Bonaparte is rumored to be looking for Ministers to execute
these illegal decrees."
The newspaper correspondence that brought this news always close
ominously with "postponed." The "coup" was ever the fixed idea of
Bonaparte. With this idea he had stepped again upon French soil. It
had such full possession of him that he was constantly betraying and
blabbing it out. He was so weak that he was as constantly giving it up
again. The shadow of the "coup" had become so familiar a spectre to the
Parisians, that they refused to believe it when it finally did appear in
flesh and blood. Consequently, it was neither the reticent backwardness
of the chief of the "Society of December 10," nor an unthought of
surprise of the National Assembly that caused the success of the "coup."
When it succeeded, it did so despite his indiscretion and with its
anticipation--a necessary, unavoidable result of the development that
had preceded.
On October 10, Bonaparte announced to his Ministers his decision
to restore universal suffrage; on the 16th day they handed in their
resignations; on the 26th Paris learned of the formation of the Thorigny
Ministry.
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