 Book 14, Part 2 of the Memoirs of Chateaubriand, Volume 5. The 29th saw new combatants enter the field, the pupils of the Polytechnic School, who were in correspondence with one of their old school-fellows, M. Charras, broke bounds and sent four of their number, Messieurs L'Otent, Pertélin, Prince Onnier, and Tourneau, to offer their services to Messieurs Lafite, Perrier, and Lafayette. These young men, distinguished by their studies, had already made themselves known to the Allies, when the latter appeared before Paris in 1814. During the three days they became the leaders of the people who, with perfect simplicity, placed them at their head. Some repaired to the Place de L'Odent, others to the Palais Royale and the Trullerie. The order of the day, published on the morning of the 29th, offended the guards. It announced that the king, wishing to give a proof of his satisfaction to his brave servants, awarded them six weeks' pay, and, in propriety, which the French soldier resented, it was placing him on a level with the English, who refused to march, or who mutiny, if their pay is in arrears. During the night of the 28th, the people took up the street pavement, at each twenty yards distance, and at daybreak the next morning there were four thousand barricades standing in Paris. The Palais Bourbonne was guarded by the line, the Louvre by two Swiss battalions, the Rue de la Paix, the Place Vendon, and the Rue Castiglioni, by the fifth and fifty-third regiments of the line. About twelve hundred infantrymen had arrived from Saint Denis, Versailles, and Rue. The military position was better. The troops were more concentrated, and big empty spaces had to be crossed to reach them. General Exelman, who thought well of the dispositions, came at eleven o'clock to place his courage and experience at the disposal of the maire Charles de Rageuse, while on his side General Pahont presented himself before the deputies to take command of the National Guard. The ministers had the idea of summoning the King's Court to the Tuileries, so completely out of touch were they with the movement surrounding them. The Marshal pressed the President of the Council to withdraw the ordinances. During the interview Monsieur de Polignac was asked for, he went out and returned with Monsieur Berthier, son of the first victim sacrificed in 1789. Monsieur Berthier had been through Paris, and declared that all was going well for the royal cause. What a fatal thing are those families which have a right to vengeance, cast into the tomb as they were in our early troubles, and conjured up by our later misfortunes. Those misfortunes were novelties no longer. Since 1793 Paris was accustomed to witness the passing of events and kings. While all was going so well according to the royalists, the defection was announced of the fifth and fifty-third of the line, who were fraternizing with the people. The dupe de Rageuse proposed a suspension of hostilities. It took place at some points, and was not carried out at others. The Marshal had sent for one of the two Swiss battalions posted at the Louvre. They dispatched to him the battalion which lined the colonnade. The Parisians, seeing the colonnade deserted, came up to the walls, and entered by the mass-doors which lead from the Jardin de L'Enfant to the interior. They made for the windows an open fire on the battalion standing in the courtyard. Under the terror of the memory of the 10th of August, the Parisians rushed from the palace and hurled themselves into their battalion, which was posted opposite the Parisian outposts. Here, however, the suspension of hostilities was being observed. The mark which from the Louvre had reached the gallery of the museum began to fire from the midst of the masterpieces on the lances drawn up in the carousel. The Parisian post, carried away by this example, broke off the suspension of hostilities. Flung headlong under the art de triomphe, the Swiss drove the lances to the port of the Pavilion de l'Olonge, and a boost in confusion into the garden of the Tuileries. Yang Farsi met his death in this scuffle. His name is written up at the corner of the café where he fell. A beet factory stands at the Mopoulé today. The Swiss had three or four men killed or wounded. This small loss was changed into a frightful butchery. The mob entered the Tuileries with Messias Tomas, Bastille and Guinard by the Pond-Hoyale gate. A tricolour flag was planted on the Pavilion de l'Olonge, as in the time of Bonaparte, apparently in remembrance of liberty. Furniture was broken up, pictures slashed with sword-cuts. In a cupboard they found the King's Hunting Journal, with particulars of his fine exploits against the partridges. An old custom of the gamekeepers of the monarchy. They put a corpse on the empty throne, in the throne room. That would be a formidable thing, if the French of today were not always playing at drama. The Artillery Museum at Saint-Thomas-Dacar was pillaged, and the centuries passed down the river under the helmet of Godfrey Abouillant, and with the lance of Francis I. Then the Dudaugues left the staff office, leaving a hundred and twenty thousand francs in bags behind him. He went through the Reader River Lee and entered the Tuileries gardens. He gave the order for the troops to retire, first to the Champs-Élysées and next to the Étoiles. It was believed that peace was made, that the Dauphin was coming. Some carriages from the Royal Muse and a baggage-wagon were seen to cross the plus Louis Cairns. It was the ministers going after their works. On arriving at the Étoiles, Marmont received a letter. It informed him that the King had given Monsieur le Dauphin the Commander-in-Chief of the troops, and that he, the Marshal, would serve under his orders. A company of the Third Guards had been forgotten in the House of Hatton, the Reader-Ronde. After a long resistance, the House was carried. Captain Murnier, wounded in three places, jumped from a third-floor window, fell on a roof below, and was taken to the Hôpital du Grand Caillou. He has survived. The Cassin-Babillon, attacked between twelve and one in the day, by three pupils of the Polytechnique's school, Vano, Lacroix and Ouvrier, was guarded only by a depot of Swiss recruits, numbering about a hundred men. Major Dufay, an officer of French descent, was in command. He had served with us for thirty years. He had been an actor in the great exploits of the Republic and the Empire. He was called upon to surrender. Refused all conditions, and locked himself up in his barrack. Young Vano was killed. Some firemen set fire to the barrack door, which fell in pieces. At once Major Dufay issued through this mouth of flame, followed by his Highlanders with fixed bayonets. He fell, struck by the musket-shot of a neighbouring publican. His death saved his Swiss recruits. They joined the different corps to which they belonged. Priscilla du Demaut Ma arrived at Saint-Cloud on Wednesday the twenty-eighth at ten o'clock in the evening. To take up his service as captain of the Hundred Swiss, he was not able to speak to the King until the next day. At eleven o'clock on the twenty-ninth, he made a few efforts to induce Charles X to recall the ordinances. The King said to him, I do not want to climb into the cart like my brother. I will not go back by a foot. A few minutes later he was to go back by a kingdom. The ministers had arrived. Messieurs de Sémont-Ville, Dago, Vittron, were there. Messieurs de Sémont-Ville related that he had had a long conversation with the King, that he had not succeeded in shaking his resolution until he made an appeal to his heart. By speaking to him of the dangers to which Madame Ladoffine was exposed, he said to him, Tomorrow at noon there will be no King, no Dufin, no Ducte Bordeaux. And the King replied, You will surely give me till one o'clock. I do not believe a word of all this. Bragging is our national fault. Question of Frenchmen and trust to history. He will always have done everything. The ministers went into the King after Messieurs de Sémont-Ville. The ordinances were evoked. The ministry dissolved. Messieurs de Montemar appointed president of the new council. In the capital, the Republican Party had at last run someone to earth. Messieurs Bordeaux, the man of the parade at the office of the Tom, going through the streets, had found the hotel de Ville occupied by only two men, Messieurs du Borg and Messieurs Zimmer. He had once proclaimed himself the emissary of a provisional government which was coming to install itself. He sent for the clocks of the prefecture and ordered them to set to work as their Messieurs de Chabrol were present. In governments which have become machines, the waits are soon wound up again. Everyone hastens to take possession of the deserted places. This one made himself secretary-general, that other head of a division, a third took the accounts, a fourth appointed himself to the staff and distributed the places on the staff among his friends. There were some who went so far to send for their beds so as not to leave the spot, and to be in a position to jump upon the first place that became vacant. Messieurs du Borg, nicknamed General du Borg, and Messieurs Zimmer were styled the heads of the military side of the provisional government. Messieurs Bordeaux represented the civil side of this unknown government, took resolutions, and issued proclamations. And yet placards had been seen which came from the Republican Party, and which were the production of a different government, consisting of Messieurs de la Fayette, Gérard, and de Choisole. It is difficult to explain the association of the last name with the two others. Besides, Messieurs de Choisole protested. This all-liberal, who emigrating a shipwrecked at Calais, to save his life, mimic the stiffness of death, found no paternal home. On his return to France, save a box at the opera. At three o'clock in the afternoon came a new element of confusion. An order of the day summoned the deputies in Paris to the atel de Ville, there to confer on the measures to be taken. The mayors were to be restored to their mayoralties. They were also to send one of the adeptuaires to the atel de Ville in order to make up a consultative commission there. This order was signed, J. Bode, for the provisional government, and Colonel Zimmer by order of General Duborg. This audacity on the part of three persons speaking in the