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The offices formerly filled by prefects, praetors, and questors, were now held by persons who had gradually risen into the authority of those officers, and who, though designated from their domestic duties about the Emperor, yet, from that very circumstance, possessed what, in that despotic court, was the most effectual source of power.
At the moment when M. Baze, one of the Questors, ascended the Tribune to deposit his vote, a Representative, belonging to what was called "Les Bancs Elyséens" approached him, and said in a low tone, "To-night you will be carried off." Such warnings as these were received every day, and, as we have already explained, people had ended by paying no heed to them.
Before daylight, immediately after the arrest of the Questors MM. Baze and Leflô, M. de Panat, the only Questor who remained free, having been spared or disdained as a Legitimist, awoke M. Dupin and begged him to summon immediately the Representatives from their own homes. M. Dupin returned this unprecedented answer, "I do not see any urgency."
Meanwhile the ushers, their chief Deponceau at their head, the officers of the Chamber, the questors, and among them General Lebreton in full uniform, had grouped themselves below the tribune; several Representatives had joined them; there was a stir indicating that Louis Bonaparte was about to leave the enclosure. A few Deputies rose. There were shouts of "Sit down! Sit down!"
A miserable compromise followed, according to which the Police Commissioner of the Assembly was to be paid out of its own private budget and was to be subject to the appointment and dismissal of its own questors, but only upon previous agreement with the Minister of the Interior. In the meantime Allais had been prosecuted by the Government.
In order thoroughly to understand the preceding quotation, we must know that the estates of CITIZENS that is, estates independent of the public domain, whether they were obtained in the division of Numa, or had since been sold by the questors were alone regarded as PROPERTY; upon these a tax, or cense, was imposed. Now, what did the proletaires wish?
The councils of war are sitting in permanence, and order all prisoners to be shot. The 30th of the Line have shot a woman. Oil upon fire. "The colonel of the 49th of the Line has resigned. Louis Bonaparte has appointed in his place Lieutenant Colonel Négrier. M. Brun, Officer of the Police of the Assembly, was arrested at the same time as the Questors.
Nevertheless, immediately after the sitting the Questors sent for the Special Commissary of Police of the Assembly, President Dupin being present. When interrogated, the Commissary declared that the reports of his agents indicated "dead calm" such was his expression and that assuredly there was no danger to be apprehended for that night.
The same as, on September 15, Bonaparte bewitched the fishwives, like a second Massaniello, on the occasion of laying the corner-stone for the Market of Paris, though, it must be admitted, one fishwife was equal to seventeen Burgraves in real power ; the same as, after the introduction of the "Questors' Bill," he enthused the lieutenants, who were being treated at the Elysee; so, likewise, did he now, on November 25, carry away with him the industrial bourgeoisie, assembled at the Circus, to receive from his hands the prize-medals that had been awarded at the London Industrial Exposition.
The first papers which he perceived on the middle of the table, and which he seized, were the famous decrees which had been prepared in the event of the Assembly having voted the proposal of the Questors. All the drawers were opened and searched. This overhauling of M. Baze's papers, which the Commissary of Police termed a domiciliary visit, lasted more than an hour.
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