Chapter IX: Book XIV: 162 (2)

M. Casimir Périer was in favour of hastening to the Duc de Raguse; while the five deputies selected were preparing to leave, M. Arago[228] was with the marshal: he had decided, on receipt of a note from Madame de Boigne, to be before-hand with the delegates. He represented to the marshal the necessity for putting an end to the troubles of the Capital. M. de Raguse went to obtain intelligence at M. de Polignac's; the latter, hearing of the hesitation among the troops, declared that, if they went over to the people, they were to be fired on like the insurgents. General de Tromelin[229] was present at the conversation and flew into a passion with General d'Ambrugeac[230]. Then came the deputation. M. Laffitte spoke:

"We come," he said, "to ask you to stop bloodshed. If the fighting continues, it will carry with it not only the most frightful calamities, but a real revolution."

The marshal confined himself to a question of military honour, maintaining that it was the duty of the people first to cease fighting; nevertheless he added this postscript to a letter which he was writing to the King:

"I think it is urgent that Your Majesty should avail yourself
without delay of the overtures that have been made."

Colonel Komierowski, aide-de-camp to the Duc de Raguse, was shown into the King's closet at Saint-Cloud, and handed him the letter; the King said to him:

"I will read this letter."

The colonel withdrew and waited orders; seeing that they were not forthcoming, he begged M. le Duc de Duras to go to the King to ask for them. The duke replied that etiquette made it impossible for him to enter the closet. At last M. Komierowski was sent for by the King and told to enjoin the marshal "to hold out."

General Vincent on his side hurried down to Saint-Cloud; he forced the door which was denied him, and told the King that all was lost:

"My dear fellow," replied Charles X., "you are a good general, but these are things that you know nothing about."

The 29th saw new combatants enter the field: the pupils of the Polytechnic School, who were in correspondence with one of their old schoolfellows, M. Charras[231], broke bounds and sent four of their number, Messieurs Lothon, Perthelin, Pinsonnière and Tourneaux to offer their services to Messieurs Laffitte, Périer and La Fayette. 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'Odéon, others to the Palais-Royal and the Tuileries.

[Sidenote: The King's obstinacy.]

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; an impropriety which the French soldier resented: it was placing him on a level with the English, who refuse 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 day-break the next morning, there were four thousand barricades standing in Paris.

The Palais-Bourbon was guarded by the Line, the Louvre by two Swiss battalions, the Rue de la Paix, the Place Vendôme and the Rue Castiglione by the 5th and 53rd Regiments of the Line. About twelve hundred infantrymen had arrived from Saint-Denis, Versailles and Rueil.

The military position was better: the troops were more concentrated, and big empty spaces had to be crossed to reach them. General Exelmans[232], who thought well of the dispositions, came at eleven o'clock to place his courage and experience at the disposal of the Maréchal de Raguse, while on his side General Pajol[233] 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, M. de Polignac was asked for; he went out, and returned with M. Bertier[234], son of the first victim sacrificed in 1789. M. Bertier 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 5th and 53rd of the Line, who were fraternizing with the people.

[Sidenote: Butchery at the Louvre.]

The Duc de Raguse 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 Louvres. 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 masked doors which lead from the Jardin de l'Infante to the interior; they made for the windows and opened fire on the battalion standing in the court-yard. Under the terror of the memory of the 10th of August, the Swiss 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 mob, which from the Louvre had reached the gallery of the Museum, began to fire from the midst of the master-pieces on the Lancers drawn up in the Carrousel. The Parisian posts, carried away by this example, broke off the suspension of hostilities. Flung headlong under the Arc de Triomphe, the Swiss drove the Lancers to the porch of the Pavillon de l'Horloge and debouched in confusion into the garden of the Tuileries. Young Farcy[235] 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 Thermopylae to-day. 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 Messieurs Thomas[236], Bastide[237] and Guinard[238], by the Pont-Royal gate. A tricolour flag was planted on the Pavillon de l'Horloge, 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 to-day were not always playing at drama. The artillery museum, at Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, was pillaged, and the centuries passed down the river, under the helmet of Godfrey of Bouillon and with the lance of Francis I.

