GIFT OF Pr-f. C. A. Kofoi THE REVOLUTION OF i FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT. From the French of Imbert de Saint-Amand. Each with Portrait, I2mo, $T.2j. THREE VOLUMES ON MARIE ANTOINETTE. ANTOINETTE AND THE END OF THE OLD REGIME, V MARIE ANTOINETTE AT THE TUILERIES. MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY. THREE VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. f A ' CITIZENESS BONAPARTE. V''THE WIFE OF THE FIRST CONSUL. ,/THE COURT OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. FOUR VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE. Y THE HAPPY DAYS OF MARIE LOUISE. V MARIE LOUISE AND THE DECADENCE OF THE EMPIRE. MARIE LOUISE AND THE INVASION OF 1814. '/MARIE LOUISE, THE RETURN FROM ELBA, AND THE HUNDRED DAYS TWO VOLUMES ON THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. V~THE YOUTH OF THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. r/THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME AND THE TWO RESTORATIONS. THREE VOLUMES ON THE DUCHESS OF BERRY. v THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XVIII. I/ THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF CHARLES X. v/~THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE REVOLUTION OF JULY, 1830. FOUR VOLUMES ON WOMEN OF THE VALOIS AND VERSAILLES COURTS. WOMEN OF THE VALOIS COURT. * THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. / THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. THE LAST YEARS OF LOUIS XV. NEW VOLUME. THE REVOLUTION OF 1848. I c t C O THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 BY IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND \\ 1 hAN SLATED BY ELIZABETH^ GILBERT MARTIN NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1895 COPi'klGIIT, 1895, FY SCRILNKRS SONS J. S. Cushing & Co. Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. CONTENTS I. THE FIRST DAYS OF 1848 1 II. THE OBSEQUIES OF MADAME ADELAIDE 7 III. COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT 12 IV. THE CHAMBER OF PEERS 21 V. M. GUIZOT AND THE COURT 29 VI. THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES 38 VII. M. DE TOCQUEVILLE 45 VIII. THE DEPARTURE OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 54 IX. THE DISCUSSION OF THE ADDRESS 65 X. Two AMENDMENTS 72 XL THE BANQUET SCHEME. 80 XII. THE ARRANGEMENTS FOR FEBRUARY 19 89 XIII. THE PROGRAMME OF THE MANIFESTATION 97 XIV. THE TWENTY-FIRST OF FEBRUARY 104 XV. THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 21 113 XVI. THE DAY OF FEBRUARY 22 121 XVII. THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 22 129 XVIII. THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 23 136 XIX. THE FALL OF THE MINISTRY 146 XX. THE FIRING ON THE BOULEVARD ... 157 M111559 yi CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXI. THE NIGHT OF FEBRUARY 23-24 167 XXII. THE MORNING or FEBRUARY 24 177 XXIII. THE LAST REVIEW 193 XXIV. THE ABDICATION 200 XXV. THE DUKE BE NEMOURS 212 XXVI. THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS IN THE CHAMBER.. 221 XXVII. THE INVASION OF THE CHAMBER 238 XXVIII. THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 247 XXIX. THE SACK OF THE TUILERIES 255 XXX. THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 24 265 XXXI. DREUX 275 XXXII. FROM DREUX TO HONFLEUR 283 XXXIII. THE PAVILION DE LA GRACE 290 XXXIV. TROUVILLE 298 XXXV. THE EMBARKATION AT HAVRE 305 XXXVI. THE DEPARTURE OF THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 313 XXXVII. THE DUCHESS DE MONTPENSIER 320 XXXVIII. CONCLUSION 328 INDEX . 337 LIST OF PORTRAITS Louis PHILIPPE Frontispiece PAGE MARIE AMELIE 64 LAMARTINE 160 LEDRU-ROLLIN . 224 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 CHAPTER I THE FIRST DAYS OF 1848 rjlHE year 1848 opened sadly. The first article in JL the Moniteur of January 1, announced the death of the " very high and very powerful Princess Eugenie Adelaide Louise, Princess of Orleans, sister of the King, born at Paris, August 23, 1777, daughter of the very high and very powerful Prince Louis Philippe Joseph of Orleans, and of the very high and very powerful Princess Louise Marie Adelaide of Bourbon, died December 31, 1847, at three o'clock in the morning, in the palace of the Tuileries, at Paris." The body of the Princess was lying in a mortuary chapel in the pavilion of Flora. The cha- teau, usually so animated on New Year's day, was silent and sombre. No joyous serenades at dawn ! No military music ! No official congratulations ! On the previous day, Louis Philippe and all his court had put on mourning for two months. This mourn- ing was to be for his sister, in the first place, and very soon after for the monarchy. Stricken to the heart by a loss so pre-eminently painful, the old THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 King could .with difficulty restrain his sobs. Marie Am^lie, who had, .Always loved her sister-in-law greatly, was not less afflicted than her husband. New Year's day wore on most gloomily at the Tuileries. At evening-time came a glimmer of light; a messenger of good tidings made his appear- ance at the chateau, Colonel de Beaufort, aide-de- camp of the Duke d'Aumale. He brought from Algeria the great news of Abd-el-Kader's surrender. It was Colonel de Beaufort who had been sent by the Governor-general, the Duke d'Aumale, to Sadi- Brahim, to receive the submission of the Emir on behalf of His Royal Highness, and who had also been charged to conduct him from Oran to Toulon, where he had just established him in quarantine under safe keeping. The colonel was received at once by Louis Philippe, and afterwards by the princes. He brought Abd-el-Kader's pistol to the King, and his sword to the wife of General de La- moricie"re. Marie Ame'lie thought the arrival of the conqueror of the Arab camp a happy omen. She hoped that the disasters of 1848 would be succeeded by a prosperous year, and that the vein of ill-luck was at last exhausted. One might, indeed, have supposed that this event, which completed the conquest of Algeria, would be received with general rejoicings and effect a salu- tary diversion amidst the parliamentary disputes. But, on the contrary, there was a repetition of what had taken place in 1830. THE FIRST DATS OF 1848 In his interesting and patriotic work entitled Vieux-Souvenirs, Prince de Joinville says : " Shortly after the Palais-Royal fete occurred the taking of Algiers, a deed of national prowess, of courageous and far-sighted policy, a brilliant feat of arms ac- complished under the white flag, which ought to have excited enthusiasm, tightened the links between France and its king, and reconciled the nation with its ancient standard. It did nothing at all. The taking of Algiers was received as a piece of ordinary news, and regrets for the tricolored flag were as keen as ever. This was because the tribune and the press the press above all, that most powerful implement of destruction in modern times had done their work. The days of the government of the Restora- tion were numbered. No one had any cause of complaint against it; abroad, as at home, it had assuredly been the best regime that had come into power since 1789. But it had desired to govern paternally, for the welfare of France in the present and its grandeur in the future, and to resist the encroachments of the upstarts who were trying to work it to their own advantage. It had been demol- ished piecemeal, as everything has been demolished for the last hundred years, in the name of laws and principles which destroy all government and will soon render all society impossible. The hour of 4 Take that off that I may put it on' the one end sincerely aimed at by our revolutions, however one may seek to disguise it was about to sound." THE EEVOLUTION OF 1848 Admiral Duperre*'s despatch announcing the tak- ing of Algiers had arrived at Paris, July 9, 1830. The throne of Charles X. was overset before the end of the month. The news of Abd-el-Kader's surrender reached Paris, January 1, 1848. The monarchy of July was at an end by the 24th of February. People were as ungrateful to the elder branch of the Bourbons as to the younger. Under the Resto- ration, as under the government of King Louis Philippe, there were Frenchmen unpatriotic enough not to rejoice at the successes of France, because those successes might consolidate a dynasty which they detested. The reports of the Duke d'Aumale and of General de Lamoricire concerning the surrender of Abd-el- Kader were published in the daily papers of January 3, and should have produced unmingled satisfaction. But ill-natured criticism sought to draw distinctions as to who deserved the greatest praise. The young Prince was begrudged so brilliant a success. The newspapers of the left endeavored to lessen the im- portance of an event which had been received with enthusiasm in Algeria by both the army and the colonists, and affected to see in it nothing but the result of a lucky stroke upon which the government had no right to pride itself. They blamed the prom- ise made to the Emir of transporting him to Saint John of Acre, where he would be free. They were deferential to General de Lamoricire, because he THE FIRST DAYS OF 18 48 5 was a deputy of the left, but they attacked the Duke d'Aumale, although his conduct had been irre- proachable. The young Prince had foreseen these unjust accusations from the moment when he rati- fied the engagements entered into by General de La- moriciSre with the Emir. General Cavaignac said to him at the time : " You may be sure there will be attacks made, and on you, Prince, especially. The greater the success is, the more they will try to belittle it, and even to use it against you." "Oh, well!" resumed the Duke d'Aumale with a smile, " General de Lamoriciere is a deputy of the left, and I fancy you are not altogether without friends in the republican party; you two can parry that." Politics had so deteriorated the national character that the tidings of the most fortunate event for France were received by the opposition not merely with indiffer- ence but with hostility. This was a bad symptom, but the government was not excessively alarmed by it. The Duke de Broglie wrote to his son, early in January: " The situation here is good without being excel- lent. The majority are very well united. Never- theless, there is always some latent trouble. The events of last year have left their traces, and the majority, when they feel solidly established, begin to dream again of reforms and to look for some little thing or other to destroy. Purses are empty, savings are used up, and credit and confidence are very slowly and painfully restored. It will be up-hill work all 6 THE DEVOLUTION OF 1848 through the session. M. Guizot is, as usual, satis- fied and confident. Duchatel is well, but less ardent and enthusiastic. The rest of the minis- ters seem to be hopeful and in good humor." Uneasiness had not as yet made its way into official circles. CHAPTER II THE OBSEQUIES OF MADAME ADELAIDE first ceremony of 1848 was the celebration of JL Madame Adelaide's obsequies. They took place at Dreux, 011 January 5. At three o'clock the previ- ous day, the Archbishop of Paris, the clergy of Saint Germain-l'Auxerrois, and the cures of the different parishes of the capital had repaired to the Tuileries and recited prayers in the mortuary chapel in the pavilion of Flora, where the body of the Princess lay. On the 5th, at four o'clock in the morning, the funeral car started for Dreux, accompanied by the Duke de Nemours, the Prince de Joinville, and the Duke de Montpensier. In her last will, Madame Adelaide had expressed her wish that the care of directing her obsequies and following her mortal remains to the vaults of Dreux should be confided by the King to the princes, with- out his assisting in person at so painful a ceremony. Louis Philippe did not comply with this desire. He left the Tuileries at one o'clock, January 4, along with the Queen, the Duchesses of Orleans and Ne- mours, the Princess Clementine and her husband, Duke Augustus of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. They ar- 7 8 THE REVOLUTION OF 1S4S rived at Dreux, at eight o'clock in the evening, and were joined the next morning by the King and Queen of the Belgians. Some time before the end of the old regime, Louis XVI. had purchased from the Duke de Penthievre, King Louis Philippe's maternal grandfather, the do- main of Rambouillet, where rested the remains of the Count and Countess of Toulouse, the father and mother of the Duke, who had them transferred to the vaults of his chateau of Dreux, where he, also, was soon afterwards interred. As Bossuet said, speaking of the Pharaohs, " He did not long enjoy his sepul- chre." The Revolution destroyed the chateau and broke up the tombs. But when the Duchess-dowager of Orleans, the daughter of the Duke de Penthievre, returned to France with Louis XVIII., her first care was to restore the vaults to their first destination. She was buried there in 1821, and from that time the chapel of Dreux became the family burying-place of the Orleans family. King Louis Philippe caused what remained of the old chateau to be repaired and arranged, so as to have a temporary residence, a sort of pious way-station, near the chapel he built amidst these ruins to replace the one destroyed by the Rev- olution. It was there he spent the night of January 4-5, 1848. The funeral car, drawn by eight horses draped in mourning, and led by domestics in full black livery, arrived at Dreux at noonday. The three princes who accompanied it alighted from their carriages at THE OBSEQUIES OF MADAME ADELAIDE 9 the entrance of the town, and followed it on foot. Never since the mournful clay which saw the remains of the prince-royal carried within the walls of Dreux, had the town presented a more doleful aspect. A numerous crowd, coming from all quarters of the surrounding country, thronged the streets while awaiting the arrival of Madame Adelaide's remains. The car was followed by two hundred priests in sur- plices, belonging to the dioceses of Chartres and of Evreux, and also by two long files of poor people, clad at the King's expense, and carrying candles. The convoy, after having slowly climbed the long ascent which leads to the esplanade of the chateau, halted at the principal entrance, where it was re- ceived by the King with his head uncovered, and dressed in mourning. His sobs drew tears from every eye. For the first time, his green old age seemed to bend under the weight of sorrow. How- ever, without giving his arm to any one, he put him- self at the head of the procession. His three sons followed him, as deeply affected as himself. The office for the dead, celebrated by the Archbishop of Chalcedoine, lasted two hours. The King wished to follow the body of his sister into the vault where, between two rows of lighted candles, the tomb, opened for a moment in order to be closed forever, now awaited her. A small number of persons were permitted to attend the sovereign in this final trial. After the De Profundis, which, chanted in this sub- terranean city of the dead, seemed like the voices 10 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 of the dead themselves, he approached the tomb, sprinkled the coffin with holy water, and then, col- lecting himself for a last adieu, knelt down on the stone and watered it with his tears. This was the third time within eight years that Lonis Philippe had led a train of mourners to Dreux. He had paid the last respects to his daughter, the Prin- cess Marie, January 4, 1839; to his son, the Duke of Orleans, August 4, 1842. January 5, 1848, came to reopen the scarcely healed wounds of his heart. Marie Amelie trembled on finding herself again in this chapel, which had been the tomb of so many hopes. Besides the Princess Marie and the Duke of Orleans, two of her children, a boy and a girl who died very young, rested in these vaults, where her own place and that of her husband were already designated. She was to pray there only once more before her death, on the morning of February 25, 1848, and then under what terrible conditions! But we will not anticipate. An hour after Madame Adelaide's funeral the King and his family quitted Dreux. On returning to the Tuileries, the unhappy sovereign found himself more afflicted than before. He could not accustom him- self to the thought of never again seeing his sister, and kept staring fixedly at the door through which he had been in the habit of passing every morning from his own apartment into that of this faithful companion of his whole existence. She was his Egeria, and he had lost her just at the moment when THE OBSEQUIES OF MADAME ADELAIDE 11 he needed her counsels most. However, great as was his sorrow, he continued to fulfil his duties as sovereign with his customary zeal. Nothing could discourage this old man of seventy-four, who knew neither moral nor physical fatigue. Though the private man was afflicted, the public man, the sover- eign, had not yet had a moment of weakness. In spite of his grief, he did not view the political situa- tion under a gloomy aspect. He thought that the campaign of banquets, ended in the provinces, would not recommence in Paris. He was aware of the wrath excited in the ranks of the opposition by that phrase in his speech from the throne in which he spoke of "the agitation fomented by inimical or blind pas- sions"; but he was convinced that all this noisy anger was merely a fire of straw which would soon die out. Seeing both his domestic and his foreign policy supported in Parliament by a strong and com- pact majority, he showed himself irrevocably resolved on not abandoning this majority, which he thought he could draw on as an unfailing source of strength. The Commission on the Address had just been ap- pointed by the Chamber of Deputies, and the nine members elected were all partisans of the ministry. In this first manifestation, the King saw the hope, the certitude, of a great parliamentary victory. He awaited the coming debates with absolute confidence. The old pilot told himself that he had already weath- ered many a storm, and that so long as he kept his hand on the helm the ship had nothing to fear. CHAPTER III COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT T1HE discussion of the Address began in the Chamber of Peers on the 10th of January. It furnished to Count de Montalembert the occasion for one of the finest oratorical triumphs of Louis Philippe's reign. Born in London on March 10, 1810, M. de Mon- talembert would soon be thirty-eight years old. His mother was an Englishwoman ; his father, an emigre who had served in Condes army, was a member of the Chamber of 'Peers, and Minister of France at Stockholm under the reign of Charles X. He was himself a member of the Upper Chamber, although he had not yet reached the prescribed age for casting a deliberative vote, at the time when, in 1831, he opened a free school with the Abbd Lacordaire, the future Dominican. When prosecuted on this ac- count, he appealed to the jurisdiction of the Cham- ber to which he belonged, and after having made an eloquent defense he was fined one hundred francs. Already he had sworn eternal enmity to university monopoly. Liberty of instruction was the programme 12 COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT 13 of his entire public life. He became the chief of the party called the Catholic party, which, placing the Church above all forms of government, subordi- nated all other interests, whatever they might be, to the interests of religion. " The Catholics of France, " said he, "are numerous, wealthy, and esteemed; the only thing they lack is courage. . . . They are ac- customed to rely on everything but themselves. . . . Liberty is not accepted, it is conquered." Half nobleman, half tribune, an intrepid defender of re- ligious liberty and of down-trodden nationalities, he maintained his ideas with the zeal and conviction of an apostle. There were perceptible analogies between the sentiments of the leader of the Catholic party and those of Marie Amelie. Like him, she had the habit of judging all questions from the religious point of view. Like him, she was persuaded that outside of the Church there was no chance of salva- tion for society. But, more prudent, calmer, and more circumspect than the impetuous orator, she displayed her sentiments with less energy and vehe- mence. M. de Montalembert was in a state of exasperation when the year 1848 began. The Swiss Catholics had just been cruelly defeated by the Swiss radicals. The matter in dispute was the Sonderbund, the league formed in 1846 by the seven Catholic cantons, Fribourg, Lucerne, Schwitz, Unterwald, Uri, Zug, and Valais, for the purpose of resisting the Federal 14 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 Diet, which had prescribed the expulsion of the Jes- uits, Redemptorists, and other religious congrega- tions. The Sonderbund, supported in vain by the four great continental powers, had been crushed out. Secretly encouraged by England, the Diet had ob- tained an easy victory. In any case, the forces were wholly disproportionate. The cantons forming the Sonderbund had only 394,000 inhabitants, nearly all of whom were poor, while the population of the much more wealthy cantons under the domination of the radicals was 1, 867, 000 souls. The forces of the federal army, under command of General Dufour, amounted to 50,000 troops of the first line, 30,000 reserves, and 172 cannons, while the Sonderbund had in all but 25,000 fighting men. After several skirmishes, its principal centre, Lucerne, surrendered, November 24, 1847. Victorious radicalism was inexorable. "It is the will of God," said the Duke de Broglie in the Chamber of Peers, January 13, 1848, "that, after sixty years, we should once more behold con- quest with its pitiless demands, military occupation with its greedy exactions, the profanation of holy places, the devastation of holy things, general con- scriptions, wholesale confiscations made by revolu- tionary governments, improvised at the point of the bayonet, and in their turn improvising, in the name of law, inquisition and persecution to the plaudits of the populace." Paragraph seven of the Address debated in the Chamber of Peers was thus expressed : " The peace COUNT DE MONTALEMKERT 15 of the Swiss cantons, those ancient and faithful allies of France, has been disturbed by domestic dis- cords. It is regrettable that a friendly mediation could not prevent civil war. We desire that it shall leave no fatal traces behind it, and that the rights of all shall be respected. The Helvetian Confedera- tion will recognize that the situation guaranteed to it by the treaties, in conformity with all its historic traditions, is the basis of its repose and the pledge of security given to neighboring states." It was apropos of this paragraph that M. de Montalembert, in the session of January 14, delivered a speech which was one long cry of anger, grief, and indignation. "The thing at stake on the other side of the Jura," he exclaimed, " is neither the Jesuits nor the national sovereignty; it is order, the peace of Europe, the security of the world and of France; that is what has been vanquished, stifled, crushed at our doors, at our frontiers, by men who ask nothing better than to launch the brands of discord, war, and anarchy from the other side of the Alps and the Jura. Hence I do not come to speak for the vanquished, but, van- quished myself, I address the vanquished; that is, the representatives of social order, of regular order, of liberal order, which has just been overthown in Switzerland, and which is menaced throughout Europe, by a new invasion of barbarians." The audience shuddered while listening to this description of the radical triumph: "Do you know what these haughty conquerors whom they have been 16 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 praising to you did on the morrow of the victory? They dared to write with their bloody pen the name of Saint Vincent de Paul in a decree expelling those Sisters of Charity who are an object of veneration, admiration, and respect to all the world. And how have they expelled them ? Like wild beasts, shame- lessly giving them but three times twenty-four hours to evacuate the canton, without pension and without indemnity, they, those saintly women, those daugh- ters, not of Ignatius Loyola, but of Saint Vincent de Paul. Nor did they stop there." Then, turning toward those of his colleagues who had served under the standards of the Republic and the Empire, "Do you see," cried the orator, "those armed men ascend- ing that defile of the Alps which many of you have followed? See them climbing that precipitous way which, for so many centuries, millions of Christians, strangers, travellers, have trodden with respect and gratitude ; they are going where the French Repub- lic halted with respect, where the body of Desaix, your comrade Desaix, found a tomb worthy of him, where Bonaparte, the First Consul, left the souvenir of his intelligent toleration. . . . And what are they going to do there, these conquerors without a battle ? It must be said, they are going to steal ; yes, to steal the patrimony of the poor, of the travellers, of those monks of Saint Bernard whom ten centuries have surrounded with their love and veneration. . . . The shameful thing is the victory, a victory won without a struggle, by ten against one, a victory COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT 17 which will present itself to posterity flanked on one side by an expelled Sister of Charity, and on the other by a monk of Saint Bernard, robbed, evicted, and insulted by these cowardly victors." The Catholic' orator had communicated to his audi- tors the sentiments of indignation which flooded his own soul. As was said by the National, a republican journal : " Nobody had ever so moved the desks, the wooden knives, and the lungs of the peerage. This was not agitation, but transport; not spasms, but a sort of high fever. Shouts, bravos, stampings, served as an accompaniment to the effusions of his eloquence. Impassioned himself, almost to frenzy, he spurted over all the benches currents of electricity which made them jump." The Upper Chamber shared M. de Montalembert's emotion all the more easily because it agreed with him in thinking that the triumph of the Swiss radicals foreboded radical victories in other countries, perhaps even in France itself. The orator insisted on the solidarity estab- lished between the victors of the Sonderbund and their French admirers, who in their banquets had just been making noisy apologies for the excesses com- mitted on the other side of the Alps. "What was said at the banquets," he exclaimed, "must not be forgotten, and the echo of it should be prolonged as a profound and salutary warning. They did not limit themselves to confounding liberty with the Revolution, and the Revolution with the Convention. They did not merely proclaim that the guillotine was 18 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 the tribune from which France had spoken to kings and to Europe. They did not simply protest against the aristocracy of capital. No; they went on to hail with enthusiasm the victories and the heroes of SAviss radicalism, as if there were to be found the actual practice of the glorious theories they were proclaim- ing. . . . They have sought out whatever was most sanguinary, most ignoble, in our Revolution, in order to make of it a sort of programme and justi- fication of the new doctrines they are preaching to the French people. . . . The wolves have discov- ered that there is no need of disguising themselves as shepherds. Hence they talk like wolves, and men applaud them and drink with them to fraternity and humanity." After defining his position as that of a Catholic, but a liberal Catholic, the orator went on to say : " I defy any one to find a word issuing from my pen or dropped from my lips which was not destined to serve liberty. Liberty! Ah! I can say without a boast that it has been the idol of my soul. If I have any reproach to address myself, it is that I have loved it too well, loved it as one loves in youth, beyond measure, beyond restrictions. But I do not reproach myself; I will continue to serve it, to love it always, to believe in it forever. And I think I have never loved it more, never served it better than on this day when I have striven to tear off the mask of its enemies, who adopt its colors and usurp its flag only to dishonor and to soil it." The enthusiasm of the peers continued to increase. COUNT DE MONTALENBEET 19 As was said by the Presse : " The eaglet became an eagle; it soared to a height which the most com- plaisant friendship had not supposed it capable of attaining. Few orators have ever counted so com- plete a success in all their lifetime." Here is the burning peroration of this discourse, which called forth frenzied bursts of applause: "For my part, it is my conviction that the greatest of all evils in a political society is fear. Do you know what has been the source of all our catastrophes in this infa- mous and bloody society which men are striving with all their might to rehabilitate? It is fear. Yes ; the fear that honest men have of scoundrels, and even tfietear which petty scoundrels have of great ones. Do not be afraid, gentlemen; do not allow the wickeclto have the monopoly of energ}-, of audac- i tvl^ Lethon es t men be energetic in well-doing; when needs must, let good citizens be audacious! Let them unite to defend energetically our glorious institutions conquered in 1789 and in 1830. Let us defend them at home and abroad by showing our horror of all that resembles 1793 and 1799. Let this be our policy, this the principle of union between all who at bottom desire the same thing : liberty, order, and peace. Guard liberty above all ; learn from what has happened beyond the Jura how dangerous it is not to know how to tolerate, to comprehend, to sup- port even those whose ideas, beliefs, and affections we do not share. Do not forget that this liberty has just been immolated in Switzerland and betrayed by 20 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 England, but that the destiny of France is to be for- ever its standard and protector." When the orator ceased speaking, acclamations resounded from all sides. The peers left their seats and hastened to congratulate him. Among the most enthusiastic was the Duke de Nemours. Never had an alarum produced a greater impression. It was the tocsin which announced not merely the Revolution of Feb- ruary, but all future struggles between Catholicism and radicalism. CHAPTER IV THE CHAMBER OF PEEKS A LARGE majority of the Upper Chamber which had so enthusiastically applauded Count de Montalembert's speech was devoted to the King and M. Guizot, and faithfully interpreted the domestic and the foreign policy of the sovereign. It contained few adherents of reform, and the Luxembourg palace appeared to be an essentially conservative centre. The ministry had nothing to fear from that quarter. But if the Chamber of Peers was not a danger to it, neither was it a force. The noble assembly was to play no part whatever in the forthcoming drama. And yet the debates on the Address, which took place there between the 10th and 18th of January, 1848, were more than usually spirited, and even among its members the symptoms of revolutionary effervescence might be detected. Two members of the aristocracy, the Marquis de Boissy, who had married Byron's mistress, the Coun- tess Guiccioli, and Count d'Alton-She'e, talked like advanced democrats. The latter greatly scandalized his colleagues by making an apology for the^Conven- 21 22 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 tion, in the session of January 13. The Duke de Pasquier, who presided, thought fit to address him the following severe admonition: "Sir, you should have waited a few years longer before eulogizing the Convention, as you seem to desire ; you should have waited until members yet sitting here, who lost their fathers, sisters, and most cherished relatives by the sanguinary decrees of that Convention, had disap- peared and left the field clear for the praises you are anxious to bestow." The discussion over Italian affairs likewise created great excitement. Pius IX., who was elected Pope June 16, 1846, had inspired not only the liberals but even the revolutionary party with the most ardent hopes. Mazzini had written him, September 8, 1847 : "Holy Father, be confident, rely 011 us. We shall found for you a government unique in Europe. We shall know how to convert into impressive action the instinct which is convulsing Italy, from one end to the other. I address myself to you because I deem you worthy to be the initiator of this vast enterprise." At the same period, the King of Piedmont, Charles Albert, wrote to one of his ministers : " We have a pope who is both firm and holy, and who will be able to sustain with dignity the national independence. I have informed him that, whatever may happen, I will never separate my cause from his. A war of national independence which should unite in defence of the Pope would be the greatest good-fortune that could happen to me." These misconceptions were THE CHAMBER OF PEERS 23 soon to end. Pius IX. was not to be the ally of either Charles Albert or Mazzini. Already the first symptoms of disenchantment were becoming evident. But in France, M. Guizot's adversaries were unwill- ing to recognize them. In their view, Pius IX. always represented the cause of Italian independence, and the French government was to be Austria's ally against the Pope. Curious spectacle to see the Vol- tairians of the left reproaching the ministry with not upholding the Sovereign Pontiff, and associating Pius IX. and M. Ochsenbein, the chief of the Swiss radicals, the persecutor of Catholicism, the victorious enemy of the Sonderbund, in the toasts given at their banquets. In the Chamber of Peers the Pope had enthusias- tic admirers. The Vicomte Victor Hugo, as the poet was then styled in official circles, eulogized the Holy Father on January 13, in what was almost a hymn of praise. " This man," said he, " who holds in his hands the keys to the thoughts of so many men, might have sealed up the intelligence of men, and he has opened it. He has set the idea of emancipation and liberty on the highest summit where man can place a light. The eternal principles, which noth- ing can sully and nothing can destroy, Avhich caused our Revolution and survived it, those principles of right, equality, and reciprocal duty which fifty years ago made their appearance in the world for a moment, always grand doubtless, but ferocious, formidable, and terrible under the bonnet rouge, have been trans- 24 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 figured by Pius IX., who has just displayed them to the universe glowing with mildness, sweet and ven- erable under the tiara. It is, in truth, because their veritable crown is there! Pius IX. is showing the good and secure path to kings and peoples, to states- men and philosophers, to all mankind. Thanks be to him ! He has made himself the evangelical auxil- iary, the supreme and sovereign auxiliary of those lofty social verities which the continent, to our great and serious honor, denominates French ideas. He, the master of consciences, has made himself the ser- vitor of reason. . . . He has come to show the nations that it is unnecessary to shed blood in order to fertilize the furrow where germinates the future of free peoples, but that it is enough to spread abroad ideas ; that the Gospel contains all charters : that the liberty of all peoples, like the deliverance of all slaves, was in the heart of Christ and should be in the heart of the bishop; that when he wills it, the man of peace is a greater conqueror than the man of war, and a better conqueror; that he who has true divine charity, true human fraternity, in his soul, has at the same time the true genius of politics, and that, in a word, for those who govern men, to be holy and to be great is one and the same thing." The illustrious poet touched the summit of enthu- siasm. "Yes," said he, "I insist upon it, a pope who adopts the French Revolution, who makes of it the Christian revolution, and includes it in that benediction which from the balcony of the Quirinal THE CHAMBER OF PEERS 25 at Rome he sheds over Rome and the universe, urbi et orbi, a pope who does this extraordinary and sub- lime thing is not merely a man, he is an event." Already presaging Italian unity, the lyrical orator continued : " Yes, gentlemen, I am one of those who tremble in thinking that Rome, ancient and fecund Rome, that metropolis of unity, after having brought forth unity of faith, unity of dogma, Christian unity, is again in travail, and will perhaps bring forth, amid the acclamations of the world, the unity of Italy." The problems of the future asserted themselves. "Independence! Independence!" exclaimed M. Cousin, during the same session; "what a sacred and dolorous word it is that I pronounce ! I myself feel like uttering it in affright, so laden with tem- pests is it! . . . The Holy See and Piedmont are the two powers whose own character and situation call on them to be the great instruments of Italian regeneration. The Pope is its soul, Piedmont its arm. The Pope has given the signal ; it is his part to direct it. It is he who, by virtue of his double title, as temporal prince of the centre of Italy, and above all as pastor of souls, should inspire, sustain, conduct this great enterprise." And, as if he had foreseen the future annexations, M. Cousin added: "The Piedmontese are, in a way, the Macedonians of Italy." M. Guizot was far from sharing the idea of a cru- sade of Pius IX. and Charles Albert against Austria. 