constitutionally organized expression of people itself. They taught
Bonaparte, to appeal from the parliamentary body to the people. Finally,
on January 29, 1849, the day arrived when the constitutional assembly
was to decide about its own dissolution. On that day the body found its
building occupied by the military; Changarnier, the General of the party
of Order, in whose hands was joined the supreme command of both the
National Guards and the regulars, held that day a great military review,
as though a battle were imminent; and the coalized royalists declared
threateningly to the constitutional assembly that force would be applied
if it did not act willingly. It was willing, and chaffered only for a
very short respite. What else was the 29th of January, 1849, than the
"coup d'etat" of December 2, 1851, only executed by the royalists with
Napoleon's aid against the republican National Assembly? These gentlemen
did not notice, or did not want to notice, that Napoleon utilized the
29th of January, 1849, to cause a part of the troops to file before him
in front of the Tuileries, and that he seized with avidity this very
first open exercise of the military against the parliamentary power
in order to hint at Caligula. The allied royalists saw only their own
Changarnier.

Another reason that particularly moved the party of Order forcibly to
shorten the term of the constitutional assembly were the organic laws,
the laws that were to supplement the Constitution, as, for instance,
the laws on education, on religion, etc. The allied royalists had every
interest in framing these laws themselves, and not allowing them to be
framed by the already suspicious republicans. Among these organic laws,
there was, however, one on the responsibility of the President of the
republic. In 1851 the Legislature was just engaged in framing such a law
when Bonaparte forestalled that political stroke by his own of December
2. What all would not the coalized royalists have given in their winter