Then the Duc de Raguse left the Staff Office, leaving 120,000 francs in bags behind him. He went through the Rue de Rivoli and entered the Tuileries Gardens. He gave the order for the troops to retire, first to the Champs Élysées, and next to the Étoile. It was believed that peace was made, that the Dauphin was coming; some carriages from the Royal Mews and a baggage-wagon were seen to cross the Place Louis XV.: it was the ministers going after their works.

On arriving at the Étoile, Marmont received a letter: it informed him that the King had given M. le Dauphin the command-in-chief of the troops, and that he, the marshal, would serve under his orders.

A company of the 3rd Guards had been forgotten in the house of a hatter in the Rue de Rohan; after a long resistance the house was carried. Captain Meunier, 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 Caserne Babylone, attacked between twelve and one in the day by three pupils of the Polytechnic School, Vaneau, 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 Vaneau 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.

M. le Duc de Mortemart[239] arrived at Saint-Cloud on Wednesday the 28th, 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 till the next day. At eleven o'clock, on the 29th, 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!

[Sidenote: Charles X. and his ministers.]

The ministers had arrived: Messieurs de Sémonville, d'Argout[240], Vitrolles were there. M. de Sémonville 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 la Dauphine was exposed. He said to him: "To-morrow, at noon, there will be no King, no Dauphin, no Duc de 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 a Frenchman and trust to his story: he will always have done everything.

The ministers went in to the King after M. de Sémonville; the Ordinances were revoked, the Ministry dissolved, M. de Mortemart appointed President of the new Council.

In the Capital, the Republican Party had at last run some one to earth. M. Baude, the man of the parade at the office of the _Temps_, going through the streets, had found the Hôtel de Ville occupied by only two men, M. Dubourg and M. Zimmer. He at once proclaimed himself the emissary of a "Provisional Government" which was coming to instal itself. He sent for the clerks of the Prefecture and ordered them to set to work as though M. de Chabrol were present. In governments which have become machines the weights are soon wound up again; every one 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 as 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. M. Dubourg, nicknamed "General" Dubourg, and M. Zimmer were styled the heads of the "military" side of the "Provisional Government" M. Baude 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 Choiseul. It is difficult to explain the association of the last name with the two others; besides, M. de Choiseul protested. This old Liberal, who, emigrating and shipwrecked at Calais, to save his life mimicked the stiffness of death[241], 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 Hôtel 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 their deputy-mayors to the Hôtel de Ville, in order to make up a "consultative commission" there. This Order was signed, "J. Baude, for the Provisional Government" and "Colonel Zimmer, by order of General Dubourg." This audacity on the part of three persons speaking in the name of a 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!

[Sidenote: Meeting at M. Laffitte's.]

The deputies had again met at M. Laffitte's[242]. M. de La Fayette, 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 Hôtel de Ville. The deputies nominated a "Municipal Commission" consisting of five members, Messieurs Casimir Périer, Laffitte, de Lobau[243], de Schonen and Audry de Puyravault. M. Odilon Barrot was elected secretary to the Commission, which installed itself at the Hôtel de Ville, as M. de La Fayette had done. All these sat promiscuously, beside the Provisional Government of M. Dubourg. M. Mauguin[244], 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. Dubourg to be removed.

At half-past eight in the evening, M. de Sémonville, M. d'Argout and M. de Vitrolles arrived from Saint-Cloud. They had hastened to Paris immediately after hearing, at Saint-Cloud, of the repeal of the Ordinances, the dismissal of the old ministers and the appointment of M. de Mortemart to the Presidency of the Council. They appeared before the Municipal Commission in the quality of mandatories of the King. M. Mauguin asked the Grand Refendary if he had written powers; the Grand Refendary replied that "he had not thought of it." The negociations of the official commissaries went no further.

M. Laffitte, informed at the meeting at his house of what had taken place at Saint-Cloud, signed a permit for M. de Mortemart, 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. Laffitte, left alone with M. Thiers, occupied himself with the Duc d'Orléans and the necessary proclamations. Fifty years of revolution in France had given the men of practice 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 29th, 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. That I had argued rightly is proved by the affront received by Messieurs d'Argout, de Sémonville and de Vitrolles.

I therefore wrote to Charles X. at Saint-Cloud. M. de Givré undertook to carry my letter. I begged the King to instruct me as to his wishes. M. de Givré returned empty-handed. He had given my letter to M. le Duc de Duras, who had given it to the King, who sent me word that he had appointed M. de Mortemart 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 29th.