26 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 He desired reforms in Italy, not disturbances, and belonged to that school of politicians who thought that, as France was unable to rectify its own fron- tiers, it was not called upon to rectify those of other countries. A most distinguished diplomat, Count de Sainte-Aulaire, who had been French ambassador at Rome in the beginning of Louis Philippe's reign, was the interpreter of M. Guizot's policy when, throwing cold water on the inflammatory speeches we have just cited, he said, in the session of January 12: "M. de Montalembert has spoken of the happy and glorious exaltation of Pius IX. ; for my part, I shall speak of the anguish of Gregory XVI. at his entry into the pontificate. M. de Montalembert has spoken to you of the legitimate liberalism of 1847; I shall speak to you of the culpable liberalism of 1831. M. de Montalembert has spoken to you of Austria, which, according to him, ought to be mis- trusted in 1847; I shall speak to you of the sincere and liberal concurrence lent us by Austria in 1831 in order to obtain liberal reforms. As to Italian liberalism, be on your guard against whatever would tend to excite, exalt, or encourage it beyond due measure. It has no need of anything but sedatives and to be incessantly recalled to prudence and moder- ation. ... In fact, gentlemen, I do not believe that anything stable can be realized in Italy at pres- ent without the concurrence of Austria. And I am convinced that it can easily be obtained on reasona- ble conditions." Such was, at bottom, the position THE CHAMBER OF PEERS 27 of the ministry. Its adversaries judged the Italian question from an entirely different point of view. In discussing internal affairs the Chamber of Peers showed evidence of tact and prudence. Notwith- standing the steps taken by certain partisans of the ministry, it did not insist upon the words " blind or inimical passions," which had so greatly irritated some minds in the speech from the throne, and appealed in it to legal action and public reason to preserve the repose of the country. On January 18, it voted the whole Address, by a majority of 144 against 23. The next day this Address was pre- sented to the King by the grand deputation of the Upper Chamber. The Duke de Nemours, Prince de Joinville, and the Duke de Montpensier stood at the right and left of the throne. The most important paragraph had been drawn up by Baron de Barante. It ran as follows: "Noisy manifestations in which vague ideas of reform and progress, passions inimi- cal to our monarchical constitution, opinions subver- sive of social order, and detestable souvenirs were blindly mingled, have disquieted men rather than cast them into perturbation. The Government was obliged to take them into consideration. We are persuaded that such agitations, tolerated by a regime of liberty, are powerless against public order. Yes, Sire, the union of the great powers of the state, the action of the laws, public reason, will suffice to pre- serve the repose of the country, to bring back wan- dering minds, and to dispel senseless hopes. The 28 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 seventeen years during which our dear country has at last simultaneously enjoyed order and liberty, are far from being another phase of our revolutions. This period begins a durable era, and will bequeath to future generations the maintenance of the Charter, the benefits of your reign, and the glory of your name. Sire, may the thought of what you are to France sustain your strength and courage and soften the griefs which have just wounded you in your dearest affections ! " The King replied in words full of confidence and serenity. The drawing up and the voting of the Address by the Chamber of Peers had been an incontestable triumph for the ministry. But this was merely a first station on the perilous road which had yet to be travelled. The discussion of the Address by the Chamber of Deputies was about to reunite in a formidable attack all the forces of the opposition. CHAPTER V M. GUIZOT AND THE COURT MGUIZOT, who was about to begin the desper- , ate struggle which heralded the Revolution, in the Chamber of Deputies, was full of energy and confidence, in spite of the opposition against him which existed in the immediate surroundings of the sovereign. Many persons, even at Court, thought the ministry had lasted too long, and that to main- tain it in power might lead to catastrophes. In the royal family the prime minister could count on no supporters except the King and the Duke de Nemours, who was accustomed to share his father's opinions on all questions. The Duchess of Orleans, who was liberal like her husband, believed that a reactionary policy involved grave dangers for the future of the dynasty, and she received deputies who had the same conviction at the Marsan pavilion. Prince de Join- ville, not daring to express his mind to his father, who would not allow his sons to offer not merely any criticism but even an observation, however respect- ful, imparted his uneasiness to his mother, and the Queen was troubled by it. 29 30 THE EEVOLUTION OF 1848 There was an atmosphere of hostility at Court against M. Guizot, a silent opposition, existing as yet in a latent state, but which already caused the powerful minister serious anxiety, and which he has characterized as follows in his Memoirs : " The people of the Court, I will not call them courtiers, for they are not all such, there also there is often more sincerity and disinterestedness than one thinks, the people of the Court, I say, are in politics specta- tors greatly occupied with what is done or happens, and yet very idle ; they behold all events, both great and small, at too close quarters, and they exert no public influence for which they are responsible ; they are actors, who live only in the green room. . . . At the Court of Louis Philippe I did not lack parti- sans and friends sincerely attached to our policy; but I also found fault-rinders, malcontents, and more or less outspoken adversaries ; and, as the situation became more serious in the country and the Chambers, the anxieties of some and the hopes of others at Court grew more keen, and sought to prove them- selves not altogether vain." At the chateau of the Tuileries, as well as at the Palais-Bourbon, there was a right and a left side, excited and irritated against each other. So impressed was M. Guizot with such tendencies, that in the early days of 1847 he had spontaneously offered Louis Philippe to withdraw from public affairs in case the sovereign were not resolved to support him energetically. He had said then : " Sire, M. GUIZOT AND THE COURT 31 the Cabinet is greatly attacked, but not merely in the Chamber and by the turbulent public; it is so occasionally near the King himself, in his Court, and perhaps higher still." -"True," replied Louis Philippe, "and I am distressed about it; they even disturbed and troubled my excellent Queen for a moment; but be tranquil, I have reassured her; she clings to you as much as I do." In the same con- versation, M. Guizot had said: "At present the King might change his Cabinet from prudential motives, but when the struggle is once begun he could do so only from necessity." " You know very well, "re turned the sovereign, "that I am thoroughly resolved not to outstep the constitutional r6gime, and that I mean to accept all its obligations, even those that are unpleasant ; but just now there is no constitutional necessity; you have always had a ma- jority. What should I be yielding to if I changed my ministers now? Not to the Chambers, nor to the clear and recognized will of the country, but to manifestations devoid of all authority but the pleasure of those who make them, and to a commotion which is the evident cloak of evil designs. No, my dear minister, if the constitutional regime wills me to part with you, I shall comply with my constitu- tional obligations, but I Avill not make this sacrifice in advance and out of complaisance for ideas I do not approve." Every day confirmed the King in his resolution not to change a ministry which had a majority in the 32 THE REVOLUTION OF 1348 Chambers, and whose ideas were in perfect conform- ity with his. It must be recognized, moreover, that from the standpoint of parliamentary institutions the sovereign's attitude was absolutely correct, and even that he could not modify it without departing from the rules of the constitutional regime. What would the right, which supported the King's policy with such zeal and fidelity, have thought had it been sacrificed to the left? M. Guizot's partisans would probably not have rallied to the support of M. Thiers, and then dissolution would have become an indispen- sable measure. Now, in the disturbed condition of the public mind, and after the agitation caused by the ban- quets, would not that have been a dangerous venture ? Could the King abandon a Chamber absolutely de- voted to him in order to bring about the election of a new Chamber, whose sentiments would at least be doubtful? Would not that have been ungrateful and imprudent on his part? Moreover, Louis Philippe was convinced that nothing is more dangerous for a government which is opposed than to surrender to the summons of its adversaries. "Who knows," said he to M. Guizot, " how far the declivity they want me to go to would lead me? When one begins to descend he is very near falling." The minister had written to the Duke de Broglie, December 13, 1847 : " I need every- thing I can possibly have in the way of physical and moral force. If I could have it, I would willingly use it in the existing situation, for it suits me. It M. GUIZOT AND THE COURT 33 is lively, but it is clearly defined. At home and abroad we are everywhere face to face with the radi- cals, and the more I see of them, the more I recog- nize the enemy in them." The King was entirely of the same mind as his minister. He also would have adopted for his programme : " Radicalism is the enemy." Considering himself the defender of soci- ety, menaced in France and elsewhere, he thought it his mission to preserve Europe from revolutionary enterprises, and regarded the policy of resistance as a social necessity. In his view, to call the opposi- tion to the ministry would have been to shut up a wolf in the sheepfold. All that he saw in electoral reform was an approach to universal suffrage, and it was his conviction that universal suffrage would inevitably lead to the Republic or to Cscsarism. As to the parliamentary reform, which, although admit- ting certain functionaries to the Chamber of Depu- ties, was to exclude the members of his civil and military families, he considered it an attack made on the dignity of his Crown. He said to M. Dupin : " You want me to dismiss my ministry and summon Mold; but Mold would go to pieces, and after him what is there? M. Thiers escorted by MM. Barrot and Duvergier, who would deprive me of all power and ruin my policy ; no, no, a thousand times no. I have a great mission to fulfil, not in France only, but in Europe, that of restoring order. That is my destiny, that is my glory, and no one shall make me renounce it." D 34 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 It is certain that the return of M. Thiers to power would have been the condemnation of all the King's ideas, not solely as concerned his domestic policy, but also, and more especially, his foreign policy. Louis Philippe considered the Spanish marriages as the greatest success of his reign, and M. Thiers had been opposed to them. Louis Philippe regarded Lord Palmerston as his principal enemy, and M. Thiers was Lord Palmerston 's ally. Louis Philippe, a partisan of the Sonderbund, combated the Swiss radicals ; M. Thiers supported them. Louis Philippe sought the alliance of the continental powers, and M. Thiers that of England. The disagreement could not be more complete. The Duke de Broglie wrote from London, Decem- ber 16, 1847: "It is clear that the new Cabinet, whatever it may be, will pass under the yoke of Lord Palmerston and M. Thiers, and that France will take rank, behind England, at the head of the radicals of Europe; that is nearly as certain as that two and two make four. Hence I conclude that nothing is of more pressing importance, either for France or for Europe, than the maintenance of the present Cabinet, and that it is essential that the Cabinet itself shall not succumb until after having done all that is hon- orably in its power to save itself, and that the con- servative powers of Europe ought likewise to make every sacrifice for the maintenance of the Cabinet which comports with their honor and dignity." If the Duke de Broglie, who was not a reactionary, was M. GUIZOT AND THE COURT 35 of this opinion, can one be astonished that it was also that of a sovereign who had become absolutely conservative ? Louis Philippe thought he had reached the apogee of his career. He found in the Chamber of Deputies the strongest majority which had ever supported his policy. At last he was playing the part he had so long aspired to in the European concert. He was marching in line with the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria, and was beginning to win over the Emperor of Russia. It was no longer France, but England, that was isolated. The revenge of 1840 seemed imminent. Lord Minto's revolutionary mission in Italy irritated the continental Courts, and Louis Philippe thought he was ready to unite with them in checking those tendencies to unity, which, in his view, constituted a danger not simply to his relatives, the Bourbons of Naples, but likewise to the Papacy and France. Not for any consideration would he have changed at such a moment the direc- tion of his diplomacy. "Thiers," said he to M. de Montalivet, "that means war! And I will not anni- hilate my policy of peace." Moreover, there were negotiations pending which, in the King's view, could not be conducted to a happy termination by any except his existing ministry. The Cabinets of Vienna and Berlin, far from considering the Swiss business at an end, saw in the defeat of the Sonder- bund only a new diplomatic phase, in which France was to play the leading part, and the 15th of March, 36 THE REVOLUTION OF 184S 1848, had been fixed as the date on which the powers would resume their deliberations on this subject. The Duke de Broglie wrote to his son that Lord Palmerston would then be " left entirely alone, frater- nizing with the radicals, and with their flag in his hand." On the other hand, the situation at Rome was be- coming complicated. The radicals were beginning to threaten the Pope, and Louis Philippe wanted to protect him. "It was evident," writes M. Guizot in his Memoirs, " that Rome was the centre of Italian events and perils. By taking up our position in Rome we could support the influence, at once re- formatory and anti-revolutionary, of Pius IX., by guaranteeing the security and peace of the Catholic Church. On my proposition, the King and his council resolved that, if the Pope were menaced, either from within or without, and should call on us for assistance, we would give it efficaciously. Cer- tain regiments were designated, a commander ap- pointed for this contingent expedition, 2500 men were kept at Toulon and 2500 more at Port Vendres, in readiness to embark for Civita Vecchia at the first signal. I had two long interviews with Gen- eral Aupick, an officer as intelligent as he was brave, which assured me that he thoroughly comprehended our intention and would conform his conduct to it. By the 27th of January, 1848, all his measures were taken." Louis Philippe was convinced that, by a foreign policy, both liberal and conservative, lie could M. GUIZOT AND THE COURT 37 put an end to the hostility of England and appear as the arbiter of Europe, on one condition, that of retaining his ministry in power. M. Guizot had adversaries at Court, but the King continued to give him all his confidence. CHAPTER VI THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES r I ^iHE Chamber of Deputies should have been a JL power for the government, but it was only a danger. It should have prevented the Revolution, and it prepared the way for it. To save the throne would have required a disinterestedness which it did not possess. Its duty was to lay aside all questions of self, all competitions for portfolios, and to put the general interests of France above all private ones. Instead of this, the Chamber yielded to mean passions, and did wrong without estimating the consequences. Seldom has an assembly shown less prudence and composure. It marched gaily toward the abyss and plunged into it headlong. Up to the very morning of February 24, 1848, it was under a complete illusion. Not one member of the left, nor of the right, for that matter, suspected what was going to happen. In both camps there was absolute blindness, and if one can reproach Louis Philippe with having deceived himself, one can also say that the whole Chamber was as greatly deceived as he. The sovereign disdained the agitations in the 38 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES 39 Chamber. Its most tumultuous sessions appeared to him extremely soothing in comparison with those of the Convention, which he had witnessed in his youth. The parliamentary storms of the Palais-Bour- bon were to his mind nothing more than tempests in a teacup. To M. Sallandrouze, a rich manufacturer who wanted to play the great politician in the Chamber of Deputies, he said, with rather malicious good-nature: "Are your carpets selling well, M. Sallandrouze?" The King thought that all that was necessary to calm down the most exasperated was to offer him a portfolio. The government of July had, in fact, nothing but the Orleanist element to fear in the Chamber. Neither legitimacy, Bonapartism, nor the Republic, was in question there. M. Berryer conducted him- self better toward Louis Philippe than his own most convinced partisans. He had not participated in the banquets, and had loyally shown up their revolu- tionary character. He had frankly approved the foreign policy of the government, and defended the Spanish marriages. "We received from M. Ber- ryer," writes the Count de Falloux, "the example of patriotism dominating that collective egotism which is called party spirit. ... It was certainly a temp- tation to applaud men who turned against the gov- ernment founded by them the arms they had employed so powerfully against the Restoration. We might have found more than one bitter satisfac- tion in so doing; we might have sought there for 40 THE REVOLUTION OF 1S48 the sanction of principles to which we were re- proached for having been faithful. But this satis- faction and this sanction, whether indisputable or not, might become fatal to France, and that was enough to awaken conscientious scruples and make them prevail." Not a single legitimist deputy had appeared at the banquets, and the partisans of the Count de Chambord exercised no influence in the Chamber. They did not lay aside their arms, but they were no longer fighting. As to Bonapartism, there was not even a question of it in parliamentary circles. There was not a single Bonapartist deputy in the Chamber. MM. Odilon Barrot, Dufaure, de Tocqueville, Lanjuinais, Le'on Faucher, de Falloux, would have been ex- tremely astonished had any one told them they would presently be the Ministers of the President of the Republic, Louis Bonaparte! Still more amazed would MM. de Morny, Achille Fould, Abbatucci, DTICOS, Billault, Drouyn de Lhuys, Baroche, Magne, Behic, all of them Orleanist deputies, have been, had it been announced to them that they would be the Ministers of the Emperor Napoleon III. The republican element was almost null in the Chamber. Not a deputy would have dared pro- nounce the word Republic or allude to that regime in any way. One alone, M. Ledru-Rollin, was known to have republican opinions. Summoned be- fore the tribunals on this account, he had one day said: "Attorney-general, who gave you the inves- THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES 41 titure? The minister. I, the elector, I drive out ministers. In whose name do you speak? In the name of the King. I, the elector, and history is there to bear me out, I make and unmake kings. Attorney-general, to your knees ! To your knees before my sovereignty ! To discuss my impartiality is to lay hands upon my electoral crown ! " In the banquets of 184T, at Lille, Chalon-sur-Sadne, and Dijon, M. Ledru-Rollin had used language equally vehement and declamatory. But if he had attempted to express himself in the Chamber in such terms he would have been silenced at once. He had not the slightest notion of doing so, and when he spoke it was much more as a lawyer than a demagogue. His future colleagues in the provisional government, MM. Dupont (of the department of the Eure), Carnot, Marie, Garnier-Pag6s, never alluded in their speeches to the possibility of a revolution. Possibly they would have been content with a change of ministers and, in case of the death or abdication of the King, with the regency of the Duchess of Orleans and the accession of the liberals to power. As to M. de Lamartine, who in 1847 never made a single speech in the Chamber, he was living isolated and solitary in the midst of his colleagues, a general without sol- diers, a philosopher without disciples, scornful of parliamentarism, and awaiting with Oriental fanati- cism destinies which no one could foresee. It was not, we repeat, the deputies hostile to the dynasty that Louis Philippe dreaded ; what he con- 42 THE EEVOLUTION OF 1848 sidered dangerous were the deputies of the dynastic opposition, of the partisans and founders of the mon- archy of July. The real struggle in the Chamber was between the contented and discontented Orlean- ists. The left, whenever they had been in power, had employed the very means they now accused the ministry of using. It was not principles but ambi- tion, interest, and greed, by which the combatants were directed. The vassals of a ministry which had lasted more than seven years, the members of the right, had become habituated to exploit it to their own profit. As M. de Tocqueville has observed: "The ev(3tit which overthrew it compromised the entire fortune of this man, his daughter's dowry for that one, and for still another the career of his son. It was by such means that nearly all of them had been retained. The majority had not merely risen by virtue of their obligingness, but one might say they had lived on it, were living on it still, and hoped to continue doing so, since they had accus- tomed themselves to the idea that the ministry would last forever ; they were attached to it by that honest and tranquil affection that one has for his own fields." Out of the 450 deputies in the Chamber, 200 were functionaries over whom the government had irre- sistible means of action. "If so many conserva- tives," says M. de Tocqueville, "defended the min- istry simply with a view to retaining emoluments and places, I am bound to say that many of the op- position seem to me to have attacked it only in the THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES 43 hope of gaining them. The truth, and a deplorable truth, is that the inclination for public functions and the desire to live off of the taxes is not, among us, a malady confined to a single party; it is the great and permanent weakness of the nation itself; it is the joint product of the democratic constitution of our civil society and the excessive centralization of our government; it is a secret disease which preyed upon all the ancient powers, and which will like- wise prey on all the new ones." M. Guizot, and still more Count Duchatel, Minis- ter of the Interior since 1840, were past masters in the art of using the functionaries of the Chamber. Born at Paris, February 19, 1803; son of a man who had been Councillor of State under the Empire and peer of France under the reign of Louis Philippe ; son-in-law of General Jacqueminot, commander-in- chief of the National Guards of the Seine, Count Duchatel's own merit, as well as his great fortune, had obtained for him very considerable personal impor- tance. A member of the Academy of Fine Arts, dec- orated with the grand-cross of the Legion of Honor, the owner of a magnificent house in the rue de Va- renne, he cared less for power than M. Guizot did, and had more than once been credited with the intention of resigning it. However, he had concluded to retain his post so as not to abandon the King at a critical moment. Besides, he thought himself able to settle all difficulties, and looked at matters with his habit- ual calmness. He knew better than any one else a 44 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 majority which had been formed and disciplined by him, and he exerted a decisive influence over it. His suave manners, his obliging and benevolent char- acter, and the ease with which he could be ap- proached, had made him many friends. He had not the eloquence of M. Guizot, but his invariably solid language and occasionally good-natured malice proba- bly pleased the majority better than the grave and majestic harangues of the Prime Minister. However, in spite of M. Guizot's prestige and M. Duchatel's ability, unmistakable signs of disintegra- tion began to appear in the conservative party. A good many members of the right were wondering whether the ministry had not lasted too long, and thinking it would be well to cultivate the acquaint- ance of the ministers of the future. CHAPTER VII M. DE TOCQUEVILLE THE debates of the session opened in the Chamber of Deputies on January 20. The discussion of the Address in response to the speech from the throne was the ground selected for a relentless duel between the friends and the enemies of the ministry. For several weeks they had been watching each other with furious animosity, and now feverishly awaited the hour appointed for the struggle. As yet noth- ing disturbed the optimism of the King, but the Queen's apprehensions were constantly on the in- crease. Everybody at Court was anxious except the sovereign. There appeared in the Journal des Debats of Jan- uary 20 an article which described very accurately the general uneasiness. It said: "The discussion will be extremely lively, we may count on that. Every means of preparing opinion for violent action and alarming the public mind has been resorted to. For some days the most absurd rumors have got into circulation and been propagated, nobody knows how or by whom. Sometimes it is the King's health 45 46 THE BEVOLUTION OF 1848 which is said to cause anxiety. The King is sick; no, the King is dead! Sometimes the Communists are about to rise ; thirty thousand of them are ready to take arms against the government; even the leader who is to command them, and who will take charge of the redistribution of property, is pointed out. . . . People come and tell } r ou with a mysterious air that the situation is very delicate, that public dissatisfac- tion is alarmingly evident, that possibly it would be well to prevent an explosion by making some con- cession to irritated opinion. To look at certain faces and hear certain speeches, one would think that, to use revolutionary language, we were on the eve of a journee. . . . These rumors are contradicted or die away by evening, after having been current for several hours ; but, all the same, they have produced their effect, and leave vague anxieties behind them. The Bourse is flat, and people end by believing that something has happened, although no one can say what it is." However, the government organ was far from being discouraged. It firmly awaited the approaching struggle. "What it means," it went on, "is that the opposition, having pushed things to such a point, is probably alarmed by the agitation it has caused, and communicates the fear which it seeks to inspire. The banquets were a stroke of despair on the part of the opposition. If this stroke failed, its cause was virtually lost for a long time. It is awaiting that limit beyond which there is noth- ing but violence and revolution; it has, so to say, N. DE TOCQUEVILLE 47 pledged itself to the factions to overthrow the minis- try. . . . The opposition is afraid and it wants to frighten others." This was the haughty conclusion of the article: "The conservative party will not weaken. You have had recourse to fear, a sorry means ! It is a weapon that will break in your hands, as all the others have. We promise you that in advance." The resistance of the ministry exasperated its enemies. Explosions of anger from all sides were heard from the moment the discussion opened in the Chamber of Deputies. In the Revue des Deux- Mondes, the chronicler of the fortnight wrote : " Alas ! we are bound to say that for several days we have been present at the saddest of all spectacles, that of the discrediting of great public powers and the deca- dence of parliamentary debates. If this goes on we shall presently have nothing to envy in the Ameri- can Congress, where men go with pistols in their pockets." The opposition tactics were to represent things under the most doleful aspect, and to antici- pate the most frightful catastrophes for the near future. Of all the deputies, he who sounded the alarm bell most noisily was a doctrinaire of the left, M. Alexis de Tocqueville. Born at Verneuil, July 29, 1805, M. de Tocque- ville was, on his mother's side, the great-grandson of Malesherbes. At the end of the Restoration he had been judge of the tribunal at Versailles. In 1831, along with M. Gustave de Beaumont, his 48 THE EEVOLUTION OF 1848 former colleague in that tribunal, he had been com- missioned by the government to go and study the penitentiary system of the United States. He brought back from this mission his principal work, Democracy in America, which he published in 1835, and which Royer-Collard styled a continuation of Montesquieu. It was this book which gained him admission, in 1839, to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, and in 1841 to the French Acad- emy. Becoming a deputy in 1839, he represented the department of Valognes up to the Revolution of 1848. When special affairs were in question, M. de Tocqueville frequently afforded valuable assistance to the government, but he carried on a continual opposition to M. Guizot. Without being an adver- sary of the July monarchy, he aided, in spite of himself, to overthrow it. From the beginning of 1847 the situation had looked gloomy to him. "Although, "he has written in his Souvenirs, "I was far from imagining that the catastrophe was so near and would be so terrible, yet I felt that uneasiness began and gradually increased in my mind and rooted deeply there the idea that we were marching toward another revolution. That marked a great change in my ideas, for the calm and universal depression which had succeeded the Revolution of July had made me believe for a long time that I was des- tined to pass my life in an enervated and peaceable society. 1 began to perceive that in 1830 I had M. DE TOCQUEVILLE 49 mistaken the end of an act for the end of the play." Such was M. de Tocqueville's disposition when he ascended the tribune, January 27. His language was that of a Cassandra. "People say there is no danger," cried the author of Democracy in America, " because there is no riot ; they say the Revolution is far away because the surface of society is unruffled. Gentlemen, permit me to say that I think you are mistaken. Doubtless, though disorder does not ap- pear in actions, it has entered profoundly into men's minds. Look at what is going on in the working classes, who are, I admit, tranquil at present. It is true that they are not so greatly tormented by politi- cal passions, properly so-called, as they have been in former times ; but do you not see that their passions, ceasing to be political, have become social ? Do you not see that little by little ideas are spreading among them which point not simply to the changing of such or such laws, ministries, or even governments, but of society itself, to the overthrowing the very strata on which it now reposes? ... I think we are sleeping at present over a volcano." Describing the general situation in the most alarming colors, the orator proceeded : " Are you not aware, by a sort of instinctive intuition which cannot be analyzed, but which is certain, that the soil is again trembling in Europe? . . . And it is at such a time that you remain calm in presence of the degradation of public morals, for that word is not too strong. I speak 50 THE EEVOLUTION OF 1848 without bitterness, I even speak, as I believe, with- out party spirit; I attack men with whom I am not angry, but at last I am obliged to tell my country what is my profound and settled conviction. Very well ! my profound and settled conviction is that the degradation of public morals will lead in a short time, very short perhaps, to new revolutions." The peroration of this speech resembled a cry of anguish. "Does then," exclaimed the prophet of misfortune, "the life of kings hang by threads firmer and more difficult to break than that of other men ? Have you at present the certainty of another morrow ? Do you know what may happen in France a year, a month, a day, perhaps, from now? You do not know ; but what you do know is that there is a storm on the horizon, and that it is coming toward you ; will you allow yourselves to be forestalled by it? Gentlemen, I entreat you not to do so, I do not ask, I entreat you ; I would willingly go down on my knees to you, so real and serious do I think the danger. . . . Avert it while there is yet time ; correct it by attacking, not its symptoms, but itself. Changes in legislation have been spoken of. I am extremely inclined to believe that these changes are not merely useful but necessary ; hence, I believe in the utility of electoral reform and the urgency of parliamentary reform ; but I am not insane enough, gentlemen, not to be aware that it is not the laws themselves which form the destiny of peoples ; no, it is not the mechanism of laws which produces great M. DE TOCqUEVILLE 51 events, gentlemen, but the very spirit of the govern- ment itself. Keep the laws, if you choose, although I think you would be very wrong to do so; keep them, keep the men, too, if that pleases you, but, for God's sake, change the spirit of the government, for I repeat to you, that spirit will drag you to the abyss." The peroration of the speech was received by de- risive laughter from the right and hearty applause from the left. When the orator had left the tribune, M. Dufaure took him aside and said: "You have succeeded, but you would have succeeded better yet if you had not outstripped the sentiment of the As- sembly, and determined to make us so much afraid." It is curious to remark that M. de Tocqueville has owned that he did not himself put absolute faith in his sinister predictions. He writes in his Souvenirs : " The opposition applauded greatly, but through party spirit rather than conviction. . . . And now that I am face to face with myself, and seriously inquire whether I really was so much alarmed as I appeared to be, I find I was not; I willingly admit that the event justified me more promptly and completely than I expected, a thing which has probably hap- pened to other political prophets better authorized than I to predict the future. No, I did not expect such a revolution as we were about to see, and who could have expected it ? " At bottom M. de Tocque- ville and his friends were as improvident as M. Guizot, and were laboring to overthrow a monarchy 52 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 which they supposed themselves to be merely warn- ing. During the same session, a member of the majority, M. Janvier, made some striking observations to the members of the left: "No matter what you say," exclaimed he, " France has not ceased to be what it has been, aland of probity and honor. No, no! all conscience, all dignity are not abolished amongst us. Otherwise, you would be in contradiction with your- selves; otherwise, all these reforms which you are offering as an efficacious remedy would be nothing but a vain palliative. Your proposal to restore public morality by such petty means proves that the evil is not as great as you say, even in your own eyes. . . . The constitutional opposition is under a profound delusion. By the very manner in which it accuses us it is doing as much evil as we our- selves ; it is trying to create ruins under which we shall all be overthrown in common. And yet it has been severely warned. No one can accuse the radi- cals of hypocrisy ; they have shown a formidable and implacable sincerity ; they have reserved it to them- selves, when the conservative party is once beaten, to settle their account with the dynasties, as they call them. The radicals are terrible logicians ; they will not be slow to avail themselves of the argu- ments of their allies of a day, in order to demon- strate that it is necessary to cut down to the roots a tree which has produced such bitter fruits for eigh- teen years." M. Janvier's prediction was more M. DE TOCQUEVILLE 53 exact, and, above all, more sincere, than that of Count de Tocqueville. Obeying merely their spites and ambitions, the dynastic opposition did not per- ceive that they were playing into the hand of the radicals. Their thrusts, aimed at nothing but the ministry, were about to reach the throne. CHAPTER VIII THE DEPARTURE OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE r I 1HE hour of catastrophes was approaching. The _1_ presence of all of the King's sons would have been none too much to defend the throne against attacks that were imminent. Fate decreed that two of them should be far away from their father when the storm broke. The Duke d'Aumale had been Governor-general in Algeria since October 5, 1847, and was joined there by Prince de Joinville in Feb- ruary, 1848. This Prince beheld things under a very gloomy aspect, yet without believing that a revolu- tion was so near as it actually proved. For several years he had been predicting the gravest sort of com- plications, and each time he returned from his mari- time expeditions he was made uneasy by what he saw at Paris. " When I returned in the winter of 1845," he writes, "the monarchy of July had three years more to live, but it was already sickly. The par- liamentary St. Vitus dance satisfied nobody, with the exception of the Jer6me Paturots, to whom it gave a social position. But for one who was con- tented, how many were envious ! Hence Parliament 54 THE DEPARTURE OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 55 imparted no strength to the government, which the press was almost unanimously attacking. And, by a strange contradiction, the principal reproach ad- dressed to this regime, which every one was striving to discredit and overthrow, was its lack of vigor. How often at this period did I hear those adjurations to 4 be strong, ' which always ring the death-knell of governments at bay! Although democratic envy, public speculation, and that necessity of destroying which is the essence of the revolutionary spirit were openly pursuing their ant-like task, without other opposition than sterile verbiage and futile hin- drances, ordinary social life nevertheless preserved the appearances of health." In Prince de Join- ville's view these were deceptive appearances, and he thought the malady would continue to grow worse. In 1847, the Prince commanded the Mediterranean squadron. He was on board the Souverain, in the roadstead of Spezzia, when he wrote to the Duke de Nemours, on November 7, a confidential letter which was found in a drawer when the Tuileries was sacked, and which proves the keenness of his appre- hensions. He says in it: "I am troubled by all the events I see accumulating on every side. I begin to be seriously alarmed, and at such times one likes to chat with those in whom he has confidence. . . . The King has reached an age at which one no longer accepts observations; he is accustomed to govern. He likes to show that he does govern ; his immense 56 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 experience, his courage, and all his great qualities make him brave danger audaciously; but there is none the less danger for all that." Concerning the foreign policy, and notably con- cerning the affairs of Switzerland and Italy, the ideas of the Prince were diametrically opposed to those of M. Guizot. He writes in the same letter: " What can be done abroad to relieve the situation and follow a line of conduct which would suit the