakening beforehand the power which you were about to confide to me.
Six millions of votes formed an emphatic protest against it, and yet
I have faithfully respected it. Provocations, calumnies, outrages,
have found me unmoved. Now, however, that the fundamental compact is