1848 had shocked his notion of Right, he had resigned after the 24th of February; he did not resign after the 2d December.
M.Hardouin, who presided over the High Court, was an ex-President of Assizes, a religious man, a rigid Jansenist, noted amongst his colleagues as a "scrupulous magistrate," living in Port Royal, a diligent reader of Nicolle, belonging to the race of the old Parliamentarians of the Marais, who used to go to the Palais de Justice mounted on a mule; the mule had now gone out of fashion, and whoever visited President Hardouin would have found no more obstinacy in his stable than in his conscience.
On the morning of the 2d December, at nine o'clock, two men mounted the stairs of M.Hardouin's house, No.

10, Rue de Conde, and met together at his door.

One was M.Pataille; the other, one of the most prominent members of the bar of the Court of Cassation, was the ex-Constituent Martin (of Strasbourg).

M.Pataille had just placed himself at M.
Hardouin's disposal.
Martin's first thought, while reading the placards of the _coup d'etat_, had been for the High Court.

M.Hardouin ushered M.Pataille into a room adjoining his study, and received Martin (of Strasbourg) as a man to whom he did not wish to speak before witnesses.