Chapter XI: Book XV: 263 (1)

The Republicans--The Orleanist--M. Thiers is sent to Neuilly--Convocation of peers at the Grand Refendary's--The letter reaches me too late--Saint-Cloud--Scene between M. le Dauphin and the Maréchal de Raguse--Neuilly--M. le Duc d'Orléans--The Raincy--The Prince comes to Paris--A deputation from the Elective Chamber offers M. le Duc d'Orléans the Lieutenant-generalship of the Kingdom--He accepts--Efforts of the Republicans--M. le Duc d'Orléans goes to the Hôtel de Ville--The Republicans at the Palais-Royal--The King leaves Saint-Cloud--Madame la Dauphine arrives at Trianon--The Diplomatic Body--Rambouillet--3 August: opening of the Session--Letter from Charles X. to M. le Duc d'Orléans--The mob sets out for Rambouillet--Flight of the King--Reflections--The Palais-Royal--Conversations--Last political temptation--M. de Sainte-Aulaire--Last gasp of the Republican Party--The day's work of the 7th of August--Sitting of the House of Peers--My speech--I leave the Palace of the Luxembourg, never to return--My resignations--Charles X. takes ship at Cherbourg-What the Revolution of July will be--Close of my political career.

The three parties were beginning to take shape and to act against one another: the deputies who were in favour 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 tergiversation of the Court, that they would fall into the Usurpation rather than see themselves swallowed up by the Republic.

The latter had a placard posted on the walls 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
co-operation 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, 30 July, one read in large letters:

"No more Bourbons.... All is won: greatness, repose, public
prosperity, liberty."

Lastly appeared an address 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 can not 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[264], as chairman, Trélat[265], Teste[266], Lepelletier, Guinard[267], Hingray[268], Cauchois-Lemaire[269], etc.

In this popular assembly, they proposed to offer the Presidency of the Republic by acclamation to M. 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 M. le Duc de Broglie. The Republic was casting the throne of Charles X. to the ground, and it feared the prohibitions of M. de Broglie, who had no character of any kind.

[Sidenote: The Orleanist party.]

I have told you how, during the night between the 29th and 30th of July, M. Laffitte, with M. Thiers and M. Mignet, had made every preparation to draw the eyes of the public on M. le Duc d'Orléans. 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 Jemmapes[270] and Valmy[271], and the people was assured that M. le Duc d'Orléans was not a Capet, but a Valois[272].

And meanwhile M. Thiers, sent by M. Laffitte, was ambling towards Neuilly with M. Scheffer[273]: H.R.H. was not there. Great wordy contests between Mademoiselle d'Orléans[274] and M. Thiers: it was agreed that they should write to M. le Duc d'Orléans to persuade him to rally to the Revolution. M. Thiers himself wrote a note to the Prince, and Madame Adélaïde promised to precede her family to Paris. Orleanism 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 on M. le Duc d'Orléans.

M. de Sussy, with the Saint-Cloud Ordinances, had met with an even more indifferent reception at the Hôtel de Ville than in the Chamber of Deputies. Armed with a "receipt" from M. de La Fayette, he returned to M. de Mortemart, 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 X.'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 were free to interpret as you pleased. Messieurs Laffitte and Périer did not sign this document M. de La Fayette, alarmed, a little late in the day, at the idea of the Orleanist Royalty, sent M. Odilon Barrot 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 shed was well worth a few liberties. There was talk of a proclamation of the Deputies to invite H.R.H. the Duc d'Orléans to come to the Capital: after some communications with the Hôtel 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 Neuilly[275] to offer him that Lieutenant-generalship for which they had not been able to make way in a proclamation.

In the evening, the Grand Refendary assembled the Peers in his apartments[276]: 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 forests in whose tops, herself vanishing in silence, she had seemed to repeat to me the maxim of Epicurus[277]:

"Conceal thy life."

[Sidenote: Troops retire to Saint-Cloud.]