name of the government, that existed only in so far as it had placarded itself at the street corners, proves the rare intelligence of the French in revolution. Such men as these are evidently leaders destined to sway other nations. What a misfortune that, in delivering us from a similar anarchy, Bonaparte should have snatched from us our liberty. The deputies had again met at M. Lafites. M. de Lafayette, going back to 1789, declared that he would also go back to the command of the National Guard. This met with applause, and he proceeded to the atel de Ville. The deputies nominated a municipal commission consisting of five members, M. Cassemir Perrier, Lafite de Loboie, de Chonin, and Audrey de Puyreau. M. Audulant Barreau was elected secretary to the commission, which installed itself at the atel de Ville, as M. de Lafayette had done. All these sat promiscuously beside the provisional government on M. Duborg. M. Morgan, sent as an emissary to the commission, remained with it. The friend of Washington ordered the black flag, which had been hoisted by the ingenuity of M. Duborg, to be removed. At half-past eight in the evening, M. de Cémonville, M. Dagoe, M. de Vittorolle, arrived from St. Cloud. They had hastened to Paris immediately after hearing at St. Cloud of the appeal of the ordinances, the dismissal of the old ministers, and the appointment of M. de Montemar to the presidency of the council. They appeared before the municipal commission in the quality of mandatorys of the king. M. Morgan asked the grand refinery if he had written powers. The grand refinery replied that he had not thought of it, the negotiations of the official commissaries went no further. M. de Vittorolle informed at the meeting at Cémonville's house of what had taken place at St. Cloud, signed a permit for M. de Montemar, adding that the deputies assembled at his house would wait for him until one o'clock in the morning. As the noble duke did not appear, the deputies went home. M. de Vittorolle left alone with M. de Montemar, occupied himself with the duke de Léon, and the necessary proclamations. Fifty years of revolution in France had given the men a practice, and the facility for reorganizing governments, and the men of theory, the habit of refurbishing charters and preparing the cranes and cradles by which governments are hoisted up or let down. On this same day, the twenty-ninth, the day after my return to Paris, I was not idle. My plan was fixed. I wanted to act but only on an order, written in the king's own hand, which would give me the necessary powers to speak with the authorities of the moment. To meddle with everything and do nothing did not suit me. But I had argued rightly as proved by the affront received by M. de Vittorolle and M. de Montemar. I therefore wrote to Charles the Tenth at Saint-Cloud, M. de Givray undertook to carry my letter. I begged the king to instruct me as to his wishes. M. de Givray returned empty-handed. He had given my letter to M. de Dura, who had given it to the king, who sent me word that he had appointed M. de Montemar, his prime minister, and asked me to arrange with him. Where to find the noble duke? I looked for him in vain on the evening of the twenty-ninth. Rejected by Charles the Tenth, I turned my thoughts to the chamber of peers, which was able, as a sovereign court, to evoke a trial and adjust the difference. If it was not safe in Paris, it was at liberty to transfer itself to some distance, even to the king's side, and from there to pronounce a grand award. It had chances of success. There are always chances of success in courage. After all, had it succumbed, it would have undergone a defeat which would have been useful to the question of principle. But should I have found twenty men in that chamber, prepared to devote themselves, of those twenty men, were there for who would have agreed with me on public liberty? Aristocratic assemblies enjoy a glorious reign when they are sovereign and alone invested, de Dura et de facto, with power. They offer the strongest guarantees, but in mixed forms of government they lose their value, and become pitiful in times of great crisis. Weak against the king, they do not prevent despotism. Weak against the people, they do not stop anarchy. In any public commotion they redeem their existence only at the price of perjury or slavery. Did the House of Lords save Charles I? Did it save Richard Cromwell, to whom it had taken the oath? Did it save James II? Will it save the Hanoverian princess today? Will it save itself? Those self-styled aristocratic counterweights only disturb the balance and will sooner or later be flung out of the scale. An ancient and wealthy aristocracy having the habit of business has only one means of retaining power when the latter is escaping from it, that is to cross over from the capital to the forum and place itself at the head of the new movement, unless it think itself still strong enough to risk civil war. While awaiting Monsieur de Gervais' return, I was pretty busy in defending my quarter. The suburbs, the quarrymen of Montrouge, came crowding through the barrier de l'enfer. The latter resembled those quarrymen of Montmartre, who caused such great alarm to Mamazel de Mornay, when she was fleeing from the masquerade of Saint Bartolomeu. As they passed before the community house of the missionaries in my street, they entered it. A score of priests were obliged to take to flight. The haunt of those fanatics was philosophically pillaged. Their beds and their books burnt in the street. This trifle has not been mentioned. Was there any need to trouble about what the priesthood might have lost? I gave hospitality to seven or eight fugitives. They remained for several days, hidden under my roof. I obtained pass-walls for them through the intermediary of my neighbour, M. Aragot, and they went elsewhere to preach the word of God. Utilis populus fugar sanctorum. The municipal commissioners established at the Hotel de Ville appointed the baron Louis provisional commissary of finance, M. Baud, minister of the interior, M. Mary Lou, minister of justice, gave M. Chadelle the post office, M. Marchard the telegraphs, M. Bavoux the police, M. de la Borde the prefecture of the Sainte. Thus the voluntary provisional government found itself destroyed in reality by the promotion of M. Baud, who had created himself a member of that government. The shops were opened again. The public services resumed their course. At the meeting at M. Lafitte, it had been decided that the deputies should assemble at noon at the palace of the chamber. Some thirty or thirty-five met there under the presidency of M. Lafitte. M. Bavard announced that he had met M. Dago, M. Jean-Saint, and M. Marchard on their way to M. Lafitte, thinking that they would find the deputies there. That he had invited those gentlemen to follow him to the chamber, but that M. D. Marchard, overwhelmed with fatigue, had gone away to see M. Simonville. M. Marchard, according to M. Berra, said that he had a signature in blank, and that the king consented to everything. In fact, M. Marchard brought five ordinances. Instead of communicating them at once to the deputies, he was obliged by his lassitude to go back to the Luxembourg. At midday he sent the ordinances to M. Servo. The latter applied that he could not publish them in the monitor, without the authorization of the Chamber of Deputies or the Municipal Commission. M. Berra, having told his story, as I have said, in the chamber, had a discussion followed to decide whether they should receive M. Marchard or not. General Sebastiani insisted on the affirmative. M. Morgan declared that, if M. Marchard were present, he would ask that he should be heard, but that events were urgent, and that they could not wait on M. Marchard's good pleasure. Five commissaries were appointed, charged to go to confer with the peers. These five commissaries were M. Augustin Perrier, Sebastiani Guizot, Benjamin de Lesser, and Ed de Neville. But soon the Conte de Soussi was introduced into the elective chamber. M. de Montemar had charged him to present the ordinances to the deputies. Addressing the assembly, he said, In the chancelless absence, a few peers met at my house. M. de Montemar handed us this letter, addressed to M. Général Gérard or M. Cassimier Perrier. I beg leave to communicate its contents to you. Here is the letter. M. Gérard. After leaving Sainte-Claude during the night, I have in vain tried to meet you. Please tell me where I can see you. I beg you to give notice of the ordinances which I have been carrying since yesterday. M. de Montemar had left Sainte-Claude during the night. He had had the ordinances in his pocket for twelve or fifteen hours, since yesterday, to use his own expression. He had been unable to find Général Gérard or M. Cassimier Perrier. M. de Montemar was very unlucky. M. Berra made the following observation on the letter that had been read aloud. I cannot, he said, refrain from calling attention here to a lack of frankness. M. de Montemar, who was proceeding to M. Lafites this morning when I met him, formally told me that he would come here. The five ordinances were read. The first recalled the ordinances of the twenty-fifth of July. The second summoned the chambers for the third of August. The third appointed M. de Montemar, foreign minister, and president of the council. The fourth called Général Gérard to the war-office. The fifth M. Cassimier Perrier to the Ministry of Finance. When I at last met M. de Montemar at the Grand Referendaries, he told me that he had been obliged to stay at M. de Simonville's because, having returned on foot from Saint-Cloud, he had had to go out of his way and enter the Bois de Boulogne by a gap. His boot or his shoe had taken the skin off his heel. It is to be regretted that, before producing the acts of the throne, M. de Montemar did not try to see the influential men and bring them round to the king's side. These acts, falling suddenly in the midst of the unforewarned deputies, no one dared to declare himself. They drew down upon themselves this terrible reply from Benjamin Constant. We know beforehand what the chamber of peers will say to us. It will purely and simply accept the repeal of the ordinances. As for myself, I do not pronounce positively on the dynastic question. I will only say that it would be too easy for king to have his people shot down and to