By seven o'clock in the morning all this had been accomplished. The Parisians awoke to find their walls placarded by proclamations signed by Prince Louis Napoleon as President, De Morny as Minister of the Interior, De Maupas as Prefect of Police, and Saint-Arnaud as Minister of War.

These proclamations announced,—

  1. The dissolution of the Assembly.
  2. The restoration of universal suffrage.
  3. A general election on December 14.
  4. The dissolution of the Council of State.
  5. That Paris was in a state of siege.

This last meant that any man might be arrested, without warrant, at the pleasure of the police.

Another placard forbade any printer, on pain of death, to print any placard not authorized by Government; and death likewise was announced for anyone who tore down a Government placard.

Louis Napoleon followed this up by an appeal to the people. He said he wished the people to judge between the Assembly and himself. If France would not support him, she must choose another president. In place of the constitution of 1848 he proposed one that should make the presidential term of office ten years; he also proposed that the president's cabinet should be of his own selection.

Louis Napoleon had entire confidence that all elections by universal suffrage would be in his favor. He had just made extensive tours in the provinces, and had been received everywhere with enthusiasm.

Thus far I have given the historical outline of the story; but if we look into Victor Hugo's "Histoire d'un Crime," and disentangle its facts from its hysterics, we may receive from his personal narrative a vivid idea of what passed in Paris from the night of Dec. 1, 1851, to the evening of December 4, when all was over.

Roused early in the morning by members of the Assembly, who came to announce the events of the night, Victor Hugo, to whom genuine republicans who were not Socialists looked as a leader, was, like all the rest of Paris, taken completely by surprise. One of his visitors was a working-man, a wood-carver; of him Hugo eagerly asked: "What do the working-men—the people—say as they read the placards?" He answered: "Some say one thing, some another. The thing has been so done that they cannot understand it. Men going to their work are reading the placards. Not one in a hundred says anything, and those who do, say generally, 'Good! Universal suffrage is reestablished. The conservative majority in the Assembly is got rid of,—that's splendid! Thiers is arrested,—better still! Changarnier is in prison,—bravo!' Beneath every placard there are men placed to lead the approval. My opinion is that the people will approve!"

At exactly six that morning, Cavaignac, Changarnier, Lamoricière, Thiers, and all those who had lain down to sleep as cabinet ministers of the prince president, were roused from their beds by officers of cavalry, with orders to dress quickly, for they were under arrest. Before each door a hackney-coach was waiting, and an escort of two hundred Lancers was in a street near by. Resistance seemed useless in the face of such precautions, but Victor Hugo and his friends were resolved upon a fight. They put their official scarves as deputies into their pockets, and started forth to see if they could raise the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. But their friend the wood-carver had told them truly,—there was neither sympathy nor enthusiasm in the streets for the constitution that had fallen, the deputies who had been placed under arrest, nor for violated political institutions.