I have left the troops falling back upon Saint-Cloud, on the evening of the 29th. The citizens of Chaillot and Passy attacked them, killing a captain of Carabineers and two officers, and wounding some ten soldiers. Captain Le Motha[278] 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 27th, he returned to his regiment to share the dangers of his comrades. Never, to the glory of France, was there a 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 place death at the disposal of the feeblest hand. Ugly, wizened 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 helot-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 flunkeys who dined at the royal table. No one thought of cutting the telegraphic lines; couriers, travellers, mail-coaches, diligences passed freely along the road, with the tricolour flag, which urged the villages 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 30th of July, at nearly the same hour when the commission of the Deputies left for Neuilly, an adjutant announced to the troops that the Ordinances were repealed. The soldiers shouted, "Long live the King!" and resumed their gaiety at the bivouac; but this announcement made by the adjutant sent by the Duc de Raguse 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 Duc de Guiche[279] and the Duc de Ventadour, the Prince's aides-de-camp. The Dauphin entered: at sight of the marshal, he flushed to his eyes, crossed his ante-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 Duc de Ventadour 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.

[Sidenote: Anger of the Dauphin.]

M. Delarue, the marshal's aide-de-camp, tried to throw himself between him and the Dauphin, and was held back by M. de Montgascon. The Prince endeavoured to break the marshal's sword and, in so doing, cut his hands. He cried:

"Help, Guards! Seize him!"

The Body-guards rushed in; if the marshal had not made a movement of the head, their bayonets would have struck him in the face. The Duc de Raguse was placed under arrest in his room[280].

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[281] of the Balafré slew Saint-Pol[282], the marshal of the League, men recognised in this sword-stroke the pride and blood of the Guises; but, supposing even that Monsieur le Dauphin, a mightier lord than a Prince of Lorraine, had cut down Marshal Marmont, what would that have mattered? If the marshal had killed Monsieur le Dauphin, it would only have been a little more singular. We should see Cæsar, the descendant of Venus, and Brutus[283], the heir of Junius[284], pass through the streets without looking at them. Nothing is great to-day, because nothing is high.

That is, how at Saint-Cloud, the last hour of the Monarchy was spent; that pale Monarchy, disfigured and blood-stained, resembled the portrait which d'Urfé makes for us of a great personage dying:

"His eyes were wan 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 bated. Already from
his mouth issued no longer human words, but oracles."

M. le Duc d'Orléans 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 fawning; imprudent, open, declared in the former, circumspect, hidden, shamefaced 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. M. le Duc d'Orléans belonged to this latter class of ambitious men. Follow this Prince in his career: he never says and never does anything completely; he always leaves a door open for escape. During the Restoration, he flattered the Court and encouraged liberal opinion; Neuilly 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 and every grave-side. If, at the time of my disgrace at Court, I found myself at the Tuileries on M. le Duc d'Orléans' 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 M. le Duc d'Orléans aware beforehand of the Ordinances of July? Was he told of them by a person who held M. Ouvrard's secret? What did he think of them? What were his hopes and fears? Did he conceive a plan? Did he urge M. Laffitte to act as he did act, or did he let M. Laffitte 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 gnat 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.

[Sidenote: M. le Duc D'Orléans.]

There were two courses open to M. le Duc d'Orléans: the first, and the more honourable, was to hasten to Saint-Cloud, 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 the tricolour flag in his hand, and placing himself at the head of the movement of the world. Philip 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 purloins the 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 once 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 letter:

"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 M. le Duc d'Orléans to Saint-Cloud, and it is probable that, at the first moment, he would have obeyed; it might have had him kidnapped at Neuilly, on the very day of the Ordinances: it took neither course.

On receipt of advices which Madame de Bondy brought him, at Neuilly, in the night of Tuesday the 27th, Louis-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 Rainey, there in solitude to listen to the distant gun-shots of the Battle of the Louvre, as I had listened under a tree to those of the Battle of Waterloo. The feelings which doubtless stirred 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. Thiers failed to find the Duc d'Orléans at Neuilly; but Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans[285] sent to fetch H.R.H.: the Comte Anatole de Montesquiou[286] was charged with the message. On arriving at the Rainey, M. de Montesquiou had all the difficulty in the world to decide Louis-Philippe to return to Neuilly, there to await the deputation from the Chamber of Deputies.