avoid the consequences by saying afterwards everything is as it was. Would Benjamin Constant, who did not pronounce positively on the dynastic question, have ended his phrase in the same way if words had been addressed to him earlier suited to his talents and his just ambition? I sincerely pity a man of courage and honour like M. de Montemar, when I come to think that the legitimate monarchy was perhaps overthrown, because the minister charged with the royal powers was unable to find two deputies in Paris, and because, tired with doing three leagues on foot, he barked his heel. The ordinance nominating M. de Montemar to the St. Petersburg Embassy has taken the place for him of the ordinances of his old master. Ah, how could I refuse Louis Philippe's request that I should be his minister of foreign affairs, or resume my beloved Embassy in Rome? But alas, what should I have done with my beloved on the bank of the Tiber? I should always have believed that she blushed as she looked at me. On the morning of the 30th, I received a note from the Grand Referendary, summoning me to the meeting of the peers at the Luxembourg. I wanted first to learn some news. I went down the Reid-en-Faire, the Place Saint-Michel, and the Reid-au-Fien. There was still a little excitement around the broken barricades. I compared what I saw with the great revolutionary movement of 1789, and the presence struck me as orderly and silent. The change of manners was visible. At the Pont-nerve, the statue of Henry IV, like an ensign of the League, held a Tricolor flag in its hand. Men of the people said, as they looked at the Bronze King, you would never have been such a fool, old man. Groups had assembled on the Quidilocole. I saw in the distance a general, accompanied by two Ed Decombe, all on horseback. I went in their direction. As I elbered my way through the crowd, my eyes were on the general. A Tricolor sash across his coat, his hat cocked over the back of his head, with one corner in front. He caught sight of me in his turn and cried, See, the Viscount! And I, surprised, recognized Colonel or Captain Duborg, my companion at Ghent, who was going, during our return to Paris, to take the open towns in the name of Louis XVIII, and who brought us, as I've related, half a sheep for dinner in a dirty lodging at Arnouville. This is the officer whom the newspapers had represented as an austere soldier of the Republic, with Grey Moustachios, who had refused to serve under the Imperial tyranny, and who was so poor that they had been obliged to buy him a uniform of the days of La Rebillière-Lepeau at the Raghfair. Then I exclaimed, Why, it's you! What? He stretched out his arms to me, pressed my hand on Flonkein's neck. The circle was formed around us. My dear fellow said the military head of the provisional government, pointing out the Louvre to me. There were twelve hundred of them in there. We gave them prunes in their hinder-parts, and they ran. Oh, how they ran! Monsieur Duborg's Ed Decombe burst into loud roars of laughter. The rubble laughed in unison. The general spurred his nag, which caracold, like a broken-backed beast, followed by two other russianants slipping on the paving-stones, as they were ready to fall on their noses between their rider's links. Thus proudly borne away did the Diomedes of the Hotel de Ville a man for the rest of courage and wit abandon me. I have seen men who, taking all the scenes of 1830 for serious, blushed at this story, because it somewhat counteracted their heroic credulity. I myself was ashamed on seeing the comical side of the gravest revolutions, and how easy it is to trifle with the good faith of the people. Monsieur Louis Blanc, in the first volume of his excellent Histoire de Dison, published after what I have just written here, confirms my story. A man, he says, of middle-height, with an energetic countenance and wearing a general's uniform, was crossing the Marche des Annescents, followed by a great number of armed men. Monsieur Everiste Dumoulin, editor of the Constitutional, had supplied this man with his uniform, obtained at an old clothes-shop, and the epaulettes which he wore had been given him by Perlet, the actor. They came from the property room of the opera-comic. Whose that general was asked on every hand? And when they who surrounded him answered, it is General Duborg. Long live General Duborg, cried the people, who had never heard the name before. A few paces further, a different sight awaited me. A ditch had been dug before the colonnade of the Louvre. A priest in surplus and stole was praying beside the ditch. They were laying dead bodies in it. I took off my hat and made the sign of the cross. The silent crowd stood respectfully watching the ceremony, which would have been nothing if religion had not appeared in it. So many memories and reflections presented themselves to my mind, that I remained quite motionless. Suddenly I thought myself being crowded round. A cry arose. Long live the defender of the liberty of the press. I had been recognized by my hair. Forthwith some young men called hold of me and said, Which way are you going? We are going to carry you. I did not know what to answer. I begged to be excused. I struggled. I entreated them to let me go. The time fixed for the meeting in the house of peers had not yet come. The young men kept on shouting, Which way are you going? Which way are you going? I replied at random, Well, to the Palais Royale. Forthwith I was escorted there, amid cries of the Charter for ever, the liberty of the press for ever, Charter beyond for ever. In the Corde Frontin, Monsieur Barba, the bookseller, left his house and came to embrace me. We arrived at the Palais Royale. I was plumbed down in a cafe under the wooden arcade. I was dying with heat. With class hands I reiterated my request for remission of my glory. Not a bit of it. The whole of that youth refused to leave hold of me. In the crowd was a man in a wiskett jacket, with the sleeves turned up, with black hands, a sinister face, and gleaming eyes, such as I had seen so often at the commencement of the revolution. He continually tried to approach me, and the young men always thrust him back. I learnt neither his name nor what he wanted with me. I had to make up my mind at last to say that I was going to the house of peers. We left the cafe. The cheers began afresh. In the courtyard of the Louvre different kinds of shouts were raised. Some cried, to the Tuileries, to the Tuileries. Others long lived the first consul, and seemed to wish to make me the heir of Bonaparte, the Republican. Yes, aunt, who accompanied me, received a share of handshaking and embraces. We crossed the Pondés Art, and took the redescent. The people flogged on our passage. They crowded the windows. I suffered under all these honors, for my arms were being torn from their sockets. One of the young men who were pushing me from behind suddenly slipped his head between my legs, and lifted me on his shoulders. New cheers! They shouted to the spectators in the street, and at the windows, HADS OFF! HURRA for the Charter! And I replied, Yes, gentlemen, HURRA for the Charter, but HURRA for the King! This cry was not taken up, but it provoked no anger. And that is how the game was lost. All might still be arranged, but it was necessary to present only popular men to the people. In revolutions, a name does more than an army. I besword my young friends to such good purpose, that at last they put me down. In the redescent, opposite Monsieur le Normand, my publisher, a furniture dealer offered an armchair to carry me in. I refused it, and arrived in the main court of the Luxembourg, in the midst of my triumph. My generous escort then left me, after shouting fresh cries of, The Charter for ever, Charter beyond for ever! I was touched by the sentiments of this noble youth. I shouted, Long live the King, in the midst of them all, quite as safely as though I had been alone in my house. They knew my opinions. They carried me themselves to the House of Peers, where they knew that I was going to speak and remain loyal to my King. And yet it was the thirtieth of July. And we had just passed by the ditch, where they were burying the citizens killed by the bullets of the soldiers of Charles X. The noise which I left outside contrasted with the silence which reigned in the entrance hall of the Palace of the Luxembourg. This silence increased in the gloomy gallery, which precedes Mercedes Simmelville's apartments. My presence embarrassed the twenty-five or thirty Peers who had gathered there. I hindered the sweet effusions of fear, the tender consternation to which they were yielding. I there at last saw Mercedes Montemar. I told him that, in accordance with the King's wishes, I was ready to act in agreement with him. He replied that, as I have already stated, he had barked his heel on returning. He disappeared again in the throng of the assembly. He apprised us of the ordinances which he had already communicated to the deputies through Monsieur de Soussi. Monsieur de Brodlie declared that he had just been through Paris, that we were living on a volcano, that the middle classes were no longer able to restrain the workmen, that if we merely pronounced the name of Charles X, they would cut all our throats and demolish the Luxembourg as they had demolished the Bastille. That's true, that's true, muttered the prudent in a hollow voice, shaking their heads. Monsieur de Carman, who had been made a duke, apparently because he had been Monsieur de Metinix lacky, maintained with great heat that it was impossible to recognise the ordinances. And why not, Monsieur, I asked. This cold question iced his rapture. The five commissaries from the deputies arrived. Monsieur le Général Sébastiani led off with his customary phrase. Gentlemen, this is a serious business. Next he signed the praises of Monsieur le Duc de Montmartre for remarkable moderation. He spoke of the dangers of Paris, pronounced a few words in eulogy of H.R.H. Monsieur le Duc de Lyon, and concluded with the impossibility of considering the ordinances. I am Monsieur E. de Nerville with the only two who held the opposite opinion. I obtained leave to speak. Monsieur le Duc de Brodlie has told his gentleman that he has walked about the streets and seen hostile dispositions on every hand. I too have just been through Paris. Three thousand young men escorted me to the