inclinations of our country? It certainly could not be done by an Austro-French intervention in Swit- zerland, for that would be to us what the campaign of 1823 was to the Restoration. I had hoped that Italy might afford us this counter-irritant, this diver- sion that we need so badly, but it is too late, the battle is lost here. We can do nothing here without the concurrence of the English, and in letting them gain ground daily we necessarily throw ourselves back into the opposing camp. All we can do here now is to go away, because if we remain we shall be forced to make common cause with the party of re- trogression, and that would have a disastrous effect in France. Those unlucky Spanish marriages ! We have not yet exhausted the reservoir of bitterness they contain ! " We see what Prince de Joinville thought of those marriages which the King and the Prime Minister considered the most brilliant success of the reign. M. Guizot, who appreciated the lofty intelligence and great qualities of the Prince, tried, but vainly, THE DEPARTURE OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 57 to bring him over to his own ideas, especially with regard to Italian affairs. November 7, 1847, he wrote him a letter in justification of the French policy. He has said: "I had it at heart to nullify in the mind of this capable and resolute Prince the impression of regret and blame given him by an imperfect acquaintance with our recent acts in Italy." In his letter the Prime Minister said : " We are not united with the absolute sovereigns. We are not secretly leagued with Austria. Always and every- where we have openly advised and upheld moderate reforms, intelligent and regular progress, that truly liberal and practical policy which applies itself to the only good that is practicable and to the only efficacious means of realizing that practicable good. I am not surprised that this policy is not popular just now in Italy. The Italians would like some- thing very different. They would like to have France place at their disposal its armies, its treas- ures, its government, in order to do what they can- not do themselves ; that is, to drive out the Austrians and establish national unity and representative gov- ernment in Italy, under some form or another." To this sentence, a curious prediction of the events of 1859 and 1860, M. Guizot added: "This general desire on the part of the Italians, is it good or bad in itself, is it possible to realize it some day, or forever impossible? I don't examine into that. I am not making philosophy, history, or prophecy. I am busy with practical and actual politics. Within 58 THE EEVOLUTION OF 1848 those limits, I say positively that we ought not, that we cannot, undertake on Italy's account what we have not been willing to undertake on account of France; that is, the territorial and political rear- rangement of Europe, taking the spirit of war and revolution as our fulcrum." As to England, whose concurrence the Prince would have desired, the Prime Minister thus expressed himself : " I am not disturbed, sir, by the gust of popularity which Eng- land just now enjoys in Italy, an empty and vain- glorious popularity. England is giving Italians words and semblances which please them; she will give them nothing else, and they must soon find that out for themselves." This sentence likewise was an exact prediction. Hardly had Prince de Joinville received M. Guizot's letter when he quitted the fleet and re- turned to France. He had not quite finished his two years of command at the head of the Mediterra- nean squadron, and should not have been replaced until spring. But as he was much fatigued and out of health, he asked to be relieved from his duties, and on November 26, 1847, resigned his command to Admiral Treliouard. "I returned to Paris," he writes in his Souvenirs; " in what state did I find it? Politics had invaded everything. Always tiresome, it was about to become fatal to men of order, and glorious for the agents of disorder, as events but too quickly proved." The Prince agreed with M. Guizot no more on domestic policy than on foreign affairs, THE DEPARTURE OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 59 and his presence at the Tuileries was not at all agreeable to the Prime Minister. Hence he did nothing to retain him when, the doctors having de- clared that the climate of Algiers would be good for the Princess de Joinville, the Prince announced his intention of taking her there and spending the rest of the winter with her near the Duke and Duchess d'Aumale. The Queen, who felt more keenly than any one the near approach of danger, would have liked to keep beside her a son whose energy inspired her with absolute confidence. She entreated him to remain, and he was himself hesitating whether or not to start, when he finally yielded to the King's advice, and especially to the wishes of his sister, the Queen of the Belgians, who had great influence over him. At the moment when he decided upon going there appeared, for that matter, to be a certain lull in the situation. The chronicler of the fortnight wrote at the time in the Revue des Deux-Mondes : " At last we have entered the waters of parliamentary discussion, with all sails standing, and that sort of fog which hovers regularly over every opening of the session is beginning to blow away. . . . During the vacation a thousand exaggerations accumulate and grow in the forced silence of the government. They pile up, they make, so to say, a snowball, and end by forming a sort of obstruction in the public thoroughfare. Clouds roll together and hang above what it is agreed to call the political horizon, and the legislature opens surrounded by this smoky at- 60 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 mosphere ; but little by little light breaks through. What is said from the tribune pierces, dispels, and dissipates these vapors; the current of discussion sweeps them away and purifies the air; people find again where they stand, rely on themselves, put them- selves in place, and almost always in the same place. There is nothing new under the sun, and what one sees to-day is always, or nearly always, seen. . . . We are convinced, for our own part, that there is, according to the formula, 'Something to do,' and that some- thing will be done before the close of the present legislature; but, even if the ministry should think as we do, it could not condemn in advance a majority with which it cannot but be satisfied ; and, in truth, it would be asking far too much of human nature to ask it to disapprove a Chamber which is still sup- porting it against the most violent attacks." There was the same continuous optimism in official circles. The Court, after having plunged into profound mourning on account of Madame Adelaide's death, had now resumed its usual aspect. The Queen re- opened her salon, January 25, for a small evening party, which broke up very early. The Moniteur gave the following report of it : " The royal family were assembled. The King and Queen received S. A. R. the Count of Syracuse, S. A. R. Prince Paul of Wiirtemberg, the Ambassador and Madame the Countess Apponyi, the English Ambassador and Lady Normanby, the Ambassador of Sardinia and the Marchioness of Brignole-Sale, the Ambassador of THE DEPARTURE OF PRINCE i>E JOINVILLE 61 Belgium and the Princess of Ligiie, the Minister of Prussia, the Russian charge* d'affaires, the Minister of Sweden and the Countess of Lowenhielm, the Minister of Tuscany and Madame Peruzzi, the Ministers of Holland, Bavaria, and Wiirtemberg, the Duchess of Dalmatia, the Princess of Wagram, the Princess of Bagration, the Duchess Decazes, the Minister of War and Madame Trezel, the Minister of Justice and Madame Hebert, the Minister grand- master of the University and the Countess of Sal- vardy, the Minister of the Marine and the Duchess of Montebello, and many peers, deputies, and gen- erals. The reception lasted until ten o'clock." To see these quiet family evenings spent in the Tuile- ries, no one would have suspected the formidable storm that was gathering above the chateau. Prince de Joinville has spoken in his Souvenirs of these evenings, which slipped away so pleasantly in the family salon, well named so, since princes and prin- cesses, young and old, large and small, assembled there after the repasts, which were always taken in common. " In this salon, situated on the first story, between the pavilions of Flora and the Horloge, my mother," says the Prince, "sat working tapestry near a round table lighted by shaded wax candles, with our young princesses and the ladies-in-waiting near her. Sitting on a bench of the billiard room adjoining the salon, the King received the despatches brought by his chief of the Cabinet and read the Times, the only journal he read daily. It was there 62 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 that visitors who desired to speak with him, princi- pally diplomats, came to look for him, while ladies who came to call sat around the Queen's table, where the conversation was general, although occasionally soporific. It revived when ladies came whose wit or beauty closed up the ranks of the men dispersed about the salon. This was the case whenever Mesdames de Saint- Aulaire and de Castellane were seen to arrive; or those charming diplomatists, the Princess de Ligne, Mesdames Formin Rogier, de Stockhausen; or, again, three sisters, the daughters of M. de Laborde, Mesdames Delessert, Bocher, Odier. Three superb Englishwomen, the Sheridan sisters, had formerly made a sensation there. Now it was the turn of the Princess Mathilde, then in the full splendor of her beauty." The Queen, who was the finished type of a prin- cess of the old regime, received with perfect kindli- ness and extreme amiability. Always mistress of herself, she allowed no trace of the anxieties and preoccupations which assailed her to appear upon her noble countenance, and hid her secret anguish in the depths of her heart. Yet, when she bade adieu to the Prince de Joinville she could not restrain her tears. This was on January 30, 1848. In spite of the early morning hour and the severe cold, Marie Ame'lie was resolved on accompanying her son and her daughter-in-law as far as the Orleans station. She forgot neither the composure the Prince had dis- played when he was on horseback, beside his father, THE DEPARTURE OF PRINCE DE JOINVILLE 63 at the time of Fieschi's assault, nor the heroism he had given proof of in Mexico and in Morocco. She felt that the menaced throne needed just such a de- fender, and one might have said that when she pressed him in her arms at the moment of departure, a secret voice announced to the unhappy mother that when she next saw him it would be in exile. The Prince and Princess de Joinville embarked at Port Vendres, on the steam frigate Cacique, and landed at Algiers, February 9. The Duke and Duchess d'Aumale went into the roadstead to meet them. A few minutes later, their Royal Highnesses were received at the landing by all the city authorities. At ten o'clock in the morn- ing, the two princesses, in an open carriage accom- panied by an immense procession, at the head of which rode the two princes, turned toward the gov- ernment palace, passing slowly through a densely packed crowd, which incessantly applauded them. Splendid weather, a summer in mid-winter, favored this ceremonious entry. And yet, in spite of the enthusiasm of the colonists, the natives, and the army, in spite of his joy at again seeing his brother who was so successfully filling the post of Governor- general of Algeria, Prince de Joinville was sad. "I arrived," he says, "full of sombre presentiments, and convinced that by dint of determining to respect those so-called legal shackles which paralyze govern- ments, and embarrass revolutionists so little at any time, we should end by being swamped, and hear 64 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 the fatal hour, the too late of all revolutions, begin to strike. The only thing was that I did not suppose that moment was so near." In spite of his pessimis- tic feelings, tfre Prince did not suspect that at the time when he was installing himself in Algiers, the July monarchy had but a few more hours to live. MARIE AMELIE QUEEN OF THE FRENCH CHAPTER IX THE DISCUSSION OF THE ADDRESS discussion of the Address in the Chamber of J_ Deputies was the prologue of the Revolution. It brought into prominence the absolute divergences existing on all questions between the personal views of -the sovereign and the ideas of the opposition. All that was said concerning foreign policy by the orators of the left seemed to the King merely the development of a warlike policy, and Louis Philippe gloried in preserving the pacific character of his reign. M. de Lamartine, who had not made his appearance in the tribune for eighteen months, re- turned to it with a bitter criticism of all the diplo- matic proceedings inspired by the King. "Ever since the Spanish marriages," he exclaimed, " France, in direct contradiction to her nature and to centuries of tradition, has had to become Ghibelline in Rome, sacerdotal in Berne, Austrian in Piedmont, Russian in Cracovia, French nowhere, anti-revolutionary everywhere." Encouraging the Italian movement with all his might, he added: "Underneath the gov- ernment of France is France itself, France, liberal F 65 66 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 in its sympathies, persevering in its friendships, and which will ever salute with glory and enthusiasm the resurrection of Italy." As M. Guizot was saying in reply: "It would need a greater lack of foresight than I am able to conceive, not to be aware that if France should take sides with the Italian movement, you would instantly see the four powers forming anew against us," M. Odilon Barrot interrupted him with : " Send your contingent into Lombardy, plant your tricolored standard there." The same discord existed between the Crown and the members of the left on the Swiss question. "They say," exclaimed M. Thiers, in the session of February 3, " that the men who have just triumphed in Switzerland are radicals, and they think they have said everything in accusing them of radicalism. I am not a radical, gentlemen, as the radicals know right well. But understand my sentiments clearly. I belong to the party of the Revolution, whether in France or in Europe. I hope that the government of the Revolution may remain in the hands of mod- erate men; I will do all in my power that it may continue to do so; but, although this government should pass into the hands of men less moderate than I and my friends, into the hands of violent men, even were they radicals, I would not abandon my cause for that reason ; I shall always belong to the party of the Revolution." That phrase alone was enough to hollow out an abyss between Louis Philippe and M. Thiers. THE DISCUSSION OF THE ADDRESS 67 On questions of foreign policy, the ministry had had a majority of eighty votes. In matters of domes- tic policy this majority was about to diminish, until it reached forty-three. The real combat, the hand-to-hand struggle, began February 7, over the banquets and the reform. M. Duvergier de Hauranne's language was especially violent and bitter. " Let it be well understood, well recognized," said he, "that we do not come here to plead against the ministry before the majority; we come to plead before the country against both min- istry and majority." He recalled what M. Guizot had written in 1820: "I should say that I do not dispute the peril; only, in my opinion, it is the ministerial system which renders it immense. It is the counter-revolution by which the Revolution is menaced. Let us hear no talk about the Jacobins from those who are themselves using all their power ; let no one threaten us with their apparition when they seem to be doing all they can to resuscitate them." Taking the offensive, M. Duvergier de Hauranne exclaimed: "You accuse us of being moved by blind or inimical passions ; we accuse you, we, of founding all the hopes of your domination on base and avaricious passions. You accuse us of giving strength by our speeches to the extreme par- ties, who wish to overthrow social and political order; we accuse you of furnishing, by your acts, to the extreme parties the fulcrum, the lever, which was lacking to them." The orator ended by declar- 68 THE EEVOLUTION OF 1848 ing himself ready to associate himself "to those who, by a striking act of legal resistance, desire to test whether a simple police order suffices to confiscate the rights of citizens," and then he added these haughty and threatening words: "I have said, and I repeat it, we should be unworthy of liberty if, strong in the rights given us by the Constitution, we were about dastardly to recoil before a ministerial ukase." The members of the left took a malicious pleasure in opposing M. Guizot personally. "I will termi- nate this part of the discussion," said M. Leon de Maleville, February 8, " by the citation of an inex- haustible author, from whom, I grant, we borrow a great deal, and whose authority we shall weaken in the end by quoting him so often. This is what M. Guizot said in 1830: 'Citizens have the right to assemble for the purpose of talking over public affairs ; it is well that they should do so, and I shall never dispute this right; never will I attempt to weaken the generous sentiments which lead citizens to come together and communicate their sympathetic opinions.' ' Count Duchatel, Minister of the Interior, replied by proving that the members of the opposition were not less inconsistent. What had happened in 1840, under the ministry of M. Thiers, when M. Le*on de Maleville was under-secretary of state ? When there was question of giving political balls and banquets by subscription, some were authorized and others THE DISCUSSION OF THE ADDRESS 69 interdicted, and both had addressed themselves to the authorities in order to obtain the authorization apparently considered necessary. M. Duchatel appealed to the laws of 1790 and 1791, confer- ring on the authorities the right to oppose public reunions whenever they seemed likely to disturb order, and ended by declaring that government, per- forming its duty, would never quail before manifes- tations, let them be what they might. Notwithstanding the energetic conclusions of his discourse, M. Duchatel had spoken without bitter- ness and even with a certain good-nature. Recalling the epithet "blind," which had excited such wrath in the speech from the throne, he said : " We would all agree perfectly not to submit to such epithets." The speech delivered the next day, February 9, by the Keeper of the Seals, M. Hubert was, on the contrary, that of a public prosecutor. M. de Toc- queville says in his Souvenirs: "M. Hubert was still an attorney-general in the very marrow of his bones ; he has the face and the characteristics of that employ- ment. . . . However, he was neither stupid nor unjust, but he had a mind naturally headstrong and stiff, which always went too far and never knew how to turn back or stop in time, and which became vio- lent without being aware of it, through sheer igno- rance of slight differences. M. Guizot must have attached slight importance to conciliation when he sent such an orator into the tribune under such cir- cumstances." As the Keeper of the Seals was say- 70 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 ing: "I persist in believing that what was done by the banquets was done without law, against the law, and that people should not be able to do it without recognizing and submitting to the law," M. Odilon Barrot, in a rage, rose and cried out : " But Polignac and Peyronnet did not talk like this ! " The confu- sion was at its height. M. Hubert replied : " I pro- test against your accusations. Far from arresting my courage, far from making me recoil, they but demonstrate to me more and more that I am right, that I am displaying the truth, that I have touched the wound. This wound can be healed only by the just and persevering maintenance of the laws, in spite of those who wish to throw them off." The entire opposition were now on their feet, with their hands stretching out toward the ministerial benches. "Yes," cried M. Barrot, "you, ministers of the popular Revolution of July; you, whose power has been sanctioned by the blood of the martyrs of lib- erty, you, are disputing a right which the ministers of the Restoration, at the very moment when it was about to be destroyed, recognized and respected! That is what I say; and it is a fact that cannot be wiped away. That which was respected by M. de Polignac has been violated by you ! " On both sides, exasperation reached its utmost limits. Never had a more tumultuous session been known. Those deputies who were least irritated invoked the presi- dent's authority to restore order. The president had vanished. The session broke up in inexpressible THE DISCUSSION OF THE ADDBESS 71 agitation. In the evening M. Duchatel wrote to M. Guizot: "The effect of the session was not very favorable. Hebert was top dictatorial at the close. That is what is thought by everybody I have seen since the session. The Chamber must be calmed down. We are going straight toward a riot, for which all my measures are taken. Wholly yours." The republican journal, the National, hailed in these vehement incidents, " the prologue to another drama, far more interesting and much more real." This drama was the approaching Revolution. CHAPTER X TWO AMENDMENTS ALL means of conciliation were not yet ex- hausted. Two conservatives, M. Desmous- seaux de Giore and M. Sallandrouze, proposed to the Chamber of Deputies two amendments in the draw- ing up of the Address, the adoption of which would have tranquilized men's minds and might have averted a revolution. The first of these amendments was debated Febru- ary 11. It proposed to suppress the words " blind or inimical passions," and to substitute these in place of the sentence containing them: "Rely on the public reason, enlightened by our free discussions, and the manifestation of all legitimate opinions." One makes sad reflections on the povert} r of parlia- mentarism when one thinks of the importance at- tached to keeping or abandoning a couple of epithets. The future of a monarchy was to be settled over a question like that. M. Desmousseaux de Giore* supported his amend- ment with calmness and moderation. He insisted on what the phrase "culpable manoeuvres," inserted 72 TWO AMENDMENTS 73 in a speech from the throne, had cost Charles X., and on the danger of digging an abyss between the King and a part of the Chamber. "What are you doing?" said he. "You are going to close the doors of the King's palace to the members of the constitutional opposition. You are going to end this monarchical, assuring, consoling spectacle of the concurrence of all sincere and legitimate opinions around the head of the state." He added that the amendment contained nothing hostile to the minis- try, which would retain the confidence of the Cham- ber even if these two epithets in the Address were suppressed. Unfortunately, M. Guizot was deter- mined on keeping them at all hazards. His obstinacy was relentless. One of the most skilful of parlia- mentary tacticians, M. Dufaure, tried in vain to open his eyes to the danger of "bitter and irreconcilable language." In vain he added: "In such political circumstances as ours, is it prudent for the majority of the Chamber to declare itself against a hundred deputies as attached as it is, as I am, to the insti- tutions of our country, as determined as we are to defend them whenever they are threatened ? Gentle- men, this would be an act of the highest imprudence, you would enter upon a path of which you do not know the ending, and you would be preparing events which you cannot foresee." If the ministry refused the amendment, there would be war to the utter- most. If it accepted it, the deadlock would be over at once. M. Guizot was inflexible. 74 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 Great emotion was displayed while the vote was being taken. This was done at first by sitting and rising. The vote having been declared doubtful, a viva voce vote was resorted to, which lasted three- quarters of an hour, in the midst of the most lively agitation. The adversaries of the monarchy feared nothing so much as the adoption of an amendment which might save it. The National avowed this as follows : " When in this assembly of more than four hundred members the president, having put to vote M. Desmousseaux de Giord's amendment, in which the existence of the ministry was at stake, said: 'The vote is doubtful,' we had a sort of vertigo, our blood rushed back to our heart, an involuntary cry escaped from our breast: 'They are escaping us!' Luckily the ballot came to reassure us." In fact, as has been very well observed by M. A. Granier de Cassagnac, the adoption of the amendment would have overthrown the ministry, as to which the dema- gogues cared very little ; but, by putting an end to the existing struggle, it would have deprived them of the alliance of the opposition, which they needed in order to raise a riot. The " inimical passions " lost the support of "blind enthusiasms," the game was up for the time being. That was what agi- tated the National for an instant. But the republi- can journal was victorious. The conciliatory amend- ment was rejected by a vote of 228 against 185. The monarchical army was divided into two camps bitterly opposed to each other. Complying with TWO AMENDMENTS 75 ministerial injunctions, M. Sauzet, president of tlie Chamber, had voted on a question where parliamen- tary usages made it his duty to refrain. The opposi- tion let him know that not one of its members would again appear at his house. They also resolved at the same time never to present themselves thereafter at the King's palace. The ministry rejoiced none the less over its decep- tive success. It was about to gain another Pyrrhic victory the next day, in the session of February 12, by rejecting an amendment offered by M. Sallan- clrouze, which was in these terms: "In the midst of varying manifestations your government will be able to recognize the real and legitimate wishes of the country. It will take, we hope, the initiative in the wise and moderate reforms demanded by public opinion, among which the chief place should be given to parliamentary reform." M. Sallandrouze was a great manufacturer, a carpet-maker, very de- voted to the July monarchy, and a notorious conser- vative. A school-fellow of the Duke of Orleans, he had been received with special marks of favor at the Tuileries, even after that Prince's death. The Court tried in vain to make him withdraw his amendment. He developed it with propriety and in measured terms. " You want to prevent violent reforms," said he ; " make wise reforms in time. That there is some- thing to be done I think there is no need of proving. Does not some new voice rise daily from the benches of the majority to warn the ministry? Are not the 76 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 most loyal men, and even those who are the greatest sticklers for party discipline, forced to ask them- selves whether they have not already sacrificed their personal opinions to this discipline ? There is, there- fore, something to be done, and if I suggest in especial that you should carry the principle of par- liamentary reform, it is because it seems to me that this question, above all, has now reached its matu- rity. . . . Every involuntary concession is a blun- der, but in the existing state of things government can comply with dignity with all that is demanded by public opinion, and do so in a suitable degree. The country would thank it for taking the initiative; later on, it would probably be different, and let us know, gentlemen, whether power would not then have to choose between the weakness of a forced concession, and the folly of open resistance to public opinion?" M. Sallandrouze ended thus: "Rest assured that the amendment I have the honor of submitting to the Chamber is not the result of pre- meditated hostility to the ministry ; it is the loyal warning of a sincere and convinced conservative ; it is the necessary consequence of that policy, at once moderate and progressive, which we promised the electoral body should triumph in this Chamber." Count de Morny, the future Minister of Napoleon III., occupied at this time a seat among the most conservative members of the Chamber of Deputies. Especially devoted to M. Guizot, he made a last effort to induce him to say at least a few pacificatory TWO AMENDMENTS 11 words, to make some promise of future reforms. M. Guizot replied to this speech from one of his most loyal partisans by admitting that the question of parliamentary reform ought to be examined before the present legislative body finally dispersed, but he added that he would give no personal pledges. " The Cabinet," said he, "will make sincere efforts to maintain the unity of the conservative party on this question, so that it may be the entire body of that party which shall give the solution of it to the coun- try. ... If that is not possible, the Cabinet will leave to others the melancholy task of presiding at the disorganization of the conservative party and the ruin of its policy." In reality, this language was nothing but plea in bar. When M. Guizot came down from the tribune, a large number of conservatives hastened to the min- isterial bench and implored the president of the coun- cil to lessen the force of his imprudent declaration. He maintained an imperturbable silence. The Sal- landrouze amendment was rejected by 222 votes against 189. The ministerial majority was con- stantly on the decrease. It was not more than 43 votes. M. de Remusat had been able to establish two facts: the division in the conservative party and the irresolution of the government. An instant later the Address, in its entirety, was voted, by 213 against 3. The whole left had abstained from voting. In the evening, M. Guizot wrote to the King: "The defile is passed, and one of the most difficult 78 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 that we have ever crossed. I have made no prom- ises. If I had not said what I did say, the amend- ment would have been adopted and the Cabinet overthrown. There will be a great deal to reflect on during the next session ; for if unity cannot be restored in the conservative party, the dissensions I have just postponed will break out, and the opposi- tion will infallibly profit by them. In any case, the King is left perfectly free." Louis Philippe thought himself the victor. Feb- ruary 14, at ten in the evening, he received at the Tuileries the great deputation from the Chamber of Deputies, who had been commissioned to present the Address. On the right and left of the throne stood the Duke de Nemours and the Duke de Mont- pensier. Nearly all the conservatives had accom- panied the deputation. The members of the opposi- tion remained away. The sovereign's countenance evinced the most profound satisfaction during the reading of this Address, in which occurred these words : " Sire, in devoting yourself to the service of our country, with that courage which nothing abates, not even the WOAVS which strike at your most cher- ished affections ; in consecrating your life and that of your children to the care of our interests and our dignity, you strengthen daily the edifice which we have founded, together with you; rely on our sup- port to aid you in defending it. The agitations roused by inimical passions or blind enthusiasms will subside before the public reason, enlightened by TWO AMENDMENTS 79 free discussion and the manifestation of all legiti- mate opinions." After having thanked the depu- ties, the King descended from his throne and came toward them, greeted on all sides with applause. "Gentlemen," said he, "I am much affected by see- ing so many of you around me, and very sensible of these acclamations." Who would have suspected, on that evening, that ten days later the throne on which Louis Philippe had just seated himself, for the last time, would be given to the flames ? CHAPTER XI THE BANQUET SCHEME ri CHOUGH the ministerial majority had been JL diminished, it was still considerable. The opposition, vanquished within the Chamber, did not accept its defeat, but swore to take its revenge out- side. There were differences at first over the man- ner of protest to be adopted. The left hesitated between a wholesale resignation of their seats, and a participation in a banquet then in course of prepara- tion in the twelfth arrondissement. M. Marie, a future member of the provisional government, said to the radicals on the morning of February 13 : " If we are ready for a revolution, give your banquet ; if you are not ready, there will be a riot, and I don't want that." The same day there was a reunion of nearly all the members of the opposition, in the Durand caf on the Place de la Madeleine. M. Marie's proposal to resign en masse was rejected, and the ban- quet plan adopted. M. Thiers, who had not uttered a word at the reunion, said to M. Marie as they were coming out: "You were entirely right; a wholesale resignation was the only sensible thing to do. The 80 THE BANQUET SCHEME 81 government has eighty thousand men ; all the strate- getical measures are decided on." M. Marie an- swered: "You ought to have upheld that opinion." Extra-parliamentary agitation had just been re- solved upon. The opposition laid down as its principle the absolute maintenance of the right of assembly. February 15 an article appeared in the Journal des Dgbats, which said: "It is not enough for the opposition to have had sixty banquets during the legislative interval; it means to have them in every quarter of Paris, with a tribune which shall respond in the evening to the legislative tribune. And then the students will have theirs ! the Monta- gnards, the Communists, theirs ! For if the right is absolute, it is so for everybody." The ministerial journal added: "There was no law when, at the opening of the Revolution of July, the National Guard closed the clubs with the simple words: 'No- body can pass.' Must all reunions, no matter what, be allowed to go on at present? This is a question we put to industry, to commerce, to all who have business in their own houses and who do not think it would be the finest thing in the world to bivouac in the streets and fight the riot." Official optimism was beginning to be a trifle less imperturbable. The Debats of February 15 thus pointed out the danger: " When peers of France, when deputies go to erect- ing another tribune external to the legislative precinct, they are signing their own abdication; they are making ready their own oppression, theirs 82 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 and ours, that of the minority as well as that of the majority! What! when the pages of history are not yet turned, when the future is written in the past, almost in the present, in lessons so bloody, how can those who are not enemies be, let the word be spoken without gall or bitterness, how can they be so blind? The clubs, the perpetual banquets, the tribune in the streets, the law in the public square, all this is the absorption, annihila- tion of all constitutional powers! It is there that oppression is, and tyranny, the brutal and sanguinary hand that would place itself upon the mouth of liberty!" However, the banquet of the twelfth ward was organized. The members of the dynastic opposition wanted to make of it something soothing and in- offensive, which should tend to the greater glory of the left centre and the detriment of the republicans, a sort of judicial banquet in which they would content themselves with posing merely a simple question of right, and from which every factious element should be carefully excluded. They meant to select some private house instead of a public one, in whicli to hold it. There should not be more than a thousand subscribers. Not a cry should be uttered. Even that of Vive la Reforme ! should be interdicted. They told themselves that a riot would merely strengthen the tottering system, while a legal pro- test would suffice to overthrow the ministry and assure the triumph of the reform. M. Odilon Bar- THE BANQUET SCHEME 83 rot estimated the situation, not from the revolution- ary standpoint, but as a lawyer. To his mind, the banquet ought to be merely a tribunal in which the case might be argued quietly. To keep the people away as much as possible, the time selected ought not to be a holiday, and the banquet should take place in some little-frequented locality. The original plan had been to give it on a Sunday, in the faubourg Saint-Marceau, and to charge only three francs a ticket. M. Odilon Barrot and his friends thought this plan too democratic. They managed to have it settled that the banquet should occur on Tuesday, February 22, in a lonely quarter, at six francs a head. The place chosen was a vacant house belong- ing to a M. Nitot, and situated at Chaillot, near the Etoile barrier, in a street then called the rue du Chemin-de-Versailles, but since named rue du Ban- quet. It was agreed, moreover, that the list of guests should be settled by a committee. As M. Odilon Barrot has said in his Memoirs: "M. Gar- nier-Pages himself denied admission to M. Ledru- Rollin and his co-believers." No manifestation from the left centre was desired. Hence it was necessary to exclude republicans. By an excess of caution it was resolved to submit the whole programme to another reunion of those deputies, of all shades of opinion, who had voted the amendments favorable to reform, and especially to find out whether they would repair in a body to the banquet. 