At last, persuaded by the Duchesse d'Orléans' lord-in-waiting, Louis-Philippe stepped into his carriage. M. de Montesquiou started in advance; at first he went pretty fast; but, when he looked back, he saw H.R.H.'s calash stop and drive back again towards the Rainey. M. de Montesquiou 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 30th, 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 Neuilly. Louis-Philippe received the message at the park gates, read it by torch-light, and at once set out for Paris, accompanied by Messieurs de Berthois[287], Haymès and Oudart. He wore a tricolour favour in his button-hole: he was going to carry off an old crown from the Royal Furniture Repository.

On his arrival at the Palais-Royal, M. le Duc d'Orléans sent his compliments to M. de La Fayette.

The deputation of twelve members of the Chamber of Deputies appeared at the Palais-Royal. They asked the Prince if he accepted the Lieutenant-generalship of the Kingdom; he made an embarrassed reply:

"I have come amongst you to share your dangers.... I have need of reflection. I must consult various persons. The dispositions of Saint-Cloud are not at all hostile; the King's presence lays duties upon me."

[Sidenote: Eating his words.]

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 henceforward 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. Guizot[288]. The deputies returned to the Palais-Royal; 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 La Fayette, 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 a 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 ruined 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. M. de La Fayette did not perceive that, in dreaming of the Republic, he had armed three millions of fighting men against it.

[Sidenote: The D'Orléans pedigree.]

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 Duc d'Orléans. He was told that, if the deputies had so far lowered 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[289]; that Louis Philippe was the son of Louis[290], who was the son of Philip II.[291] the Regent; that Philip II. was the son of Philip I.[292] who was the brother of Louis XIV.: therefore Louis-Philippe d'Orléans was a Bourbon and Capet, not a Valois. M. Laffitte nevertheless continued to look upon him as belonging to the dynasty of Charles IX. and Henry III., and said:

"Thiers knows all about it."

Later, the Lointier gathering[293] protested that the nation was in arms to maintain its rights by force. The central committee of the 12th 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 X., had fallen with him and could not, in consequence, represent the nation; that the Provisional Government must remain in permanence, under the presidency of La Fayette, until a Constitution had been discussed and fixed as the fundamental basis of government.

On the morning of the 30th, 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-Royal to the Hôtel de Ville. They were stopped and told that they would at the same time be killing Laffitte, Pajol and Benjamin Constant. Lastly it was proposed to kidnap the Duc d'Orléans and put him on board ship at Cherbourg: 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 court-yard of the Palais-Royal, 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 Méchin[294] and Viennet[295], 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 live the Duc d'Orléans!"

[Sidenote: Philip at the Palais-Royal.]

Around the Palais-Royal these cries met with some response; but, as the troop approached the Hôtel de Ville, the spectators became derisive or silent. Philip threw himself about on his triumphal steed and constantly took shelter beneath the buckler of M. Laffitte, from whom he received a few patronizing words on the way. He smiled to General Gérard, made signs of intelligence to M. Viennet and M. Méchin, and begged the crown of the people with his hat adorned with a yard of tricolour ribbon, putting out his hand to whosoever on his way was willing to drop an alms into it. The strolling monarchy reached the Place de Grève, 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 La Fayette!" shook the rafters of the hall. The Prince appeared embarrassed. M. Viennet, on behalf of M. Laffitte, read the declaration of the Deputies; it was heard in profound silence. The Duc d'Orléans spoke a few words of adhesion. Then M. Dubourg 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."

M. de La Fayette, seeing the growing uncertainty of the assembly, suddenly took it in his head to abdicate the Presidency: he handed the Duc d'Orléans 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 Duke waved the national flag. La Fayette's republican kiss made a king: a curious outcome of the whole career of the "hero of the Two Worlds!"

And then, rub-a-dub! 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 Grève to the Palais-Marchand.