courtyard of this palace. You may have heard their cheers. Are these thirsting for your blood who have thus greeted one of your colleagues? They shouted the Charter for ever. I replied the King for ever. They showed no anger and came and brought me safe and sound into your midst. Are those such threatening symptoms of public opinion? Personally, I maintain that nothing is lost. That we can accept the ordinances. It is not a question of considering whether there be danger or not, but of keeping the oaths which we have taken to the King, to whom we owe our dignities, and many of us, our fortune. His Majesty, by withdrawing the ordinances and changing his ministry, has done all that he should. Let us in our turn do our duty. What? In the whole course of our lives there comes one single day, in which we are obliged to enter the lists. And shall we decline the combat? Let us give France the example of honour and loyalty. Let us save her from falling a prey to anarchical combinations, in which her peace, her true interests, and her liberties would be lost. Danger vanishes when one dares to look it in the face. They made no reply. They hastened to close the meeting. There was an impatience for perjury in that assembly, which was driven by an intrepid fear, each one wish to save his rag of life. As though time were not waiting on the morrow, to strip us of our old skins, for which no sensible Jew would have given a groat. And of Book 14, Part 2 Book 15, Part 1 OF THE MEMOS OF SHATTERBRIAN VOL. 5 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording my new colony, THE MEMOS OF SHATTERBRIAN VOL. 5, by François-René de Chateaubriand, translated by Alexander Tixére de Matos, Book 15, Part 1 The three parties were beginning to take shape, and to act against one another. The deputies, who were in favor of a monarchy, as represented by the elder branch, were the strongest, legally. They rallied to themselves, all that tended towards order. But morally, they were the weakest. They hesitated. They did not speak out. It was becoming manifest, from the turgivisation of the court, that they would fall into the usurpation, rather than see themselves swallowed up by the Republic. And the latter had a placard posted on the wall, saying, France is free. She grants the provisional government the right only of consulting her, until the time when she shall have expressed her will by new elections. No more royalty. The executive power entrusted to a temporary president, mediate or immediate cooperation of all the citizens, in the election of deputies, liberty of worship. This placard summed up the only just things, in the republican opinion. A new assembly of deputies would have decided, if it was well or ill, to give way to that wish of no more royalty. Each would have pleaded his cause, and the election of a government of whatever kind, by a national congress, would have borne the character of legality. On another republican poster of the same date, 30th July, one read in large letters, No more bourbons. All is one. Greatness. Repose. Public prosperity. Liberty. Lastly appeared unaddressed to messieurs, the members of the municipal commission, forming a provisional government, it demanded, that no proclamation be issued naming a ruler, so long as the form itself of the government cannot yet be decided, that the provisional government remain in power, until the wish of the majority of Frenchmen be known, any other measure being ill-timed and culpable. This address emanating from the members of a commission, appointed by a large number of citizens of different wards in Paris, was signed by messieurs Chevalier as chairman, Chella, Teste, Le Pelletier, Guinard, Henri, Cauchemar, etc. In this popular assembly, they proposed to offer the presidency of the republic by acclamation to messieurs de la Fayette. They relied upon the principles, which the Chamber of Representatives of 1815 had proclaimed when separating. Various printers refused to publish these proclamations, saying that they had been forbidden to do so, by messieurs le Duc de Broglie. The republic was casting the throne of Charles X to the ground, and it feared the prohibitions of messieurs de Broglie, who had no character of any kind. I have told you how during the night between the 29th and 30th of July, messieurs la Fayette, with messieurs Thier and messieurs Minier, had made every preparation to draw the eyes of the public of messieurs le Duc de Lyon. On the 30th appeared proclamations and addresses, the fruit of this cabal, with, Let us avoid the republic for their burden. Next came the feats of arms of Jehmab and Valmy, and the people was assured that messieurs le Duc de Lyon was not a cappet, but a valoir. Amis-rois messieurs Thier, sent by messieurs la Fayette, was ambling towards nuit with messieurs Cheffer. H.R.H. was not there. Great wordy contest between Mamazelle de Lyon and messieurs Thier, it was agreed that they should write to messieurs le Duc de Lyon, to persuade him to rally to the revolution. Messieurs Thier himself wrote a note to the prince, and Madame de Delayde promised to proceed her family to Paris. Allianism had made progress, and on the evening of that same day, the question had been raised among the deputies of conferring the powers of lieutenant general of messieurs le Duc de Lyon. Messieurs de Sucie, with the sun-cloud ordinances, had met with an even more indifferent reception at the Hotel de Ville, than in the Chamber of Deputies, armed with a receipt from messieurs de la Fayette. He returned to messieurs de Montemar, who exclaimed, You have done more than save my life, you have saved my honour. The municipal commission issued a proclamation in which it declared that the crimes of his Charles Xth's power were ended, and that the people would have a government which should owe its origin to them, the people. An ambiguous phrase which you are free to interpret as you pleased. Messieurs de la Fite and Perrier did not sign this document. Messieurs de la Fayette, alarmed a little late in the day, at the idea of the Allianist royalty, sent Messieurs de l'Ambaro to the Chamber of Deputies to announce that the people, the authors of the Revolution of July, did not mean to end it by a simple change of persons, and that the blood that had been shared was well worth a few liberties. There was talk of a proclamation of the deputies to invite H.R.H., the duit d'Ollion, to come to the capital. After some communications with the Hotel de Ville, this plan of a proclamation was demolished. Nevertheless it led to the formation of a sort of deputation of twelve members, who were to go to the Lord of Nuit to offer him that lieutenant generalship, for which they had not been able to make way in a proclamation. In the evening the grand refinery assembled the peers in his apartments, his letter, through negligence or policy, reached me too late. I hurried to hasten to the meeting. They opened the gate of the Allée de l'Observatoire for me. I crossed the Luxembourg Garden. When I reached the palace I found no one there. I made my way back past the flower-beds, my eyes fixed on the moon. I regretted the seas and the mountains above which she had appeared to me, the forest in whose tops herself vanishing in silence. She had seemed to repeat to me the maxim of Epicurus. Conceal thy life. I have left the troops falling back upon Saint-Cloud on the evening of the twenty-ninth. The citizens of Chaillot and Passey attacked them, killing a captain of cariboneers and two officers, and wounding some ten soldiers. Captain Lomotha of the Guards was struck by a bullet fired by a child, whom he had been pleased to spare. This captain had given in his resignation at the time of the ordinances, but seeing that they were fighting on the twenty-seventh, he returned to his regiment to share the dangers of his comrades. Never to the glory of France was their finer battle waged in the parties opposed between liberty and honour. Children, always fearless because they know nothing of danger, played a sad part in the work of the three days, sheltered behind their weakness they fired point-blank at officers who would have thought themselves dishonoured in beating them back. Modern arms placed death at the disposal of the feeblest hand, ugly risen little monkeys, libertines before they have the power of being so, cruel and perverse. These little heroes of the three days gave themselves up to assassination with all the abandonment of innocence. Let us beware, lest by imprudent praises, we give birth to the emulation of evil. The children of Sparta used to go hellet hunting. Monsieur le Dauphin received the soldiers at the gate of the village of Boulogne, in the wood, and then returned to Saint-Cloud. Saint-Cloud was guarded by the four companies of the body-guards. The battalion of the pupils of Saint-Cyr had arrived. In rivalry and in contrast with the polytechnic school, they had embraced the royal cause. The attenuated troops returning from a three-days battle, by their wounds and dilapidated appearance, caused only amazement to the titled, gilded and well-fed flunkies who dined at the royal table. No one thought of cutting the telegraphic lines. Couriers, travellers, male coaches, diligence, passed freely along the road, with a trickle or flag, which urged the villagers to revolt as it passed through them. Seduction by means of money and women was commencing. The proclamations of the commune of Paris were hawked to and fro. The king and court still refused to be persuaded that they were in danger. In order to prove that they despised the doings of a few mutinous burgesses, and that there was no revolution, they let everything go. God's finger is seen in all this. At nightfall on the thirtieth of July had nearly the same hour when the commission of the deputies left for Nuit. An adjutant announced to the troops that the ordinances were appealed. The soldiers shouted, long live the king, and resumed the agerty of the Bivouac. But this announcement, made by the adjutant, sent by the duc de Rageuse, had not been communicated to the dauphin, who was a great lover of discipline, and flew into a rage. The king said to the marshal, the dauphin is displeased. Go and have your explanation with him. The marshal did not find the dauphin in his own apartments, and waited for him in the billiard room with the dut de guiche, and the dut de vante à deux, the prince's aide de