84 TEE REVOLUTION OF 1848 The reunion took place February 19, in the same room of the Durand cafe* where the first one had been held. M. Odilon Barrot already foresaw the diffi- culty of preserving the private and pacific character of the demonstration, and possibly felt the rising of the popular tide. M. de Falloux says he presided with visible ill-temper and discouragement. In the midst of the tumult he was heard to make this characteristic remark: "It is really incredible that we cannot deliberate calmly when we are taking possibly the most serious resolution we have ever taken in our lives." The language of the leader of the legitimists gave certain Orleanists, more per- spicacious than the rest, something to think about. As M. de Falloux has justly observed, M. Berryer would neither speak nor act against the fundamental interests of society. "When those interests were in peril, he defended them as sincerely, as warmly, as if the crown had been on the head of his king and the power in his own hands." Insisting on the perilous character of the projected manifestation, he endeavored to demonstrate that the opposition was placing itself on ground that would crumble beneath its feet. A certain hesitation was produced. M. de La- martine began speaking: "The crisis is grave," said he, "the circumstances are critical, the dangers may be great for the responsibility of the resolute men who march in the van in the name of their country. Gentlemen, I am still more convinced of it than the THE BANQUET SCHEME 85 previous speaker ; it would be blindness not to see it; it would be weakness to conceal it from you. . . . But what is our situation ? We are placed, by the provocation of the government, between shame and danger. Shame ! Gentlemen, perhaps we might be great enough, generous enough, to accept it for our- selves. I feel myself capable, you feel yourselves capable, of that sacrifice. Yes ! our shame rather than a drop of the blood of the people or of the soldiers on our responsibility. But the shame of our coun- try! but the shame of the constitutional cause! but the shame of the nation's rights and character! No! no! no! we ought not, we cannot do it; we cannot, either in conscience or in honor accept it." The melancholy author of the Meditations Poetiques and of Jocelyn employed the language of the most vehe- ment demagogue. " We should return to our depart- ments," cried he, "saying to our constituents: This is what we bring back to you from that field of legal battle to which you sent us to fight for you, the debris of your constitution, the ruins of your liberty of opinion, ministerial despotism in the place of national rights ! We have put the neck of France under the feet of a minister! No! no! that is not possible ! we should no longer be men ! This would no longer be a people! We ought to hand in our resignations that very moment, disappear, and anni- hilate ourselves in public disrepute." After a series of still more inflammatory tirades, M. de Lamartine denied that he desired a revolution. 86 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 He concluded thus : " Gentlemen, let us speak coolly ; the moment demands it. Let us know clearly what we are going to bring about in France on Tuesday. Is it a sedition? No! Is it a revolution? No! May God long defer the necessity for one in our country! What is it, then? An act of national determination and faith in the omnipotence of the legal right of a great country." M. de Lamartine's speech won over nearly all his auditors. It was decided that the banquet should take place on Tues- day, February^, and that they should assemble at ten o'clock in the morning of that day to go thither ^iii procession. During the meeting in the Durand cafe*, M. Thiers, who was unwilling to commit himself, and so lessen his chances of becoming minister, had, to use the expressions of M. de Falloux, found the means of being neither absent nor present, and of reviewing his troops without taking the chief command. He remained all the time at the door of the room, seeing and hearing all that went on, sometimes approving by a nod or a gesture the most violent language, but not pronouncing a single word. When it was over, he walked away in company with M. de Rainneville and Count de Falloux. " Are you not alarmed," the latter asked him, "by all we have just seen and heard?" "No, not at all." "And yet, this looks very much like the eve of a revolution." M. Thiers gaily shrugged his shoulders, and replied in a tone of the most ingenuous security: "A revolution! a THE BANQUET SCHEME 87 revolution ! One can easily see you do not know the government and are unacquainted with its forces. I know them, for my part; they are ten times stronger than any possible riot. With a few thousand men under command of my friend, Marshal Bugeaud, I would answer for everything. See here, my dear M. de Falloux, excuse me for telling you, with a frank- ness that cannot wound you, the Restoration died of nothing but stupidity, and I warrant you that we shall not die as it did. The National Guard is going to give Guizot a good lesson. The King has good ears, he will hear reason and surrender in time." Thereupon M. Thiers quitted MM. de Fal- loux and de Rainneville, who walked on, repeating : "After all, M. Thiers may be in the right. The King and his ministers are so well prepared to defend themselves that no one will dare attack them." The hero of the day had been M. de Lamartine. The next day he wrote to one of his friends : " Yes- terday there was a last reunion of the opposition. The camp was in a state of demoralization. Berryer had just got done with the legitimists, making a good speech, and concluding to withdraw. I was implored to answer him. I did so in a twenty minutes' im- provisation of such a sort that everything was re- newed as by fire. Never yet had my feeble words produced such an effect. Everything you ever read of mine is sugar and honey compared with this speech." The political poet was not slow to write of the speech he now gloried in. It was apropos of 88 THE INVOLUTION OF 184S his speech of February 19, in the Durand cafe, that he wrote in his History of the devolution of 1848: " Lamartine trusted somewhat to luck. Virtue trusts in nothing but prudence when the peace of states and the lives of men are in question. He tempted God and the people. Lamartine reproached himself severely for this fault. It is the only one that lay heavy on his conscience throughout the course of his political life. He did not seek to lessen it in his own eyes or those of others. It is a grave error to throw back on God what God has left to the states- man: responsibility. To do that is to defy Prov- idence. The wise man never defies fortune, but foresees and deprecates it." Strange and truly un- expected reflections on the part of the man who, by his writings, speeches, and actions, contributed more than any one else to the February Revolution ! CHAPTER XII THE ARRANGEMENTS FOR FEBRUARY 19 r I ^HE government did not even seem alarmed by JL the decisions arrived at in the Durand cafe. The revolutionary elements still hung behind the scenes, and nobody imagined that they were about to come out on the stage. In the eyes of M. Odilon Barrot and his friends, the banquet was to be an extra-parliamentary manifestation, but one that would preserve parliamentary appearances, a mani- festation of the country as constituted by law, of the just medium, the middle class, and the National Guard, in which the proletariat would not be repre- sented. Neither the opposition nor the ministry desired a real battle. All they dreamt of was simple skirmishes, or, rather, a sort of duel which the seconds were expected to prevent at any cost. " A singular circumstance," writes M. Barrot, "and one which proves how great was the confidence felt by all of us, was that the ministers themselves delegated two of their friends, MM. de Morny and Vitet, to come to an understanding with us about the programme of the banquet." 90 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 Count de Moni3 r , who was to play such an impor- tant part under the Second Empire, was at this time one of Louis Philippe's most loyal adherents. Born at Paris, October 23, 1811, he had been a brilliant officer of cavalry before becoming a political man. He served with distinction in Africa, under the eyes of the Duke of Orleans, who took a very special interest in him. Mentioned several times in the order of the day, he was decorated for having saved the life of General Trezel. Having sent in his resig- nation in 1838, he was deputy from Puy-de-Dome from 1842 to the end of the July monarchy. Much attached to M. Guizot, he always sat in the ranks of the conservative majority, but he wished that the ministry should consent to prudent reforms, and had expressed that wish in an essay published by the Revue des Deux-Mondes, January 1, 1848. Concilia- tory, courteous, and very self-possessed, M. de Morny seemed the most suitable person to bring about an agreement between the opposition and the Cabinet. M. Vitet was made his coadjutor, and on the same day in which the reunion had taken place in the Durand cafe*, these two, representing the majority, had an interview with MM. Le*on de Maleville, Duvergier de Hauranne, and Berger, representing the opposition. The five negotiators signed that day an official report which, in their opinion, should avert all conflict. This document stated that the question in litigation was a legal one. The government should consent to allow the offence to reach a point THE ARRANGEMENTS FOR FEBRUARY 19 91 where it could be legally verified, in order that as result of a condemnation pronounced, in default, by a justice of the peace, the legal question could be submitted to the enlightened jurisdiction of the Court of Cassation. The five negotiators, as legal and hon- est men, animated by a wise and patriotic intention, agreed on the following conditions : "The deputies of the opposition shall do every- thing humanly possible to prevent the disturbance of order. They shall peaceably enter the banquet hall, in spite of the warning of the police commissioner who will be stationed at the door, and who will in- form them, immediately on their arrival, that they are violating an ordinance of the prefect of police (the point being as important to the dignity of the reunion as that of the agent of authority). They shall take their places. As soon as they are seated, the police commissioner shall prove the offence and state the facts against M. Boissel, or airy other per- son, by declaring to the assembly that it must break up, or he, the commissioner, will be obliged to em- ploy force to make it do so. "To this injunction M. Barrot shall respond by a brief address, in which he will maintain the right of assembly; he will protest against this abuse of authority on the part of the government; he will declare that all he desired was to have the question legally decided, and he will induce the assembly to separate peaceably, declaring, however, that it yields only to force. He will make the assembly compre- 92 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 hend that any rebellion or insult to a public officer would change the case completely, and miss the end aimed at by the opposition. It is loyally agreed that he shall make no speech against the government and the majority, and that, in fine, he will not give the reunion the appearance of a banquet accomplished in spite of the government. " As soon as he is through speaking, the deputies will set the example by retiring themselves, and on going out they will declare, in order that the people outside may not make a mistake and become irri- tated, that they have accomplished what they came for, and have taken the only way of reaching a de- cision." The five negotiators were especially anxious to spare the dignity of both the conservatives and the opposition. They promised to use their influence over the official organs of their parties, Dgbats, Comervateur, Constitutionnel, Siecle, National, in order that no provocative or sarcastic articles should envenom their readers' minds. . . . The attitude of the opposition was to be treated as a dignified and moderate one, the government not accused of weakness nor of having taken a step backward, and the degree in which it was to use its author- ity considered as the sincere desire to keep the promise made in the discussion, that of arriving at a judicial solution. " Lastly, the deputies of the op- position promise not to patronize, preside at, or encourage by their speeches or their presence any TEE ARRANGEMENTS FOR FEBRUARY 19 93 banquet in Paris or elsewhere which is forbidden by the municipality, until the decision of the Court of Cassation, and not to attack the government concern- ing the means it may think itself obliged to employ for preventing others from being organized." M. Odilon Barrot, so optimistic at that time, has since made the following reflections in his Memoirs : " It may be admitted that it was rather puerile on both sides to hope that in the existing state of ex- citement everything would happen according to the programme. It proves, at all events, how far the ministers themselves were from dreading the result of this loyal agitation. It never came into the mind of any one of us that this manifestation, thus left to itself, might degenerate into a revolution." It is certain that in the evening there was a real relief from the strain. The conciliatory official report had not yet been made public, but the sense of it was known, and there was rejoicing in both camps. The Turkish ambassador gave a grand ball that evening at his residence, which was the house now occupied by the Artists' Union Club. There M. de Toc- queville met M. Duvergier de Hauranne, one of the five negotiators. "Courage, my dear fellow," he said to him, "you are playing a dangerous game." To which M. Duvergier de Hauranne replied with- out any sign of fear: "Rely on it, all this will turn out well; besides, we must risk something, in any case. There is no free government which has not passed through similar trials." 94 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 The next day, February 20, the arrangement con- cluded between the five negotiators was submitted to the council of minsters and fully ratified by them. After the council, Count Duchatel went to call on the Duchess of Orleans. The Princess seemed well satisfied with the result, and agreeably surprised that the King had interposed no obstacle. M. Sauzet, president of the Chamber of Deputies, found the arrangement magnificent. "It was not," he writes, " a spectacle without grandeur nor an ordi- nary homage to that respect for laws which is the dominant character of the epoch, to see on one side the government, with its powerful organization and its influence over military discipline, and on the other, the opposition, with its moral ascendency over the enthusiasm of the disturbed masses, inclining together before the pacific toga of a justice of the peace, and submitting the dispute between these two great forces of the country to the most humble dele- gate of the inviolable hierarchy of the magistracy." After citing this passage from M. Sauzet's book, La Ckambre des deputes et la Revolution de Fevrier, M. Dupin adds: " Verla et voces! Idle words! I think, on the contrary, that this transaction was in reality a desertion of principles on the part of both the opposition and the ministry; neither was fully per- suaded of being strictly in the right. Hence, what might have been expected, happened. This first capitulation precipitated the complications they wanted to prevent." However, the same M. Dupin THE ARRANGEMENTS FOR FEBRUARY 19 95 who, in his Memoirs, judges so severely the agree- ment arrived at, had at first applauded it. "Not only," writes M. Guizot, "did the King approve the arrangement, but satisfaction was evinced in the privacy of the royal family and the midst of the con- servative party. On learning the result some hours after the council, M. Dupin cordially congratulated the Keeper of the Seals, and told him of his own accord that he would go himself, as attorney-general, to be the spokesman of the government and defend its rights before the Court of Cassation, if it were called upon for a decision." The government imagined that the litigation was merely a judicial question, and thought it could rely on the magistracy. "The magistrates," says M. Guizot again, "maintained a fitting reserve, but everything indicated that their opinion on the score of legality was in line with the conduct of the gov- ernment; there was room to hope that the crisis would have a tranquil issue ; the most moderate men of the republican opposition appeared to have resigned themselves to it." M. Gamier-Pages, who, four days later, was to be a member of the provisional government, thus expressed himself concerning the arrangement of February 19 :" We were about to show the world the magnificent spectacle of a whole people risen in defence of a right, vindicating respect for law, calmly deploying the imposing but pacific masses of its force, accomplishing in fine, without tumult and with sovereign majesty, a great act of political 96 THE REVOLUTION OF faith. Certainly this result was enough, and the opposition could not dream of a greater triumph." M. Garnier-Pagds thought thus, and so did all those who, like him, would have been contented with re- form. But the men of action in the republican party thought very differently. What they desired was the overthrow of the monarchy. A peaceful legal solution would have been their despair. Meanwhile the ministry remained convinced that the banquet of the 22d would be only an empty sham. Count Duchatel considered the affair termi- nated, but, on that same Sunday, February 20, some one came at ten in the evening to warn him that the opposition journals declined the arrangement. At first he would not believe it, but he was obliged to submit to the evidence when the proofs of the pro- gramme to be published the next morning were brought to him an hour later. Then the minister perceived that the opposition chiefs had stipulated for a party of which they were not masters. The revolutionists Avere entering on the scene. Things were about to change their face. CHAPTER XIII THE PROGRAMME OF THE MANIFESTATION ALL day long, February 20, the success of con- ciliatory ideas had been believed in by both camps. The ministry was determined to carry out loyally the agreement arrived at by the five negotia- tors, and the deputies of the constitutional opposi- tion ardently desired that there should be no trouble in any quarter. The organizers of the banquet had appointed a sub-committee specially charged with taking the measures necessary for the preservation of public tranquillity. M. Odilon Barrot wanted to be a minister, not a rioter. He was in absolute good faith when he supposed himself able to guarantee the pacific character of the coming manifestation. "These," he says in his Memoirs, "are the precautions we had deemed necessary in order to avoid all disturbance; instead of leaving the crowd to itself, and by way of introducing some sort of order, we had agreed that all mem- bers of the National Guard who were present should wear their uniforms, but carry no weapons except a sabre ; that they should assemble by the number of H 97 98 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 their legions, in order that, knowing each other, it would be easier to exercise a due surveillance; the same plan was agreed on for the schools, each of which was to assemble under its own banner, and like- wise for the deputations from the departments. Each corps was thus summoned to exercise over itself a discipline which would not, according to us, be less efficacious for being voluntary." The sub-committee raised the question : "Are the National Guards who join the proces- sion to wear or not to wear their sabres ? " As there was a difference of opinion, a member said jocosely that the sabre was not prescribed, but it was not for- bidden, and everybody began to laugh. M. Maxime du Camp says in his Souvenirs de Vannee 1848: " M. Odilon Barrot, in opening the cave of Eolus to find the zephyr which might gently waft his bark into the ministerial haven, had un- chained the tempest." But on the 20th of February he did not yet suspect it. And yet the people were beginning to make this chief of the middle classes, this friend of the National Guard, somewhat uneasy. "Up to that time," he says, "we had to deal with the middle classes or the educated youths of Paris ; but now came M. Guivard, demanding that we should admit the working classes, who likewise desired to take part in the manifestation ; he assumed responsi- bility, moreover, for perfect tranquillity. The ques- tion was referred to me, and I did not decide without considerable hesitation on admitting the working THE PROGRAMME OF THE MANIFESTATION 99 classes on the same condition we had established for the other classes of citizens ; namely, that they should assemble by occupations and under distinct banners, in order that all those who should compose these different groups should answer to each other and exercise a reciprocal restraint." The deputies of the constitutional opposition were trying to convince themselves that such measures would suffice to pre- vent all collision. They had caused it to be adopted as the order of the day that any one who made a disturbance should be considered a provocator and immediately driven from the ranks. A programme was to announce all the precautions taken and insist on the peaceable character of the manifestation. "It was our mistake," adds M. Bar- rot, " to leave this programme to be drawn up by the journalists who were members of the committee, thinking that it was sufficient to have thoroughly explained its meaning and principal dispositions for them to conform to these in the publicity they would give it. " The parliamentarians took the second place, and the hour of the men of action was about to strike. The man who drew up the programme which was about to touch a match to the powder was M. Annand Marrast, the chief-editor of the National. M. de Lamartine, in his Histoire de la Revolution de 1848, has thus expressed himself on the subject of this sheet : " The National was the journal of republican opinion, the toothing-stone (pierre d'attente) of the future revolution. Nevertheless, as the Revolution 100 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 was as yet nothing more than a distant presentiment to the masses, this journal did not have an immense circulation in the country. People read it through a certain curiosity, which desired to know what even the least probable contingencies of the future might be holding in reserve. . . . This journal seemed to waver between the acceptance of monarchical gov- ernment and a profession of republican faith. At times it appeared to come to too intimate terms with the purely dynastic opposition. It lost few occa- sions of favoring the opinions, tactics, and political views of M. Thiers." M. Armand Marrast was a republican of the Athenian sort, a man of wit and a fine scholar. As M. de Lamartine says again : " The genius of his style was mischievousness, not hatred. Never a sanguinary image, never a fatal souvenir, never a provocation. The sensuousness of the politi- cal artist instead of the sombre fanaticism of the sectary, the horror of vulgarity, the disgust for Jacobinism, the dread of proscriptions, the relish for letters, eloquence, toleration, for glory in liberty, was the republican ideal of M. Armand Marrast." Born in 1801, at Saint-Gaudens, he had made himself a name by his opposition to the government of King Louis Philippe. He had no fortune, and his beginnings had been very modest. After having taught philosophy at the college of Saint-Sever, in the Landes, he came to Paris under the auspices of General Lamarque. While editor of the Tribune, he was condemned to prison for the violence of his THE PROGRAMME OF THE MANIFESTATION 101 polemics, but had escaped the penalty by taking refuge in England. Returning to France when an amnesty was proclaimed, he became, after 1841, the principal editor of the National. M. Armand Marrast had thoroughly comprehended that any republican attempt would fail unless sup- ported by the constitutional opposition. Nothing except its adhesion could put the public on the wrong scent, make the government wary in its at- tempts at repression, and thus increase the chances of the riot. The bold and skilful journalist had neg- lected no means of maintaining apparent concord with the deputies of the dynastic opposition; he lavished fine speeches and courtesies on them, and adorned the chain he had hung about their necks with silk and flowers. The sub-committee, to which had been referred the necessary measures for the maintenance of order, had been summoned to meet on February 20. MM. Armand Marrast, Perre*e, Merruau, Pagnerre, Biesta, Havin, and d'Alton-She'e were the only members present. M. Armand Marrast took up a pen and wrote out the programme of the Manifestation re- formiste. It began thus: "The general committee charged with organizing the banquet of the twelfth ward thinks it ought to recall the fact that the object of the manifestation to take place next Tuesday is to claim the legal and pacific exercise of a constitu- tional right, the right of political reunion, without which representative government would be only a . ' , ' r TfIE' t REV.QJ.UTION OF 1S4S ; : / ' 7- 1 ': f ,. /'' mockery." The order of the procession was regu- lated thus : " The deputies, peers of France, and other invited guests shall assemble at eleven o'clock next Tuesday morning at the usual headquarters of the parliamen- tary opposition, No. 2 Place de la Madeleine; "Subscribers to the banquet who belong to the National Guard are requested to assemble in front of Eglise de la Madeleine, and to form in two parallel lines, between which the guests shall place themselves ; " The procession will be headed by those superior officers of the National Guard who shall be present to join in the manifestation ; "Immediately after the invited guests and the banqueters a file of officers of the National Guard will take their places ; " Behind these, the National Guards will form in columns, according to the number of their legions ; " Between the third and fourth columns the stu- dents from the schools, led by commissioners chosen by themselves ; "Then the National Guards of Paris and the en- virons, in the order designated above; "The procession will start at 11.30, and march by way of the Place de la Concorde and the Champs- Elyse*es toward the banqueting-place." The document concluded in terms of prudence and pacification, intended to keep up to the last the tenacious illusions of the constitutional opposition. THE PROGRAMME OF THE MANIFESTATION 103 The National Guards were requested to come un- armed, and the citizens to refrain from shouting and carrying flags or other exterior signs. "The com- mittee hopes," it said, "that every man present will conduct himself as a functionary whose duty it is to see that order is respected; it confides itself to the presence of the National Guards, to the sentiments of the population of Paris, which desires public peace with liberty, and which knows that in order to secure the maintenance of its rights it has no need of any but a peaceable demonstration, such as befits an in- telligent and enlightened nation, conscious of the irresistible authority of its moral force, and which feels assured that it can attain its legitimate desires by the legal and calm expression of its opinion." When M. Marrast had finished reading aloud the document he had just drawn up, M. Merruau, editor of the Constitutionnel, asked that it should be sub- mitted to the approbation of M. Odilon Barrot. M. Marrast did not meet the latter until evening, in a house where he was dining. Being pressed for time, M. Marrast did not even read him the pro- gramme, but contented himself with explaining its principal provisions: "Yes, that is well," said M. Barrot, "but take care not to add anything calcu- lated to compromise the opposition." The pro- gramme was then taken as speedily as possible to the three republican journals, the National, the Reforme, and the Democratic pacifique, which published it in their next morning's edition.. CHAPTER XIV THE TWENTY-FIRST OF FEBRUARY SUNDAY, February 20, had been a lull in the storm. Monday, the 21st, was a day of dis- turbance and excitement. The programme of the reformist manifestation changed things from top to bottom. As M. de Tocqueville has remarked, " One might have called it a decree emanating from the provisional government, to be founded three days later." This programme was about to change the banquet into an insurrection. Like the public, the major part of the members of the constitutional opposition only learned this when they read the morning papers. They began to reap what they had sown. For the rest, there was a slight difference between what M. Marrast had written and what M. Barrot would have desired. The latter has himself acknowl- edged this in his Memoirs. "M. Armand Marrast," he says, "though without altering the fundamental provisions that had been agreed on, thought proper to invest the preparatives with a sort of semi-official character, and talk very much as a prefect of police 104 THE TWENTY-FIRST OF FEBEUAEY 105 on duty might have done. This defect of form, which, moreover, was merely one of journalistic editing, was not of such a nature as to occasion a dissolution of the agreement between the govern- ment and us ! " Such was not the opinion of the ministry. M. Guizot and his colleagues all thought that nothing was left of the pacific arrangement of February 19. There was, in fact, no further question of a sopori- fic, parliamentary, and, so to say, judicial banquet, but of an immense popular manifestation, a rendez- vous of all the enemies of the dynasty. As M. Guizot had predicted several weeks before, in a con- versation with M. de Morny, the affair of the reform was no longer in the Chamber; it was passing into "that illimitable, obscure, seething world on the outside which mischief-makers and boobies call the people." In this programme the ministers beheld a usurpation of powers, an organization of disturbance, a scandal, a provocation which no regular govern- ment could permit. Respecting this, we point to the curious avowal of a member of the provisional government, M. Garnier-Pages. "If the opposi- tion," he says, "were allowed to strike such authori- tative blows in Paris, to convoke the National Guard, to enlist the population, the artisans, the schools; if its orders were listened to and executed, the govern- ment was no longer in the hands of the ministers, it belonged to the opposition ; even M. Guizot's resig- nation became useless. If, on the contrary, the 106 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 usurpation were not tolerated, if the Cabinet should resist, there would be war, Avar with that redouble- ment of fury which results from the violent rupture of a peace that had begun." There is room to remark, moreover, that the ar- rangement of February 19 had been far from gaining universal approbation. Many political men had seen in it an act of weakness, a dangerous concession, a first capitulation. Such was notably the opinion of a peer of France very devoted to King Louis Philippe, Count de Pontecoulant. In his Souvenirs historiques he says : " That the opposition should allow itself to be led astray by its blind confidence in its strength and its usual lack of foresight of the evils it was about to cause, was a simple thing to which, for the last eighteen years, we had unfortunately become accustomed; but that grave and serious men could consent to follow it through the obscure windings of a political comedy whose ending it was so easy to foresee, is something which posterity will find it hard to understand, no matter how or by what elo- quent tongue soever it may be excused. The minis- try, in accepting a false position, exposed itself to all the inconveniences which, in politics, are its inevitable result. Its tolerance seemed a lack of confidence in its own good right and its means of making it prevail ; it wanted to prevent a collision, and it proceeded to hasten its explosion by itself summoning its adversaries to the public square ; in a word, it ought to have known by experience that THE TWENTY-FIRST OF FEBRUARY 107 disorders in the streets, like all abuses of liberty, are always easier to be prevented in France than they are to be repressed." The ministers themselves doubted the efficacity of the compact, and learned without regret that it had been denounced. At ten o'clock in the morning the Cabinet assem- bled at the Ministry of the Interior. " What do you think of the banquet at present?" said M. de Sal- vandy to M. Hebert, who was entering the room. " I think, and think more than ever, just what I have always thought about it," responded the Keeper of the Seals ; " that it ought not to take place, and that there is ground for interdicting it." "In that case," returned M. de Salvandy, "we are all of the same mind." The unanimous decision of the min- isters was immediately communicated to the King, who approved of it entirely. The government had decided to enter the path of repression, and so warned the public. It had a placard posted up, written, it is said, by M. de Morny, and signed by the prefect of police, M. Gabriel Delessert: "Inhabitants of Paris! An in- quietude injurious to labor and to business is preva- lent among us. It proceeds from the manifestations that are preparing. . . . The manifesto published this morning by the journals of the opposition raises another government at the side of the real govern- ment of the country, that which is instituted by the Charter and which rests upon the majority in th6 Chambers ; it calls for a public manifestation danger- 108 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 ous to the repose of the city ; in violation of the law of March 22, 1831, it convokes the National Guards and stations them in advance in double lines, by the number of their legions, with officers at their head. There is no room here for doubt; the clearest and best-established laws are violated. The government will know how to make them respected ; they are the foundation and the guarantee of public order." It was decided to publish, at the same time, an order of the day from General Jacqueminot, reminding the National Guards that they could not assemble in that capacity without the command of their chief, an order from the prefect of police formally interdict- ing the banquet and, finally, the ordinance concerning disorderly gatherings in the streets. The most ener- getic military measures were prepared, in virtue of a plan of resistance decided on since 1840 by Mar- shal Gerard. On the morning of February 22 Paris was to be occupied by an army of troops amounting to thirty-one thousand men. MM. Odilon Barrot and Duvergier de Hauranne tried in vain several palliatives intended to heal this breach, changes of wording, insufficient ex- planations, etc. It was too late. On arriving at the Chamber of Deputies, they learned that the gov- ernment would maintain the policy of resistance, greatly to the joy of the whole conservative party. The session was comparatively quiet. They were already conscious that the question was being dis- cussed beyond the precincts of the Palais-Bourbon. THE TWENTY-FIRST OF FEBRUARY 109 M. Barrot expressed himself more like a doctrinaire than a tribune. "I fear," said he, "lest what authority is doing at this moment in the interest of order may be, on the contrary, only a cause of pro- found trouble in society. ... I will say that even in the situation they are making for us, the first need, the first duty of every man, whatever opinions he may hold, is to employ every possible means of influence or authority in his power to avert the mis- fortunes which I foreese. ... I declare that if it rested with me to banish them from the country, to appease this excitement which your inopportune measures will surely increase, I would do it with all the strength of my convictions. Gentlemen, my rights end there; I cannot go further. It is the government which is charged with the maintenance of order and tranquillity in the country ; it is for it to weigh the gravity of the circumstances, and it is it, above all, which bears the responsibility." Count Duchatel's reply was energetic and calm. Never had the minister spoken with more moderation or authority. " The law against street disturbances is violated," said he; "the law concerning the National Guards is violated. . . . We are unwill- ing that on the occasion of a banquet, a manifesta- tion contrary to all the laws, and the proclamation of a government improvised at the side of the legal government, should be tolerated in the city of Paris." As M. Barrot was replying, some one shouted to him: "You must avow or disavow the programme." 