Nevertheless nothing was yet known of what had taken place during the day. It was announced that M. Havin, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 5th Legion of the National Guard, had ordered the officers of his Legion to attend a meeting.
Some Democratic writers came in, amongst whom were Alexander Rey and Xavier Durrieu, with Kesler, Villiers, and Amable Lemaître of the Révolution; one of these writers was Millière.
Millière had a large bleeding wound above his eye-brow; that same morning on leaving us, as he was carrying away one of the copies of the Proclamation which I had dictated, a man had thrown himself upon him to snatch it from him. The police had evidently already been informed of the Proclamation, and lay in wait for it; Millière had a hand-to-hand struggle with the police agent, and had overthrown him, not without bearing away this gash. However, the Proclamation was not yet printed. It was nearly nine o'clock in the evening and nothing had come. Xavier Durrieu asserted that before another hour elapsed they should have the promised forty thousand copies. It was hoped to cover the walls of Paris with them during the night. Each of those present was to serve as a bill-poster.
There were amongst us—an inevitable circumstance in the stormy confusion of the first moments—a good many men whom we did not know. One of these men brought in ten or twelve copies of the appeal to arms. He asked me to sign them with my own hand, in order, he said, that he might be able to show my signature to the people—"Or to the police," whispered Baudin to me smiling. We were not in a position to take such precautions as these. I gave this man all the signatures that he wanted.
Madier de Montjau began to speak. It was of consequence to organize the action of the Left, to impress the unity of impulse upon the movement which was being prepared; to create a centre for it, to give a pivot to the insurrection, to the Left a direction, and to the People a support. He proposed the immediate formation of a committee representing the entire Left in all its shades, and charged with organizing and directing the insurrection.
All the Representatives cheered this eloquent and courageous man. Seven members were proposed. They named at once Carnot, De Flotte, Jules Favre, Madier de Montjau, Michel de Bourges, and myself; and thus was unanimously formed this Committee of Insurrection, which at my request was called a Committee of Resistance; for it was Louis Bonaparte who was tire insurgent. For ourselves, the were the Republic. It was desired that one workman-Representative should be admitted into the committee. Faure (du Rhône) was nominated. But Faure, we learned later on, had been arrested that morning. The committee then was, it fact, composed of six members.
The committee organized itself during the sitting. A Committee of Permanency was formed from amongst it, and invested with the authority of decreeing "urgency" in the name of all the Left, of concentrating all news, information, directions, instructions, resources, orders. This Committee of Permanency was composed of four members, who were Carnot, Michel de Bourges, Jules Favre, and myself. De Flotte and Madier de Montjau were specially delegated, De Flotte for the left bank of the river and the district of the schools, Madier for the Boulevards and the outskirts.
These preliminary operations being terminated, Lafon took aside Michel de Bourges and myself, and told us that the ex-Constituent Proudhon had inquired for one of us two, that he had remained downstairs nearly a quarter of an hour, and that he had gone away, saying that he would wait for us in the Place de la Bastille.
Proudhon, who was at that time undergoing a term of three years' imprisonment at St. Pélagie for an offence against Louis Bonaparte, was granted leave of absence from tine to time. Chance willed it that one of these liberty days had fallen on the 2d of December.
This is an incident which one cannot help noting. On the 2d of December Proudhon was a prisoner by virtue of a lawful sentence, and at the same moment at which they illegally imprisoned the inviolable Representatives, Proudhon, whom they could have legitimately detained, was allowed to go out. Proudhon had profited by his liberty to come and find us.