comp. The dauphin entered. At sight of the marshal, he flushed to his eyes. Crossed his anti-chamber with those singular long strides of his, reached his drawing-room, and said to the marshal, Come in! The door closed behind them. A great noise was heard. Their voices were raised more and more. The dut de vante à deux grew anxious and opened the door. The marshal came out, pursued by the dauphin, who called him a double traitor. Give up your sword! Give up your sword! he cried, and flinging himself upon him, tore his sword from him. Monsieur de la Rue, the marshal's aide de comp, tried to throw himself between him and the dauphin, and was held back by Monsieur de Montgascar. The prince endeavoured to break the marshal's sword, and in so doing cut his hands. He cried, Help! Gods! seize him! The body-guards rushed in. If the marshal had not made a movement of the head, the bayonets would have struck him in the face. The dut de ragus was placed under arrest in his room. The king arranged this affair as best he could. It was the more deplorable, as neither of the actors inspired any great interest. When the son of the balafre slew Saint Paul, the marshal of the league, men recognised in this sword-stroke the pride and blood of the geysers. But supposing even that Monsieur de la Rue, a mightier lord than a prince of Lorraine, had cut down Marshal Marmont, what would that have mattered? If the marshal had killed Monsieur de la Rue, it would only have been a little more singular. We should see Caesar, the descendant of Venus, and Brutus, the heir of Junius, pass through the streets without looking at them. Nothing is great today, because nothing is high. That is how at Saint-Cloud the last hour of the monarchy was spent. That pale monarchy, disfigured and bloodstained, resembled the portrait which Dufay makes for us of a great personage dying. His eyes were worn and sunk, his lower jaw covered only with a little skin, seemed to have disappeared. His beard was bristling, his colour yellow, his glance slow, his breath baited. Already from his mouth issued no longer human words, but oracles. Monsieur du Doliard had throughout his life, entertained for the throne, the inclination that every high-born soul feels for power. This inclination is modified according to the possessor's character, impetuous and aspiring, or slack and foaning, impudent, open, declared in the former, circumspect hidden, shame-faced in the latter. One, in order to elevate himself, is capable of any crime. The other, in order to rise, can descend to any meanness. Monsieur du Doliard belonged to this latter class of ambitious men. Follow this prince in his career. He never says or never does anything completely. He always leaves a door open for escape. During the restoration he flattered the court and encouraged liberal opinion. Nuit became the meeting-place of discontent and the discontented. They sighed, they pressed each other's hands with eyes raised to heaven. But they did not utter a word of enough significance to be reported in high places. When a member of the opposition died, a carriage was sent to the funeral. But the carriage was empty. The livery is admitted to every door in every graveside. If, at the time of my disgrace at court, I found myself at the trullery on Monsieur du Doliard's path, he went past, taking care to bow to the right in such a manner that, I being on the left, he turned his shoulder to me. That would be remarked, and would do good. Was Monsieur du Doliard aware beforehand of the ordinances of July? Was he told of them by a person who held Monsieur du Doliard's secret? What did he think of them? What were his hopes and fears? Did he conceive a plan? Did he urge Monsieur Lafitte to act as he did act? Or did he let Monsieur Lafitte act as he pleased? To judge from Louis Philippe's character we must presume that he took no resolve, and that his political timidity, taking refuge in his falseness, awaited events as the spider awaits the nut which will be taken in its web. He allowed the moment to conspire. He himself conspired only by his wishes, of which it is probable that he was afraid. There were two courses open to Monsieur du Doliard. The first, and the more honourable, was to hasten to St Claude, to interpose himself between Charles X and the people in order to save the crown of the one and the liberty of the other. The second consisted in flinging himself on the barricades, with a trickle or flag in his hand, and placing himself at the head of the movement of the world. Philippe had to choose between the honest man and the great man. He preferred to pilfer the crown from the king and liberty from the people. During the confusion and misfortune of a fire, a pickpocket artfully perloined some most valuable objects from the burning palace, without heeding the cries of a child which the flames have surprised in its cradle. The rich prey one seized plenty of hounds were there for the distribution of the quarry. Then came all those old corruptions of the preceding systems, those receivers of stolen goods, filthy half-crushed toads, that have been walked upon a hundred times, and that live all flattened out as they are. And yet those are the men of whom one boasts, whose ability one exalts. Milton thought otherwise when he wrote this passage in a sublime litter. If ever God poured a strong love for moral beauty in a man's breast, he did so in mine. Wherever I meet a man despising the false esteem of the vulgar, daring to aspire by his opinions, his language, and his conduct, to the greatest excellence which the lofty wisdom of the ages has taught us, I become united to that man by a sort of necessary attachment. There is no power in heaven or upon earth, which can prevent me from contemplating with respect and fondness, those who have attained the summit of dignity and virtue. The blind court of Charles X never knew where it stood, or with whom it had to do. It might have ordered Macile D'Orléon to St. Cloud, and it is probable that at the first moment he would have obeyed. It might have had him kidnapped at Nuit on the very day of the ordinances. It took neither course. On receipt of advices which Madame de Bondy brought him at Nuit in the night of Tuesday the 27th, Nuit Philippe rose at three o'clock in the morning, and withdrew to a place known only to his family. He had the double fear of being touched by the insurrection in Paris, and of being arrested by a captain of the guards. He therefore went to the rainy, there in solitude to listen to the distant gun-shots of the battle of the Louvre, as I listened under a tree to those of the battle of Waterloo. The feelings which doubtless stir the prince must have had very little in common with those which oppressed me in the plains of Ghent. I have told you how on the morning of the 30th of July, M. T. A. failed to find the Duit D'Orléon at Nuit, but Madame de Duchesse-D'Orléon sent to fetch H.R.H. The Count Anna told of Montesquieu was charged with a message. On arriving at the rainy, M. Montesquieu had all the difficulty in the world to decide Louis Philippe to return to Nuit, there to await the deputation from the chamber of deputies. At last persuaded by the Duit D'Orléon's lord in waiting, Louis Philippe stepped into his carriage. M. Montesquieu started in advance. At first he went pretty fast, but when he looked back he saw H.R.H.'s collage stop and drive back again towards the rainy. M. Montesquieu returned at full speed and entreated the future majesty, who was hastening to conceal himself in the desert, like the illustrious Christians who used to flee from the burdensome dignity of the episcopate. The faithful servant obtained a last unhappy victory. On the evening of the thirtieth the deputation of twelve members of the chamber of deputies, which was to offer the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom to the prince, sent him a message to Nuit. Louis Philippe received the message at the part gates, read it by torchlight, and at once set out for Paris, accompanied by Messieurs de Bertois, Amis, and Uda. He wore a tricolour fave in his buttonhole. He was going to carry off an old crown from the royal furniture repository. On his arrival at the Palais Royale, M. Duit D'Orléon sent his compliments to M. Lafayette. The deputation of twelve members of the chamber of deputies appeared at the Palais Royale. They asked the prince if he accepted the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom. He made an embarrassed reply. I have come amongst you to show your dangers. I have need of reflection. I must consult various persons. The dispositions of St. Cloud are not at all hostile. The king's presence lays duties upon me. And thus replied Louis Philippe. He was made to eat his words, as he expected. After withdrawing for half an hour he reappeared, bearing a proclamation by virtue of which he accepted the functions of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. The proclamation ended with this declaration. The charter will henceforth be a reality. The proclamation was taken to the elective chamber, and received with that fifty-year-old revolutionary enthusiasm. Another proclamation was issued in reply, drawn up by M. Guiseau. The deputies returned to the Palais Royale. The prince became affected, accepted afresh, and could not help bewailing the deplorable circumstances which forced him to be lieutenant-general of the kingdom. Stunned by the blows that had been struck at it, the republic tried to defend itself, but its real head, General Lafayette, had almost abandoned it. He delighted in the concert of adoration that reached him from every side. He greedily inhaled the perfume of revolution. He was enchanted at the idea that he was the arbiter of France, that he was able, by stamping the earth with his foot, to cause a republic or monarchy to spring up as he pleased. He loved to lull himself in the uncertainty which pleases minds that dread conclusions, because an instinct warns them that they cease to be anything when the facts are accomplished. The other republican leaders had reigned themselves in advance by their several works. The praises of the terror had reminded Frenchmen of 1793, and caused them to recoil. The re-establishment of the National Guard at the same time killed the principle or the power of insurrection in the combatants of July. Monsieur Lafayette did not perceive that, in dreaming of the