BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 273 quillity who wished the President to succeed in chap. overthrowing the Constitution, or giving it the . L_ needful wrench; but they had assumed that he would not engage in any enterprise of this sort without the support of some, at least, of the states- men who were the known champions of the cause of order. Those whose views had lain in this direc- tion were shocked out of their hopes when, on the Apparent terror of the 2d of December, they came to find that all the plotters on " account of honoured defenders of the cause of order had been their con- tinued iso- thrown into prison, and that the persons who were lation - sheltering the President by their concurrence and their moral sanction were Morny and Maupas or De Maupas, and St Arnaud formerly Le Poy. The list of the Ministry, which was published on the following day, contained no name held in honour; and the plotters of the Elys<;e, terrified, as it seems, at the state of isolation in which they were placed, resorted to a curious stratagem. They formed what they called a 'Consultative Com- stratagem of forming the ' mission,' and promulgated a decree which pur- 'Consuita- ' l ° l 'tive com- ported to appoint as members of the body, not 'mission.' only most of the plotters themselves, and others whose services they could command, but also some eighty other men who were eminent for their character and station.* In so far as it rep- resented these eighty men to be members of the Commission, the decree was a counterfeit. One after another, the men with the honoured names repudiated the notion that they had consented to go and 'consult' with Louis Bonaparte, and
- 'Annuaire,' Appendix, pp. 03-6;).
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