Rejected by Charles X., 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 four who would have agreed with me on public liberty?

Aristocratic assemblies enjoy a glorious reign when they are sovereign and alone invested, _de jure 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[245], to whom it had taken the oath? Did it save James II.? Will it save the Hanoverian Princes to-day? Will it save itself? Those self-styled aristocratic counter-weights 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 Capitol 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 M. de Givré's return, I was pretty busy in defending my quarter. The suburbs, the quarrymen of Montrouge came crowding through the Barrière de l'Enfer. The latter resembled those quarrymen of Montmartre who caused such great alarm to Mademoiselle de Mornay when she was fleeing from the massacres of St. Bartholomew. 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 passports for them through the intermediary of my neighbour, M. Arago, and they went elsewhere to preach the Word of God: _utilis populis fuga sanctorum._

[Sidenote: The Municipal Commission.]

The Municipal Commission, established at the Hôtel de Ville, appointed the Baron Louis Provisional Commissary of Finance, M. Baude Minister of the Interior, M. Mérilhou Minister of Justice, gave M. Chardel[246] the Post Office, M. Marchal[247] the Telegraphs, M. Bavoux[248] the Police, M. de Laborde the Prefecture of the Seine. Thus the "voluntary" Provisional Government found itself destroyed in reality by the promotion of M. Baude, 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. Laffitte's, 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. Laffitte. M. Bérard[249] announced that he had met Messieurs d'Argout, de Forbin-Janson[250] and de Mortemart on their way to M. Laffitte's, thinking that they would find the deputies there; that he had invited those gentlemen to follow him to the Chamber, but that M. le Duc de Mortemart, overwhelmed with fatigue, had gone away to see M. de Sémonville. M. de Mortemart, according to M. Bérard, said that he had a signature in blank and that the King consented to everything.

In fact, M. de Mortemart 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 mid-day he sent the Ordinances to M. Sauvo[251]; the latter replied that he could not publish them in the _Moniteur_ without the authorization of the Chamber of Deputies or the Municipal Commission.

M. Bérard having told his story, as I have said, in the Chamber, a discussion followed to decide whether they should receive M. de Mortemart or not General Sébastiani insisted on the affirmative; M. Mauguin declared that, if M. de Mortemart were present, he would ask that he should be heard, but that events were urgent and that they could not wait on M. de Mortemart's good pleasure.

Five commissaries were appointed, charged to go to confer with the peers: these five commissaries were Messieurs Augustin Périer[252], Sébastiani, Guizot, Benjamin Delessert[253], and Hyde de Neuville. But soon the Comte de Sussy[254] was introduced into the Elective Chamber. M. de Mortemart had charged him to present the Ordinances to the deputies. Addressing the assembly, he said:

"In the Chancellor's absence, a few peers met at my house. M. le Duc de Mortemart handed us this letter, addressed to M. le Général Gérard or M. Casimir Périer. I beg leave to communicate its contents to you."

Here is the letter:

"MONSIEUR,

"After leaving Saint-Cloud 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."

[Sidenote: The Duc de Montemart.]

M. le Duc de Mortemart had left Saint-Cloud 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 General Gérard or M. Casimir Périer: M. de Mortemart was very unlucky! M. Bérard 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 Mortemart, who was proceeding to M. Laffitte's 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 25th of July, the second summoned the Chambers for the 3rd of August, the third appointed M. de Mortemart Foreign Minister and President of the Council, the fourth called General Gérard to the War Office, the fifth M. Casimir Périer to the Ministry of Finance. When I at last met M. de Mortemart at the Grand Referendary's, he told me that he had been obliged to stay at M. de Sémonville'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 Mortemart 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 a 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 Mortemart, 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 Mortemart 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 Rue d'Enfer, the Place Saint-Michel and the Rue Dauphine. There was still a little excitement around the broken barricades. I compared what I saw with the great revolutionary movement of 1789, and the present struck me as orderly and silent: the change of manners was visible.

At the Pont-Neuf, the statue of Henry IV., like an ensign of the League, held a tricolour 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 Quai de l'École: I saw, in the distance, a general accompanied by two aides-de-camp, all on horse-back. I went in their direction. As I elbowed my way through the crowd, my eyes were on the general: a tricolour sash across his coat, his hat cocked over the back of his head, with one comer in front. He caught sight of me in his turn, and cried:

"See! The viscount!"