republic, he had armed three millions of fighting men against it. Be this as it may, ashamed of being duped so soon, the younger men made some show of resistance. They replied by proclamations and posters to the proclamations and posters of the dupes-dollions. He was told that, if the deputies had so far loathed themselves, as to beseech him to accept the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom, the Chamber of Deputies, elected under an aristocratic law, had no right to manifest the will of the people. It was proved to Louis-Philippe that he was the son of Louis-Philippe Joseph, that Louis-Philippe Joseph was the son of Louis-Philippe, that Louis-Philippe was the son of Louis, who was the son of Philip II, the regent, that Philip II was the son of Philip I, who was the brother of Louis XIV, therefore Louis-Philippe D'Ollion was a bourbon and cappert, not a valoir. Lucilla Feet nevertheless continued to look upon him, as belonging to the dynasty of Charles IX and Henry III, and said, Tiay knows all about it. Later the Lointier gathering protested that the nation was in arms to maintain its rights by force. The Central Committee of the Twelve Ward declared that the people had not been consulted on the method of its constitution, that the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of Peers holding their powers from Charles's attempt had fallen with him and could not, in consequence, represent the nation, that the provisional government must remain in permanence under the presidency of Lafayette, until a constitution had been discussed and fixed as the fundamental basis of government. On the morning of the thirtieth there was a question of proclaiming the Republic. A few determined men threatened to kill the municipal commission, if it did not keep the power in its hands. Did they not also blame the House of Peers? They were furious at its audacity. The audacity of the House of Peers? Surely this must have been the last outrage and the last injustice which it expected to receive at the hands of public opinion. A plan was formed. Twenty of the most fiery young men were to lie in wait in a little street running into the Quai de la Ferraille, and fire on Louis-Philippe when he went from the Palais Royale to the Hôtel de Ville. They were stopped, and told that they would at the same time be killing Lafayette, Pajol, and Benjamin Constant. Lastly it was proposed to kidnap the Duc d'Orléans and put him on board ship at Sherbold. A strange meeting, if Charles X and Philip had come together again in the same port on the same vessel, one dispatched to a foreign shore by the middle class, the other by the Republicans. The Duc d'Orléans, having made up his mind to go to have his title confirmed by the tribunes of the Hôtel de Ville, went down into the courtyard of the Palais Royale, surrounded by eighty-nine deputies in caps, in round hats, in dress coats, in frock coats. The royal candidate mounted a white horse. He was followed by Benjamin Constant, tossed about in a chair by two Savoyards. Messieurs Méchant and Viennet, covered with dust and perspiration, walked between the white horse of the future monarch, and the barrow of the gouty deputy, quarrelling with the two porters to make them keep the required distance. A half-drunken drummer beat the drum at the head of the procession. Four ushers served as lictors. The more zealous deputies bellowed, long lived the Duc d'Orléans. Around the Palais Royale these cries met with some response, but as the troupe approached the Hôtel de Ville the spectators became derisive or silent. Philip threw himself about on his triumphal steed and constantly took shelter beneath a buckler of Messieurs Lafite, from whom he received a few patronising words on the way. He smiled to General Gérard, made signs of intelligence to Messieurs Viennet and Messieurs Méchant, and begged the crown of the people, with his hat adorned with a yard of tricol or ribbon, putting out his hand to who serve on his way was willing to drop an arms into it. The sterling monarchy reached the Place de Greve, where it was greeted with cries of the Republic for ever. When the royal electoral matter made its way inside the Hôtel de Ville, the postulant was received with more threatening murmurs. A few zealous servants who shouted his name were punched for their pains. He entered the throne room, here were crowded the wounded and fighters of the three days. A general shout of, No more Bourbons! Long live Lafayette! shook the rafters of the hall. The prince appeared embarrassed. Messieurs Viennet, on behalf of Messieurs Lafite, read the declaration of the deputies. It was heard in profound silence. The Duit d'Oliens spoke a few words of artesian. The Messieurs Duborgs said roughly to Philip, You have taken serious engagements. If ever you fail to keep them, we are the people to remind you of them. Whereupon the future king replied with great emotion, Sir, I am an honest man. Messieurs de Lafayette, seeing the growing uncertainty of the assembly, suddenly took it in his head to abdicate the presidency. He handed the Duit d'Oliens a tricolour flag, stepped out on the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, and embraced the prince before the eyes of the gaping crowd, while the Duit waved the national flag. Lafayette's republican kiss made a king, the curious outcome of the whole career of the hero of the two worlds. And then, rubbered up-dubbed, the litter of Benjamin Constant and the white horse of Louis Philippe went home again, half hooted, half blessed, from the political factory on the greve to the Palais Marchand. That same day, says Monsieur Louis Blanc, and not far from the Hôtel de Ville, a wary moored at the foot of the morgue and cemented by a black flag, received corpses which were lowered in barrows. These corpses were piled up in heaps and covered with straw, and the crowd which had gathered along the parapets of the Seine looked on in silence. Speaking of the states of the league and the making of a king, Parmecayette exclaims, I pray you to picture to yourselves what answer could have made that little Goodman, master Mathieu Delonnet and Monsieur Boucher, curator Saint Benoît, and any other of that condition to one who should have told them that they must be employed to install a king in France to their fancy. True Frenchmen have always held in contempt that form of electing kings, which makes the masters and servants together. Philippe had not come to the end of his trials. He had many more hands to shake, many more embraces to receive. He still had to blow very many kisses, to bow very low to the passers-by, to humor the crowd by coming many times on the balcony of the Tuileries to sing the Marseillais. A certain number of Republicans had met on the morning of the 31st at the office of the Nationale. When they knew that the Dut Doliens had been appointed lieutenant general of the kingdom, they wished to know the opinions of the man destined to become king in spite of them. They were taken to the Palais Royal by Monsieur Thiers. There were Messieurs Bastille, Thomas, Jubaire, Cavaniac, Maché, de Goussé, and Guinard. Their prince at first said many fine things to them about liberty. You are not king yet, retorted Bastille. Listen to the truth. Soon you will have no lack of flatterers. Your father added Cavaniac was a regicide like mine, and that separates you a little from the others. Followed mutual congratulations on the regicide, accompanied, nevertheless, by a judicious remark from Philip, to the effect that there are things which we should remember in order not to imitate them. Some Republicans were not at the meeting at the Nationale entered. Monsieur Très-Lat said to Philip, The people is the master. Your functions are provisional. The people must express its wish. Do you consult it? Yes or no? Monsieur Très interrupted this dangerous speech by tapping Monsieur Thomas on the shoulder and saying, Monsieur, have you not a fine colonel here? That is true, answered Louis-Philippe. What is he talking about, they exclaimed? Does he take us for a ban that has come to sell it off? And on every side rose contradictory phrases. It's a tower of Babel, and that's what they call a citizen king. The Republic, you had better govern with Republicans. A Monsieur Très exclaiming, Here's a fine embassy I've undertaken. Then Monsieur de Lafayette came down to the Palais Royale. The citizen was nearly stifled under the embraces of his king. The whole house was ready to die. Men in jackets were at the post of honour. Men in caps in the drawing-rooms. Men in smocks sat down to table, with the princess and princesses. In the council chamber there were chairs, but no arm-chairs. All spoke who would. Louis-Philippe, seated between Monsieur de Lafayette and Monsieur Lafite, their arms entwined round each other's shoulders, beamed expansively, with equality and happiness. I would have liked to employ more gravity in my description of those scenes which produced a great revolution, or to speak more correctly of those scenes by which the transformation of the world will be hastened. But I saw them, devotees who acted in them could not help showing a certain confusion, when they told me how, on the 31st of July, they went to forge a king. To Henry IV, before he became a Catholic, men raised objections which did not degrade him, and which were measured by the level of the throne itself. They told him that St. Louis had been colonised, not at Geneva, but in Rome, that if the king were not a Catholic, he would not hold the first place among the kings of Christendom, that it was not seemly that the king should pray in one wise and his people in another, that the king could not be crowned at Rem, nor burned at Sandini, if he were not a Catholic. What was the objection raised against Philip before his final election? Men objected that he was not patriot enough. Today, when the revolution is consummated, men take offense, if one dare remind them of what took place at the start. They fear to diminish the solidity of the position they have taken up, and whose server does not find in the origin of the incipient fact, the gravity of the accomplished fact, is a traducer. When a dove descended to bring the holy oil to Clovis, when the long-haired kings were raised upon a buckler, when St. Louis, in his premature virtue, trembled at his coronation, while pronouncing the oath