Soon, however, the soldiers reappeared at the door, preceded this time by two _commissaires de police_. These men entered the room and, amid the unbroken silence and total immobility of the Assembly, summoned the Representatives to disperse. The President ordered them to retire themselves. One of the _commissaires_ was agitated and faltered; the other broke out in invectives. The President said to him: "Sir, we are here the lawful authority and sole representatives of law and of right. We know that we cannot oppose to you material force, but we will leave this chamber only under constraint. We will not disperse. Seize us and convey us to prison."
"All, all!" exclaimed the members of the Assembly. After much hesitation the _commissaires de police_ decided to act. They caused each of the two Presidents to be seized by the collar. The whole body then rose, and, arm in arm, two and two, they followed the Presidents, who were led off. In this order they reached the street, and were marched across the city, without knowing whither they were going.
Care had been taken to circulate a report among the crowd and the troops that a meeting of Socialist and Red Republican Deputies had been arrested. But when the people beheld among those who were thus dragged through the mud of Paris on foot, like a gang of malefactors, men the most illustrious by their talents and their virtues--ex-ministers, ex-ambassadors, generals, admirals, great orators, great writers, surrounded by the bayonets of the line--a shout was raised, "_Vive l'Assemblée nationale!_" The Representatives were attended by these shouts until they reached the barracks of the Quai d'Orsay, where they were shut up.
Night was coming on, and it was wet and cold. Yet the Assembly was left two hours in the open air, as if the Government did not deign to remember its existence. The Representatives here made their last roll-call in presence of their phonographer, who had followed them. The number present was two hundred eighteen, to whom were added about twenty more in the course of the evening, consisting of members who had voluntarily caused themselves to be arrested. Almost all the men known to France and to Europe, who formed the majority of the Legislative Assembly, were gathered in this place. Few were wanting, except those who, like M. Molé, had not been suffered to reach their colleagues.