[Sidenote: General Dubourg.]

And I, surprised, recognised Colonel or Captain Dubourg, 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 have related, half a sheep for dinner in a dirty lodging at Arnouville[255]. This is the officer whom the newspapers had represented as an austere soldier of the Republic, with grey mustachios, 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 Larevellière-Lepeaux[256] at the rag-fair. Then I exclaimed:

"Why, it's you! What..."

He stretched out his arms to me, pressed my hand on Flanquine's neck; a 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!"

M. Dubourg's aides-de-camp burst into loud roars of laughter; the rabble laughed in unison, the general spurred his nag, which caracoled like a broken-backed beast, followed by two other Rosinantes slipping on the paving-stones as though ready to fall on their noses between their riders' legs.

Thus, proudly borne away, did the Diomedes of the Hôtel 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.

M. Louis Blanc, in the first volume of his excellent _Histoire de dix ans_, 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 Marché des
Innocents, followed by a great number of armed men. M. Évariste
Dumoulin[257], editor of the _Constitutionnel_, had supplied
this man with his uniform, obtained at an old-clothes shop; and
the epaulets which he wore had been given him by Perlet[258], the
actor: they came from the property-room of the Opéra-Comique.

"'Who is that general?" was asked on every hand.

"And when they who surrounded him answered, 'It is General
Dubourg,' 'Long live General Dubourg!' cried the people, who had
never heard the name before[259]."

A few paces further, a different sight awaited me: a ditch had been dug before the colonnade of the Louvre; a priest, in surplice 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 felt myself being crowded round; a cry arose:

"Long live the defender of the liberty of the press!"

I had been recognised by my hair. Forthwith some young men caught 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-Royal!"

Forthwith I was escorted there, amid cries of "The Charter for ever! The liberty of the press for ever! Chateaubriand for ever!" In the Cour des Fontaines, M. Barba[260], the bookseller, left his house and came to embrace me.

We arrived at the Palais-Royal; I was plumped down in a café under the wooden arcade. I was dying with heat. With clasped 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 waistcoat-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 café; the cheers began afresh. In the court-yard of the Louvre, different kinds of shouts were raised: some cried, "To the Tuileries! To the Tuileries!" others, "Long live the First Consul!" and seemed to wish to make me the heir of Bonaparte the Republican. Hyacinthe, who accompanied me, received his share of hand-shaking and embraces. We crossed the Pont des Arts and took the Rue de Seine. The people flocked on our passage; they crowded the windows. I suffered under all these honours, 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:

"Hats off! Hurrah for the Charter!"

And I replied:

"Yes, gentlemen, hurrah for the Charter! But hurrah 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.

[Sidenote: I am carried to the Luxembourg.]

I besought my young friends to such good purpose that at last they put me down. In the Rue de Seine, opposite M. Le Normant, my publisher, a furniture-dealer offered an arm-chair 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! Chateaubriand for ever!"

I was touched by the sentiments of this noble youth: I had 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 30th 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 M. de Sémonville'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 M. de Mortemart. 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 apprized us of the Ordinances which he had already communicated to the Deputies through M. de Sussy. M. de Broglie 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[261].

M. de Caraman[262], who had been made a duke, apparently because he had been M. de Metternich's lackey, maintained with great heat that it was impossible to recognise the Ordinances:

"And why not, monsieur?" I asked.

This cold question iced his rapture.

[Sidenote: Meeting of the peers.]

The five commissaries from the Deputies arrived. M. le Général Sébastiani led off with his customary phrase:

"Gentlemen, this is a serious business."

Next he sang the praises of M. le Duc de Mortemart's remarkable moderation; he spoke of the dangers of Paris, pronounced a few words in eulogy of H.R.H. Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans and concluded with the impossibility of considering the Ordinances. I and M. Hyde de Neuville were the only two who held the opposite opinion. I obtained leave to speak:

"M. le Duc de Broglie has told us, gentlemen, 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 court-yard 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 wished 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.

[Footnote 162: This book was written in Paris in August and September 1830.--T.]