to employ his authority only for the glory of God and the welfare of his people, when Henry IV, after his entry into Paris, went to prostrate himself at Notre Dame, and men saw or thought they saw, on his right, a beautiful child who defended him, and who was taken to be his guardian angel. I can see that the diadem was a sacred thing. The oriflamp rested in the tabernacles of heaven. But now that a sovereign on a public square, with hair cut short and hands tied behind his back, has lowered his head beneath the blade to the sound of the drum, now that another sovereign, surrounded by the rabble, has gone to beg votes for his election, to the sound of the same drum, on another public square, who keeps the smallest illusion touching the crown? Who believes that the soiled and battered monarchy can still impose upon the world? What man, feeling his heart beat ever so little, would swallow power in that cup of shame and disgust which Philip emptied at one draft without a qualm? European monarchy could have continued its life, if in France they had preserved the parent monarchy, the daughter of a saint and of a great man. But her seed has been dispersed. Nothing will be borne of her again. You have seen the monarchy of the grave march dusty and breathless under the trickle or flag, in the midst of its insolent friends, seen are the royalty of Rome retire with measured steps, in the midst of its almanes and its guards, walking in accordance with the exactest etiquette, hearing no word but words of respect, revered even by those who detested it. The soldier, little though he esteemed it, died for it. The white flag, laid upon its beer before being folded away for ever, said to the wind, salute me, I was at Ivory. I saw Turin die. The English knew me at Fontenoy. I made Liberty triumph under Washington. I have delivered Greece, and I still wave from the walls of Algiers. On the thirty-first at Daybreak, at the very hour when the Duit d'Orléans, after arriving in Paris, was preparing to accept the lieutenant generalship, the servants at St. Cloud came to the Bivouac on the Selve Bridge, saying that they were discharged and that the king had left at half-past three in the morning. The soldiers became excited, but grew calm again when the dauphin appeared. He rode up on horseback, as though to carry them with him by one of those phrases, which lead the French to death or victory. He stopped in front of the ranks, stammered a few sentences, turned short, and went back to the palace. It was not courage that failed him but speech. The miserable education of our princes of the Elder Branch, since Louis Couture's, rendered them incapable of supporting a contradiction of expressing themselves like everybody else, and of mixing with the rest of mankind. Meanwhile the Heights of Selve and the Terraces of Bellevue were crowned with men of the people. A few musket shots were exchanged. The captain, commanding the advance guard on the Selve Bridge, went over to the enemy. He took a piece of cannon and a part of his soldiers to the bands that had gathered on the Pont du Jour road. Then the proscients and the guards agreed that no hostilities should take place until the evacuation of St. Cloud and of Selve was effected. The retiring movement began. The Swiss were hemmed in by the inhabitants of Selve and flung away their arms, although they were almost at once extricated by the Lancers, whose lieutenant colonel was wounded. The troops passed through Versailles, where the National Guard had been on duty since the preceding day, with La Roche Jacqueline's Grenadiers, the first under the Tricolour, the second with the White Cockade. Madame La Dauphine arrived from Vichy and joined the royal family at Cheyenneaux, the favourite residence of Marie Antoinette. At Cheyenneaux, Monsieur de Polignac, took leave of his master. It has been said that Madame La Dauphine was opposed to the ordinances. The only way to judge kings correctly is to consider them in their essence. The plebeian will always be on the side of liberty. The prince will always lean towards power. We must describe this to them as neither a crime nor a merit. It is their nature. Madame La Dauphine would probably have wished that the ordinances had appeared at a more opportune moment, after better precautions had been taken to ensure their success. But in reality they pleased her, and were bound to please her. Madame La Duchesse de Berry was delighted with them. Those two princesses believed that the royalty, once its own master, would be free from the shackles which Representative Government farsons to the sovereign's feet. One is astonished in the events of July, not to meet with the diplomatic body, which was only too much consulted by the court, and which interfered too much in our business. There was twice a question of the foreign ambassadors in our last troubles. A man was arrested at the barriers, and the packet of which he was the bearer, sent to the Hotel de Ville. It was a dispatch from Monsieur de Lohanhelm to the King of Sweden. Monsieur Bode sent back the dispatch unopened to the Swedish legation. Lord Stewart's correspondence fell into the hands of the popular leaders, and was similarly returned without being opened, which did wonders in London. Lord Stewart, like all his fellow countrymen, adored disorder in foreign countries. With him, diplomacy was police duty, dispatchers, reports. He liked me well enough when I was Foreign Minister, because I treated him without ceremony, and because my door was always open to him. He used to come to me at all hours, in boots, dirty, with disordered dress, after visiting the boulevards, and the ladies whom he paid badly and who called him Stuart. I had conceived diplomacy on a new plan. Having nothing to conceal, I spoke aloud. I would have shown my dispatchers to the first-comer, because I had no project for the glory of France, which I was not determined to accomplish in spite of all opposition. I said a hundred times to Sir Charles Stewart, laughing, and I meant what I said. Do not pick a quarrel with me. If you throw down the gauntlet to me, I shall pick it up. France has never made warn you with a proper understanding of your position. That is why you have beaten us. But do not rely on this. Lord Stewart therefore beheld our troubles of July, with all that good nature which rejoices over our misfortunes. But the members of the diplomatic body hostile to the popular cause had more or less urged Charles X in the direction of the ordinances. And yet, when they appeared, the ambassadors did nothing to save the sovereign. If Monsieur Pozzo de Borgo showed some anxiety concerning a coup d'etat, this was on behalf of neither the king nor the people. Two things are certain. First, the revolution attacked the treaties of the quadruple alliance. The fronts of the Bourbons formed part of that alliance. The Bourbons could not therefore be violently dispossessed, without endangering the new political right of Europe. Secondly, in a monarchy, the foreign legations are not accredited to the government, but to the monarchy. The strict duty of those legations, therefore, was to gather round Charles X, and to attend on him so long as he remained on French soil. Is it not singular that the only ambassador to whom this idea occurred should have been the representative of Bernadotte, of a king who did not belong to the old families of sovereigns? Monsieur de Lohanhelm was on the point of bringing the baron de Verta over to his opinion, when Monsieur Pozzo de Borgo opposed a measure which credentials prescribed and honoured demanded. Had the diplomatic body gone to St. Cloud, Charles X's position would have been different. The partisans of the legitimacy in the elective chamber would have gained a strength which they lacked at first. The fear of a war would have alarmed the working class. The idea of preserving peace by keeping Henry V would have drawn a considerable mass of the population over to the royal infant's party. Monsieur Pozzo de Borgo stood aloof so as not to compromise his securities on the boards or at his bankers, and especially not to expose his place. He played a five percent on the corpse of the Capetian legitimacy, a corpse which will communicate death to the other living kings. He will not fail some time hence to try, according to custom, to pass off this irreparable fault, due to personal interest, as a profound combination. Ambassadors left too long at the same court adopt the manners of the country in which they reside. Charmed to live in the midst of honours, no longer seeing things as they are, they are afraid of passing in their dispatchers a truth which might bring about a change in their position. It is, in fact, a different thing to be Asterhazy, Verta, Pozzo in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, or to be their Excellencies the Ambassadors to the Court of France. It has been said that Monsieur Pozzo bore grudge against Louis XVIII and Charles X in the matter of the Blue Ribbon and the Peerage. They were wrong not to satisfy him. He had rendered services to the Bourbons for hatred of his fellow countrymen Bonaparte. But if again he decided the question of the throne by provoking the sudden departure of Louis XVIII for Paris, he can now boast that by preventing the diplomatic body from doing its duty in the days of July he has helped to throw from the head of Charles X the crown which he assisted in placing on the brow of his brother. I have long been of opinion that diplomatic bodies, born in centuries subject to a different law of nations, are no longer in keeping with the new society. Public governments, easy communications, bring about that nowadays cabinet sign a position to treat direct or simply through the intermediary of their consular agents, whose number should be increased and their condition improved, who at this hour Europe is an industrial continent, titled spies with exorbitant pretensions who meddle with everything to give themselves an importance which they cannot retain, serve only to disturb the cabinets to which they are accredited, and to feed their masters with illusions. Charles X on his side was wrong not to invite the diplomatic body to join his court, but what he saw seemed to him a dream. He went from one surprise to the other. It was thus that he did not stand for Missile Dut Doliens, for thinking himself in danger only from the side