"That same day," says M. Louis Blanc, "and not far from the Hôtel
de Ville, a wherry moored at the foot of the Morgue and surmounted
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[296]."

Speaking of the States of the League and the making of a king, Palma-Cayet[297] exclaims:

"I pray you to picture to yourselves what answer could have made
that little goodman Master Matthieu Delaunay and M. Boucher,
curate of Saint-Benoît, and any other of that condition to one who
should have told them that they must be employed to instal a king
in France to their fancy?... True Frenchmen have always held in
contempt that form of electing kings, which makes them masters and
servants together."

Philip 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 humour the crowd by coming many times on the balcony of the Tuileries to sing the Marseillaise.

A certain number of Republicans had met, on the morning of the 31st, at the office of the _National_: when they knew that the Duc d'Orléans 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 M. Thiers: there were Messieurs Bastide, Thomas, Joubert[298], Cavaignac[299], Marchais, Degousée[300], and Guinard. The Prince at first said many fine things to them about liberty:

"You are not King yet," retorted Bastide; "listen to the truth: soon you will have no lack of flatterers."

"Your father," added Cavaignac, "was a regicide like mine; that separates you a little from the others."

[Sidenote: Embraces La Fayette.]

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 who were not at the meeting at the _National_ entered. M. Trélat 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?"

M. Thiers interrupted this dangerous speech by tapping M. Thomas on the shoulder and saying:

"Monseigneur, have we not a fine colonel here?"

"That is true," answered Louis-Philippe.

"What is he talking about?" they exclaimed. "Does he take us for a band that has come to sell itself?"

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!"

And M. Thiers exclaiming:

"Here's a fine embassy I've undertaken!"

Then M. de La Fayette came down to the Palais-Royal: the citizen was nearly stifled under the embraces of his King. The whole house was ready to die.

Men in jackets were at the posts of honour, men in caps in the drawing-rooms, men in smocks sat down to table with the Princes and Princesses; in the council-chamber there were chairs, but no arm-chairs; all spoke who would; Louis-Philippe, seated between M. de La Fayette and M. Laffitte, 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; deputies 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 canonized, 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 Rheims, nor buried at Saint-Denis, 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.

To-day, 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 whosoever 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 conceive that the diadem was a sacred thing; the Oriflamme 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 that 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 draught 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 born of her again.

You have seen the Monarchy of the Grève march dusty and breathless under the tricolour flag, in the midst of its insolent friends: see now the Royalty of Rheims retire, with measured steps, in the midst of its almoners 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 bier before being folded away for ever, said to the wind:

"Salute me: I was at Ivry; I saw Turenne 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!"

[Sidenote: The Duc D'Angoulême.]

On the 31st, at daybreak, at the very hour when the Duc d'Orléans, after arriving in Paris, was preparing to accept the Lieutenant-generalship, the servants at Saint-Cloud came to the bivouac on the Sèvres 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 horse-back, 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 XIV., 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 Sèvres 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 Sèvres 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 Point-du-Jour Road. Then the Parisians and the Guards agreed that no hostilities should take place until the evacuation of Saint-Cloud and of Sèvres was effected. The retiring movement began; the Swiss were hemmed in by the inhabitants of Sèvres 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 Rochejacquelein'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 Trianon, the favourite residence of Marie-Antoinette. At Trianon, M. 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 ascribe 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 fastens 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 Hôtel de Ville: it was a dispatch from M. de Lœwenhielm[301] to the King of Sweden. M. Baude sent back the dispatch unopened to the Swedish Legation. Lord Stuart's[302] correspondence fell into the hands of the popular leaders and was similarly returned without being opened, which did wonders in London. Lord Stuart, like all his fellow-countrymen, adored disorder in foreign countries: with him, diplomacy was police-duty, dispatches 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 dispatches 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 have said a hundred times to Sir Charles Stuart, 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 war on you with a proper understanding of your position; that is why you have beaten us: but don't rely on this[303]."

[Sidenote: Lord Stuart de Rothesay.]