[Footnote 163: Lamartine was elected a member of the French Academy on the 5th of November 1829, receiving nineteen votes against fourteen given to General Philippe de Ségur.--B.]

[Footnote 164: Charles Jean Dominique de Lacretelle (1766-1855), member of the French Academy, and author of the _Histoire de France pendant le XVIIIe. siècle._--T.]

[Footnote 165: Jean Pierre Abel Rémusat (1788-1832), the distinguished orientalist. He devoted the last years of his life to politics, speaking and writing as an ardent adherent of the Legitimacy.--T.]

[Footnote 166: Antoine Jean Saint-Martin (1791-1832), also an eminent orientalist and fervent Monarchist. He founded, in 1829, the absolutist organ, the _Universel._--T.]

[Footnote 167: January 1829.--B.]

[Footnote 168: Achille Charles Léonce Victor Duc de Broglie (1785-1870), married in 1816 to Albertine, daughter of Madame de Staël. He became a leading Orleanist statesman, was Minister of the Interior and of Public Worship and Instruction (1830) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1832-1834 and 1834-1836), a peer of France, and a member of the French Academy.--T.]

[Footnote 169: Louis Auguste Victor de Ghaisne, Comte de Bourmont (1773-1846), had commanded the Chouans in the Vendée from 1794 to 1799, and, in 1800, was imprisoned for complicity in the conspiracy resulting in the Infernal Machine. He made his escape from Besançon and fled to Lisbon, where he joined the French during their reverses and was taken into favour by Napoleon in 1808. He served under Bonaparte in all his subsequent campaigns. After the return from Elba he accepted a command from the Emperor, but reverted to the King a few days before the Battle of Waterloo. He was created a peer of France in 1823 and became Minister for War in 1829. In 1830, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Algerian Expedition. After the Revolution of July, true to his latent royalist sympathies, he fought for the Duchesse de Berry in the Vendée and subsequently for Dom Miguel in Portugal, but always without success. Eventually he abandoned politics and returned to France, where he died at the Château de Bourmont in 1846.--T.]

[Footnote 170: Jean Joseph Antoine de Courvoisier (1775-1835). He had emigrated and served in Condé's Army, and since 1818 was Attorney-General to the Lyons Courts.--B.]

[Footnote 171: Guillaume Isidore Baron, Comte de Montbel (1787-1861), escaped after the Revolution of July and fled to Austria. He was sentenced by contumacy to perpetual imprisonment, and was not amnestied until 1836, when he returned to France, keeping out of politics. Montbel died at Frohsdorff while on a visit to the Comte de Chambord, 3 February 1861.--B.]

[Footnote 172: When M. de Polignac became President of the Council, on the 17th of November 1829, M. de La Bourdonnaye sent in his resignation as Minister of the Interior. One of his friends asked him the reason of his resignation:

"They wanted to make me stake my head," was his reply. "I wanted to hold the cards." (Villèle's Political Papers).--B.]

[Footnote 173: Martial Côme Annibal Perpétue Magloire Comte de Guernon-Ranville (1787-1866), a distinguished lawyer. After the Revolution of July, he was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment and confined at Ham, where he remained until the amnesty of 1836. He then withdrew to the Château de Ranville, in Calvados, where he died in November 1866.--B.]

[Footnote 174: The _National_, the first number of which was published on the 3rd of January 1830. It was founded by Messieurs Thiers, Mignet and Armand Carrel, each of whom was to have the management of the paper for one year, commencing with M. Thiers.--B.]

[Footnote 175: Sautelet (_d._ 1830), the publisher, did in fact commit suicide a few months after the founding of the _National._--B.]

[Footnote 176: Louis Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877) occupied Cabinet positions from 1832 to 1836, and was Prime Minister from May to October 1840. His _Histoire du consulat et de l'empire_ was published from 1845 to 1862. He was a conspicuous member of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies from 1848 to 1851, and was arrested by Louis Napoleon at the time of the _coup d'État._ In 1863, he was elected to the Legislative Body, and led the opposition against the Imperial Government. On the 31st of August 1871, he was declared President of the French Republic for a term of three years, but resigned on the 24th of May 1873. Thiers had been a member of the French Academy since 1834.--T.]