of the Republic, the risk of an usurpation never entered his thoughts. Charles X set out in the evening for Rambouille with the princesses and Missile Dut Du Bordeaux. The new role played by Missile Dut Doliens gave rise to the first ideas of abdication in the king's head. Missile Dauphin remained with the rear guard, but did not mix with the soldiers. At Chienault he ordered what remained of wine and food to be distributed among them. At a quarter past eight in the evening, the different corps set forward. There the fidelity of the fifth light regiment expired. Instead of following the movement it returned to Paris. Its colours were brought to Charles X who refused to accept them, as he had refused to accept those of the fiftieth. The brigades were all confused. The several arms intermingled. The cavalry outpaced the infantry and halted separately. At midnight on the 31st of July a stop was made at Trapp. The Dauphin slept at a house at the back of the village. The next morning, the first of August, he started for Rambouille, leaving the troops vivi-act at Trapp. These broke up camp at eleven. A few soldiers who had gone to buy bread in the hamlets were massacred. On its arrival at Rambouille the army was cantoned round the palace. During the night of the first of August three regiments of heavy cavalry went back to their old garrisons. It is believed that General Baudsoul, commanding the heavy cavalry of the guard, had made his capitulation at Versailles. The second grenadiers also went off on the morning of the second, after sending in its colours to the king. The Dauphin met these deserting grenadiers. They formed in a line to do honour to the prince and continued their road, a strange mixture of disloyalty and good manners. In this three days' revolution no one betrayed any passion. Each acted according to the idea he had formed of his rights or his duties. The rights conquered, the duties fulfilled, no enmity and no affection remained. The one feared lest the right should carry him too far, the other lest the duties should exceed their limits. Perhaps it has only once happened, and perhaps it will never happen again. That a people stopped within reach of its victory, and that soldiers who had defended a king so long as he seemed to wish to fight, returned their standards to him before abandoning him. The ordinances had released the people from its oath. The retreats on the field of battle released the grenadiers from his flag. Charles X, retiring, the Republicans withdrawing, there was nothing to prevent the elected monarchy from moving forward. The provinces, always sheep-like, and the slaves of Paris, at each movement of the telegraph and at each tricolor flag perched on the top of a diligent, shouted, Long live Philip, or the revolution for ever! The opening of the session being fixed for the third of August, the peers repaired to the chamber of deputies. I went there for everything was as yet provisional. There another act of melodrama was performed. The throne remained empty, and the anti-king sat down beside it, as who should say the Lord Chancellor opening a session of the British Parliament, in the sovereign's absence. Philip spoke of the painful necessity in which he had found himself of accepting the lieutenant-generalship to save us all, of the revision of Article 14 of the Charter, of the feeling for liberty which he Philip bore in his heart, and which he was about to pour over us, together with peace over Europe. A hocus-pocus of speech and constitution repeated at each phase of our history since the last half-century. But attention grew very lively when the Prince made the following declaration. Peers and deputies. So soon as the two chambers are constituted, I will communicate to you the act of abdication of his Majesty King Charles X. By the same act Louis Antoine of France, the Dauphin, likewise renounces his rights. This act was placed in my hands at eleven o'clock last night, the second of August. This morning I have ordered it to be deposited in the archives of the House of Peers, and to be inserted in the official part of the monitor. By a contemptible trick and a cowardly omission, the Duit d'Orléans here suppressed the name of Henry V, in whose favour the two kings had abdicated. If at that time every Frenchman could have been individually consulted, it is probable that the majority would have pronounced in favour of Henry V. Even a section of the Republicans would have accepted him, giving him lafayette for mental. Had germ of the legitimacy remained in France, and the two old kings gone to end their days in Rome, none of the difficulties which surround and usurpation and render it suspicious to the various parties would have existed. The adoption of the younger branch of Bourbon was not only a danger, it was a political solicism. New France is Republican. She does not want a king. At least she does not want a king of the old dynasty. A few years more and we shall see what will become of our liberties, and what that peace will be which is to gladden the world. If we may judge of the future conduct of the new person is elected by what we know of his character, it is safe to presume that this prince will think that the only way to preserve his monarchy is by oppression at home and groveling abroad. The real wrong done by Louis Philippe is not that he accepted the crown, an act of ambition of which there are thousands of examples, and which attacks only a political institution. His true crime is that he was a faithless guardian, that he robbed the child in the orphan, a crime for which the scriptures do not contain enough curses. Now moral justice, let who will call it fatality or providence, I call it the inevitable consequences of evil doing, has never failed to punish the infractions of moral law. Philippe, his government, all that order of impossible and contradictory things will perish, within a period more or less delayed by fortuitous circumstances, by complications of internal and external interests, by the apathy and corruption of individuals, by the levity of men's minds, the indifference and effacement of their characters, but whatever the duration of the present system may be, it will never be long enough for the oléon branch to take deep root. Charles X apprised of the progress of the revolution, possessing nothing in his age or his character fitted to stem that progress, thought that he was warding off the blow struck at his house by abdicating together with his son, as Philippe announced to the deputies. On the 1st of August he wrote a line approving of the opening of the session, and counting on the sincere attachment of his cousin the Duke d'Olion, he in his turn appointed him lieutenant general of the kingdom. He went further on the second, for he wanted nothing more than to take ship, and he asked for commissaries to protect him as far as Schoenburg. These apparatus were not at once received by the military household. Bonaparte also had commissaries as guards, the first-time Russian, the second French, but he had not asked for them. Here is Charles X's letter, Ramboyer, 2nd August 1830, Cousin. I am too deeply distressed at the evils with which my people are afflicted and threatened, not to seek the means of removing them. I have therefore resolved to abdicate the crown in favour of my grandson the Duke de Bordeaux. The Dauphin, who shares my sentiments, also renounces his rights in favour of his nephew. You will therefore, in your capacity of lieutenant general of the kingdom, cause the accession of Henry V to the crown to be proclaimed. You will take all the other measures which concern you for regulating the forms of government during the minority of the new king. I here confine myself to the communication of these arrangements as the means of avoiding yet many more evils. You will communicate my intentions to the diplomatic body, and you will take the earliest opportunity of making known to me the proclamation by which my grandson is recognised as king, under the title of Henry V. I renew to you, Cousin, the assurance of the sentiments with which I am, your affectionate cousin, Charles. If M. Dauphin had been capable of emotion or remorse, would not this signature, your affectionate cousin, have struck him to the heart? So little doubt had they at Rambier of the efficacy of the abdications that the young prince was being made ready for his journey. His aegis, the tricolor cockade, was already fashioned by the hands of the most zealous primators of the ordinances. Suppose that Madame la Duchesse de Berry had suddenly set out with her son, and appeared in the chamber of deputies at the moment when Monsieur le Duc Dolion was delivering his opening speech. Two chances remained. Dangerous chances, but at least the child removed to heaven, who would not have dragged out days of misery on foreign soil. My counsels, my prayers, my cries, were powerless. I asked in vain for Marie Caroline, the mother of Bayard, as he was preparing to quit the paternal castle wept, says the loyal servitor. The good gentlewoman came out from the back of the tower and sent for her son, to whom she spake these words. P.R., my friend, be sweet and courteous, putting from you all pride. Be humble and serviceable to all men. Be loyal indeed some words. Be helpful to poor widows and orphans, and God will recompense you. Then the good lady drew out of her sleeve a little purse, in which were only six crowns in gold, and one in small silver. The which she gave to her son. The night, without fear and without reproach, rode away with six golden crowns, in a little purse, to become the bravest and most renowned of captains. Henry, who perhaps has not six gold crowns, will have very different combats to wage. He will have to find misfortune, a difficult champion to throw. Let us glorify the mothers who give such tender and good lessons to their sons. Blessed then be you, my mother, from whom I derive all that may have honoured and disciplined my life. Forgive me for all these recollections, but perhaps the tyranny of my memory, by introducing the past into the present, takes from the latter a part of its wretchedness. The three commissaries deputed to Charles X, the Misses de Chernon, Odilon Barot, and Marshal Maison. They were sent back by the military post, and started to return to Paris. A wave of the populace carried them back to Rambouille. End of book 15, part 1