110 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 "I will put everybody entirely at ease," he re- turned ; " I unhesitatingly avow the intention of this act, I disavow its expressions." M. Duchatel again ascended the tribune. " The manifesto being neither avowed nor disavowed," exclaimed he, "is it a sub- ject of security for us, who are charged to maintain public order ? Is it a subject of security that a mani- festo inciting to the violation of the laws can be openly published? a manifesto which the honorable M. Barrot dare not say that he avows ? " And the minister concluded, amid applause : " The repression they talk about is simply the performance of the government's duties, the maintenance of that order and respect for law on which rest the tranquillity of the country and the safety of our institutions." In this brief skirmish the minister had indisputably gained the advantage. The opposition deputies were visibly embarrassed. When the session broke up at five o'clock, they repaired to the house of M. Odilon Barrot, who lived at No. 2, rue Ferme-des-Mathurins, now rue Vignon. "I presided at the reunion," he says in his Memoirs. "I thought I ought not to take part in the deliberation ; I had a scruple about influencing a resolution in which each man was staking his honor and possibly his life. But I was of the opinion which prevailed." They resolved on prudence. "The opposition would be senseless and culpable," ex- claimed M. Thiers, "if it voluntarily exposed the capital to a sanguinary collision, if it left events to THE TWENTY-FIRST OF FEBRUARY 111 the decision of force, that wielded by the govern- ment being incomparably superior. We must submit to the law of circumstances and give way." A deputy of the extreme left, M. Bethmont, ex- pressed a similar opinion. M. de Lamartine vainly insisted on what he called the disgrace of backing down. He persisted in his intention of going to the banquet. " I will go, " said he, " if I am accompanied by nothing but my shadow." This time he did not persuade his auditors. It was decided, by eighty votes against seventeen, that the deputies should not attend the banquet. As they were determined to do nothing without the constitutional opposition, the delegates of the central committee and of the twelfth ward proposed that it should be postponed. M. Armand Marrast himself was of this opinion. "For humanity's sake," said he, "for love of the people, give up the banquet. Let a conflict break out and the population will be crushed. Do you want to deliver them to the hatred of Louis Philippe and M. Guizot?" Informed of the decision of the deputies by a note from M. Barrot, the painter Ary Scheffer hastened with the good news to the Duchess of Orleans, who instantly imparted it to the King. " I knew very well, "said he, "that if I showed firmness I would make them back down." The military authorities were full of confidence. In his order of the day, General Jacqueminot, chief commander of the National Guard, said, not without a touch of irony: "Doubtless not many of you are 112 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 disposed to let yourselves be dragged into a culpa- ble proceeding, but I would like to spare those the regret of counting their small numbers among the eighty-five thousand National Guards of which your legions are composed." In the King's immediate circle optimism was absolute. It is surely a whimsical result that by return- ing to prudential ideas and giving up the banquet the deputies of the dynastic opposition ruined the monarchy they all were anxious to support. If they had persevered in their original resolve, if they had accepted the programme of the reformist manifesta- tion and promised to take part in it, the ministry would have planted itself vigorously on the ground of resistance, and, in all probability, would have come off victorious. Instead of that, it was unlucky enough to believe that all danger was over as soon as the deputies of the left withdrew. Accustomed to preoccupy itself solely with the country as con- stituted by law, it looked only at the surface of things, and did not bother itself about their depths. The ministry and the opposition were equally de- ceived. The false perspective of parliamentarism had obliterated their view. Not a soul in either camp had divined the ground on which the real battle would be fought. Parliamentary tactics and politi- cal strategy are two different things. A man may excel in one and be wrecked in the other. CHAPTER XV THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 21 THE deputies gave up the banquet; but would the men of action give it up? That was the question people were asking on Monday evening, February 21. A reunion took place at seven o'clock, in the office of the Reforme, to settle on what should be done. "This journal," says M. de Lamartine in his Histoire de la Revolution de 1848, "represented the extreme left, the incorruptible republic, the revo- lution at any price. It was supposed to embody the suggestions of M. Ledru-Rollin and three or four important deputies of the Chamber. It was the tradition of the Convention, renewed fifty years after the combats and revenges of the Convention, the Mountain with its thunders and furies in a time of peace and serenity, the accents of Danton in a political academy, an imaginary terror, a systematic wrath, a Jacobinism exhumed from the soul of those who died in 1794, a misunderstanding of the future republic in wishing to create it anew in the image of the First Republic." Its principal editor was M. Flocon, "one of those primitive republicans who i 113 114 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 were obdurate in their belief in secret societies, conspiracies, and prisons." The republican sheet was far from prosperous. According to M. Garnier- Pagete, M. Flocon had asked a member of the edito- rial committee, the day before, for a final sum of three hundred francs, to pay the stamp duty on the issue of the 21st, the resources of the journal being entirely exhausted. Its friends in Paris and the departments could make no more sacrifices; the Reforme, therefore, was about to cease to appear; it would live only until Wednesday, the 23d, the mor- row of the banquet, in order to die in a triumph of the democracy; it could only pay the expense of bringing out the issues of the 22d and 23d by sell- ing off its furniture. The gathering in the Reforme office lasted for sev- eral hours. The question debated was this: "Shall we, or shall we not, give the secret societies the order to march?" The most ardent, MM. Caus- sidire and Lagrange, for example, inclined to the affirmative. The opposite opinion was vehemently supported by MM. Louis Blanc and Ledru-Rollin. The first said that if the patriots came down into the streets the next day, they would infallibly be over- whelmed and fired at by the National Guard as well as by the army. " You will decide for insurrection if you choose," said he, "but if you do come to that decision, I shall go back home to put on mourning and weep over the ruin of the democracy." M. Ledru-Rollin used language not less categorical. THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 21 115 "In the first revolution," said he, "when our fathers made 'a day,' they had prepared for it long before- hand. But are we prepared ? Have we arms, muni- tions, organized bodies of men? The government is all ready, and the troops are only waiting for a signal to crush us. My opinion is that to involve ourselves in such a predicament, in our present con- ditions, is simply a folly." The majority adhered to this opinion, the secret societies were requested not to move, and M. Flocon wrote the following article, which was to appear in the RSforme the next morning : "Men of the people, beware of all foolhardy en- thusiasm! " Do not supply authority with the desired occa- sion for a bloody success ! "Do not give this dynastic opposition, which is abandoning both itself and you, a pretext with which it would hasten to cover its own weakness ! " You perceive that these are the results of the initiative taken by those who do not belong to us. "Patience! When it suits the democratic party to take such an initiative, we shall see whether it will draw back when it has once advanced." Meanwhile, in the early part of the evening, the public did not know that the banquet for the next day had been abandoned. False news and contra- dictory rumors were circulated. Inquisitive groups got together on the boulevards, reading the procla- mations of the prefect of police and the commander 116 THE REVOLUTION OF of the National Guard by torchlights, and comment- ing on them with vivacity. The evening papers were impatiently expected. There was animation and excitement on every side. At the Opera, where they were playing Le Comte Ory, things looked very dismal. According to Dr. Ve'ron, a large num- ber of influential men, some of them of high rank in the National Guard, others having business and banking affairs with manufacturers and overseers, were moving about in the corridors and the lobby. All were alarmed about the next day, and all said the same thing : " It will not be a riot but a revolu- tion." Between ten and eleven o'clock the uneasi- ness diminished. The Patrie had just published, in a second edition, the following item : " After the ses- sion of the Chamber of Deputies the opposition met at the house of M. Odilon Barrot. Unwilling to take, either directly or indirectly, the responsibility of the consequences that may result from the new measures adopted to-day by the government, it has resolved not to attend the banquet. " It adjures good citizens to keep away from any crowd and any manifestation which could serve as a pretext for acts of violence. "At the same time, the whole opposition compre- hends that the new resolutions of the ministry impose upon it new and serious duties which it will know how to fulfil." In spite of this vague menace, the public believed in a retreat of the opposition and a victory of the government. THE EVENING OF FEBRUAEY 21 117 At the Tuileries there was a reception. Louis Philippe was beaming. "You know," said he to the English ambassador, "all is over; I was very sure they would retreat." The instant he perceived M. de Salvandy, Minister of Public Instruction, he ran to meet him, exclaiming: "Well, Salvandy, you told us yesterday we were over a volcano ; it is a fine volcano, yours! They have given up the banquet, my dear fellow; yes, they have given it up; I told you all that would end in smoke." "I was not wrong, for all that," replied the minister, "all they lacked to make a revolution was a Duke of Orleans." M. Odilon Barrot, who received these details from M. de Salvandy himself, has written in his Memoirs : "M. de Salvandy had just touched a sensitive chord; for more than once in our conversations the King had expressed the same thought, and in speaking of the abortive revolutions in Italy and Spain he had said to me: ' Bah! they won't succeed in anything; they have no Duke of Orleans ! ' His flattered vanity increased his excitement, and, addressing the Queen, he said : ' You just heard Salvandy, my dear Amelie ; he says they have no Duke of Orleans ; I think so, too ; so you see they retreat. ' ' Marie Ame'lie had been very uneasy for several days. According to M. Trognon: "All the stories she heard showed her that the popular fermentation was steadily rising." "Things are going badly," said the Queen to a person who had her full confi- dence ; " I expect the worst. I wanted to send you 118 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 to Brussels with my diamonds and some papers, but the King Avas not willing." But now Marie Amelie felt reassured. She said to Admiral Baudin: "You find us much more tranquil ; this morning I was very uneasy, and I wrote to my sons Joinville and d'Aumale that I greatly regretted their absence at such a moment; now I hope that all will go off well." The whirl of gaiety went on in Paris that evening of February 21, precisely as if it were not the vigil of the most serious events. There was a ball at the house of the Duchess d'Estissac, another at the Bel- gian embassy, given by the Princess de Ligne. The beautiful ambassadress, a Pole by birth, was dancing the mazurka with exquisite grace, and political pre- occupations did not prevent her being admired. The house of the embassy was situated on the corner of the Avenue des Champs-Elyse'es and the street then called the rue d'Angouleme, and now the rue de la Boetie. The famous banquet had been prepared a few steps from there, in a piece of ground adjoining the Champs-Elysdes, rue du Chemin-de-Versailles, and in order to reach the Belgian embassy carriages passed quite close to the rue de Chaillot, which con- ducted thither. While the ball was in progress, a group of women surrounded an aide-de-camp of the King. He reassured them to the best of his power by telling them of the military measures taken long before, and of the security of the ministers. He repeated several times that the King did not foresee THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 21 119 the least probability of a revolution. The aide-de- camp's optimism did not appear excessive. It was a member of the provisional government, M. Gamier- Pages, who has written : " The power of the mon- archy seemed indestructible; its material means of defence were formidable; a numerous army, inured to war, and up to that time loyal, occupied the city; barracks, crenellated guard-houses, strongly built redoubts, intersected the city and connected mili- tary movements ; outside the walls an enceinte and forts, the last resort of resistance and destruction; finally, the National Guard, a citizen force, desirous to uphold reform, but hostile rather than favorable to extreme democracy, would doubtless join with the army if the excitement became a riot. What could a handful of men, however determined, do against such a combination of forces ? " When the democratic chiefs saw things in this light, the delu- sions of the friends of authority are easily compre- hended. The guests of the Belgian ambassador asked nothing better than to believe the reassuring words they listened to. The ball-goers departed in high spirits. This was the last festivity of the July monarchy, the last adieu of a brilliant society about to be dispersed. As the night wore on, confidence grew stronger in government circles. The police reports, that succeeded each other hourly at the Ministry of the Interior, were continually more reassuring. It was thought certain that the secret societies would re- 120 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 main quiet and that the movement had proved abor- tive. Then was suggested the fatal idea of the countermand, which ruined everything. It had been decided that the garrisons of Paris should assemble under arms, February 22, that the garrisons of the suburbs and the department of the Seine and Oise should arrive at the capital by six o'clock in the morning, that the artillery of Vincennes should hold itself in readiness, that the regiments of cavalry should be massed in the Avenue des Champs-Elyse'es and around the barrier de 1 ' E toile . When they learned that the rioters had given up the struggle, Count Duchatel, the prefect of police, General Tiburce Se'bastiani, commander of the garrison of Paris, and General Jacqueminot, commander of the National Guard, who were assembled at the Ministry of the In- terior, were of opinion that such a display of troops had become unnecessary, might be considered a prov- ocation and serve as an occasion for dangerous as- semblages. They thought it would be better to preserve the ordinary appearance of the city and content themselves with keeping the troops in their barracks. Time pressed; it was too late to inform the ministers ; even the president of the council was not forewarned ; all that was done was to send General Jacqueminot to the Tuileries to take instructions from the King. Louis Philippe decided that the military preparations should be countermanded. The countermands reached their destinations be- tween four and five o'clock in the afternoon. The insurrection might lift its head. CHAPTER XVI THE DAY OF FEBRUARY 22 rpUESDAY, February 22, began tranquilly. A JL fine rain was falling. Workshops and ware- houses were opened as usual. The countermand given during the night by the military authority was everywhere obeyed. There was no display of troops. The banqueting ground was almost empty. Noth- ing was seen there but workmen busied in taking the tables to pieces and lading wagons with the things carried there the previous evening. But this calm was deceptive, and a secret agitation speedily began to pervade the city. Toward ten o'clock several groups, chiefly composed of men in blouses, formed on the Place du Pantheon, and then marched toward the Place de la Madeleine, shouting, "Long live the Reform!" and singing the Marseillaise, the Chant du Depart, and the chorus of the Grirondins. At this very moment, M. Jayr, Minister of Public Works, was on his way to the King, at the Tuileries. "Well! you have come to congratulate me," said Louis Philippe, whose face was beaming; "it is a fact that the affair turned out wonderfully well. 121 122 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 How pleased I am with you, my dear ministers, for the way in which it has been conducted ! You know they have given up the banquet. They saw, rather late it is true, that it was running too great a risk. When I think how many of our friends wanted us to give in! But this is going to strengthen the majority." M. Jayr, however, thought the situation still serious. "On my way to the chateau," said he, "I saw a continual stream of men in blouses going by way of the two quays to the Place de la Concorde; the faubourgs were sending their van- guard thither. If we do not have a great battle, we shall at least have a strong sedition. We must keep ready for it." "Without a doubt," returned the King, "Paris is excited; how could it be otherwise? But this excitement will quiet down of itself. After the backdown of last night, it is impossible that the disorder should assume serious proportions. Besides, you know the measures are taken." A crowd, swelled by the curious, had gathered on Place de la Madeleine and Place de la Concorde. With a little energy the simpletons might have been easily dispersed and the evil at once cut down by the roots. It was allowed to develop with an impru- dence which cost the government of July very dear. What was at first merely a tiny rivulet, soon swelled into an impetuous flood. Many persons who were still ignorant that the depu- ties had resolved not to attend the banquet, stationed themselves on the lower sides of the Place de la THE DAY OF FEBRUARY 22 123 Concorde and on the Avenue des Champs-Elyse'es, as if awaiting the procession. As yet, not a soldier was in sight. The troops did not arrive until the crowd, which was growing larger every minute, started for the Chamber of Deputies. At half-past eleven, a compact mass, of five or six thousand persons, shouting : " Long live the Reform ! Down with Guizot!" arrived just in front of the Palais-Bourbon. The gate was closed. However, several of the agitators got under the colonnade. Some even entered the hall, but were promptly ex- pelled. At this moment General Tiburce Sebastiani, commander of the 1st military division, arrived with a battalion of the 69th of the line and a squadron of the 6th dragoons. The approaches to the Chamber were cleared without resistance, and the agitators spread into the Champs-Elysees, the rue Royale, the rue Saint-Honore, and the rue de Rivoli. However, there seemed nothing very serious in these first disturbances. " The day of February 22," writes M. de Tocqueville, " did not at first seem to me to be of a sort to cause serious anxieties. The crowd blocked up the street, but to me it appeared to be composed of sight-seers and fault-finders rather than of seditious persons. When soldiers and citi- zens met they joked with each other, and I heard fewer shouts in the crowd than jests. I know it will not do to trust to appearances. Generally it is the street boys of Paris who begin the insurrections, and they generally do it gaily, like scholars going on their vacation." 124 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 The two Chambers had assembled as usual. At the opening of the session in the Chamber of Peers, the Marquis de Boissy laid down a proposition thus worded : " Seeing that the Chamber of Peers has been less personally involved in the events which pre- pared and led the way to the existing situation, and that it is, consequently, all the more fitting that, in this circumstance, it should take an initiative which might bring about a compromise, a reconciliation desired by all sincere arid enlightened friends of the country, I have the honor to ask the Chamber's per- mission to interpellate the Cabinet on the present situation of the capital." The upper assembly did not take this request in earnest. It decided that there was no occasion to listen to the Marquis de Boissy. Then it took up the reports of various peti- tions, and broke up at the end of an hour. The session of the Chamber of Deputies lasted from half-past one to a quarter of five. The order of the day was the prorogation of the license of the bank of Bordeaux. "On entering the Chamber," says M. de Tocqueville, " I found there an apparent impassibility, underneath which the ebullition of a myriad interior passions was perceptible. It was the only place in Paris where I had not heard loud talk that morning about the matter that was then preoccupying all France. They were listlessly dis- cussing about a bank at Bordeaux; but, honestly, not a soul was paying any attention to the affair, except the man who was speaking from the tribune THE DAT OF FEBRUARY 22 125 and him who was to answer what he said. M. Du- chatel told me that all was going well. He said it with an air at once confident and disturbed, which to me appeared suspicious." The session was clos- ing, the president had already quitted his armchair, when M. Odilon Barrot rose to speak. Several voices on the left crying : " The president ! the presi- dent!" M. Sauzet resumed his chair. Then M. Barrot said: "I beg the president to take up a prop- osition I have sent to the desk, and which is sup- ported by a sufficiently large number of deputies, and to indicate the day when it will be debated in the committees." The Chamber fixed Thursday, February 24, as the date of this discussion, and then separated. The proposition was signed by fifty-two deputies, among whom were three future ministers of the Emperor Napoleon III. : MM. Abbatucci, Baroche, and Drouyn de Lhuys. They called for the indict- ment of the ministers as guilty of having betrayed the honor and interests of France abroad, perverted representative government by systematic corruption, ruined the finances of the state, despoiled citizens of a right inherent to every free constitution, and plunged the country into profound disturbance. M. Guizot went up to the desk, read the accusa- tion, and smiled with disdain. " He had read much and written much history," says M. de Lamartine. "His eloquence sought for resounding occasions in the future. His glance breathed combat. He braved 126 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 an accusation against which he was defended from within by a majority associated to himself, and from without by a monarchy and an army." He thus ex- presses himself in his Memoirs : " Of all the acts of the opposition in this heated struggle, that was the only one that had caused me any surprise. Neither the profound divergence between its ideas and ours, whether on general policy or special facts, nor the bitterness, and what I thought the injustice, of its attacks had astonished me ; I had seen in them noth- ing but the natural course of representative govern- ment and the rude warfare of parties. But that a polemic practised during eight years amidst the most entire public liberty, tested by the most vigorous discussion in the tribune and the press, sanctioned by the adhesion of a constant majority, by several general elections, and by the accord of all the great powers of the state, free consequently from all tenta- tive, all constitutional or illegal aspect, that such a policy, I say, was described as treason, counter- revolution, tyranny, and suddenly made the object of a judicial accusation, was a fact that went beyond my foresight/' But one need be astonished at noth- ing on the part of party men. Meanwhile, the day was signalized by several at- tempts at disorder. Barricades were started at the entrance of the rue Royale, and even in the rue de Rivoli. Some municipal guards put a very speedy end to these first experiments. According to Dr. Ve*ron, an eyewitness, "As soon as the municipal THE DAY OF FEBRUARY 22 127 guards left the rue de Rivoli, a band of Paris street boys, under the direction of several intelligent leaders, tore up the pavement, and began making barricades by stopping and overturning carriages. When the municipal guard was notified arid returned at full gallop, the same gamins surrounded the offi- cers and marshals, and offered themselves for the purpose of righting the carriages and replacing the paving stones, in a word, of repairing the disorder which was their own work. This manoeuvre was kept up for several hours." There was much com- motion in the neighborhood of the Tuileries, in the rue d'Alger, rue de la Sourdire, rue Saint-Hya- cinthe. The crowd threw stones and broke the win- dows of houses. Colonel Bilfeldt, commanding at the palace of the Tuileries, as he went out with two companies, was hit in the breast by a stone, which did not prevent him from continuing his march and dispersing the perturbers of the peace. During more than three hours the noisy crowds spread over the Place Louis XV. and the approaches of the Champs -Elysdes, greatly tried the temper of the soldiery. The municipal guard in the first place, and afterwards the dragoons and chasseurs, were seen calmly receiving showers of stones rained on them by these crowds. The troops did not once use their weapons. So gentle a repression encouraged the riot. A barricade formed in the Champs-Elysees, by means of an omnibus and some chairs, was set afire by the rioters themselves, when they saw the cav- 128 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 airy coming. The furniture of the guard-house in the avenue Marigny was broken up and burned. Several shops were pillaged. But the struggle was not yet definitively entered on. At the sight of troops the crowd dispersed, to form anew or go some- where else, but it nowhere offered any serious resist- ance. The gates of the Palais-Royal were closed at four o'clock, those of the Tuileries at five. Occu- pied in military fashion by the 5th regiment of light infantry, a squadron of dragoons, and a squadron of chasseurs, the Place du Carrousel resembled a biv- ouac. The Duke de Nemours mounted a horse and went into the ranks of the soldiery. Night was about to fall. As yet there had been no blood shed. The government, always optimistic, was not dissat- isfied with the day that was about to close. It thought itself master of the situation. CHAPTER XVII THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 22 A LTHOUGH the government was satisfied, the _f\. 22d of February had been a bad day from the military point of view. The troops, and in especial the municipal guard, had been uselessly fatigued, worried, and dispirited. They had been made to doubt the energy of their commanders. A danger- ous contact had been established between them and the population. The rioters had been emboldened and allowed to organize the insurrection. Count de Ponte*coulant has thus criticised this lack of vigor on the part of the authorities: "In those painful occasions in which he is obliged to fight against his fellow- citizens, the French soldier has need of a firm and energetic will to direct and support him; in his view, uncertainty is merely timidity, humanity only weakness, and amidst those fatal temporizings when he remains exposed to the insults of the vilest of the populace, he learns to doubt his strength, his leaders, and even the goodness of the cause he is defending. This was the great fault on the part of the authorities in February 1848." K 129 130 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 It was a bad notion on the part of government not to make a great display of troops from the outset, instead of throwing the whole weight of repression on the municipal guard. To the rioters of Paris the municipal guards were the object of a traditional hatred, and received no thanks for the moderation they displayed. As has been remarked by M. Garnier-Pages, " These old soldiers, assailed, bruised, wounded by the missiles of the mob, careful not to use their weapons, replying to blows from stones only with the butt-ends of their muskets and the flat of their swords, revolted against this prudence, which they began to think excessive." By determining to avoid all appearance of provocation and to remain in an attitude legally defensive, by exposing the munici- pal guards almost alone to the first attacks of the sedi- tion, and not availing itself that day of the thirty- one thousand men at its disposal, by opposing a tardy and incomplete defence to a bold attack, the govern- ment had paralyzed and disorganized the resistance. The disturbance continued in the evening. The Minister of Finance gave a great official and diplo- matic dinner in the hotel of the ministry, then situ- ated in the rue de Rivoli. The English ambassador, Lord Normanby, was one of the guests. As he had been all the afternoon in hourly receipt of very ill- omened tidings, and an incessant tumult was audible in that part of the city, the ambassador was expect- ing a notification that the dinner was put off, but receiving none, he ordered his carriage and set out. THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 22 131 On arriving within about twenty yards of the Min- istry of Finance, he saw an officer of lancers approaching, who asked him to wait until the men should have relaid the pavement, adding that an attempt had just been made to raise a barricade in front of the house. The ambassador has written in his book entitled A Year of Revolution: "We sat down, eighteen in all, at a table laid for thirty-six persons. So many places vacant around a festive table would, under any circumstances, have impeded conversation ; but at such a moment, and at the table of a minister, it seemed more suitable to avoid all allusion to the subjects we were thinking mo^st about." In official circles, people felt bound not to display the least anxiety. Count d'Estournel went that evening to the house of Count de Sainte-Aulaire. "They were at table," he writes in his Souvenirs: "I was surprised to find there the Princess de Li even and M. Guizot, she alarmed, he confident; he relied on the ' measures taken, on the support given to the ministry by the majority. During the conversation, the famous plan of the occupation of Paris in case of a rising, which I had heard talked of for a fortnight, came up several times. 'Everything was foreseen long ago,' M. Guizot said to us, 4 every one has his post assigned, and at this moment the movements are being exe- cuted in all quarters, and the troops are enveloping them like a net. ' ' The government, after a day of hesitation, had, in 132 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 fact, resolved on a military occupation of the city, after the plan formerly elaborated by Marshal Gerard. It was that on which the ministerial council had determined on Monday morning, February 21, and which M. Duchatel had countermanded in the night of Monday and Tuesday. M. Guizot has himself recognized the fatal effects of this countermand. He writes in his Memoirs: "King, ministers, generals, and superior agents, we were all of us, as we had been during the preceding week, still under the sway of the notion that the banquet was the great affair of the moment, and that, as it had been disorganized and adjourned, the worst strait was got over. Although we had been determined to the interdiction of the ban- quet by the programme of exterior and hostile mani- festation added to it by the republican party, we had not been sufficiently awake to the gravity of this new fact, and the change it had brought about in the situation. Far from having diminished the move- ment by withdrawing from the scene, the monarchi- cal opposition had simultaneously irritated it and freed it from all restraint." The government was at last seeing things as they really were. But it had lost an entire day, without heeding a precept which political men ought never to forget : Principiis obsta; sero medicina paratur. As soon as it received orders, the army was put in motion. At nine o'clock in the evening each corps had arrived at the post it was to occupy. If this THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 22 133 strategetical plan had been executed in the morning instead of the evening, the July monarchy would probably have been saved. At the same moment, the leaders of the secret societies were holding a conclave in the Palais- Royal. That morning, the Reforme, which was to supply three members to the provisional govern- ment, had declared that the riot was a manoeuvre of the police, and had dissuaded the democrats from taking part in it. In the evening, the men of action were still sceptical enough. M. Caussidiere, who had witnessed that day an attempt at a barricade in the rue Saint-Honor^, had said: "All this is not clear, there is a lot of people, but that is all; it won't go so far as firing." No one believed that the time for action had yet arrived. To wait and see it come was the watchword of the Palais-Royal gathering. In the offices of the Reforme, M. Flocon's journal, and of the National, which was M. Leclru-Rolliri's, neither excitement nor confidence was displayed. In that of the Siecle, the sheet inspired by M. Odilon Barrot, there was gloom and discouragement. At the Journal des Debats, an article for the next day, describing the events of the day and evening, was in course of preparation, and some one added this conclusion to it: "We shall give our attention to the ministry at some other time ; but we can say at present that there is a case in which it would have deserved to be indicted, and that is if it had toler- ated the audacious insult it was desired to offer to 134 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 every law of the realm, and if it had abandoned the maintenance of order and public peace into the con- fident hands which offered to charge themselves with it. These bands of vagabonds, whom we have to-day seen frightening the inhabitants of this great city, are the rag-tag and bob-tail of your banquets ; it is the procession which ought to follow you. Go to! you ought to thank the government, which has saved you from the hands of your friends ! But it was far more courageous to bring an indictment against it. The government will not recoil before these ridicu- lous threats, nor from the insurrection. It will do its duty, and all good citizens will also know how to do theirs." In both camps the victory of the ministers was expected, and no one as yet foresaw a revolution. At the Tuileries, the Queen, who had great politi- cal sense, continued to see things under a gloomy aspect. But the King was fully reassured. His countenance was expressive of confidence and joy. "Parisians," said he, "are not accustomed to make revolutions in winter time. They know what they are doing; they won't truck off a throne for a ban- quet." The satisfaction of Louis Philippe still further increased when the prefect of police came to tell him that the heads of the secret societies per- sisted in keeping out of the way, and that the troops nowhere encountered any serious resistance. The ministers exclaimed that the victory was definitively gained, that the government had crushed the insur- THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 22 135 rection in the egg, that the King's infallible glance had foreseen and predicted everything, and that the alarmists must be ashamed of their fear and pusil- lanimity. "Never," said Louis Philippe to M. Duchatel, "have I felt myself so strong." When he returned to his apartments he boasted. Wherever they had shown themselves, the troops had repulsed the rioters. In places to which they did not go, there had been several disorders during the evening. Gangs had set fire to or devastated the barriers of Etoile, Roule, and Courcelles. Agi- tators had destroyed street lamps and cut gas pipes. At Batignolles, the rue Bourg-l'Abbe*, and the rue Mauconseil there had been several affrays. But at midnight all was quiet. The districts bordering the rue Saint-Honor^, the Palais-Royal, the markets, the rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, the quays, the boulevards, the Place de la Concorde, the Champs- Elysees, in a word, all the places that had been the scene of the day's disorders, were again peaceful and deserted. Some prisoners had been taken to police headquarters. All the gangs had dispersed. No- body but patrols went about the streets. A heavy rain was falling. Bivouac fires were lighted in the squares. The riot seemed to own itself vanquished, and the military authorities felt so completely reas- sured that at one in the morning the regiments, with the exception of several detachments, were ordered back to their barracks. All was thought to be over, when all was just about to begin. CHAPTER XVIII THE MOENING OF FEBBTJAKY 23 WHEN the dawn broke on Wednesday, Febru- ary 23, the rain was falling in torrents. Some people repeated Petion's saying: "It rains, nothing will happen." Toward seven o'clock the troops went to take up their positions. The sol- diers seemed fatigued. Some of them had bivouacked during the night, the others had taken only a brief repose in their barracks. Nevertheless, the insur- rection everywhere retreated before them. The garrisons of the neighboring towns had sent rein- forcements, and it seemed indisputable that the riot had received its final defeat. At the Ministry of the Interior all was thought to be over, when, toward nine o'clock, the disturbances broke out anew, con- centrated this time between the rue Montmartre, the boulevards, the rue du Temple, and the quays, in the populous quarters, whose narrow and intricate streets render the action of troops particularly diffi- cult. They might have been easily repressed, how- ever, if the government had not conceived the fatal notion of calling out the National Guard. This 136 THE MOENING OF FEBRUARY 23 137 guard had founded the monarchy of July, and was to destroy it. At bottom, Louis Philippe must have suspected it a little, since he had for several years refrained from passing it in review. Still, he was of the opinion that the majority of this citizen sol- diery were still loyal to him. Some one having re- ported to him that General Jacqueminot had said: "Out of three hundred and eighty-four companies, there are six or seven badly disposed; all the rest are sincerely attached to the monarchy," the King con- fined himself to saying: "Six or seven bad! Oh! there are easily seventeen or eighteen." Louis Philippe relied on all the others. That is what ruined him. For several days the question whether the troops only should be intrusted with the quelling of the disturbance had been debated in the ministerial council. Either alternative had the most serious inconveniences, as has been remarked by Count de Ponte*coulant in his Souvenirs, and even now it would be hard to determine which of the two would have been the best. Things had come to that point when, as Cardinal de Retz said, whatever side one takes he cannot avoid faults. The summoning of the National Guard as experience has but too abundantly proved brought on the ruin of the monarchy, but could it have been saved if the National Guard had been set aside? It is permis- sible to doubt it, for it would have alleged the sus- picion shown of it as an excuse for meddling in the 138 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 affair in a hostile fashion, and its intervention, " in whatever manner it were brought about, could not do otherwise than favor the schemes of the revolt." At five o'clock in the afternoon of February 22 the call to arms had been beaten in several quarters; only a few of the National Guards had responded to it, and their dispositions appeared doubtful. This iirst trial had not been very satisfactory. Still the government, more optimistic than ever, took the resolution of convoking the whole National Guard the next day. "Alas!" says Count de Pontmartin in his Der- niers Samedis, "Louis Philippe, in spite of the souvenirs of the past, did not comprehend that, in an immense agglomeration like the Parisian popu- lace, the National Guard can be nothing but an essentially revolutionary body, in which the spirit of conservatism and resistance must be intermittent ; when it is too late, when the peril, instead of being near, is present; when it is a question of saving, no longer a country, institutions, and a throne, but the house and the shop; when the frightened middle class sees the lesson it wished to give power turned against itself; when, in fine, it costs more effort, more struggle, anguish, bloodshed, calls to arms, patrols in the street, and nights in the guard-house, to defend the pavements from destruction than it would have needed fillips to preserve the whole ship." On the 23d of February the government made no such reflections. It fancied that this citi- THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 23 139 zen guard, which had founded the July monarchy and aided with so much zeal and courage to strengthen and consolidate it, would rally yet once more under the standard of order to put down a sedi- tion thenceforward without a pretext. But this was to attribute reason to passions which ordinarily rea- son little, or badly. All that the National Guard saw in the call made upon it was a means of satisfying its spite against a ministry which dis- pleased it. It considered itself the arbiter appointed to decide on public affairs. In claiming to change with a high hand a ministry which was acting within the law and was supported by the greatest majority ever known since 1830, it confiscated the political rights of the nation to confer them on a city. It placed itself above the government and the laws. Yet let us observe that the National Guard, as deficient in foresight as the deputies of the con- stitutional opposition, still believed itself merely trying to change a Cabinet, not to bring about a revolution. It played into the hand of the Re- public with an unconsciousness which was almost artless. If the spirit of imprudence and error reigned at the Tuileries, it was making equal ravages in the ranks of the opposition and the National Guard. We must be indulgent to Louis Philippe's self- deception, for everybody around him, friends and enemies, were equally self-deceived. The left Avas as short-sighted as the sovereign and the ministers. 