CHAPTER VII. ITEMS AND INTERVIEWS
Lamoricière on the same morning found means to convey to me by Madame de Courbonne[15] the following information.
"—— Fortress of Ham.—The Commandant's name is Baudot. His appointment, made by Cavaignac in 1848, was countersigned by Charras. Both are to-day his prisoners. The Commissary of Police, sent by Morny to the village of Ham to watch the movements of the jailer and the prisoners, is Dufaure de Pouillac."[16]
I thought when I received this communication that the Commandant Baudot, "the jailer," had connived at its rapid transmission.
A sign of the instability of the central power.
Lamoricière, by the same means, put me in possession of some details concerning his arrest and that of his fellow-generals.
These details complete those which I have already given.
The arrests of the Generals were affected at the same time at their respective homes under nearly similar circumstances. Everywhere houses surrounded, doors opened by artifice or burst open by force, porters deceived, sometimes garotted, men in disguise, men provided with ropes, men armed with axes, surprises in bed, nocturnal violence. A plan of action which resembled, as I have said, an invasion of brigands.