laid. It was then only that we began to think what were our means of
defence, but that was no more a conspiracy than it is a conspiracy in
travellers to look for their pistols when they see a band of robbers
advancing.

'M. Baze's proposition was absurd only because it was impracticable. It
was a precaution against immediate danger, but if it had been voted, it
could not have been executed. The army had already been so corrupted,
that it would have disregarded the orders of the Assembly. I have often
talked over our situation with Lamoricière and my other military friends.
We saw what was coming as clearly as we now look back to it; but we had
no means of preventing it.'

'But was not your intended law of responsibility,' I said, 'an attack on
your part?'

'That law,' he said, 'was not ours. It was sent up to us by the _Conseil
d'État_ which had been two years and a half employed on it, and ought to
have sent it to us much sooner. We thought it dangerous--that is to say,
we thought that, though quite right in itself, it would irritate the
President, and that in our defenceless state it was unwise to do so. The
_bureau_, therefore, to which it was referred refused to declare it
urgent: a proof that it would not have passed with the clauses which,
though reasonable, the President thought fit to disapprove. Our
conspiracy was that of the lambs against the wolf.

'Though I have said,' he continued, 'that he has been conspiring ever
since his election, I do not believe that he intended to strike so soon.
His plan was to wait till next March when the fears of May 1852 would be
most intense. Two circumstances forced him on more rapidly. One was the