[Footnote 177: Franços Auguste Marie Mignet (1796-1884), author of the _Histoire de la révolution française de_ 1789 _à_ 1814 (1824) and a number of other notable historical works. He was received into the French Academy in 1836.--T.]

[Footnote 178: Nicolas Armand Carrel (1800-1836), an historian and journalist, killed in a political duel on the 22nd of July 1836.--T.]

[Footnote 179: On the 5th of May 1830, the Duc d'Angoulême held a review at Toulon of the fleet which was about to set sail for Algiers. It consisted of 675 men-of-war and merchant-ships, including no less than 11 battle-ships, 24 frigates and 70 war-ships of lesser strength. This day represented Fortune's last smile upon the House of Bourbon, which found France exhausted, impoverished, crushed beneath the weight of unutterable disasters and was about to leave her free, prosperous and powerful, with admirable finances and a superb fleet; which found her vanquished, humiliated, trodden under foot by four hundred thousand invaders and was about to bequeath to her the surest and fairest of all conquests, accomplished under the eyes and despite the threats of trembling England.--B.]

[Footnote 180: Charles V. lost a fleet and an army at Algiers in 1545.--T.]

[Footnote 181: Bossuet's funeral oration on the Empress Maria Theresa.--T.]

[Footnote 182: Charles Lenormant (1802-1859), the French archæologist and numismatist.--T.]

[Footnote 183: Jean Jacques Champollion Figeac (1778-1867), the noted archæologist.--T.]

[Footnote 184: Auguste Théodore Hilaire Baron Barchou de Penhoen (1801-1855), was a staff-captain in the Algerian Expedition, resigned his commission in order not to serve the government of Louis-Philippe, and devoted himself to literature and philosophy.--B.]

[Footnote 185: BARON BARCHOU DE PENHOEN: _Mémoires d'un officier d'état-major_, p. 427.--_Authors Note._]

[Footnote 186: In his Speech from the Throne, Charles X. announced the Algerian Expedition, declaring that the insult shown to the French flag by a barbarous Power would not long remain unpunished, and that a brilliant reparation was about to satisfy the honour of France. The same evening, some friends, among whom was M. Villemain, had gathered in Chateaubriand's drawing-room:

"This," said Chateaubriand, "is one of the things that belong to
the old French tradition, to the inheritance of St. Louis and
Louis XIV.; this is what the Legitimate Royalty does. In the
present crisis, with its wretched instruments, despite its fears,
exaggerated, I grant you, it conceives a generous and Christian
enterprise, one which I advised in 1816, one which it would have
undertaken with me, if it had had the sense to keep me. Yes, this
same Algiers which Bossuet shows us destroyed by our bomb-ketches,
and which saved its harbour only by handing over its Christian
slaves to us, may fall into our hands this summer. We shall do
better than Lord Exmouth. Nothing will surprise me of French
valour. Only, this delights me without reassuring me. Who knows the
unfathomable depths of Providence? It is able with the same blow to
lay low the conquered and the conqueror, to enlarge a kingdom and
overthrow a dynasty."

(VILLEMAIN: _M. de Chateaubriand, sa vie, ses écrits, son influence littéraire et politique sur son temps_).--B.]

[Footnote 187: Charles Guillaume Étienne (1778-1845), a dramatist and publicist, appointed Censor in 1810, and a member of the French Academy in 1811. The Bourbons excluded him from his public employment and even from his seat in the Academy, to which he was not re-admitted until 1820, in which year he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. In 1830 he was one of the signatories to the Address of the 221. Some years later (1839), Louis-Philippe raised him to the peerage.--T.]

[Footnote 188: The Comte de Lorgeril (1778-1843) was elected in 1828 to the seat vacated by M. de Corbière, who had been raised to the peerage. Lorgeril lost his seat in 1830.--B.]

[Footnote 189: The Chamber of Deputies was dissolved on the 16th of May. The departments which had only one electoral college were summoned to vote on the 23rd of June; in the other departments, the district colleges were to meet on the 3rd of July and the departmental colleges on the 20th of July. The opening of the new Chamber was fixed for the 3rd of August.--B.]

[Footnote 190: The _Tribune des départements_, founded by Auguste and Victornin Fabre. After 1830, this sheet became the most violent organ of the Republican Opposition.--B.]