140 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 There are epochs when all classes of society are simultaneously stricken with vertigo, and when Providence seems to take pleasure in frustrating all human calculations. Early in the morning of February 23, the drums of the National Guard were beating the call to arms to convoke the twelve legions. There was a greater showing than on the previous evening. But an unfortunate symptom for the government was evi- dent. The greater part of the conservatives of the National Guard remained at home, while all those who were in the opposition made haste to answer the call. The troops, placed in contact with the danger- ous militia and seeing its hostility to the ministry, began to be doubtful of the cause they were called on to defend. The members of the secret societies, who had been hesitating for two days whether to show themselves, perceived that they would never have a better chance of combating Louis Philippe and taking vengeance for their former defeats. The republicans alone could do nothing,- joined to the Orleanist National Guards they might upset a throne. Rioters, not members of the National Guard, put on the uniform in order to carry out their revolutionary business with greater efficacity. M. Flocon came into the office of the Reforme, exclaiming: "Get some National Guard uniforms, quick! Hunt for them among your friends, in the second-hand cloth- ing shops, anywhere! And as soon as you have THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY S3 141 dressed yourselves go to the mayor's offices ; there, take the lead of the detachments, shout, 'Long live the reform! ' and put yourselves everywhere between the troops and the people." The government had fancied that the National Guard, associated to the army for the maintenance of order, would usefully take its place in the strategetic plan for the occupa- tion of Paris, and prevent the erection of barricades in places where the troops could not go. Instead of that, it simply paralyzed resistance. Between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning the greater part of the legions began to move. The first (quarters of the Champs-Elysees and the Place Vendome) was the only one which, as a whole, preserved an attitude favorable to the govern- ment. Not merely did it refrain from shouting, "Long live the reform! " but it hissed when passing the deputies of the left. The second (Palais-Royal, Chausse*e d'Antin, and faubourg Montmartre) sang the Marseillaise under the windows of the Marsan pavilion. The third (Montmartre quarter and faubourg Poissoniere) declared to its colonel that it would not lay down arms until the ministers had been dis- missed. Charged with defending the Bank, it forced the municipal guards to withdraw, and crossed bayonets against the cuirassiers, crying: "Down with Guizot!" The fourth (Louvre quarter) signed a petition in- tended for the Chamber of Deputies, and worded as 142 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 follows : " We, all of us belonging to the militia of Paris, and protectors of public order, mean to go wherever we are sent, in order to prevent or put a stop to bloodshed ; but, at the same time, protectors of liberty, we declare that our reunion is in no wise intended to approve the ministerial policy, either at home or abroad, nor to give any manner of support to a ministry which, on the contrary, we censure with all the energy of good citizens." The petition ended by demanding the dismissal of the ministers and their impeachment. It was carried to the Chamber by a number of National Guards, who, being stopped on the quay by a conservative battalion, delivered it to some deputies of the left. The fifth legion (Bonne-Nouvelle quarter and faubourg Saint-Denis) prevented the municipal guards from charging on the riot. The sixth (Temple quarter) assembled on the Place de la Bastille to sing the Marseillaise. The seventh (the quarters bordering on the HOtel- de-Ville) called on the prefect of the Seine to ac- quaint the King that if he did not instantly yield, no human force could prevent a collision between the National Guard and the troops. Several guards belonging to this legion gave their weapons to the insurgents. The tenth (faubourg Saint-Germain) was divided. One part protected the approaches to the Chamber of Deputies, another attached itself to the reform movement and refused to obey its colonel. THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 23 143 One can easily understand what a painful surprise must have been occasioned to the King by such tid- ings. What! this National Guard of Paris, his native city, this National Guard to which he had always testified such kindly sentiments, this National Guard whose uniform it pleased him to wear at all public celebrations, this National Guard to which he owed so much and which owed so much to him, would abandon and betray him! He had admitted it to the first ranks in his royal fetes, he had treated its mere privates as comrades, he had reigned for this citizen militia, whose inter- ests seemed to be linked forever to those of his dynasty! And behold, the hands he had so often pressed in his were raised against him! Arid behold the habitual supporters of his throne, behold his best friends, suddenly becoming his most ruthless adversaries ! What was to be done ? Could he give the command to fire on men who had so often de- fended him against the blows of anarchists and assassins ? And, on the other hand, if the National Guard were allowed to continue acting as vanguard and buckler to the insurrection, if one acceded to peti- tions presented at the end of its bayonets, how could the cause of order be protected? At the time when the hostile manifestations began, M. Dupin was at the Tuileries. "I regard the danger as imminent," said he to the King, "because the struggle is prolonged, but especially because a 144 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 part of the National Guard is not simply not with the government, but is declaring for the dismissal of the ministry, and shouting: "Long live the re- form! Down with Guizot! " As Louis Philippe expressed the hope that order would soon be re- stored, M. Dupin said: "That is a delusion, Sire; the evil is increasing; it is profound, and may possi- bly assume the character of a social strife." "But do you believe they will go so far as to think of supplanting me?" "Sire, I have heard no pre- tender named, and no one has said anything of the sort to me, but when a struggle with the extreme democracy breaks out, if it gets the upper hand but one chief is probable, it is the republic or anarchy." In this interview the King allowed nothing to be seen which might give the idea that he thought of changing his ministry. An aide-de-camp came to tell him he was waited for at the council. "He rose," writes M. Dupin in his Memoirs, "and gave me his hand, which I pressed respectfully. Alas! it was for the last time; I have never seen him since! " Meanwhile all the legions, with the exception of the first and a part of the tenth, had declared against the government. In the quarters where the insur- rection was concentrated, men armed with sticks and crowbars went over every story of the houses, demanding the muskets of the National Guards in imperative tones. The frightened women made THE MORNING OF FEBEUAEY 23 145 haste to obey these threatening summons, and some one chalked " Arms given " over the doors. What was nothing but a wretched squabble the day before was to become a terrible contest. A dilemma pre- sented itself : either to fight the National Guard or capitulate to the riot. CHAPTER XIX THE BALL OP THE MINISTRY rTIHE Chambers assembled as usual on February _1_ 23. At the opening of the session in the Chamber of Peers, the Marquis de Boissy made the following motion: "Seeing that blood flowed yes- terday in several parts of the capital; that to-day, again, the Parisian population is menaced with death and conflagration, with death by sixty howitzers, provided partly with grape-shot, partly with cannon- balls ; with devastation and fire by forty petards, all hastily transported from Vincennes to the Military School, I have the honor to ask the Chamber to ad- dress interpellations to the Cabinet on the situation of the capital." The Chancellor. " Is this motion seconded by two peers ? " Count cTAlton-Shge."I second it." The Chancellor. " As this motion is not seconded by two peers, the Chamber is not called upon to notice it." The upper assembly afterwards debated a project of law relating to compulsory expropriation in the 146 THE FALL OF THE MINISTRY 147 colonies, and separated at a quarter to four, without suspecting that it had held its last session. The Chamber of Deputies opened its session at half-past one o'clock. The order of the day, about which the president cared greatly, was the contin- uation of the discussion about the privilege of the Bank of Bordeaux. But the assembly had not the courage to occupy itself with such a question in the midst of so formidable a crisis. M. Vavin, deputy of the Seine, was about to demand the inter- pellation of the ministers on the situation, but as Count Duchatel, Minister of the Interior, had not yet taken his seat, it was decided to suspend the session until his arrival. At this very moment, M. Duchatel was at the Tuileries, holding a very important conversation with the King. The King. " Well ! how are we getting on now?" M. Duchdtel. "Sire, the affair is more serious than it was yesterday, the horizon is more overcast; but if the resistance is energetic we shall pull through." The King. " That is my sentiment also. They are advising me on all sides to put an end to the crisis by changing the Cabinet, but I will not lend myself to that." M. Duclidtel. " The King knows very well that, for my own part, I do not cling to power, and that it would not cost me much to renounce it; but con- 148 THE REVOLUTION OF cessions torn by violence from all the lawful authori- ties are not a means of safety ; a first defeat would soon lead to a second ? it was not long, in the Revo- lution, from June 20 to August 10, and to-day things move quicker than they did then; events go by steam, as well as travellers." The King. "I think as you do that we must re- main firm ; but chat with the Queen a moment, she is very much alarmed. I desire that you should talk to her." For several days past Marie Amelie had had no illusions as to the extreme gravity of the crisis. As M. Guizot has written : " The great soul of the Queen, always heroic in the time of trial, was as impassioned as it was noble, and she could sometimes be keenly anxious beforehand about the situation of her hus- band and children." Marie Amelie knew that Louis Philippe's horror of bloodshed would prevent his resorting to rigorous repression. From the moment that the King refused to allow his troops to fire on the National Guard, a change of ministers became inevitable. The Queen, followed by the Duke de Montpensier, entered the King's Cabinet; she seemed greatly excited, and the conversation continued : The Queen. "Monsieur Duchatel, I know M. Guizot 's devotion to the King and to France ; if he takes counsel of it he will not remain in power an instant." M. Duchdtel. "Madame, M. Guizot, like all his colleagues, is ready to shed his last drop of blood for THE FALL OF THE MINISTRY 149 the King; but he does not claim to impose himself on him against his will. The King is the master and can give or withdraw his confidence accordingly as he judges it convenient for the interests of his crown." The King. " Do not say such things, my dear ; if M. Guizot knew it!" The Queen. " I ask nothing better than that he should know it; I will say it to him myself; I es- teem him sufficiently for that; he is a man of honor and will comprehend me." M. Dachdtel. "I am bound to tell the King that it would be impossible for me not to communicate to M. Guizot all I have just heard. It is an impor- tant element of the situation; I could not conceal it from him either as colleague or friend." The King. " There might be a chance to convoke the council immediately." M. Duchdtel. "I think there might be some in- convenience about a sudden convocation of the coun- cil; the Chamber is in session and could not be left without ministers. The King would do better, it seems to me, to talk with M. Guizot first." The King. " You are right ; go and find M. Guizot without a minute's loss of time, and bring him tome." M. Duchatel hastened to the Palais-Bourbon, where, without entering the Chamber himself, he had M. Guizot called out and drove with him to the Tuileries. On the way he told him what the King 150 THE EEVOLUTION OF 1S4S and Queen had just been saying. The two ministers agreed that they could not remain in power under such conditions. They reached the chateau at half- past two o'clock and found the King and Queen, and the Dukes de Nemours and de Montpensier sitting together. The King dwelt upon the gravity of the circumstances, adding that he would rather abdicate than part with his ministers. The Queen. " You cannot say that, my dear, you owe yourself to France; you are not your own." The King. " That is true ; I am more unfortu- nate than the ministers, I cannot send in my resig- nation." M. G-uizot. " It is for Your Majesty to decide ; the Cabinet is ready either to defend the King and our conservative policy to the last, or to accept with- out complaint the King's action in calling other men to power. There is no room for self-deception, Sire ; such a question is settled by the very fact that it is put at such a moment. At present the Cabinet, in order to maintain the struggle with any chance of success, needs the decided support of the King more than ever before. It is inevitable that the public know of the King's hesitation, and when it does so the Cabinet would lose all moral force and be incapable of accomplishing its task." The King. "It is with very bitter regret that I part with you; but necessity and the safety of the monarchy require this sacrifice." The Duke de Montpensier (addressing himself to THE FALL OF THE MINISTRY 151 M. G-uizof). "My conviction must have been very profound when it could outweigh the gratitude I owe you." The King. "I am thinking of M. Mold. What do you think about it? " M. Guizot and M. Duchatel making no objection, Louis Philippe resumed, "Then I shall have him summoned." The Queen. "You will always be the King's friends; you will support him." Weeping, Louis Philippe embraced the two minis- ters, and as they were departing he said to them: " You are happier than I am." During this time the Chamber of Deputies, which had suspended its labors, was in a state of con- stantly increasing anxiety. " At a certain moment, " says M. de Tocqueville, " we heard a great blowing of trumpets on the outside, and presently learned that the cuirassiers on guard were sounding fanfares by way of amusement. The triumphant and joyous sounds of the instruments were so painfully incon- gruous with the thoughts secretly disturbing us, that this indiscreet and inconvenient music was speedily silenced." At a quarter past three o'clock, M. Guizot, fol- lowed by M. Duchatel, entered the hall with his firmest step and loftiest air. At last open mention was to be made of what the Chamber had been whis- pering about for several hours. M. Vavin ascended the tribune. "Gentlemen," 152 TEE REVOLUTION OF 1848 said he, " I ask permission of the Chamber to address certain interpellations to the ministry, on the part of the deputation of the Seine, especially. For more than twenty-four hours grave disturbances have been afflicting the capital. Yesterday, the population remarked the absence of the National Guard with painful surprise ; this surprise was greater and more painful because they knew that the order to call it out had been given on Monday evening. It must be true, then, that during the night this order had been revoked. It was not until five o'clock last evening that the call to arms was beaten in several quarters to assemble some of the National Guards; during the day the people of Paris had been left to the dan- gers surrounding them (violent murmurs from the centre), without the protection of their civic guard. Fatal collisions took place, perhaps we should not now have occasion to deplore them if, when the troubles began, this National Guard, whose device is 'Public order and liberty,' had been seen in our streets and squares. I beg the ministers 4o give us some explanation of these grave and unfortunate facts." It was M. Guizot's turn to speak. Slowly, majes- tically, the president of the council ascended the steps of the tribune, throwing back his head lest he might seem to lower it. M. G-uizot {profound silence). " Gentlemen, I think it will neither be conformable to public inter- ests, nor apropos for the Chamber, to begin at this THE FALL OF THE MINISTRY 153 moment any debate upon these interpellations " (vio- lent murmurs'). Numerous voices on the left. "Hear! hear! " M. G-uizot. "I say that will be conformable to neither the dignity nor the interest of the Chamber to enter at this moment upon any debate relative to the interpellations just addressed to us by the hon- orable M. Vavin. The King is about to summon Count de Mole* to intrust him ..." (prolonged bravos on the left). M. Odilon Barrot. " The Chamber should pre- serve its dignity." M. G-uizot. " The interruption just made will not cause me either to add or to retrench any- thing from my words. The King is about to sum- mon Count de Mol for the purpose of intrusting him with the formation of a new Cabinet. So long as the present Cabinet is at the head of affairs it will maintain or re-establish order, and cause the laws to be respected, according to its conscience, as it has done up to the present." Never had such a dramatic stroke occurred within the memory of Parliament. M. de Tocqueville has described it in these terms: "The opposition re- mains in its seats, the crowd of its members uttering shouts of victory and satisfied revenge; its leaders alone remain silent, busied in silently reflecting what use they will make of the triumph, and already care- ful not to insult a majority which they may pres- ently need to call to their aid. The latter, stricken 154 THE DEVOLUTION OF 1848 by a blow so unforeseen, is curiously agitated, for an instant, like an oscillating mass which seems as ready to fall one way as another ; then its members come down noisily into the semicircle , some throng around the ministers to ask explanations or pay them their final respects, some to rise against them in noisy and insulting vociferations." Different voices. " It is a piece of cowardice. . . . It is dishonoring! We shall see how they will manage that." A great tumult prevailed in the hall. Animated groups collected on all sides. Numerous voices in the centre. " Let us go to the King! Let us go to the King! Raise the session, Mr. President." "The despair of the partisans of the ministry," M. de Tocqueville has said again, " will surprise no one who reflects that the majority of these men felt themselves attacked, not merely in their political opinions, but their private interests. . , . I saw this undulating crowd from my bench; I perceived surprise, wrath, fear, cupidity, disturbed before they had been well filled, blending their different traits on these affrighted faces, and, for my own part, com- pared all these legislators to a pack of dogs torn away from their quarry with their chops still full." In the midst of this tumult M. Guizot retained his imperturbable coolness. The doctrinaire fell, but with dignity, and without having sacrificed his doctrines. He believed, in his conscience, that the THE FALL OF THE MINISTRY 155 only culpable person was the King, who was aban- doning his ministry in the thick of the struggle, and who might have saved it by putting forth a little energy. As haughty as on the previous day, he accused himself of nothing, he retracted nothing. Impavidum ferient ruince. M. Odilon Barrot thought the notion of impeach- ing the ministers no longer opportune. It was to have been discussed the next day; he proposed an- other order of the day. M. Dupin expressed himself in the same sense. "Ought we," said he, "to intro- duce at this moment irritating deliberations, delib- erations about impeachment, which, however solved, will certainly militate against the end you ought to seek, that of the tranquillizatioii of the public mind and the restoration of order ? I hope the day will not end without our attaining this result. I think it would be best to adhere to the demand for an adjournment, which I heartily support." M. Guizot. " Gentlemen, I said just now that, so long as the Cabinet should have the honor of remaining at the head of affairs, it would maintain or re-establish order and cause the laws to be re- spected. The Cabinet, for its own part, sees no reason why any business before the Chamber should be interrupted, or any questions raised in it fail to receive their solution. The Crown is exercising its prerogative ; the prerogative of the Crown should be fully respected; but, so long as the Cabinet remains at the head of affairs, so long as it sits on these 156 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 benches, nothing can be interrupted in the labors or deliberations of the great public powers. The Cabi- net is ready to respond to all questions, to enter into all debates; it is for the Chamber to decide as it sees fit." Such were M. Guizot's final words. He was never again to ascend any tribune. M. Dupin again insisted, but in vain. In vain he exclaimed: "In spite of you, gentlemen of the min- istry, in spite of the majority, I call for an adjourn- ment." The Chamber, obedient once more to a ministry which had been in power for seven years and a half, decided that no change should be made in the programme for the next day, and then sepa- rated. It was four o'clock in the afternoon CHAPTER XX THE FIRING ON THE BOULEVARD AT the close of the session of the Chamber of Deputies, all the ministers repaired to the Tuileries. The King had already been informed of the stupor and indignation which their downfall caused among their partisans. Visibly disturbed, he began to wonder whether he had done well in acceding to the demands of the rioters, and would have liked to persuade himself that the ministry had spontaneously offered its resignation. M. Guizot writes, in his Memoirs: "I reaffirmed, in positive terms, what I had already said to the King during our first interview. 'We were ready and deter- mined,' I said to him again, 'to maintain to the last the policy of order and legal resistance, which we found to be the only good one ; but the King showed that he was inclined to think he ought to change his ministry. To put such a question, at such a moment, was to answer it.' The King did not in- sist, further. MM. Hebert, de Salvandy, and Jayr plainly expressed their disapprobation of his resolu- tion. We left the Tuileries, intending, until the formation of a new Cabinet, to concern ourselves 157 158 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 simply with the defence of order, which was every- where violently attacked." At the same moment, M. de Montalivet was saying to the mounted National Guards : " Go through Paris, and announce everyAvhere that the King is changing his ministry and consents to a reasonable reform." Horsemen dispersed in all directions to scatter the news. The wealthy quarters received it with tran- sports of joy. Men embraced each other in the streets. People shouted: "Illuminate! Illumi- nate! " (The air of the lampions, borrowed from the rhythm of the National Guard's call to arms, did not come until several days later.) Houses were lighted up as for a festival. Lamps, tapers, candles, were set in the windows. On the Boulevard des Italiens, the Grand-Ralcon caf was dazzling, with sheaves of flame. Aides-de-camp and officers of the royal artillery came to tell the King that his prudent decision had pacified the public mind and restored entire tranquillity. The Duchess of Orleans wept for joy, and exclaimed, as she embraced the Count of Paris : " Poor child, they put your crown in great danger, but heaven restores it to you." M. de Lamar- tine writes, in his Histoire de la Revolution de 1848 : "All citizens were deeply penetrated with a senti- ment of peace and inward joy. It was like a mute proclamation of reconciliation and concord, after an abortive quarrel between King and people." It had not yet occurred to Louis Philippe that he might lose his throne. THE FIRING ON THE BOULEVARD 159 There was a grand dinner that evening at the Ministry of the Interior. Count Duchatel had not thought it his duty to recall invitations given before these events occurred. M. Guizot and most of the other ministers were among the guests. The future Cabinet and the difficulties of its situation were discussed. After dinner, some deputies and peers came in. Whist tables were arranged. It might have been mistaken for an ordinary ministerial re- ception. At the house of M. Thiers, in the Place Saint- Georges, people were exultant. All the clientele, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary, of the left centre, thronged around the man whom they con- sidered the coming minister. The place was blocked up by an enormous crowd. M. Thiers was standing just behind the locked gate, exchanging congratula- tions and promises with the populace. At the house of M. Odilon Barrot, there was still greater animation. "My house," he has said, "had become a sort of headquarters where popular excite- ment came to a focus, and whence political direc- tions were sent out. Sometimes a mass of the common people, armed with flambeaux, came and asked to see me; sometimes delegations from the schools or the National Guard, who wanted to confer with us ; sometimes there were resolutions to take, which involved peace or war, the overthrow of the monarchy or its preservation. Hence we might have been said to be in permanent session in my 160 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 salon, for the purpose of considering all the inci- dents which succeeded each other with such rapid- ity." A crowd, carrying torches, made its way into the court, which was overlooked by a small open gallery on the first story. There M. Barrot, attended by several deputies of the left, placed himself, and made a liberal speech, full of confidence and en- thusiasm. And yet the satisfaction in Paris lacked a good deal of being unanimous. Conservatives and revo- lutionists were equally discontented. The first were distressed by a tardy concession, which to them seemed a dangerous capitulation. The others said that, as yet, there had been no precise act affording serious guarantees, that M. Mold's name was insuffi- cient, and that the King was perhaps deceiving the people. Many liberals, more perspicacious than their party, made no secret of their fears. " I keenly desired the downfall of the Cabinet," said M. Jules de Lasteyrie to Count Duchatel, " but I would much rather have seen you remain in power ten years longer than going out by this door." M. de Tocque- ville went to call on M. de Beaumont. "There," says he, "I found all hearts rejoicing. I was far from sharing this joy, and, to those with whom I could speak freely, I gave my reasons for it. c The National Guard of Paris, ' I said to them, ' has just destroyed a Cabinet ; then it is by its good pleasure that the new ministers are going to direct affairs. You are delighted because the ministry is over- THE FIRING ON THE BOULEVARD 161 thrown ; but don't you perceive that it is power itself which is laid low ? ' ' The Duke de Nemours, who had taken no part in the dismissal of the Cabinet, met M. de Montalivet at the staff-office. "Well, my dear Count," he said to him, "you ought to be contented; M. Guizot is no longer minister." "Far from that, Monseigneur," returned M. de Monta- livet, "I am most profoundly grieved about it. It is either too late or too early. You can't change a general in the thick of a battle." The battle ! a great many people thought it ended. It was to break out again suddenly, and in a terrible way. There was great disorder throughout the city, and the republicans were determined to profit by it. In spite of its promise, the ministry no longer governed. Fatigued, badly fed, worn out by watching, the troops stationed on the boulevards and in the streets were uneasy and bewildered. Not knowing whether they ought to resist or give way, they allowed the agitators to free the prisoners who had been put in the barracks. A column of manifestants, composed of National Guards, rioters, and street-boys, and carry- ing flags, lanterns, and torches, had formed upon the Place de la Bastille. It crossed the boulevards without being halted by the troops. At the Chateau d'Eau there was some artillery, and cannons occu- pied the roadway. Making haste to open the pas- sage, the artillery-men themselves displaced the pieces, amidst the applause of the crowd, and the 162 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 procession continued its march without impediment as far as the Boulevard des Capucines. Here things wore another aspect. Precise instruc- tions had nowhere been given to the troops, except in front of M. Guizot's residence, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This house, which had already been threatened more than once by the insurrection, occupied on the boulevard, at the corner of the rue Neuve-des-Capucines, the site now filled by the shops of the former Giroux firm. Its garden, which, like the house itself, has disappeared, ex- tended all along the boulevard. While M. Guizot was dining at the Ministry of the Interior, the Min- istry of Foreign Affairs and its approaches were occu- pied by dragoons, line infantry, and National Guards. It was the only spot in Paris where free passage was forbidden. The house was dark. Its obscurity con- trasted with the daylight brilliancy of the neighbor- ing windows, whose illuminations, dancing on the helmets of the dragoons, made them almost seem alive. A battalion of the 14th of the line, com- manded by Lieutenant-Colonel Courand, with the regimental band, was drawn up opposite the min- istry, and had in front of it, under the orders of M. Talabot, Colonel of the 2d legion, a battalion of the National Guard, so placed in order to prevent all contact between the troops and the manifestants. Unluckily, an unforeseen circumstance caused this battalion of the 2d legion to leave the position it had taken. A group of rioters had collected in front of THE PIPING ON THE BOULEVARD 163 the Ministry of Justice, in the Place Vendcmie, shouting: "Down with Hebert!" demanding the illumination of the house, and threatening to burn it .down if the injunction were not obeyed. A de- tachment from the post on duty at staff headquarters was defending the Ministry of Justice. It called on M. Talabot for re-enforcements, and he hastened thither at the head of his battalion. A few minutes later, the column from the Bastille arrived opposite the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where it was con- fronted by the foot-soldiers of the 14th of the line, with dragoons behind them. The orders given to Lieutenant-Colonel Courand were formal. He was to protect the house of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and to cut off all circu- lation on the Boulevard des Capucines. This was the origin of the catastrophe. A shot was fired, which gave the signal for the downfall of the throne. It was long believed that the firing on the Boule- vard des Capucines was provoked by a pistol-shot, discharged with premeditation by an ardent demo- crat, M. Lagrange. It now seems established that this account is fabulous. In his Souvenirs de Vantiee 1848 M. Maxime Du Camp has thought himself enabled to affirm that the first shot was fired, under the following circumstances, by a sergeant of the 14th of the line, a Corsican named Giacomoni. It is half-past nine in the evening. The column, coming from the Place de la Bastille, finds itself face to face with the soldiers, who close up their 164 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 ranks and get into position. At the cry, "No one can pass!" the band halts. Colonel Courand ad- vances alone, and says: "What do you want?" "We want the Minister of Foreign Affairs to illu- minate." - " That does not concern me! " "Let us pass f " " My children, I am a soldier and must obey; I have received instructions to let nobody pass, and you shall not pass. If you want to go fur- ther, take the rue Basse-du-Rempart [cries of Long live the line /]. I am much affected by your sympathy; but I am obliged to execute superior orders, and I cannot let you pass." A Rioter (carrying a torch). " You are nothing but scoundrels, the whole lot of you ; I tell you we will pass; we have a right to." The Colonel. "I don't know what your right is, but I do know what is our duty, and I shall not fail in it." The Rioter. " You're nothing but a greenhorn, and I'm going to scorch your moustache." Here the rioter put his torch to the face of the Colonel, who threw his head back very quickly. Sergeant Giacomoni sprang forward and took aim at the man who held the torch. Captain de Ventiny (addressing the Sergeant). - "Are you mad? What are you doing?" Griacomoni. " If some one tries to hurt the Col- onel, it is my business to defend him, isn't it?" The Captain. "Keep quiet." Spectators on the pavements. " They will pass ! THE FIRING ON THE BOULEVARD 165 They won't pass! Down with Guizot! Long live the Reform! Long live the line! Illuminate! Illuminate!" The Rioter. "For the last time, will you let us pass?" The Colonel. "No! Grenadiers, cross bayo- nets!" Sergeant Giacomoni fires on the man holding the torch, who falls dead at once. Thinking themselves menaced, two companies also begin firing, and kill or wound fifty-two persons. The tumult is indescribable. The crowd utter shouts of horror and affright. The foot-soldiers dis- band and hasten into adjacent streets. The dragoons gallop off at full speed toward the Madeleine. The causeway of the Boulevard is emptied. It is a pool of blood. Here is a situation on which the revolutionary genius pounces in an instant. A wagon, loaded with the baggage of travellers about to take the train for Rouen, was just passing by. On this were piled the corpses of the sixteen victims of the firing, and by the light of torches, illumining the livid and blood-stained bodies, and to cries of "Ven- geance! Treason!" the fatal tumbrel began its march. Such a spectacle is the most striking, the most sinister, the most decisive, of all revolutionary propagandas. Is there a scene in Lamartine's Histoire des G-iron- dins which surpasses this in horror? The crowd 166 THE REVOLUTION OF 1S4S shouts: "They are cutting the people's throats. To arms ! To the barricades ! " And until two o'clock in the morning the funereal procession, in the midst of violent public exasperation, goes travelling about the boulevards and the most populous quarters, with- out any one daring to stop it. CHAPTER XXI THE NIGHT OF FEBRUARY 23-24 "A TOTWITHSTANDING the firing on the Boule- -1_ i yard des Capucines, no one as yet suspected that this night of February 23-24, begun by the splendors of an illumination, would be the last night of royalty. M. Guizot, who had dined at the Min- istry of the Interior, with several of his colleagues and political friends, was still there when he learned what had happened in front of the Ministry of For- eign Affairs. He instantly repaired to the Tuile- ries, accompanied by M. Dumon, to impress upon the King the urgent necessity of putting Marshal Bugeaud at the head of both the army and the National Guard. Created Duke of Isly and appointed Marshal of France by Louis Philippe, the celebrated soldier had been living in a sort of retreat since he ceased to be Governor-General of Algeria. His biographer, Count d'Ideville, writes: "More than any other conservative deputy, Marshal Bugeaud was subjected to the malevolent and unjust attacks of the opposi- tion; and the great citizen who had given Algeria to France beheld himself almost disdained, and 167 168 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 viewed with suspicion. He, whose lofty person- ality should have made him one of the firmest sup- ports of the throne, had been attacked with such rage and perfidy that he lost somewhat in popular esteem. In short, every political empiric who talked about assisting the throne by snatching up the inheritance of M. Guizot, rejected the assistance of the Marshal as compromising and unpopular. As to him, strong in his own rectitude and the consciousness of duty done, he was in Paris, modestly fulfilling his func- tions as deputy, when the Revolution broke out." Much beloved by the troops, the Marshal had excited lively animosities among legitimists and republicans. The first bitterly reproached him with having been governor of the citadel of Blaye during the captivity of the Duchess of Berry; the second never pardoned the energy with which he had repressed the insur- rection of April, 1834, and accused him of the affair of the rue Transnonain, with which he had had noth- ing whatever to do. No sooner had M. Guizot uttered the Marshal's name, than the King said it was his intention to give him command of all the forces, but that it would be necessary to await the formation of the new Cabi- net. M. Guizot left the Tuileries before anything had been decided. During several hours, Count de Mole* had been trying to form a ministry. According to M. de Lamartine, the Count was " a man of political tem- perament, used to crises, agreeable to courts, es- THE NIGHT OF FEBRUARY 23-24 169 teemed by conservatives, liked by the upper middle class, one of those autocrats by birth and character whose superiority is so natural that the most jealous democracy honors itself by recognizing and loving them." And M. de Lamartine adds, in his Histoire de la Revolution de 1848: "Had M. Mold, who was all prudence and moderation, but begun the task three days sooner, he could doubtless have found means of conciliating what was necessary for the conservation of the monarchical principle, to which he had been attached all his life, with what was demanded by the irritations of parliamentary opin- ion." But on the 23d of February it was too late. MM. Dufaure, Passy, Billault (the