Lord Stuart, 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 M. Pozzo di Borgo[304] showed some anxiety concerning a _coup d'État_, 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 France 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 monarch. 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? M. de Lœwenhielm was on the point of bringing the Baron de Werther[305] over to his opinion, when M. Pozzo di Borgo opposed a measure which his credentials prescribed and honour demanded.

Had the Diplomatic Body gone to Saint-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.[306] would have drawn a considerable mass of the population over to the royal infant's party.

M. Pozzo di Borgo stood aloof so as not to compromise his securities on the Bourse or at his bankers', and especially not to expose his place. He played at five per cent, 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 dispatches a truth which might bring about a change in their position. It is, in fact, a different thing to be Esterhazy[307], Werther, Pozzo in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, or to be Their Excellencies the Ambassadors to the Court of France. It has been said that M. Pozzo bore a 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-countryman[308], Bonaparte. But if, at Ghent, 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.

[Sidenote: The diplomatic body.]

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 Cabinets are in a position to treat direct or simply through the intermediary of their consular agents, whose number should be increased and their condition improved: for, 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 send for M. le Duc d'Orléans; 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 Rambouillet with the Princesses and M. le Duc de Bordeaux. The new role played by M. le Duc d'Orléans gave rise to the first ideas of abdication in the King's head. Monsieur le Dauphin remained with the rear-guard, but did not mix with the soldiers; at Trianon 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 5th 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 50th.

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 Trappes. The Dauphin slept at a house at the back of the village.

The next morning, the 1st of August, he started for Rambouillet, leaving the troops bivouacked at Trappes. These broke up camp at eleven. A few soldiers who had gone to buy bread in the hamlets were massacred.

On its arrival at Rambouillet, the army was cantoned round the Palace.

During the night of the 1st of August, three regiments of heavy cavalry went back to their old garrisons. It is believed that General Bordesoulle[309], commanding the heavy cavalry of the Guard, had made his capitulation at Versailles. The 2nd Grenadiers also went off on the morning of the 2nd, after sending in its colours to the King. The Dauphin met these deserting Grenadiers; they formed in line to do honour to the Prince, and continued their road. 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 rights 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 retreat, on the field of battle, released the grenadier 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 tricolour flag perched on the top of a diligence, shouted, "Long live Philip!" or, "The Revolution for ever!"

The opening of the session being fixed for the 3rd 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 XIV. 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:

[Sidenote: Abdication of Charles X.]

"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 2nd 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 _Moniteur_."

By a contemptible trick and a cowardly omission, the Duc 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 La Fayette for a mentor. Had the 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 an 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 solecism: 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 personage 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 grovelling 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 and 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.

Philip, 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 Orleans Branch to take deep root.

Charles X., apprized 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 Philip 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 Duc d'Orléans, he in his turn appointed him Lieutenant-general of the Kingdom. He went further on the 2nd, for he wanted nothing more than to take ship, and he asked for commissaries to protect him as far as Cherbourg. These apparitors 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.

[Sidenote: Letter from Charles to Philip.]

Here is Charles X.'s letter:

"RAMBOUILLET, 2 _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 Duc 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.[310]...

"I renew to you, cousin, the assurance of the sentiments with which
I am

"Your affectionate cousin,

"CHARLES."

If M. le Duc d'Orléans 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 Rambouillet of the efficacy of the abdications that the young Prince was being made ready for his journey: his ægis, the tricolour cockade, was already fashioned by the hands of the most zealous promoters 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 M. le Duc d'Orléans was delivering his opening speech, two chances remained: dangerous chances, but, at least, the child removed to Heaven 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 Serviteur_:

"The good gentle woman came out from the back of the tower, and sent for her son, to whom she spake these words:

"'Pierre, my friend, be sweet and courteous, putting from you all pride; be humble and serviceable to all men; be loyal in deeds and words; be helpful to poor widows and orphans, and God will recompense you....'

"Then the good ladye 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 knight 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 fight 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. were Messieurs de Schonen, Odilon Barrot and Marshal Maison. They were sent back by the military posts, and started to return to Paris. A wave of the populace carried them back to Rambouillet.