[Footnote 191: Hilaire Étienne Octave Rouillé, Comte, later (on the death of his father in 1840) Marquis de Boissy (1798-1866). He was created a peer of France in 1839, and for ten years was the _enfant terrible_ of the Upper Chamber, harassing the Chancelier Pasquier with his continual interruptions and irreverent sallies. In 1853, he was made a senator, having meantime, in 1851, married the Contessa Guiccioli, who was then herself nearly fifty and had been Byron's "widow" for more than a quarter of a century.--B.]

[Footnote 192: For the full text of the Royal Ordinances of July, see the Appendix at the end of this volume, p. 421.--T.]

[Footnote 193: The Report to the King had been drawn up by M. de Chantelauze.--B.]

[Footnote 194: Article XIV. of the Charter ran thus:

"The King is the Supreme Head of the State, commands the forces on
sea and land, declares war, makes treaties of peace, alliance and
commerce, appoints to all the offices of the public administration,
and makes the rules and _ordinances necessary for the execution of
the laws and the safety of the State._"--B.]

[Footnote 195: Chateaubriand was then living at 84, Rue d'Enfer.--B.]

[Footnote 196: Étienne Maurice Maréchal Comte Gérard (1773-1853) had distinguished himself as a general in the Napoleonic campaigns. He was Minister for War for a few months in 1830, and again in 1834. He was made a marshal of France in 1830 and, in 1831 and 1832, directed the Siege of Antwerp, valorously defended by General Chassé. Gérard became Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour in 1836. He lost all his offices in 1848; but, in 1853, a few months before his death, was appointed a Senator by Napoleon III.--T.]

[Footnote 197: Claude Antoine Gabriel Duc de Choiseul-Stainville (1760-1838), created a peer of France in 1814 and Governor of the Louvre in 1820. Later, he became an aide-de-camp to Louis-Philippe.--B.]

[Footnote 198: Jean Henri Claude Mangin (1786-1835), a noted lawyer and writer on jurisprudence, had been Prefect of Police since 1829.--T.]

[Footnote 199: The Comte de Chabrol-Volvic, brother of the Comte de Chabrol-Croussol, who had been Minister of Finance in the Polignac Cabinet until May 1830.--B.]

[Footnote 200: The Vicomte de Champagny.--B.]

[Footnote 201: Felix Barthe (1795-1863), in December 1830, succeeded Mérilhou as Minister of Public Instruction in the Laffitte Cabinet. In 1831, he became Minister of Justice under Casimir Périer and continued to hold the Seals until the fall of the Broglie Administration in 1834. He was then created a peer of France and President of the _Cour des Comptes._ Under the Second Empire, Barthe became a senator.--B.]

[Footnote 202: Joseph Mérilhou (1788-1856), Minister of Public Instruction and Public Worship in 1830, and a peer of France in 1837.--B.]

[Footnote 203: The protest was drawn up by Thiers, Châtelain, and Cauchois-Lemaire. Here are the names of the forty-four signatories: Gauja, manager of the _National_; Thiers, Mignet, Chambolle, Peysse, Albert Stapfer, Dubochet, Rolle, editors of the _National_; Châtelain, Guyet, Moussette, Avenel, Alexis de Jussieu, J. F. Dupont, editors, and V. de Lapelouse, manager of the _Courrier français_; Guizard, Dejean, Charles de Rémusat, editors, and Pierre Leroux, manager of the _Globe_; Anneé, Cauchois-Lemaire and Évariste Dumoulin, editors of the _Constitutionnel_; Senty, Haussmann, Dussard, Chalas, A. Billard, J. J. Baude, Busoni, Barboux, editors, and Coste, manager of the _Temps_; Victor Bohain, Nestor Roqueplan, editors of the _Figaro_; Auguste Fabre and Ader, editors of the _Tribune des départements_; Plagnol, Levasseur and Fazy, editors of the _Révolution_; F. Larreguy, editor, and Bert, manager of the _Journal du commerce_; Léon Pillet, manager of the _Journal de Paris_; Vaillant, manager of the _Sylphe_; Sarrans the Younger, manager of the _Courrier des électeurs._--B.]

[Footnote 204: There were fourteen of them: Messieurs Bavoux, Bérard, Bernard, de Laborde, Chardel, Daunou, Jacques Lefebvre, Marchai, Mauguin, Casimir Périer, Persil, de Schonen, Vassal and Villemain.--B.]