future Minister of Napoleon III.), whom M. Mold desired as col- leagues, having agreed that nothing could be done without the assistance of M. Thiers, M. Mold went to the Place Saint-Georges and had a long interview with M. Thiers, at the close of which he gave up the attempt to form a Cabinet. The King was in- formed of this toward midnight. Between midnight and one o'clock, M. Guizot was summoned to the Tuileries. Louis Philippe said to him : " M. Mold cannot succeed in forming a ministry. I have called M. Thiers, but meanwhile the disturbance is growing more serious ; a military chief is wanted on the instant, whose authority and capacity are proven, and who can bear the burden until the installation of the new Cabinet. I ask you for the immediate nomination of Marshal Bugeaud 170 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 to the command of the National Guard and the army. Perhaps M. Thiers would not nominate him; but he will accept him, I have no doubt, if he finds him appointed and installed. It is in the name of the monarchy that I make this appeal to the devotion of my former ministers." M. Guizot replied: "The King knows we are all ready to accomplish his desire." Louis Philippe then sent for M. Duchatel and General Trdzel, whose signatures were necessary for the double appointment. Both arrived in great haste, and countersigned the royal decree. In a letter addressed to M. Le*once de Lavergne, October 19, 1848, the Marshal thus relates the manner in which he was invested with the command: "It was two o'clock in the morning when one of the King's aides-de-camp came to summon me to the chateau. I hurried thither. I was offered the com- mand of the troops and of the National Guard. I understood perfectly that it was too late, but I thought it unworthy of me to refuse. The former ministers were sent for to countersign the decrees appointing me. All this took far too much time, and it was riot until toward three o'clock that I could place myself in contact with the troops, on the Place du Carrousel and in the court of the Tuileries. I quickly assembled the officers and non-commis- sioned officers; I made them a speech, which was certainly energetic. ... All the detached troops at the Bastille, the H6tel-de-Ville, on the Boulevards, at the Pan the* on, had received orders to fall back THE NIGHT OF FEBRUARY 23-24 171 around the Tuileries at daybreak. I made haste to order them to remain firm at their post, assuring them that some columns would move toward them at daybreak, and that then we would take the offensive." M. Thiers, whom an aide-de-camp had been look- ing for, and who must have had to cross a good many barricades to get to the Tuileries from the Place Saint- Georges, reached the King at half-past two in the morning. As soon as he saw him, Louis Philippe said: "Ah! it is you, M. Thiers. I thank you for having come. You- know I have been forced, to my great regret, to part with my ministers. I had summoned M. Mold. He has just given me back his powers. I have need of you, then, and I beg you to form a Cabinet for me." M. Thiers re- sponded: "Sire, under existing circumstances, that is a very difficult mission. Nevertheless, I am at the King's orders; but, before anything else, we ought to come to an understanding about men and things." Louis Philippe and M. Thiers then had a long con- versation. In spite of his repugnance, Louis Philippe agreed that M. Odilon Barrot should enter the min- istry. But on the question of the dissolution of the Chamber, he was intractable. "The dissolution of the Chamber!" he exclaimed. "I do not consent to that; I will never consent to it." He then an- nounced that he had put Marshal Bugeaud at the head of the armed force. "He is your friend," said he, "you will understand each other admirably." And as M. Thiers, somewhat embarrassed, com- 172 THE EEVOLUTION OF 1848 plained that so serious a step should have been taken without consulting the new Cabinet, the King re- joined : " What would you have ? I need a man to defend me, and Bugeaud is the only one in whom I have confidence. . . . Besides, what can they say to 'you? It is not you who nominated him, it is Duchatel. Go and find the Marshal, and consult with him." Louis Philippe went to bed toward four o'clock in the morning, having invited M. Thiers to return to the T.uileries at eight with the men who were to form the ministry. The King was not at all discouraged. "His bat- tlefield," M. de Lamartine has said, "had always been opinion. It was on that he wanted to act. He desired to reconcile himself with it speedily by means of concessions. Only, like a thrifty ana pru- dent politician, he bargained with both opinion and himself, in order to obtain this reconciliation with the least possible detriment to his system and his dignity. He supposed he had still many steps of popularity to descend before reaching those of the throne. The rest of the night appeared to him more than time enough for eluding the emergencies of the situation with which he was threatened by the day." M. Guizot has likewise expressed the conviction that the King's self-confidence did not fail him even in the night of February 23-24. "Neither perse- verance nor hope, "he says, "were extinct in the soul of King Louis Philippe. Whether by nature, or through his experience of the vicissitudes and reac- THE NIGHT OF FEBRUARY 23-34 173 tions that succeed each other in revolutions, he was one of those who think that to recover good opportu- nities and good luck, it is enough to know how to survive and wait. I am convinced that, amidst his miscalculations and discouragement, he was far from despairing of his own future, and that, even while accepting the laws of the constitutional regime, he counted on regaining the influence he thought nec- essary in order to give legal ascendency to the policy he believed indispensable to the welfare of his coun- try and the safety of his throne. Men did not leave him time for it; God did not grant him grace." After leaving the King, Thiera went to staff head- quarters, Place du Carrousel, where he found Mar- shal Bugeaud installed and giving orders. As soon as he caught sight of him, the latter exclaimed: "Well, my dear Thiers, I am charmed to see you. I am commander-in-chief; you are prime minister. Between us, we shall make a good job of it. ... It would doubtless be very unfortunate if the Na- tional Guard should refuse to march. But if things should turn out that way, tell them plainly that that will not be reason enough to make me throw up my hand (pour me faire j eter ma langue, au chat)." Born in 1784, the victor of Isly had lost none of his moral or physical activity. No young man had higher spirits or greater vigor. He had just said to M. Guizot, who had been asking what he thought about the next day : " It is a trifle late, but I have never been beaten, and I shall not begin to-morrow. 174 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 Give me my head and let me fire ; there will be blood- shed ; but by to-morrow night force will be on the side of law, and the seditious will have got their deserts." To M. Thiers he expressed an equal con- fidence. "I allowed no occasion to escape," he Avrites, in the letter we have already cited, " of rais- ing the moral tone of all who surrounded me. Nor was I unsuccessful ; I saw countenances, at first very dejected, gradually become animated as they saw what measures I was taking. I had around me at least one hundred and fifty staff-officers of the army and the National Guard ; a crowd of generals came to offer me their services. There were too many, in fact, every one trying to attract my attention and make protestations, and causing me to lose precious time. Besides this, they were bringing me a hun- dred items of news at a time and demanding a hun- dred orders." M. Thiers went next to the house of M. Odilon Barrot. "It was between three and four o'clock in the morning," writes the latter in his Memoirs, " when I was awakened by my servant, who an- nounced to me that M. Thiers, accompanied by MM. de Remusat and Duvergier de Hauranne, was wait- ing for me in the salon. I dressed in a hurry, and M. Thiers informed me that the King had summoned us to form a new ministry. I replied that I was ready to report myself at the Tuileries, and was greatly annoyed when I heard of the delay imposed by the King." While Louis Philippe was taking a THE NIGHT OF FEBRUARY 23-24 175 few hours' repose, and his new ministers trying to come to an understanding, the insurgents were organ- izing the struggle, casting bullets, ringing the tocsin, assembling the secret societies, covering the streets with barricades. To put down such an insurrection, Marshal Bu- geaud should have been allowed to follow the pitiless tactics of Bonaparte on the 13th Vende'miaire, and let the big voice of cannon speak on every side. "There was in the Marshal's exterior," says M. de Lamartine, " in his style, in the curt speech which cut without wounding, a judicious rusticity, a mili- tary frankness, and an authority of power, which awakened attention in the masses, confidence in the troops, and terror in the enemy. Such a man, placed at the head of the army of Paris on the previous day, would have rendered the victory of the people either impossible or bloody. Summoned at the moment when the government was weakening, his name was inconsistent with concessions. It made them sus- picious on the side of royalty, inacceptable on the side of the people." The nomination of the Marshal could have had no justification unless Louis Philippe and his new ministers had definitively adopted the policy of resistance. All the rest of the night, the victor of Isly was pressing forward the military preparations. He decided to form the troops he had at hand into four columns, which, taking the offensive, should drive the insurgents before them and destroy the barri- 176 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 cades. The first, commanded by General Tiburce Sebastian!, was to go by way of the Bank toward the H6tel-de-Ville. The second, under the orders of General Bedeau, was to reach the Bastille by way of the Bourse and the boulevards. The third was to come behind the first two, in order to prevent the barricades from being put up again. The fourth was to rejoin General Renault at the Panthe'on. The reserves were to remain on the Place du Carrousel. In this plan, no part had been assigned to the National Guard, which the Marshal had so many rea- sons to suspect. "At half-past five in the morning," he has written, "the four columns started from the Place du Carrousel, in good spirits, but ill-provided with munitions for a long conflict. The heads of these columns, and a good many of the officers, had received instructions in which I had rapidly indi- cated the manner of attacking barricades and com- pact masses, of entering houses, etc. Confidence was visible on all faces, and, as I thought the war already well started, I did not doubt that the combat would begin immediately." But the Marshal was not aware that neither the King nor the new ministers cared about fighting. Their pacific intentions were in glaring contrast with the bellicose measures taken by the valiant warrior. On one side there was an olive branch, on the other a sword. M. Thiers arid M. Barrot were about to destroy, in one instant, the results already obtained by the Marshal. CHAPTER XXII THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 24 WHEN dawn broke on February 24, Marshal Bugeaud still expected to be master of the situation. The first column, made up of the 30th of the line, a battalion of the 34th, a battalion of the 69th, a squadron of cuirassiers, and two pieces of artillery, under the command of General Tiburce Sebastiani, had arrived at the H6tel-de-Ville at seven o'clock in the morning. The fourth, formed of the 15th of the line and two companies of the 14th, under the orders of Colonel Brunet, had rejoined General Renault at the Pantheon. The second, commanded by General Bedeau and destined for the Place de la Bastille, had been stopped on the way. Its effective force was about eighteen hundred men. It comprised two battalions of the 1st light troops, two of the 21st, a detachment of light infantry from the 6th battalion, a squadron of the 8th dragoons, and two pieces of artillery. After destroying several empty barricades in the rues Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, Vivienne, and Feydeau, the column was entering the boulevard, when the N 177 178 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 platoon in advance was tired upon by some men who were defending the barricades erected at the extrem- ity of the rue Montmartre. Two soldiers were wounded; the platoon returned fire, and a rush was made on the barricades, which were immediately destroyed. The column then turned in the direction of the Bastille. General Bedeau has said that he expected a combat and was prepared for it. But he soon ex- perienced extreme surprise on learning, from officers of the National Guard and some inoffensive and un- armed citizens, that the popular exasperation arose from ignorance of the change in the ministry and a belief that the unfortunate event on the Boulevard des Capucines had been premeditated by the minis- ters for the purpose of intimidating the population. "If it is true that there has been a change in the ministry," cried the officers of the National Guard, " quiet will be soon restored; but give us time to spread the news, for a great many National Guards are behind the barricades." "In face of this unex- pected situation," General Bedeau has written, "was it my duty to march on, and by a continued attack give confirmation to the lie skilfully propagated by the partisans of the insurrection? I did not think so. I halted my column on this side of the Gymnase Theatre, and sent an account of the situation to the superior authority." The pencilled note which the General forwarded to General Bugeaud was worded thus: "I am in THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 24 179 presence of a population unarmed, inoffensive, and deceived. It does not believe there has been a change in the ministry; it is shouting: 'Long live the Reform! ' Pray send me some proclamations. I have come to a halt in order to facilitate the re- union of the National Guard/' The General had, in fact, sent a detachment of infantry to escort the drummers of the National Guard, who were beating the call to arms in the neighboring streets. The Marshal sent this billet in reply : " I approve of what you have done. I am sending you some proclamations ; have them distributed by every means in your power, for it is of the utmost importance that this news should be known. But it remains under- stood that, if the rioters show themselves, they must be summoned to disperse, and force energeti- cally resorted to, as we agreed this morning." Gen- eral Bedeau hoped that all was about to quiet down. At eight o'clock in the morning nobody was shout- ing, "Long live the Republic ! ? ' on the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, where his column had just halted. The longer the immobility of his troops lasted, the greater grew the crowd around them, hoping that they would not force their way through. A mer- chant of the neighborhood, M. Fauvelle-Delabarre, offered to go and acquaint Marshal Bugeaud with the situation and bring back his definitive orders. General Bedeau promised to make no attack until this should be done. On arriving at the staff headquarters, Place du 180 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 Carrousel, M. Fauvelle-Delabarre said to Marshal Bugeaud: "If the troops fire a shot, all is lost; all mediation becomes impossible, and Paris is drenched in blood." The Marshal allowed himself to be con- vinced by the merchant, whose advice was supported by a great number of persons, and who was, more- over, of the same opinion as the King and his new ministers. The Marshal, who seemed inflexible two hours before, was no longer so energetic. He was thinking of conciliating opinion rather than of wag- ing a sanguinary conflict, and considering the possi- bility of entering the liberal Cabinet as Minister of War. At the very moment when he was sending out the columns of the attack, he had written to M. Thiers : " I have long foreseen that you and I would be called on to save the monarchy. . . . When I shall have put down the riot, and we shall put it down, for inertia and refusal to assist on the part of the National Guard will not stop me, I will gladly enter into the formation of a new Cabinet with you, as Minister of War, unless the pretended unpopu- larity they accuse me of should prove an insurmount- able obstacle. In that case, I would not hesitate to advise you to take Bedeau, a distinguished officer, and to associate with him, as under-secretary of state, M. Magne, deputy, whose rare capacity I am personally acquainted with." So, then, there was no Minister of War. The Moniteur had just come out. In its official news appeared the nomination of Marshal Bugeaud as THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 24 181 commander-in-chief of the army and the National Guard. But M. Thiers and M. Odilon Barrot were not mentioned, except in its unofficial department. The Journal des Debats seemed wholly occupied with the formation of a Mole ministry. Under such circumstances, is not the public confusion easy to comprehend ? A year later, Marshal Bugeaud, meeting M. Fau- velle-Delabarre in an official salon, said to him: "I recognize you, sir; you did a great deal of harm. Instead of listening, I ought to have driven you out of my presence, and, deaf to the lamentations of your citizens and your National Guard, defended my King in his Tuileries, and shot you all down with- out mercy. Louis Philippe would still be on the throne, and you would now be lauding me to the skies. But what would you have ? I was tormented, stupefied, by a lot of poltroons and toadies. They had made me as imbecile as themselves." In a letter dated October 19, 1848, the Marshal has written: "An unheard-of combination of circumstances had paralyzed me ; I could make no use of my experience and the military faculties that nature had given me. I had nothing but the shadow of authority. Every- thing hampered me." Yielding to the solicitations of M. Fauvelle-Dela- barre, the Marshal sent the following instructions to General Bedeau : " My dear General, my arrangements are modified. 182 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 Announce everywhere that the firing is to stop, and that the National Guard will assume police duty. Make them listen to words of conciliation. "THE MARSHAL DUKE OF ISLY. "P.S. Fall back upon the Carrousel." According to M. Garnier-Pages, this billet was written from the Marshal's dictation by Captain Fabar, and the postscript by Major Trochu, the future governor of Paris. The Marshal's billet was carried to General Bedeau by M. Fauvelle-Delabarre. As soon as it was re- ceived, the General wheeled his troops, put himself at their head, and set off in the direction of the Madeleine. Now let us see what had become of the new min- isters. Toward half-past seven o'clock, M. Thiers, accompanied by the politicians of whom he intended to compose his ministry, MM. Odilon Barrot, Duver- gier de Hauranne, de Re'musat, de Malleville, Ab- batucci, and General de Lamoriciere, had started to walk from his house in Place Saint-Georges to the Tuileries. They had to cross several barricades on their way, and once narrowly escaped being caught between two fires. As they passed, many National Guards asked what they had to do. " The very sim- plest thing," replied M. Barrot; "get together, cover the city with your uniforms and your arms; the pavement of Paris ought to belong to the Na- tional Guard; otherwise, all is lost." When M. THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 24 183 Thiers and his colleagues arrived at the gate of the Tuileries, they saw the keepers of the chateau, who were returning the shots fired from the roofs of the opposite houses. A few soldiers, or firemen in case of necessity, would have been sufficient to dislodge these sharp-shooters. No such attempt had been made. An unpleasant symptom. When the new ministers were in Louis Philippe's presence, he said: "I am glad to see you, M. Odilon Barrot; I do not doubt your devotion." M. Barrot responded that precious time had been lost already, and that it was essential to get into communication with the people by every possible means, in order to separate the reformist from the revolutionary ele- ment; that everything else would be easy when this separation was once effected. It was then proposed to the King to give General de Lamoriciere command of the National Guard, under the superior direction of Marshal Bugeaud. After several objections, the King ended by saying: "Very well! arrange that with the Marshal." Then said M. Thiers: "There is another thing we must insist on, and that is that Your Majesty shall give us a formal promise to dis- solve the Chamber, if not immediately, at least very soon." "Oh! on that point," replied Louis Philippe, " I do not intend to make any compromise." "But, Sire," said M. Duvergier de Hauranne, " can Your Majesty understand how we can assume power with a majority which has just treated us as blind men or enemies?" "What!" said the King, 184 THE REVOLUTION OF 1S4S "you have your reform, and you are not satis- fied?" "M. Thiers and I," writes M. Odilon Barrot in his Memoirs, "persisted in declaring that it would be impossible for us to assume power unless we were assured of being able to dissolve the Chamber. k No! no!' obstinately reiterated the King; and, withdrawing toward his study, where M. Guizot was, he shut the door in our faces. Much surprise has been expressed at M. Guizot's presence at such a moment ; for my part, I think it very natural ; so long as the new ministry was not formed, and, as one may see, it was far enough from being so, the place of the former ministers was with the King." M. Guizot was at the Tuileries merely for the pur- pose of taking final leave of the sovereign. He never saw him again, except at Claremont. Availing themselves of Louis Philippe's half- consent, MM. Thiers and Barrot went to staff head- quarters with General de Lamoriciere. "Gentle- men," cried the Marshal, "I tell you it is impossible to govern if there is freedom of the press." "M. Marshal," returned M. Barrot, " we will discuss that, if you like, at a more convenient season. Just now, there is not a minute to be lost. Are you willing, yes or no, that General de Lamoriciere shall com- mand the National Guard of Paris?" "Oh! well, do as you please, "replied the Marshal. The General was in citizen's dress. "Take the first uniform you can find," M. Barrot said to him, THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 24 185 "and rejoin me on the Boulevards, where I am going." As he was descending the staircase, M. Barrot met Horace Vernet, the painter, who, as col- onel of the staff of the National Guard, had just been visiting the posts in the neighboring quarters. The following dialogue ensued : " What is going on ? " "I have just informed the post of the Thesitre- Francjais that M. Thiers has been asked to form a Cabinet. Seeing that this did not produce the effect I hoped for, I mentioned you, and they would not believe me. 'Odilon Barrot and Marshal Bugeaud ! ' they exclaimed; 'absurd! they can't go together; they are making game of us.' ' "Very well! since they won't believe you, I will go and talk to them myself." M. Thiers wished to accompany M. Barrot. " No," said the latter. " Stay here. If there is any likeli- hood of being shot, it is useless for all of us to be exposed. Besides, the King will need your coun- sels. Simply defend yourself here while I try to make the people listen to reason." "The truth is," writes M. Barrot in his Memoirs, " M. Thiers would have been rather a hindrance than a help in the campaign I was about to make on the barricades. He remained near the King, with MM. de Remusat and Duvergier de Hauranne, until the denouement; I did not see him again that day. On this I started out through the gate of the rue de Rivoli, with MM. Abbatucci, Quinette, de Beaumont, Chambolle, 186 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 Havin, Horace Vernet. It was then about half-past nine o'clock." Two or three hundred paces from the gate of the rue de Rivoli, M. Barrot found a barricade, on the rue de 1'Echelle. He gave his name and was allowed to pass. In the Boulevard des Capucines he encoun- tered a regiment of infantry, which, instead of con- ducting itself in military fashion, was mixed up with the crowd. " As soon as it had been decided to give way," he writes, "it was certainly well to avoid everything likely to exasperate the populace anew; but then, the troops should have been withdrawn, not left in a forced inaction and in contact with the people at the very time when the National Guard had been called on to replace them. The misfortune of that day was that no one knew how to make either peace or war." The further M. Barrot advanced on the Boulevards, the less favorable did he find the temper of the crowds. They were shouting: "Down with Bu- geaud! Down with Thiers!" At the end of the rue Saint-Denis rose an enormous barricade, sur- mounted by a red flag. The rioters defending it gave a very cool reception to M. Barrot and his friends. "What was to be done?" he writes; "should we cross the barricade and enter the rue Saint-Denis, in order to reach the H6tel-de-Ville? But, after having let us pass, would these men in front of us, who evidently wanted something more than a simple reform, let us go further on, and THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 24 187 would they not, in any case, prevent our return? And, in that case, would not all action, all influ- ence, on our part, be paralyzed? These reflections speedily decided us to go back." On their return, as the National Guards surround- ing M. Barrot were powerless to repress the crowd, he was induced to mount a horse, and several cor- dons of National Guards, holding each other firmly by the arms, formed a sort of dike to protect them from the mass of men that followed. Near the rue de la Paix he met General de Lamoriciere, whose pacific tour of inspection had succeeded no better than his own As they arrived together at the Place VendQme, the crowd was shouting: "To the Tuile- ries! to the Tuileries!" Let us allow M. Barrot himself to describe what happened : " This formida- ble cry suddenly enlightened me concerning the sit- uation ; I saw the consequences of my reappearance at the Tuileries at the head of this armed multitude. Leaving the King's Cabinet with a mission to ap- pease the insurrection, I could not, without loss of honor, return at the head of that very insurrection, to impose abdication on Louis Philippe ; and it was this, at least, that the crowd would have exacted. I bent toward the National Guards who were leading my horse, and said vehemently, 'No, no, my friends, not to the Tuileries ; you see for yourselves that I am exhausted; and, besides, I must go back home to reassure my wife ! ' These good fellows under- stood me, and, turning my horse round, instead of 188 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 crossing the Place Vend6me, they led it by the rue des Capucines, toward the rue de la Ferme-des- Mathurins, where I lived. Part of the crowd took the same direction, and, after inundating my street like an avalanche, made their way into my house. A woman preceded them, carrying a tricolored flag, which she planted at one of my windows, while some men, with the aid of a ladder, were suspending at the beginning of the street that placard which was still to be seen there several months later, and which bore the inscription : Street of the Father of the People. Melancholy testimony of a popular favor which lasted several minutes ! " While M. Barrot had been making his unlucky excursion on the Boulevards, the retreat of General Bedeau and his column had been not less unhappily effected. The General has given the details of it in a letter of April 4, 1851, which we have already cited. Before quitting his position on the Boule- vard Bonne-Nouvelle, he ordered a company of the National Guard to precede his column, in order to facilitate the opening of the barricades he had to cross, and also to avert more surely any misunder- standing with the people. At the top of the rue Montmartre he found an immense crowd, blocking up the alleys and the roadway of the boulevard. The real news had not been disseminated. At every step it was necessary to declare the change in the ministry, in order to allay public excitement. Nevertheless, the General did not hear a single cry THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 24 189 from which one could infer an intention to over- throw the government. On the Boulevard des Ital- iens, he encountered M. Odilon Barrot, who, at this moment, was still being cheered on every side. "This meeting," says the General, "made me un- derstand still better than the order I had received, what pacific intentions had directed the policy of the government." The column marched with difficulty through a constantly increasing crowd. In front of a barricade erected at the upper end of the rue de Choiseul, it abandoned its two pieces of artillery, and several soldiers laid down their arms. The General was not apprised of these two facts until the moment when he arrived in the rue Royale with the head of his column. Mixed up with the people in a tumultuous rabble, his troops had an aspect that made the twenty municipal guards of the station in the Avenue Gabriel, corner of the rue des Champs- Elyse'es (now rue Boissy-d'Anglas), think that the rioters had arrived, and they put themselves on the defensive. Attacked, or believing themselves attacked, by the people, they fired. The crowd returned the fire. "At this moment," says the General, "I was so convinced of the government's intention to avert all conflict, that I thought the best tiling I could do was to throw myself between the two fires and try to stop them. I did not suc- ceed, in spite of the very meritorious efforts of sev- eral National Guards and the promises made to me. At the moment when the municipal guards came out 190 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 of the guard-house, some sprang forward to shield and others to attack them. There were twenty guards; two were killed, several wounded, and others sheltered, three of them by me, in this deplor- able affray." An instant later, in the middle of the Place de la Concorde, at the railing called du Pont-Tournant, the guard, deceived by another alarm, also fired a discharge, which killed three per- sons, among them a conservative deputy, M. Jolli- vet, who was struck at the very moment when he was making the most generous efforts to save the life of a municipal guard who was pursued by the crowd. After these disastrous incidents, General Bedeau succeeded in rallying his troops and bringing them into position on the Place de la Concorde, at the side of those already there. It was about half-past ten in the morning. At this moment the General perceived M. de Tocqueville. " He jumped off his horse," the latter has written, "and shook my hand in a way that showed me how greatly he was dis- turbed. . . , Bedeau was a just man, moderate, liberal, humane, modest, moral, delicate, and even religious. It certainly was not faint-heartedness which made him do some things which might seem to indicate as much, for he had a courage equal to every test; still less was treason his incentive. . . . His sole misfortune was to be mixed up in events too great for him, to have nothing but merit where genius was essential, and especially that particular THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 24 191 genius of revolutions, which chiefly consists in regu- lating one's actions by facts alone, and in knowing when to disobey." The General was just saying to his interlocutor that the duty of the opposition was to descend in a body to the street, in order to allay the popular excitement, when a crowd of people, stealing in and out between the trees of the Champs- Elysees, advanced toward the Place de la Concorde. "As soon as he perceived this," adds M. de Tocque- ville, " Bedeau dragged me toward them, on foot, at least a hundred paces from his squadrons, and began to harangue them, for he had a greater taste for haranguing than I ever saw in any other man who carried a sword. While he was discoursing, the circle of his auditors was spreading out, and would soon have hemmed us in. Some one said: 'It is Bugeaud! ' I whispered to him: 'Take my word for it and get back to your horse this instant ; for if you stay here, you will be killed or taken within five minutes.' He did believe me, and he did well." Marshal Bugeaud had not been more successful than his lieutenant, in his attempts at pacification. He had several times shown himself to the National Guards ranged on the Place du Carrousel, but without result. In vain had he said to them: "Friends, comrades, all is over. Orders have just been sent to the troops, and the safety of Paris has been confided to the patriotism of the National Guard." In vain had he gone into the rue de Rivoli and ordered a battalion of the 2d legion to break 192 THE EEVOLUTION OF 1848 into sections and follow him. Not a soul had obeyed him. The entire government was at last beginning to comprehend that, as Marshal Bugeaud himself has written, the enemy cannot be discouraged by a retreat nor tumultuous masses by concessions. CHAPTER XXIII THE LAST REVIEW LOUIS PHILIPPE, still believing that the dis- turbance was merely a riot, foresaw neither his abdication nor the proclamation of the Republic. When he sat down to breakfast with his family, at half-past ten o'clock, in the gallery of Diana, he did not suspect that he was about to eat his last meal in the Tuileries. As yet he knew nothing, except the fortunate beginning of M. Odilon Barrot's excur- sion on the boulevards, and had heard not a word of General Bedeau's disastrous retreat. No sign of discouragement was visible on the countenance of the old King. Had he not seen more terrible tem- pests in the course of his perturbed career? As to the Queen, although ready to display the same energy as her ancestress, the great Empress Maria Theresa, she was under no illusion concerning the gravity of the peril ; she knew that the hour of the last crisis had arrived. The night just ended had been to her a night of anguish. Pious and resigned as she was, she had been scarcely able to hold the prayer-book in which she was seeking consolation, o 193 194 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 The Duchess of Orleans had spent a part of this painful night beside her. " We had not even strength to pray," has said the Duchess. The breakfast of the royal family had just begun. MM. Thiers, Duvergier de Hauranne, and de Re*mu- sat were present at it. Suddenly a door opened. A captain of the staff, M. de Laubespin, entered, bring- ing the worst of tidings. He had just seen how the retreat of General Bedeau's troops had been effected, and he thought the King no longer in safety at the Tuileries. M. Thiers at once proposed a retreat to Saint-Cloud. He said afterwards : " Sixty thousand men could have been assembled at Saint-Cloud the following day, and with that army we could have marched on Paris by the 26th of February. . . . The citizens, after having been in the hands of the republicans for two days, would have become our devoted friends. We should have been obliged to destroy the Hdtel-de-Ville, and to employ cannon for that purpose ; but I would destroy ten such palaces to put down a revolution." M. Thiers' proposition was rejected. After M. de Laubespin 's arrival, some officers had been sent to the Place du Carrousel for news. On returning, they declared that the situation was im- proving, as General Bedeau had rallied his troops, and that there was no further danger of an attack on the Tuileries from that side. It now occurred to Louis Philippe to examine for himself the forces defending him on the Place du THE LAST REVIEW 195 Carrousel. In great haste, and for the last time, he put on the uniform of a general of the National Guard, and held a review, like that held by Louis XVI. on the morning of August 10, 1792, before quitting the Tuileries forever. Many of the Na- tional Guards broke their ranks, and coming down from the terrace surrounding the lake in the garden, crowded about Louis XVI. as he passed, with noisy threats. At that sight Marie Antoinette wept. "The review," she cried, "has done more harm than good." It was to be the same way with Louis Philippe's last review, and Marie Ame*lie was to experience the same impressions and the same anguish as her aunt. Toward eleven o'clock Louis Philippe mounted a horse, accompanied by the Dukes de Nemours and Montpensier, Marshal Bugeaud, General de Lamori- ciSre, and several other generals. M. Thiers and M. de Remusat followed on foot. People were amazed to see General de Lamoriciere on the King's left, muffled up in a rough great-coat with the epaulettes of a general of the National Guard, and wearing an old cap, both of which seemed to have been unexpectedly thrust upon him, since they fitted neither his figure nor his head. This circumstance was a confirma- tion of the news, learned only a few minutes earlier, that the National Guard, having declined Marshal Bugeaud as their commander, he had been replaced by the General. Four thousand soldiers, with sixteen pieces of 196 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 artillery, were drawn up on the Place du Carrousel. The National Guard was represented by a detach- ment of cavalry, under the orders of Count de Mon- talivet ; by some fractions of the 10th legion, resting against the H6tel de Nantes, a detached dwelling on the place, near the rue de Rohan ; by a battalion of the 1st legion, backed against the railing separat- ing the Carrousel from the Tuileries ; and, finally, by the equivalent of a battalion of the 4th, composed of men from all the companies of the legion. This bat- talion, circulating around the quays, had forced its leader to conduct it toward the Tuileries through the gate of the bridge des Saints-Pres, and, entering the Place du Carrousel, had drawn up in battle array before the chateau, in utter disregard of the objec- tions made by several superior officers of the line. From the windows, the Queen, the Duchess of Orleans and her son, the Duchess de Nemours, and the Duchess de Montpensier, were anxiously watching the King. It was the Queen who had counselled this review. It was she who sought to inspire energetic and virile resolutions. u The countenance of this beloved wife, this mother, who had so long been happy," says M. de Lamartine, "was animated by the energy of her double senti- ment for her husband and her children. All her tenderness for them was concentrated, and became impassioned in solicitude for their honor. Their