He then began to condemn, in equal measure, the monarchists and the reactionary republicans.
He was destined to suffer blow after blow.
Since the insurrection of June, 1848, secret societies had been formed, some of which were to fight against reaction, others to prepare the Empire, as the insurrection of the 10th of December had done, and all these societies kept watch upon one another. The Bonapartists denounced, above all, those called “Marianne.”
Perquisitions took place, and were called “domiciliary visits.” The reactionists affirmed that the object of certain of these societies was to overthrow the Republic, which was only a pretext for hunting down Republicans.
The pleasure I had taken in searching for my grandfather’s hiding-places for his money had caused me to remark my father’s goings and comings to the garret, which I concluded must arise from his hiding something there. So I determined to find out what it was, and I discovered a hole between two rafters, which held a large package of papers, lists of names, proofs of the organisation of a society, the members of which had taken oath to fight against the tyrants, to answer the first call to insurrection, etc.
One day my mother said to my father: “You should burn the papers of the ‘Marianne,’ which are so compromising to many persons. Since you do not dare to meet any longer, it would be better to rid yourself of the official reports and the lists, which seem to me dangerous to keep.”
“I have thought about it,” my father replied, “and I will begin to-morrow to convoke our brothers and friends, two by two, to ask their consent to destroy our archives.”
That same evening I made myself a large pocket attached to a string which I could tie around my waist, and which I put on the next morning.
It was time! My father had not gathered together ten of the associated members of the “Marianne” (were there traitors among “the brothers and friends” convoked separately?) before an agent of the Republic, at the head of a commission, came to our house one morning at breakfast-time, and, showing his papers of authority, he began to ransack in my father’s writing-desk, aided by two policemen. My father was overwhelmed; my heart seemed turned into stone. I watched our visitors doing their work, concocting the while a plan in my mind. I even helped them by pointing out things in an amiable way, and I went so far as to say, laughingly, to the agent of the Republic:
“What you are doing is not very nice, Monsieur; it might even be called indiscreet.”