262 0KIG1N OF THE WAR OF 1S53 chap, was no storm of indignation. In an evil hour the , XIV| Republicans had made it a law that the repre- sentatives of the people should he paid for their services. This provision, as was natural, had brought the Assembly into discredit, for it de- stroyed the ennobling sentiment with which a free people is accustomed to regard its Parliament. The Paris workman, brave and arlike, but shrewd and somewhat envious, compared the amount of his day's earning with the wages of the Deputies, and it did not seem to him that the right cause to stand up for was the cause of men who were hired to be patriots at the rate of twenty-five francs a- day. Still, by his mere taste, and his high sense of the difference between what is becoming and what is ignoble, he was inclined to feel hurt by the sight of what he witnessed. In this doubtful temper the Paris workman stood watching, and saw his country slide down from out of the rank Ancitiiere of free States. The gates of the D'Orsay barrack imprisoueil . . . in the bar- were opened, and the Assembly was marched into the court. Then the gates closed upon them.* It was now only two o'clock in the afternoon ;*f- but darkness was wanted to hide the thing which was next to be done, and the members of the Assembly were kept prisoners all the day in the barrack At half-past four, three Deputies who had been absent came to the barrack and caused
- La Ve'rite', ' Kecueil d'Actes Officials,' p. 60.
t Ibid. p. 12; but the 2^'ocis-verbal makes it rather later — viz., twenty minutes past three o'clock. Ibid. p. 60. — Note to 4th Edition, 1863. rack.