[Footnote 205: Madame de Courchamp was a sister of the Becquets.--B.]

[Footnote 206: Étienne Becquet (1800-1838), one of the editors of the _Débats_, is the only one of the two brothers who has left a name.--B.]

[Footnote 207: Jacques Coste (1798-1859), after selling his paper, the _Tablettes historiques_, remained the declared adversary of the government of the Restoration. He founded the _Temps_ in 1829; it lasted till 1842. The title was again taken by M. Xavier Durrieu in 1849, but this paper lasted only ten months, and lastly, in 1861, by M. A. Nefftzer, who founded the _Temps_ which we know to-day.--B.]

[Footnote 208: The full title of this paper was _Tablettes historiques, ou Répertoire de documents historiques, politiques, scientifiques et littéraires, avec une Bibliographie raisonnée._ In 1824, after he had been fined and sentenced to a year's imprisonment, M. Coste sold the _Tablettes_ to M. Sosthène de La Rochefoucauld, who was at that time pursuing his policy of buying up the Opposition papers with the funds of the Civil List and sometimes with his own money. One of Coste's collaborators, M. Rabbe, wrote a strong letter to M. Coste, which was inserted in the _Courrier français_, and led to a duel between the two writers.--B.]

[Footnote 209: Jean Jacques Baron Baude (_cf._ Vol. IV, p. 7, n. 2). Baude was Prefect of Police from December 1830 to February 1831.--B.]

[Footnote 210: "Another commissary of police went to the _Temps_, where he was encountered by M. Baude, attached to the journal. He summoned the commissary to desist, declaring that he was committing an illegal act; that the laws protected the journals and their presses, and that no ordonnance could avail in contradiction to them. The commissary of police, however staggered by the obstinacy of Baude, sent for a locksmith to break open the door of the printing-office, and then break the press. Apostrophized by Baude, and warned that they were committing an illegal act, the smith refused to obey, till the special smith of the police and the gaols arrived. Seven hours were spent in altercation before the order of the commissary could be accomplished by a forcible entrance, and rendering the presses incapable of being worked any more." (EYRE CROWE: _History of the Reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles X._).--T.]

[Footnote 211: M. Billot.--B.]

[Footnote 212: Casimir Périer lived at 27, Rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg.--B.]

[Footnote 213: Pierre François Audry de Puyravault (1783-1852), an important manufacturer of strong liberal opinions. He continued to figure in the Opposition during the Orleanist reign.--T.]

[Footnote 214: Auguste Jean Marie Baron de Schonen (1782-1849). He held high legal office under the Empire, the Restoration and the Usurpation.--T.]

[Footnote 215: M. Cadet de Gassicourt the Younger (1789-1861) became mayor of the 4th arrondissement, or ward, of Paris.--B.]

[Footnote 216: Changed soon after into Rue du 29 Juillet.--B.]

[Footnote 217: Alfred Nettement, in his _Histoire de la Restauration_, gives a somewhat different version of this incident:

"It was then six o'clock in the evening. The Royal Guard came to
lend a necessary aid to the Gendarmerie and the Line, whose efforts
remained powerless. Musket-shots replied to the hail of stones
that fell upon the troop; they were fired by a detachment of the
5th Regiment of the Line which entered the Rue Saint-Honoré from
the Rue de Rivoli. This discharge cost the life of a young English
student called Folks, who had taken refuge in the Hôtel Royal, at
the corner of the Rue des Pyramides. He had had the imprudence
to go to the window to watch the progress of the insurrectionary
movement, and was struck by one of the first bullets."--B.]

[Footnote 218: The President of the Council occupied the building of the Foreign Office, then situated at the comer of the Rue des Capucines and the boulevards.--B.]

[Footnote 219: Alfred Armand Robert Comte de Saint-Chamans (1781-1848).--B.]

[Footnote 220: Alexandre Sala, an officer in the 6th Infantry of the Guard. He was with the Duchesse de Berry on the _Carlo-Alberto_ in 1832, was tried at Montbrison, and acquitted. In 1848, with Alfred Nettement and Armand de Pontmartin, he founded the _Opinion publique_, of which he was one of the chief editors until its suppression in January 1852.--B.]