life took the second place in her love. Her white locks, contrasting with the fire of her eyes and the THE LAST REVIEW 197 ruddy animation of her cheeks, imprinted on her countenance something tragical and holy." The opening of the review made her heart throb with hope. On entering the Carrousel, Louis Philippe met first the National Guards of the 1st legion, who gave him a cordial welcome, and cried: "Long live the King! " as well as: "Long live the reform! " "You shall have the reform, my friends," said he. "There is no longer any pretext for disturbance." The attitude of the National Guards of the 10th legion was equally good. But those of the 4th gave the sovereign a totally different reception. Making a violent clamor and brandishing their arms, they furiously shouted: "Long live the reform! Down with the system! Down with Guizot!" The un- happy King tried in vain .to pacify them. Their shouts redoubled. This threatening behavior on the part of men whom he had been accustomed to consider his friends, his defenders, and the best supporters of his throne, smote Louis Philippe with dull amazement. Paying no attention to the troops, who were expecting to be reviewed also, he turned back, dismounted from his horse at the pavilion of Flora, and re-entered the chateau, which he was to leave forever within another hour. He sank into an armchair and remained for some time motionless and silent, with his head in his hands. Meanwhile, the insurrection, already in possession of the H6tel-de-Ville, where General Se"bastiani's column had been ordered to stop firing, was making 198 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 the most astonishing headway. The prefecture of police was threatened, the Pantheon blockaded. Barricades were multiplying with frightful rapidity. Rioters were burning toll-gates, bridges, and guard- houses, occupying barracks, seizing arms, and steal- ing munitions. At the very moment when the King's review came to an end, a band of common people and National Guards, armed with sabres, muskets, and bars of iron, advanced through the little streets which at that time existed between the Palais-Royal and the Place du Carrousel, and debouched on that place. Marshal Bugeaud, on horseback, went to meet the column, and harangued them with pathetic energy. "The proof that I succeeded," he has written him- self (letter of October 19, 1848), " is that they sprang toward me, holding out their hands. One man only, dressed as a National Guard, said to me: "' Are you Marshal Bugeaud? ' " 4 Yes, lam.' " ' You butchered our brethren in the rue Trans- nonain. ' " ' You lie ; for I was not there. ' " The man made a movement with his musket. I pressed closer to him, in order to seize his weapon ; but his neighbors silenced him and began to shout: 'Long live Marshal Bugeaud! Honor to military glory! ' Major Trochu, Colonel Sercey, and Captain of Artillery Fabar were near me at the time. After shaking a thousand hands, I induced this column to THE LAST EEVIEW 199 retrace their steps. A great many of those compos- ing it promised me to go to their own quarter and try to restore order." This last glimmer of hope, which, feeble as it was amidst the gathering storm, still shone upon the Marshal, was speedily extinguished. Already the chateau of the Tuileries, that palace of disasters, was presenting a deplorable spectacle. The guard- houses were dismantled, the sentries departed, the doors open. Officers, deputies, journalists, men known and unknown, were entering wherever they chose, even into the salons adjoining the Cabinet of the King. The moment was at hand when the un- fortunate sovereign was about to accede to pusillani- mous counsels, instead of adopting the energetic resolutions suggested by Marie Amelie, whose cour- age increased in proportion with the danger. CHAPTER XXIV THE ABDICATION HT GUIS PHILIPPE is in his study on the I J ground-floor of the chateau of the Tuileries. After the review that has just taken place, he is sad and seems plunged in gloomy reflections. But he does not dream as yet of abdicating. The Queen and the princesses are in an adjacent room. The Duchess of Orleans, whom malevolent persons accuse of ambitious views, wishes to be near the King at this supreme moment. She has breakfasted with him. She has seen him hold his last review. She is there with her two sons. Some member of her household says to her: "What are they going to do? What will Madame do ? " "I do not know what will be done," she answers ; "all I know is that my place is near the King; I ought not to quit him; I will not quit him." The Queen never loses her head for a moment. Worthy granddaughter of the Empress Maria Theresa, she is resolute, energetic, ready to face the greatest dangers without blenching. Know- ing thoroughly the history of the celebrated Days of the Revolution, she means that her courage shall 200 THE ABDICATION 201 prevent another 10th of August. If the men near her had her presence of mind and coolness, the throne might yet be saved; but on this lamentable day it is only the women who have virile sentiments. Everything had been lost from the moment when a change of ministry was decided upon in the thick of a riot, and the troops forbidden to fire. At the chateau the disorder is complete ; all the barriers of etiquette have fallen; people go in and out as if it were a tavern. M. Cremieux (introduced by the Duke de Montpen- sier). " Sire, I have just been passing through sev- eral quarters ; the game may yet be won. Only, the people want a minister who will frankly belong to the left; M. Thiers' presence is an anomaly; he must be replaced by M. Odilon Barrot. At this price I think I can guarantee the re-establishment of order. If the King delays, all is lost." Louis Philippe (turning toward M. Thiers). "Eh! my dear Minister, so you are unpopular in your turn! It is not I, you observe, who repudiate your services." M. Cremieux. " The people are irritated against Marshal Bugeaud. He must be replaced by Marshal Gerard." Marshal Bugeaud enters. The King. " My dear Marshal, they want me to part with you." Like M. Thiers, the Marshal offers no objection to his displacement. 202 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 The King calls for his secretary, Baron Fain, and tells him to prepare the decrees, which ought to be countersigned by the former Minister of War, Gen- eral Trezel. In the existing state of trouble there will be no time for these formalities. General de Lamoriciere (who has just been announc- ing to the crowd the concessions that have been made). "Sire, they are not contented with what I have promised in the name of Your Majesty; they de- mand something more." The King. " Something more ? That must be my abdication, and as I will not give it, except with my life, they will not get it." A noise of firing is heard. On the Place du Palais- Royal there is a large guard-house, the entire lower story of which is occupied by a grotto of pebbles and a jet of water. It is what is called the water- chateau of the Palais-Royal. The windows of this guard-house are protected by very solid iron bars. A detachment of the 14th of the line is established there. Assailed by the insurrection, it refuses to surrender. A sustained firing begins. The soldiers shoot from behind the window gratings ; the insur- gents reply from behind the columns of the Palais- Royal. M. Emile de Girardin enters the King's Cabinet, holding a paper in his hand. It is noon-day. The King. " What is the matter? " M. de G-irardin. " The matter is, Sire, that they have been making Your Majesty lose precious time. THE ABDICATION 203 If another minute is wasted, within an hour there will be neither king nor royalty in France." The King. " What is to be done ? " M. de Crirardin. " Abdicate, Sire ! Abdicate in favor of the regency of Madame the Duchess of Orleans. They will not have the Duke de Nemours. Here is the proclamation, all ready; it was given to the printers in order to save the seconds that are escaping us : " ' Abdication of the King. "' Regency of Madame the Duchess of Orleans. " 4 Dissolution of the Chamber. "'General amnesty.'" The Duke de Montpensier. " Since things are as M. de Girardin affirms them to be, Sire, do not hesi- tate ! Abdicate ! " The Queen. " No, no, my friend, you will not do that! They are trying to tear away your sceptre. There is no one but you who has strength to wield it. Rather die here than escape through that door ! Mount a horse, the army will follow you! ... I cannot understand any one abandoning the King at such a moment ! . . . You will all repent of it. . . . You do not deserve so good a King." The Duchess of Orleans (at Louis Philippe's knees). " Sire, I entreat you, do not abdicate ! " M. Piscatory. " No, Sire ! do not abdicate. I have just been all over Paris. If you can maintain yourself four hours behind the walls and gratings of the Tuileries, and you can do it with the troops 204 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 surrounding you, I am convinced that all will be saved. But if, in spite of our prayers, you have resolved to yield, it is not here that you should abdicate, but at Vincennes or Mont- Valdrien. " The King. "I have signed nothing yet." Marshal Soult is there ; he does not speak. The noise of musket-firing seems coming nearer. The Duke de Montpensier. " There is not a minute to lose. The balls are whistling even in the court." The King. " Is it true that all defence would be impossible ? " Several voices. " Impossible ! impossible ! " M. Piscatory tries to make another appeal. The Queen (to M. Piscatory'). " Thanks, but you have done enough, do not say another word; there are traitors here." The Duchess of Orleans. " Sire, no one is pre- pared to see me regent, and I less than any one else. And it is on a feeble woman they would throw, at such a crisis, a weight which you judge too heavy for your shoulders ! " The King. "I am a pacific sovereign ; since all defence is impossible, I will not shed French blood uselessly; I abdicate." Count de Ponte*coulant has said in his Souvenirs : "Of all imaginable means, none was more certain to conduct the state to a catastrophe than that which was selected, and the riot might have had devoted partisans even in the very Cabinet of the King, who THE ABDICATION 205 would not have served it better than such imprudent counsellors." Let us cite also this passage from the Memoirs of M. Dupin: "When the entire army was still firm and faithful, when the two Chambers showed them- selves devoted to the King, whe all the authorities were at their posts, ought the defection of several companies of National Guards to have brought about so unexpected a discouragement, a self-abandonment so instantaneous and complete? . . . By what means were they able to persuade the King that it was right for him to despoil himself at once of power, in the midst of danger, for the sake of investing a child with it? Who was it that counselled so des- perate an act ? Certainly it was not Marie Amelie, who on that day, as wife and mother, and especially as queen, displayed (as everybody is continually saying) a dignity equal to her rank and a firmness superior to her sex." Fearless for himself, Louis Philippe is timid for his family. His imagination, filled with souvenirs of the Revolution, which did not spare women, re- minds him of Marie Antoinette, Madame Elisabeth, and many another innocent victim. On the other hand, the philanthropic King, the pacific King, has a horror of bloodshed. When young, he had several times succeeded in conquering this repugnance and putting down an insurrection. But now that he is old, he cannot persuade himself to fire upon his people, to kill those National Guards who for so 206 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 long have been his friends and defenders. He be- lieves, moreover, that in abdicating he is sacrificing no one but himself, and he thinks that this sacrifice, far from destroying his dynasty, will save it. He hopes in this way to avert suspicions, allay excite- ment, and render the establishment of the regency easy and substantial. Marshal Ge*rard enters the Cabinet of the King. He is asked to announce the abdication to the people. The Queen. " My good Marshal, save what can still be saved." The Marshal is in civilian's dress. Without giving him time to put on a uniform, he is set on a horse in the court of the chateau, and a green branch put in his hand as a token of peace ; just as he is passing through the gate, some one calls his atten- tion to the fact that he has no paper declarative of the abdication. "That is true," says he, and keep- ing straight on toward the Palais-Royal, where the fighting continues, he begs two persons to go and ask for this paper. Not until then does the King decide to sign. He arranges his pen and paper slowly. Several voices. " Q uicker ! Quicker ! " The King. "I am doing it as quickly as I can, gentlemen." The Duke de Montpensier. " Sire, I implore you to make haste." The King. "I have always written slowly ; this is not the moment to change my habit." THE ABDICATION 207 And with a firm hand, and in large script, the unfortunate sovereign traces these lines : " I abdicate this crown, which the national voice had called on me to wear, in favor of my grandson, the Count of Paris. " May he succeed in the great task which falls to his lot this day ! "This February 24, 1848. "Louis PHILIPPE." An Unknown (standing behind the King). "At last we have it." The Queen. " Who are you, sir ? " The Unknown. " Madame, I am a provincial magistrate." The Queen. " Well, yes ! you have it, and you will repent it. Oh! my God, they will regret it!" M. Cre*mieux and several other persons complain that Louis Philippe has not named the Duchess of Orleans regent, in the act of abdication. The King. " Others will do it if they think it necessary; but, for my part, I will not. It is con- trary to law. Thanks to God, I have never yet violated a law, and I will not begin at such a moment." The majority of those who had invaded the King's Cabinet now disperse. A young man goes to carry the act of abdication to Marshal Gerard, but does not succeed in reaching 208 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 him, and the paper falls into the hands of the insur- gents. The Marshal's attempt at pacification has failed. A trumpeter preceded him, and two men led his horse by the bridle, crying: "Make way! Make way! " At the end of a few minutes they had been obliged to retrace their steps. The soldiers shut up in the guard-house are still being sacrificed. A charge of the cuirassiers and dragoons massed in the Carrousel could have cleared the Place du Palais-Royal and given these brave foot-soldiers a chance to effect their retreat. But not a troop comes to their assistance. General de Lamoriciere tries in vain to interpose between the combatants and stop the firing. His horse falls, struck by a ball, and he himself, wounded by a bayonet-thrust, becomes the prisoner of the insur- gents. The latter go to rue Saint-Thomas-du- Louvre, to search the King's stables for vehicles and hay-carts ; these they push against the guard-house and set them on fire. Meantime, Louis Philippe is making ready to leave the Tuileries. But he does not suppose that he is departing into exile. In his view, it is merely a journey to the Chateau d'Eu, where he will be left to repose in peace while the regency installs itself at Paris. Assisted by the Queen, he takes off his uniform, resumes civilian's dress, and gets together several objects which he proposes to carry with him. He sends to the royal stables for two four-horse ber- lines for the journey. But just as they are coming THE ABDICATION 209 out by the rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, they are seized by the insurgents, and the huntsman, Hairon, is killed. The Duchess of Orleans (who sees the preparations for departure). "Ah! Sire, do not abandon me. I am only a poor woman ; what shall I do without you? advice and protection ? " The King. " My dear child, you owe yourself to your son and to France; you must remain." The failure of Marshal Gerard's mission, and the progress of the riot that threatens the Place du Carrousel, is announced. M. Cremieux. " Sire, there is not an instant to lose. The people are coming. In a few minutes they will be at the Tuileries." The moment of departure has arrived. It is half- past twelve o'clock. The fugitives walk through the grand alley of the garden of the Tuileries. The King gives his arm to the Queen. Behind them come the Duke de Mont- pensier, the Duchess de Nemours, with her three children (the Count d'Eu, born in 1842; the Duke d'AlenQon, born in 1844; and the Princess Mar- guerite, born in in 1846), the Duke Auguste of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and his wife, the Princess Clem- entine of Orleans, with their three children (Princes Philippe and Auguste, the one born in 1844 and the other in 1845, and Princess Clotilde, born in 1846); then MM. Cremieux, Ary Scheffer, and General Dumas; people in waiting; and, as escort, several 210 THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 National Guards on horseback, commanded by Count de Montalivet. The sad procession recalls that of Louis XVI. and his family, quitting the Tuileries, August 10, 1792, to go to the legislative assembly, and find no asylum there except the reporters' box. Behold the fugi- tives arriving at the gate that opens on the Place de la Concorde, and which is still called the gate du Pont-Tournant, on account of a drawbridge which was formerly thrown across the moats of the chateau. Here they had expected to find the two large travel- ling carriages which had been sent for from the royal stables in the rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre. But the carriages are not there. As we have just said, they have been taken by the insurgents and delivered to the flames. Another resource remains. At the moment when the royal family was quitting the Tuileries, there were in the court of the chateau two small one-horse carriages called broughams, and a two-wheeled cabriolet, all of them belonging to the King's establishment and intended for the use of the aides-de-camp, and persons in service who might have errands in the city. The Duke de Nemours had sufficient presence of mind to reflect that, although these vehicles, constructed to hold three persons only, were certainly insufficient, yet they might receive several members of the family 5 and he had them taken through the gate of the court and the still unimpeded quay, to that point in the Place de la Concorde where the berlines were to have THE ABDICATION 211 awaited them. Fifteen persons crowd into these three vehicles. The King looks at the spot where his father's scaffold had been erected, and then enters one of the broughams, with the Queen, the two young princes of Coburg, and the little Duke d' Alen- . 297; re- joined by the King, 303, 304; em- barks with the King for England, 308, 309 ; her fortitude, 311, 312, 332. Mareehal, M., assists Louis Phi- lippe in flight, 283-286. Marine mt ; Marshal, 330. Marrast, Armand, and the pro- gramme of the manifestation, 99-105; his birth, career, and character, 100, 101 ; his opinion on the giving up of the banquet, 111, 22<;. Mazzini, his words to Pope Pius TX 0>> J.A., i. Military preparations, the, coun- termanded, 120, 132. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the affair in front of, 162-166. Ministry, the new, 168, 169, 171; and L"uis Philippe at the Tuile- ries, 182-184. Mole', Count de, 33; selected by Louis Philippe to form a new Cabinet, 151, 153; his efforts to form a new ministry, 168, 169; his character, 168, 169. Molitor, Marshal, 267. Montalembert, Count de, his birth, parentage, and early life, 12, 13 ; chief of the Catholics, 13; simi- 344 INDEX larity of his ideas to those of Marie Amelie, 13; his condition of mind in 1848, 13; his speech on the Address before the Cham- ber of Peers, 15-20. Montalivet, Count de, his words on the change of ministry, 161, 196, 210 ; Louis Philippe's letter to, 278, 279 ; General Dumas' let- ter to, 279, 280. Montesquieu, Viscount Leon de, 270. Montpensier, Duchess de, the flight of, 320-327. Montpensier, Duke de, 7, 27, 78, 148, 151, 195; urges the King to abdicate, 203; leaves the Tuile- ries with the King, 209, 320. Mornay, Marquis de, 267, 269, 315. Morny, Count de, in the Chamber of Deputies, 76, 77, 89 ; his career and character, 90 ; one of the five negotiators, 89, 90, 107. Muser, Mademoiselle, 287, 289. Musset, Alfred de, his verses on the chateau of Neuilly, 264. National, the, Lamartine's char- acterization of, 99, 100, 133; its words on the Revolution, 265. National Guard, the, its part in the programme of the manifesta- tion, 102, 103 ; called out by the government, 136 et seq. ; attitude of Louis Philippe toward, 137; Count de Pout-Martin's words on, 138; the feelings of, 138-144; rioters in the ranks of, 140 ; the legions move, 141 ; Marshal Bu- geaud and, 173, 174 ; and the new ministers, 182 ; General Lamori- ciere appointed to command of, 183, 184 ; powerless to repress the crowd, 187 ; Louis Philippe's last review of, 195-197. Nemours, Duke de, 7, 20, 27; his attitude at Court, 29, 78; goes into the ranks of soldiery to quell the disturbances, 128, 150, 195; obtains carriages for the royal family to leave the Tuile- ries, 209, 210 ; in command at the Tuileries, 213 ; his plan to carry the Duchess of Orleans to Mont Valerien, 215, 217; follows the Duchess of Orleans to the Cham- ber of Deputies, 218, 219; Gamier- Pages' words concerning, 218 ; in the Chamber of Deputies, 223, 229, 230; his escape from the Chamber, 245, 246; goes to the house of M. Biesta, 270 ; safe on English territory, 306; his flight from Paris, 314. Neuilly, the chateau of, destroyed, 264. Normanby, Lord, his experience at the dinner of the Minister of Finance, 130, 131 ; his words con- cerning the Duchess of Moiit- pensier, 321 , 322. Ochsenbein, M., 23. Orleans, Duchess of, 29, 94; her words on the change of ministry, 158; with the Queen the last night at the Tuileries, 194, 196 ; her fidelity to the King, 200 ; the people demand the regency of, 203, 204, 207; urges the King not to abdicate, 203; left behind at the Tuileries, 209; leaves the Tuileries soon after the King and goes to the Chamber of Deputies, 213-220 ; in the Chamber of Depu- ties, 221 et seq. ; Lamartine's de- scription of the entrance of, to the Chamber of Deputies, 226, 227; refuses to withdraw, 228; did not share the illusions con- cerning Lamartine, 241 ; her exit from the Chamber, 243-245 ; her flight from Paris, 267-270; at the Chateau de Bligny, 313-315 ; her son the Duke of Chartres re- stored to her, 315; her flight to Germany, 315-319 ; her courage, 318, 332 ; arrives at Ems, 319. Orleans, Duke of, his apartments INDEX 345 in the Tuileries respected by the mob, 259, 260. Oudinot, General, his words con- cerning the Duchess of Orleans in the Chamber of Deputies, 229, 252. Palais-Royal, the gathering at the, 133 ; sacked by the mob, 2(32-264. Palmerston, Lord, M. Thiers an ally of, 34, 36. Paris, Count de, Louis Philippe abdicates in favor of, 207, 212, 214; in the Chamber of Depu- ties, 222 et seq. ; separated from his mother in the exit from the Chamber, 244; restored to his mother, 245; leaves Paris with his mother, 269; his reluctance to leave France, 316. Passy, M., 169. Pasquier, Duke de, his words to Count d'Alton-She'e, 22. Paul, M., 305, 310. Pauligue, M. de, with Louis Phi- lippe in flight, 276, 283, 292, 298, 300, 303. Pavilion de la Grace, Louis Philippe and Marie Amelie at, 290, 291. Peers, Chamber of, see Chamber of Peers. Perthuis, Edmond de, 292, 298, 303. Perthuis, M. de, Louis Philippe and Marie Amelie rejoin each other at the cottage of, 290. Piscatory, M., urges the King not to abdicate, 203, 204. Pius IX., Pope, his attitude in Ital- ian affairs, 22, 23 ; admirers of, in the Chamber of Peers, 23, 24 ; Mazzini's words to, 22; King Charles Albert's words concern- ing, 22; Victor Hugo's words concerning, 23, 24; Cousin's words concerning, 25. Pontecoulant, Count de, his words concerning the banquet arrange- ment, 106 ; criticises the lack of vigor on the part of the authori- ties, 129 ; his words on the abdi- cation of Louis Philippe, 204, 205. Pontniartin, Count de, his words on the National Guard, 138. Programme of the Manifestation, the, 99-103, 104 et ssq. ; de Tocqueville's words concerning, 104 ; Barrot's words concerning, 104, 105. Provisional Government, a, pro- posed in the Chamber of Depu- ties, 230-232 ; Lamartine declares for, 241, 242; acclaimed, 247 et seq. Quelen, Monseigneur de, Arch- bishop of Paris, 334. Racine, a gardener at Honfleur, 291, 293. Rainneville, M. de, 86, 87. Raucourt, 247. Reforme, the, Lamartine's charac- terization of, 113; the reunion at the office of, 113-115, 133. Regnault, General de Saint-Jean- d'Angely, 275. Re'musat, M. de, 77, 174; on the new Cabinet, 182, 185; at the last breakfast of the King at the Tuileries, 194. Renard, farmer, 28(5-288, 290. Renault, General, 176, 177. Revolution, of 1848, note of alarm sounded by de Tocqueville, 47 et seq.; the discussion of the Ad- dress the prologue of the, 65 ; the banquet scheme, 80 et seq. ; the reunion in the Durand cafe, 84-88 ; the reunion in the Rtforme, 113- 115 ; the gathering of people on February 22d, 121-123 ; the first attempts at disorder, 126-128, 135, 136; lack of vigor on the part of the authorities, 129, 130; the countermand of the military preparations, 120, 132; the Na- tional Guard called out, 136 et 346 INDEX seq. ; the firing on the Boulevard des Capucines, 162-166 ; how the first shot was fired, 163-165; Marshal Bugeaud in command, 167-173 ; plan of action, 175, 176 ; Marshal Bugeaud's billet, 181, 182 ; the retreat of General Bedeau, 188-190 ; Louis Philippe's last review, 194-198; Louis Phil- ippe abdicates and leaves the Tuileries, 202-211; the affair at the guard-house on the Place du Palais-Royal, 202, 208; the Chamber of Deputies is invaded, 238 et seq.; accomplished, 254; effect of, 265 ; et seq. ; com- ments on by the National, 265 ; by Gamier-Pages, 265 ; by La- martine, 266 ; by Odilon Barrot, 270, 271 ; by Count d'Estournel, 271, 272 ; characterized by Thiers and Lamartine, 328; lessons of, 328 et seq. ; difference between Revolution of 1830 and, 333-335. Revue des Deux-Mondes, quoted, on the government and condition of public affairs, 47, 59, 60. Rewbell, Colonel, 211, 275. Roche jaquelein, M. de la, in the Chamber of Deputies, 236, 237. Rumigny, General de, with Louis Philippe in flight, 286, 287, 298, 299. Sainte-Aulaire, Count de, his words to the Chamber of Peers, 26. Sallandrouze, M., 39; proposes amendments to the Address, 72, 75. Salvandy, M. de, his words con- cerning the banquet, 107 ; Louis Philippe's conversation with, concerning the abandonment of the banquet, 117 ; disapproves of the King's change of ministry, 157. Sauzet,M., President of the Cham- ber of Deputies, 75; his words on the arrangement for the ban- quet, 94 ; in the Chamber on the occasion of the presence of the Duchess of Orleans, 221, 224, 228, 229; his illusions concerning Lamartine, 239; adjourns the Chamber, 243. Sebastiani, General Tiburce, 120; clears the approaches to the Chamber of Deputies, 123; at the H6tel-de-Ville, 176, 177. Scheffer, Ary, 20';). Six, Theodore, 252. Sonderbund, the, 13, 14, 34, 35. Soult, Marshal, 204, 269. Switzerland, civil discord in, 14, 15. Talabot, Colonel, 162, 163. Thierry, General, accompanies the Duchess de Montpensier in flight, 320 et seq. Thiers, M., 32, 33; his attitude toward Louis Philippe, 34; an ally of Lord Palmerston's, 34; his words on the Swiss question, 66 ; belongs to the party of the Revolution, 66; favors wholesale resignation of the opposition, 80 ; at the reunion in the Durand cafe, 86, 87 ; his opinion on the banquet manifestation, 110, 111, 159; and the new Cabinet, 169- 172, 174; his conversation with Louis Philippe, 171, 172 ; his min- istry, 182 ; urges the King to dis- solve the Chamber, 183, 184, 185, his characterization of the Revo- lution, 328; not mentioned in news reports of the military com- mand, 181 ; at the last breakfast of the King at the Tuileries, 194 ; proposes a retreat to Saint- Cloud, 194 ; his presence in the Cabinet an anomaly, 201; his sole idea to escape, 222. Thureau-Dangin, M., his words concerning the departure of the Duchess of Orleans, 217. Tocqeville, M. de, his words on the INDEX 347 government, 42, 43 ; his birth and parentage, 47 ; his Democracy in America, 48; his position in public affairs, 48 ; his speech of alarm in the Chamber of Depu- ties, 49-51 ; his lack of complete faith in his sinister predictions, 51 ; his conversation with Du- vergier de Hauranne, 93; his words on the programme of the manifestation, 104; his words on the disturbance of February 22d, 123; his description of the effect on the Chamber of Depu- ties of the retirement of the ministry, 153, 154 ; his words on the change of ministry, 160, 1G1 ; his words to Lamartine in the Chamber of Deputies, 227; on the importance of the Chamber, 233, 234 ; incident attending his exit from the Chamber of Depu- ties, 252, 253. Trezel, General, 170. Trognon, M., his words concerning Marie Ame'lie at Honfleur, 295. Tuileries, the, Louis Philippe's last day at, 193 et seq. ; disorder at, 199-201; Louis Philippe leaves, 208-211; the sack of the, 255- 264 ; " Hospital for Invalid Citi- zens," inscription on, 272; the people occupying, 272, 273, Vavin, M., addresses interpella- tions to the ministry in the Chamber of Deputies, 151, 152. Vernet, Horace, Colonel of Na- tional Guards, 185. Vitet, M. de, one of the five nego- tiators, 89, 90. FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS. " In these translations of this interesting series of sketches, we have found an unexpected amount of pleasure and profit. 7 he author cites for us passages from forgotten diaries, hitherto unearthed letters, extracts from public proceedings, and the like, and contrives to combine and arrange his material so as to make a great many very vivid and pleas- ing pictures. Nor is this all. The material he lays before us is of real value, and much, if not most of it, must be unknown save to the special students of the period. We can, therefore, cordially commend these books to the attention of our readers. They will find them attractive in their arrangement, never dull, with much variety of scene and incident, and admirably translated." THE NATION, of December 19, 1890. NEW VOLUME THE RESOLUTION OF 1848. With four portraits. Price $1.25. M. Imbert de Saint-Amand's volume on "The Duchess of Berry and the Revolution of 1830," which described the turbulent accession of Louis Philippe to the throne of France, is now followed by the account of the Citizen King's equally agitated abdication and exile during the Revolution of 1848, the title of a new volume just issued in the author's popular and admirable series, " Famous Women of the French Court." As heretofore, the historian writes from the inside, and his description of the exciting events of the February days that led to the overthrow of the Orleanist dynasty, the flight of the last king France has had, and the dramatically sudden establishment of the Second Republic is familiar and intimate rather than formal, and the reader gets a view of what passed behind the scenes as well as on the stage at that interesting and fateful moment. FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT VOLUMES PREVIOUSLY ISSUED. THREE VOLUMES ON MARIE ANTOINETTE. 3ach with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $3.75; half calf , $7.50. MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE END OF THE OLD REGIME. MARIE ANTOINETTE AT THE TUILERIES. MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY. In this series is unfolded the tremendous panorama of political events in which the unfortunate Queen had so influential a share, beginning with the days immediately preceding the Revolution, when, court life at Versailles was so gay and unsuspecting, continuing with the enforced journey of the royal family to Paris, and the agitating months passed in the Tuileries, and concluding with the abolition of royalty, the proclamation of the Republic, and the imprisonment of the royal family, the initial stage of their progress to the guillotine. THREE VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $3.75; half calf, $7.50. CITIZENESS BONAPARTE. THE WIFE OF THE FIRST CONSUL. THE COURT OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. The romantic and eventful period beginning with Josephine's marriage, com- prises the astonishing Italian campaign, the Egyptian expedition, the coup d'etat of Brumaire, and is described in the first of the above volumes; while the second treats of the brilliant society which issued from the chaos of the Revolution, and over which Madame Bonaparte presided so charmingly; and the third, of the events between the assumption of the imperial title by Napoleon and the end of 1807, including, of course, the Austerlitz campaign. FOUR VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE. Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price Per set, in box, cloth, $5.00; half calf, $10.00. THE HAPPY DAYS OF MARIE LOUISE. MARIE LOUISE AND THE DECADENCE OF THE EMPIRE. MARIE LOUISE AND THE INVASION OF 1814. MARIE LOUISE, THE RETURN FROM ELBA, AND THE HUNDRED DAYS. The auspicious marriage of the Archduchess Marie Louise to the master of Europe; the Russian invasion, with its disastrous conclusion a few years later; the Dresden and Leipsic campaign ; the invasion of France by the Allies, and the mar- vellous military strategy of Napoleon in 1814, ending only with his defeat and exile to Elba; his life in his little principality; his romantic escape and dramatic return to France; the preparations of the Hundred Days; Waterloo and the definitive restora- tion of Louis XVIII. closing the era begun in 1789, with " The End of the Old Regime," are the subjects of the four volumes grouped around the personality of Marie Louise. FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT TWO VOLUMES ON THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $2.50; half calf, $5.00. THE YOUTH OF THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME AND THE TWO RESTORATIONS. The period covered in this first of these volumes begins with the life of the daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette imprisoned in the Temple after the execution of her parents, and ends with the accession of Louis XVIII. after the abdica- tion of Napoleon at Fontainebleau. The first Restoration, its illusions, the characters of Louis XVIII., of his brother, afterwards Charles X., of the Dukes of Angouleme and Berry, sons of the latter, the life of the Court, the feeling of the city, Napoleon's sudden return from Elba, the Hundred Days from the Royalist side, the second Restoration, and the vengeance taken by the new government on the Imperialists, form the subject-matter of the second volume. THREE VOLUMES ON THE DUCHESS OF BERRY. Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $3-75; half calf , $7.50, THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XVIII. THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF CHARLES X. THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE REVOLUTION OF JULY, 1830. The Princess Marie Caroline, of Naples, became, upon her marriage with the Duke of Berry, the central figure of the French Court during the reigns of both Louis XVIII. and Charles X. The former of these was rendered eventful by the assassination of her husband and the birth of her son, the Count of Chambord, and the latter was from the first marked by those reactionary tendencies which resulted in the dethronement and exile of the Bourbons. The dramatic Revolution which brought about the July monarchy of Louis Philippe, has never been more vividly and intelligently described than in the last volume devoted to the Duchess of Berry. FOUR VOLUMES ON WOMEN OF THE VALOIS AND VERSAILLES COURTS. Each with Portraits, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $5.00; half calf, $10.00. WOMEN OF THE VALOIS COURT. THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. THE COURT OF LOUIS XV. THE LAST YEARS OF LOUIS XV. The splendid pageantry of the court over which Catherine de Medici presided and in which she intrigued, and the contrasting glories and shames of the long reigns of the " Sun King" and of Louis XV. are the subjects of these four volumes which depict the most brilliant days of the Valois and Bourbon dynasties. FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT. CRITICAL NOTICES. " Indeed, a certain sanity of vision is one of M. de Saint Amand's charac- teristics. ... He evidently finds it no difficult task to do justice to Legitimist and Imperialist, to the old world that came to an end with the Revolution and to the new world that sprang from the old world's ashes. Nor do his qualifications as a popular historian end here. He has the gift of so mar- shalling his facts as to leave a definite impression. These are but short books on great subjects; for M. de Saint Amand is not at all content to chronicle the court life of his three heroines, and writes almost more fully about their times than he does about themselves; but yet comparatively short as the books may be, they tell their story, in many respects, better than some histories of greater pretensions." The Academy, London. "The volumes are even more pictures of the times than of the unhappy occupants of the French throne. The style is clear and familiar, and the smaller courts of the period, the gossip of the court and the course of history, give interest other than biographical to the work." Baltimore Sun. " M. de Saint-Amand makes the great personages of whom he writes very human. In this last volume he has brought to light much new material regarding the diplomatic relations between Napoleon and the Austrian court, and throughout the series he presents, \vith a wealth of detail, the ceremonious and private life of the courts." San Francisco Argonaut. "The sketches, like the times to which they relate, are immensely dramatic. M. Saint-Amand writes with a vivid pen. He has filled himself with the history and the life of the times, and possesses the art of making them live in his pages. His books are capital reading, and remain as vivacious as idiomatic, and as pointed in the translation as in the original French." The Independent. "The last volume of the highly interesting series is characterized by all that remarkable attractiveness of description, historical and per- sonal, that has made the former vo'umes of the series so popular. M. de Saint-Amand's pictures of court life and of the brilliant men and women that composed it, make the whole read with a freshness that is as fascinating as it is instructive." Boston Home Journal. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. UXJ&AGlt ' R Q IQC^ APR 1 1963 t V Q ' |, r !-\l O 4 NAYl '664 Ot LD 21A-50m-ll,'62 (D3279slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley 1 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY