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H IS T 0 R Y
OF THE
F R E N C H R F W () I., U TI O N
OF 1848.
BY
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE,
LATE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC,
, AUTH or of “THE HISTORY of THE GIRoNDISTs,” ETC.
/
/
ſ
</
T R A N S L A T E D F R O M T H E FR EN C F.I.
> L O N ID O N :
HENRY G. BOFIN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
MDcceſſar.

PRINTEI) BY
Cox (BROTHERS) AND WYMAN, GREAT QUEEN STREET,
LINCOLN’S-INN FIELDS.
HISTORY
OF
THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.
—eº—
B O O K. I.
THE revolutions of the human mind are gradual like the
Seriods in the progress of nations. They resemble the process
f vegetation, which enlarges the plant, though the eye is
unable to measure that increase while it is being effected.
In all beings God has proportioned this period of growth to
The length of existence which he destines to them. Man, who
s to live for a century, grows for five and twenty years, or
inger. Nations, which are to live through two or three
ºnd years, have revolutions of development—of childhood,
|, manhood, and at length old age, which last not less
/ two or three centuries. The difficulty with the vulgar is,
Zd those convulsive phenomena which mark the revolutions
a nation, to distinguish the crises of growth from those of
cay, youth from old age, and life from death.
"Superficial philosophers deceive themselves in this: they
magine a nation in decline, because her ancient institutions
tre giving way. In their eyes she is about to expire, when
'n fact she is renewing her youth. This was said of France
when, at the commencement of the first revolution, her abso-
ºute monarchy perished. It was said at the dissolution of
he feudal system ; it was said at the fall of theocracy; it
s repeated this day on the extinction of constitutional mo-
|archy.
| But they are deceived. France is young. She may ex-
haust many modes of rule before she will have exhausted
WOL. I, B





















2 CHARACTER OF NATIONAL REVOLUTIONS.
the vigorous intellectual life with which God has endowed
her race.
There is one sure means of avoiding error respecting the
character of such crises; it is to mark well the governing
element in a revolution. Revolutions produced by a vice, by
an individual, by the crimes or the isolated greatness of a
man, by ambition, whether personal or national, by rivalry
between two dynasties, by thirst of conquest or of blood, by
unjust ideas of national glory, above all, by hatred between
different classes of citizens; such revolutions are the preludes
of decay, the signs of decomposition and death, in a nation or
a race. But if revolutions are the product of a moral prin-
ciple, of an idea, of a logical process, of conviction, of Senti-
ment, of an aspiration, undefined and vague though it be,
towards an improved order of government and society, of
a desire to develop and perfect the relations between citizer
and citizen, between people and people ; if they embody
a lofty ideal, instead of an abject passion, such revolutions
attest, even in their catastrophes and temporary aberrations, a
youth and vitality which promises long and glorious seasons
of growth.
Such was the character of the French revolution of 1789 |
and such is the character of the second French or
of 1848. /
The revolution of 1848 is nothing more than a contin" . . . . . .
of the former, with fewer elements of disorder, and gº
elements of progress. In both it was a moral idea w
exploded on the world. This idea, this principle, is A
PEOPLE:-the people who, in 1789, relieved themselves frº
the pressure of Servitude and ignorance, from privileg"
classes and an absolute monarchy; the people which, in
1848, freed themselves from the oligarchy of the few, and
a too stringent and exclusive constitutional monarchy;-th
germination in the government of the rights and interests of
the masses.
This principle or idea of the people, this accession of the
masses to political power, whatever difficulties a democratiq
phenomenon so novel presents to Statesmen, is a moral truth
equally palpable to the understanding and the heart of the
philosopher. The revolution which bears in its bosom such
an idea is a vital not a mortal revolution. With God’s help,












REVOLUTION OF 1789. 3
the nation shall come forth from it fortified in right, in might,
and in virtue. -
Its course may be impeded by the ignorance of the masses,
by the impatience of the nation, by the factions or Sophisms
of men who desire to Substitute their individualities for the
people. But it will end in the removal of such men; it will
fathom their Sophisms, and will develop those germs of reason,
justice, and virtue, which God has implanted in the blood of
the French race. -
In this second crisis of the French revolution I have borne
y part. I am about to attempt to detail its history, so as
to be useful to my country, by showing her her own image at
ne of the greatest epochs of her existence, and to illustrate
ur own times before the eyes of posterity.
I shall devote very few words to explain the causes of the
resent revolution; other writers will devote to it more of
pace and leisure. I hasten to my narrative.
The revolution which was enacted during the years be-
tween 1789 and 1800, had wearied France and the world by
its debates, its convulsions, its magnificence, and its crimes.
rance, by a reaction equally melancholy and natural, be-
came enamoured of despotism—the despotism of a soldier of
genius. I have Said genius—let me explain myself; I speak
inly of the genius of victory, and the genius of absolutism.
Napoleon, who possessed the genius of the camp, was far
from joining with it the genius of Society. Had he been so
endowed, the revolution itself would have marched in array
beneath his eagles. On the contrary, he made it recoil, and
thrust it back to the middle ages. He either betrayed his
tipts, or he did not comprehend them. His reign was but a
severe discipline imposed upon a nation. He was to France
what fatalism is to free-will—a degradation, adored and
sublime, but a degradation still. A people can only be great
in and by itself; never in or by the grandeur of him who
crushes whilst he rules it. The greater Napoleon became,
he more attenuated were philosophy and freedom.
After the fall of Napoleon, the exiled brothers of Louis XVI.
returned, somewhat impressed with the ideas of 1789, and
cclimatized to liberty by their long Sojourn among a free
people in England.
Strange it is, but true, that the counter revolution fell from
















º B 2
4 - REVOLUTION OF 1 }0.
the imperial throne in the person ( : Napoleon, and by the
hands of foreigners. With her a cient dynasty, the pro-
scribed race of the Bourbons, the revolution of 1789 re-entered
France.
It was with the constitutional charter in hand that they
were accepted by France. With their return to power, she
recognized the doctrines of Mirabeau, and the testament be-
queathed to her by her constituent assembly. Louis XVIII.
observed it faithfully, and died in peace overshadowed by the
idea of 1789. Charles X. had too keen reminiscences of his
descent. He thought he might sport with the charter, which
Secured to France all that she retained of her revolution. He
grew grey and died in exile, and dragged thither his grand-
son, punished in the very cradle for his ancestor's antiquated
ideas and frivolity of character.
Louis Philippe d'Orléans was called to the throne as th
living and crowned revolution of 1789. That prince is stil
living, but as the distance between the throne and exil
is scarcely less than that between life and death, I shal
speak of him with the same freedom as if he had ceased to
exist. Living, I never flattered him; I held myself at
respectful distance from his sovereignty and from his favours;
exiled and dead to our empire, I will not offend him. Exile
and old age demand from the heart of man even more respec
than does the tomb. France had the right to dismiss hi
from the throne; history, as I think, will neither have th
right to hate or to despise him. The man, of himself, holds a
conspicuous place in the reign, and his reign will also fill a
conspicuous place in history. Nothing is so little as to vilify
an enemy; the people which has succeeded Louis Philipp
needs not to employ the royal subterfuge of loading its ºr 3.
decessors with opprobrium. The people is high enough t
measure itself against a dethroned monarch, and can afford
to allow his full stature to the sovereign whom it has super
Seded.
Louis Philippe d’Orléans, although a prince of the blood
was of a revolutionary race. His father had stained himsel
with some of the most melancholy excesses of the Convention,
He was associated rather with the crimes than with the glory
of the epoch. In the eyes of the revolution of 1830, the
faults of the father were pledges for the son.
















LOUIS PHILIPPE D'ORLEANs. 5
Louis Philippe, however, was too honest and too wise to
fulfil to the revolution which raised him to the throne the san-
guinary promises implied by his name. Nature had made him
a man of probity and moderation; exile and experience had
made him a politician. The difficulty which in early life he
had found in playing his part as a prince amongst democrats,
and as a democrat amongst princes, had made him supple to
circumstances, patient of events, and temporizing with for-
une. He had a presentiment that destiny decreed him a
throne. Meantime he reposed in the quiet enjoyment of
domestic life, characterized by all the amenities and virtues
by which it can be graced. He at the same time preserved
deference for the reigning Sovereign, and had a smile of in-
telligence for opposing parties, without however at any time
encouraging them by a criminal complicity.
Studious, reflective, enlightened, profoundly versed in all
matters which concerned the internal regulation of empires, a
Hiplomatist equal to Mazarin or Talleyrand, possessed of easy
fluency of expression which resembled eloquence as far as con-
versation can resemble dissertation, a model as a husband and
father, to a nation which loves to see domestic virtue upon
the throne, gentle, humane, pacific, born brave, but with a
orror of bloodshed, it may be said that nature and circum-
tances had furnished him with all the qualities, one only
excepted, which make a king beloved. That exception was
reatneSS.
For the greatness that he wanted, he substituted that
secondary quality which men of mediocrity admire and great
men disdain—cleverness. He used it, and he abused it. In
some of the manifestations of this political dexterity, he
descended from his character to tricks which would have
been condemned in a private individual. What were they,
then, in a king 3 % º
Such was the dishonour which he permitted his ministers :
to cast upon a princess of his house. The duchess of Berry, *
his niece, disputed the throne with him. He suffered the
weil of her private life to be lifted. If this act, the most
immoral of his reign, was done to avoid bloodshed, he must
be pitied ; if it was permitted by personal ambition, it should
be stigmatized.
Three parties were struggling around the throne : the













6 LOUIS PHILIPPE D'ORLÉANS.
republican party, from whom the timid indecision of Lafay-
ette suffered the republic to be wrested in 1830; the legiti-
matists, who adored the eldest branch of the Bourbons as a
dogma, and abhorred the younger as a profanation of mo-
narchy; and the liberal and constitutional party, composing
the great majority of the nation. This party recognized in
Louis Philippe the living union between royalty and a
} republic, the last embodiment of an hereditary dynasty, the
last hope of monarchy.
It does not fall within our plan to show how the king
baffled the republicans, who never ceased to conspire against
his reign, whilst particular fanatics plotted against his life;
how he circumvented the legitimatists, who for eighteen
years maintained towards his government a hostile neutrality;
how he manoeuvred between the different shades of the con-
stitutional party, obtaining sometimes a compliance, some-
times permission, until he finally surrounded himself by a
contracted oligarchy, either blindly devoted to him, or cor-
rupt; by shortsighted courtiers; by public functionaries Sup-
ple and acquiescent; and by electors sold to his fortunes.
Master of all parties within his dominions, inoffensive or
obsequious to foreign states, to whom he sacrificed every
thing to obtain their tolerance of his dynasty; happy in his
family, surrounded by sons who would have been eminent
citizens if they had not been princes; seeing his race per-
petuated to the third generation, in grandsons whom he com-
placently nursed for the throne, surrounded by princesse
equally pious, lovely, and accomplished—respected or admired
—the future appeared to him to be secured to his family by
his happy star, and history seemed conquered to his name by
his success. He could bequeath to France a monarchy
restored and reinvigorated, to the world peace, and to his
race three European thrones. His green old age, whose
* powers he had economized by the purity of his ripening
years, formed the anticipated triumph of prudence over the
trials of life and the fickleness of fortune.
Such was Louis Philippe at the commencement of the year
1848. All this perspective was a reality. His enemies
acknowledged themselves vanquished. All parties deferred
their hopes, until the day of his death. Reflection was lost
in the contemplation of Sagacity so remarkable, and fortune













THE ENGLISH ALLIANCE, 7
so constant. He wanted but the base on which that wisdom
and fortune should have stood—the people.
Louis Philippe had never comprehended democracy in its
entire character. Served by clever and eloquent ministers,
who were, however, rather parliamentary men than states-
men, he had narrowed democracy to the measure of an elected
ynasty, two chambers, and three hundred thousand electors;
he rest of the nation he had left without the pale of political
right and action. He had made the sign and title of Sove-
eignty to consist in a sort of quit-rent, instead of recog-
izing and basing that sovereignty on the divine rights of
man as a being capable of discernment and of will. In a
ord, he and his short-sighted ministers had placed their
faith in an oligarchy, instead of establishing it on unanimity.
If Frenchmen were no longer slaves, they were at least con-
demned to see themselves governed by a handful of electoral
dignitaries, those electors only being law-makers; while the
masses were only masses, supporting a government in which
they had no share. Such a government could not but become
Selfish. Such masses could not but become disaffected.
Other faults of the king, the natural effects of that intoxi-
cation of spirit which attends upon uninterrupted success, had
contributed insensibly to alienate the masses from royalty.
The people, ignorant of the science of politics, but imbued
with a vague political sentiment, were quick to perceive that
the nation was sacrificed to the interests, the Security, and
the aggrandizement of a dynasty; that the relations of France
with foreign states were established with these objects; that
Louis Philippe's peace was humiliation; that his alliance
with England, bought at any price, caused him sometimes to
wear before Europe the attitude of a British viceroy upon
the continent; that the treaties of 1815, the natural but
transient reaction of the unjust conquests of the empire, would
under his dynasty become the habitual conditions of the con-
timent with respect to France; that whilst Britain, Russia,
Austria, and Prussia, would from year to year extend their
power on the seas, in the East, in Poland, in Italy, in
Germany, on the Lower Danube, beyond the Caucasus, and
on the side of Turkey; France, interdicted from aggrandize-
ment, whether maritime, territorial, or political, was propor-
tionally sinking in the scale of nations, and would find her-













8 MARRIAGE OF THE DUC IDE MONTPENSTER.
self insensibly and gradually reduced to the condition of a
secondary power.
Opinion, silently or openly declared by the entire masses,
began to pronounce that Louis Philippe had betrayed the
revolution; that he was adopting, one by one, the notions o
the ancient monarchy, and of the right divine of kings
instead of conforming to the democratic spirit of the elective
monarchy of 1830.
A parliamentary oligarchy appeared to be the ruling ide:
of this prince, trained in the School of the British govern.
ment.
The oligarchy itself was frustrated by the construction o
the government. A chamber of peers, without power of it
own, and without the independence given by an hereditary
constitution, was but the shadow of a Senate, whose majorit
could be at an instant controlled or modified by the monarch
in the creation of new Senators at will. A chamber of depu-
ties composed of public functionaries, chosen or rejected by
the ministry, reflected back the image of the king, under thq
name of public opinion.
Undisguised corruption had become a working power o
the state. Finally, peace, which had until now been th
blessing and the merit of this reign, was suddenly compromised
by the ambitious and impolitic marriage of the king's son
the duke of Montpensier, with the eventual heiress of the
crown of Spain.
The alliance, made simply to promote the interests of a
dynasty, interrupted the concord of France with England,
which the nation had maintained somewhat impatiently, bu
which it tolerated for the sake of the interests of commerce
and industry, and the liberty of the Sea. When she saw this
alliance suddenly given to the winds for the sake of family
aggrandizement, France became conscious that in the com-
plaisant tone, heretofore adopted by her king towards Eng-
land, there was nothing genuine but ambition ; that on the
first opportunity her blood, her industrial interests, her com-
merce, her marine, would be postponed to the establish-
ment of a prince of the house of Orleans at Madrid. She
became convinced that the pacific policy itself was but poli-
tical hypocrisy, a form of dynastic selfishness.
From that day forward the sovereign, rendered unpopular
















THE OPPOSITION.—THIERS–BARROT. 9
with the republicans on account of the throne which he filled,
and with the legitimatists by his usurpation, became obnoxious
º the peace party, which had hitherto rallied around his
government, because he had by the Spanish marriage hung
; France the menace of war.
! The king still possessed an eloquent ministry, powerful in
parliament, and agreeable to the court, with strong majori-
ties in both the chambers. He thought himself invincible
with this organization of power at his command; but in truth
he had in his hands but the mechanism, or, so to speak, the
Westment of the country; upon the nation he had no hold;
&pinion had passed from him.
| Those politicians of the opposition who were attached to
the monarchical system, but impatient adversaries of the
ministry, had spent their strength and energies for seven
years in severe struggles at the tribune to restore themselves
td power.
M. Thiers was the soul, the head, and the mouthpiece of
this opposition ; nature had formed him rather for the internal
itator of an assembly, than for the tribune of a nation.
#. was more of Fox or of Pitt about him than of Mira–
eau. His orations, which had done so much to consolidate
the monarchy of July during its first years of feebleness, now
served to root it out from the esteem and the heart of the nation.
The republican party, too small in the chamber to make
itself heard there, applauded with secret complaisance the
cutting and spirited attacks directed by this orator against
the Crown.
The audacious assaults, and the personal criticism of the
opposition, had indeed acquired an accession of moral force
most ruinous to royalty, by borrowing the eloquence of one of
is old ministers and friends. In the mouth of a worshipper
of the throne the opposition assumed somewhat of the charac-
tër of Sacrilege.
The constant, moderate, and even liberal opposition of M.
Odillon Barrot, which never descended to personality, daily
nursed in the country the honest and healthy notion of
liberty, without proportionately degrading the respectability
and authority of the throne. The legitimatists laying aside
their principles, and confining themselves to the hostility of
disaffection and aspersion, found in M. Berryer one of those

10 (GUIZOT.
powerful orators whom God reserves as the consolation of a
noble but lost cause.
Guizot, an author, an orator, and a philosopher, was th
statesman of a stationary monarchy. His character, his wit,
his talent, his very errors and his sophisms, were marked by
antiquated proportions. f
All these men are still living—some of them in active life,
others thrown aside, or in exile. It would be rash ºr
cowardly to pass judgment upon them. Time has not placed
them in such a position of remoteness from ourselves that we
may view them with impartiality. Truth lies only in th;
distance. In characterizing them at this moment, we might
risk, on the one hand, failing to yield the respect which their
characters demand, and on the other, the tenderness due to
fallen fortunes. It suffices for the present to have namód
them. -
#The nation was calm at the surface, but agitated below.
There was something like remorse in its prosperity which
destroyed its peace. France felt that in her sleep she was
being robbed one by one of all the philosophic truths ºf
the revolution of 1789; that her governors were matºliº ©
her, in order to deprive her of the memory and the passion
of that moral and popular progress, by which, fifty years
before, she had moved the world. Her happiness seem?ſh
the price of an apostasy. Again she felt herself humiliated,
and her national existence threatened, by a policy which re-
quired her to bend too much to Europe. She did not wiš
for war, but she desired to hold her fair place in the
Tank of nations, to exert her due influence in the world, to
possess liberty of action, of alliance, and of principle. She
had lost the dignity of her external aspect. She felt herself
virtually betrayed by the dynasty which she had imposéd
upon herself in 1830. The king lived too much for his
family, too little for his people.)
The journals, the daily symptom of the state of the
country, expressed, almost unanimously, the general discon-
tent. They constitute the universal tribune. In them men
of immense and varied talents spoke to the public with ex-
haustless perseverance, and with unswerving boldness. Taw
can but take cognizance of the words, it cannot arrest the
spirit of oppositions or of factions. .
Writers of deep sagacity and transcendant controversial




THE JOURNALISTS OF PARIS. 11
ability have adorned the corps of the journals, from André
Chenier to the writers of our own day. Camille Desmoulins,
Mirabeau, Bonald, Benjamin Constant, Madame de Staël,
Chateaubriand, Thiers, Carrel, and Guizot, Bertin, Sacy,
Girardin, Marrast, Chambolle, and a circle of authors, of
thinkers, economists, and Socialists, a new political generation,
at least equal in talent, and superior in diversity of powers,
to that which preceded it. They disputed the empire of the
intellectual world.
The Journal des Débats, which, as being the necessary
expression of the most essential and permanent interests of
Society, supports successive governments by turns, was edited
by men matured beneath the influence of authority. It was
marked by the gravity, the elevation of tone, the disdainful
sarcasm, and sometimes also by the pungent provocation
which indicate the Sense of power. It appeared to share the
monarchy, and to live amidst the recollections of the empire.
The names of all those great official writers who had com-
bined in conducting it, from the time of M. de Fontanes to
that of M. Willemain, gave it a prestige of Superiority over
a periodical press younger in years and passions. The copious-
ness and the impartiality of its parliamentary reports, its
foreign correspondence, and the accuracy and universality of
its information, gained for it the lead in all the courts and
diplomatic circles of Europe. It was the daily note-book of
the cabinet of the Tuileries. Science, literature, the arts,
the theatre, philosophy, criticism, were analyzed, reported,
and reviewed in its columns, whose gravity was never dull,
and whose very trifling was racy, with the salience of Aristo-
phanes, and of Sterne. It was by no trifling literary effort
that it was enabled to maintain itself for upwards of fifty
years, and to form, as it may be said to have done, an
integral part of the history of France.
Le Constitutionnel and Le Courrier Français had each
taken a leading part in the struggle of public opinion against
the restoration. They had popularized among the masses the
philosophy of the eighteenth century. Under the younger
branch they no longer contended against dynasty, and con-
fined themselves to attacks upon the ministry and the majori-
ties in the chambers. -
La Presse, more recently established, had in a few years
gained to itself a wide territory of public opinion. Its spirit
12 THE JOURNALISTS OF PARIS .
was that of eclecticism applied to the times; of liberalism with-
out revolutionary prejudices; and of constitutional monarchy
without ministerial servility. A man of a mind and style
alike daring, hazarded all his thoughts in this journal. At one
time supporting, at another undermining, but always standing
alone. His fearlessness first astonished, and then subjugated
opinion. The public, even while it censured, was attracted
by the boldness of his pen. A lady, already illustrious
by her poetry, added her grace to his strength. Her letters
on politics, manners, and customs, appeared weekly under
a fictitious signature. All France was in the secret, and read
beneath the disguise an already celebrated name. She only
varied the charm of that name by making over to the public
her intellectual grace, her eloquence, and her good sense.
La Siècle, less elevated in its tone and ideas, was cir-
culated amongst the people engaged in business, as well in
the country as in the cities. Its rectitude and impartiality
gained for it success. It did much good, without making
great noise, by seeking to familiarize to the people the spirit
rather than the forms of a republic, and undertaking the
education of that laborious country class, who need a coinage
of ready-struck ideas as their daily circulating medium.
M. Cambolle stamped it with the impress of his own honesty,
and his courageous, persevering moderation. The Siècle, in
his hands, became the embodiment of a healthy democratic
opinion. It was more than a journal; it was the catechism
of the constitution.
La Gazette de France less represented a party than a
man. M. de Genoude, with a spirit at once supple and im-
perious, bowed to the times, in the delusive belief that he
would at length succeed in bending the times to himself.
Born to the political world with the restoration, a priest and
a citizen ; a pupil and friend of Bonald, Sommenais, Chateau-
briand, and Willèle, he held the legitimacy of hereditary
power as a dogma of conscience. States were but families
in his eyes. He deceived himself: states are nations; and
nations, once beyond infancy, are only destined to the tutelage
of reason and morality. The family is the human race.
The father is not the king, but God. *
M. de Genoude, however, and his school, with persistive
artifice, accommodated their dogma to the spirit of the times.
LE NATIONAL-MARRAST, 13
Legitimatist as he was, he was more liberal than the repub-
licans. All that activity, address, courage, and fertility of re-
source could bring to aid a cause he enlisted in his journal.
He sapped successive administrations; but whilst he under-
mined them, he was left alone in his dogma and his indi-
viduality. It was the opposition of the right divine to every
human attempt at government independently. He exulted
over every disaster. He prophesied every fall. His every
denunciation of men and systems was stamped with infalli-
bilitv.
Nimber of disaffected spirits, left behind by the times,
enjoyed his continual reproaches of government, whom he
charged with impotence, and his constant defiance of the
supporters of the reigning dynasty. Oppositions holding
views diametrically diverse, all alike attacked the common
enemy. M. de Genoude was no more an individual; he
became a system. The Gazette de France was no longer a
Le National was the journal of republican opinion, the
corner-stone of the coming revolution. The republic being,
however, to the masses nothing more than a remote presenti-
ment, that journal had not very wide circulation in the coun-
try. It was read with a certain curiosity of mind which
desired to penetrate into the possible or probable events of the
future. It was the prophetic satire rather than the philosophy
of the republican party which found embodimentin its columns.
It maintained a sort of neutral and undecided ground between
the acceptance of the monarchical government and the absolute
profession of republican faith. Sometimes it appeared too
closely allied with the mere dynastic opposition. The journal
lost few occasions of supporting the opinions, tactics, and poli-
tical views of M. Thiers. It was suspected of a secret under-
standing with that statesman touching the reversion of the
dynasty, or at least of complacence for his party.
Marrast was its editor. He was the moderate Camille
Desmoulins of the future republic. Never did ease, flexibility,
startling effect, colouring, French or Attic saliency, adorn with
more artful graces the weapon of a polemic in the hand of a gay
Aristophanes. His wit resembled the lightning, which dazzles
and menaces at the same moment, whilst it exhibits its flashes
at once in every point of the horizon. So capricious and so
14 THE JOURNALISTS OF PARIS,
skilful was it, that it amused and dazzled even those whom it
was about to strike. But malicious archness rather than
hatred was the genius of his style. His pages were unsullied
by a Sanguinary picture, an ill-omened recollection, or an un-
called-for provocation. Beneath his brilliance a spirit of im-
partiality, possibly of scepticism, might be discerned. His was
the voluptuousness of the political artist, rather than the grim
fanaticism of the Sectary. Horror of the vulgar, disgust at
Jacobinism, hatred of proscription, taste for letters, eloquence,
tolerance, exultation in liberty—these formed the republican
§deal of Marrast. His revolution was the creation of an
imaginative mind, and of a heart of feminine tenderness.
Another journal gained a place in public opinion, which in
some degree rivalled the Wational. It was the Réforme.
That paper represented the extreme left, the uncompromising
republic—democratic revolution at all hazards. It was Sup-
posed to embody the political inspirations of M. Ledru Rollin,
and of three or four important deputies of the chamber. It
was a revival of the voice of the Convention fifty years after its
struggles and its terrors. It was the Mountain with its fury
and its thunder, in the midst of a time of peace and serenity;
it spoke the accents of Danton in a political academy ; of
Jacobinism exhumed from the Souls of those who perished in
1794. It was antagonistic to the forthcoming republic, by
Seeking to constitute it on the model of the former one, amidst
totally dissimilar circumstances.
La Réforme, in order to stir the people more deeply, and to
gain the adherence of practical men, whom it desired to lead
on to the accomplishment of its objects, now and then bordered
on what is termed socialism. Without joining itself with any
of the sects devoted to the radical subversion and recon-
struction of the social system, such as those of St. Simon, or
Fourrier, that for the organization of labour, or for the pro-
motion of communism, the Réforme hurled anathemas against
the existing order of things. Beneath the surface of the
political revolution it allowed a glimpse of another, which
consisted in the equalization of property and labour. More
habitually, however, this journal, repudiating chimerical
theories, confined its political opposition to direct and mortal
attacks upon royalty.
It was edited for the most part by M. Flocon, a man of in-
THE POLITICAL BANQUETS. 15
trepid action, of resolute mind, and even of loyal character in
the war of opinion waged with his opponents. M. Flocon was
one of those republicans of the former generation who had pe-
trified their creed in Secret Societies, conspiracies, and dungeons.
Cold in manner, rough in physiognomy and language, though
with an exquisite Smile, simple and Sober in his general ex-
pression, he had in his person, in his will, and in his style,
something of Roman rusticity. Under this rude exterior he
possessed a soul incapable of bending to fear, but always to be
influenced by pity. He had one administrative quality rarely
found in men bred in the habits of the opposition. He knew
what he desired, and he desired it at any price. He aimed at
an end ; that attained, he desired no more. In a word, he
knew how to content himself with what appeared to him just,
practicable, and reasonable, and he could turn and defend the
boundaries of his scheme against his own partisans. In M.
Flocon the practical man lay beneath the conspirator.
A sort of tacit coalition between all the parties represented
by these journals, and by other eminent public organs of
various shades of difference, such as Le Courrier Français,
La Démocratie Pacifique, and Le Commerce, was formed
against the ministry of M. Guizot.
At the close of the session of 1847, the leaders had con-
certed together a plan of general agitation of Paris and the
provinces under the form of political banquets. The opposers
of the reigning dynasty had taken the initiative in this agi-
tation; their impatience was more keen than that of simple
republicans, in proportion as their ambition was greater.
M. Thiers, however, held, at least in his own person, in some
degree aloof from the concerted plan. Perhaps his prescience
as a statesman and historian admonished him from afar of its
dangers. Perhaps his hope in perspective of ministerial func-
tions, after his friends should have triumphed, imposed upon
him a prudent reserve which he dared courageously to main-
tain against his party.
M. Duvergier de Hauranne, a former friend of Guizot and
a recent friend of Thiers, eager in a struggle, disinterested after
a victory, of qualities eminently parliamentary, more proud to
Sway than to reign, with no other passion than that of influence,
a sincere and courageous patriot, Sober in his views of glory,
and proof against the more vulgar forms of ambition, drew the
16 OPPOSITION COALITION OF 1839.
friends of M. Thiers, those of M. Barrot, and M. Barrot him-
self, into the movement, the watchword of which became—
electoral reform.
The parties attached to the National and to the Ré-
forme, perceived with the foresight of zeal, and with propor-
tionate exultation and pleasure, the tendency and bearing of
this proposition for the banquets—a desperate and revolution-
ary measure adopted by the dynastic opposition. The repub-
licans, too feeble in numbers, and too much the objects of
Suspicion, to dare or to act alone, were about to have as
auxiliaries the very friends of the dynasty, the founders of
the throne of July, the authors of the repressive laws, and
constituting the half at least of the national guard and the
electors. The conspiracy once in movement, where would it
stop? Would it be at a simple change of ministry? Would it be
at a slight addition of privileged electors to the two hundred
thousand who by themselves represented the sovereignty of
the people? Would it be at the abdication of the king 3 Would
it be at the regency of a woman or a prince during the
minority of the child 2 Any of these contingencies must benefit
their cause. They hastened to subscribe their influence to
the Paris banquet. The men opposed to the dynasty did not
dare to repulse the republicans, since in them they would
have alienated all the number, all the noise and turbulence,
and all the menace of their demonstrations. The people
would have lost their interest in them when they no longer
saw among them their friends and their tribunes. Their
cause was in appearance identical; their cry was the same—
“ Reform 1 °
A somewhat Carthaginian coalition had been formed in
1839 by the repugnant components of the opposition chamber;
and in the press, between M. Guizot and M. Thiers; M. Bar-
rot and M. Berryer; M. Dufaure and M. Garnier Pagès;
the republicans and the royalists. This coalition had done
violence to the constitutional king, borne M. Thiers to power,
discouraged the sincere opposition, ruined our foreign affairs
in 1840, and demoralized the representative government.
The same parties, with the exception of Messrs. Berryer
and Dufaure, committed the same error in opposing the
ministry of M. Guizot in 1848. They united to overturn
SCHISMS OF THE OPPOSITION, 17
the existing order of things, but wanted the union which
would have enabled them to reconstruct. Such coalitions
cannot but engender ruin by necessary consequence. Co-
alitions, impotent to effect good, are necessarily immoral.
Revolutions alone can turn them to profit, and they do profit
by them in effect. The existing republic is the involuntary work
of the coalition in parliament of 1840, and of the coalition for
agitation in 1848. Guizot and Thiers formed the first junction;
Duvergier de Hauranne and Barrot, in forming the second,
were, though unconsciously, the real authors of the republic.
The Parisian banquet was the signal for a series of opposi-
tion banquets in the principal towns of the kingdom. In
some of them the republicans were united with those men
whose animosity was chiefly directed against the reigning
dynasty; and the coalescing parties covered the incongruity
and diversity of their objects by vague, elastic phrases. In
others, as at Lille, Dijon, Châlons, and Autun, they openly
separated. Odillon Barrot and his friends, Ledru Rollin and
his, refused to lend themselves to a hypocritical alliance.
They aimed each at his own ends; the one at a moderate and
monarchical reform of the electoral law, the other at the
radical reform of the government, that is to Say, at a republic.
This schism first developed itself at the banquet of Lille.
M. Barrot refused to Sanction it, unless it were consented
that the token of adhesion to the monarchy should be given,
by a toast to the king.
At Dijon and Châlons, M. Flocon and M. Ledru Rollin
more distinctly marked it, by speeches which were regarded
as preludes to a revolution already accomplished in the deter-
mination of their partisans.
Some members of the parliamentary opposition, of various
shades of opinion, such as Thiers, Dufaure, and Tamartine,
abstained from appearing at these banquets. Such turbulent
demonstrations appeared to them either not to reach, or else
to exceed, the limits of their opposition; they feared by their
presence and Sanction to associate the one party in a struggle
for revolution, or the other in an ambitious and purely minis-
terial opposition. They, therefore, with many other members
of the chamber, maintained their conscience and their indi-
viduality, and held aloof.
Another banquet excited much attention in France at this
WOL. I. C
18 BANQUET OF MACON.
time; it was that given to M. de Lamartine on his return
from the chamber, by his compatriots of Mâcon. This had
no political design. M. de Lamartine had refused to share in
the reform banquets, which, in his opinion, were too vague
and indefinite in their object. Having been adverse to the
parliamentary coalition from 1838 to 1840, he could not, as
he thought, consistently with himself, join the aggressive
parliamentary coalition of 1847. He advanced alone to a
purpose determined and defined in his own mind. It would
have been repugnant to his nature to throw himself into a
mixed opposition without a common cause, to walk in com-
pany with his opponents to Some unknown goal. He had
openly avowed these sentiments in the Bien Public of Mâcon,
a little journal, widely echoed and quoted by the entire press
of Paris and the departments. *
The object of the banquet of Mâcon was to congratulate
Lamartine, who was exceedingly beloved by his fellow-
citizens, on the success of his History of the Girondists, then
recently published.
The book had already been read not only in France, but
throughout Europe. In Germany, Italy, and Spain, trans-
lations of it had multiplied, as though it formed the daily
food for men's spirits. By it hearts were moved and intel-
lects excited to activity. It led imagination and thought
back to that great epoch, and those mighty principles, which
the eighteenth century, pregnant with futurity, had be-
queathed to the world as it expired, to deliver it from pre-
judice and tyranny. Its pages mourned the blood guiltily
shed in anger, ambition, or cowardice, by the actors in the
drama of the republic. They flattered nothing in the dema-
gogue, excused nothing in the executioner, and sympathized
with the victims. But he was not warped by his sympathy for
the vanquished. Whilst he had pity for men and tears for
women, he still adored philosophy and liberty. The vapour
that rose from the bloody scaffold did not hide from him the
sacred truths which loomed in the future through the steam of
the horrid sacrifice; he boldly dissipated that cloud, punished
the murderers with the Scourge of history, but restored to the
new idea its proper rightfulness and innocence, avenging it
from the crimes which had Sullied it under the pretence of ad-
vancing it. He covered the demagogue with opprobrium,
and restored true glory to the revolution.
SPEECH OF H.A.MARTINE. 19
In reply to a speech of the mayor of Mâcon, M. Roland,
a young man who had compromised his office by his poli-
tical opinions and alliances, M. de Lamartine took occasion
once more to explain his sentiments to the country. He
spoke as a man devoted both in mind and heart to the cause
of the liberty of the human mind and the progress of organ-
ized democracy.
“Citizens and friends,” he said, “before I comment on the
impatience which you are at present disposed to exhibit,
allow me to thank you for the endurance and constancy
which led you to brave with vigorous and imperturbable
energy the severity of the storm, the blaze of lightning, and
the peals of thunder beneath this crumbling roof and these
tattered tents. You have shown that you are truly the
children of those Gauls, who, in more Solemn circumstances,
cried, “If the heavens fall, we will bear them up on the
points of our lances.’
“But, my friends, let us go at once to the bottom of this
demonstration. My recent book wanted a conclusion ; you
have supplied it. That conclusion is, that France now needs
'to study the spirit of her own revolution; to imbue herself
anew in her own principles, purified and Severed from the
excesses which disgraced and the blood which stained them ;
and to draw from her past, lessons for her present, and her
future.
“Yes, to seek again, after the lapse of half a century,
beneath the still glowing embers of events, under the still
disturbed dust of the dead, the original, and, as I trust, the
immortal spark which kindled in the Soul of a great people
that ardent flame by which the whole world was lighted up, then
fired, and then in part consumed. To rekindle, I Say, in the heart
of succeeding generations, that flame too nearly extinct, to feed
it lest it should die out for ever, and leave France and
Europe plunged a second time into the gloom of the dark
ages. To watch over and purify it, lest its very compression
should cause explosion, conflagration, and ruin. This is the
sentiment of my book; this is the sentiment of the times;
shall I, my friends, err, if I say this is your sentiment 2
(Cries of ‘No, no.')
“From the earliest age of political reason, that is, from
the age at which we form our opinions, after having lisped as
C 2
20 BANQUET OF MACON.
children the opinions and prejudices of our nurses, I have
asked myself, What, then, is the French revolution?
“Was it, as the worshippers of the past represent, a great
sedition of the people, who agitated they knew not why, and
who, in their mad convulsions, destroyed their church, their
monarchy, their ranks, their institutions, and their nationality,
and tore up the very map of Europe? No, the French revo-
lution was not a paltry insurrection of the French ; for sedi-
tion subsides as it arose, and leaves behind it only ruins
and corpses. The revolution has left its ruins and scaffolds,
it is true; that is, its remorse and its curse ; but it has left
also a doctrine, it has left a spirit which will endure and per-
petuate itself as long as human reason shall exist.
“The first doctrines of the beneficent revolution, which this
philosophy desired to promote in the world, was ‘peace ;
the extinction of hatred between people and people; the re-
cognition of fraternity between nations. To that we are ad-
vancing: we enjoy peace. I am not one of those who throw
back upon the governments they condemn even the benefits
they confer. Peace will be, as I think, at some future day,
the expiation held to countervail the faults of this govern-
ment. Whether with the government or against it, whether
as an historian or as a deputy, as a man or as a philosopher, J.
will ever support the doctrine of peace. War is but whole-
Sale murder; wholesale murder is not progress. (Long-con-
tinued applause.)
“If we continue for some years to come to abandon with
weak inconsistency all that the French mind won in the late
struggle, we shall abandon not only all the progress, all the
intelligence, all the conquests, that modern mind has gained ;
not only our name, our honour, our intellectual rank, our
guiding influence over nations, but the memory and the blood
of those millions of men, combatants or victims, who died to
Secure our conquests.
“The wild people of America say to the Europeans who
come to drive them from their soil, “If you require us to quit
our land, suffer us at least to carry with us the bones of our
fathers.’ And we too will have the bones of our fathers.
They consist in the truths, the intellectual light, won by them
for the world, and which a continually-increasing reaction
of opinion, but one which must eventually be arrested, would
fain compel us to repudiate.
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE. 2I
“But shall we succeed? Here let us examine; for history
teaches all things, even the future. Experience is the only
prophetic inspiration of the wise.
“Let us not be too much alarmed by reactions. They
constitute the natural movement—the flux and reflux of the
human mind. Allow me to avail myself of an image bor-
rowed from the implements of war that many of you have
handled by land or by sea in the conflict for our rights.
When cannon has given forth its explosion and its charge
upon the field of battle, the shock of the detonation gives an
impulse, which forces the piece back. This is what artillery-
men call the recoil of the cannon. Political reactions are
like the recoil of the cannon; they are the recoil of ideas.
The human mind, affrighted by the new truths which the
revolutions wrought in her name have thrown out before the
world, shrinks back before her own discoveries, and weakly
abandons the territory she had gained. But, gentlemen, the
recoil is only temporary; other hands step forward and re-
charge the pacific artillery of human thought, and new ex-
plosions, not of ball, but of light, restore their empire to the
truths which seemed surrendered or vanquished.
“Let us not, however, dwell too long on the duration of
these reactions; let us consider rather what will take place
when they shall have achieved their exceptional retrograde
movements. In my opinion, it will be this:—
“If that royalty, monarchical in name, democratic in fact,
adopted by France in 1830, comprehends that it is nothing
more than the Sovereignty of the people, reposing above
electoral storms, and with a crowned head to represent the
apex of the state—the unity and perpetuity of national power;
if modern royalty, the delegated authority of the people, so
different from ancient royalty, the proprietorship of the
throne, considers itself as a magistracy decorated by a
title which has changed its meaning in the minds of men; if
it confines itself to be a respected regulator of the mechanism
of government, marking and moderating the movements of
the general will, without thwarting or falsifying them, without
changing or corrupting their legitimate source—public opinion;
if it contents itself with being in its own eyes like the frontis-
piece of some old temple, rebuilt by moderns, who place it in
a conspicuous part of their new construction, in order to
impose on the Superstitious respect of the crowd, and to
22 BANQUET OF MACON.
bestow on the new edifice Some of the traditions and asso-
ciations of the old one, it may subsist, as representative
royalty, during a sufficient length of time to enable it to
achieve its work of preparation and transfer ; but the dura-
tion of its uses will, with our children, be the exact measure
of the duration of its existence. (Cries of “Hear, hear.”)
“Let us hope better things from the wisdom of govern-
ments which have been enlightened late indeed, yet early
enough, let us trust, for the preservation of their own
interests | Let us hope well of the probity and energy of
the public mind, which has recently been agitated by pre-
sentiments of fear for the public Safety. May the presenti-
ments which we entertain and avow be for the ruling powers
as warnings, not as threats. They are not inspired by
the spirit of faction There is nothing of faction in our
thoughts' We are not faction, we are opinion, which is more
dignified, stronger, and more invincible than faction. (“Hear,
hear.”)
“Well, my friends, symptoms of amelioration in opinion
strike me, and perhaps will strike you, too; between the two
parties who shall decide? Who shall be judge? Shall the
deciding power be vested, as in our first struggles, in violence,
oppression, and death ? No, my friends, thanks to our
fathers, it shall be in liberty, the liberty which they have
bequeathed to us; liberty, which can now wield its own
pacific arms for its defence and its development, without
passion or excess. (Applause.)
“Rest assured that by these means we shall triumph.
“If you ask what is the moral force which shall bend
the government to the national will, I reply to you, it is the
sovereignty of ideas, the monarchy of mind, the republic,
the true republic, the republic of intellect. In a word,
our republic is opinion, that modern power whose very name
was unknown to antiquity. My friends, opinion as a power
was born on the day when Guttemberg, whom I have
designated the author of a new world, produced in the
invention of printing, the reproduction and indefinite com-
munication of human thought and reason. The irrepressible
power of opinion does not need, for the maintenance of
its sovereignty, either the dagger of revenge, the Sword
of justice, or the scaffold of terror. It preserves the
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE, 23
equilibrium between ideas and institutions; it holds the
balance of the human mind. -
“Into one of the scales of this balance, mark you well,
men will long continue to throw credulity, prejudices (self-
styled useful), the right divine of kings, distinction of rights
between divers ranks, hatred between nations, the desire of
conquest, simoniacal compact between the church and the
empire, censorship of opinion, the compelled silence of the
tribunes, the indolence and degradation of the masses!
“Into the other scale, gentlemen, we will throw that
thing the most impalpable, the most imponderable of all
the creations of God. We will throw in LIGHT!—a ray of
that light which the French revolution shot forth at the close
of the last century from a volcano indeed, but from a volcano
of truths.” (Tong-continued applause.) t
This oration, printed on the following day by the entire
press, expressed in fact the Sentiments of the country;-
smothered discontent with the system pursued by the king,
which sacrificed the real and foreign interests of France to
the aggrandizement of the Orléans family, and philosophic
and rational love of democratic principles, unshackled by a
narrow oligarchy of two or three hundred thousand electors
easily gained over or debauched by the ministry; and, lastly,
an unaffected fear, shared by almost all, of a revolution which
would abandon the country to unknown contingencies;–the
desire of Seeing the measures of democracy successively car-
ried by a representative government extended and strength-
ened—an appeal to moderation, joined with energy in the
people, and to prudence and reflection on the part of govern-
ment. The harangue contained no sentiments out of har-
mony with the honest political conscience of the speaker; it
pointed to the fruits promised by the first revolution, as those
which were to be reaped, if possible, without a new one ; but
to the spirit of the revolution as preserved and embodied in
institutions, under pain of disgrace to France, and oblivion
to the ideas which constitute the greatness and sacredness of
the human mind. It was the faithful expression of the
public sentiment, the prophetic cry of the soul of the country.
All that went beyond that language went beyond the Spiri
of the times. :
M. de Lamartine, fearless of losing the popularity which
24 BANQUET of DIJON AND CHALONS.
he enjoyed, not only in his own department, but throughout
France, boldly combated, a few days after, the doctrines
expressed by M. Ledru Rollin and his friends at the revolu-
tionary banquet of Dijon; exposed to shame the symbols of
1793, exhibited, it was said, by the same party at the banquet
of Châlons, and denounced the antisocial doctrines which,
from the lips of a young orator, had been applauded at the
communist banquet of Autun.
“The banquets,” he said, speaking of those of Dijon and
of Châlons, “are the tocsin of opinion. Sometimes they
strike correctly; sometimes they break the metal. During
these manifestations, language has been held which might
well make the Soil to tremble beneath us, and associations
revived which the present character of democracy might
enable us to forget. Why call back from a past period what
ought to be buried with the occasion ? Why these imitations,
or rather parodies, of 1793? Do we now wish to deliver
ourselves from liberty as our fathers then wished to deliver
themselves from courts? I assert that it is not only a folly,
but an absurdity. It gives to the rational and orderly demo-
cracy of the future the character and complexion of the past
reign of demagogues. It caricatures the public feeling, and
thus causes it to be misconceived. It cruelly recalls to some
the terrors under which their fathers died, to others their
confiscated property, or of their temples profaned; to all,
those days of sadness, mourning, and terror, which have left
their gloom upon the country. Each epoch should be consist-
ent with itself. We are not in 1793, we are in 1847; we
are the tribes who have crossed the Red Sea, and will not
retrace our march ; who have planted their feet on the other
shore, and desire still to advance, but to advance in peaceful
order, towards democratic institutions. We see our govern-
ment self-deceived, and we will warn it; but in raising our
voice to do so, we will neither alarm peaceful citizens, nor
endanger honest opinions or just interests. -
“Let us watch over ourselves. If we, as leaders of the
orderly democracy, suffer ourselves to be confounded with
demagogues, we are ruined in public opinion. It will be said
of us, ‘They have their complexion—no doubt they are bitten
with their insanity.’” -
Speaking on the 14th of November, in reference to the com-
BANQUET OF AUTUN, 25
munist banquet of Autun, M. de Lamartine expressed him-
self with the same freedom.
“Each sentiment has its due limits,” he observed, “which
it cannot pass without being misunderstood and suffering the
just punishment, assuming the guise of other opinions by in-
curring the discredit which attaches to them. Are you honest,
moderate, patient, in your democracy and your opposition to
the government 3 Come then with us. Are you a faction ? Go
and conspire in the dark. Are you communists? Go and
support your brethren of the banquet of Autun. Until these
things are explained, we stand aloof. We desire to rein-
vigorate our country's political existence, to give to public
opinion the consciousness of its power, to create a democracy
capable of acting by its own intelligence, restrained by its sense
of dignity; we desire to combine without awakening alarm,
without injuring the rich or the poor, the aristocracy or the
bourgeoisie, the people or religion, the family bond or the
rights of property. We wish to give to France Senates worthy
of her great national assemblies, Senates worthy of old Athens
or of Rome; but we do not wish to reopen the Jacobin club l’
During these controversies between men who desired to
ameliorate, and men who desired to destroy, other demon -
strations, inspired and directed by opposition to the reigning
family, were multiplied in the north of the kingdom.
In these M. Odillon Barrot assisted, and gave utterance to
grave, considerate Sentiments, honest and reserved, like his
character. He and his friends stimulated the parliamentary
opposition. His orations raised more indignation against the
government, notwithstanding their reserve, than a banquet-
ing-hall could contain. The people listened at the doors,
applauded the orator and other speakers of kindred sentiments,
and escorted them on their entrance or departure from a town.
The people were becoming accustomed to intervene between
the ministers and the tribunes.
At the close of the autumn, the original promoters of these
anti-ministerial movements tried in vain to moderate them.
They had been commenced with the idea of recruiting forces
for Messrs. Thiers and Barrot, and for the opposition; they
had in fact recruited for a revolution.
Public impulsion always exceeds the limits designed by
politicians. Reason or ambition makes the calculation. Pas-
26 PUBLIC FEELING IN 1847-8.
sion overleaps it, and of this passion the people are the em-
bodiment. The wishes of the leaders had been limited to a
change of ministry, effected by the pressure of the masses, the
people already contemplated a change of government ; then
behind the main body of the people were sects and factions
who dreamed of the entire overthrow of the social compact.
BOOK II.
SUCH was the state of feeling in France at the close of
1847, when the king convoked the chambers. The ministry
and the monarch, astonished but not alarmed by these demon-
strations of opinion, regarded them as purely factitious indi-
cations, as the wordy parade of sentiments and discontents
which did not exist in men's minds; they trusted in the
immense majority that the government possessed in the
chambers; in the fidelity of the army, commanded by the
princes; and in the interests of property, industry, and com-
merce, all repugnant to change.
A government essentially material in character despised
the merely intellectual elements of opposition. In their eyes
M. Odillon Barrot was but an eloquent man without a pur-
pose ; M. Ledru Rollin they regarded as a noisy and popular
man, throwing down the magnificent challenge of a republic,
without believing in it, in order to mislead and get rid of the
opposition. The press and the banquets they regarded as
the organs by which impatient ambition appealed to the popu-
lace under a mortifying sense of its impotence in the national
representation.
Guizot fortified himself in his own self-trust, and in disdain
of the vulgar, a fundamental part of his nature. Duchâtel
sought strength in the skilful management of the different
parties in the Senate, and in the regulation of votes which he
held under his control. The king comforted himself by the
recollection that he had been necessary to the people in 1830;
by the belief that the firmness of his throne was important to
Europe at large, and that the continuance of the continental
relations with France depended on its stability; and lastly,
|POLICY OF THE MINISTRY. - 27
by that Smile of fortune, which, having long attended and
dazzled him, ended by blinding him. These three personages,
who in themselves constituted the prestige, the strength, and
the vigour of the cabinet, waited, in undoubting confidence that
all this movement and noisy opposition would expire at the
foot of the throne and of the tribune, under the eloquence of
Guizot, the tactics of Duchâtel, and the old authority of the
king.
They doubted not but that the majorities in the two cham-
bers would emphatically belie the agitation and menaces of
parties. In order to elicit this contradiction, which they
desired to be given in the most marked and Solemn manner,
they agreed that the king's speech to the chambers should
comment on the conduct of those deputies and peers who had
assisted in the reform banquets.
This speech of the king to the chambers characterized the
men who had associated themselves with the reform banquets
as being hostile to himself, and blind to results. Many of
the deputies in the lower chamber, and a few of the peers, had
been so associated. These imprudent expressions served as the
principal text in the discussion on the address. That debate
was animated, hot, and angry. M. Thiers condemned the
foreign policy which had surrendered Switzerland and Italy;
M. de Lamartine, from his own particular point of view, charac-
terized this exclusively dynastic policy;-Austrian at Rome,
Sacerdotal at Berne, Russian at Cracow, counter-revolutionary
everywhere. On the question of the banquets, M. Odillon
Barrot spoke with the authority of a leader of the constitu-
tional opposition; M. de Lamartine, although he had abstained
from personally attending them, yet maintained that the
ministry ought to regulate and not suppress by brute force
the exercise of the right of meeting.
“Gentlemen,” he said, addressing the ministers, “do not
deceive yourselves; this is not, as you imagine, an artificial
agitation. This fire has not been fanned with the breath of
man. Were it so, it would not by its universality present a
character which justly alarms you this day.
“Whence this phenomenon in a country which has remained
for seventeen years patient and tranquil? It is that France
has at length aroused to perceive the obstinacy which has so
long sacrificed her true policy, her dignity, her very security?
28 HDEBATE ON THE RIGHT OF MEETING.
Yes, after having maturely reflected, she has formed a right
estimate of that obstinate system of legal restriction which
cripples her internal resources; she marks a narrow oligarchy
fixing itself permanently in the place of that great organized
and orderly democracy promised to her in 1830; she observes
the system changing hands, without a change of measures, ex-
hibiting the same results under different administrators ; she
beholds this very year corruption rising like an impure wave
to the very feet of the ruling powers, and the scum of the most
Sordid vices rising to the surface of political Society, instead of
lying, as elsewhere, in the sink of nations; she sees the foreign
policy of the last seventeen years, the policy with which your
names have been actively and gloriously coupled, the policy of
peace, suddenly sapped by your own hands, in order to pro-
mote the personal interests of a family, and the glory of a
dynasty, by the Spanish marriages; she finds her natural and
constitutional alliances sacrificed, and opposite alliances formed
with the oppressors of Switzerland and Italy; she sees
France, as it were, systematically surrounded by you with a
frontier of counter-revolutions, and seeing all this, she is
deeply moved, proving by that emotion, that she is a wise
and prudent country
“What would you have thought and said, if, instead of
exhibiting disquietude and carrying on constitutional agi-
tation in open day, a perfidious silence had been observed,
until the germs of disaffection sown by you for so many years
had grown up in the mind of the people, and at length, at
Some period, instead of constitutional agitation, instead of
public dissatisfaction muttering like thunder in the sky above
you, you would have had mines exploding in all directions
beneath the feet of government ? Then you would have
lavished your accusations; you would have said to your oppo-
nents, “Your agitation is factious; you agitate after the
manner of conspirators; you have deceived the government
by imposing perfidious silence on public discontent.” Yet it
is because this course is not pursued, that you now accuse
the people, and threaten to use, for the repression of their
demonstrations, not the recognized laws, to which every
good citizen bows, but arbitrary power, unsupported by law
at all; you menace the representatives of the nation, that you
will place the hand of the police on the mouth of the country.
|
DERATE ON THE RIGHT OF MEETING. 29
“Government is armed by the power of law; but supposing
that no law existed which met the present case, and could
regulate the demonstrations so simultaneously exhibited, its
course should be to digest and propose a protective, liberal,
uniform law, establishing rights, not abridging them ; a law
which we might first discuss without restraint, and, when
carried, might obey as becomes good citizens.”
The great majority of the chamber applauded these words,
and demanded the proposition of a law on the right of assem-
bly. The supporters of the existing order of things them-
selves felt the danger of a ministerial challenge to the repre-
sentation of the country.
“Remember that you are about to create an imminent
peril,”—Lamartine said to the ministers as he closed his dis-
course, “remember the Tennis-court and its consequences.
Now, what was the Tennis-court of Versailles in 1789 %
It was only the place of a political meeting of the states-
general, closed by the ministers, but forced open by the hand of
the nation, for the entrance of its outraged representatives.”
M. Guizot maintained, in opposition to M. Duvergier de
Hauranne and M. Barrot, the right of government and the
chamber to attack in the Senate those deputies who had
insulted them by attendance at the banquets, and to brand
such agitators as blind or malicious.
M. Hébert, keeper of the seals, exposed in a talented
speech the danger of assemblies of the kind in question, un-
subjected to any legal restraint. He deemed it expedient to
revive the law of 1791. He “embroiled the fray” by carry-
ing the arbitrary doctrine to its utmost limits.
M. Ledru Rollin replied with a brilliance and force, which
placed him thenceforth in the first rank of the orators of the
opposition.
Anger was excited on both sides. A diversion that might
cool the passion of the chamber was much to be desired to aid
towards an honourable issue of the conflict. This diversion
would have been found in the proposition of a reasonable law
to determine the extent and the limitations of the right of
public meeting. The Conservative party desired such a law
in common with Messrs. Duvergier de Hauranne and Lamar-
time. It was refused. The knot which prudence neglected to
untie was about to be summarily cut by a revolution.
30 BANQUET OF PARIS.
The twelfth arrondissement of Paris had organized a ban-
quet. The opposition had promised to maintain its political
rights by assisting in the celebration. The banquet was to
take place on the 20th of February.
The ministry declined to adopt force in opposing it, deter-
mining rather to establish the offence by a commissary of
police, and then to bring it for judgment to the tribunals.
The opposition was unanimous in accepting the contest on
that ground. All was in preparation for this pacific demon-
stration.
The evening preceding the day appointed for the banquet,
the ministry, alarmed at an invitation given by the impatient
republicans to the unarmed national guards, declared at the
tribune, that it retracted its concessions, and would put down
the demonstration by force.
M. Barrot immediately convoked the constitutional oppo-
sition at his own house for deliberation. It was there pro-
posed to yield before the violent resolution of the government;
M. Barrot and his friends fell in with this proposal.
The following day a second conference was summoned at
the house of a restaurateur in the Place de la Madeleine. M.
de Lamartine, M. Berryer, and M. de Larochejacquelin were
invited to it, and accepted the invitation. About two hun-
dred deputies, holding the various shades of opinion which
marked the moderate opposition, were present. The course
to be pursued was the subject of discussion, which was pro-
tracted, full of variance, embarrassed, and without the issue of
a dignified conclusion worthy of any party.
Should the opposition recoil and fall backwards at such a
moment, it would almost annihilate itself, it would dishonour
Its name, and lose its moral authority in the country; it
would be enclosed in the Furcae Caudinae of the ministry.
Should it persist, it would run the risk of gaining too much,
and of giving the victory which it might achieve to a party
who desired that from which it shrunk. A revolution would be
the consequence; but the risk attending a revolution in
favour of progress appeared to some minds preferable to the
shame of a revolution of a retrograde character. The debate
was prolonged.
M. Lamartine, though, like M. Thiers and M. Dufaure,
inclined to disapprove the system of agitation pursued in the
MEETING OF THE OPPOSITION. 31
banquets, could not tolerate the humiliation of a submission
dishonourable to liberal opinion. He rose suddenly to reply
to M. Berryer, who had made a moving speech, in which,
however, without pointing at any conclusion, he had merely
protested.
“In listening to M. Berryer,” he said, “who has so
frankly and so eloquently opened to you his great mind, I
have deeply sympathized in his hesitations as a good man,
his patriotic anxiety, the efforts of his mind to discover right,
truth, and light, at the terrible crisis in which the folly of an
aggressive ministry has placed good citizens, whatever shade
of political opinions they may hold. I recognize my own
thoughts and the sentiment of my heart in his.
“I also, like him, and like yourselves, have meditated upon
the most honourable and patriotic, the most prudent and
dignified course we can take, under the cruel alternative
to which we are as it were shut up by circumstances. I also
have perceived, with him and with you, the combination of
opposite parties complicating our difficulties both present and
future. Moreover, I observe that since the approach of the
crisis, our ranks have been thinned, but I do not therefore
pause irresolute.
“In crises like the present, our business is not with the
absent. It is not the time for me to ask, where are such and
such persons 2 It is the moment when I am to inquire,
what are the rights of my country? +
“We are told, the crisis is imminent; traps are set ; the
responsibility and the danger of those firm-spirited men who,
in the name of their country, now take the lead of events,
will be great. Gentlemen, I know all this; I am more
deeply sensible of it than those who have already declared it.
Not to see it would be blind indeed; to attempt to dissemble
it, would be a weakness.
“A multitude is always a peril, even when it is gathered
together by the just and legitimate sentiment of its duties and
its rights. We know this, and acknowledge it; we feel the
truth of that axiom of antiquity, “He who draws the people
together moves them by the very act of assembling them.’
“Yes, gentlemen, the political horizon, the near horizon,
the horizon of this week, is charged with anxieties and con-
tingencies, which my mind, like yours, contemplates with
32 MEETING OF THE OPPOSITION.
awe. I have reflected, and I ponder still, in cruel perplexity,
on the path which lies before us. In a case so important, in
which we are responsible for acting as men of moral worth
and men of heart, I consult not my intellect alone. I descend
into the deeper parts of my nature; I strike upon my breast,
and, as in the presence of the Supreme Judge, ask my con-
Science to render account of its intentions and its acts; and
thus I state the question on which we have to deliberate.
(Sensation.)
“What is our situation ?
“We are placed by the provocation of government be-
tween danger and disgrace. (Assent.)
“This is the true description of our circumstances. I feel
it so ; and your assent strengthens my conviction. Yes, we
are placed between danger and disgrace.
“Perhaps, gentlemen, we might be generous enough, great
enough, devoted enough, to incur disgrace for ourselves, were
we alone concerned; for my own part, I feel that I could
accept it ; I could accept my millionth or my hundred
millionth portion of shame; I should suffer it with blushes
indeed, but yet with Satisfaction, to prevent at that price an
accidental commotion from shaking the foundations of my
country, and to insure that no drop of the generous blood of
a French citizen should stain the pavement of Paris |
“I feel myself capable, you all feel yourselves capable, of
this sacrifice | Yes, we would accept personal shame rather
than a drop of blood of the people or the military should flow
on our responsibility
“But disgrace to our country, disgrace to the cause of
constitutional liberty, disgrace to the character, and outrage
to the rights of the nation, this we cannot, we ought not,
in honour and conscience to permit. The character, the
rights, and the honour of the nation belong not to us but to
the French people. We may not traffic with that which is
not our own -
“And if we did so, what should we say on returning to
our departments, to those who confided to us the defence of
their rights and the care of their dignity as a free people 2
What attitude could we assume, what part could we play in
their presence 2
“On the faith of the right to assemble established by cus-
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE. 33
tom amongst every free people, on the faith of the restoration,
even on the faith of the ministers of the revolution of July,
who themselves exercised the legal right of assembly, and
gave us our example, we have held political meetings; we
have authorized by our presence, or, like myself, if not by
our presence, at least by our consent, those pacific meetings
through which opinion, constitutionally expressed, reaches
the ears of deputies and authorities; we have encouraged cur
fellow-citizens wisely, constitutionally, and moderately, to act
upon this right of public agitation ; we have said to them,
“If this right is attacked in your persons, we will defend and
preserve it for you. We will restore it to you inviolate, or at
least invested with the guarantees and the rules which the law
alone can impose for the regulation of its exercise.'
“This has been our language to them in time past; but
now pusillanimously yielding not to a law which I have
myself invited from the chamber—but to the capricious and
arrogant order of a minister from the elevation of the tribune,
shall we take his prohibition for law Ż Shall we sur-
render to him, without even a legitimate demonstration
of our resistance to coercion ? Shall we lay at the feet
of his absolutism our constitutional weapons ? Shall we
betray the trust reposed in us, and resign what we believe to
be a fundamental Security for the liberty of the nation ?
Shall we allow France to be despoiled of one of her liberties,
the guarantee for all the rest, the liberty of opinion, and that
without even a verbal protest against the spoliation ? Shall
we return to our towns and to our departments, and say to
our constituents, ‘Behold the trophies we bring you back
from the political arena to which you sent us to fight
your battles, the wrecks of your constitution, the ruins of
your freedom of opinion, ministerial absolutism in exchange
for national right !’
“We have placed the neck of France under the feet of
a minister. (Acclamation.)
“No, no; it is impossible; we should no longer be men;
France would no longer be a nation. We ought rather in-
stantly to give in our resignations, to disappear, and become
annihilated in public disesteem. (Renewed acclamations.)
“Do not suspect that my words conceal a miserable senti-
ment of personal pride. I repeat, that to degrade and anni-
WOL. I. D
34 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE,
hilate ourselves is a small matter; but to degrade and destroy
our country would be a disgrace—a crime and an infamy
which we could not sustain
“Gentlemen, let me speak coolly, the occasion demands
it ; the struggle between the government and ourselves is
momentous. Let us fully understand what we desire should
be done by France on Tuesday. Do we wish for a sedition ?
No. Do we desire a revolution ? No. May God defer for
the longest possible time the necessity of a revolution in our
country | What, then, do we desire ? An act of the national
will and of the national faith in the omnipotence of the legal
rights of a great country. f
“France has often, alas ! during the last fifty years, too
often, and perhaps too impetuously, rushed upon revolutionary
acts; she has not yet performed a great national and civil act.
t is such an act of her citizens that we now desire from her,
an act of legal resistance to those absolutists against whom
she has not hitherto known how to defend herself by con-
stitutional means, and with no other arms than her attitude
and her will. (Applause.)
“It is an act of her citizens that we propose, and of which
France will be witness by the eyes of the people of Paris!
Let us learn, for once, to guard, to defend, and to establish by
such an act, by a firm attitude calmly maintained, by an
appeal to the justice and not to the violence of the country, to
guard and keep that which we have before been able to con-
quer, but never to defend. (Applause.)
“This act will be dangerous in the execution; we do not
deny it; but the renunciation of her rights by the nation, the
submission to ministerial absolutism, the encouragement of
attempts at ministerial usurpation, the humiliation of the
national character, before all governments, would be no less
dangerous.
“There is danger on both sides. Cease, however, to speak
of danger, lest you deprive us of the coolness necessary to
avert it; lest you present to us the temptation needlessly to
brave it !
“It will not be in our power, gentlemen, by all the
moderation, reserve, and prudence of word and action re-
commended to us by our committees, to avoid danger. It
exists. Well, that is in God's hand, not in ours. He alone
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE. 35
can inspire the spirit of peace and order into the hearts of
those crowds who will flock to assist in the pacific demon-
stration intended to preserve our institutions. Let us beseech
him to grant us that token of his protecting favour to the
cause of liberty and progress, and to avert all fearful col-
lision between our citizens who bear arms, and our citizens
who bear them not. Tet us hope and let us conjure all
citizens that it may be so. Then let us leave issues to
Providence, and to the responsibility of the government,
which has, by its acts alone, provoked and brought on this
dangerous manifestation.
“I cannot tell whether the arms confided to our brave
soldiers will be all managed by prudent hands. I would
hope this; I would believe it; but should it happen that
their bayonets transgress the law, that their muskets should
be loaded, one thing I know, gentlemen, that we shall
defend, first with our voices and then with our breasts, the
institutions and future liberties of our people, and that those
bullets must penetrate our hearts to wrest from thence the
rights of our country. Tet us now no longer deliberate
Flet us act l’’
Such were Lamartine's words. Enthusiasm rather than
reflection drew them from him. Until that moment, he had
carried his scruples So far as to object, and to avow his
objection, to the agitation of the political banquets, as an
allurement to revolution. At the last moment he appeared
to change his tone. It was no longer the question of a
reform banquet, but of the legal right of assemblage, forcibly
contested with the deputies by the ministry.
The struggle between the opposition of every shade and
this government was embodied in this political duel. Lamar-
tine thought he saw the honour of the opposition lost, if it
should recede, after having advanced thus far. The opposition
of the left centre was losing its strength, and thereby enfeebling
those other parties which it had involved in its manoeuvres
or its manifestations. Lamartine had not been associated
with this branch of the opposition; he deemed it more per-
sonal than national, more ambitious than political. The secret
satisfaction of finding it now in undisguised weakness, the
glory which would attend gaining a march upon it, and con-
victing it of impotence and inconsistency, might perchance,
D 2
36 ABANDONMENT OF THE BANQUETS.
unconsciously to himself, lend warmth to his words. Any
Such resentful feeling, however, evaporated in his speech.
The opposition of the left centre once more melted away.
That party abandoned the banquet. The consequences which
Lamartine's harangue might have produced were thus pre-
vented, and it went for nothing in the issue of events, which
took another course.
But if these considerations excuse Lamartine's fault, they
do not absolve it. The incitement which he gave to the
opposition might have resulted in a conflict; it was no less
calculated to have such result, than was the blindness and
obstimacy of government.
Lamartine left something to chance; virtue leaves every-
thing to prudence, when the repose of states and the lives of
men are in question. He tempted God and the people. His
self-reproaches for this fault have since been extremely
severe ; it is the only one which weighs upon his conscience
in the whole course of his political career; he does not wish
to extenuate it either to himself or to others. It is a serious
crime to throw back upon God that which he has been
pleased to impose upon statesmen—responsibility. By this
speech Lamartine threw down a challenge to Providence.
The wise man will never tempt fortune, but always anticipate
and conciliate it.
In the evening of the day, some few deputies and peers.
about seven or eight in number, repaired spontaneously to
Lamartine's house. They had come to the resolution to accept,
though alone, the challenge which government offered, and
which had been declined by the left centre; they were deter-
mined to repair to the banquet, in order to protest, by their
presence there, against the arbitrary interdict of the ministry.
They agreed, on the morrow, to re-assemble at the house of
the duke d'Harcourt. A few moments later they learned that
no banquet would take place, and dispersed.
The government, however, foreseeing the events which
might arise from such an agitation and tension of the public
mind, had drawn a large number of troops into Paris or
around it. They were rated at fifty-five thousand men. The
artillery of Vincennes had orders to present itself on the first
Summons at the Faubourg St. Antoine. By dispositions
carefully studied, and made as far back as 1830, in anticipa-
*IILITARY PREPARATIONS. 37
tion of insurrection, posts had been assigned to different bodies
in the various quarters of the city. Each body of insurgents,
hemmed in, or intercepted by these posts, would be withheld
from joining others; the fort of Mount Valerian was to be
occupied by a strong garrison, mounted on the road between
Paris and Saint Cloud. Thirty-seven battalions of infantry,
one battalion of Chasseurs d’Orléans, three companies of
engineers, twenty squadrons, four thousand veterans of the
municipal guard, and five batteries of artillery, formed the
garrison of the capital.
The night was passed in silence,—the silence of a city re-
flecting before action. The morning did not prognosticate a
day of fate. There were no arms concealed under the gar-
ments; no rage was painted upon men's countenances; curious
and inoffensive crowds continually moved along the boule-
wards, gathering numbers as they went ; other crowds streamed
from the suburbs of Paris; they appeared, however, rather to
observe what was passing than to meditate any act. The
event seems to have been engendered by the curiosity which
awaited it.
The youths of the schools, ever the vanguard in revolu-
tions, assembled in groups from various quarters of the city,
and gathering numbers and courage as they rolled along
chanting the Marseillaise, directed their course to the Place
de la Madeleine. The electrified people responded to the
hymn. The column increased, crossed the Place de la Con-
corde, passed the Pont Royal, forced the palisades of the
deserted Chamber of Deputies, and spread without a leader or
a specific object into the gardens of the palace and upon the
quays. A regiment of dragoons advanced, and easily, and
unresisted, dispersed the youths. The infantry next arrived;
the artillery took its position in the street de Bourgogne; the
bridge was defended by the military.
The deputies, saddened but not disquieted, assembled in
their hall without being subjected to insult; they ascended
the steps of the portico which faces the bridge, and from
thence contemplated the increasing force at the disposal of
government, and the advanced waves of the multitude which
the cavalry were pushing back in the Rue Royale. No cries
were heard, not a single shot. The band of a regiment of
chasseurs played its pacific notes before the palisades of the
38 TRANSACTIONS IN THE CHAMBER,
Chamber of Deputies. The contrast between these festive
airs and the preparation for combat upon the quay chilled the
souls and produced strange dissonance between the ears and
the eyes of the citizens.
Within the hall, M. Barrot placed upon the table of the
president an act of accusation against the ministry. M. Gui-
zot quitted his place, went up to the desk, perused the accu-
sation, and smiled disdainfully. He had read and written
history largely. His bold and lofty spirit loved its magnificent
Scenes; his eloquence sought opportunities for displays, which
would be perpetuated to future times; his eye welcomed the
strife. He braved an accusation, against which he was de-
fended within the chamber, by the large majority which he
commanded, and without it, by a monarchy and an army.
The distracted chamber, meantine, was engaged in the dis-
cussion of the laws of administration.
The day, short and gloomy as one of winter, beheld the
wandering crowds augment, and Some barricades arise, staking
out the field of this revolutionary conflict.
Committees of insurrection Sat constantly in the Secret
Societies, and in the offices of the republican journals. We
are ignorant of what passed there. They were probably
rather engaged in observation than in action. The limited
power of a conspirator, who has but Scanty numbers at his
disposal, only possesses influence as it ministers to a Sentiment
generally entertained, or a pre-existing passion.
The governments, tyrannies, or despotisms of old days
might perish by a plot. Under liberal governments conspi-
racy evaporates. The only all-powerful conspirator of modern
states is opinion.
Night fell, and no blood had been spilt. That night was
silent, like the day, but restless, as is the eve of a great event.
The rumour of a probable change of the ministry, who were
relaxing their hold of power, reassured the citizens in some
degree. The troops bivouacked in the streets and open spaces.
Some wooden chairs and benches belonging to the Champs-
Elysées, which had been set on fire by boys, illuminated the
horizon, and disclosed the disorder of the scene. The govern-
ment was everywhere in possession of the streets of Paris,
except in a kind of citadel fortified by the nature of the
PROCEEDINGS OF THE MOB. 39
buildings, and the narrow tortuosity of the streets, around the
cloisters of St. Méry, in the centre of Paris.
There some indefatigable and intrepid republicans, who had
eyes for every circumstance and despaired of nothing, had
concentrated themselves, either by preconcerted plan, or by
that revolutionary instinct which is spontaneous and common
in its operation. Their very leaders disapproved their
obstimacy and temerity, as they were at most not more than
four or five hundred in number. Another detachment of
republicans, altogether without leaders, disarmed the national
guards of the Batignolles during the night, burned the
station at the barrier, and fortified themselves in a neigh-
bouring quarter, where they awaited the event. No attempt
was made to dislodge them. -
At break of day, the roads which led to the several
gates of Paris were covered with columns of cavalry, infantry,
and artillery, summoned by the orders of government. These
troops presented an imposing effect; they were obedient and
in perfect discipline, but silent and dejected. They carried
in their countenances their grief at being called to act in a
civil war. They successively took up positions in the quarters
where the multitude of Paris chiefly reside. The mob did not
combat in mass on any point. Scattered groups attacked and
disarmed isolated posts, forced their entrance into armourers'
shops, and from concealed situations fired random shots at the
troops.
Barricades, commencing with, and radiating from, the
centre, formed by the church of St. Méry, were raised from
distance to distance, and built and multiplied almost before
the very faces of the soldiers: they were no sooner erected
than abandoned. The troops had only stones to oppose. The
battle was a silent one,—its progress was felt ; its Sound
unheard.
The national guard, summoned by the call to arms, was
assembling legion by legion. It preserved a neutrality, or
limited its manifestations to an interference between the troops
and the people, whilst it loudly demanded the dismissal of the
ministry, and reform. Thus the national guard became the
shield of the revolution.
Such, on the dawn of the 24th of February, was the state
40 THE PLOT TEIICKENS.
of Paris. The troops, wearied by seeing no enemy, whilst
they were the objects of universal hostility, remained at their
various posts, unwavering but dejected. The generals and
officers conversed in low tones upon the inexplicable indecision
of events. At the exit of the principal streets, groups of
cavalry, enveloped in their grey cloaks, and holding the naked
Sabre in hand, might be seen. They had been in the same
spot, and maintained the same position, for thirty-six hours;
their horses slept under them, and they themselves shivered
from cold and hunger. Officers were passing at hard gallop
up and down the streets at every second, carrying orders and
counter-orders, from one part of Paris to another.
In the distance, borne from the quarter of the Hôtel de
Ville, and the deep and intricate labyrinths of the surrounding
streets, occasional firing might be heard from the platoons; but
as the day drew on, the sounds slackened, and at length ceased.
Few people were in the streets. They seemed to leave
their battle to be fought by the invisible spirit of the revolu-
tion, and by that small number of obstinate combatants who
were dying for the cause in the heart of Paris. Between the
great masses of the people, and the Small group of republicans
who actively fought, there seemed to be a watchword or a
secret intelligence which said to the one party, “Resist yet a
few hours longer;” and to the other, “Forbear to mix in the
struggle, and to shed French blood; the genius of the revolu-
tion fights for all ; the monarchy is upon the decline; it suffices
to give it a gentle thrust, and before the Sun sets the republic
will have triumphed.” -
The fate of the day was at the disposal of the national
guard. Hitherto the government had forborne to sound the
doubtful allegiance of this body by requiring it to take an
active part in the event, and fire upon the Parisian people.
General Jacqueminot, commander-in-chief of the force,
intrepid and adventurous, but at that moment ill. doubted not
but that his officers and soldiers shared with him the devoted
martial resolution which he found in himself.
The king, who during eighteen years had pressed the hands
of the greater number of individuals forming the civic guard
of Paris, and who knew better than any other man how
closely their interests and his own were welded together, be-
lieved himself sure of their hearts and their bayonets.
SENTIMENTS OF THE NATIONAL GUARD. 41
The prefec of Paris, Count de Rambuteau, a man sin-
cerely attach to the royal family, but incapable of flattering
into a catast phe those he loved, no longer shared this con-
fidence. His daily intercourse with the mercantile class of
Paris, which furnished, almost exclusively, the colonels and
officers of this corps, had long since discovered to him as
existing within it, a smothered discontent, a disaffection
which, however ungrateful if might be, was real, and which,
though it had not as yet grown into sedition, might manifest
itself in desertion at the hour of danger. He had warned
the king of this, and the king had rejected the warning with
a smile and motion of incredulity, “Go,” Louis Philippe had
said to him, “go, and take you care of Paris; I will answer
for the rest of the empire.”
The faithful magistrate had withdrawn distressed, because
alarmed by the profound security of his master.
The national guard, called to arms on the morning of the
24th, and ordered to interpose between the people and the
troops of the line, obeyed the summons slowly and with inde-
ÇISIOI).
In the prolonged movement of the people, the guard saw
an anti-ministerial manifestation, an armed petition in favour
of electoral reform, which it was far from disapproving, and
which it secretly favoured. -
The name of Guizot was become hateful to this body; his
long-continued power was burdensome to it. If it approved
his general principles of government, it bore personal dislike
to the man. His policy with regard to England had never
been satisfactory to it; that policy appeared in its eyes to
have been in time past too complacent, and more recently
vexatious and imprudent. In Portugal he had bought peace
at the price of political servility; and at Madrid war had
been rashly risked for the aggrandizement of the Orleans
family. It would rejoice, therefore, in the humiliation of a
minister equally unpopular in peace and war...;
Nor was the guard alarmed to see the people vote
with fire-arms against the worn-out system of the king.
Touis Philippe had declined in its affections as he had de-
clined in years. His wisdom appeared to the Parisians
petrified into obstinacy; and that this obstimacy should be
shaken or conquered by the insurrection, appeared to the
42 SENTIMIENTS OF THE NATIONAL GUARD.
bourgeoisie in general, and to the guard, but a just compen-
Sation for his long and uninterrupted good fortune.
In the judgment of the national guard, the consequences
of the rising would be confined to a change of ministry
forced upon the king by the attitude of the people, which
would admit the present opposition, in the persons of M.
Thiers and M. Odillon Barrot, to the conduct of affairs; to a
moderate reform of the electoral law ; and to a Chamber of
Deputies, which should be regenerated and conformed to the
Spirit of the nation. . The most far-sighted only saw in it
a possible abdication of the Sovereign, and a regency. In
|fine, the national guard imagined itself introducing the oppo-
º to power, when in fact it was introducing a revolution
|to France.
Further, the guard felt confident that during the past night
events or persons would have counselled concession to the
king, and that a new ministry would be announced during
the morning; whereupon it conceived that, the object of the
popular demonstration attained, the insurrection would termi-
nate in cries of joy and a general illumination.
The Chamber of Deputies had been assembled since eight
o'clock in the morning, in order to await the communications
that the king might have to address to it by his ministers. It
was as full of Security as the monarch ; the majority of the
deputies, confiding in their own strength and in the number
and fidelity of the troops, were quietly talking on their benches
of the various ministerial combinations which the next hour
was about to disclose to the chamber. All parties saw an
approaching transference of power from the hands of the
ministry ; none as yet anticipated a change of govern-
ment.
The adherents of ministers, however, were amazed and
appalled ; ambitious spirits exulted in the glimpse of coming
fortune. Men of independent character contemplated with
sadness the struggle of two embittered parties, which might
issue in the total ruin of the country.
Painful anxiety weighed upon the assembly, though it was
not characterized by despondency. Whenever an important
person entered the hall, deputies flocked around him, as if
eager to learn from his lips the secrets of the future.
One of these men, and one to whom Providence had
BARLY HISTORY OF LAMARTINE, 43
decreed aſ mportant part in the event, had as yet no pre-
sentiment of the catastrophe, which but a few hours later
was to overwhelm and entomb the monarchy; that man was
Lamartine.
Lamartine was the Son of a country gentleman on the
banks of the Sãone. His early life had been obscure ; he had
passed it in study, in travel, and in retreat. His inter-
course had been with nature, with letters, and with his own
thoughts. He had been educated in hatred to the empire;
he felt that that slavery was only glorious in its external
aspect, that it was gloomy and Sad within. The study of
Tacitus had inspired his heart against the tyranny of a
modern Caesar.
The Scion of a race characterized by its religion, its mili-
tary ardour, and its attachment to the royal house, Lamar-
time, in common with many other sons of the old mobility,
had entered the king's guards on the restoration of the Bour-
bons. Impatience and disgust of that service in time of
peace had induced him to quit it ; he had resumed his inde-
pendence, and occupied himself in extensive travels. His
poems, written almost involuntarily, had introduced him to
fame, and had led the politicians of the day to pay him
court prematurely.
Under the auspices of M. de Talleyrand, M. Pasquier,
M. Mounier, M. Royar-Collard, M. de Broglie, M. de
Bonald, and especially of M. Lainé, he was introduced to
diplomacy. -
His opinions, and those of his family, growingly liberal,
were not pleasing to the court. His independence retarded
his advancement. It was only in 1830 that he was ap-
pointed minister plenipotentiary in Greece.
After tº revolution of July, he resigned his appointment
from feeling of respect for the tottering royal house which he
had served, and from some Sentiments of reserve towards the
ascendant fortune of the new line. He had passed two years
in Eastern travel. The horizon of the world had given ex-
pansion to his thoughts; the spectacle of the ruins of empires,
while it strengthens philosophy, tinges it with melancholy. He
had, as it were from a geographical elevation, seen races,
ideas, religions, and empires Spring up, attain maturity, and
perish. Peoples had disappeared, and while nations passed
44 LIFE OF IAMARTINE,
from the stage, the great family of man bore on its course, now
halting, now advancing on an infinite career. At the close of
such a train of national histories, God is more clearly seen.
Men seek to estimate the divine design in human civilization.
They catch glimpses of it, and take as an article of faith the
unlimited progress of man. Local and temporary political in-
terests dwindle and vanish. A universal and eternal policy
comes in view. The traveller sets out a man and returns a
philosopher. Henceforth he belongs to no party but that of
God. Opinion becomes philosophy, and politics religion.
Such is the effect of long wanderings and profound medi-
tation in the East.
It is only after the ocean is dried up that the Secrets of its
bed can be discovered. Thus it is with the ocean-bed of
nations. History does not comprehend them until they have
ceased to exist.
During his Eastern travels Lamartine had been chosen
deputy for the department of the Nord.
For twelve years he had kept himself isolated from parties,
Seeking the path of truth and the light of philosophy; speak-
ing sometimes for, sometimes against, the acts of government.
Equally without animosity against the new dynasty, and
without affection for it. He witnessed its reign. He was
ready to aid and support it, if it would support the growth of
democratic power and right; to resist it, if it manifested dis-
position to fall back upon the past.
The political principles of Lamartine were those of that
eternal truth, of which the Gospel is but one page, the
equality of men before God, to be realized on earth by laws
and forms of government, giving to the largest number, and
in time to all citizens, the right of personal intervention in
government, and thereby the means of promoting the moral
and material welfare of human society.
Lamartine, however, recognized the rule and government of
reason as superior to the brutal Sovereignty of numbers; for
in his eyes reason was the reflection of the deity in man; the
sovereignty of reason was the sovereignty of God. He never
pushed his aspirations for equality to the chimera of a violent
attempt to produce that which cannot by possibility exist—the
actual social equalization of all classes and conditions. He
held no society as civilized, unless it was founded on three
POLITICS OF LAMARTINE. 45
bases, which seem laid down by instinct itself, that great
Revealer of eternal truths—the state, the family compact, and
property.
Communism of goods, which leads, as a necessary conse-
quence, to communism in wives, children, and parents, and to
the brutalization of the species, he held in horror. Socialism in
its different forms, or styled by its varied names of Saint
Simonism, Fourrierism, and Eayropriation of capital, under
pretext of multiplying produce, and relieving it from restric-
tion, inspired him with pity.
It appeared to him, indeed, that property, in common with
all else that appertains to man, may be ameliorated by insti-
tutions calculated to develop, not to destroy it. But pro-
tected wages appeared to him as the most free and perfect
form of association between capital and labour ; because
wages, fairly competed for, is the exact proportion between
the value of labour and the requirements of capital; a pro-
portion expressed in every free country by what is called
competition.
Nevertheless, as the labourer, pressed by hunger, has not
always, and on the instant, complete liberty to weigh his
right, and to proportion thus the price of his labour to the
Service which it renders to capital, Lamartine admitted that
the state might be, to a certain measure, the umpire or go-
between of the two contracting parties.
He further wished that the state, which should take the
oversight alike of the strong and the weak, should, in cer–
tain extreme cases, determined by the administration, furnish
assistant labour (travail d'assistance) to those operatives who
could by no means procure bread for their families. He pro-
posed a tax for the poor.
He could not endure that a highly civilized society should
say to its workmen without food or shelter, “Go and die; ”
he desired that it should rather offer him labour and bread.
Finally, deeply impressed with the advantages of property,
he earnestly wished to destroy the levelling policy by making
the possession of property accessible to the greater portion,
and finally to the entire mass of the citizens. But the first
condition necessary to this distribution of property, to its
gradual spread and diffusion, must be, he strongly asserted,
respect for property; that is, respect for its inviolability and
46 POLITICS OF LAMARTINE,
Sacredness in the hands of its actual holders, be they land-
owners, merchants, or members of the industrial class, raised
by personal labour or inheritance to a share of the dignity and
ease attaching to proprietors.
To dispossess some, in order to enrich others, he asserted
was not progress, but spoliation, ruinous to all.
Such were the ideas entertained by Lamartine with respect
to the character of any social revolution, or rather of any
changes in government intended to result in benefit for the
1012.SSéS.
With regard to the form of government desirable to a
nation, he had, in his History of the Girondins, given his
ideas fully. There he had written largely, as well on the
monarchical, as on the republican form of government.
As the character of the man is much displayed in those
pages, we shall reprint them at the close of this volume.
From that extract it will appear that, in Lamartine's view,
the question as to form of government was rather one of cir-
cumstances than of principles. If the constitutional govern-
ment of Louis Philippe had sincerely devoted its will and
energies to the gradual advance and amelioration which the
times demanded, whether moral or material, he would have
supported it ; for in his appreciation, after having calmly and
rationally pondered on the happiness of nations or individuals,
stability and order appeared the grand conditions of repose.
Repose is good; but Lamartine knew that settled powers
(“pouvoirs assis”), to borrow the experience of which he has
availed himself in the History of the Girondins, obstinately
resist those measures of a transforming or progressive cha-
racter, which necessarily shake the existing state of things.
Whilst his conscience forbade him to excite a revolution,
yet should circumstances produce one, he would gladly accept
it. He was resolved to brave its storms and its perils in order
to make it tend to the realization of principles which he con-
sidered had been sufficiently matured, whilst he would seek
to restrain it, so far as he was able, within the bounds of jus-
tice, prudence, and humanity.
The two grand ends that he believed sacred enough to be
worth the struggle of a revolution in no way touched upon
his own personal interests. They only served the cause of
POLITICS OF LAMARTINE. 47
God and of mankind, and in no degree his own individual
passions, or if at all, the passions of his philosophy, and not
of his ambition.
In a revolution he had nothing to gain; but there was much
that he might lose. He asked nothing from it, but permission
to consecrate to its service his heart, his intellect, and perhaps
his life.
The objects which he deemed worthy of such a sacrifice
were,
1st. The accession of the masses to political rights as a
preparation for their progressive, inoffensive, and gradual ac-
cession to justice, to equality of intelligence, and of relative
well-being in Society. *
2nd. The true emancipation of the conscience of mankind,
not by the destruction, but by the entire freedom of religious
opinion. The means to this was, in his view, the complete
Separation of the church from the state. So long as the state
and the church should be linked to one another by simoniacal
contracts, by wages received and investitures conferred, the
state appeared to him to be an interposing object between God
and the human conscience ; whilst, on the other hand, reli-
gious institutions appeared to him adulterated and profaned
in descending from the dignity of independent belief to the
servile condition of political offices. -
“The revolution of 1789," he had said at the tribune, “ has
won liberty for all except for God. Religious truth is the
captive of the law, or is enslaved by the salaries and partial
favour of government. It is our duty to restore to it its inde-
pendence, and to leave it to radiate itself by its own laws over
the human mind. In becoming more free, it will become
more genuine ; and in becoming more genuine, it will become
more holy; in becoming more holy and more free, its efficacy
will be increased. That which is now mere law, will then be
faith; that which is now dead letter, will then be spirit; that
which is now barren form, will then be action.”
Lamartine was created religious as the air was created trans
parent. The sentiment of the deity was so inseparable from
his soul, that his politics could not be distinguished from his
religion. All progress which failed to conduct man to clearer
knowledge and more devoted adoration of the Creator, the
48 s POLITICS OF LAMARTINE.
source and end of his being, appeared to him an aimless, grop-
ing movement nowhither.
But whilst his aspirations and his acts invoked progress in
*aith and greater depth in adoration, he only desired this
progress through the action of the general reason on all, and
of individual reason on each. He held in horror the per-
secution, the violence, and even the seduction of conscience.
He sincerely respected in others that faculty, the most in-
violable of all with which man is endowed—FAITH.
He venerated faith and piety under whatever sacred form
they might animate, enlighten, and console his brethren. He
took deep mote of the many holy virtues of which Catho-
licism, understood otherwise than he understood it, is the
divine parent, in the heart of believers.
He would have died to secure the inviolability of his sin–
cere and conscientious worship to the humblest of believers.
Whilst he wished that religions would lay aside the anti-
quated dress in which they were disguised, he did not wish
that they should be violently or irreverently despoiled.
His sole apostle was liberty, the only worthy minister of
God in the mind of men. He respected the priesthood,
provided this priesthood was the voluntary magistracy of the
soul, armed with faith and not with law. His system of
liberty of worship on the principle of voluntary association
was rational, pious, and anti-revolutionary, in the bad Sense
of that word. -
These two principles formed the Secret springs which
induced Lamartine not to bring about a revolution, but to ac-
cept one, or rather the completion of one. He did not close his
eyes to the difficulties, dangers, and catastrophes that every
revolution brings with it. He loved democracy as justice.
. He abhorred demagoguism as the tyranny of the many.
Humanity in the gross, as each man in particular, is com-
posed of a good and an evil element. Virtue and vice are
mingled in the multitude as in the individual. The vicious
parts of human nature are stirred and developed by revolu-
fIOI).
All that tends to bring the vicious elements into play
appears to multiply and increase them for the passing time;
when calm is restored, these elements sink again to the depths
of Society. It is the strife of the foam against the ocean. The
MOL.f., THIERs, BARROI. 49
ocean as it subsides, ever triumphs over and engulfs the
foam, but it does not escape its defilement. Lamartine
knew that. He trembled in anticipation of the excesses of
demagoguism. He was determined to resist it, and to die,
if necessary, to preserve the pure portion of the people from
its delirium and its fury, and to protect the calm majesty of
a revolution.
While he was listening to and observing without fully
understanding it, a movement, resembling rather an émoute
than a revolution, which was in progress in a few streets of
the centre of Paris, the course of events was as follows.
On the evening of the 23rd, shortly after the decline of day,
the populace, assured of a change of ministry, rolled along
the boulevards and the streets, hailing with applause the
illuminations which lighted up the façades of the houses.
A feeling of peaceful joy filled the breasts of the citizens.
There was a sort of tacit proclamation of reconciliation be-
tween king and people, after an outburst of anger. It was
known that the king, shaken but not subdued, had suc-
cessively summoned to the Tuileries M. Molé, M. Thiers, and
M. Barrot.
M. Molé, a man of political temperament, of ability for a
crisis, agreeable to the court, honoured by conservatives,
and loved by the Superior bourgeoisie, was one of those
natural aristocrats whose character accords with their birth,
and whose native Superiority wins for them honour and
affection, even from the most jealous democracy.
M. Thiers, the leader of the personal opposition to the
king, with talents fitted for anything, and capable of the
most unexpected combinations, could equally amaze the con-
servatives, govern the king, or fascinate the people.
M. Barrot, hitherto unsuited to office, on account of the
inflexibility and democratic character of his principles, but
whom the extremity of the danger now rendered neces-
sary, and whose very name promised the people an ad-
ministration as nearly republican as was possible under a
monarchy. -
M. Barrot was, indeed, placed by his opinions on the utmost
limits of monarchy. He was the Lafayette of 1848. His
eloquence was such as to bring strength and brilliancy to a
ministry. His character, above reproach, and though some-
WOL. I. . E
50 PROGRESS OF INSTJIRIRECTION.
times warped by kindly feeling or mental indecision, yet never
by any defect of principle, rendered him the cherished idol
of the people. He was the opposition personified, but an
opposition unbiassed by any ambition except that of honest
glory. Such a man might seem to have been kept in reserve
for eighteen years in order at the last hour to save the
monarch who threw himself into his arms.
The ministerial negotiations had not closed on the evening
of the 23rd, the king obstinately refusing to listen to the
conditions proposed to him by M. Molé.
A change of men appeared to Louis Philippe a sufficient
sacrifice to the exigence of the moment. A change of
measures seemed to involve a renunciation of his own Saga-
city. The names of Thiers and Barrot were repugnant to
him as the visible and palpable signs of his personal defeat.
He reserved those names in his mind, as a last spell in a last
emergency. He could not bring himself to believe that he
was destined to avail himself of it. The night was left him
to ponder; he would decide according to the more or less
menacing appearances of the following morning. Nothing
indicated that the evening commencing amidst the splendours
of illumination was the last of the monarchy.
A small number of combatants concentrated in that quarter
of Paris, which forms by its obliquity and by the narrowness
and crookedness of its streets the natural citadel of insurrec-
tion, preserved a hostile attitude and impregnable position.
These men were almost all the veterans of the republic,
formed to voluntary discipline in the Secret Societies of the
two monarchies, inured to conflict, and even to martyrdom, in
those days which had inundated Paris with blood, and wit–
nessed a contest for the establishment of the monarchy. None
knew by whom they were commanded. Their invisible chief
had neither name nor rank. It was the inarticulate whisper
of the revolution, the spirit of secte, the soul of democracy,
enduring the present, but yearning to give birth to the future.
It was that disinterested fanaticism, and that cold courage,
which delights to die, if in that death posterity may find the
germ of amelioration and of life. To men like these, two
other species of combatants gave their adherence ; classes
who ever throw themselves into the tumultuous movements
of sedition; Savage natures, who luxuriate in blood and
DESCRIPTION OF THE INSURGENTS. §1
delight in death, and frivolous natures, whom storm attracts
and rivets, the genuine children of Paris. But this nucleus
did not enlarge. It kept watch in silence, musket in hand.
It was satisfied thus to give time for the general rise.
No symptoms of this rise appeared; a war-cry was neces-
sary to excite it—a cry of horror to Sow fury and vengeance
in that floating mass of population who are equally ready to
retire to their dwellings, or to Sally from them for the sub-
version of the government. A few silent groups alone
assembled here and there at the extremity of the faubourgs
of the Temple and of Saint-Antoine. Other groups, composed
of few individuals, appeared at the mouth of the streets which
lead from the Chaussée d'Antin on to the boulevards.
These two classes of groups exhibited characteristic differ-
ence of air and costume. The one was composed of young
men belonging to the rich and refined mercantile classes, to
the schools, to trade, to the national guard, to literature, and
more particularly to the periodical press. These harangued
the people, inflamed popular indignation against the king,
the minister, and the chambers; spoke of the humiliation of
France before the foreigner, of the diplomatic treasons of the
court, and the insolent corruption and Servility of deputies,
who had sold themselves to the sovereign will of Louis Phi-
lippe ; they openly gave out the names of popular ministers
whom insurrection was to thrust upon the Tuileries. The
numerous promenaders and bystanders, whose curiosity was
excited by whatever was new, crowded around these orators,
and applauded their expressions. The other class was com-
posed of the lower orders, summoned within the last two days,
from their shops, by the sound of firing; clad in their working
dresses, with their blue shirts open, and their hands still
blackened with the smoke of the forge. These came down in
silence, in little knots, skirting the walls of those streets which
open upon Clichy la Villette and the Canal de l'Ourcq. One
or two workmen, better dressed than the rest, with long skirted
cloth coats, walked before them, addressed them in a low .
tone, and seemed to be giving them the word of command.
These were the heads of the sections of the Rights of Man
and of Families.
The Society of the Rights of Man and of Families consti-
tuted a sort of democratic freemasonry, established by Some
E 2
52 DIFFERENT CLASSES OF INSURGENTS.
active republicans in 1830. These societies preserved under
different names, from the destruction of the first republic by
Buonaparte, the galling sense of liberty betrayed, and some
traditional features of Jacobinism, handed down from Babeuf
to Buonarotti, and from Buonarotti to the young republicans
of that school. The members of these purely political socie-
ties were almost entirely recruited from the principal mecha-
nics, Smiths, cabinet-makers, printers, joiners, and carpenters
of Paris.
Coincidently with these permanent conspiracies against
royalty, as the key-stone of the arch of privilege, divers
philosophical Societies were organized, composed, for the most
part, of the same elements, under the auspices of St. Simon,
others of Fourrier, some of Cabet, others of Raspail, Pierre
Leroux, and Louis Blanc. These were overt conspiracies
organized by the Sole propagandist influence of harangues,
association, and the public press. These heretofore pacific
Societies now discussed, and promoted the freest discussion of,
their principles.
The essence of these was a chimerical fraternity to be
realized on earth, and tending consentaneously to the Sup-
pression of individual property. By a direct consequence,
they also tended to the suppression of the family compact.
That compact is the trinity of the father, the mother, and of
the child. The father, the mother, and the child which per-
petuates their being, unceasingly reproduce that trinity,
which of itself completes and continues the race. Without
personal and hereditary property, that compact, the source,
the charm, and the perpetuating cause of human nature,
has no root whence to germinate and maintain its earthly
existence. The man is the male, the woman the female parent,
and the child the epitome of the human flock. The soil
without a master ceases to be fertile; the civilization pro-
duced by wealth, by leisure, and by competition, vanishes
and disappears; the annihilation of the family compact is the
Suicide of the human race.
These elementary truths were consigned to the category
of prejudices, and insulted with the epithets of tyranny by
the ruling spirits of these schools. Philosophers or Sophists,
ideal adventurers, men for the most part homest, acting on
conviction, the fanatics of their own chimerical speculations,
THE GATHERING. 53
soared in their fancy beyond the point to which the real and
social world guides the feet of man. In their eloquence they
lost their way in the chaos of systems. Unhappily, with their
own bewilderment they caused simple-minded, suffering, and
credulous persons to lose their way, in like manner, amidst
narrow views, correct intentions, and theories deranged by
adversity and dissatisfaction with real life. These systems
were the poetry of communism, intoxicating with utopian
aspirations, and avenging the cause of men dissatisfied with
social order.
The nomadic population of the workshop, evicted from
its native soil and from the principles of home, threw itself
into the system without perceiving its emptiness, and grieved
over the long delay which postponed the realization of the
prospects in which they had been taught to confide. Every
shock to the government appeared to the members of these
anti-social Societies as the approaching fulfilment of their
dreams. Without in any degree entertaining the purely
republican and levelling doctrine of the Society of the Rights
of Man, and of the Society of Families, the Socialists joined
heart and hand in the strife, hoping to find their treasure
beneath the ruin. The difference between these revolutionary
classes was, that the first was inspired by the hatred of royalty,
the second by the progress of the species. Republicanism and
equality were the object of the one ; social renovation and fra-
ternity of the other. They had nothing in common but impa-
tience of the existing order of things, and the hope of what
they descried looming through an approaching revolution.
About six o'clock in the evening, a little column of repub-
licans, of the younger trading population, issued from the
Rue Lepelletier, and formed a silent group before the door of
the National newspaper, as though it were the appointed
place of rendezvous. In all our revolutions, counsel is kept,
the word of command is given, and the impulse is directed to
the office of a journal. These are the comitia of public
opinion, the moveable tribunes of the people. A long con-
ference took place between the republicans within and the
republicans without. Expressions, brief but energetic, were
exchanged through the low and barred window of the porter's
lodge. The group, inspired with the flame they were about
to spread, advanced with cries of “Reform | Down with the
ministers | To the boulevard l’
54 THE GATHERING,
Scarcely had it quitted the office of the Wational when
another column—the workmen and popular partisans—pre-
sented itself at the same place and halted at the command of
their leader. They seemed to have been expected; a clapping
of hands is heard within the house; a young man, of slight
stature, with a fiery eye, with lips agitated by enthusiasm,
and hair dishevelled by the breath of inspiration, mounted
the inner wall of the window, and harangued the assembly.
The spectators saw but gestures and heard but the sound of a
voice and some thrilling expressions, emphasized by lips of
a southern contour. The tenor of his eloquence was popular, but
that cultivated and imaginative popularity of style had nothing
about it frivolous; it exalted the streets of Paris to the loftiness
of the Roman forum; it was modern passion expressed by the
lips of a man nursed in antiquity. By the light of a lamp
they discerned a man of high qualifications, but unadvanced
to the tribune. It was Marrast, the editor, who by turns
delighted as a wit and hurled in thunder the sarcasms and
the indignation of the republic opposition.
A feeling correspondent to this address soon showed itself
in the impatient expression, the attitudes, and inarticulate
murmurs of this martial group ; they retired and united with
the former body which seemed to direct their movements.
Two other bodies, in similar silence, advanced at the same
instant, like a detached corps, towards a position which had
been previously resolved on. The one seemed to come from the
populous and ever-disturbed region of the boulevard dela Bas-
tille. The other came from the centre of Paris, having formed
its nucleus in the office of the Réformejournal. Imbued with
the spirit of the most undaunted conspirators against royalty,
at whose head marched men of action rather than of words,
these had arms beneath their clothes. They marched like a
troop inured to war and grown old amidst firing, every
soldier in which leaned with careless confidence on the well-
tried arm of his comrade.
The column of the boulevard de la Bastille was more
humerous, but less compact and less adult ; it brought to
recollection those revolutionary processions of the same class,
which made a descent into Paris in those days that de-
cided our civil commotions. There were seen a number of
women and ragged children, the migrating refuse of our fau-
bourgs, who come from time to time to startle the affluent
THE GATHERING. 55
and voluptuous centre of our capitals with the sight of the
indigence and the manly power of our primitive population.
To rally these more popular groups, some visible and striking
symbols are required; they belong to the herd, and they need
the leader; they belong to the army, and they need the flag,
the drum, the colours, and the tumult. They carry two or
three ensigns, torn in the struggles of yesterday and to-day,
and on these might be read some familiar anathemas printed
on the white stripe of the tricolor.
. A man of about forty years of age, tall, thin, with hair curled
and falling upon his shoulders, dressed in a white frock, well
worn and stained with dirt, marched with a military step at
their head. His arms were folded over his chest, his head
slightly bent forward, with the air of one who was about to
face bullets deliberately, and to brave death with exultation.
In the eyes of this man, well known by the multitude, was
concentrated all the fire of the revolution; his physiognomy
was the living expression of the defiance of opposing force;
his lips, incessantly agitated as if by a mental harangue, were
pale and trembling. Still his perfectly martial figure betrayed,
as at the bottom of his soul, somewhat of pensive and of com—
passionate reflection, which amidst his courage excluded all
idea of cruelty. There was, moreover, in his carriage and his
expression a devoted fanaticism, a bewilderment combined with
heroism, which might suggest the idea of the Delhis of the
East, who get drunk with opium before they plunge into death. .
We are told that his name was Lagrange.
In the neighbourhood of the café Tortoni, the rendezvous
of idlers, these bodies united their momentum. They
cleared a way through the inquisitive and idle throng, which
undulated with the natural wave of multitudes to the great
thoroughfare of the boulevards. A crowd of inoffensive
people followed mechanically in the train of this silent
column. A small detachment, composed of workmen armed
with Sabres and pikes, separated from the principal body at
the top of the Rue de Choiseul, and silently took possession of
that street. The object of this detachment appeared to be
to flank the Hotel of Foreign Affairs, which was occupied
by troops, while the head of the column presented itself in
front. An unknown system of operation evidently com-
bined and controlled these movements. The unanimous
whisper of a revolution raises the masses. None but conspira-
56 THE SLAUGIITER COMMIENCED BY ACCIDENT.
tors can with Such precision govern its chances and guide its
evolutions,
In the midst of the Smoke of torches a red flag waved over
the first rank of this multitude. They advanced, multiplying
in their progress. A misgiving curiosity attached to this
cloud of men, who seemed to carry in their midst the mys-
tery of the day. In front of the Hotel of Foreign Affairs
a battalion of the line, drawn up in battle array, with
loaded arms and their commander at their head, obstructed
the boulevard. Before this hedge of bayonets the column
suddenly halts. The flapping of the flag and the flash of the
torches frighten the horse of the commander ; recoiling in
terror on his haunches, he plunged into the battalion, which
opened to receive its chief. In the confusion of the moment
the report of a musket was heard. Did it come, as was said,
from some concealed and disaffected hand, fired on the people
by one of their own agitators, to revive by the sight of blood
the ardour of a struggle which was subsiding 2 Did it come from
the hand of one of the insurgents directed against the troops? Or
rather, which is more probable, did it accidentally arise from
the motion of a loaded musket, or from the hand of one of the
soldiers who supposed that his commander was wounded when
he saw his horse take fright ! This no man knows. Whether
by crime or accident, this explosion created a revolution.
The soldiers, considering themselves attacked, presented their
guns; the whole line instantaneously fired. The discharge,
reverberated by lofty houses and by the enclosed streets of
the centre of Paris, throws the whole boulevard into excite-
ment. The column of the people of the faubourgs falls deci-
mated by the balls. The cries of mortal agony and the groans of
the wounded mingle with the affrighted shouts of those who
had followed from curiosity, and of flying women and children.
They rush into the adjoining houses, into the lower streets,
and beneath the archways. By the light of torches, half-
extinguished in the blood upon the pavement, heaps of dead
bodies are perceived strewing the thoroughfare in all direc-
tions. The terrified multitude, supposing themselves pur-
sued, fly with cries of vengeance to the Rue Laffitte, leaving
between themselves and the battalions an empty space in
silence and darkness.
The multitude supposed that they had been treacherously
fired upon in the midst of a demonstration of joy and of
PUBLIC PARAD ING OF THE DEAD BODIES. 57
harmony, occasioned by a change of ministry. They turned
their rage against ministers, who were so perfidious as to
avenge their fall by torrents of blood, and against a king
obstinate enough to fire on that very people who had crowned
him at the sacrifice of their lives in 1830. The soldiers, on
their part, were thrown into consternation by this undesigned
massacre. No one had given orders to fire; nothing had
been heard but the word of command to fix bayonets, to resist
the fire expected from this sudden movement of the people.
Darkness, confusion, chance, and precipitation had done the
deed. The footing of the soldiery was deluged with blood;
the wounded dragged themselves along to die at the feet of
their murderers. Tears of despair flowed from the eyes of the
general. The officers dropped the point of their swords upon
the pavement, deploring this unintentional crime. They
foresaw the necessary effect of this involuntary murder of the
people, upon the mind of the population of Paris. The com-
manding officer hastened to prevent this misunderstanding by
entering into an explanation with the people. He ordered
a lieutenant to convey to the crowd assembled at the corner
of the Rue Laffitte expressions of Sorrow and explanation.
The officer presents himself at the café Tortoni, which
occupies the angle formed by this street and the boulevard.
He attempts to address them. The multitude crowd around
him and listen. But scarcely has he uttered a few words when
a man, armed with a musket, thrust the bystanders aside
and put an end to his address. The national guards present
themselves under arms, and the murderer is driven away and
Sent back to his corps.
Meanwhile the news of this event spread, with a rapidity
equal to that of the firing, through the whole line of the bou-
levard and through the one-half of Paris. The body which
had marched from the faubourg, scattered and thrown in con-
fusion for a moment, soon regained their order and began to
collect their dead. Large waggons, perfectly prepared, were
found at hand, even at this advanced hour of the night, as
if they had been previously obtained in order to exhibit through
Paris those lifeless bodies, the mere sight of which was
destined to rekindle the fury of the people. They collect the
corpses and arrange them on the waggons, with their arms
hanging over the side, with their wounds exposed and their
blood dripping on the wheels. They carry them by torch-
58 THE TOCSIN AND THE BARRIGADEs.
light before the office of the National, as the symbol
of approaching vengeance exhibited on the cradle of the
republic.
After a mournful pause, the procession takes its way to the
Rue Montmartre, and halts before the office of the Réforme
paper—a new appeal to the irreconcilable hatred subsisting be-
tween the monarchy and the republic. Deep and confused cries,
as if Smothered by indignation and by the sobs of the proces-
sion, rise to the windows of the houses. A man, standing upon
the carriage with his feet bathed in blood, raises from time to
time, from the lifeless heap, the corpse of a woman, exhibits it
to the multitude, and lays it again in its bloody bed. At this
sight the pity of the bystanders assumes the character of fury,
and they rushed to their houses to arm. The streets become
empty. A close array of men, armed with muskets, parades
around, and enters the gloomy lanes of the densely-populated
centre of Paris. In the direction of the square of St. Martin,
the Mount Aventine of the populace, they rapped at every door
in succession to summon new combatants to vengeance. At the
spectacle of these victims, exhibited to the reproach of royalty,
these districts arise, rush where they are summoned by the
bells, Sound the tocsin, unpave the streets, and raise and
multiply barricades. From time to time the noise of firing
echoes, and forbids sleep to assuage the anxiety and the
indignation of the capital. Peals from church to church carry
even to the ears of the king, at the Tuileries, those sounds
which were the feverish precursors of to-morrow's insur-
rection.
-
B O O K III.
WHILST the insurrection, roused by vengeance and favoured
by the darkness of the night, was extending through Paris,
the king was meditating, amidst the Sounds of the tocsin, on
the means of quieting the people, and of putting down the
revolution, which he still persisted in regarding as a mere
éméute. The abandonment of his system of foreign politics,
embodied in M. Guizot, M. Duchatel, and the majority of the
chambers, who were entirely devoted to his interest, must
have been a greater sacrifice than a resignation of his crown.
It was the abdication of his theory, of his sagacity, of his
M. THIERS SUMMIONED BY THE KING. 59
halo of infallibility, before the eyes of Europe, of his family,
and of his people. To a great mind it is a small matter to
surrender a throne to adverse fortune; but to yield one's
renown and moral influence to triumphant opinion and
inexorable history, this is the most painful struggle which can
agitate the heart of man, for it is one which humbles and
which breaks it.
But the king was not one of those rash and blood-
thirsty natures which coolly stake the life of a people
against the gratification of their pride. He had deeply
read history, abundantly traced in his own experience
events and their consequences, and much reflected. He did
not conceal from himself that a dynasty which should have
reconquered Paris by cannon-balls and grape-shot would be
perpetually besieged in it by the detestation of the people.
Public opinion had ever been his field of battle, it was upon
it that he wished to act, and he was desirous of promptly
reconciling himself by concessions; but, as an accomplished
and a careful statesman, he bargained with himself and with
public opinion to obtain this reconciliation at the smallest
possible sacrifice of his system and his dignity; he thought
that he had many gradations of popularity to descend before
descending the steps of the throne. The remainder of the
night seemed to him a sufficient interval in which to escape
from the exigencies of the situation with which he was
threatened by the approaching day.
In this state of mind the king awaited the arrival of
M. Molé, with whom he had already had an interview in
the course of the day. The events of the evening had
inclined him to some important measures. M. Molé, whose
nature was prudence and carefulness itself, would, doubtless,
three days sooner, have meted out with precision what was
required by the preservation of the monarchical principle, to
which he had through life been attached, and by the demands
imposed by the irritation of parliamentary opposition. But
M. Molé, discouraged by the conversation of the preceding
morning, kept away.
The king then sent for M. Thiers. This minister, born
with the monarchy of July, loaded with the favours of the
crown, endeared to parliament by his eloquence, often que-
rulous, and sometimes an agitator at the tribune, but never
unforgiving, had pledged his heart and his word to the ser-
60 POLITICS OF MI. THIERS.
vice of the dynasty which had adopted him. The leader of
opposition for seven years, M. Thiers could bring over to
the king and to monarchy, all that section of the country
whose republicanism was only a whim. The name of M.
Thiers imported the victory of the opposition over the per-
Somal obstimacy of the king; but it did not import victory
over royalty itself. Obtruded upon the king in 1840, by an
almost factious coalition of different parties in the chamber,
M. Thiers had shown that he was not the man to misuse his
victory. Master of the king at that time, he had suffered
himself in his turn to be honourably conquered by the mo-
narch. He had resigned office into the hands of M. Guizot
and of the conservative party, at the very moment when he
might have compelled the king to retain him, and have thrown
Europe into confusion for the gratification of his ambition.
But he did not choose to be the Necker of the Orleans dynasty,
though the imprudence of the fused party of the opposition had
assigned to him the part of a minister who was master of his
Sovereign.
He had confined himself to serving the king with the false
notion of placing royalty in a citadel by the fortification of
the capital, and of agitating Europe by his diplomacy to
the very verge of war, in order to attach to his cause a
degree of martial popularity in his negotiations with relation
to the East. This unfortunate conception of the French
cabinet must have issued in the retirement of the minis-
try, or in plunging France, without allies, into a universal
war. M. Thiers, who at a distance had resolutely ad-
vanced towards the precipice, had stopped when he saw it
at his feet. He did not add a guilty obstimacy to his error;
his personal considerations were obliterated before the danger
which threatened his country. He would not illustrate his
name by the bloodshed of a European war, and this repent-
ance invests his fall with dignity in the eyes of the good. He
retired, humbled in the opinion of statesmen, unpopular
with extreme and reckless factions, but raised in the esteem of
impartial men. Such, at all events, is our conception of his
rash accession, his troubled administration, and his honourable
retirement. In the estimate of such a statesman, conscience
should be admitted to the counsels of history.
M. Thiers, summoned at midnight, did not hesitate to obey
the invitation. Providence seemed to have predestined him
MARSHAL BUGEAUD. 6%
to attend at the birth and the obsequies of this monarchy. At
the moment when M. Thiers entered the Tuileries, Guizot
was again with the king. Deception as to the nature of the
movement, and mistaken confidence in the power of his
will and in the infallibility of his designs, forbid us to sup-
pose that any retracing of his steps, that any self-reproach,
caused the mind of the minister to hesitate at this critical
moment. His last act was a defiance of public opinion; by
retiring, he provoked it still further. The king and the
minister, dissatisfied with the military arrangement intrusted
to General Jacqueminot and General Sebastiani, had just
signed the nomination of Marshal Bugeaud to the military
command of Paris. Marshal Bugeaud, while he possessed
the confidence of the army, was at that time most unpopular
at Paris; the very mention of his name was the declaration of
an uncompromising struggle.
A simple colonel in 1830, and rendered illustrious in that
rank by heroic bravery and an intuitive knowledge in the art
of war, Marshal Bugeaud had devoted himself without reser-
vation to the new dynasty. As commander of the fortress of
Blaye, he had had the Duchess de Berri as his prisoner. The
unfortunate captive had quitted her place of confinement,
respected as a princess for her heroism, but stained in her
honour as a woman. This exhibition of frailty had served
the political interests of the Orleans dynasty, but it had
given pain to matural feelings. Marshal Bugeaud had un-
doubtedly neither counselled nor approved that political course
which trampled on the ties of relationship, but he had had
the misfortune to be placed in embarrassment between his
duty as a soldier and his feelings as a man. His position
had been constituted a crime. A deep-seated resentment
existed towards him from this period in the opinion of the
royalists. Since then, he had, as was said, treated some
quarters of Paris like a besieged town rather than a capital,
in those insurrections which constituted the latest efforts of
the republican party. That party, in its curses pronounced
against the rigours of the throne, never forgot the name of
the marshal. But the general command in Algeria, combining
the functions of the civil magistrate, during a period of five
years, the subjugation and pacification of Africa, indefatigable
campaigns, a battle illustrated by the name of Isly, the
government of a province at once Supreme and minute, the
62 THIERS BECOMES PRIME MINISTER.
solicitude of a father as much as a general for the army, and
the attachment of the troops;–all this had reconciled France
with the name of Marshal Bugeaud. His intellect appeared to
have risen and enlarged with his honours. There was in his
exterior, in his style, in his laconic mode of expression, which
cut without giving pain, a rough good sense, a military
frankness, and an authoritative air, which, while it attracted
the attention of the masses, and inspired confidence in his
troops, struck terror into his foes. Such a man, placed but
the night before at the head of 60,000 men, the army of
Paris, would have rendered the victory of the people either
impossible or bloody. Summoned at the moment when the
minister was giving way, his very name contradicted the
proposals of concession; he rendered them suspected on the
part of the throne, and unacceptable on that of the people.
Messrs. Thiers and Guizot met at the door of the king's
apartment, the one entering and the other leaving it. Both
seemed summoned in vain to the aid of a throne, which the
politics of both had equally damaged. M. Thiers took upon
himself the formation of a ministry, on the condition that
Odillon Barrot, the head of the oldest and most powerful
opposition, should be a member of it. In order to settle
monarchical power, it was necessary entirely to change its
position. Parliamentary revolution could alone arrest a
popular revolution. The mere instinct of preservation dic-
tated this measure, and the king acceded to it. The new
minister perceived at once that the appointment of Marshal
Bugeaud to the general command of the troops would be
regarded as an additional provocation, and would still more
“embroil the fray.” He wished for a suspension of hos-
tilities, in order to make terms with public opinion. This
Suspension he ordered for the following day, and drew up a
proclamation to the people. The proclamation, having been
intrusted to the police, was placarded before daylight; and
Satisfied with these pacific measures, of whose efficacy he
entertained no doubt, M. Thiers withdrew. Guizot, who
had not left the palace, returned to the royal closet, where he
remained another hour, in close conversation with the king.
The object of this last interview between the monarch and
his minister is unknown. It doubtless embraced provisions
for the future rather than retrospections of the past. Power-
*
FRUITLESS PROCLAMATION OF Ai. THIERS. 63
ful wills are the subjects of delusion, but never of repentance.
Such a will was the grand characteristic of Guizot. That
will might be broken, but the hand of God himself could not
bend it. g
At this moment Paris Seemed lulled in silence and fa-
tigue. The tocsin had ceased to Sound; a silent host, concen-
trated in the heart of the ancient city, around the square of
St. Martin, had broken up the streets, and piled up the pave-
ments, those fortifications of the campaigns of the people;
numberless barricades arose in all directions, and the reports
of fire-arms reverberated far and wide at the earliest dawn of
day. The Tuileries was aroused by the firing. The tardy
proclamation, placarded with difficulty in the insurrectionary
districts, was not even signed. The people regard it as an
anonymous snare, designed to trip them up in the struggle.
Instead of disarming, they arm, recruit, rally, and group
themselves, here in tumultuary bodies, there in close column.
M. Thiers returns to the Tuileries to complete his ministerial
arrangements.
The principal members of the constitutional opposition,
attached by principle to liberty, and to the throne by de-
votedness, are joined there by several generals, who offer
the aid of their swords in the perils of the day. There were
seen arriving in succession, the Marshal Gerard, a veteran of
the empire, bound by affection to the royal person, the coun-
sellor and friend of the monarch in his days of difficulty;
General Lamoricière, adorned with the lustre which his
name had won in Africa, and now the commander of a
brigade in the army of Paris; M. Duvergier de Hauranne,
whose ambition is rather to be the invisible director than the
ostensible possessor of power ; M. de Remusat, a minister
under M. Thiers; M. Crémieux, M. de Lasteyrie, and
several other members of both chambers. The common
danger seems to recall to the Tuileries men who for a long
period had never crossed its threshhold; an honourable but
ineffectual attempt to prop up what was destined to fall; a
tumultuous assembly, interrupted every minute by fresh
arrivals, and incessantly influenced by contradictory reports
from without, touching the dispositions of the capital and
the success of the insurrection, holds its sittings in the ante-
chambers of the royal closet. The king, worn out with
64 INCREASED ORGANIZATION OF THE INSURGENTS,
anxieties, with watching, and with the disturbances of the
night, was reposing, dressed as he was, upon a Sofa, amidst
the hum of conversations, of which the subjects were his
triumph, his defeat, or his abdication. \
During the brief interval of the king's repose, every hour
brought accessions of strength to the insurrection. The rumour
of a massacre of the people in the boulevards had spread
throughout the night, and produced a universal influence. The
tocsin had spread to the very suburbs that feverish spasm which
makes man incapable either of sleep or of quiet. The whole
population was on foot, armed, and prepared for extreme
measures. The students of Paris, that embodied intelli–
gence of the populace, which naturally assumes the guidance
of the blind force of the masses, were in agitation within
the walls of their colleges. They forced the gates, sallied
forth in companies from the Polytechnic School, fraternized
with the company of workmen, and singing the Marseillaise
and the Girondins, descended from their elevated region into
the centre of Paris. A general inspiration pervading the mind
of the people seemed spontaneously to direct them to those
military positions which could most embarrass the troops and
control the fortune of the day. Every minute narrowed the
circle of iron and stone with which the barricades enclosed the
palace and approaches of the Tuileries. It seemed as if the
paving of the streets had risen of its own accord, to bury
royalty beneath its heaps.
Between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning, on the Place
du Palais Royal, on the Place de la Concorde, and on the
two wings of the Louvre, the troops who had been concentrated
there were passively listening to the shouts, and gazing at the
attacks of the multitude which thronged around the palace of
the Tuileries and the principal hotels of the government.
The men wore an air of astonishment, languor, and dulness.
The Soldier who is not acting loses all the impulse and enthu-
siasm of the charge: So much easier is it to brave death than .
to await it. The national guard, evidently divided, showed
themselves in small numbers, endeavoured by exhortation to
pacify the crowd and check the violence of the insurgents;
but yielding to the pressure from without, to the infection of
example, and to their own normal habits of discontent, they
formed a line to let the insurrection pass, and cheered it on by
FIRING OF THE CHATEAU D'EU. 65
their gestures and their cries of “Vive la réforme,” some-
times swelling its numbers by their defection, Sanctioning it
with their uniforms, and even arming it with their bayonets.
The Place du Palais Royal had just been taken by the
people. That ancient and stately residence of the house of
Orleans was being sacked by the conquerors. The same people
which had so often issued from its precincts in 1789 as from
the cradle of the French revolution, which had repaired to it
to seek their king in 1830, returned thither after half a century
as the Nemesis of a fatal popularity. The furniture, pictures,
and statues were being destroyed, in the spirit rather of rage
than of plunder. A battalion of infantry, which had evacuated
the court and crossed the square under a fire from the windows,
had retired to the station at the Château d'Eu, which was
already filled with wounded municipal guards. A capitulation
was presently entered into, and they were suffered to with-
draw, while the edifice was ravaged by flames, in which not
a few wounded men, unable to effect their escape, are said to
have perished.
All this passed within a few paces of large bodies of troops,
motionless, and stunned as it were to insensibility, under the
orders of commanding officers, whom the king and his new
ministry had forbidden to fight.
The Place du Carrousel and the court of the Tuileries were
occupied by horse, foot, and artillery. Within the palace they
seemed to be expecting, in a state of unconcern, that the news
of the change of ministry and the promised concessions would
of themselves cause the insurrection to subside. M. Odillon
Barrot rode through the boulevard, surrounded by a few popu-
lar officers of the national guards. He hoped that his name,
his presence, his verbal assurance, and his accession to power,
would be the visible and sufficient pledge of victory and con-
cession to public opinion. But the lengthened agitation of the
people, excited at the banquets of his party, went beyond that
honourable and courageous democratic feeling. He was Sacri-
ficing himself to the danger of the dynasty. M. Barrot, though
universally respected as a man, had been rejected as a peace-
maker. He returned in mortification to his residence. He
made preparation for assuming, by an appeal to the king, to the
ministry of the interior, a power which had already, by antici-
pation, been broken in his hands. At the same instant a brave
VOL. I. F
66 POPULARITY OF LAMARTINE,
officer, M. de Prebois, inflamed with a desire of stopping the
effusion of blood, threw himself, on the spontaneous impulse of
his own feelings, before the armed multitude which was inun-
dating the Place du Palais Royal, to attack the Carrousel.
“What do you want?” said he: “what is necessary to induce
you to lay down these fratricidal arms? Royalty concedes to
public opinion all that you can possibly demand. Do you
want reform ? It is already promised you. Do you stipulate
for the dismissal of ministers? They have already retired.
Who, then, are the men of your choice and confidence, in whose
hands you would consider your liberties secure and your wishes
met : The king has just summoned M. Thiers Does that
satisfy you?” “No,” shouted the multitude. “What, if he
appoints M. Barrot ?” “No, no,” was again the cry.
“Would you, then,” rejoined the peacemaker, “lay down
your arms, if the king would send for M. de Lamartine?”
“Yes, yes,” cried the multitude, “Lamartine for ever ! That
is the man we want. Let the king give us Lamartine, and
everything may be presently settled. He is the man of our
confidence.” To such a degree did the isolation of Lamartine
in a confined Chamber of Deputies cause his popularity to
burst forth within the deep and settled Sentiments of the
people.
But neither the king, nor the chamber, nor the opposition
party of M. Thiers, nor that of Barrot, nor even the repub-
lican party of the National or the Réforme, ever dreamed of
putting forward Lamartine before the people, either as their
minister, their peacemaker, or their tribune. He was neither
the man of the Tuileries, nor of the opposition journals, nor of
the reform banquets, nor of the plots against royalty. He
was powerless and unsupported, and did not doubt that he
was named by the people in a moment of unpremeditated
confidence. M. de Prebois made his escape from the armed
groups which surrounded him, and with difficulty regained the
Tuileries, where he detailed to some of the courtiers what he
had just seen and heard. But the time had passed when it was
ossible to discuss the choice of one or another who was
absent from the court. The king was compelled to avail
himself with precipitation of whomsoever happened to be at
hand; and, besides, Lamartine was the iast man whom the
FAMILY OF LAMARTINE. 67
king would have summoned to power at a moment of emer-
gency. He liked Lamartine little, and he understood him
less. Herein lay the real cause of the estrangement.
The family of M. de Lamartine, on his mother's side, had
under the old régime been adherents of the house of Orleans;
from it they had received both honours and favours, and
Lamartine himself had been educated in Sentiments of grate-
ful respect for that branch of the royal family. He had
never forgotten those affectionate recollections of that royal
house which had been instilled into his mind by his mother.
But his father's family were constitutional royalists, and con-
sequently opposed to those revolutionary opinions and preten-
sions which had placed a usurped crown on the head of the
duke of Orleans. Nevertheless, at the return of the Bourbons
in 1815, the father of M. de Lamartine had presented his
youthful son to the duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis Phi-
lippe, and had requested for him the office of aide-de-camp or
staff-officer about his person. The prince, thinking M. de La-
martine too young, or wishing rather to attach to himself
some families who had been devoted to the empire, had refused.
Subsequently M. de Lamartine had seen the prince from time to
time, but without in any degree entertaining the hope of power
or sharing the confidential position of those who were wor-
shipping the rising Sun. Having been at a later period
elected to the chamber, he maintained, with respect to the
new monarch, a perfect independence and a respectful reserve.
The king doubtless concluded that M. de Lamartine was
either an enemy of his dynasty, or that he was an insulated
political theorist, who preferred chimeras to the substantial
realities of power. From this time the prince, although the
member sometimes did homage to him, and not unfrequently
good service at the tribune, had always spoken of Lamartine
as a dreamer, always hovering above the world and never
alighting; a man whose vision was incapable of distinguishing
shadows from realities. In this respect the king entertained the
views of the middle and commercial class. There are certain
men whom these can never forgive for not holding the
platitudes of the vulgar, or sharing in the vices of the times.
The name of Lamartine was the last which the lips of the
king could pronounce. The people alone could think of him ;
ge
F 2,
68 FLIGHT OF MI. THIERS,
and even they only repeated his name by chance, and as an
echo returns an expression which has been uttered.
At the moment when that name was resounding for the
first time amidst the reports of musketry on the Place du
Carrousel, and in the vestibule of the palace, Guizot, who
had kept in an inner apartment of the king to the last
minute, as if watching for a symptom of the returning fortunes
of royalty, secretly escaped from the Tuileries, in order to
fly from a revolution which had been provoked by his name.
Being recognized as he issued from a wicket which commu-
nicates with the Carrousel, he was compelled by some shots
fired at him to retrace his steps, and took Sanctuary in a
part of the Louvre which was occupied by the staff officers.
There he remained in concealment until the darkness of night
allowed of his seeking a safer asylum at the house of a female
artist whom pity induced to receive him. He could descry
through the open windows of the Louvre the occupation of
the Carrousel by the populace, the defection of the national
guards, the passiveness of the troops, the ineffectual efforts of
the generals, the last retrospective effort of the king, the flight
of the whole royal family on foot, and the short and mortal
struggle of that dynasty to which he had consecrated so much
of effort, so much earnestness, so much of character, and such
ruinous pertimacity of devotion. What a spectacle for a
statesman | What a recapitulation of a life condensed into
an hour ! How many errors might not be expiated; how
much of revenge might not have been Satisfied, and even
melted into pity, by that crash before the eyes of a man, or
all the purposes of a life. These purposes, however, of the
statesman, whether right or wrong, all tended directly to
these disasters and to this pitiable result. There often remains
after a while to statesmen, wrecked by such storms, only the
consciousness of having been misled with right intentions.
Meanwhile, what was occurring at the palace amidst the
ever rising deluge of the insurrection ? The king had given
orders that the troops should cease firing, and only maintain
their position. The Marshal Bugeaud, who had already
mounted his horse to fight, was recalled by the announce-
ment of the cessation of his functions as commander-in-chief
of Paris. M. Thiers imagined that in thus putting a stop to
resistance, he had also disarmed aggression. The duke de
SPIRIT OF THE QUEEN. - 69
Nemours repeated in all directions the order to stop hostili-
ties. The duchess of Orleans, in her own apartments, had
abandoned herself to the anxieties of her mind and the perils
of her position. The queen, in whose veins was the blood
of Maria. Theresa, of Marie-Antoinette, and of the queen of
Naples, exhibited that masculine courage which neglects poli-
tical considerations. “Go,” said she, to the king, “and show
yourself to the disheartened troops, and to the irresolute
national guard. I will place myself in the balcony, with my
grandchildren and my princess daughters, and I will see you
die in a manner worthy of yourself, of your throne, and of our
common misfortunes.” The countenance of this beloved wife,
and of this so long happy mother, was animated for the
first time with the energy of her twofold concern for her
husband and for her children. In her anxiety for their honour,
all her tenderness for them became concentrated and impas-
sioned. Their life came but second in her love. Her grey locks,
contrasting with the fire of her eyes and the animated flush
of her cheek, impressed upon her countenance something at
once tragical and Sacred,—the combination of the Athalia and
the Niobe. The king soothed her with expressions of con-
fidence in his own experience and wisdom, which had never
yet deceived him. At eleven o'clock he felt so sure of con-
trolling the insurrection, and of reducing the crisis to such a
change of ministry as would be acceptable to the people, that
he came down with a smiling countenance, and in a negligent
dress, to the dining-room, to partake of the family breakfast.
Scarcely had the meal commenced when the door opened,
and two intimate and trusty counsellors of the crown hastily
entered, intended, it was said, by M. Thiers, for ministerial
office. These were Messrs. de Rémusat and Duvergier de
Hauranne. They requested a private audience of the duke
de Montpensier. The prince rose, made a gesture of uncon-
cern to the king and queen, and ran to 'the two messen-
gers; but their majesties, unable to restrain their impa-
tience, rose at the same moment, and interrogated Rémusat
by their looks. “Sire,” said he, “your majesty must know
the truth; to conceal it at such a moment would be to
render one's-Self an accomplice in the result. Your unconcern
proves that you are under a delusion. Three hundred paces
from your palace the dragoons are surrendering their swords
70 THE KING SHOWS HIMSELF TO THE TROOPS.
and the soldiers their muskets to the people.” “Impossible!”
cried the king, drawing back with astonishment. A staff
officer, M. de l'Aubépin, respectfully replied to the king,
“I saw it.”
At these words the whole family arose from the table. The
king retired to his chamber to put on his uniform, and mounted
his horse. His two Sons, the dukes de Nemours and Mont-
pensier, and a body of faithful generals, accompanied him. He
rode slowly past the line of troops, and before the scanty batta-
lion of national guards who occupied the Place du Carrousel
and the court of the Tuileries. The air of the king was down-
cast ; that of the troops cold; that of the national guard irre-
solute. A few cries of “ Vive le roi,” mingled with shouts of
“Vive la reforme,” issued from the ranks. The queen and the
princesses, standing at a balcony of the palace, like Marie-An-
toinette, on the morning of the 10th of August, followed the
king and the princes with their eyes and with their hearts.
They saw the military salute of the soldiery as they pre-
sented arms along the front of the line, and heard the con-
fused echo of cries, the words of which they were unable to
distinguish. They thought it a return of loyal enthusiasm,
and withdrew in exultation to their apartments.
But the king could not mistake the coldness of his recep-
tion. He had marked the restless and the hostile glances;
he had heard the cries of “Vive la réforme” bursting, like
the shell of revolt, at the very foot of his horse, and reverbe-
rating to the gates of his palace. He returned dispirited
and perplexed, fearing alike to provoke or to await the struggle
—in that state of compelled passiveness which seizes on men
who are encompassed on all sides by equal difficulties—situa-
tions in which action alone can save, but in which action itself
is impossible. Despair is the presiding genius of desperate
circumstances. The misfortune of the king was, that he had
not felt it sooner. He had been habituated to good fortune,
and the last hour of his reign was beguiled by the prosperity
of a long life.
M. Thiers, a witness of this accelérated catastrophe, waited
upon the king to give back the power which was escaping
from his hand ere he had grasped and exercised it. He saw
the fugitive popularity of a single night glide away from his
name to that of another. To the king he recommended
M. Barrot alone. It was impossible to go to a greater length
1) ISTRESS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. 71
of opposition without the surrender of the monarchy. M. Bar-
rot had already experienced before the people of the Boulevard
the powerlessness and the frailty of a name. He devoted him-
self, nevertheless, to the king, and to the task of pacification,
without considering that he was about to throw away in a
few hours a popularity of eighteen years. This devotedness to
the monarch at the moment when fortune deserted him shows a
generosity of characterand of courage which must exalt anyman
in the opinion of future times. It may be the theme of raillery
for the frivolous creatures of the day, but it will be his title to
esteem with an impartial posterity. Informed in a few mo–
ments of his nomination by the king, he did not hesitate to
go and take possession of the ministry of the home depart-
ment, and to grasp the shattered helm of the state.
At that moment the king himself constituted the whole of
the council at the Tuileries. Three administrations had melted
away in his hands in a few hours, that of Guizot, of Molé, and
of Thiers. The queen, the princes, the deputies, the generals, /
the subordinate officers of the army and of the national /
guard, pressed around him. They besieged him with infor- /
mation and opinions, interrupted by fresh information and /
contrary suggestions. There was paleness on the cheeks and
tears in the eyes of the ladies. The children of the º
family affected the hearts of all by the careless unconsciºus-
ness expressed in their countenances. All betrayed in their air
and gestures, their agitation and their language, tha' oscilla-
tion of thought and resolution which gives time to/fmisfortune
and discourages fidelity. The doors and windows of the lower
apartments opening upon the court made the Sºldiers and the
national guard almost present in eye and ear at this scene
of distress, by which their dispositions might well have been
Shaken. 2
It was necessary to cast a veil over the disordered thoughts
of the monarch and the confused state of his family, lest a
contagious despondency should enervate the military. A
citizen of the national guard, who was on duty beneath the
portice-of-the royal apartment, was melted to tears at the
spectacle. Belonging to the opposition, and almost a re-
publican, but a man of sensibility, and above all of loyalty,
he desired progress without aspiring to destruction. Least
of all did he desire that the cause of liberty should owe its
triumph to a cowardly desertion of an old man, his wife, and


N
\\
N
72 ARRIVAL OF GIRARDIN,
his children, on the part of those who were charged with
their protection. He accosted a lieutenant-general who had
command of the troops. “General,” said he, in a low
voice, and with an emotion which gave to entreaty the tone
of command, “draw off your soldiers out of sight of these
mournful scenes; it is not desirable that the military should
witness thé agony of kings.” The general understood the
meaning of these words, and ordered the battalions to draw
back.
The king, returning to his cabinet, was listening again to
the alternate suggestions of Thiers, Lamoricière, of Rémusat,
and of the duke de Montpensier, his youngest son, when a
prolonged firing burst forth at the extremity of the Carrousel,
in the direction of the Place du Palais Royal. At this moment
the door of the cabinet opened, and M. de Girardin rushed in
to the king. M. de Girardin, who had not long since been
a deputy, and was still a journalist, less a member of opposi-
tion than a man of settled principles, and less a revolutionist
than the hero of a crisis, had thrown himself into the current
where danger, Tapid changes of fortune, and great events at-
tracted him. He was one of the few characters who ever seek

langer, from that restlessness which belongs to their activity,
hèir energy, and their talent, and from the consciousness of
being equal to great occasions. M. de Girardin entertained
neither * predilection for royalty nor an antipathy to
an opportunity of coming upon the stage in the moment of
`
republicanism; all he loved in politics was action. Ambitious
of intellectu l Supremacy rather than of position, of playing a
part rather than of possessing power, he had hastened to
the palace with no other summons than that of his own im-
pulse. As editor of the Presse he had obtained a European
notoriety and publicity in Paris, which placed him in constant
intercourse with public opinion. He was one of those men
who think aloud among the people, and whose every thought
constitutes the event or controversy of the day. Antiquity
only boasted the orators of the forum—journalism has
created these orators of the hearth:----, -, * ~ * ~
M. de Girardin, in that brief and abrupt style, which econo-
mizes moments and cuts off reply, informed the king, in a tone
of respectful sadness, that the time for groping after names
for a cabinet was passed; that the crisis was sweeping away

~~~~ * •+- **--
PROPGSAL OF ABDICATION. 73
the throne and its counsels together, and that there was only
one word which corresponded to the urgency of the occasion,
and that word was “ABDICATION.”
The king was in one of those momentary moods in which
truths can strike without offending ; nevertheless, he let fall
from his hand the pen with which he was arranging on paper
the names of the ministry. He would fain have discussed the
subject, but Girardim, hasty as the crisis, and unpitying as the
evidence, allowed of no discussion. “Sire,” said he, “the
abdication of the king, or the abdication of the monarchy.
Such is the dilemma. The crisis does not permit you a single
instant to seek a third alternative.” -
With these words M. de Girardin presented to the king a
copy of a proclamation which he had written beforehand, and
had already sent to the press. This proclamation, with the
conciseness of a fact, contained only four lines, with which it
was necessary to strike the eye of the people instantly and in
every direction:—
Abdication of the king.
Regency of the duchess of Orleans.
Dissolution of the chamber.
General amnesty.
The king hesitated; the duke de Montpensier, his son, car-
ried away, doubtless, by the energetic countenance, gesture,
and language of Girardin, pressed his father with more pre-
cipitation, perhaps, than consisted with the respect due from
a son to royalty, age, and misfortune. The pen was presented,
and the king was deprived of his sovereignty with an im-
patience which did not wait for his own full and free con-
viction. The harshness of fortune towards the king ought
not to be recognized in the precipitation of the council. On
the other hand, blood was flowing, the throne was rocking,
the very life of the king and his family was in danger. The
anxiety and kind consideration of his counsellors of itself
explains all. History should always take that view which is
least humiliating and afflictive to the human heart.
At the sound of the firing, Marshal Bugeaud mounted his
horse and went to interpose between the combatants. A
thousand cries entreat him not to show himself, as his pre-
sence and his name would only be the signal for redoubled
carnage. He insists and advances, braves the infuriated looks
74 ABDICATION OF THE IXING,
and arms of the multitude, and returns without having gained
anything but admiration for his bravery. He dismounts in the
court of the Tuileries, but already the command had passed
from his hands; the duke de Nemours had been invested
with it. The young General Lamoricière, to whose name
belonged as yet only the prestige of his valour in Africa,
galloped across the Carrousel; he gained the outposts amidst
a shower of bullets; he faced the first ranks of the combatants.
Whilst he harangued them, he was stormed with shots, his
horse rolled under him, and his Sword was Snapped in
the fall. The general, who was wounded in the hand, and
dressed in a neighbouring house, remounted his horse and
crossed the Carrousel in silence to announce to the king that
the troops were worn out, and that the multitude was inac-
cessible to counsel. On the heels of Lamoricière the people
rushed from the Rue de Rohan, and overspread the Carrousel.
They hold a parley with the soldiers. The latter retire in
disorder, and throw themselves into the court of the Tuileries.
Amidst the turmoil of the rising insurrection, the king wrote
these words:–“I abdicate in favour of my grandson,
the count de Paris, and I trust that he will be more fortunate
than I.”
To the subject of the regency the king made no reference.
Was it out of respect to the law which he caused to be passed
in favour of the regency of his son, the duke de Nemours? or
was it in order still to leave a last concession to be debated
between the people and the ministry for the purpose of gain-
ing time? or was it for the purpose of retaining to his family
after him a jealous power over the mother of the count de
Paris, his grandchild, which, in spite of the feelings of nature
and the dictates of true policy, he himself had never been
disposed to resign? This no one knows. M. Thiers had gone
with the wishes of the king, when he joined a party of the
opposition in deprecating the regency of the duchess of Or-
leans. M. de Lamartine had vigorously maintained the right
of mothers. “There is no sound policy,” cried he, “that is op-
posed to nature.” He had been conquered by a small majority
through the combined influence of the court and of its adhe-
rents in the opposition. The event sadly confirmed the
justice of his views. The duke de Nemours, the proposed
regent, though young, brave, well educated, and laborious,
NO REGENCY APPOINTED. 75
was not a favourite of the people. Nature, while she gave him
intelligence and the precocious Sagacity and courage of his
family, had denied him that expansion of feeling which attracts
the hearts of others. Distance was not favourable to such
qualities as his ; they required a near point of view. This
may not be a disadvantage in a private individual, but it is a
misfortune for a prince. Prestige is necessary to every one
who would take a position at the head of the people, whereas
the duke de Nemours only possessed esteem. They saw in him
a continuation of the virtues and the defects of his father, and
under him they would have had no change of the reign, but
only of the monarch. On that change, however, the people
were resolved.
This error, which the king and M. Thiers committed in
Wresting the regency from the young mother of an infant king,
weighed fatally on this last hour of the reign. Louis Philippe
and his minister perished under the unforeseen consequences of
this act. If instead of laying before the people that ambiguous
abdication which made no provision for the regency, and which
suffered contending parties to catch sight of the duke de Ne-
mours behind the formal abdication, M. de Girardin, the bearer
of the intelligence, had represented before the imagination and
the heart of the nation, a young widow and a young mother
reigning by popular favour in the name of her son; if this
beloved princess, untainted with the shadow of a charge, had
herself appeared in the court of the palace, and presented her
child to the adoption of the country, there is no doubt that
nature would have triumphed over the people. Natural feeling
would have found an accessory in the heart and in the coun-
tenance of every combatant. So true it is, that the faults of
kings and of statesmen lie dormant for a time, but rise unex-
pectedly to crush them at a time when they are supposed to
have been forgotten.
But the duchess of Orleans, even at this last hour, was, as
it were, in exile, with her children, in the apartments of the
palace which were assigned to her. The king feared the in-
fluence of this young, beautiful, and thoughtful lady; clad
in her widow's dress, irreproachable in her conduct, a volun-
tary exile from the world, lest the involuntary radiation of
her loyalty, her gracefulness, and her talents, should attract
to her the attention of the country, and make her the object
º6 THE DUCHIESS OF ORLEAN.S.
of the jealousy of the court. This princess lived in retire-
ment, with her maternal affections and her Sorrows. She
could not, however, but perceive the last faults of the
reign, and become alarmed for the future prospects of her
children. She must, too, have painfully felt the dynastic
harshness of that regency bill, which had been proposed
and carried against her, and which, together with the poli-
tical instruction of her son, took from her the opportunity
of exhibiting to the world the high qualities with which she
was endowed. But these sorrows brooded in her heart,
without transpiring in outward expression. Not a single
complaint had ever escaped her lips. She showed her pride
by her resignation, and her merit by her silence. M. de La-
martime, the defender, without her knowledge, of her natural
rights in the discussion on the regency bill, had never had any
intercourse with this princess. He had never even received
from her any token of satisfaction or of gratitude for the dis-
interested homage he had rendered to her at the tribune.
It was thought that, for some time, M. Thiers, dissatisfied
with the court, and repenting perhaps of the part he had
taken in favour of the regency of the duke de Nemours,
turned his thoughts towards this princess. It is possible,
that his growing disaffection towards the princes had brought
this statesman to reflection, and that he hoped eventually
to rekindle the monarchical feeling through popular sympathy
with the woman and the child. This cannot be affirmed: but
nature herself seems sufficiently to suggest the idea that a
well-regulated mind would return to her influence after
having strayed from it.
As for Girardin, he had sustained with great force and
perseverance, in his journal, the system which at the tribune
Lamartine had supported with his oratory. Since then he
had once seen the duchess of Orleans, but from that brief and
single interview he had brought away his conviction still
further confirmed by admiration for this princess. Not a
word, however, from her had indicated a mortified ambition
or a concealed Sorrow. Her griefs were unmingled, not
only with all political intrigue, but even with the feelings of
ambition. She had exhibited the calmness and disinterested-
ness of a mother who entirely forgets herself amidst her recol-
lections of her husband and her hopes for her son. Still it is
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE ABDICATION, 77
supposable, that in extorting so precipitately from the king
that vague abdication which made no transfer to a successor,
Girardin, and Thiers with him, had an involuntary reference
to the regency of the young widow, and expected to hear her
proclaimed by the voice of the people.
If such an idea was ever conceived, it died before its
birth; it was dissipated by the effect of a mistake. Through
forgetfulness, occasioned by the hurry natural at such a
moment, no signature had been appended to that proclama-
tion, which M. de Girardin threw to the crowd on the
Carrousel and Place du Palais Royal. In vain did he brave
fire and bayonets to regain possession of this proposal
of terms. The crowd, after having read it, seeing a mere
manuscript promise of abdication, unaccompanied by an
Sanction, took it for a stratagem and advanced as before. The
son of Admiral Baudin, who had left the palace with Girar.
din to distribute the proclamation on the Place de la Concorde,
was met by the same incredulity and the same dangers,
The king was burning with impatience. The arrival of an aged
servant, who had become a friend of the king without ceasing
to be the friend of the Parisian people, afforded him a last
ray of hope. It was the Marshal Gerard, a man of simple
and even antiquated style, who had passed from the battle-
fields of the empire to this court, without having lost in it the
recollection of freedom. Heartily devoted to the king for a long
time, his principles had lost nothing of their complexion or of
their independence. Brave as a Soldier, popular as a leader,
Marshal Gerard was just the man for the last hour. “Go before
these multitudes,” said the king, “ and acquaint them with
my abdication.”
The marshal, in a morning dress of rustic cut and faded
colour, and wearing a round hat, mounted the horse that
Marshal Bugeaud had just left in the court. General
Duchant, a brilliant officer of the empire, celebrated for his
martial beauty and for his bravery, accompanies Marshal
Gerard. They emerge from the gateway and are received with
cheering and cries of “Vivent les braces !” The aged mar-
shal recognizes in the crowd Colonel Dumoulin, an old officer
of the emperor, an adventurous man, whom the giddy din of
firing attracted and whom action intoxicated. He called him
by his name. “Come,” said he, “my dear Dumoulin; here is
78 CONDUCT OF BUGEAUD.
the abdication of the king and the appointment of the duchess
of Orleans as regent, of which I am the bearer to the people.
Assist me in inducing them to accept it.” Saying this, the
marshal held out a paper to Colonel Dumoulin; but the
republican Lagrange, more agile than Dumoulin, Snatched the
proclamation from the general's hand and disappeared with-
out communicating its purport to the people. That single
movement deprived the dynasty of Orleans at once of the
throne and of the regency. Before the name of a woman the
advancing republic might perhaps have paused.
Meanwhile, the king, who had promised M. de Girardin,
his son, and his ministers, who surrounded him with panic,
to abdicate the throne, had not yet formally executed that
abdication; he seemed to be waiting for another council more
in sympathy with his temporizing habit, and still to be par-
leying with necessity. One circumstance failed to favour
his delay, and to reseat him and his family on the throne.
Marshal Bugeaud, riding again across the Tuileries at a
rapid pace, returning from a fresh observation, threw himself
from his horse, and entered almost by force the cabinet of
the king, which was in the utmost disorder, filled with de-
funct ministers, and with those who were for the time in
office, congregated around the monarch. He made his way
through these groups, and approached the king.
Let us go back a single night, and see what part Marshal
Bugeaud had acted up to this time. The marshal, as we
have already seen, had held for a short time the general
command of the national guard and the troops. At two
o'clock in the morning he had been waited upon with the
intelligence of this appointment. Immediately he mounted his
horse, and rode to his staff at head-quarters, to arrange his
plan and give his orders. The staff officers' quarters were
empty. Generals, officers, and soldiers were all reposing from
the fatigues of the two preceding days, asleep in their cloaks,
on the Place du Louvre, or in the apartments, and on the
roofs of that immense building. The marshal had lost a
greaf deal of time before he could summon to him a few
generals and staff officers, and acquaint himself with the
number and position of the troops under his command. The
number of these troops, which was supposed to be at least
50,000 men, did not exceed an effective body of 35,000.
DISTRIBUTION OF THE FORCES. 79
Deducting the number of soldiers appointed to guard the forts
and barracks, and those who were not in active Service, from
whatever causes, not more than 25,000 fighting men of all
arms were found available;—a Sufficient corps against Scattered
and confused masses, not consolidated by any discipline, and
which melt away as fast as they form ; but troops already
worn out by forty-eight hours of standing in the mud, be-
numbed with cold, and exhausted with hunger, harassed by
doubt, uncertain where lay the right, ashained of deserting
the king, horrified at making war upon the people, and look-
ing for their guidance to the attitude of the national guard,
which itself vacillated between the two armies.
The marshal, with his intuitive military knowledge, ripened
by reflection, and confirmed by experience in the manage-
ment of troops, knew that inaction is the great bane of the
morale of armies; he had instantaneously changed the plan,
if plan it could be called, which had till then been followed.
He had summoned to him the two generals who commanded
these forces. The one was Tiburce Sabastiani, brother of the
marshal of that name, a cool and resolute officer; the other
was General Bedeau, who had obtained distinction in Africa,
and whose name was greatly respected by his companions in
arms at Paris. He had ordered them to form two columns of .
3,500 each, and to advance to the centre of Paris, the one b
the streets which skirt the boulevards and issue at the Hôtel
de Ville, the other by the streets which skirt the quays. Each
of these columns was furnished with artillery. The generals
were to carry all the barricades which they encountered in
their progress, to demolish these insurrectionary fortresses, to
sweep the multitude before them, and to concentrate on the
Hôtel de Ville the decisive position of the day. General
Lamoricière was to command the reserve of about 9,000 men
in the immediate vicinity of the palace. - -
The king and M. Thiers had already sent for and appointed
famoricière, as a man of distinction, young and ardent, and
impatient to signalize himself, before the arrival of the marshal
at head-quarters. This young general and Marshal Bugeaud
had had some serious disagreements in Africa, and the as-
Sociation of the chief and of the lieutenant might have oc-
casioned some collisions and dangers, had they not both sub-
ordinated their resentments to their devotion to the king. This
80 SYMPATHY BETWEEN THE MILITARY AND THE PEOPLE.
they had done with a soldierly cordiality which was worthy of
them both. The marshal, observing Lamoricière in the group
of officers under his command, had advanced to him, and, offer-
ing him his hand, had said, “I hope, my dear lieutenant, that
we have left our differences in Africa, and that here we have
only mutual esteem, and our common devotion of our duty as
soldiers.” Lamoricière, well qualified to understand such lan-
guage, was moved by it to tears. The tears of the soldier are
but the tears of courage. Moved to the heart, Lamoricière
had surrendered his whole being to the inspiration of the
marshal.
The two columns had set off at daybreak. Every moment
staff officers, disguised as civilians or as artisans, reported their
progress, and other intelligence, to the commander-in-chief.
These columns encountered no resistance till they arrived at
the approaches of the Hôtel de Ville; they made their way
through the crowd, which opened before them, with cries of
“The army for ever !” “Reform for ever!” Unresisted they
cleared away the commencements of barricades, which seemed
to vanish beneath their feet. Fresh armed but inoffensive
masses of the people presented themselves in their way at all
the great termini of the streets. With no pretext for fighting
them, the two generals did not dare to disperse them by the
bayonet or the cannon. The troops and the people having
been thus brought together, conversations took place, and false
intelligence was circulated. The peaceful instincts which stir in
the breasts of citizens of the same country, whose interests are
identical; the horror of useless bloodshed at the Hôtel de Ville,
when, perhaps, at the same moment a reconciliation had been
effected at the Tuileries by political negotiation, or by the
abdication of the king, paralyzed their orders in the hearts
of the generals, and the weapons in the hands of the soldiers.
The marshal, compelled by repeated commands from the
king, had sent orders to his lieutenants to return. General
Bedeau had made his battalions fall back; some of the soldiers,
it is said, reversed their muskets in the presence of the popu-
lace, as a token of fraternal disarmament. Their return thus
through Paris had the appearance of defection, or of the van-
guard of the revolution itself marching to the Tuileries. The
troops, already conquered by this one movement, had returned,
uninjured, indeed, but powerless, to resume their posts on the
MASSACRE OF THE MUNICIPAL GUARDS, 81
Place de la Concorde, in the Champs Elysées, and in the
Rue de Rivoli. The French army, when humbled, is an army
no longer. It now had in its heart the mortification of this
retreat, and there it still preserves it.
The marshal, reduced to inactivity by his duty to the king
and the ministers, had hoped to stem by his presence and his
orders the masses who were endeavouring to take possession of
the Carrousel. Twice, as we have seen, he had rode to their
front, and twice had been received with cries of “Long live
the conqueror of Isly,” and had succeeded in persuading them
to await the result of the deliberation of ministers. Once only,
when insulted with the name of the “butcher of the people”
in the Rue Transnomain, he had confronted the vociferator,
wiped away the insult, and shown that he had been no party
to the transactions of those ill-fated days, and thus had re-
gained his respect and popularity with the masses.
Lamoricière, on his part, had rushed single-handed and on
Horseback into the turbid waves of this same multitude, had
harangued them, and had returned vanquished, but still
honoured, from his attempts of pacification.
Amidst these scenes on the Carrousel, the insurgents,
finding the Boulevard and the Rue dela Madeleine unguarded,
had filled it up to the entrance of the Place de la Concorde,
burnt the guard-houses which skirt the Champs Elysées, fired
on the Sentries, and massacred the municipal guards, who were
obnoxious to the populace, as being the ordinary repressive
force of all the agitations and émewtes of Paris. These unfor-
tunate soldiers were dying beneath the weapons of their mur-
derers at the Sentries and in the hotel of the minister of
marine. Their cries of distress summoned defenders and pro-
tectors. Battalions and squadrons took up their position in the
immediate vicinity. Officers and soldiers begged for the word
of command to charge the murderers. The commanding officers,
fettered by their orders, hesitated to repulse these assailants, and
confined themselves to protecting the lives of the municipal
guards with their sabres. So afraid were the ministers to afford
by their resistance a pretext for the universal insurrection of
Paris. But this unavenged bloodshed by no means extin-
guished, but rather kindled, the conflagration, and at once
destroyed the impression both of victory and defeat.
It was now eleven o’clock, and reports were brought in
WOL. I. G.
82 BUGEAUA). OPPOSES THE ABDICATION.
rapid succession to the marshal that the king had revoked his
appointment, and that Marshal Gerard had succeeded to the
command. He had yielded with reluctance to these orders;
he had hastened to the king to represent to him the danger of
abdicating his post at the moment of defeat. While entering
the Tuileries he was met by the news of the king's abdication.
He had rushed, as we have seen, into the royal closet, and was
now at the side of the king.
His majesty was sitting at the table with a pen in his hand;
he was deliberately writing his abdication with a calligraphic
carefulness and symmetry, and in capital letters, which seemed
to carry on the very document the majesty of the royal hand.
The ministers of the last evening, of the night, and of to-day—
courtiers, officious advisers, princes, princesses, the children of
the royal family—filled the apartments with a disordered
throng, with conversation, with whispers, and with agitated
groups; their countenances wore the expression of that con-
sternation which precipitates measures, and breaks through the
dignity of character. It was one of those last critical hours
when hearts exhibit themselves naked to the gaze; when the
mask of rank, of title, and of dignity, falls from the counte-
nance, and exhibits man's nature in the undignified attitude of
fear. High above the hum of the apartment was heard the re-
verberation of the firing from the further extremity of the court
of the Louvre. The practised ear of the marshal distinctly
caught the whiz of a ball which penetrated the roof of the
palace. He did not communicate to those around him the
ominous meaning which that sound conveyed to himself. The
ancestral palace of kings might become a field of battle, and in
his view this was the time to fight, and not to capitulate.
“What, Sire,” said he to the king; “do they dare to recom-
mend your abdication in the very thick of a fight ! Do they
not know then that they are leading you to more than ruin—
to disgrace? Abdication amidst the calmness and the freedom
of deliberation is sometimes the safety of an empire and the
wisdom of a king; but abdication in the midst of firing looks
like weakness. And more than that,” added he, “that weak-
ness which your enemies would interpret as cowardice would
not avail you now. The battle is fairly commenced. There
is no means of announcing this abdication to the dense
masses that are rising, and whose attack cannot now be arrested
THE DUEE BE MONTPENSTER, URGES ABDICATION. 83
by any proclamation published from the head of your army.
Tet us first re-establish order, and then deliberate.” “Then,”
said the king, rising as he spoke, and convulsively grasping
the hands of the marshal, “you counsel me not to abdicate 2*
“Yes, Sire,” replied the brave soldier, with respectful earnest-
ness; “I take upon myself to advise you not to yield, at least
at this moment, to a course which can Save nothing, and which
may lose all.” -
The king exhibited a perfect radiance of joy at seeing his
own feelings shared and confirmed by the decided and martial
language of his general. “Marshal,” said he, with much
emotion, and almost in a suppliant tone, “pardon me, that I
have broken your Sword in your hands, by cancelling your ap-
pointment in favour of Gerard: but he is more popular than
you.” “Sire,” replied General Bugeaud, “so that it saves
your majesty, I am far from envying him your confidence.”
The king withdrew from the table, and seemed to renounce
all thought of abdication. The groups of counsellors around
him appeared thunderstruck. Some of these had advised it
from a consideration of their own Safety, some for the Safety
of royalty, some perhaps from a secret motive of ambition.
All saw in it at least one of those alternatives which oc-
casion a diversion at critical moments, and relieve the mind
from the pressure of continued uncertainty. The duke de
Montpensier, the king's son, who seemed influenced more
than all the rest by impatience for a settlement of the ques-
tion, came nearer to his father, plied him by entreaties and
by gestures, which were almost imperative, to resume his
seat and sign his abdication. Those gestures and that lan-
guage remained in the memory of all who were present, as one
of the most painful impressions of the scene. The queen alone,
amidst the confusion and amidst this predominance of timid
counsels, preserved that dignity, that calmness, and that.
resolution, that befitted her position as a wife, a mother, and
a queen. After having resisted with the marshal the pro-
posal of an immediate abdication, she yielded to the pres-
sure from without, she retired into the recess of a window,
when she gazed upon the king with indignation on her lips
and tears in her eyes.
The king left his abdication to his ministers, and rejoined the
queen in the recess. He was no longer king, but none else
G 2
84 FLIGHT OF TEIE ROYAL FAMILY,
had legal authority to assume the crown. Already the
people no longer advanced to a conflict with the king, but
with monarchy. In a word, the abdication came either too
soon or too late. Marshal Bugeaud again respectfully called
the attention of his majesty to this circumstance before taking
his departure. “I know it, marshal,” said the king, “but I
am unwilling that any more blood should flow for my sake.”
The king was a man of personal courage. This remark,
therefore, was not a pretext to cover his retreat or his
cowardice. This one expression ought to form the consolation
of exile, and to mitigate the verdict of history. What God
approves, men should not condemn.
The king took off his uniform, laid his sword upon the
table, put on a plain black coat, and gave his arm to the
queen, leaving the palace to the new régime. The silence of this
last moment was only interrupted by the stifled sobs of the
spectators. Without any striking prestige as a king, this
prince was beloved as a man; his long experience inspired
men's minds with confidence, while his attentive affability
attached to him the hearts of all. His old age, deserted for
the first time by fortune, excited commiseration. Political
Superstition stood aghast at the sight of this last fugitive
from the throne. It seemed as if with him the wisdom of the
empire was retiring. The queen, leaning upon his arm,
seemed proud to fall at her post with the husband and the
monarch who had been, and who remained without a throne,
and without a country on earth. The aged couple, insepara-
ble in prosperity and in exile, presented a more affecting
spectacle, with their whitened hair, than a couple of young
Sovereigns entering for the first time the palace of their
Sovereignty and their prospects. Hope and happiness are
attractive, but age and misfortune are majestic. The one
dazzles, the other melts. Even republicans would have dropped
a tear at the departure of this father and mother, driven from
the hearth where they thought to leave their children. The
spectators kissed their hands and touched their dress. Brave
Soldiers, who an hour afterwards were acting in the service of
the republic, such as Admiral Baudin and Lamoricière, be-
dewed the footsteps of the king with tears. The queen, it is
Said, while receiving these affectionate farewells, could not
restrain a reproach to M. Thiers, whose indirect opposition to
THE REGENCY LEFT UNIDECIDED, 85
the king had deeply wounded her womanly heart. “Oh I
Sir,” she said, “you did not deserve so good a king; his only
revenge is to retire before his enemies.” The ancient minister
of a dynasty, which he had in effect propped up and over-
thrown, respected the grief of a woman and a mother, stifled all
reply in his heart, and bowed in silence to this parting ad-
dress. Did these words leave in the minds of the bystanders
a remorse for a too personal opposition to the crown, or pity
for the short-sightedness of courts’ Their silence only knows.
At the moment of crossing the threshold of his cabinet, the
king, turning back to the duchess of Orleans, who had risen to
follow him, exclaimed, “Remain here, Helena.” The princess
threw herself at his feet, conjuring him to take her with him.
She forgot royalty, and thought only of the father of her hus-
band. She was no longer a princess, but she was a mother.
Her entreaties, however, were in vain.
M. Cremieux, an eloquent and an active member of the
opposition, had hastened to the palace to assist with his advice
at the last crisis, and to interpose between the crown and civil
war. On hearing these words, he rushed to the king, and
seizing his arm, said, in a tone which compelled a reply, “It
is perfectly understood, Sire, is it not, that the regency belongs
to the duchess of Orleans?” “No,” replied the king; “the
law gives the regency to my son, the duke de Nemours. It is
not my province to alter a law; it is for the nation to do in
this respect what may comport with its wish and its safety.”
So saying, he walked on, leaving a problem behind him.
One of the solicitudes of his reign had had reference to the
regency, which had been decreed to his son. He was humiliated
at the thought of leaving the government for a series of years
in the hands of a female, who was not a member of his family.
Perhaps, too, his far-sighted Sagacity suggested a fear that the
difference of religion which existed between the duchess and
the nation foreboded troubles to the state, and prejudices
against his grandson. The king, naturally of a meditative
cast of mind, had had more than twenty years of privacy, of
exile, and of reflection on the future. Prudence was his
genius, but it was also his defect. It may be said with
truth, that in three instances an excess of regal prudence had
been a principal cause of his fall: the fortifications of Paris,
which threatened liberty from a distance; the marriage of the
86 EVENTS OF THE FLIGHT.
duke de Montpensier in Spain, which was ominous of a war
of succession; and, lastly, the conferring of the regency on
the duke de Nemours, which deprived at that moment the
monarchical cause of that infallible prestige of popularity,
which arises from the innocence of a young lady and from
natural interest in a child.
The duchess on her knees before the king, remained for a
long time in that attitude. A messenger had been sent to
order one of the royal carriages, but the mob had already
burnt them on the Place du Carrousel, and the groom
who had gone to order one had been killed by a discharge
from the insurgents. It was necessary, therefore, to abandon
this mode of departure. The king left by the door of a sub-
terraneous passage, which leads from his apartments to the
garden of the Tuileries. He crossed on foot that same garden
which Louis the Sixteenth, Marie Antoinette, and their
children, had crossed on the morning of the 10th of August,
in their flight to the National Assembly,–that path to the
Scaffold, or to exile, which monarchs never retrace.
The queen comforted her husband with a few words, uttered
in a low tone. A group of faithful servants, of officers, of
women and children, followed in silence. Two little hack-
ney carriages, engaged without selection by an officer in dis-
guise, on the public stand in the street, drew up at the exit of
the Tuileries, at the bottom of the terrace. Here the nerves of
the queen, over-excited by the prolonged crisis she had suf-
fered, altogether failed her at the last moment; she gasped for
breath, tottered, and fell. The king was obliged to raise her
in his arms, and place her in the carriage, which he himself
immediately entered. The duchess de Nemours, the orna-
ment and beauty of the court, bathed in tears, entered the
second carriage with her children, seeking with a restless eye
for her husband, who was still engaged amidst the difficulties
and dangers of his duty. A squadron of cuirassiers sur-
rounded the two carriages, which set off at full speed along
the Quay de Passy. At the extremity of the Champs
Elysées a few shots were fired from a distance at the cortège,
and two horses of the escort were killed before the king's
eyes. They hastened forward in the direction of St. Cloud.
The duke de Nemours had remained with the duchess of
Orleans, more attentive to the condition of that princess and
COUNCIL OF THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANs. 87
of his nephews, who were intrusted to his care, than to his
own ambition. That unpopular prince showed himself de-
serving of popularity, if only for his disinterestedness and his
courage. The Carrousel and the courts were from this time un-
defended. The palace, if forcibly occupied, might be the tomb
of the duchess of Orleans and her children. From that
moment the duke de Nemours had upon himself the respon-
sibility of all these lives, and of the blood of the people.
Some members of the chamber accosted him under the portico
of the Clock Pavilion. They charged him to withdraw the
troops, and surrender the palace to the national guard. The
prince, convinced that the armed and victorious people in the
civil force could alone control the insurgent multitude, gave
the order accordingly. The troops withdrew in silence, and
defiled through the garden. The duke de Nemours remained
to the last, to secure the safe departure of the duchess of
Orleans.
Whilst the evacuation of the palace by the troops was
thus effected, a small number of officers and of counsellors,
Some devoted to the dynasty, Some to the person, and Some
only to the misfortunes of a lady, were in consultation around
the duchess of Orleans and her children. Among them was
General Gourgaud, a friend of the emperor, and the volun-
tary companion of his exile at St. Helena, a man habituated
to misfortune and fidelity; a son of Marshal Ney, M.
d'Elchingen, MM. de Montaguyon, Villaumez, and De
Bois Milon. The report of three cannons shook the win-
dows of the apartment. The duchess uttered a cry. It was
the artillery of the palace which was firing on the people as
they issued from the quay to the Carrousel. The princess
sent General Gourgaud to stop the firing, and the artillery-
men extinguished their matches in token of peace. General
Gourgaud returned, and M. Dupin followed him.
|M. Dupin, less a jurist than a legislator, for a long time
the president of the Chamber of Deputies, an eminent orator,
and the living embodiment of that spirit of resistance and of
constitutional liberty under the monarchy which had formerly
characterized such men as Harlay, Molé, and l'Hopital, a
democrat in manners and in dress, but a royalist in temper
and sentiment, had been, from the year 1815, the domestic
counsellor and the friend, by turns rough and affectionate, of
88 THE DUCHESS GOES TO THE CHAMBER,
the duke of Orleans, afterwards king. The austerity of his
style of conversation and the sharpness of his sarcasm had
concealed from the eyes of the country the obsequiousness of
his personal attachment to the royal family. He avenged
himself for his compliance to the king on the heads of the
ministers of the crown. His popularity, which was compro-
mised by the court, was regained by his independence in
parliament. Learned, eloquent, clever, the oracle of the
administration, inflexible in tone, pliant to revolutionary
movements, feared by the weak, respected by the strong, and
adequate to all occasions. M. Dupin was one of the great
authorities of public opinion. Whatever course he took,
multitudes followed in his steps. He presented himself at
that decisive moment when the revolution was in want of a
standard around which to rally. This he maturally found in
this lady and in this child. No hand was so fit as his to
bear it, and to attract to it the affections of the people.
The duchess saw him enter the apartment, the presage at
once of strength and of peace. “Well, Sir,” cried she,
“what are you come to tell me?” “I come to tell you,
Madam,” replied M. Dupin, in a saddened but hopeful tone,
“ that perhaps the part of a second Maria. Theresa is reserved
for you.” “Direct me, Sir,” replied the princess; “my life
belongs to France and to my children.” “Well, then,
Madam, let us depart; we have not a moment to lose. Let
us go to the Camber of Deputies.”
This, in fact, was the only course for the duchess to take.
The cause of the regency, already lost in the streets, might
be retrieved in the Chamber of Deputies, if that body, in
discredit among the people, by its courtliness of spirit,
had preserved sufficient ascendancy to arrest the fall of
monarchy. The presence of a woman, the grace and inno-
cence of a child, were more powerful attractions than any
speeches. Eloquence in action is pity. The bloody mantle
of Caesar, exhibited at the tribune, was less affecting than the
tears of a young and beautiful woman, presenting her orphan
child to the representatives of a chivalrous people.
The duke de Nemours, after having received the parting
benediction of his father, and protected his departure in
person, entered as the last battalion of the troops from the
Carrousel were defiling through the garden and along the
quay.
SACKING OF THE TUILERIES. 89
The duchess left the palace, leading her eldest son, the
count de Paris, by the hand, while her other child, the duke
de Chartres, was carried in the arms of an aide-de-camp.
The duke de Nemours, prepared for all sacrifices to save his
sister-in-law, and to secure the regal claims of his ward,
walked beside the princess. M. Dupin was conversing with
her on the other side. A few officers of the household fol-
lowed in silence. A valet-de-chambre, named Hubert, who
waited on the children, formed the entire escort of the
regency. This prospective royalty had only to traverse the
space between the royal gardens and the hall of representa-
tives before it was swallowed up, together with the throne.
Scarcely had the princess proceeded two-thirds through the
garden, when a column of republicans, who had been fighting
from the previous night, increasing in number as they ap-
proached, forced an entrance into the palace in spite of the
troops, filled its apartments, swept away every trace of royalty,
proclaimed the republic, tore away the drapery which served
as a canopy to the throne; and having taken the palace,
made but a short halt, and formed again, to march to the
Chamber of Deputies, on the heels of the regency party.
It was the column commanded by Captain Dunoyer, which
multiplied itself in the course of the day.
B O O K IV.
LET us retrace for a moment the rapid and varied course of
events, and relate what was simultaneously passing at the
Chamber of Deputies. Lamartine, a stranger to every species
of combination against the monarchy, had retired the night
before horrified at the bloodshed on the Boulevard, but firmly
convinced that the night which had interrupted the conflict,
and the day which would bring forth fresh concessions from
the king, would allay the insurrection. Without a party in the
chamber, without an accomplice in the street, and confined
by indisposition, he did not think of going forth from his re-
tirement. Of what consequence was his presence in the assem-
bly, merely to hear the names and the usual programme of
a new administration ? Events were passing above his sphere;
he, like the public, would hear of them with indifference or
90 LAMARTINE REPAIRS TO THE CHAMBER,
with pleasure, according as they might seem to serve or to pre-
judice the cause which he had disinterestedly at heart. Some
of his colleagues visited him at short intervals, to relate to
him the casualties of the two days. None of them foresaw
the final catastrophe of the dynasty; they confined themselves
to conjectures as to the names and the projects of the ministers,
whom a lengthened insurrection had obtruded on the king.
At half-past ten, however, one of his friends hastened
to announce to him that they were apprehensive the people
were about to attack the Chamber of Deputies. Lamar-
tine arose at this intelligence, not, however, imagining for
a moment that the 50,000 troops who were supposed to
be collected in Paris would be unable to prevent such a
measure. But the danger which might be anticipated for
his colleagues he felt it his duty to share. The popularity
which he enjoyed both within and without the chamber might
render his presence useful, and his interference might be the
preservation either of the citizens or the deputies. Political
questions seemed to him to be set aside for the time. He was
impelled by an instinctive sense of honour, and not by political
considerations. -
He considered that the crisis had arrived. “Yesterday,”
said he to himself, as he left his house, “was a 20th of June;
it certainly forebodes a 10th of August. A royalty disarmed,
and capitulating under firing, is a royalty no more. A 10th
of August is approaching, but is still distant.”
He proceeded alone, and on foot, to the Chamber of Depu-
ties. A lowering and gloomy sky, pierced occasionally by
a gleam of wintry sunshine, resembled the fortune of the
day. It was undecided and stormy. The streets were de-
serted. Some outposts of infantry standing in the mud, and of
horse soldiers wrapped in their white cloaks, with their bridle
on the drooping neck of their horses, occupied in small
groups the approaches to the chamber. They suffered him to
pass. As he crossed the open space before the hall of assem-
bly, he heard the sound of a carriage, and his attention was
arrested by cries of “Barrot and reform for ever !” A hack-
ney carriage, covered with mud, and drawn with difficulty by
two jaded horses, passed before him. He recognized on the
side of the coachman M. Pagnerre, president of the Paris
committee of opposition. Behind the carriage two or three
HE IS CALLED TO A COUNCIL OF REPUBLICANS. 91
well-dressed citizens were waving their hats and handker-
chiefs, and signifying by their gestures that tranquillity was
restored. A small group, chiefly composed of young persons
and children, followed the carriage with shouts of joy; in the
inside, the pallid and pensive countenance of M. Odillon
Barrot indicated the agitation of his thoughts and the sleep-
lessness of the past night. He was repairing courageously to
his post, to the ministerial office of the interior, not knowing
whether he was followed thither by the pacific or the in-
surrectionary designs of the multitude. He knew that the
king had fled, and that the palace had been taken, but he
advanced to his duty without looking behind him. Such an
hour redeems many moments of indecision. The heart of this
leader of opposition never shared the fluctuations of his
mind ; and the fluctuations of that mind were never, as it is
Said, aught but the scruples of his conscience.
Lamartine looked at him, pitied him from his heart, and
passed on. Under a portico of the Chamber of Deputies,
two cavalry officers, Sword in hand, with the animation
of rapid action in their countenance, and their uniforms be-
spattered with mud, had just met, and holding one another
by the hand, were talking in a loud voice. The one was
Perrot, the general of cavalry; the other unknown. “Well,
general,” said one of the officers to his colleague, “what
news in your quarter ?” “Nothing important,” answered
General Perrot ; “the crowds on the Place de la Concorde are
thinner, and waver before the least movement of my squa-
drons. As to the bridge, the best troops in Europe could not
carry it.” When the general said this, he was not aware of
the flight of the king, of the retreat of the troops from the
Carrousel, of the quiescence of the generals in command on
the other side of the river, and of the occupation of the
palace by the people. Events outstripped the hours.
Lamartine, assured of the safety of the chamber by these
words, which he caught in passing, crossed the court, and
entered the hall. Seven or eight persons were waiting for him
in the vestibule; they were for the most part journalists of the
opposition, and Some active men who had become conspicuous,
since 1830, by their maintenance of republican opinions
sympathetic with those of the National. M. de Tamar-
tine had never had any connection with that journal. The
92 COMPOSITION OF THE COUNCIL.
injustice of its editors towards him often assumed the cha-
racter of a dogged hostility. The National represented
Tamartine as an ambitious orator, coquetting with the oppo-
sition to borrow from it popularity, but prepared to surrender
that popularity to the court if he could get power in return
for it. More frequently he exalted the orator in order to
throw the politician into the shade, but never lost an oppor-
tunity of combining the disparagement of his political views
with his exaggerated panegyrics upon his talent, by way of
corrective. He affected to class the deputy with those poets
whom Plato expelled from the state. Lamartine, for his
part, defied the clamorous opposition of this journal. He
thought he could descry beneath this emphatic denunciation
against the throne some manoeuvres, and perhaps some evi-
dence of a secret understanding with the parliamentary
party of M. Thiers. He was doubtless mistaken ; but an
opposition, composed of such alliances, seemed to him equally
fatal to a constitutional monarchy and to a republic. He loved
to have questions openly and clearly put. To the ambiguity
of parliamentary coalitions he was as repugnant when evinc-
ing itself in the public press as in the chamber.
*
As to the writers in the Réforme, Lamartine only knew them
by the misrepresentations and burlesques which that journal,
more frank in its tone, but extreme and bitter in its opinions,
made of his speeches. He had only five or six opportunities
of meeting M. Ledru Rollin, his colleague in the chamber, and
the political genius of that journal; while, apart from poli-
tics, his position had never brought him into any proximity
with the spirit of the Réforme, and he had refused to take
part in the banquets of Dijon and Châlons, presided over
by M. Ledru Rollin and M. Flocom. He had pointedly con-
demned in the journal of the department he represented, the
inauspicious symbols, the long-forgotten terms, and the
violent language revived at these banquets. All that he had
praised in the party of the Réforme was its openness of
opposition, and its talent; with its doctrine he had broken
long ago.
The groups of republicans who surrounded Lamartine on
his entrance into the passages of the chamber requested a
private and urgent interview with him in a remote apartment
of that palace. M. de Lamartime led them thither, and the
º
SCRUPLES OF THE REPUBLICANS. 93.
doors were closed. The greater part of these men were only
known to him personally; one of them opened the conference
in the name of the rest. “Time presses,” said he, “and
events are suspended in uncertainty. We are republicans;
our convictions, our thoughts, our lives, are devoted to the
republic. This is not the time to disavow it, when our friends
have been for three days shedding their blood in defence of
a cause endeared in common to the people and to ourselves.
It will ever be the soul of our souls, the Supreme object of our
hopes, the determined tendency of all our acts and writings.
In short, we will never desert it ; but we are prepared to
suspend and to postpone it to interests which are in our view
superior to republicanism itself—the interest of our country.
Is France ripe for this form of government? Would she accept
it without resistance, or would she bend to it without violence?
In a word, is there not more danger perhaps in launching it
to-morrow in all the entireness of its institutions, than in
keeping it on the threshold, exhibiting it from a distance,
and thus causing it to be more ardently longed for ? Such is
the state of our minds, and such our scruples; let us resolve
them ; we do not know you, and we do not flatter you, but
we esteem you. The people shows its confidence in you by
invoking your name. In our view you are the man for the
crisis; what you say shall be said, and what you will shall be
done. The reign of Louis Philippe is at an end; between
him and us no reconciliation can possibly take place. But
might not a temporary continuance of royalty in the name
of a child, in the feeble hand of a woman, and under the
direction of a popular minister as the proxy of the people and
dear to republicans—might not this put an end to the crisis
and initiate the nation into a republic with only the empty
name of monarchy Ž Will you be the minister, the guardian
alike of expiring royalty and of nascent liberty, by assuming
the guidance of this lady, this child, and this nation ? The
republican party offers itself to you by our accredited voices.
We are ready to bind ourselves by a formal engagement to
carry you to power by the henceforth invincible hand of the
revolution, which is thundering at these doors, and to sustain
and perpetuate you in it by our votes, our journals, our secret
societies, and the disciplined force we can control in the mass
of the people. Your cause shall be ours. As the minister of a
94 LAMARTINE DECLARES FOR A REPUBLIC.
regency for France and for Europe, you shall be the ap-
proved minister of a virtual republic.”
The animated and earnest orator ceased; his colleagues as-
sented by their silence and their gestures to his language.
Lamartine requested of them a moment's time for reflection,
that he might weigh in his mind a decision and responsibility
So terrible. He rested his elbows on the table, and hid his
face in his hands. He mentally invoked the inspirations of
that Being who alone never deceives. He spent five or six
minutes in almost breathless thought. The republicans were
standing opposite to him and grouped around the table. At
length Lamartine removed his hands, raised his head, and
thus addressed them:-“Gentlemen, our situation, our pre-
vious positions, are very different; and the parts assigned to
us here are strangely new to us. You are the long-standing
advocates of republicanism at all hazards. For my own part, I
am not a republican of that class, and yet at this moment I
am about to show myself more a republican than you. Let
us understandone another. Like yourselves, I regard republican
government, that is to say, the government of nations by their
own reason and their own will, as the sole end and object of
civilized Societies, as the sole instrument for the introduction
of those great general principles which a people would en-
shrine in its laws. Other governments are the guardians and
the expression of the minority of the people ;-imperfections
in the eyes of philosophy, humiliations in the view of history.
But I have no intolerance of the man who would fain outstrip
the progress of ideas, nor any bigoted preference for this or
that form of government. All that I wish is, that these
forms should be progressive, and that they should keep ever
neither in advance nor in arrear of the foremost rank of the
people, but at the exact level of the ideas and the instincts of
the age. I am not therefore an absolute republican like you,
but I am a politician; and it is in that character that I think
I ought to refuse at this time the flattering proposal which
you make me to procrastinate the republic if it should burst
into existence the next hour. It is as a politician that I de-
clare to you that I neither conspire nor overturn, that I do
not desire the overthrow of royalty; but that if royalty falls
of itself, I will not attempt to raise it; and that I will give my
adhesion to none but a complete movement; that is, to a.
republic.”
LAMARTINE’s ADDRESS. 95
There was a moment of silence. Astonishment—a kind of
stupefaction mingled with doubt—was expressed in the coun-
tenances of all. Lamartine resumed. -
“And I will tell you why. At great crises Society stands
in need of great powers. If the government of the king
falls this day, we are about to enter on one of the greatest
crises that ever a people had to pass through before it could
adopt another definitive form of government. A reign of
eighteen years by a single individual, in the name of a single
class of citizens, has accumulated a mass of revolutionary
ideas and of uncontrollable impatience, of rancours and resent-
ments in the nation, which will make such demands of the
new reign as it would be impossible to satisfy. The unde-
fined reform which is at this day achieving its victory in the
streets will not be able to assume a definite form without
instantly throwing into an aggressive attitude all those
classes of the people who will be excluded from the posses—
sion of power. Republicans, Legitimists, Socialists, Com-
munists, Terrorists, though contemplating different objects,
will combine their resentments to upset the feeble barrier
which a temporizing government would in vain attempt to
oppose to them. The hatred felt by the people against the
court is shared by the Chamber of Peers. The Chamber of
Deputies has lost all moral influence, through the combined
action of corruption which disgraces it, and of the public
press which makes it unpopular. The elective body are but
an imperceptible oligarchy in the state. The army is thrown
into disorder, and shrinks from committing a particide by
turning their arms against their fellow-citizens. The national
guard, an independent force, has sided with the opposition.
The old respect for the king is eradicated from every heart by
his obstinacy and by his fall. With what force then will
you encompass to-morrow that throne which will be raised
for a child to be seated on it 2 Is it reform 2 That is but
the curtain which conceals the republic. Is it universal
suffrage 2 That is an enigma, and contains a mystery. With
one word and with one gesture it will annihilate that remnant
of monarchy, that phantom of opposition, those shadows of
ministers who may think to rule it. Its second word may
be monarchy or empire. ‘REPUBLIC’ will be its first. All
you would have done would be to prepare a royal prey for
it to devour. Who can support the regency 2 Will it be the
96 LAMARTINE’s ADDRESS.
great proprietary body? That is cordially attached to Henry
the Fifth. For it the regency will be but a field of battle on
which to win legitimacy. Will it be the middling proprietary
classes? They are selfish and devoted to business. A stormy
minority, a reign of perpetual sedition, would be the ruin of
their interests and would cause them to demand the instant
establishment of a definite form of government. Lastly, will
it be the people—the popular class 2 That again is in arms
and everywhere triumphant. For fifteen years past it has
been impregnated with doctrines, which will seize the oppor-
tunity of pushing their victory over royalty, to the destruc-
tion of the whole social system.
“The regency will be the fronde of the people, containing
popular communist and socialist elements in combination.
Society, defended only by a government of scanty numbers,
under a form of royalty which will be neither monarchy nor
republic, will be overthrown to its very foundations without
the possibility of defence. The people, tranquillized perhaps
this evening by the proclamation of a regency, will return
to-morrow to the assault to snatch a fresh concession. Each
of these irresistible demonstrations, by a kind of half-conces-
sion, will carry off from the ruling power another and another
of its last shreds. To these the people will be led on by repub-
licans more implacable than you. You will only have
left enough of the throne to irritate the sentiments of liberty,
and not enough to restrain them. That throne will be the
perpetual mark of the oppositions, the Seditions, the assaults
of the multitude. You will advance from the 20th of June to
the 10th of August, and thence to the ill-starred days of Sep-
tember. To-day their demand of this feeble power will be the
scaffold at home; to-morrow they will insist upon war abroad,
and every demand, if not conceded, will be enforced by violence.
You will entice the people to blood. Woe and shame to the revo-
lution if once they taste it! You will fall into the horrors, the
fanaticism, and the socialism of 1793. A civil war, with want
on one side and property on the other, that nightmare of Uto-
pians, will be the momentary reality of our country. In your
attempt to check the descent of a woman and a child down the
declivity of a pacific dethronement, you will plunge France,
property, and family ties into a common gulf of anarchy and
bloodshed.”
. The countenances of the listeners betrayed their emotion,
LAMARTINE’s ADDRESS. 97
and Lamartine continued, “For my own part, I see too clearly
the series of catastrophes which I should be preparing for my
country to attempt to arrest, the avalanche of such a revolu-
tion on an incline, on which no dynastic power can re-
tain it without adding to its mass, its momentum, and the
crash of its fall. There is, I repeat to you, but one force
capable of preserving the people from the dangers into which
they must be plunged by a revolution, marked by such social
conditions as ours; it is the force of the people itself; it is
complete liberty; it is the Suffrage and the will, the reason
and the interests, the hands and the arms of all ; in a word,
it is the republic.
“Yes,” continued he, with a tone of deep conviction,
“it is the republic alone, which can save you this day
from anarchy, from civil and foreign war, from spoliation
and from the scaffold; from the decimation of property, from
the overthrow of society, and from foreign invasion. The
remedy is heroic, I am aware, but at Such critical junctures of
time and opinion, there is no effectual political course, but
one which equals the greatness, and the boldness of the crisis
itself. By giving to the people the republic to-morrow,
by that name you disarm them of the cry which now agi-
tates them; nay, you instantly change their anger into joy,
their fury into enthusiasm. All that have the republican sen-
timent in their heart, all that have the image of the republic
in their fancy, all in France that regrets and aspires, all that
reasons and that dreams; the republicans of Secret societies,
fighting republicans, speculative republicans, the people and
their tribunes; the youth, the Schools, and the journalists,
men of action and men of thought, utter but one cry, assem-
ble around their standard, arm themselves for its defence,
rally at first confusedly, but afterwards in order, to protect
the government of all, and to preserve behind that govern-
ment the social system itself. A sovereign power, which may
have its agitations, but never a dethronement or a fall; for
that government rests on the very foundation of the nation
itself, it makes an individual appeal to all; it alone can pre-
serve and guide itself; it alone can, by the voice and by the
hand of all, furnish the reason, the will, the suffrage, and the
arms required to Save, not only the nation from slavery,
but the social and the family compact, property and morals,
- H

93 LAMARTINE’s ADDRESS.
threatened alike by the deluge of opinion, that is Seething be-
neath the foundations of the falling throne. If anarchy can
be subdued, rest assured it is by a republic. If communism
can be vanquished, it is by a republic. If the revolution can
be moderated, it is by a republic. If bloodshed can be
spared, it is by a republic. If universal war—if the invasion
which it would perhaps bring upon us as the reaction of
Europe, can be warded off, again rest assured it is by a
republic. This is why, in obedience to my reason and to my
conscience, as a statesman, in God's presence and in yours,
without deception, and without famaticism, if the hour in
which we are deliberating is big with a revolution, I will not
conspire for a half-revolution. I conspire for none; but if there
must be one, I will accept it entire; I decide for a republic
“But,” added he, rising from his seat, “I still hope that God
will spare my country this crisis. While I acquiesce in revo-
lutions, I will not bring them about. He who would take
upon himself the responsibility of a people, must be either a
villain, an idiot, or a god.”
“Lamartine is right,” cried one of the group; “more im-
partial than we, he still has a more earnest faith in our princi-
ples than we have ourselves.” “We are convinced,” was the
universal cry. “Let us now separate; and do you,” said they,
addressing Lamartine, “take the course which circumstances
shall suggest to you as the best.”
While this was passing in one of the private offices of the
chamber, a similar Scene was occurring in a neighbouring one.
A young man, possessed, notwithstanding his youth, of a
great influence amongst the oldest republicans, M. Emanuel
Arago, son of the illustrious citizen who had founded the
name, was endeavouring to draw M. Odilon Barrot to the side
of the republic.
M. Emanuel Arago having left the office of the Wational,
where he had harangued the people from a window a few
moments before, had drawn away with him by his name and by
his voice crowds of combatants from the Place de la Concorde.
Having been stopped at the top of the Rue Royale by the
bodies of troops who were stationed at that position, he had
asked to speak with General Bedeau. The general rode up
to him, and suffered him to pass as a representative of the
people, who was going to present to the chamber informa-
tion and advice calculated to put a stop to the conflict.
APPEARANCE OF THE CHAMBER, 99
M. Emanuel Arago was in conversation with a few deputies of
every shade of party in this apartment, when M. Odilon
Barrot entered it, invited by his friends. Arago and his
associates, the editors of the Réforme journal, could not draw
away M. Odilon Barrot. His opinion might be fluctuating, but
his duty was fixed. He was a minister. Concessions from him .
would have been treacheries. He resisted with firmness and
with eloquence, inspired by decision of character. There are
Some men who turn round and assume more gigantic dimen-
sions on the edge of the abyss. Such a man was Barrot ; his
despair was heroic, and his accents worthy of antiquity.
Lamartime, on leaving the republicans who had lately Sūr-
rounded him, returned to the chamber.
The galleries were full and gloomy; the benches of the floor
were occupied by but few deputies. Pale and downcast counte-
nances indicated the sleeplessness of the previous night, and
the forebodings of the day. The deputies, incessantly driven
from their seats by the agitation which was passing within
their minds, conversed in an under tone, and directed Search-
ing glances at the members of opposite parties. They sought
to read the fate of the day in the countenances of the mem-
bers of the opposition. Some went for information to the
passages, others ascended to the top of the portico, to ob-
serve from a higher point of view the unintelligible move-
ments of the people, and the troops on the Place de la
Concorde. Every minute the reverberation of distant cannon-
ading made the windows on the dome tremble, and the women
in the galleries turn pale. Lamartine was sitting alone on his
deserted bench. He exchanged not a word with any of his
colleagues during that two hours' session. His fears, like his
hopes, found no expression, or rather, he knew not himself
which predominated in his mind. Revolutions are sphinxes
whose oracle none ask Save with terror. }
M. Thiers appeared for a moment in that part of the hall
above the enclosed space, with his head uncovered, and his
expression of countenance confounded by the strange scenes
in which he had just been either an actor or a spectator on the
flight of the king. The deputies favourable to the monarchy
crowded around him, and overwhelmed him with inquiries. He
bent as if under the weight of destiny, then recovering his
position, and raising his hat in his right hand above his head,
with the gesture of a pilot in the jaws of destruction, cried out,
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100 THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS ANNOUNCED,
“The tide is rising, is rising !” and instantly disappeared in
the crowd. This expression struck all who heard it with con-
sternation. It was the utterance of the resignation of despair.
The chair of the president was empty, as if the thinking faculty
of the chamber were manifestly absent from this phantom show
of deliberation.
At length, the president, M. Sauzet, the favourite of the
assembly and of the king, took his seat in it. M. Sauzet be-
trayed in his countenance the presentiment of the events of the
meeting, and the sadness which was suited to the funeral obse-
quies of the dynasty. Not a single minister occupied the go-
vernment benches. Everything told of the interregnum. The
eyes of the chamber seemed in quest of a man to inquire of, or
of an emblem of power around which to rally. Silence reigned.
A young deputy, M. Lafitte, a name fatal to thrones, ascended
the tribune ; he addressed himself to all parties, especially to
the opposition, generous because triumphant, and proposed that
the chamber, occupied entirely with the public safety, should
declare itself in permanent session. That symptom showed
the extremity of the crisis. The chamber unanimously
adopted the motion, but the royalist deputies confined them-
Selves to this proposal. No energetic measure was originated
from their ranks, and an hour was lost in fruitless expectation.
Meanwhile, an officer in uniform suddenly entered the cham-
ber, ascended the stairs of the tribune, and whispered into the
ear of the president. M. Sauzet rose and called for silence;
he announced, with a firm voice, but with much emotion, that
the duchess of Orleans and her children were about to enter
the house. The announcement of the arrival of the princess
created agitation without surprise. Every one foresaw the
abdication, and awaited the proclamation of the regency. The
flight of the king was unknown, but it seemed natural that the
princess, the mother of the young king, should come to present.
her son through the Chamber of Deputies to the adoption of
the country. The attendants placed two seats and a chair of
state at the foot of the tribune, facing the assembly. A re-
spectful silence reigned through all the benches; the deputies
came down from the higher parts of the chamber, to be nearer
the scene. The spectators in the gallery leaned over, with
their eyes directed towards the doors. The universal aspect
and air was inspired by the dignity of the place, and the
anxious nature of the spectacle. w
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THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS ENTERS THE CHAMBER. 101
The large door which is situated opposite to the tribune, on
a level with the most elevated benches of the chamber, opened,
and a lady, the duchess of Orleans, made her appearance. She
was dressed in mourning. Her veil half-raised on her bonnet
gave a view of her countenance, on which was imprinted an
emotion and a sadness which enhanced its youthful beauty.
Her pale cheeks bore the traces of a widow's tears and a
mother's solicitude. It is impossible that the glances of a
man could have rested on those features without emotion.
All feeling against the monarchy vanished from the mind.
The blue eyes of the princess wandered through the expanse,
with which they seemed for a moment dazzled, as if appeal-
ing to the looks of all for aid. Her frail and slender figure
bent to the thunders of applause with which she was received.
A slight blush, the gleam of hope in her fall, and of joy in
her mourning, tinged her cheeks. Her Smile of gratitude
beamed through her tears. She evidently felt herself Sur-
rounded by friends. In her right hand she held the young
king, who had fallen upon the steps, and with her left hand
the other child, the little duke de Chartres — children to
whom their catastrophe was a mere sight. They were both
dressed in a short tunic of black cloth; a white open collar
fell from their neck upon their shoulders—living portraits
of Vandyke, which seemed to have stepped forth from the
picture of the children of Charles I. The duke de Nemours
walks by the side of the duchess of Orleans, faithful to
the memory of his brother perpetuated in his nephews;–a
protector who must presently need protection for himself.
The countenance of the prince, ennobled by misfortune,
breathes the intrepid but modest satisfaction of having per-
formed a duty at the sacrifice of his ambition and the risk of
his life. A few generals in uniform, and officers of the
national guard, formed the train of the princess. She salutes
the assembly with a graceful timidity, and seats herself
motionless between her two children, at the foot of the
tribune;—an innocent culprit before a tribunal without appeal,
who is about to hear the cause of royalty pleaded. At that
moment that cause was gained in the eyes and in the hearts
of all. Nature must ever triumph over politics in an
assembly of men moved by the three most powerful influences
which woman can exert over the human heart, youth, mater-
nity, and pity. All seemed to be expecting an address; but
102 ADDRESS OF MI. DUPIN.
the tribune of the speakers was empty. Who could dare
to speak in the face of such a spectacle 3 The scene was
left to speak for itself, and every one wrapped himself up in
his own emotion. *
|Meanwhile the time was pressing. The revolution must
be forestalled by a vote, or all such measures would come too
late. A deputy well known for his independence and fear-
lessness, M. Lacrosse, rose, generous and frank, like the men
of Bretagne; falsely distrustful of his own influence. He re-
quested, with the manifest design to call forth the eloquence
of one of the masters of the tribune, that M. Dupin should
occupy the attention of the chamber.
This proposal originated in good feeling, but was wanting in
tact. A movement of displeasure pervaded the assembly, and
raised a whisper, which increased almost to a murmur. M.
Dupin passed for the personal and confidential friend of the
king, and the most influential member of his private councils.
He seemed at such a moment less the orator of the nation than
as the accredited interpreter of the wishes of the court. “The
king is the speaker,” was exclaimed in a low voice. Distrust
arms men beforehand against persuasion, and natural pride
hardens them to the detection and avoidance of a snare. It was
a drama concocted in the night at the Tuileries. Its plot was
perceived, and it failed of its effect. A heartfelt expression,
or a military gesture from M. Lacrosse, would have carried
away the assembly, while a pompous oration would freeze it.
All depended on the time, and this was not the time for M.
Dupin. It was the hour of a half-formed but contagious
sentiment, and that sentiment Lacrosse had in his heart.
M. Dupin felt it also, and was as if instinctively inclined to
silence. “I have not asked to speak,” said he with surprise;
but the impatient assembly pointed to the tribune, and he
ascended it.
“Gentlemen,” said he, with a tone in which the monarchy
itself seemed to be trembling, “you know the situation of the
metropolis, and the demonstrations which have taken place.
They have resulted in the abdication of his majesty, Louis
Philippe, who has declared that he laid down power, and
that he left it to descend unfettered to the count de Paris,
under the regency of the duchess of Orleans.”
The friends of the dynasty instantly applauded, as if to
grasp, at the first moment of surprise, the regency, which
IRRUPTION OF THE POPULACE, 103
further discussion was likely to annul. They affected to
accept the demonstration of respectful affection which saluted
a child and a lady with the names of regent and king, as a
pledge that the new monarchy was already inaugurated.
M. Dupin wished to register these cries at the tribune, as
if to render them irrevocable. “Gentlemen,” said he, “these
acclamations, so acceptable to the new king and the regent,
are not the first which have saluted her; she has crossed the
Tuileries and the Place de la Concorde on foot, escorted by
the people and the national guard, who expressed the same
desire. As it is the first wish of her heart, only to conduct
the administration with the deep recognition of the public
welfare, of the national wish, and of the glory and prosperity
of France, I propose that these acclamations of yours be
reduced to a verbal form.” These words met with a far
more scanty response. Enthusiasm, like the lightning, is but
a flash ; we raise our eyes, and it is gone.
M. Sauzet attempted to rekindle it. “Gentlemen,” said
he, “it appears to me that the chamber, by its unanimous
acclamations”—That sentence was never finished; an unusual
clamour burst forth at the left hand door, at the foot of the
tribune ; an unknown multitude, composed of armed national
guards, and of the populace in working dresses, burst open
the door, elbowed the ushers, who were gathered at the foot
of the tribune, forced their way to the hemicycle, and called
in hoarse voices upon the duke de Nemours.
A few deputies threw themselves in front of the invaders,
to protect the princess by the interposition of their persons.
M. Mauguin, calm and erect, repulsed them with his ges-
ture and his chest. General Oudinot addressed them with
Soldierly sternness, and then crossed before them to the court,
to call in the assistance of the national guard. He urged the
inviolability of the assembly, the respect due to a princess
and to a woman before French bayonets. The national
guards listened to him, and affected to sympathize in his
indignation, but slowly resumed their arms, and ended by
temporizing with the event. -
Oudinot, indignant, returned to the hall. His indecisive
views as a Senator, towards the dynasty, were now confined
to his own breast. As a man and a soldier, he sprung up
to defend a woman from insult.
The sitting which had been interrupted by this invasion of
104 SPEECH OF GENERAL OU DIN OT.
the people is resumed. The deputies protested against the
insinuation of the president, who had affected to interpret the
cheers of certain individuals as a vote of the whole body.
They hastened to the bottom of the two flights of steps which
lead to the tribune, to enter that protest. M. Marie, an
imposing and dignified speaker, whose opposition was stern
but moderate, succeeds in ascending the tribune; but others
strove to share with him both the room that he occupied and
the attention of the assembly. He crossed his arms upon his
chest, and showed that he should abide by his right.
The esteem which attached to his character aggravated the
effect of his address. His lofty stature, his small, but expres–
sive features, gave to his appearance a dramatic character,
which suggested the idea of the classic bust. He surveyed
the storm without yielding to it, but without Subduing it.
Lamartine felt that discussion would be necessarily fet-
tered, if the regency was to be debated in the presence of the
regent and her children. He was anxious at once to pre-
serve the tone of the assembly from the oppressive influence
of a mere sentimental feeling, and the duchess herself from
the profanation of her affliction. He rose from his seat and
exclaimed, “I request of the president to suspend this sit-
ting, from the twofold motive of the respect due to the
national representation, and from that which is due to the
august princess who is now before us.”
The president acquiesced in this advice, calculated at
once to reflect dignity on the decisions of the assembly,
and to pay a becoming homage to rank, sex, and misfortune.
The duchess of Orleans hesitated to withdraw ; she seemed
to have a presentiment that her presence was the only
remaining guarantee for the re-establishment of royalty.
General Oudinot sprung to the tribune in order to delay the
departure of the princess, or to honour her with a parting
Salutation. “All our generous Sentiments are appealed to,”
said the brave Soldier. “The princess, we are told, has
crossed the Tuileries and Place de la Concorde on foot with
her children, in the midst of public acclamations. If she is
desirous of withdrawing, let the doors be opened before her,
and let her be surrounded with our expressions of homage, as
she was just now attended with the respectful demonstrations
of the metropolis.” As no responsive demonstration was
made to prevent the departure of the princess, notwith-
SPEECH OF M. MARIE. 105
standing the dexterous allusions of the speaker to the attach-
ment of the people, he continued, “Let us accompany her
whithersoever she would wish to retire.” The princess had
only to say, I wish to retire to the Tuileries, and the entire
chamber and the populace, moved by the sight, would
have borne her to it on the same tide which had just carried
her thence. Oudinot seemed to expect this reply; his sword
would doubtless have protected the widow and her children,
but she had not the resolution to interfere. “If,” continued,
he, “she wishes to remain in this chamber, let her do so.
And,” added he, in a tone which seemed to mail the princess
to her seat, “she will do well, for here our devotion will pro-
tect her.”
But as the tumult thickened at the two doors, and at the
foot of the tribune, the duchess was respectfully led away by
the officers in attendance on her, by the duke de Nemours,
and by the members of the centre; left her seat, walked up
the steps by which she had lately descended, and sat down
on one of the back benches facing the tribune. A group of
deputies stood around her for her protection. Increasing
murmurs from without filled the chamber, and M. Marie
disregarded the presence of the august protégée of the
Senate.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “in the situation in which Paris is,
you must not lose an hour in taking those measures which
are calculated to influence the population. Since the morning
the evil has made rapid strides; what course then must we
take 2 The regency of the duchess of Orleans has just been
proclaimed; but a bill has been passed which appointed the
duke de Nemours as regent. You have not this day the
power to constitute a regency, you must obey the law. Still
deliberation is necessary; and first, an effective government
is required at the head alike of the metropolis and of the
empire. I move that we establish a provisional govern-
ment.”
Not a murmur replied to these decisive words; all idea of
monarchy and regency vanished from the minds of all. The
supporters of the regency of the king's eldest son, now
thrown into consternation, felt how great a mistake they
had made in violating that law of nature which nominated
the duchess of Orleans. But for that, there would not
have been an hiatus to fill up by a new law, a constitution to
106 SPEECH OF M. CR£MIEUX.
be violated, a necessary interval for the repeal of the one
measure and the passing the other, and a monarchy and a
Tegency to be engulfed together.
“When this government shall have been appointed,” con-
tinued M. Marie, “it will consult with the chambers, and
have authority throughout the country. That course adopted,
Paris must be instantly acquainted with it; it is the only
means of re-establishing tranquillity. At such a moment as
this we must not lose our time in fruitless discussion. I de-
mand that a provisional government be forthwith constructed.”
The tribunes applauded, and no opponent arose. The
duchess of Orleans grew paler; and the duke de Nemours
took notes with his pencil, as if he were preparing to make a
noble renunciation of his claims.
A popular orator, M. Crémieux, who had just attended the
king to his carriage, affected by the imminence of the crisis,
and the pathos of the spectacle, slipped into the hand of the
princess a few words adapted to flatter the nation, and to
effect the restoration of the supreme government by the hands
of the people themselves, to the widow of the duke of Orleans.
If this was a crime, pity was the essence of that crime. Who
would not have committed it, had he then been standing by
the side of that defenceless woman?
M. Crémieux, nevertheless, ascended the tribune imme-
diately after M. Marie. “In 1830,” said he, “we were too
hasty, and now, in 1848, we are obliged to make a fresh
beginning. Let us not now be hasty; let us proceedin a more
orderly, legal, and decisive manner. The provisional go-
vernment that you will appoint will not only be charged with
the maintenance of order, but with the introduction of mea-
sures which may protect every class of the population; in
fact, of what was promised in 1830, and has not been performed.
For myself, I declare to you I have the profoundest respect for
the duchess of Orleans. It has been my melancholy honour
just now to attend the royal family to the carriages which
have borne them from the capital. In this duty I have not
been wanting; but now the population and the national guard
have declared their opinion,-the proclamation of the regency
which has just been proposed to you would violate a law
which we have already passed. Let us appoint a provisional
government.” (Loud and general cries of “Bravo!”) “Let it
be just, firm, and vigorous, and possessed of the confidence of
SPEECH OF ODILON BARROT. 107
the nation to which it must appeal. We have this day ob-
tained what the revolution of July ought to have given us.
Let us profit by events; let us not bequeath to our children the
necessity of repeating this revolution. I move the appointment
of a provisional government to be composed of five members.”
Whilst almost the whole assembly was adopting this pro-
posal, either by its cheering or by its silent acquiescence,
the young king, sitting on the lap of his mother, gazed
with an astonished air at this tumultuous movement in
the assembly, and applauded with his little hands the reso-
lution which dethroned him. The duchess of Orleans crumpled
up in her hand the paper containing the words which had
been written down by M. Crémieux. She showed them to
M. Dupin, who seemed to approve of them. w
M. Odilon Barrot entered, and with a slow and measured
pace ascended the steps of the tribune, which he had so often
mounted and descended amidst the cheers of the opposition.
His countenance was pale; his eyelids wrinkled with disquiet,
and his eye more hollow and anxious than ever. His brow
seemed overshadowed with the clouds of the future. He was
gazed at with respect; every one perceived through his face
what was passing in his heart. Doubts might be entertained
as to his decision of character, but none doubted his con- .
Scientiousness. Disinterested patriotism was his religion; the
love of popularity his only weakness. He had oscillated all
his life between republicanism and monarchy; ever found on
the side of the people, yet ever clinging to the throne. He
Was now to make his choice, and this hour at once examined
and summed up his life. With pitiless sternness it demanded
that decisive answer which in 1830 it demanded of Lafayette
at the Hôtel de Ville. M. Barrot was now the Lafayette of
the speakers. The monarchy and the republic were sus-
pended on his lips. *
“Never,” said he, “ did we stand more in need of calm,
collected wisdom. Oh, that you may all be united in one and
the same resolution, to save the country from the most hor-
rible of all scourges, civil war! Nations never die; but
they may sink into feebleness through intestine divisions; and
never has France so much needed all her greatness and all
her strength. Our duty is clearly marked out. It is hap-
pily so simple as to impress unanimity in a nation. It
appeals to its deepest and most generous impulses, – its
{08 SPEECEI OF ODILON BART.O.T.
courage and its honour. The crown of July rests upon the
brows of a woman and a child.”
The centre of the chamber, where the adherents of
the reigning family were seated, hailed these expressions
with the most enthusiastic applause. They seemed to see
destiny itself inclining to the side towards which leaned the
popularity of Barrot. The duchess herself, with a happy
instinct of gratitude, rose at this instant, and curtsied to
the tribune. Every gesture of hers gave an impulse of
curiosity and affectionate interest to the attitudes and coun-
tenances of all.
She resumes her seat; the little king rises from a signal
from the princess, and bows to those who had applauded his
mother. The duke de Nemours whispers in the ear of the
duchess. She rises again with a more marked expression of
timidity; she holds a paper in her hand; with much agita-
tion she presents it to the president. A feminine, clear,
vibrating voice, yet rendered tremulous by emotion, issues
from the centre of the group by which she was surrounded,
and seemed to strike a chill through the assembly, which it
distinctly pervaded. It was the request of the duchess to
address the representatives of the nation. Who could have
resisted that voice 7 Who would not have felt the tears by
which it would have been interrupted drop on his own heart?
There must have been an end of the debate. The president
sees not this gesture, hears not that voice, or affects not to
have seen or heard them, in order to leave to M. Barrot
sufficient collectedness to proceed. The duchess, confused
and scared at her own boldness, resumes her seat; conquered
nature took refuge in silence. What then will eloquence be
able to effect 7
M. Barrot resumed. “It is in the name of political liberty
in our country, it is above all in the name of the necessity of
order, and for the Sake of that harmony and concord required
by circumstances so difficult, that I implore my country to rally
around its representatives—around the revolution of July.
The more of greatness and generosity is required to sustain
the cause of purity and innocence, the more courageously will
my country devote themselves to that cause. For myself, I
shall be happy to consecrate all I possess in the world, and
even my existence, to its success, for in it is involved the
true liberty of this country.
SPEECH OF ODILON BARROT. I {}9
“Is it by a mere casualty that we have had our decisions at
the revolution of July again brought under discussion ? Gen-
tlemen, I admit the difficulties of the case ; but there are in this
country such elements of generosity, greatness, and good sense,
that I am convinced it is only necessary to appeal to them,
for the population of Paris to rise and rally around this
standard. We have in abundance the means of Securing all
the liberty which this country can rightfully claim, of making
it compatible with all the requisitions of public order, of
rallying all the energies of this country, and of passing
through the immense trials to which perhaps it is still destined.
This is our simple duty, marked out by honour and the true
interests of our country. If we cannot fulfil it with firmness,
perseverance, and courage, I know not what may be the con-
sequences. But rest assured as I commenced with telling
you, that he who has the hardihood to undertake the respon-
sibility of a civil war in the bosom of our noble France is
culpable in the highest degree;—a traitor to his country and to
the liberty of France and of the world. For myself, gentle-
men, I cannot take that responsibility. The regency of the
duchess of Orleans, and a ministry formed on the most tried
principles, would give the fullest guarantees to freedom ; and
I trust that an appeal might then be made to the country
and to public opinion in all its freedom, and made without
being bewildered about the rival pretensions of a civil con-
test—made in the name of the interests of our common
country and of true freedom. Such is my advice, such my
opinion. I cannot charge myself with the responsibility of
taking any other ground than this.”
This address closed amidst silence or murmurs. Whilst the
orator was speaking, his day had passed away. Barrot was
already in the past. The present no longer belonged to him ;-
the future had eluded him.
M. de Larochejaquelein sprang to the tribune. The son of
the heroes of La Vendée, he assumed the responsibility of his
father's cause and of his father's glory. But though a Vendéean
in feeling, he was in intellect liberal and almost republican.
In default of a legitimate monarch beheaded or proscribed by
the omnipotence of circumstances, he recognized no king but
the people. . He appealed to the insurrection of 1830,
to the liberty of all time. His frankness stood in the place
110 IRRUPTION OF DUNOYER'S COLUMN.
of dexterity, and his honour of parliamentary strategy. His
eloquence was the momentary and ever high-minded outburst
of his conscience. In the midst of So many speakers he was
the patrician orator—the gentleman of the tribune. His voice
was the explosion of artillery on the battle-field. His fine
countenance, his curling and lion-like hair, his lofty stature,
his expanded chest, his heroic gesture, alike imposed upon
the eye. A certain joviality of tone which he had, pre-
possessed the people, who forgave him his royalist name
in consideration of his opposition to the new dynasty. On
Seeing him spring to the tribune, it was supposed that he
was about to claim the crown for Henry the Fifth. This
impression was disclosed by a murmur. M. de Laroche-
jaquelein understood it and refuted it with a single ges-
ture. “No man,” said he, slightly bowing towards the
duchess of Orleans, “no man respects or feels more deeply
than I, the imposing beauty of certain occasions; this is not
the first time that I have been tried by them. I do not stand
here foolishly to urge pretensions contrary to those to which
M. Barrot has referred, but I think that M. Barrot has not
served those interests which he desired to preserve in the way
he would wish to have served them. It is well, perhaps, for
those who in the past have always served kings, to talk now
of the country and of the people.” Then raising himself to
his full height, and hurling at the deputies of the centre an
overpowering gesture of truth and defiance, he exclaimed in
his voice of thunder, “This day you are annihilated. I tell
you, you no longer exist.” - *
This expression seemed to have transported into the assembly
the insurrection of the streets; the centre party rising burst
forth into cries and gestures of indignation and revolt. The
orator, perfectly unmoved, continued, “When I told you that
you no longer exist, I did not think to raise such a stormy.
demonstration. It is not I as a deputy who tell you that you
no longer exist in that character; I say that this chamber no
longer exists, as"—
The people took upon themselves to finish the interrupted
Sentence of the speaker; a violent knocking was heard at the
door on the left, at the foot of the tribune, the rattling of
arms, cries, clamorous shouts, and the confused noise of men
crowding one upon another echoed through the corridors.
The occupants of the hall and of the tribunes start instantly
THE ABDICATION PROCLAIMED AT THE TUILERIES. 111.
to their feet; men with outstretched arms, with bayonets,
sabres, crowbars, and tattered draperies above their heads,
attempted to penetrate the hemicycle. It was the party of
Captain Dunoyer, augmented by the republicans, who had
joined it on its way. This body had at first entered the
Tuileries pell-mell with the insurgent masses, who had invaded
that palace at all its gates. There it had saved the muni-
cipal guards, and the soldiers who had been forgotten at the
retreat. Arrived at length at the throne-room, the column
had already been preceded thither by Lagrange, who had
been rendered conspicuous by the insurrections of Lyons and
of Paris.
Lagrange was holding in his hand the abdication, which,
as we have already seen, he had snatched from the Marshal
Gerard at the moment when the aged warrior was unfolding
it before the people, in the hope of quelling the insurrection.
Lagrange, standing on an ottoman, read this abdication to
the people; then, casting round upon his auditory an inquiring
look and a scornful Smile, he seemed to ask if that pitiful
satisfaction would compensate for the blood which had been
shed for three days. “No, no,” cried the victors, “no more
royalty no other reign l’” “Bravo! my friends !” cried La-
grange, “what we must have is a republic.” A burst of
applause greeted the expression. The speakers took the very
throne for their tribune, stood upon it successively, brandishing
their arms, and there proclaimed the abolition of royalty. Cap-
tain Dunoyer and his men tore down one of the hangings which
adorned the canopy of the throne. Others did the same, tore
them up, and distributed the tatters, which were speedily made
into trophies, Scarfs, and cockades. Captain Dunoyer rallied
around his own party a number of men whom his voice had
summoned to witness the spoliation of the palace. He formed his
column anew, and cried out, “To the chamber; let us pursue
royalty to the sanctuary where its shadow has taken refuge.”
The column crosses the Seine, and marches along the Quai
d'Orgay, with cries of “Down with the regency!” It was
swelled on its way by such men as are always drawn into in-
surrectionary currents, as an overflowing stream draws into
itself indiscriminately whatever there is, pure or impure, on
its banks. A butcher-boy with his tray stained with blood,
and brandishing a long knife in his hand; an old man, with
his head uncovered and bald, and a white and shaggy beard,
I 12 FRESH INVASION OF THE CHAMBER,
armed with a naked and antique sword, plundered from some
museum, the hilt of which was formed by an ammunition-loaf
transfixed by the blade, looking like a live model from a
painter's studio ;—these and a rabble of similar vagabonds,
distinguished by their ragged and uncouth dresses and arms,
preceded the national guards and the insurgents;–the eruc-
tated contents of the popular volcano. Between these men
and the column of Dunoyer the youths of the Polytechnic
School marched with a military step ; the front ranks of the
regular troops in vain crossed their bayonets ; the republicans
beat down the arms of the soldiery, passed them in Safety, and
descried the royal carriages, which were waiting for the duchess
at the gates of the chamber. They feared that their revo-
lution should be snatched from them. They advanced tumultu-
ously to the iron gates which faced the bridge ; 2,000 soldiers,
drawn up under the command of General Gourgaud, arrest
their progress, without driving them back; all remonstrance
was fruitless; in vain were they conjured to respect the in-
violable sacredness of the representation. “What,” replied
one of them, “ have our fathers so often forced the threshold
of the National Assembly and Convention, and shall we not for
once cross the threshold of court corruption ?”
General Gourgaud presented himself, and harangued them ;
he attempted at least to temporize with them. “Wait,” said
he, “I will go myself into the hall, and will bring you a report
of what is taking place.”
During the short absence of the general, a party of the re-
publicans climbed the wall of the enclosure, mounted the steps
of the portico, and attempted to force their way through the
openings within the columns of the façade. “Stop, my
friends,” cried Gourgaud, who had just then returned, “M.
Crémieux is at the tribune, he is at this moment opposing the
regency; M. Marie, whose name you know as an uncompro-
mising advocate of your cause, is now coming out to make the
announcement in person.”
The name of Marie was listened to with respect. The
military figure of the general, the reflection on his name of
that of Napoleon, spoke for him. “We believe you, general,”
replied the leader of the column, Captain Dunoyer; “but the
friends of the people are few in the chamber. A venal
majority will stifle their voices. It will be too late, and the
country will curse you for having arrested our progress.” At
{T}
PROCEEDINGS IN THE CHAMBER, 113
these words, Gourgaud, unable to control their onward
movement, yields, and stands aside. The troops remain neu-
tral, and the national guard applaud. M. Marie presents
himself in vain, his voice is drowned in the tumult, and his
arms confined by the crowd. That crowd thrust aside, over-
throw, and bear away the Sentinels, officers in waiting, and
representatives who attempt to obstruct the torrent.
Colonel Dumoulin, an old staff officer of Napoleon, who
combined the enthusiasm of republicanism with that of his
military recollections, rushed to the head of this column as
if to lead it on to the assault. He tore the hangings of the
throne from the hands of one of the combatants, ascended the
staircase of the tribune, and fixing the staff of this flag to the
marble front, seemed to be waiting for some orator to follow him,
there to proclaim the revolution. At the foot of the tribune,
beneath the folds of this drapery, an old man, with mild and
calm expression of countenance, was resting on the hilt of a
long and naked Sword, like a statue representing a triumphant
and appeased populace. The butcher-boy, with his knife in
his hand, crosses alone the unoccupied space between the
tribune and the steps. The deputies draw back with horror
and avoid the contact of his blood-stained clothes. They form
a denser group on the upper benches around the duchess of
Orleans. The princess, without being alarmed, is taking notes
with her pencil on her knee. She is doubtless searching in her
own heart for those expressions that will best secure the safety
of her sons. No gesture, no cry on the part of the invaders
offered to impose their will on the national representation.
They seemed to have come as spectators rather than as directors
of the destiny which that assembly might present to them.
Everything appeared suspended, and as it were petrified in
one common expectancy. -
A report now spread in the tribune of the journalists that
the revolution was betrayed; that some persons, excited and
drawn thither by the partisans of the regency, had mingled
themselves with the conquerors of the Tuileries as they
entered the chamber in order to embarrass and to stifle the
dénouement. This rumour appeared well founded. A repub-
lican, Surprised at the apathy of the foremost groups who had
introduced themselves into the chamber, M. Marrast, sprang
from the tribune assigned to the press in which he was
- I
i 14 SPEECH OF LEDRU ROLLIN.
noting the successive stages of the revolution. “This,” cried
he, as he crossed the passage, “is the sham people. I am
going to call in the real people.”
Whilst a new wave of popular invasion was swelling
without the chamber, silence and irresolution reigned within.
M. Ledru Rollin, standing at the foot of the tribune, at the
left, was striving to force his way up the steps.
Almost the only republican in the assembly for some years
during which he had had a seat in it, the inspiring spirit of
the republican press, the orator of the democratic banquets,
the declared enemy of compromise, and of the concealment
and half-hearted agitation of the dynastic left, pushing his
opposition within the chamber to the limits where faction
begins, and without it to that point beyond which it would
become sedition,-M. Ledru Rollin, young, tall, of Sanguine
countenance, and of impetuous voice and gesture, but pre-
serving the reflective calmness of the politician beneath the
apparent fervour of the orator, seemed the man marked out
for and awaited by the occasion. His style of speaking,
strongly modified by the study of all the forms of democratic
eloquence, had somewhat of the posthumous tone of the Con-
vention. His speeches smelt of the oil of Danton. It was
evident that his active and fertile fancy was frequently turned
to the past, in order from it to foreshape the future, and that
he regretted the lost opportunities of struggles, glory, and
historic death which occurred in the concluded drama of the
great revolution.
At the outermost limits of the chamber, isolated in a pre-
mature republicanism, M. Ledru Rollin was only conspicu-
ous by his talent. Hitherto his colleagues had listened to
him with more of curiosity than of terror. In their eyes he
was only a revolutionary apparition ; to their ear only a
Sonorous echo, from a time now for ever buried and silent.
But suddenly situations changed. It was his colleagues that
vanished away into the past; it was the impossible which was
becoming the reality. -
“In the name of a people, everywhere in arms,” said he,
with the gesture of a general pointing to his soldiers behind
him ; “in the name of the people now masters of Paris, do
what you will, I rise to protest against the kind of government
that has just been proposed at this tribune. In this, unlike
yourselves, I am doing nothing new ; for in 1842, in the
SPEECII OF LEDRU ROLLIN, T 15
discussion of the regency bill, I alone in this chamber de-
clared that it could not become a law without an appeal to
the country. For two days we have been fighting for our
rights. If now you resist, if you pretend that an ephemeral
government exists, constituted by acclamation, and which
revolutionary fury is sweeping away, we will still fight in the
name of the constitution of 1791, which looms upon our
history, and hovers over our country. No regency of a
usurping kind is possible. Against such a usurpation I pro-
test, in the name of the people. You Speak of Order, and of
the effusion of blood. Ah! it is the effusion of blood that
moves me, for no one has had a nearer view of it than myself.
Three thousand lives are lost ſ”
At these words the butcher-boy sprung to the steps which
led to the seat of the duchess of Orleans, evidently for the
purpose of avenging his comrades, and muttering between
his teeth, “This must be put an end to.”
M. Mornay, son-in-law of Marshal Soult, a member of the
opposition, but a generous and intrepid man, held back the
butcher by his coat. The deputies obstructed his way, and
thrust him back under one common impulse of indignation.
The fellow was turned out. M. Ledru Rollin resumed, and
continued to develop and prolong the same line of argument.
But the general feeling was as impatient as the crisis was
urgent. “Press the question then,” cried M. Berrière, “and
propose a provisional government.” The party favourable to
legitimate royalty and the republican party combined, though
without concert, to suppress a government, a creature of
momentary surprise and acclamation, which was interposing
between their hopes and the issue of events. M. Ledru Rollin
continues. He cites the abdication of Napoleon and of Charles
the Tenth, both of which were deceptive. The assembly be-
came uninterested and time was wasting. “Move move . "
again cried M. Berrière; “we are all acquainted with history.”
At length M. Ledru Rollin concluded by proposing the nomi–
nation of a provisional government for the people, and a con-
vention. :
The steps on both sides of the tribune were besieged with
national guards, young men from the Schools, combatants and
speakers. A cry of “Lamartine ! Lamartine ! let Lamartine
speak | " burst from the people and from part of the assembly.
I -
116 LAMARTINE AT THE TRIBUNE.
Deputies from all the benches of the chamber pressed around
Lamartine, while others made signs to him, pointing to the
tribune; some with the expectation that in rising there he
would put the finishing stroke to the revolution; while others
supposed that, by throwing himself into it, he would impart to
it moderation and order,
Lamartine, who had been motionless and silent from the
commencement of the sitting, trembled to speak. He felt that
a word would drag the wavering revolution either into a re-
public replete with problems, or to a regency replete with
anarchy. A third element of indecision caused his heart,
though not his convictions, to falter, and that was pity.
Having been repeatedly requested to appear at the court
of the duchess of Orleans, who was fond of literature, he had
rigidly forbidden himself all intercourse with that princess,
lest a sentiment of gratitude might hereafter interfere with
his political independence. Still he admired from a distance
this widow of the duke of Orleans,—a foreign lady, exiled
and thrust out of her rightful position as a mother, by a jea-
lous and cruel law. Alone at the Tuileries, between a throne
and a tomb, she had nought of happiness but her mourning,
nought of royalty but a prospect, nought of maternity but its
cares. Yet with her genius, her sensibility, and her tears, she
was said to be in all respects equal to her destiny. All these
secrets were revealed by her physiognomy. Her beauty
visibly enveloped her thoughts. A hundred times had the
heart of Lamartine been tempted to yield to this living and
poetic charm, and to compass the restoration of that sove-
reignty which had been wrested from her by the harshness of
the law. Was she not queen in imagination ? And now the
hour was come to realize the dream. To this nothing was
necessary, but to utter from the tribune that cry which was
in the deepest recesses of every heart. The gestures and the
voices which forced him thither constituted Lamartine the
arbiter of fortune; while the somewhat rigid impartiality
which he had hitherto exhibited gave a leading influence and
authority to his decision. The presence of the duchess, her
pallid countenance, and her suppliant looks, constituted of
themselves one-half the eloquence which was necessary
to subdue an assembly of men of sensibility. Never had
a pleader such clients behind him. They suggested the re-
collection of those trains of dethroned women and children
LAMARTINE AT THE TRIBUNE. 117
whom the Roman orators used to exhibit to excite the pity
of that people. The French are far more open to the influ-
ence of tears.
Lamartine had only to say to the princess and her children,
“Arise | you are the widow of that duke of Orleans whose
death and whose memory the people have crowned in your per-
son. You are the children bereaved of that father and adopted
by the nation. You are the innocents and the victims of the
faults of the throne, the wards and the suppliants of the
people. Flying from the throne, you take refuge in a revolution.
That revolution is just, it is generous, it is French. It does not
contend against women and children ; it does not take the
patrimony of widows and of orphans; it does not despoil its
prisoners and its guests. Go, reign it restores to you in com-
passion the throne that has been forfeited by misdeeds of which
you are only the victims. The ministers of your grandfather
have wasted your inheritance. The people restores it to you.
It adopts you, itself will be your parent. You had but a
prince for your guardian, henceforth you shall have a mother
and a nation.”
At such words as these the chamber would have risen as one
man, stimulated by the spectacle, the tears, the stifled accents
of the duchess, and by the child carried to the tribune in the
arms of its mother. Lamartine would have led the assembly,
and what national guards were present in the chamber, in the
train of the princess to the platform of the portico. From that
spot he would have exhibited the widow and the child to the
irresolute people and the faithful troops. Their acclamations
would have been secure. That procession, swelled by torrents
of national guards and of the populace, would have attended
the duchess and her children to the Tuileries, and there would
have proclaimed the regency. What a turn of events! what
a drama 1 and what a dénouement / what a triumph of the
affections over reason, of nature over politics |
Lamartine had such words on his lips, that gesture ready
to his hand, that act in his imagination, those tears in his
eyes. But he yielded not to those noble temptations of an
imaginative man; he tore his heart from his breast, and
Testrained it beneath his hand, to listen only to the voice of
reason. More powerfully still did that reason recall to him
the views he had expressed but two hours before to the
council of the republicans.
118 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE,
The regency in the midst of a crisis which had aroused the
people, drawn away the national guard, dissolved the army,
overturned the throne, expelled the king, provoked the de-
mand for universal Suffrage, suspended labour, and thrown
out of employment two hundred thousand workmen, panting
for their rights and hungering for food, would not have been
a peace, but only a short and stormy truce. The bloody
revolution was not yet ended, but only beginning;-terrible,
convulsive, unsatiable ;-with a feeble government, the crea-
tion of a sentiment and of a momentary surprise. Lamartine
would have saved the present and sacrificed the future. He
would have indulged his emotions, but ruined his country.
At the expense of that country he felt that he had no right
to gratify his own feelings, and to sacrifice thousands of lives
for the sake of playing the brilliant part of a moment, in an
unmanly drama of sentimental politics. It would have been
easy, it would have been delightful to him, to shed at the
tribune that tear, which, like every one else, he had gathering
in his eyes. But that tear would have become a torrent of
civil bloodshed, and he restrained it. That is one of the
violences done to the heart which costs human nature its
severest sacrifices. It was no fault of which his conscience
will ever repent. He would have lost not only the republic,
but the very victims of the catastrophe, whom, by crowning,
he would have devoted to destruction. At length he as-
cended, or rather was carried to the tribune. A profound
silence reigned, as soon as the name of the Orator was uttered
to the assembly. He dared not raise his eyes to the princess,
lest a look from her should cause his tongue to falter, or his
struggling resolution to fail.
With a voice deep as the abyss of destiny he was about to
fathom, he spoke as follows:—“Gentlemen, I participate as
profoundly as any man among you that twofold Sentiment
which has just pervaded this assembly at the sight of one of
the most touching spectacles which the annals of humanity
can present, that of an august princess sheltering herself in
her affliction beneath the innocence of her child; who has
fled from the recesses of an invaded and deserted palace, and
thrown herself into the Sanctuary of the popular represen-
tation.”
At these words, in which some foreboded an appeal to their
pity, and others a failure of patriotic feeling, a hum of applause
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE. 119
from the centre, and of dissatisfaction from the people, rises
and mingles in a low murmur. Tamartine perceived it, and
throwing around upon both parties a look which revealed his
thoughts, exclaimed, “I beg to be allowed to finish my sen-
tence, and I entreat your attention to the sequel.”
The silence and anxiety became more intense. “I told
you, gentlemen,” he continued, “that I had shared with you
the emotion by which this chamber has just been agitated.
And here I make no distinction between the national repre-
Sentation here assembled, and that representation of the
people of Paris, which has introduced itself to our benches.
This is a moment of equality; and that equality, I am con-
vinced, will only cause to be spontaneously recognized, through
the people who have joined us, our authority to re-establish
concord and to restore the public peace.” (Expressions of
assent from the groups of insurgents who were standing to
the right of the speaker at the foot of the tribune.)
“But, gentlemen,” continued Lamartine, “if I partake of
that emotion which the affecting spectacle of the greatest
human catastrophes inspires, if I share that respect which
misfortune still more intensifies in our minds, whatever may
be our political opinions, I have no less a lively sense of
the respect due to this people, who have been fighting
for three days to overturn a retrograde government, and
to re-establish, upon a henceforth immoveable basis, the reign
of order and the reign of peace. Under this impression
I shall not subject my mind to the delusion which has just lately
been exhibited at this tribune. I cannot suppose that a
momentary acclamation, drawn by an honourable emotion
from an assembly melted to tenderness by natural feeling,
can establish a stable and undisputed government over a
population of thirty-six millions. I know that what one
burst of popular enthusiasm may create another may destroy.
I know that whatever may be the character of that govern-
ment which it may be compatible with the wisdom and with
the interests of this country to establish, in order to escape
from the crisis in which we are placed, it is of consequence
to this people, to all classes of the population, especially to
those who have shed their blood in this struggle, to have,
cemented with that blood, not an ephemeral government, but
a stable, national, popular—in short, an immoveable order
of things.” **
120 SPEECHI OF LAMARTINE,
“Yes, yes,” cried the combatants, waving their flags,
brandishing their arms, and exhibiting the marks of blood
and gunpowder on their hands.
“Well,” resumed Lamartine, with a more resolute tone
of conviction in his voice, “how to arrive at this 2 how to
find a government amidst these floating relics of the wreck,
and amidst this tempest by which we have been carried
away, in which the popular wave is accumulating every
moment, and even in this chamber is now swelling the billow
which has submerged us—how to find this immoveable
basis? how, do I say, gentlemen? Why, by going to the
very foundations of the people and the country, by extracting
from national rights that great Secret of universal Sovereignty,
whence issues all order, all liberty, all truth. For this pur-
pose, far from having recourse to those subterfuges, to those
surprises, to those emotions of the hour, to those fictions of
which a country repents when the fictions themselves have
vanished; for this, I say, I am about to support both the
motions that have been made, which in their combination I
shall have been the first to propose at this tribune,—the pro-
position of a government of urgency, and of necessity, im-
posed by circumstances; of a government which may stanch
the blood which is flowing, of a government which may sus-
pend the civil war.”
The people immediately applauded these words, as if they
had embodied a proclamation of peace accepted by themselves.
With a gesture significant of the acceptance of these con-
ditions, the old man with a long beard, who was standing at
the feet of the speaker, deliberately returned his sword to its
Scabbard. *
“Of a government,” resumed Lamartine, “which may
clear up the terrible and unsuspected state of things which
has for years existed between the different classes of our
citizens, and which, by hindering our settlement and mutual
recognition as a united people, has prevented our loving and
embracing each other in unaffected harmony.
“I demand then that there be instantly established, in con-
sideration of the rights of the public peace, of the rights of
the blood which is still flowing, and of the rights of this people
exhausted by the glorious work which it has been accom-
plishing within the last three days—I demand, I say, that we
instantly constitute a provisional government.”
FRESH IRRUPTION INTO THE CHAMBER. 121
Universal cheerings burst from every part of the assembly,
who clearly perceived that the position of affairs presented no
other path of Safety.
“A government,” continued the speaker, “which shall in
no degree be prejudiced, either by our retrospective opin-
ions, our desires, or our present excited feelings, with re-
spect to that definitive form of government which it may be
the pleasure of the nation to accept, when that nation has
been consulted.”—(A thousand cries of “Bravo” burst forth
at this reservation of the rights of the nation. “That's it !
That's it !” cried the populace. “Name ! Name ! Name the
members of the government.”) “Stay,” resumed the speaker.
“The first object of that government must be to establish
an instant cessation of hostilities among the citizens. The
Second must be to convoke the entire electoral body of the
country; and when I say entire, I mean all that is imported
in the name of MAN ; that is, of a being capable of intelligence,
of will, and of the name of a CITIZEN. One last word, the Sove—
reignties which have succeeded each other for the last fifty
ears— ”
y The last sentence of the speaker was cut short by a volley
of musketry, the reverberation of which shook the tribune,
and boomed through the corridors. The populace present
uttered a cry of exultation, stretching out their hands towards
the door. The members of the chamber sprang to their feet.
The doors which separate the tribune from the passages were
broken down by the butt-ends of muskets, or by the pressure
of the brawny shoulders of a new reinforcement of assailants.
It was the front ranks, consisting of about three hundred
men, who had issued from the Tuileries after the sacking of
the palace, all flushed with three days' fighting, and some giddy
with the fumes of powder and the excitement of the march.
They had just crossed the Place de la Concorde, under the eyes
of the generals, who had caused a path to be opened for them
between the bayonets of the troops. Arrived at the outer gates
of the chamber, their comrades within had admitted them at a
signal given by M. Marrast. Guided by associates who were
acquainted with the Secret passages of the building, they
crowded the corridors, and rushed with the cries of mortal com-
bat into the spectators' galleries. Their torn clothes, their shirts
open, their arms bare, their fists clenched and resembling must
cular clubs, their hair wildly dishevelled, and singed with carte
122 CAPTAIN DUNOYER IN THE CHAMBER.
ridges, their countenances maddened with the delirium of
revolution, their eyes Smitten with the spectacle, so novel
to them, presented by this chamber, in which they looked
down from above on thousands of heads,-all revealed them
as desperadoes, who were come to make the last assault
upon the last refuge of royalty. They climbed over the benches,
they elbowed and beat down the attendants of the tribunes,
they raised with one hand their hats or their seal-skin caps, they
brandished their arms, pikes, bayonets, Sabres, crow-bars, with
cries of “Down with the regency!” “The republic for ever!”
“Turn out the corrupt l” The very roof shook with their cries.
The same irruption burst and thundered through the spacious
but already obstructed doorways which lead to the foot of the
tribune. The chief of the column, Captain Dunoyer, waved
over the head of the speaker the tricolour flag, fringed with
gold, the token of the dismantled throne of the Tuileries. The
deputies, in consternation, turned pale at this evidence of the
victory of the people. “This flag,” cried Captain Dunoyer,
“demonstrates that here there is no longer any will but ours,
and outside these walls are a hundred thousand fighting men
who will no longer Submit to kings or regents.” A number of
deputies now quietly withdrew from their benches, and one by
one retired by every egress. “Make way for the traitors,”
cried the people from the galleries; “shame for the cowards.”
Meanwhile the duchess of Orleans remained, almost exposed
and deserted, and pale and trembling for her children. The
populace, however, did not observe her, concealed as she was
behind a screen of deputies.
Lamartine was still standing at the tribune, the posses-
sion of which was incessantly disputed by new assailants.
President Sauzet put on his hat, as an indication of the dis-
ruption of the sitting, and the violation of the assembly. But
the indication came too late. The populace, irritated by this
signal, threatened the president by their voices and their
gestures. One individual rushed to him and forcibly removed
his hat, in order to save his life by this compulsory submis-
sion to the victory of the people. At this moment the
ominous Sound of a suppressed struggle directed the eyes of
all to the tribunes on the right. A throng of combatants
rushed in that direction, as if into a breach of a city that had
been taken by storm. Their arms, their gestures, their
ESCAPE OF THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANs. 123
impatient cries, indicate the last degree of guilty resolution.
Other combatants, mingling with these, strive in vain to
restrain them. The barrels of muskets and the glitter of
bayonets were seen confusedly undulating, like standing corn
agitated by opposing winds. “Where is she Where is
she 7” cried some of the combatants, more through curiosity
than evil intention, as they pointed to the part of the centre,
at which the duchess and her children still sat, forgotten and
hidden behind a group of deputies Scarcely numerous enough
for the purpose. -
At these cries and gestures, the princess was drawn away
from the chamber. With her feeble suite and her children
she fell into the midst of the invading mob, which was pouring
from the outer passages of the tribunes. With difficulty she
escaped Suffocation and death, thanks to her sex, to her veil
which prevented her being recognized, and to the arms of a
few courageous deputies, among whom M. de Mornay was
still conspicuous. Separated, however, by the undulations of
the crowd from her two children and the duke of Nemours,
she succeeded alone with her defenders in penetrating the
throng of insurgents, and descending the flight of steps which
leads to the Salle des Pas Perdus.
Here she was surrounded and overwhelmed by a fresh tor-
rent of the populace, amidst which she floated from one side
to the other, like a wreck in a storm. At length she was
thrown, half-stifled and almost swooning away, against a
glass door, the squares of which were broken by the shock of
that slender frame. On recovering her consciousness, she
missed her children. She calls them. Her attendants promise
to bring them, and hasten to seek them beneath the very feet
of the multitude. During this time a few friends succeeded
in forming a circle round the princess. They opened one of
the glass doors on a level with the president's garden.
Through this garden she was led in Safety to the mansion of
the president, there to bide her destiny, and await the arrival
of her children. º
The count de Paris, separated from his mother by the
crowd, and indicated to the people as their future king, had
been brutally seized by the throat, by a man of colossal
stature. The huge and bony hand of this madman had nearly
strangled the poor child, in the jocose pretence. A soldier of
124 RETIREMENT OF THE PRESIDENT.
the national guard, who was looking for the child, witnessed
this detestable outrage, and with one vigorous blow of his
fist, beat down the arm of this unfeeling wretch. He seized
the young prince, and carried him, all trembling and soiled
. he was, to his mother, who burst into tears as she embraced
AIII].
But still her other son was missing, the little duke de
Chartres. She cried out for him, and kept close to the
windows of the garden, hoping to catch the most distant
prospect of his restoration to her. The child had fallen under
the tumultuous mass of the populace, while passing from the
tribune into the passages. He was trampled under the feet
of the multitude, whose din did not allow his little stifled
cries to be heard. For a short time he was lost.
The duke de Nemours, similarly separated from the duchess
by the crowd, had succeeded in making his way through it
without insult. He had taken refuge in an office of the
chamber; there he was supplied with other clothes, in which
he disguised himself, for the purpose of escaping without
being recognized.
A fresh body of men now entered the chamber. They
held up their helmets, their fur caps, and their swords, still
covered with the blood of the municipal guards, whom they
had slain in the Place de la Concorde. A few were armed
with muskets. One of these, a workman stripped to his shirt,
with his sleeves blackened by work, with a deranged expres-
sion of countenance, and with the quick and abrupt gesture of
insanity, placed himself on the edge of the same tribune from
which had just issued the threats against the princess. He
levelled his piece at the president. A thousand cries were
uttered to warn M. Sauzet of his danger. M. Sauzet did
not change colour; but at length quitting his seat, in order
to avoid a pretext for crime, rapidly descended the steps,
and left the chamber.
At the same moment the young workman, no longer seeing
the president in the chair, but perceiving Lamartine standing
alone, in black clothes, in the centre of the tribune, Sur-
rounded by arms and flags, supposed that it was another
president, or some orator who was hostile to the people. He
slowly pointed his musket at him, like a sportsman taking a
deliberate aim. Captain de Dunoyer, who was standing at
LAMARTINE’s LIFE ATTEMPTED. 125,
the left of M. de Lamartine, attempted to cover him with his
person, exclaiming, “Screen yourself, they are firing at you.”
“I see the musket,” said Lamartine, with a smile, “pointed
to my breast; but he has taken a false aim, he will not hit
me. Besides, what matter if they kill me? If at such a
moment I fall at the tribune, I die at my post.”
From all quarters hands were raised towards this second
tier of galleries, from which the barrels of muskets were pre-
sented. “Don’t fire,” cried the people below to the people
above, “it is Lamartine.” The armed man did not heed
the cry; the serjeant of the national guard de Villard rushed
upon him and diverted his aim. A few intrepid men dis-
armed him, and in spite of his cries of rage, dragged him from
the chamber in which he had sought to stain the tribune with
blood and the revolution with disgrace.
Almost all the deputies from the centres had withdrawn on
the departure of the president, the flight of the duchess, and
the sight of the muskets. A number of intrepid men, mem-
bers of the opposition, among whom M. de LaScases, a man
who, in a feeble frame, possessed a resolute heart, retained
their seats confounded amongst the press of the populace
and the national guards who had forced their entrance. An
invasion of speakers unconnected with the chamber alternately
besieged and retired from the tribunal itself, where they ex-
hibited gestures of fight and of triumph, and shouted words
of command, and motions which were lost in a tumult of
clamour.
Lamartine remained firm at the tribune, in order not to
Surrender it to a chaos of motions, simply standing on one
side, and waiting till the tumult had exhausted itself with its
own violence. From all quarters the deputies and the popu-
lace made significant signs to him, in order to keep him at his
post, and to conjure him not to quit it till a government had
been proclaimed. A thousand voices cried, “Take the chair;
let Lamartine preside over us.” This he declined. He knew
that the chair was too remote from the people, and that they
needed at this moment a guiding voice close to their ear, and
not a guiding president. “Go,” said he, to a few active, in-
trepid youths who were crowding round him to convey his
suggestions to the multitude, “go, summon that old man from
his seat; that is Dupont de l'Eure. That name will be the
126. puponT DE L'EURE MADE PRESIDENT.
most influential on free and republican France. His direction
will be sanctioned by public esteem. The only power at this
moment is public respect. In the eyes of the people, the
Sanctity of veneration will attach to that resolute old man.
His name will impress the seal of moral authority and virtue
on the course we are about to attempt for the re-establish-
ment of order. Should he through modesty decline, offer
violence to those hoary hairs, and drag him against his will
to the president's chair. That man is indispensable ; Provi-
dence has preserved him for this hour. t
The youths obeyed, and carried Dupont de l'Eure to the
chair. At the sight of him every head was uncovered. All
hands applauded. Every countenance beamed a welcome.
The revolution had a moderator. In the midst of their
frenzy, the people had a conscience, and the tribune a voice
worthy to pronounce their behests.
Lamartine leaned forward, and said in a low voice to
Dupont de l'Eure. “Tose not a moment in proclaiming
the names of a provisional government, which shall gain
by acclamation the assent of the deputies and the people;
seize the opportunity before it has escaped.” Dupont de
l'Eure made a sign of acquiescence by bowing to Lamartine.
Confused voices now loudly demanded the nomination of
the provisional government. Several lists of names were pre-
sented to Lamartine, hastily arranged, by young men who
wrote them at random on their knee. Lamartine cast a rapid
glance over the lists, tore up some of them, and altered others.
Meanwhile confusion and impatience were spreading through
the ranks of the people. Those who were nearest to the tri-
bune burst into exclamations; the more vehement cried out,
“Name them name them announce yourself!” This La-
martine refused to do. He would not compromise beforehand
the scrutiny of the people, by impressing on the proposed
names the arbitrary authority of an individual choice. He
confined himself to whispering to the scrutineers the names
which most naturally, suggested themselves to his own mind,
and which seemed to him best Suited to the purpose of
harmonizing the people in a combination of authority and
order.
After protracted efforts on the part of MM. Crémieux,
Carnot, and Dumoulin to restore tranquillity, Dupont de
A PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. 127
l'Eure proclaimed the names of the members of the provisional
government. These were M.M. Dupont de l'Eure, Lamar-
tine, Arago, Marie, Garnier Pagès, Ledru Rollin, and Cré-
mieux. The announcement of each of these names was rati-
fied by a volley of applause. In them every shade of popular
opinion found its representative. It constituted the requisite
conditions of peace, suddenly embodied in these diversities of
character, position, and political principle ; a provisional unity
of action amidst the past and future fluctuation of events. It
was a government of action, awaiting and preparing for a
government of right. It was the explosion of a revolution,
before time had separated and cooled its antagonistic ele-
ments. - -
It approved itself to the instinct of the people; their accla-
mations anticipated the wisdom and the strength which resided
in this apparently confused combination of individuals. Du-
pont de l'Eure represented public virtue; Lamartine, the fra-
ternization of classes in a democracy; Arago, the glory of
intellectual power; Garnier Pagès, hereditary esteem and
popular gratitude paid to a tomb ; Marie, stern authority, com-
bined with moderation; Ledru Rollin, the impetuosity, the
enthusiasm, and perhaps the excess of republicanism ; Cré-
mieux, the power of debate suited to every purpose, and
liberty of conscience embodied in the government.
Scarcely had these names been proclaimed, when opposing
cries began to arise among the populace. One was demurred
to, and another was feared. Some names were sought to be
withdrawn from, and others added to the list; three or four
voices pronounced the name of Louis Blanc, and a few hands
wrote it down. Lamartine passed it by in silence. He was
aware of the popular power of that young writer, and appre-
ciated his talents; but he dreaded the spirit of a foregone con-
clusion in a government of pacification and concord. Absolute
dogmas, even when they are true, render governments imprac-
ticable ; when they are false, they cause them to miscarry.
Lamartine did not choose that the republic should be stranded
on an Utopia. He felt that if the discussion was prolonged,
the exactions of the multitude would increase with every fresh
name that was uttered in the crowd, and that the provisional
government would be decomposed before it was organized.
He descended with precipitation from the tribune, and
128 DEPARTURE TO THE HôTEL DE VILLE.
mingled in the mass of combatants, national guards, and popu-
lace, which thronged the hall. They wished to conduct him
to the mansion of the president of the chamber, there to install
the government. “No, no,” exclaimed he ; “to the Hôtel de
Wille.”
“To the Hôtel de Ville,” repeated the crowd. With diffi-
culty they stemmed the torrent of people which was pouring
into the halls and corridors, and reached the iron gate which
opens upon the quay.
Lamartine had intuitively felt that if this provisional govern-
ment were installed at the Chamber of Deputies, or at the office
of the minister of the interior, it would probably be attacked
and annihilated before night. The civil strife which had been
extinguished by the proclamation of this government would be
rekindled in the evening between two rival administrations.
The Hôtel de Ville, the head quarters of the revolution, the
Palace of the People, the Mount Aventine of seditions, was
occupied by innumerable multitudes of people from the sur-
rounding quarters, and from the armed faubourgs. These
masses, directed by the most enterprising and intrepid men,
would not fail, on hearing the defeat of royalty, the flight of the
regency, and the triumph of the revolution, to name a govern-
ment for themselves. The sanguinary anarchies and tyrannies
of the Commons of Paris under the first republic naturally
occurred to the thoughts of Lamartine. He instantly saw them
afresh in all their horror, still further augmented by those
elements of social strife which the absurd doctrines of com-
munism, socialism, and expropriation were causing to ferment,
and would cause to burst forth in these masses of workmen,
destitute of food, but possessed of arms. To allow a single
hour for the proclamation of a municipal and socialist govern-
ment at the Hôtel de Ville was to allow the organization of a
servile in the midst of a political war; it was to open the
veins of France for the shedding of torrents of blood. Garnier
Pagès, who possessed all the Sagacity of lively feeling, had
perceived all this just as Lamartine had, though without having
spoken to him. He hastened to the Hôtel de Ville, and there,
by right of his foresight, assumed the office of mayor of Paris.
In these quarters his very name had the force of magis-
tracy. It recalled to the people two popularities embodied in
a single individual.
RIOT IN THE CHAMBER. 129
Garnier Pagès was the brother of the young republican
deputy, the first of that name, who had recently been carried
off in the very prime of life. This orator, whose reputation
was increased by every speech he delivered, was, at the tri-
bune what Carrel was in the daily press, the personification
of progress. His brother had inherited his popularity and
his principles, tempered in him by a more cordial and cour-
teous disposition. His deep study of economical and financial
questions; his eloquence, which came directly from the heart
to the lips; his laborious probity, which had long and
honourably struggled with fortune, before it had conquered;
his winning voice ; his physiognomy, radiant with Serenity in
the midst of fervour; the gestures, in which his soul was
revealed,—rendered Garnier Pagès powerful over the masses
by that greatest of all influences, goodness. This evident
goodness, however, in Garnier Pagès in no degree detracted
from his strength of character. Intrepidity was only another
element of simplicity in his nature. His self-devotion re-
quired no effort; it was the intrepidity of a child.
Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, Crémieux, and Lamartine, suc-
ceeded in rejoining one another at the gate of the palace.
Whilst, amidst the acclamations of the people outside, they
were waiting for their colleagues whom they had lost in the
halls, the tribune which they had left behind them deserted,
already served as an arena for the combatants who had
remained within. Armed men dressed as labourers mounted
it by turns, there to play the part of the departed speak-
ers. “No more civil list l” cried a pauper. “No more
royalty 1" cried an old man, proud of the recollection of having
lived without a king in his youth during the fantastic days
of liberty. “Let us tear down the canvass where royalty
still reigns in effigy,” cried the men of the new creed.
They already had sprung upon the platform of the presi-
dent’s chair, in order to cut to pieces the picture of the coro-
nation of 1830, when a workman, armed with a double-
barrelled gun, exclaimed, “Wait, I will do justice to kings;”
at the same moment he fired both barrels into the canvass.
These mock-regicide discharges pierced the red ribbon which
decorated the breast of the king. Destruction and mutila-
tion commenced. A young man named Théodore Six, him-
self a working man, ascended the tribune. “Respect to
- K
130 PROGRESS OF THE GOVERNMENT TO THE HôTEL DE VILLE.
monuments,” cried he; “inviolability to national property;”
“decency and order in victory.” The multitude applauded.
The populace of Paris, though lavish of their blood, are slow
to devastation, and superstitious in respect to the arts.
Works of genius inspire them with respect, as they did the
people of Athens. They seem to be aware that intelli-
gence is their royalty, in the eyes of history and of time.
The chamber was evacuated. Captain Dunoyer and Colonel
Dumoullin, who had till then remained at the tribune with
their flags, to protect the palace of the national representa-
tion, now went to resume by the side of Lamartine and his
colleagues, their station at the head of the column which Set
out for the Hôtel de Ville.
Book v.
THE people, impressed with respect for grey hairs, had
gone in Search of a hackney cabriolet, drawn by one horse,
which they induced Messrs. Dupont de l’Eure and Arago to
enter. Garnier Pagès was at the Hôtel de Ville. Marie and
Ledru Rollin were kept back, and Smothered in the crowd
of men fluctuating in the interior of the palace. Lamartime
walked alone at the head of the army of the people, Sur-
rounded by a few members of the Assembly, who resolved
to follow the fortunes of the day, by eight or ten national
guards Tallied by their general, and by an increasing stream
of men, women, and children, clapping their hands, bran-
dishing arms, and uttering every moment cries of victory and
of peace.
Crémieux presently joined him. His column was feeble
both in numbers and in arms. It was composed in all of
about six hundred men, of whom two or three hundred were
armed. A single company or Squadron charging this con-
fused and disorderly procession, easily would have dispersed
it, and deposed this government established by acclamation.
Lamartime and his colleagues did not disguise this from
themselves. They had devoted themselves, without looking
behind them at all the hazards which that devotion involved.
PROGRESS OF THE GOVERNMENT TO THE HôTEL DE VILLE. 131
They had no other right than their own conscientiousness.
An arbitrary and partial Suffrage, limited to a small number
of insurgents at the foot of an invaded tribune under the
semblance of an election, was but a usurpation, powerful in
purpose, but destitute of authority. Their title might have
been disputed in the name of royalty. It might have been
disputed in the name of the people. Behind them at the
Tuileries, before them at the Hôtel de Ville, all was illegal.
Their invasion of the Sovereign power bore the appearance of
a twofold outrage. They had no answer to give to any who
should have challenged them to show their commission. They
could only point to the city in arms, the throne vacated, the
chambers expelled, buildings in flames, the people fighting
against each other, and blood flowing in the streets, and say,
“We assume the government to put an end to these dis-
asters, to extinguish this fire, to stanch this blood, to save
this people. We take it by the right of a passer-by, who
generously throws himself, though unauthorized, between two
men who are murdering each other. That passer-by has no
written authority in his hand, but he has a duty eternally
written in his heart. It is that of Saving his brethren. His
right is ours. Condemn us, if you please. We will not resist
the letter of your decision; we consent knowingly to be the
victims of logic, so that we may be the pacificators of this
people.”
With the exception of what had just taken place at the
Tuileries and at the chamber, everything was unknown. The
duchess of Orleans might be at the Champs Elysées or on the
esplanade of the Invalides surrounded by the princes, her
brothers-in-law, at the head of one of the divisions of the
army. The Tuileries and the Champs Elysées were still
covered with regiments. The forts around Paris were still
to supply their ammunition, Soldiers, and artillery. Vincennes
was doubtless impregnable. The king was in all probability
waiting at Saint-Cloud or Versailles until reinforcements sum-
moned from the departments should come to swell the army
of Paris, which was retiring intact. On the opposite side of
the Seine battalions and squadrons were seen defiling, who
looked with contempt upon the popular procession which was
marching in an opposite direction on the other side of the river.
The pavements were slippery with mud and gore; here
K 2
132 FRATERNIZATION WITH TEIE MILITARY,
and there the dead bodies of men and horses strewed the
quay, and obliged the head of the column to turn aside.
They arrived at the barracks of the Quai d'Orgay. The
dragoons who occupied them had shut the gates; the fury
of the populace might rekindle by the sight of the soldiers
who had charged them the last three days. The firing of a
musket might be the signal for a massacre, similar to that of
the municipal guards.
Lamartine hastened forward and approached the gate of the
barracks. He stopped, exhausted with the thoughts, the
words, and the actious in which the day had been spent. He
was thirsty, but he feigned a degree of exhaustion greater
than he really felt, and accosting the dragoons who crowded
to the iron gate, “Soldiers,” said he, “a glass of wine.”
This request, instantly repeated by the group that surrounded
him, was heard by the dragoons. They brought a bottle and
a glass and poured out some wine. Lamartine raised the
glass in his hand before drinking, and Smilingly alluding to
the banquets, which preceded and caused the revolution,
“My friends,” cried he, “this is our banquet; let the people
and the soldiers fraternize together with me,” and he drank.
Then, accompanied by these words, the dragoons and the
people burst simultaneously into cries of “Lamartine for
ever ! the provisional government for ever !” They grasped
each other's hands, and the peace was sealed.
The column resumed its march, and crossed the Seine by
the Pont Neuf. At the Pont Royal, some citizens took M.
Crémieux, and compelled him to get into a cabriolet which
followed the carriage of Dupont de l'Eure. Lamartine con-
tinued to march alone at the head of the column. Here a
young woman dressed as a soldier, and wearing the uniform
of a municipal guard who had been slain and stripped before
the palace of the Tuileries, rushed sword in hand from the
midst of a dense mass of combatants, towards Lamartine,
crying “Vive la république.” She wished to embrace the
orator, but Lamartine pushed her back. “Women,” said he,
addressing the Amazon, “do not fight. They are on the side of
all the wounded. Go, take them up, and carry them indiscri-
minately to the temporary hospitals.” The young woman
embraced one of the national guard, and retired into the
crowd, amidst the “bravos l’ of the populace.
STRUGGLE TO REACH THE HôTEL DE VILLE. 133
In the middle of the Quai de la Megisserie, barricades,
erected at intervals, obstructed the progress of the vehicles.
Dupont de l'Eure, being obliged to alight, advanced, supported
by two of the combatants. His name and his age, the
respect and the admiration in which he was held, power-
fully impressed the multitude with a sense of decorum. The
veneration which was felt for this aged man was reflected
upon the government, and contributed not a little to procure
its acceptation. At every step they were obliged to lift
Dupont de l’Eure over the dead bodies of men and horses,
broken fragments of arms, and the pools of blood, which
covered the approaches to the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville.
Litters conveying the wounded and the dead, borne upon
the shoulders of their comrades, were slowly threading their
way towards the hospitals.
At the turn from the quay to the Place de Grève, the
members of the government found themselves engulfed in
a sea of men. The entire Square, as well as the bridges
and the spacious quay by which it is skirted, was covered by
so dense a multitude, that it seemed impossible to cross it.
The cries of “Make way for the government l” were lost in the
tremendous din which arose from this vast throng; the re-
ports of musketry here and there mingled with the din of the
tocsin clanging from the towers of the cathedral, and from the
neighbouring belfries. Prolonged shouting succeeded to the
harsh reverberation of the firing; whilst yells and deep in-
articulate murmurs issued from the entrances of the Hôtel
de Wille, blended with the crash of broken windows on the
pavement, and the rattle of the butt-ends of muskets in the
hands of the combatants.
The first ranks which the government attempted to pene-
trate threw wild and suspicious looks on these unknown
deputies, who came under the Sanction of a conquered Senate,
to throw themselves unarmed into the midst of the people,
and assume the direction of a victory which had been
gained over themselves. They rudely hustled them, turned
their backs upon them with contempt, and refused to allow
them to pass.
The names, bowever, of Dupont de l'Eure and of Arago,
repeated from mouth to mouth, commanded a respectful
attitude even among those who were the most rebellious to
134 STRUGGLE TO REACH THE HôTEL DE VILLE.
all respect. These names, with those of their colleagues, spread
rapidly from group to group over the surface of this ocean,
and by degrees caused the looks of the whole multitude to
turn towards that part of the open space where the govern-
ment were striving to effect a passage. But the breathless
curiosity of the populace, still hot from the fight, and await-
ing a dénouement either from heaven or from man, impelled
them with such force in the direction of the deputies, who
were bringing to them both victory and peace, that Dupont
de l'Eure and his colleagues narrowly escaped being thrown
down, and crushed to death by the reflux of this mass. It
was necessary that the column which constituted the train of
the government should form a rampart before it, composed of
its most robust and intrepid men. This head of the column,
like pioneers, who demolish obstacles, slowly opened a path
which every moment closed before this living rampart.
Lamartine, Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, and Crémieux, Some-
times united, and sometimes separated by the involuntary,
convulsive, and irresistible movements of this undulating
multitude, advanced in this way obliquely towards the Hôtel
de Ville, beneath a canopy of pikes, rusty muskets, Swords,
bayonets fastened upon long poles, cutlasses, daggers, brand-
ished over their heads by bare arms scorched with powder,
stained with blood, and still trembling with the fever of three
days' fighting. Their costumes were hideous, their counte-
nances pale, and excited to madness; their lips quivered
with cold and excitement; their eyes were fixed as in insanity.
It was the madness of freedom.
Their mouths, opened to utter cries, only gave expression
to deep murmurs. It was evident that these people had, within
the last sixty hours, exhausted their strength, their blood,
their breath, and their voices. It was the still feverish debility
of a nation raising itself on its ensanguined bed, to gaze at the
approach of those who were bringing them the cup of refresh-
ment and the respite from death.
After long circuits through this multitude, the members of
the government at length reached the grand entrance of
the Hôtel de Ville, surmounted by the bronze statue of
Henry IV. But the mass of combatants was so dense and
so furious beneath the roof of those flights of steps, such a
THE GOVERNMENT AT THE HôTEL DE VILLE. 135
forest of steel bristled both on the stairs and within the inner
hall,—that the members of the government were unable to
make their way, notwithstanding the constant struggle which
was maintained between the opposing currents of those who
were entering and those who resisted their pressure. An
irresistible undulation threw them back, with their train of
national guards and citizens, towards a gate nearer the river,
and bore them away into a court-yard filled with horses
whose riders had fallen, with wounded men and dead bodies
lying in their blood. The crowd, which already filled the
court, and that which followed them — the trampling and
neighing of the horses, breaking their bridles and prancing
with terror—the firing from the open Square, and the upper
stories of the hotel—the throng and Swarming of thousands
of men on the staircase—kept the deputies for a long time
separated from each other, and overwhelmed, as it were, in
this furnace of the revolution. At length, after Superhuman
efforts of the multitudes who overwhelmed and carried them
away, and now swayed them back again, bearing them back-
wards and forwards like shipwrecked men on a ridge of
rocks, they landed in the long corridors of the lower story
which form the outlets of this immense palace.
The torrent of armed men which filled the hotel, though
more densely confined in the interior, were only the more
violent. Finding it impossible to rejoin, or to hold any
communication with each other, Dupont de l'Eure, Arago,
Ledru Rollin, and their colleagues, in vain entered by turns
the secret halls and apartments of the building. All
were equally thronged with people. Wounded men were
expiring on straw ; Orators, mounted on the furniture or on
the window-ledges, were madly gesticulating, exhibiting the
blood upon their shoes, and yelling forth proposals of combat
and extermination.
All association of the deputies with their colleagues, all
silence, privacy, and collective deliberation, and consequently
all action, were impossible. Despair took possession of them.
They did not indeed betray it in their countenances; but they
trembled lest the night should fall before they should have
succeeded in obtaining the recognition and the acceptance
of the people. Such a night, with three hundred thousand
136 THE GOVERNMENT AT THE HôTEL DE VILLE.
men in arms, intoxicated with the fumes of gunpowder,
standing on the ruins of all government, and this in a capital
containing fifteen hundred thousand men . The strife, the
murder, the conflagration which, under such circumstances,
might be spread and perpetuated during hours of bloodshed
and fire, made them shudder; they drifted at the mercy of
their fatigue, their impotence, and their distress. Their voices
were exhausted in calling for silence, for a place of refuge
from the tumult—for a table, a pen, and a sheet of paper, in
order to throw to the people from the windows one word of
Safety, one sign of authority.
No human utterance could from the height of that balcony
have overpowered the roar of a hundred thousand voices, the
clang of arms, the groans of the dying, and the reports of fire-
arms, prolonged in echoes through the vaulted roofs, the stair-
cases, and the corridors.
Lamartine felt himself seized by the arm with a vigorous
grasp. He turned round, and a man in black, with an intel-
ligent, commanding, and finely-marked countenance, Said to
him in a low tone, “I will open for you an unoccupied apart-
ment in the inmost recesses of the chambers of the prefect
of Paris. Place a strong guard of your armed men at the
entrance of the narrow corridor which leads to it. I will go
and seek your colleagues one by one in the crowd. I will
bring them to you. You will then be enabled to deliberate
and to act.”
This man was M. Flottard, an employé of the municipal
authorities of Paris, who knew all the windings of the
Hôtel de Ville. He threw himself into the crowd as if it had
been his natural element. His lofty stature, his powerful
shoulders, the calm, resolute, and jovial carriage of his head,
which overtopped all around, enabled him to subdue and cleave
his way through the multitude, and to put aside the bayonets
with his hand, as if they had been ears of corn in a field.
The people seemed to know him, and to allow the bold and
somewhat rough familiarity of his gestures and his commands.
There was something of the Danton in his countenance, but
of Danton before the crime of September.
M. Flottard, with a few members of the government, made
their way to the extremity of a corridor, and to a little door,
which they broke open. They entered a narrow cabinet, fur-
THE GOVERNMENT AT THE HôTEL DE VILLE, 137
nished with a table and a few chairs. They posted a dense
column of armed volunteers in the corridor, to prevent ap-
proach, and waited till their other colleagues, sought by M.
Flottard, should be rescued from the throng, and conducted to
this place of meeting.
The council seated themselves around the little table,
amidst the noise of firing through the windows, of shouting in
the open square, of panes broken by the butt-ends of muskets,
and of gates burst in by the pressure of the masses.
Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, Ledru Rollin, Marie, Crémieux,
Garnier Pagès, and Lamartine, leaned on the bare wood of
their narrow council-table. Every minute fresh men, sum-
moned thither by the danger and by their patriotism, rushed
to the Hôtel de Ville, made their way through the crowd,
announced their names, were introduced into the private
apartment, and, standing behind the members of government,
or leaning against the wall, offered their counsels, while
awaiting the employment of their devoted courage.
These were deputies, magistrates of Paris, colonels of the
national guard, citizens, well known in their vicinity, and
journalists of every shade of liberal opinion. Conspicuous
among these were M. Flocon, the editor of the Réforme
republican journal, a man whose arm was wearied in the fray,
but who in that strife only sought to realize another form of
order; M. Louis Blanc, concealed amidst the crowd by his
diminutive stature, but ever and anon revealing himself by
the fire of his eye, the energy of his gestures, the metallic
ringing of his voice, and the earnest activity of his move-
ments; M. Marrast, with a composed and quietly sarcastic
expression, even in the heat of action; and M. Bastide, the
editor of the National, a man of military air, preserving with
cool and resolute courage the motionless silence of a soldier
on duty.
A crowd of other countenances around were impressed
according to their several characters with the energy or the
gravity of the moment, a thoughtful auditory bending over
the focus of a grand decision.
The air of all was as solemn as the event ; each one was
communing with his conscience, and deliberately weighing
every word he intended to utter.
Their first step was to organize themselves into a govern-
138 ORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT.
ment council, to assign to each his functions, and to appoint
ministers. On this point there was neither deliberation nor
voting. Everything was done on the first proposition in con-
cert and by acclamation. Each adopted, without preference
and without demur, the part most suited to his qualifications,
and consented to by his colleagues.
Dupont de l'Eure was the president of the council and of
the provisional government. His eighty years and his virtues
caused his nomination. Distrusting not his strength of mind,
but his physical powers, and his voice, amidst the storms of
the public Square, Dupont de l'Eure wrote at the end of the
table a delegation of the presidency in favour of Lamartime.
He loved Lamartine, who repaid his affection with respect.
Dupont de l'Eure authorized his colleague to occupy his
place in case of his absence or inability to preside. Lamartine
received the office of minister for foreign affairs. The ministry
of the interior was given to Ledru Rollin. Bethmont, a
young deputy belonging to the constitutional opposition, was
appointed minister of commerce and agriculture. A man of
pure heart, of calm temperament, and of mild address, Beth-
mont was, indeed, the ornament of the revolution. Nothing
could be feared from a government of which his eloquence
was the organ and his physiognomy the expression.
The office of minister of justice fell to M. Crémieux, an orator
and a man of business, active and indefatigable alike with his
voice and pen; a universal pleader; the earnest adviser of
the duchess of Orleans in the morning and of the republic in
the evening;-ever present, everywhere popular.
M. Marie was appointed minister of public works. This
was a vast task, that of directing the labour of the people,
and at this particular crisis the regulator of social order.
But M. Marie, a man of high talents and elevated policy,
was too superior in intellectual endowments to confine himself
to this function of detail and contrivance. His particular
office was only his title to a seat at that council, of which he
constituted the fundamental strength.
M. Arago took the office of minister of naval affairs by right
of his knowledge, of his authority on military science, of his
renown, wide as the globe over which his name was about
to float.
ORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 139
A minister of war was still to be found—a person most
difficult to fix on, on the evening of a day on which all the
generals had fought against the people. Lamartine proposed
General Subervie, a man who preserved the recollections and
the fervour of republicanism beneath the silvery locks of age.
He was sent for, and hastened to obey the summons, and to
devote himself to his country's service. This choice, though
censured at first by the ignorant, on account of the years of
the brave soldier, was a happy one. When old age is green,
it is but a new youth. It loses not a moment of time, be-
cause it feels its value; nor an opportunity of glory, because
glory is fleeting away with life. If Subervie, whom prejudice
afterwards removed from office, had continued minister of
war, the government would have been served in a more
soldier-like manner.
M. Goudchaux, a banker, respected for his integrity and
his knowledge, took the financial department. His name
preserved that credit which vanishes at the approach of
revolution.
Lastly, Carnot was appointed minister of public instruction
and worship. Carnot, the son of the famous member of the
convention of that name, inherited from his father what
unquestionably formed part of his public virtues, philan-
thropy, devotion to truth, firmness, and moderation. His
countenance, with its sweet Serenity, its masculine expression,
its benevolent look, its fascinating Smile, suggested the idea
of a philosopher of the Athenian school. His revolutionary
name was a guarantee to the republicans. His religious
philosophy was a pledge of toleration and of freedom to all
forms of worship, to which, through veneration for the Divine
Being, the republic wished to afford protection and liberty.
After the ministers, the provisional government appointed
Secretaries to register their acts, and more especially to make
room in the new government for all those possessed of energy
and popularity, who might otherwise have established them-
selves against it, as a rival body in power and influence.
M. Marrast was too celebrated in the republican press;
M. Flocom, too vigorous both in journalism and in action;
M. Pagnerre, too influential in the constitutional propaganda
of Paris; and M. Louis Blanc too enterprising in his ideas,
} 40 - DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICFES.
and too dear to the Socialist sects, to be, with impunity,
excluded from a government, which was founded on popular
unanimity. They were therefore appointed secretaries of the
provisional government. As such they had at first consult-
ing, and Soon after deliberative voices.
Their names, originally subscribed at the foot of all de-
crees, with the title of Secretaries, became insensibly connected
with the names of the provisional government themselves;
and by a gradual encroachment on the page, they rose to a
rank which at first did not belong to them. No one con-
tested this usurpation. It was tacitly conceded by all. On
what legal ground could the government have rested in
excluding these new-comers? They, themselves, had no
other title than their own usurpation over anarchy, and their
courage in throwing themselves between the people and civil
war. These others had the same claim, and they were
admitted.
M. Pagnerre alone remained indefatigable at the post to
which his modesty confined him, as general Secretary of the
council. • *
M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, a celebrated scholar, a prac-
tised rhetorician, and an intrepid man, was associated with
him. These two individuals, placed on the second rank of
the government, often supported its weight, without receiving
enough of its glory. Messrs. Buchez and Recurt, old repub-
licans, organized the mayoralty of Paris under Garnier Pagès
—men equal to every emergency and every danger. Con-
cealed in the foundations of the republic, at the Hôtel de Ville,
they bore unseen the brunt of the exigencies, demands, and
distresses of the people of Paris, from the first hour to the
last.
M. de Courtais, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, a
gentleman of the Bourbonnais, and an old officer of the royal
army, was appointed general-commandant of the national
guard at Paris. The popularity which he enjoyed in the oppo-
sition, his martial exterior, his soldierlike and popular manners,
recalled to Lamartine those generals of the people who restrain
them by treating them with imperious roughness. Courtais ap-
peared one of those natures created for the occasion, a combi-
nation of Santerre and Mandat—unpolished in his bearing
FIRST OFFICIAL STEPS. 141
like the former; popular, like the latter. Tamartime pre-
sented him for the latter quality. There was no time to
discuss names and to study conventualities. Courtais was
appointed. He did not temporize with the danger ; his posi-
tion might give him immense influence in a revolution. It
assigned to him the military administration of Paris during
four months of interregnum, and subsequently made him the
republican dictator of a national assembly. The govern-
ment destined to him this part. He understood only the
Spirit of bravery and popularity, not that of an inflexible dic-
tatorship against political masses. He fell between the people
of Paris and the National Assembly.
Thus some elements of power began to be re-established.
As each minister, general, or authoritative agent, of what-
soever kind, was appointed, he received summary instructions.
He departed inspired with the spirit of the council, and the
fire of the emergency. He surrounded himself with such of
the revolutionary party as first came to his hand. He drew
away with him a group of the combatants who were swarming
in and about the Hôtel de Ville, and hastened to his post.
By degrees he cleared the ministerial office of those armed
bands and those adventurers for power who had taken pos-
session of it. He installed a few secretaries and reassembled
the scattered employés. He established around him a certain
appearance of method and authority. By incessant couriers
he acquainted the government with the state of things in
the city and the Suburbs, and from that government inces-
Santly received impulse and direction. The government,
whose sittings were unintermitted, compared their replies
together, in order that one should not contradict another.
The threads of this vast web of government, which was to
extend over thirty-six millions of men, were being rapidly
woven together. The mayors of Paris hastened from place
to place, penetrated the crowd, and gave brief instructions
with relation to the dangers, the wants, the forces, and the
provisions of their respective districts. Those whose names
exposed them too much to resentment, owing to the favours
of the government that had fallen, were superseded, and others
nominated by the public voice were appointed in their stead.
They sometimes made mistakes, and the next moment re-
| 42 FIRST OFFICIAL STEPs.
voked their choice and selected more suitable persons. They
gave temporary powers to hundreds of commissioners and
sub-commissioners, whose Sole authority was a scrap of paper
signed in pencil, with some name known to the people. To
one was assigned the Tuileries, which was threatened with
pillage and conflagration. To another Versailles, which was
surrounded by a multitude, who wished to raze to the ground
this gorgeous memorial of royalty. To another Neuilly,
already half consumed by fire. To another the railways, on
which the communication had been destroyed, and the bridges
burnt. Here it was necessary to re-establish the unobstructed
traffic of the roads, in order that the fifteen hundred thousand
mouths of the capital might not be, the very next day, desti-
tute of food. There barricades were to be partially demolished
without levelling the obstacles to the possible return of the
royal troops for the subjugation of Paris. The famished by
a three days’ fast were to be fed, the wounded to be attended
to, the dead to be identified and buried, the soldiers to be pro-
tected against the people, the barracks to be evacuated, arms
and horses to be saved, public monuments, hospitals, palaces,
museums, official residences, and temples, to be preserved
from insult and pillage. This populace of three hundred
thousand men was to be tranquillized and pacified, and in-
duced to return to their workshops and their homes. Posts
were everywhere to be established, manned by the volum-
teers of the victorious party, in order to preserve the lives
and property of the vanquished. All this constituted the
object of as many measures as there arose thoughts in the
mind of the government, and of as many commissions granted
as there were hands presented to receive them.
The pupils of the Polytechnic School, that militia of days
of crisis, whose youth gives them ascendancy over the popular
mind, and whose discipline Secures their authority with the
masses; those of the school of St. Cyr, officers without troops,
whose very uniform caused them to be instinctively followed;
the members of the normal school, whose grave demeanour
influences the multitude;—all, on the report of firearms,
pressing round the government, in attitudes at once indicated
disciplined, martial, and modest, waited for orders, and carried
them through pikes, bullets, and flames of fire, to the various
FIRST GOVERN WIENT PROCLA.VIATION. 143
scenes of devastation. Attended by handfuls of volunteers,
workmen, and others whom chance offered to their hands,
they entered on their campaign for the re-establishment of
order and the preservation of Society. They bivouacked at
the gates of palaces, on the Square, at the confluence of streets,
at the stations of railways. They laid down the rails afresh,
extinguished conflagrations, and stationed the famished poor
to guard the valuable furniture and the treasures of the rich.
One would have said that an immense hive of men was
buzzing around the Hôtel de Ville, and suspending the com-
bat in order to fly to the Succour of a common civilization.
This instinctive movement of the people, which impelled them,
through their own innate virtue, to the re-establishment of
order, only needed a regulating impulse. That impulse the
members of the government and the ministers began to im-
press upon it. The people only wanted a centre, and in these
devoted fellow-citizens they found it, and they fortified it.
The first duty of the government was to address the
people and the departments, in order to acquaint the na-
tion with what had transpired, and to inform it at the
same time who the men were who had placed themselves
at the head of the movement, to regulate and to restrain it,
to change victory into tranquillity, and revolution into order.
Lamartine took his pen and wrote the following proclamation
to the French people:—
“In the name of the French people.
“The government has just fled, leaving behind it traces of
blood, which must for ever forbid its return. The provisional
government have not hesitated for a moment to accept the
patriotic mission which the emergency imposed. When the
capital of France is in flames, the public safety constitutes the
authority of the provisional government. All France will
3omprehend this, and lend its aid. Under the government
of the people, every citizen is a magistrate.
“Frenchmen, give to the world the example which Paris
is about to give to France, and prepare yourselves by order
for the great constitutional arrangements you are about to
adopt.
“The provisional government is desirous of a republic,
sanctioned by the ratification of the people, who will be
144 PROCLA MATION TO THE ARMY.
immediately consulted. It desires a unity of the nation formed
henceforth of all classes of the citizens that compose it. It
desires the government of the nation by itself—liberty,
equality, and fraternity, for its principles, and the people as
its watchword. Such is the democratic administration which
France owes to herself, and which our efforts will be able to
Secure to her.”
This proclamation to the people was profusely distributed
from the balconies to the people in the square below. It
was succeeded a few minutes after by a proclamation to the
army. It was necessary at once to establish its position,
repair its honour, and to provide for its reconciliation with the
people. Lamartine wrote it as follows:—
“Generals, officers, and soldiers,
“The government by its invasions of liberty, and the
people of Paris by their victory, have brought about the fall
of that government to which you had pledged your oath. A
fatal collision has deluged the capital with blood. Civil
bloodshed is that which is most repugnant to France. A
provisional government has been formed. It has arisen
out of the imperative necessity of preserving the capital, cf
re-establishing order, and preparing for France popular in-
stitutions similar to those under which the French republic
has rendered France and her armies so glorious.
“The harmony of the people and the army, which has for
a moment been interrupted, must be restored.
“Swear, then, fidelity to the people, among whom are your
parents, your brethren. Swear attachment to its new institu-
tions, and all will be forgotten except your courage and your
discipline.
“Liberty will demand of you no other services than those
in which you may rejoice before your country, and cover
yourselves with glory in the sight of your enemies.”
These proclamations, thrown to the populace from the win-
dows, were distributed in numbers to the volunteers of peace.
They ran and had them printed and placarded in every quarter
of Paris. Pupils of military schools and workmen conveyed
them to the barracks, and despatched them to the regi-
ments that were retiring from Paris. Already the principal
officers of the army, to whatever parties they might have be-
longed in the morpºng, betook themselves, stained as they
ADHESION TO THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. 145
were with powder from the battle, to the Hôtel de Ville.
They passed with difficulty, but without insult, through the
ranks of those with whom they were fighting in the morning;
rallying around the provisional government as the sole
centre from which anarchy and social dissolution could be
resisted.
The members of the government cordially received them
as brothers, exacting from them no pledge but their patriotism,
and dismissing them to their several posts, with no other order
than to rally the soldiers round their standard, prevent all
collision between the people and the troops, and establish
a system of safe communication by strong bodies stationed
without the barriers, and upon the roads leading into Paris.
The garrison of Vincennes sent in its adhesion to the govern-
ment. General Duvivier, a republican at heart before the
existence of the republic, whose patriotism was of a truly
religious character; General Bedeau, General Lamoricière,
with his arm in a sling and parched with fever, induced by
the wound he had received in the morning; General Pirè,
a soldier of the first republic, of the empire, and of the monar-
chy, whose heart glowed with military fire and energy, not-
withstanding his advanced age, and a crowd of other officers
of every grade and date, of every shade of opinion, and of
every variety of uniform, rallied around, some at the cry of
danger to their country, others with the enthusiasm which
the word republic rekindled within their memory. Some
were moved by the hope of a new era of glory, others by
the urgent appeal of France in flames; while all acted on
that instinctive impulse, which spontaneously directs every
French citizen and soldier to the post of devotedness, of ser–
vice, and of danger.
Officers, Soldiers of the national guard, republican de-
puties, monarchists, and legitimists, without regard to their
party feeling, their regrets, or their hopes, poured in at each
moment, dedicating their hearts and swords in the cause of
the republic. It seemed as if the throne, as it disappeared,
had withdrawn all the barriers which had existed between
the minds of men, and that thenceforth there was but one
aim, the public Safety; but one duty, self-sacrifice; but one
party, France. The cries and undulating movements of the
people, their numbers, their firing, the glare of conflagration,
L
146 CONFUSION IN THE STREETS.
the confusion and the turmoil, seemed to add fire to their
enthusiasm; it was the mélée of a country. Amidst a
thousand might be distinguished M. Tarochejaquelein, that
Wendean by descent, who had remained inexorable to the
Seductions of the monarchy of 1830, proud to mingle with
republicans, grasping the hands of the combatants, cheered
by the active agents of the revolution, talking to them of
harmony and honour for all in a state of freedom, and thus
exhibiting in his own masculine and martial attitude, the
symbol of the reconciliation of classes, and of the unity of
the country.
B O O K. VI.
AT the rumour of the events of the evening, the purlieus
and suburbs of Paris poured forth in torrents, which became
more dense every hour, towards the centre of the city. They
overflowed the squares, the quays, the lanes, and streets, the
bridges, and the spacious avenues of the Bastille, through the
quarter of Saint-Antoine. Upwards of two hundred thousand
men choked the streets and the approach of the Hôtel de
Wille. The swelling throng of this mob, clad in every
species of costume, and bristling with all kinds of arms, broke
like living billows against a mole, throwing surges of men
upon the flights of the steps, on the points of the bronzed
palisades, and into the vestibules and staircases of this
edifice, which again vomited them forth amidst far-resounding
cries of pain, of horror, or of exultation. Dead bodies were
being carried from the barricades, amidst the glare of torches,
by men who fiercely cleared their path through the agitated
throng, who uncovered their heads and raised their hands in
token of respect and revenge. Orators, mounted on the
pedestals of columns, on the Sills of the windows, or on the
parapets, were shouting to the groups which surrounded them,
vainly attempting to utter a few expressions that might be
caught by the deafening torrent of human beings which
floated past them. Red or black flags were fluttering in
tatters on the points of bayonets. Above those thousands of
CONFUSION IN THE STREETS. 147
heads, uplifted towards the lofty windows of the building, a
few men on horseback strove to make their way by brush-
ing aside the crowd. The bells from the neighbouring
steeples, in which the tocsin had never ceased to sound, like
a pulse still beating high when the fever has subsided, were
tolling mournfully. Paleness and flush were alternating in
every countenance. The tone of their expressions, the fire
of their looks, the spectacle of old men, women, and children
grouped at the windows, at the attics, and even on the
roofs, accompanying with gestures and cries of terror, the
mad, furious, and pitiable Scenes which passed in succession
before their eyes. The night was falling with all its casual-
ties—unfavourable reports circulating through the masses,
either incorrect or exaggerated by panic;-Neuilly in flames,
the Louvre sacked, the Tuileries and the Palais Royal already
blazing with the torches of incendiaries;—the king's troops
turning with their artillery on the people, and Paris the
scene of a fresh carnage on the morrow ;-barricades were
rising as if spontaneously, furnished with lamps to descry
the enemy at a distance. Ignorance of the fate of the
country and Society, which lay in the hands of a few men,
divided, perhaps, among themselves;–men newly arrived
from victory, already encamped in the apartments of the
Hôtel de Ville, and refusing, as was said, to recognize
the authority of the deputies;–two or three governments
disputing for Supremacy, and hurling one another perhaps
from the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville;—all impressed upon
this solemn hour a character of trouble, doubt, anxiety,
horror, and alarm, which was perhaps never presented to
the same extent in the history of man. This anxiety at
once issued from and entered the Hôtel de Ville; it came
across the din of the multitude, the rattle of Sabres, the cries
of madness, the orders of anger, the groans of the wounded,
to weigh upon the members of the government, who were
themselves submerged, tossed, and lost in this ocean.
Scarcely could they obtain sufficient space for their rapid
consultation by leaning over the table which separated them,
and bringing their faces close to each other beneath the circle
of the heads, uplifted arms, and bayonets of the mingled and
tumultuous crowd who stood around them. Frequently alto-
gether unable to understand each other, or violently separated
L 2
148 ISSUE OF DECREES.
by groups involuntarily thrown between them, questioned,
harassed by pressing demands, required to give in the same
minute an explanation, an order, a direction for the public
safety, which could brook no delay, each of them boldly took
upon himself the responsibility of life and death, each
seized a pen and a sheet of paper, and wrote upon his knee,
or upon his hat, the required decree, signed it, and gave it to
the person charged with its execution. Thousands of orders
of this description, signed by Lamartine, Marie, Arago, Ledru
Rollin, Flocon, and Louis Blanc, circulated among the barri-
cades within these few first hours. It was the divided
dictatorship which each member of a council of war assumes
upon a field of battle, a dictatorship imposed by danger,
seized by devotedness, and justified by conscience.
It was generally by dint of supplication and desperate
efforts of their lungs and arms, that the members of the
government succeeded in obtaining a moment's silence, in
regaining a disputed seat and a little space between the
spectators and themselves.
They deliberated in few words, and more by glances and
gestures than by speech. Each of them wrote promptly and
with a rapid hand one of the decrees resolved upon, passed
it to his colleagues, who appended their signatures, and
received in exchange other decrees, which were passed to him
to be signed by himself.
These decrees, clamoured for by the impatient cries of
those who had testified their urgency, lay heaped upon the
table, and frequently had not received the signatures of all,
before they were seized and carried off to the press.
The Secretary general, Pagnerre, a man admirable for his
coolness, order, and activity, could scarcely take note of
these decrees, and make a rapid and confused report of them.
Conflagration, bloodshed, famine, and danger could not await
the slow formalities of an undisturbed administration. It was
a government of storm and lightning, the coruscation beneath
the sudden and electric shock of necessity. To expect the
conditions of method, maturity, and reflection from the dicta-
torship of these first nights and days, is to demand regularity
from chaos, order from confusion, a century from a second. It
was necessary to act and save, or to let all crumble and perish.
It was a government of conflagration, standing erect in the
PERILS OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. 149
midst of the flames. The men were worthy of the crisis. They
did not flinch beneath the prospective danger, nor beneath
that future responsibility to which they had in advance de-
voted their lives and their fame. They all consented to
perish, in order to save the people, without looking either
behind or before them. The idea of securing a retreat by
a cowardly prudence or skilful temporizing never entered the
mind of any. They knowingly and fearlessly offered them-
Selves up as victims of the injustice or ingratitude of ma-
tions, if the Safety of all should, at some future day, consti-
tute the crime of a few. They foresaw these inculpations.
They knew from history the reaction and recoil of revo-
lutions, and they fearlessly awaited them. In order to be
useful to one's country at such moments as these, the first
condition is entirely to sacrifice oneself. He who would
Save a shipwrecked man, must begin by casting himself
naked to the ocean : they had done this.
Still all these men entertained a perfect sense of their
Sacrifice and danger. With no other control over the con-
vulsed nation than the popularity of an hour, a wind that
changes the quicker the stronger it blows; without the
possibility of an organized defence against the royal army,
which might return upon Paris at daybreak, or starve the
city in eight days, by obstructing the surrounding roads;
with no possible means of judging the effect which might
be produced by so sudden a revolution on the astonished
departments; with no communication with Algeria, whence
an army of a hundred thousand men might bring back
the princes to avenge their father's fall; these dictators of
a night seemed destined either to be engulfed in the vol-
cano into which they had thrown themselves to extinguish
it, or to be the first struck down at the head of a Sedition,
which they had ventured to regulate. Victims either of the
impatience of the populace or of the just vengeance of
royalty, they had only, in calmly examining their situation,
to choose between these two alternatives. But they had not
time to think of them. These ideas rose but once or twice
to their lips, and only left on them the Smile of resignation
which knows and acquiesces in its fate.
In one of those moments of desperation, when the armed
crowd was making irresistible assaults upon the Hôtel de
150 PETILS OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT,
Wille, and penetrating even into that last and already crowded
asylum, where they were striving to set up an authority
of Some kind, when the wave broke down the doors and
overthrew the seats of the council, stifling deliberation with
its din; then the turmoil became such, that confusion and
impotence finally reduced the government to motionless silence,
Lamartine said to Arago, “Have you exactly calculated by
how many chances our heads sit looser on our shoulders than
they did this morning 2" “Yes,” replied the illustrious acade-
mician, with the quiet Smile of a complete detachment from
life, “all the evil chances are against us; but there is one
chance of our preserving the nation from destruction, and
that suffices to induce us to risk all the others;” and looking
at Lamartine, he shook his white hair with his hand, as if to
tell him, life passes quickly, and is of little value.
Lamartine, remembering the sitting of the 9th of Thermidor,
which he had recently recorded in his History of the Giron-
dins, said to Dupont de l'Eure, “This much resembles the
night of the 9th of Thermidor, when the Convention ordered
Barras to march against the commune, and stifled the reign
of terror in its last council. If royalty and the Chamber of
Deputies have a Barras, it is all over with us to-morrow ; for
we are in the position of the Commune of Paris; only that
we are the conspirators of order and of peace.”
The white hair of Arago had an imposing effect upon the
people. The age and the Roman head of Dupont de l'Eure
equally inspired in the eyes of all a deference mingled with
affection. This old man, vigorous in intellect, endowed with
straightforward good sense, inflexible to emotion, and wear-
ing an expression of intrepidity, amidst the depression of
fatigue and of age, was the object of universal attention.
Those who had made their way into the council-chamber
had him pointed out to them by others who had recognized
him ; they climbed upon chairs and Sofas to catch a sight of
him. Sometimes, however, the undulating violence of the
crowd was such, that Dupont de l'Eure, bowed down by
years, and Small of stature, tottered on his seat, and was
nearly suffocated. At these moments of tumult and personal
danger to himself, a woman from the crowd, who never left
the back of his chair, addressed the populace, reproached
PROTECTION OF DUPONT DE L'EURE. 151
them with their brutal rudeness, pointed to the old man
with tears in her eyes, and clinging to the table, protected
him with her own person, paying him all the attentions
which a sister or a daughter would pay to a father or a
brother in danger. This poor woman had the decent but
almost indigent appearance of the females who traffic in the
markets on the faubourgs of Paris. Herself advanced in
years, her expression of countenance, absorbed in watching
Dupont de l'Eure, exhibited simplicity and kindness; her-
self she did not think of ; the sight of pistols, muskets,
Sabres, and her own dress torn to tatters by the rude collision
of the armed multitude, neither stopped nor intimidated her.
All Supposed that this was some one well acquainted with
Dupont de l'Eure, sent thither to watch over his feebleness.
She did not know him. Mingled in the swarm of men and
women through which the cortège of the government had to
pass in order to enter the Hôtel de Wille, this woman had
been struck with the appearance of this old gentleman, Sup-
ported by the arms of his friends, and about to sustain the
pressure of the whole populace. She had been moved by a
Sentiment of pity and devotion to him. She had thought
that his old age stood in need of a woman's support, or that
perhaps the intercession of a woman of her condition might
save him from Some insurgent's dagger. She had followed
his footsteps to the council-chamber, where she surrounded
him with her affectionate solicitude. Devotion to age is
the most courageous and the most disinterested of human
passions.
Up to this moment all the acts, orders, and proclamations
of the provisional government had been, as it were, thrown
forth at random, and in the name of the revolution rather
than of a definitive government. They were sometimes
headed “in the name of the French people,” sometimes “in
the name of the nation.” . The first communications of the
government with the people had been received under this
simple formula, without exciting attention or dissatisfaction.
But at length inarticulate murmurs began to pervade the
multitude. Cries of “Vive la république !” burst forth with
a significant unanimity from the combatants. With this cry
the masses from the faubourgs marched down to the Hôtel de
152 ILLEGITIMACY OF THE GOVERNMENT.
Wille. Within a few paces of the government, in the principal
halls, where the crowd were holding their tumultuous sittings,
the republic had been already proclaimed. It was now time
for the council itself to take a definite part either for or
against a change of the form of government.
Its name of provisional government sufficiently showed
that it only considered itself as the government of an
interregnum ; but it was still necessary to be known in
the name of what monarchical or republican principle this
interregnum was to be founded. The necessity of the case
raised and pressed this question. The revolution had over-
thrown royalty in the person of Louis Philippe. The regency
in the person of the duke de Nemours, which was the
sole authority recognized by law, had been set aside without
a moment's pause. The duke de Nemours himself had not
had the opportunity of protesting, so rapid had been the
two falls; the regency of the duchess of Orleans was not
legal, owing to the want of foresight on the part of the king
and his ministers. Scarcely had it been proposed to the
chamber by M. Dupin and M. Barrot, than it was thrown
aside by the demand for a provisional government, without
any of the king's ministers, without even M. Thiers, the
minister of the last hour, rising to discuss or to support it. It
had been stifled by a sudden invasion. It was only the nation
which was then standing on its rights, or rather there were
but seven men who stood up to act and to speak in its name
and in its absence, until it should be able to speak and act for
itself. These men evidently had no right to change the form
of government, if any government had existed. But no
government did exist, except that of the most bold or the
most devoted. In this total absence of constitutional laws,
this vacuum of authorities, this annihilation of rights, these
seven men, whose sole title was the accident of their presence,
were assuredly bound to look around them, to estimate the
position of affairs as a whole, and to deliberate. It was also
allowable for them to admit their opinions and personal ten-
dencies as elements in their deliberations, and declare to
the country whether they were about to govern provisionally
in the name of the monarchy, which had crumbled beneath
their feet, or of the republic, raised up in their hearts.
COURAGE OF THE GOVERNMENT. 153
Such was the whole fact and all the authority of this
solemn debate, in which the public danger, the conflagrations
still burning, and the blood still flowing, certainly figure
as terrible interlocutors of their deliberations. He would have
been a madman who had not listened to these intimations;
he would have been a coward who had listened to them
alone. It has been supposed and written, that fear had a
share in this deliberation, and guided the hands of several
of those who signed the republican proclamations. This is
false in two ways: false as respects the men, and false as
respects the state of the case. This may be proved by a
dilemma. The men who had thrown themselves into this
crater had done so from one of two motives; either because
they were republicans, and wished to assist the republic,
their own ideal, to rise irresistible from this explosion ; or
because they were devoted patriots, who offered up them-
selves as a sacrifice on the altar of revolutionary conflagra-
tion, in the hope of confining and checking it, and to prevent
its consuming their country and the world. If these men
were republican famatics, it was certainly not fear which
induced them to consent to the republic. If they were
devoted victims immolating themselves for the safety of all,
theirs was not the timid character which can be influenced
by fear.
Besides, there was no fear of death to those who might
refuse to pronounce the word republic. They had only to
retire in Safety to their homes, and to vacate a seat in
the circle of the government coveted by a thousand others.
Had the council-table been deserted by one, by several, or
by all the members of the provisional government, it would
have been instantly invaded by citizens, who desired nothing
more than to succeed them, and thus to compromise them-
selves in the face of the people and of posterity. The danger
lay, on the contrary, in continuing to belong to the govern-
ment in the midst of a tumult which, within an hour, .
might become a massacre. The danger was not in re-
treating. On this point history may appeal to a hun-
dred thousand witnesses, of all opinions, who were present
at the events which transpired within the Hôtel de Ville
during that evening and that terrible night. If, therefore,
154 EXACT POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT.
the members of the provisional government were to blame at
this moment, it is not fear which can be pleaded as their
excuse. They did not tremble; they reasoned; or rather
events reasoned for them, in the urgent position in which
they were placed. They had but three alternatives from
which to choose ; to proclaim no form of government at all,
to proclaim a monarchy, or to proclaim the republic.
To say to the people, “We do not proclaim any form of
government,” was evidently to tell all parties who had risen
in favour of this or that form, “Continue to shed your blood
and that of France, to recruit your forces, to sharpen your
arms, and make perpetual assaults on the provisional and
unarmed order which we are establishing, to wrest from it
the triumph of your faction.”
To proclaim nothing at all, therefore, would have been
virtually to proclaim anarchy, sedition, and permanent civil
War. . Better a thousand times would it have been that these
men had remained silent and motionless in the ranks of the
deputies, than that they come forth in the name of the public
Safety, to achieve the destruction of all.
To proclaim the monarchy in the presence of three hun-
dred thousand men who had risen to oppose it, before a
national guard disorganized, or concurrent ; before an army
thunderstruck and dissolved; before an empty throne, an
absent king, and a flying regency; before chambers dis-
missed by the voice of the metropolis, was evidently to pro-
claim division in the face of the people, or rather it was to
desert the post of danger and of direction to which they had
been hurried, and at once to resign the direction of this
storm, not to efficient moderators, whose authority might,
by a miracle, be recognized, but to the blasts and the thun-
derbolts of the storm itself. It would have been to hand
over France to men of disorder, anarchy, and blood. It
would have been to push the nation with their own hands
into the abyss of extreme sanguinary and desperate factions,
instead of holding it back, at the risk of being crushed, on
the gentle slope of liberty, and beneath the empire of uni-
versal Suffrage, the last appeal to a community without
laws and without a head.
The only course at once revolutionary and conserva-
EXACT POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 155
tive that could be taken, was to proclaim the republic pro-
visionally, and subject to the ratification of the country,
convoked, without delay, in a national assembly. For, on
the one hand, the experiment of a republic, tried with
unanimity and moderation, for a certain space of time, was
an immense advance in the progress of national governments
and popular interests. On the other hand, if this second re-
public, conceived as a happy and striking contrast to the
excesses and crimes of the first, should subsequently be
repudiated by the assembled nation, it at least gave, for the
moment, to the government charged with the care of the
interregnum, the enthusiasm of the people, the active concur-
rence of all republicans, the satisfaction of wavering opinions,
the astonishment of Europe; in a word, that strength, and
spring, and impulse, which would carry them across the
bottomless abyss of a revolution to a definite form of govern-
ment.
Instinct is the electric flash of reason; it inscribed in letters
of light these considerations in the minds of the more mo-
derate members of the government. Hence their delibera-
tions were solemn, but brief, like a consultation on the field
of battle. An exchange of opinions and a summary vote,
requiring from every member of the provisional government
his principles and his conscience, sufficed; a reflection that
condensed a life into a minute, and a few short and Solemn
words, formed the unanimous result. Still there were some
moments of religious hesitation within their hearts, some
faltering on their lips, some pensive paleness on their brows,
and some significant and inquiring glances, as they gazed
at the expanse and depth of the republican element. At the
moment of stepping from the shore of the monarchy and em-
barking on the agitated and unknown ocean of the republic,
the firmest and most veteran courage might well exhibit some
attitudes and gestures of momentary irresolution, and indulge
some Secret addresses to the providential ruler of nations;
but after having looked attentively within and around them,
none would draw back into certain anarchy, rather than
boldly advance to the chance of common safety. Some, in
pursuance of a part resolved on long ago, others through
Satisfaction at the triumph of the system; some influenced by
156 EXACT POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT.
old convictions, others by resolute arguments; many, doubt-
less, through the sole conviction of its necessity, and all by a
perception of the demands of the moment, and by the manifest
impossibility of any other solution, proposed, voted, or con-
curred in the title of republic on the frontispiece of the revo-
lutionary government. But from this hour it was stated and
understood that the immense majority absolutely refused to
usurp, in the name of a metropolis or a faction, the right of
changing its form of government, which belongs to a whole
nation,--a right which only violence and tyranny can wrest
from the people. To compel thirty-six millions of men to
adopt a form of government repugnant to them, in the
name of an armed faction, or even of the unanimous feel-
ing of the people of Paris, would be neither law nor repub-
łicanism: it would be crime and slavery. A revolution of
enfranchisement, issuing in so monstrously arbitrary an act,
would have been, in the view of the majority, the insolence,
the disgrace, or the mockery of freedom. The provisional
government collectively would have suffered their hands to be
cut off, rather than Sanction such a measure with their signa-
ture. It was agreed that in form, in act, and in interpretation,
they should adopt the principle exhibited in the proclamation
drawn up by Lamartine, in these words:—“The provisional
government proclaims the republic, subject to the ratification
of the people by a national assembly forthwith to be con-
voked.”
Thus civil war might be extinguished, the revolution com-
pleted, the people directed by their own guidance, and the
nation still remain the absolute and sovereign arbitress of
her definite government.
With the exception of the superstitious worshippers of
royalty, or of republican sectaries, who placed the right
of their individual conviction, and the triumph of their
faction, above the whole people and all its rights, every one
declared himself satisfied with a decision at once so bold
and so just. It was the best solution for the republic itself;
for they were not stealing liberty, but taking possession
of it in open day before the eyes of a whole nation. Institu-
tions surreptitiously obtained by a stroke of policy on the
part of a minority, resemble the gains of robbery, not last-
ing long nor heartily enjoyed. The earnest advocates of
EXACT POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 157
democratic rule in the council of the provisional government
would have the republic a right, and not a Swindle of
violence, or a trick of faction. A republic coercively im-
posed could not but be a violent and persecuting republic.
They would have it free, pure, and constitutional, or not
at all. They proposed it to the nation under a sense of
their responsibility, and by virtue of that initiative autho-
rity which their temporary dictatorship gave them. They
constituted it the temporary form of the government they
were about to conduct. They said beforehand to the nation,
“You are at liberty to disown us; we are but the pleni-
potentiaries of the people of Paris. We sign the republic
with the reservation of your sanction. Without ratification
there is no act.” Such were their explanations, and such
their words. Such was the sense in which the majority of
the provisional government understood the proclamation of
the republic.
This understanding, explained in all the letters, procla-
mations, and innumerable speeches from Lamartine and his
colleagues to the multitude at the Hôtel de Ville, was the
pervading principle of all the words, thoughts, and actions
of this revolutionary dictatorship. The majority would not
suffer for a single day any opposition to this interpretation of
its administrative acts. This demonstration of their designs
may be found not only in the proclamation which established
the republic, not only in the immediate convocation of the
National Assembly, but in the innumerable addresses and
replies which the members of this majority delivered during
their dictatorship to the moderate parties, who demanded
of them universal suffrage, and to the extreme parties, who
would have urged them to tyranny. The enemies of the
republic have in this respect slandered its founders. At
its foundation they pretend to find robbery and usurpa-
tion. But they will only find three things in the acts of
the majority of this government: the shortest possible dic-
tatorship, assumed with no other ambition than that of being
Serviceable at a time of universal danger ; the bold but tem-
porary initiative of the republic, conscientiously taken, in
order to try the fortunes of liberty, and, if necessary, to stifle
anarchy beneath popular enthusiasm; and lastly, an inviolable
respect for the national sovereignty, and an immediate and
158 TEIE REPUBLIC PROCLAIMED.
perpetual appeal to the people. Such is the whole truth; and
such the merit or demerit, the crime or the virtue, of this
government. ſ
No sooner had the proclamation of the republic in these
terms been unanimously resolved on, than they hastened
to send to the national printing-office to call in the decrees
of the government, which did not yet bear this form of inscrip-
tion. Now that the government had been declared, it was
of urgent importance to deprive the extreme factions, who
were agitating in the square, of this grievance, employed by
them to prevent the pacification of the people. A tricolour
flag was suspended from a window, and hundreds of scraps of
paper were flung to the multitude, on which were inscribed
the words, “The republic is proclaimed.” They read them
and passed them from hand to hand. The announcement flew
from mouth to mouth. Uncertainty and conflict ceased. A
hundred thousand men raised their arms to heaven, and a
simultaneous shout arose from the Grève, from the quays, the
bridges, and the streets adjacent to the Hôtel de Ville. It
spread and swelled from place to place, even to the Bastille
and the barriers of Paris.
The Sentiment kept down for half a century, on the lips
and in the heart of a part of the present generation, had
found a vent. The rest of the citizens heard it, some with
Secret terror, others with astonishment, the greater part with
that sentiment of confused and, so to say, mechanical joy which
hails new and important changes. All received without oppo-
sition a decision, of whatever purport, which disarmed the
hands of the insurgents and relieved the hearts of the
citizens from the weight of anxiety and distress which for
three days had been weighing on the mind of the people.
If the republic had only been proclaimed by the republican
party, it would have inspired that humiliation and sorrow
which the triumph of a faction always occasions in the
minds of impartial citizens. It would probably have been put
down in the course of that night by the opposition of the
national guard. In any case, the Hôtel de Ville would
certainly have been deserted by all those who did not belong
to the republican faction. The republic would have been
left to the sole responsibility of its founders. This desertion
of the national guard, and of the moderate portion of the
EFFECTS OF THE PROCLAMATION. I 59
population, would have exhibited the republic in a position
of isolation, which would have made it an object of suspicion.
But the impartial names of Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, Ta-
martine, Marie, Crémieux, Garnier Pagès, who were known
to be unconnected with any faction, hostile to all extreme mea-
sures, and inflexible to all violence, restored the confidence of
the metropolis; and, in the republic signed by their hands,
exhibited not the ominous recollections of the past, but an
horizon full of prestige, of public rights and Security, and of
hope for that unknown future on which men were entering
with the confidence and the faith imposed by necessity.
The republic once proclaimed, the government and the
Hôtel de Ville appeared for a moment to breathe freely, as if
a new and vitalizing air had blown from heaven over that
human furnace. Uncertainty is the breeze of popular pas-
sions, as, in the troubles and toils of life, it constitutes one
half of the pressure that weighs upon the heart of man.
A part of the people seemed immediately to disperse, in
order to carry and spread the important news in their own
dwellings. With the exception of Lamartine and Marie, the
greater part of the members of the government, who were at
the same time ministers, successively quitted the Hôtel de Ville,
and repaired to their respective departments, Ledru Rollin to
that of the Interior, Arago to that of the Marine. The new
ministers who were strangers to public administration,-such as
Goudchaux to the Finance, General Subervie to the War de-
partment, Carnot to that of Public Instruction, and Bethmont
to that of Trade,-departed for the purpose of re-establishing
subordination in their respective offices. A few returned
at intervals to take part in the permanent council of the go-
vernment.
These first hours of the night witnessed a tumult rather than
a council. It was necessary for the members of the govern-
ment to rise from their seats at every noise from without, to
support with the weight of their shoulders the doors of their
apartment, which shook with the blows from the butt-ends of
muskets, or the arms of men who would not brook resistance;
to make their way amidst naked weapons, in order to harangue,
to conjure, and to subdue these detachments of the populace ;
to repulse them, partly by eloquence, partly by main force,
and always by calmness of demeanour, by cordiality of gesture,
160 DIFFICULTIES OF THE GOVERNMENT.
and by energy of attitude ; and thus to detach from them one
party while opposing another. Then, when the tumult was
allayed, to return, amidst acclamations which deafened the
ear, a crush which threatened their limbs, and embraces
which stifled their breathing; to wipe away their perspira–
tion, and calmly resume their seats at the council-table ; to
write proclamations and decrees, until a fresh assault should
come, to shake the vaulted ceilings, to batter the doors, to
thrust aside the sentinels, and wrest their bayonets, and to
recall the citizens, grouped around the government, and its
members themselves, to the same struggles, the same harangues,
the same efforts, the Same dangers.
Lamartine was almost invariably called for by name. His
lofty stature and his sonorous voice peculiarly adapted him to
these encounters with the mob. His dress was in tatters, his
neck bare, his hair dripping with perspiration, and disfigured
with dust and smoke. He went out and returned, carried,
rather than escorted, by groups of citizens, national guards,
and members of the Schools, who, personally unknown to him,
thronged around him, like a devoted Staff of officers around a
chieftain on the battle-field of a revolution. Conspicuous
among these was a young professor of the College of France—
Payer, with whose very name Lamartine was unacquainted,
but whose cool and lofty bearing in the face of danger, and
self-possession in the midst of turmoil, the characteristics
of the man of a crisis, excited his admiration. Among
them he also noted a young man with a blue eye, light
hair, a voice of thunder, a commanding gesture, and of
athletic figure, ordering, haranguing, and bursting through
the masses, sword in hand. This young man had from
the commencement of the day, within and without the Hôtel
de Ville, on foot or on horseback, exercised a magnetic con-
trol over the multitude,-it was Château Renaud.
There was also a young and handsome student of the
Polytechnic School, calm, silent, but always on his feet, like
a statue, representing reflection during action, a figure
which suggested the silent Bonaparte of Vendémiaire. Dr.
Sanson had been charged with the care of the wounded,
and with the arrangement of the dead bodies accumulated
in the courts and the lower stories; and with him Faivre, a.
MARIE AND GARNIER PAGES. I 61
young surgeon, whose countenance was excited by the whirl-
wind of action, and by the idea which he seemed to see flash-
ing from it—the manifestation of the people. Ernest Grégoire
too was there, the orator, diplomatist, and soldier of the
masses—a man qualified for every duty, at those critical mo-
ments in which separate functions are at an end, and thought,
eloquence, intrepidity, and tact are necessarily absorbed in an
instinctive impulse as rapid as the movements, and as varied
as the phases of a revolution. A great number of others
were conspicuous there, whose names are found in those
documents which confirm the truth of this narrative. Every
member of the provisional government who was in attend-
ance, Sustained in his turn the same assaults, underwent the
Same fatigues, braved the same dangers, gained the same
triumphs. Marie, cold and impassive, constantly sitting or
standing at the same spot, was composing, with his pen in his
hand, the well-digested preambles of decrees, or instructions
to the agents of the public force. His deep and glowing
eye seemed to dart his will into the soul of the multi-
tude. His commanding gesture intimidated subjection, and
subdued resistance. His towering head, scornfully turned
towards the insurgents, checked their tumult, without the
utterance of a word. *
Garnier Pagès, already broken down by suffering, and by
the struggles he had just made to obtain and concentrate
in his own hands the mayoralty of Paris, expended his
voice, his soul, his gestures, and his efforts, like waves upon
the multitude. His arms opened and closed upon his breast,
as if to embrace the populace. Kindness, love, and courage
illuminated his pale countenance with a ray of ardour,
which touched the most exasperated spirits. He more than
convinced, he melted. Lamartine, who till then had only
known Garnier Pagès by his name, and by his merits, gazed
at him with admiration. “ Husband your life,” said he,
addressing him, “economize your strength, do not pour out
your whole soul at once; we shall yet have long days of
conflict; do not expend all this valiant effort on a single
night.” But Garnier Pagès kept no reckoning with his
powers. Expiring, he still exacted miracles from nature.
It was the suicide of integrity. At length he sank exhausted
on the floor, to rest his overstrained lungs, and to recover
M
i 62 D'UCLERC AND MARRAST.
his voice by an hour of slumber. They covered him with his
cloak, but the fever of the public welfare was consuming
him. He slept not, but with a hoarse and broken voice, con-
tinued to counsel and harangue
Duclerc, who seemed to be his disciple and imitator, never
quitted the side of Garnier Pagès. He was one of the editors
of the National, and an eminent writer on all Subjects of
finance and political economy. Young, handsome, grave—his
look erect, his forehead ample, his lip indicating firmness—he
spoke but little, and acted only to the purpose. Reflective,
indefatigable, and promptly seizing his object, he did every-
thing with precision, clearness, and formal accuracy. He had
in his features as in his mind more power of command than
of persuasion. In him was seen the embodiment of order
impatient to issue from confusion. He seemed to watch for
the first symptoms of a reconstituted government, in order
to take his natural position in it, by the side of his master,
his sovereign, and his friend. Lamartine, in the intervals of
repose, took a pleasure in observing the conduct of this young
man. He saw in him a resource in a crisis, regularity in
confusion, decision amidst perplexity, and light amidst chaos.
Such did Duclerc appear to him.
Marrast, though less qualified. by nature for making an
impression on the masses, a man of the élite rather than fitted
for a public position, was imperturbable at his post of Secre-
tary of the government, at the bottom of the council-table.
If he did not address the people, he never ceased to advise,
to direct, and to write. His rapid pen arranged with a
single dash the substance of the most stormy discussion. To
what had been said he added what ought to have been Said.
The most profound suggestions flowed noiseless from his
mind, like the light which, without a sound, sheds itself
over an object. This man, in whom graciousness of deport-
ment was by some mistaken for weakness, faltered not for
one moment, either in look or gesture, during the protracted
convulsions of a revolution, one fragment of which might
at any moment have crushed him beneath its rebound. He
saw the danger, but regarded it with a sad but collected
Smile; attentive to everything, resigned to everything,
and uttering, in the midst of the firing, those pointed but
profound observations, which proved that his mind was
THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC. j63
sporting with danger which surrounded him. Such was he
on that first night, and Such he continued throughout the con-
tinuance of the dictatorship. -
Other men, Pagnerre, Barthelémy, Saint-Hilaire, Thomas,
principal editor of the National, Hetzel, Bixio, Buchez,
Flottard, Recurt, Bastide, almost all of them intellectual
men connected with the public press of Paris, and trans-
formed by the occasion to men of physical action, crowded
into the narrow enclosure around the government; sub-
servient to its orders, ready for counsel, indefatigable in
labour, and intrepid in danger. Their countenances had
become elevated like their characters. The solemnity of the
moment elevated those faces which were usually bent over
the writer's lamp. The different shades of opinion, and
rivalries of party feeling, which in the morning divided these
chieftains and forces of the Paris press, were now blended in
one common and glowing enthusiasm for the public Safety.
In the midst of these might be distinguished, by his bald
forehead, laden with revolutionary recollections, by the
fine contemplative expression of his features, and the ener-
getic conciseness of his words, an old aide-de-camp of La-
fayette, who had witnessed the miscarriage of the republic in
that same mansion in 1830, who distrusted alike tribunes
and people, and who seemed to be watching over the altar-
fire of the revolution. This was Sarrans. In him was seen
the soldier of the old republican wars, but holding the new
opinions which now obtained, and equally ready to harangue,
to write, or to act.
Night, meanwhile, had fallen The deep hum from the
quarters which surround the centres of Paris had subsided
with day. The citizens, satisfied with the existence of a
firm and vigorous government, and recalled to their dwellings
by the hour of rest, and by the necessity of restoring tran-
quillity to their households, gradually began to retire. On
the Place de Grève there only remained bivouacs which
formed the rear-guard of the revolution ; insurgents, com-
batants exhausted and tottering with cold and wine, who
Kept watch with lighted matches around four pieces of
artillery loaded with grape-shot ; and that tenacious and
excited mass of men, feverish and insatiable with excitement
and commotion, which encamped or tumultuously fluctu-
M 2
164 THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC.
ated about the courts, staircases, and halls of the Hôtel de
Wille.
These masses were chiefly composed of old members of
secret Societies, an army of conspirators, bearing every date
since 1815; of restless revolutionists, whose hopes had been
disappointed in 1830, by the very revolution they had
brought about, and which had eluded them ; in a word, of
the insurgents of the three days, directed by the committees
of the journal La Réforme, and who had hoped that the
government would belong exclusively to those who had taken
so great a part in the bloodshed and the victory.
To these three or four thousand men, animated with views
of political resentment and ambition, were united, though
in small numbers, some Socialist and Communist adepts,
who saw in the explosion of that day the prospective bursting
of a mine, sprung beneath the very foundations of the old
social system, and who supposed they held in their muskets
the guarantee of their system, and of the renovation of the
human race. The remainder was composed of those insane
ruffians who have no political system in their understand-
ings, nor social chimeras in their sentiments, and who only
take part in a revolution on account of the disorder it
perpetuates, of the blood it sheds, and of the terror it in-
spires. Writers and cold-blooded demagogues had nurtured
these men for twenty years, with a fierce admiration for the
most imposing atrocities of crime, for the immolations and
massacres of the former reign of terror. Few in number,
they were still men resolved to recognize no republic but
that of the scaffold, no government but that of the axe ; it
would lead them to decimate their fellow-citizens.
In a word, the tide of the day had thrown upon the
Hôtel de Ville, and the night had left there, a portion of that
ragged scum of the profligate population of great capitals
which commotions throw up, and cause to float for a few
days upon the surface, until it subsides again into its natural
channels. Such men are ever between either two bouts of
drunkenness, or of bloodshed ; men who, on coming from de-
bauch, Scent carnage; and who never cease to besiege the ear
of the people until they have thrown them a carcase, or swept
them into the prison, as a common disgrace to all parties,
the drainings of the galleys and the gaols.
THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC. 1.65
Whilst the government was availing itself of these first
moments of tranquillity in the streets, to multiply its de-
crees, to establish regular communications with the different
quarters, and to despatch its edicts to the provinces and the
armies, these men, disowned by the true people, in the other.
parts of this vast edifice, wavered, at the dictation of dema-
gogue orators, between the acceptance of the new adminis-
tration and the installation of as many governments as they
entertained chimeras of ambition, madness, and crimes in
their hearts. Tremendous vociferations arose at intervals
from the distance of these courts to the ears of the pro-
visional government. Discharges of musketry were the re-
sponsive applause to the more incendiary proposals. Here
they talked of hoisting the red flag, the symbol of a blood-
shed which could not be stanched until all the opponents of
anarchy had been enfeebled by terror; there, of unfurling
the black flag, the symbol of the misery and degradation of
the proletary race, or the mourning of a suffering body,
which would never sign terms of peace until it had wreaked
its vengeance on the bourgeoisie and wealthy classes.
Some wished the government to be elected by a nocturnal
ballot, and that its members should only be chosen from the
combatants at the barricades; others, that the leaders of the
most unbridled Socialist schools should alone be elected by
the voices of the victorious operatives of the different sects.
Some demanded that the government, however it might be com-
posed, should only deliberate beneath the bayonets of certain
delegates, chosen by themselves, as censors and avengers of all
its acts. Others, that the populace should declare itself
en permanence at the Hôtel de Ville, and should constitute
its own government in a perpetual assembly, in which all
measures should be voted by acclamation.
Fanaticism, madness, fever, and intoxication threw out at
random these dangerous and absurd proposals, which were
received here and there with confused acclamations, and
then sank immediately beneath the disapprobation of the
multitude, who, on the suggestion of some wiser fellow-
citizen, treated them with horror or with scorn.
A certain proportion of the malcontents belonged to that
party of the combatants who were the adherents of the
Réforme. These more hot-headed republicans were surprised
166 THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC.
that the names of the writers, or active agents of this party,
who had done everything for the triumph, did not appear,
or only appeared as Secretaries, in the government. The
refused to recognize a power which had come down from the
Chamber of Deputies, as if to confiscate the spoils without
having either conspired or fought for them. They saw in
this government, descended from a higher class, none of the
names they had been accustomed to respect in the lists and
the councils of conspirators against royalty. In that govern-
ment they read names suspected in their eyes of aristocratic
descent, of complicity with the monarchy, and of a com-
munity of ideas and interests with the hereditary class of
Society. Among those names which challenged their con-
fidence,—Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, Lamartine, Crémieux,
Garnier Pagès, Marie, one only, that of Ledru Rollin, was
familiar, and touched their sympathy, as being the name of
an orator, who, before the republic, had declared himself a
republican, and who had kindled or fanned in the Réforme.
the fire of the most democratic principles. But where was
Touis Blanc, the public advocate of the popular doctrines of
combination and wages? Where was Albert, who had fought
for those doctrines 2 Where was Flocom, that man of action,
undeluded but undaunted, whose hands, blackened by the
powder of so many fights, had been judged worthy to con-
quer, but not worthy to govern ?
Such were the complaints, the grievances, the murmurs,
which prevailed; and such presently were the agitations
which pervaded the masses of the insurgents, who were
Swaying to and fro, and shouting in the lower stories and on
the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, and at the gates and in the
courts of that mansion.
A fresh explosion appeared imminent. Men devoted at
once to the cause of order and of progress, leaders of the
combatants, accredited journalists, municipal officers, mayors
of Paris, and students of the schools, strove to restrain and to
repress it. The multitude accumulated, retired, or dispersed
at their voice, and then, excited afresh by the address of some
other orator, rushed again into disorder and returned to the
charge, spread through the upper stories and the corridors,
uttering imprecations, breaking the windows, forcing the
TºłE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC. 167
doors, and vociferously calling for the provisional govern-
ment, in Order to depose and turn them out of the palace.
During these hours of confusion and trouble, prodigies of
civil courage and physical force were performed in resisting
these Scattered bands of insurgents, and in forcing them
back to the lower stories by verbal remonstrance, or by
that opposition which the breasts of the small number o.
defenders of the provisional government incessantly opposed
to them.
Lagrange, who had installed himself as governor of the
Hôtel de Ville in the name of a section of the insurgents,
wandered about with his sword in his hand and with pistols
in his belt, amidst the waves of this multitude, undecided as
yet as to the nature of the government which he could recog-
nize and cause to be respected. In him they recognized the
type of their protracted sufferings, of their triumph, and of
their excitement. With the fire of courage in his eye, and
the disorder of his thoughts manifested by his extravagant
gestures, his dishevelled hair, and his hoarse and hollow
voice, he harangued the crowds which surrounded him, like
a spectre from a dungeon. In all his addresses, at once
impetuous and soothing, he recommended a temporizing
policy and a truce on the part of the populace, rather than
respect to the newly-created government. They saw that,
hesitating himself, and on the strength of another commission,
he delayed an entire submission. He was rather prepared
to see a government established than to obey it. Never-
theless his addresses, and the expression of his countenance,
breathed the sentiment of fervent charity for the combatants
and pity for the wounded, horror of bloodshed, and a wish
for reconciliation between the classes, a kind of apostle of
peace with arms in his hand. Thus did Lagrange appear,
harangue, and gesticulate, during the night. b
Flocon, incessantly varying from action to address, and
from address to action, made generous efforts to calm these
suspicions and these ebullitions of fury.
Indifferent as to the share of the government which would
fall to his personal part, provided the republic triumphed, his
stoic coolness amidst the turmoil never suffered his eye,
thought, or word, to deviate from his object. His iron voice
168 THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC.
Tang with metallic notes, like the butt-ends of muskets on
the pavement. His manly paleness, the concentrated firm-
ness of his features, the bearing of his head, which he shook,
his connection with the most undaunted soldiers of the revo-
lution, who had known him under fire, his dress open, torn,
and stained with Smoke and powder, gave a Sovereign ascend-
ancy to his counsels; but now, exhausted by three days and
three nights of vigil, fighting, and sickness, his voice was
less commanding than his will.
Louis Blanc, attended by Albert, went about and took his
part in haranguing the crowd. At this time his name was
extremely popular. He combined in himself the twofold
prestige of the extreme political party with which his con-
nection with the Réforme invested him, and of his Socialist
doctrines on combination. These theories excited the work-
ing population to madness, by the prospective advantages
which they supposed they should eventually realize from them
at the point of their bayonets.
Albert followed Louis Blanc. A working man himself,
he remained silent behind his master; but his determined
expression, his pallid countenance, his abrupt gestures, and
his quivering lips strongly expressed a fanatical trust in an
untried experiment. Without speaking a word, he was the
conductor of that mental electricity with which Louis Blanc
wished to charge the people, in order to shatter the old
system of labour.
Louis Blanc and his friends preached to the people neither
anger nor bloodshed. Their doctrines and their speeches
were, as far as mere expressions were concerned, pacific.
Louis Blanc strove with an eloquence replete with images,
but cold at heart, like all ideal eloquence, damp on the fire, to
disarm the hands of the insurgents by dazzling their imagina-
tion. He only insinuated to the people to take pledges of
the government by introducing into it their own friends.
He meant himself, while he pointed to Albert. He was
admired and applauded, rather than obeyed. His diminu-
tive person was engulfed in the crowd. The populace were
surprised at so powerful a voice and gesture from so feeble
a frame. The multitude, by an irresistible instinct, con-
founds power and greatness of character and principles with
THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC. T 69
the stature of the speaker. Apostles may be slight of frame;
but tribunes of the people must strike the eye with an im-
posing presence, and be able to govern the public assembly
with their brow. The sensual multitude measures men only
with their eyes.
The tumult increased, and the insurrection became aggra-
wated. Repeatedly they thundered at the doors of the
apartment in which the provisional government were sitting,
threatening to turn them out, and refusing all submission
to their decrees. At first Crémieux, and subsequently Marie,
had succeeded, by means of firmness, combined with skilful
Supplications, in driving back these mobs to the outer courts
of the palace, and by this conquest had secured afresh the
moral authority of the government. Seven times since
nightfall Lamartine had dropped his pen, and rushed,
followed by a few faithful citizens, into the corridors, to the
landings, and even to the staircases of the Hôtel de Ville,
to meet at the hands of these disorderly masses either obe-
dience or death. Received in each instance with murmurs
and curses, he had ended by forcing aside, right and left,
Sabres, daggers, and bayonets, brandished by the hands of
the intoxicated and the wild; by making a tribune of a
window, a balustrade, or a landing; and by causing their
weapons to fall, their cries to subside, their applause to burst
forth, and tears of enthusiasm and reason to flow.
The last time, a fortunate expression of cool courage
and boldness which involved a reproach in a jest, saved his
life. An irritated throng crowded the avenues of the Hôtel
de Ville. Reports of musketry against the windows threatened
destruction to the feeble posts of volunteers who opposed
this new invasion, which was about to fill the palace to
Suffocation. All voices were wearied to silence, all arms
exhausted, and all remonstrances given up in despair. They
went in search of Lamartine, who came out once more. He
advanced to the landing of the first floor, where a few national
guards, with some students of the Polytechnic School, and
Some intrepid citizens, were struggling hand to hand with the
invaders. At the name and appearance of Lamartine, the
struggle for an instant subsided, and the crowd opened. He
saw the steps of the principal staircase covered with com-
170 THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC,
batants, who formed a hedge of steel down to the outer
courts and the quadrangle. Some, friendly and respectful,
shook him by the hand and covered him with benedictions;
but the greater number, irritated and suspicious, filled with
doubt and distrust, received him with threatening gestures
and half-uttered expressions of resentment. He feigned not
to observe these angry indications, and descended to the level
of the great inner court, where the dead bodies had been
deposited, and a forest of steel waved over the heads of
thousands of armed men. There a wider flight of steps leads
down on the left hand towards the great gate of Henry
the Fourth, which opens on the Place de Grève, where
one half of the populace was engulfed. It was here that
the influx of the invaders, meeting the tide of defenders,
produced the greatest amount of confusion, tumult, and
shouting. “Lamartine is a traitor l’ “Do not listen to
Lamartine !” “Down with the beguiler | * “To the lamp-
post with traitors I” “Hang all traitors on the lamp-post 1”
“Tamartine's head! Tamartine's head l’ cried a number of
ruffians, whose arms he elbowed aside as he passed them.
Lamartine stopped for a moment on the first step, and look-
ing around on the shouting throng with a steady eye, and a
slightly sarcastic, but by no means provoking, Smile, said,
“My head, fellow-citizens? would to God you all had it
at this moment on your shoulders, you would be calmer
and wiser men, and the work of your revolution would go on
far better.” At these words their imprecations were changed
into bursts of laughter, and the threats of death into shaking
of hands. Lamartine vigorously pushed aside one of the
leaders who opposed his addressing the people on the Place
de l’Hôtel de Ville. “We know,” said the young man,
with a seductive figure and tragic gestures, “that you are a
brave and honourable man. But you are not the man to
cope with the people. You would hush their victory to
sleep. You are only a lyre: go and sing elsewhere.” “Leave
me alone,” replied Lamartine, without the slightest irritation
at this address, “the people have my head as their hostage.
If I betray them, I betray myself first. You shall see whether
I have the soul of a poet or a citizen.”
Violently disengaging the collar of his coat from the hands.
THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC. 171
which detained him, he descended the steps and harangued
the people in the square, brought them back to reason,
and excited them to enthusiasm. The plaudits from the
Place de l’Hôtel de Ville reverberated through the arched roofs
of the palace. The cheers of ten thousand voices intimi-
dated the insurgents within. They saw clearly that the
people were in favour of Lamartine. He returned to the
hotel, and reascended its staircases amidst the applauses and
embraces of the very men who clamoured for his head when
he descended.
But whilst the agitation was subsiding in one part of the
Hôtel de Ville, it was fermenting in another. Scarcely had
Lamartine returned to the council-chamber when a new storm
broke out, and an assault, more violent than any that had
preceded it, threatened to Sweep away the government. The
multitude, after having long fluctuated hither and thither,
from court to court, from Square to square, and from tribune
to tribune, seeking a place in which to deliberate, had at
length assembled in the immense hall of Saint-Jean (a kind
of common forum for the great meetings of the metropolis),
and in the council-chamber, prepared for solemn delibera-
t1011S.
Here, upon a raised dais, converted into a tribune, by the
light of lamps and lustres, lit up as in the theatre of a real
drama, speakers, each surpassing his predecessor in violence,
succeeded one to another. They were discussing the question
of the choice of government. “Who,” cried they, “are
these men, unknown to the people, who have just slunk away
from a conquered chamber, and placed themselves at the head
of a victorious populace 3 Where are their titles and their
wounds ! What names do their hands show 2 Are they
blackened with gunpowder like ours? Are they roughened
by handling tools like yours, my brave fellow-workmen 3
By what right do they draw up decrees? In the name of
what principle and of what government do they promulgate
them 3 Are they republicans, and if so, to what class do
they belong? Are they accomplices of the monarchy in dis-
guise, introduced by it into our ranks, to frustrate our
righteous vengeance, and to lead us back reduced and chained
to the yoke of their despotic society? Let us send these
172 THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC.
men back to whence they came. They wear different clothes,
speak a different language, and adopt different manners from
ourselves. These working-dresses, and these rags of destitu-
tion are the uniform of the people. It is from among our-
Selves that we should choose our leaders. Let us go and
expel those whom a sudden surprise, and perhaps treachery,
has forced upon us.” Others, more moderate and more
numerous, said, “Let us hear them before we judge and
proscribe them. Let us summon them hither, and allow them
to explain their intentions.”
These opposing motions were answered by indescribable
tumults, both within and without the hall. The Hôtel de
Ville seemed to be threatened with an explosion.
Already bands detached from the central focus of agita-
tion had rushed to the staircases. They had knocked down
the Sentinels and trampled them under their feet, driven
back the guards, and invaded the narrow corridor which
led to the double door of the apartment occupied by the
government. A few intrepid citizens, who freely risked
their lives for the preservation of order, had anticipated
them, and come to apprize the council of a danger which
it was impossible to allay. But Garnier Pagès, Carnot,
Crémieux, Marrast, and Lamartine, assisted by a few secre-
taries and citizens, among whom figured in the first rank the
imperturbable Bastide and the impetuous Ernest Grégoire.
barricaded the door. They placed against it sofas and heavy
pieces of furniture, in order to increase the resistive force
and weight of a number of men who stood upon the chairs and
ottomans. All the bystanders set their shoulders against this
feeble rampart, in order to Sustain the assault and the weight
of the assailants.
Scarcely had these desperate precautions been taken, when
they heard the tumult, the vociferations, the clashing of arms,
the shouting of names, the imprecations, the noise of footsteps,
and the deep Sound of the advancing column in the outer
corridor. Those who defended it were thrust aside or
trampled under-foot. The butt-ends of muskets, the hilts of
swords, and blows from the fist, echoed against the outer
door. The panes of glass above it rattled, broke, and crashed
upon the pavement between the two doors. The cracking of
THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC. 173
wood indicated the irresistible pressure of the throng. The
outer door yielded, and was burst into pieces; the inner one
was about to be forced in the same way. A low and hurried
conversation took place between the assailants and the members
of the government. Marie, Crémieux, Garnier Pagès, their
colleagues and friends, obstinately refused to comply with
the commands of the invaders. A sort of capitulation was
made, and the furniture partly withdrawn. Ernest Grégoire,
a man well known by both parties, half opened the door, and
announced that Lamartine would come forward immediately
to the people, address them, and convince them of the inten-
tions of the government.
At the name of Lamartine, which, at that time, had a
magic influence over the people, imprecations were changed
into acclamations of affection and confidence. Tamartine im–
mediately followed on the steps of Grégoire and Pagès, and
delivered himself, half-stifled by the crowd, to the ebb and
flow of this multitude. It subsided, aud its convulsions were
gradually stayed as he approached. His fall stature allowed of
his head rising above them. They were calmed by the Serenity
of his countenance. Before his voice and his gesture, they
opened and drew back; but a counter current set in, and
carried him away through the dark, and to him unknown,
labyrinth of corridors and staircases down to the hall, where
the populace were holding their meeting. The provisional
government, thus rescued from a temporary danger, closed
their doors, placed guards and Sentinels, and fortified them-
selves against fresh assaults, uncertain whether Lamartine
would return to them victorious, or remain vanquished in his
struggle between two parties of the populace and two con-
tending governments.
The hall overflowed with crowds and tumult. A dismal
light and rushes of hot air emanated from this human furnace,
mingled with shouts, sometimes inarticulate and sometimes
vehemently audible. It was long before Lamartine and the
group that surrounded him could penetrate the mass. At
the entrance, he heard the voices of a few speakers, who
announced him by name to the multitude. Sometimes these
announcements were drowned in applause, and, sometimes
opposed by expressions of defiance, of anger, or of Scorn.
174 THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC.
“Yes, yes!” “No, no!” “Let us hear Lamartine!”
“Don’t hear Lamartine!” “Lamartine for ever !” “ Down
with Lamartine !” These cries, accompanied by the fluc-
tuations and gesticulations of the crowd, with the stamping of
feet, and arms raised above their heads, and with the rattle of
the butt-ends of muskets on the floor, contributed in about
equal proportions to the turmoil of the assembly. Amidst
this tumult Lamartine made his way with difficulty across
the throng which beset the door. He was carried forward by
the arms of some powerful men to the foot of a little flight of
steps which led to a sort of dais, serving as a kind of tri-
bune, from which to address the people. The darkness of
the night, partially dissipated by a few lights in the centre of
the hall; the smoke of lamps which were lighted beneath
his feet, which choked the atmosphere; the fumes of gun-
powder from the muskets, which had been firing all day in
the courts below, and which had filled the hall through the
windows; the species of mist which rose from the fevered re-
spiration and the gasping breath of a thousand men, pervaded
the hall, and prevented his clearly discerning, and have ever
since obstructed his distinct recollection of this scene. He
only remembers that he stood above an agitated crowd, whose
countenances, pallid with emotion and blackened with powder,
were only rendered visible by the foot-lights, and directed
towards himself with varied expressions. With the excep-
tion of two, all these countenances were unknown to him.
The one was a face deeply marked by resolution, the face of
the old aide-de-camp of Lafayette. This was Sarrans, at
once the writer, soldier, and orator of liberty. The other
was that of Coste, formerly the editor of the journal Le
Temps, with whom Lamartine had been previously ac-
quainted at Rome. His countenance, after ten years, wore
the aspect of an impassioned auditor in a new forum, and
below these new rostra. Beyond these front rows of stand-
ing spectators, the lights, which became gradually dimmer,
only allowed an indistinct glimpse, on the floor below,
and on the rising seats towards the walls of the hall, of
immeasurable and restless shadows, moving about in the
gloomy twilight. The blades of swords, the barrels of mus-
kets and bayonets, which reflected hither and thither, by
†DECISIVE HARANGUE OF LAMARTINE, 175
the polished surface of their metal, the glare of the lamps,
flashed like fireworks over the heads of the multitude at
every shuddering motion of the auditory.
Contradictory, feverish, and frantic cries broke forth at
every movement of these thousands of mouths. It was a
perfect tempest of men, each mental blast of which pervading
the multitude caused a roar of voices to issue from each suc-
ceeding wave.
Lamartine, thrown as it were upon the raised platform as
on a headland in the midst of the Surge, looked down upon
it uncertain whether it would bear him on its surface or
engulf him in its depths. A number of orators crowding
around him on his right and left, and even on the steps of
this quasi tribune, with voice and act strove to oppose his
speaking. They addressed to the audience, in a confused
manner, brief, hasty, and incendiary ejaculations. Lamartine,
however, succeeded in setting aside these competitors by his
words, his hands, and his shoulders; and at length appeared
isolated and unencumbered before the gaze of the populace.
A silence broken by murmurs, vociferations, and bitter
apostrophes, was at length established, and he attempted to
address them. .
“Fellow-citizens,” cried he, with all the force of a voice,
the energy of which was doubled by his sense of the danger
of his country, “here am I ready to reply to you; why have
you summoned me?” “To know,” replied some voices from
the middle of the assembly, “by what right you have con-
stituted yourselves the government of the people, and to know
if we have to do with traitors, with tyrants, or with citizens
in’sympathy with the spirit of the revolution.”
“By what right we constituted ourselves a government 2"
replied Lamartine, and boldly exposing himself before their
gaze, their murmurs, and their arms, like a man who lays
down his arms and surrenders, “by the right of the blood
that is flowing, of the fire that is consuming your houses, of
a nation without a head, of a people without guides, without
orders, and perhaps to-morrow without bread; by the right
of the most devoted, and the most courageous; by the right,
fellow-citizens, if you must be told, of those who are the fore-
most to surrender their character to suspicion, their blood to
•
176 BECISIVE HARANGUE OF LAMARTINE,
the scaffold, their head to the vengeance of people or kings to
save their country. Do you envy us this right ! You all
possess it: assert it as we have done. We do not dispute it
with you; you are all worthy to sacrifice yourselves for the
common safety. We have no claim but that derived from
our consciences and your dangers. The people who have fallen
from a government into a revolution must have leaders. The
voice of that people, victorious and trembling with its vic-
tory, on the very scene of the conflict, has appointed us and
called us forth by name, and we have obeyed the summons.
Do you wish to prolong an election in the midst of fire and
slaughter, terrible and impracticable 2 You have the power
to do so, but that fire and that bloodshed will be upon your
heads, and your country will curse them.”
“No, no,” cried some voices already touched and influenced
by this abandonment of all legal right, and by this appeal to
the right of self-devotion alone. “Yes, yes,” answered other
and more obstimate voices, “they have no right to govern us,
they do not belong to the people; they do not come from
the barricades. They come from that venal assembly where
they have breathed the poisoned air of corruption.” “They
have protested against corruption,” cried some. “They have
defended the cause of the people in the chamber,” cried others.
“Well,” cried the more moderate, “let them at least announce
what form of government they intend to give us. We have
overthrown the monarchy; we have fought our way to the
government. Let Lamartine explain whether or no he will
give us a republic.”
At this repeated appeal, which issued from all parts
of the hall, Lamartine Smiled with that expression which
seems to retain on the lips a slightly sceptical indecision, and
to provoke an auditory to extort from a mind its inmost
secret. “A republic' fellow-citizens,” said he, at length, in
a tone of solemn interrogation, “who was it that pronounced
the word republic’” “All, all!” replied hundreds of voices,
and thousands of hands waved their weapons above their heads
in token of joyful assent. “A republic 2 fellow-citizens,” re-
sumed Lamartine, with a more pensive and melancholy gravity;
* do you know what you ask? do you know what a republican
government is ?” “Tell us, tell us,” was the answer from all
DIALOGUE BETWEEN LAMARTINE AND THE PEOPLE. 177
quarters, “A republic l’ continued Lamartine, “do you
know it is a government administered by the reason of all;
and do you feel yourselves sufficiently advanced to have no
other masters but yourselves, no other government than your
own reason ?” “Yes, yes!” cried the people. “Do you
know that a republic is the government of justice, and do you
feel yourselves just enough to concede their rights, even to
your enemies 3" “Yes, yes!” replied the people, in a tone
of pride and self-confidence. “Do you know,” resumed
Lamartine, “that a republic means a government of virtue;
and do you feel yourselves sufficiently virtuous, highminded,
and kind to Sacrifice yourselves for others, to forget injuries,
to look without envy on the fortunate, to forgive your
enemies, to disarm your hearts of those sentences of death,
proscriptions, and Scaffolds which dishonoured the name
under the popular despotism that half a century ago passed
under the false designation of a republic, and this day to
reconcile France to that name 3 Ask yourselves; examine
yourselves; and pronounce for yourselves your own condem-
nation or your own glory.”
“Yes, yes! we feel ourselves capable of all these vir-
tues,” cried these voices, which had become collected and
almost Sanctified by the accents of the orator, and now burst
forth with unanimous enthusiasm. “You feel it ! You
swear it !” continued Lamartine, in an interrogative tone, as
if he were waiting for a reply. “You call to witness that
God, who, at such moments as this, manifests himself through
the cry and instincts of a people : " A thunder of affirma-
tion was the reply. “Well,” said he, “it is you who have
pronounced. You shall be a republic, if you are as worthy
to preserve as you have been heroic in obtaining it.” The
hall, the courts, and even the vaults beneath the vesti-
bules, shook with the prolonged reverberation of their
applause.
“But,” continued Lamartine, “let us understand one
another. Both you and we alike desire a republic; but
we should be both unworthy of the name of republicans,
if we attempted to commence the reign of freedom by an
* The notes of this dialogue were taken on the spot, and sent in a col-
lected form to the author, by two gentlemen present—MM. Sarrans and,
Ernest Grégoire. -
N
178 LABOURS OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT.
act of tyranny, or to steal a government of liberty, equality,
justice, religion, and virtue, like a theft committed during a
night of confusion and sedition like the present. We have
but one right; that of declaring our opinion and our wishes
to the people of Paris, of which we form a part ; that of
taking the glorious initiative in a government of liberty,
brought about by ages; and to tell the country and the world,
that we are taking on ourselves the responsibility of proclaim-
ing a provisional republic as the constitution of the country;
but that we leave to that country, to its thirty-six millions of
Souls, who are not present, but who have the same right
as ourselves, to consent to, to prefer, or reject one or another
form of government; that we reserve, I say, to them that
which belongs to them, as much as our right of preference
belongs to ourselves, viz. the expression of their sovereign
will, by means of universal suffrage, that first principle and
only basis of national republicanism.”
* Hear, hear !” “That is right !” “That is just 1”
replied the people. “France is not here present l” “Paris
is the head ; but Paris should direct, not crush the mem-
bers!” “The republic for ever !” “The provisional govern-
ment for ever !” “Lamartine for ever!” “Let the pro-
visional government achieve our Salvation l’ “They are
worthy of their commission, and to choose another would be
to divide the people, and to give to tyranny an opportunity of
return | *
Amidst such cries as these, Lamartine descended triumphant
from the platform. He re-established order, replaced the
posts, sentinels, and artillery in the courts, and returned to the
council-chamber assured of the confidence of the people, and
of the unity of the provisional government. During his
absence, his colleagues Marie and Garnier Pagès, assisted by
Pagnerre, Flottard, Bastide, Payer, Barthélemy St. Hilaire,
Marrast, and a group of fearless and indefatigable citizens,
had continued to provide for emergencies, with all the
vigour of an undisputed and omnipresent government. Nu-
merous decrees, drawn up with that rapidity of thought
and absoluteness of will which paralyzes resistance, had
been issued within a few hours of the assembling of the
government. That government organized itself with one
hand, and defended itself with the other. Ministers had
NAVAL AND MILITARY APPOINTMENTS MADE BY IT. 179
been appointed, and generals nominated; orders were flying
over all the roads of France and the colonies, to regulate
the revolution, and to prevent civil War.
Arago directed his attention to the fleet. This minister,
who secured obedience by the sole authority of his name,
qualified for command, and inaccessible to popular sus-
picions and hostilities, had not hesitated to incur the dis-
satisfaction of exclusive republicans, by appointing Admiral
Baudin to the command of the fleet of Toulon, without
waiting to ascertain how much of gratitude and regret for the
princes of the fallen dynasty that officer might harbour in
his heart : he had trusted to his patriotism as an officer. The
government had without hesitation ratified this appointment.
By the combined orders of Subervie, the minister of war, and
of Arago, officers of the marine and army were already on
their way to the Mediterranean and to Algiers, to obtain
the allegiance of the fleet and armies, and the recognition
of the government which had dethroned their family by the
very princes who commanded them.
Acquainted by history and experience with the irresistible
influence which the sovereign idea of the unity of his country
exercises over the French Soldier, the members of the govern-
ment did not doubt that their orders would everywhere be
obeyed.
Meanwhile the prince de Joinville, the favourite of the
marine force, was in command of a Squadron at Sea. The
dukes d'Aumale and de Montpensier commanded a hundred
thousand men in Algeria. The South was in the royalist
influence. The fleet, which might act in concert with the
army and the princes, might convey to Toulon, in a few days,
an army of sixty thousand men. The king, whose intentions
were as yet unknown, might fall back upon Lille, summon to
his side the army of Paris, of the North, and of the Rhine;
and thus, in a few days, enclose the metropolis and the heart
of France between two civil wars. •º-
The government looked with an undaunted eye upon these :
contingencies, and resolved to anticipate them by the rapidity
of their movements, or to subdue them by the prompt organ-
ization of the republican forces in Paris. Success appeared
to them not to admit of a doubt, even opposed to all the
hesitations of the colonies and provinces, and in the event of
N 2
180 CAUSSIDIñRE, PREFECT OF THE POLICE.
the royal party returning to resume hostilities. There was
enough of enthusiasm in Paris, even in the presence of the
court and the troops. Changes of government in France are
not campaigns, but explosions; in that great people–two
ruling motives never exist together. In that country revolu-
tions are sudden, and protracted civil strifes impossible. This
constitutes, at once, the weakness of administrations and the
Safety of the nation.
Whilst the little band of members of the government, who
remained all night on the field of battle at the Hôtel de
Ville, were thus carrying out the measures which were taken
in conjunction with their colleagues during the evening, the
minister of the interior, M. Ledru Rollin, surrounded by the
combatants of the last three days, was scouring the metro-
polis, and rallying around the government the adherents of
the republican party. He pacified them by the influence
of the victory. He commissioned them to go and carry
the news of it to their brethren in the provinces. He organ-
ized his ministerial department, and hastily nominated the
first commissioners, who were sent from Paris, to replace the
prefects appointed under the monarchy, or to recognize the
provisional functionaries, whom the provincial towns had
appointed, on their own responsibility, on the first rumour of
the revolution.
Caussidière, Louis Blanc, Albert, Flocom, each contri-
buting to the new administration that portion of influence
and number of adherents which their party, in the different
divisions of the people, supplied to them, were collected
around the minister of the interior. Caussidière, who had
been borne to the office of prefect of police by a confused
mass of five or six thousand men of the armed sections,
contested, for a time, with Saubrier the authority conferred
by the revolution; both with sword in hand, smoke upon
their faces, fire in their eyes, and blood upon their clothes,
bivouacked with their comrades in the struggle about the
courts and streets which adjoined the principal office. They
kept their soldiers under arms, and guarded their banners,
recognizing the provisional government with hesitation and
murmurs. They reserved to themselves the liberty of obey-
ing or resisting its decrees. They seemed to wish to for-
tify themselves in the post, and by no means to disband
RIVALRY BETWEEN HIM AND THE MAYOR OF PARIS. 181
the revolution, whose arms they had the power to direct.
But while they thus kept around them the nucleus of the
combatants of February, they energetically employed their
influence over that praetorian guard of the revolution, which
had previously been better disciplined, and which was more
intrepid than the masses, in extinguishing fires, disarming
the people, and punishing all individual outrages against per-
son and property, thus forming a kind of arbitrary, absolute,
and irresistible police, constituted by that very body, against
which the police of the monarchical régime had acted for
fifteen years. This camp of the prefecture of police, with
its lighted watch-fires, its stacks of arms, its soldiers in blood-
stained rags, its barricades illuminated at their tops by lamps,
its videttes, its advanced guards, its detachments going out
and coming in on rapid expeditions, controlled by the colossal
stature, abrupt action, and broken, but thundering voice of
Caussidière, presented the true representation of order rising,
though still with a disorderly manifestation, from the chaos of
an overthrown social system.
Some of the members of the government were alarmed at
the vicinity of this encampment, and by the rivalry, bordering
on anarchy, for the government of the metropolis, between
the mayor of Paris and the new prefect of police. Lamar-
tine did not share these anxieties; he walked unattended
through the middle of this camp of montagnards, he observed
the countenances of these men, he understood from their
discourse, that they were at once the agents of a revolu-
tion which had been achieved, and the instruments of a
new state of order about to arise. The soldier-like, but
humane energy of Caussidière gratified him. He saw that
this party chieftain had a heart as generous as his hand
was valiant; he clearly perceived that his acuteness de-
tracted in no degree from his uprightness; that he was
satisfied with and proud of his victory; but that this very
pride established in his mind, as a point of honour, a resolu-
tion to restrain all excess: he determined to support Caussi-
dière in this semi-submission, which, while it left him a kind
of sovereign control over disorder, would bind him more
closely to its repression.
Caussidière, on his part, with that diplomatic instinct which
is even more effective than practised skill, affected at once in
182 STATE OF THE CITY.
his intercourse with the provisional government a deference
for its authority and an independence which suffered matters
to float in abeyance between complete submission and masked
insurrection. Thus Lamartine from the first day showed
himself openly disposed to grant to Caussidière all that he
required of men, of supplies, and of discretionary power, in
order to constitute for him a kind of Supreme police force,
consisting of two or three thousand insurrectionists, chosen
amidst the firing, in order to constitute of them, amidst the
general destitution of all coercive force, a sort of extempora-
neous praetorian guard, to preserve public order in Paris. It
mattered little to him whether this force was composed of
disorderly elements, and bore the name of Caussidière, or
that of the mayor of Paris, so that the revolution might
not be disgraced by crimes, and the people not taste of
that bloodshed which it drinks insatiably at the commence-
ment of a revolution. It was with the same feeling that he
proposed to his colleagues another measure, which seemed
at first to be distinguished by utter rashness, but which in
the result proved to be the perfection of prudence.
The night was falling over that tumultuous army of the
populace, which wandered amidst the report of musketry and
songs of triumph around the Hôtel de Ville. This populace,
hungering for liberty, now began to be hungering for food. A
few citizens came in alarm to announce to Lamartine the
condition of the city, the prospective disturbances of the
morrow, and the agonies of the future. He rose from the
seat in which he had been occupied in writing proclama-
tions to the people and to the army, and followed these
citizens to a place where a window opened on the Place de
Grève, and permitted a view of the outlets of the streets of
the Faubourg du Temple, and of the Faubourg Saint Antoine,
and the bridges and quays which lead to the Faubourg Saint
Marceau. Here was an ocean of men agitated by the gale of
those passions which a day of fighting had excited. Within
that multitude resided the fuel by which ten revolutions might
have been kindled.
Lamartine was smitten with the calmness and the expres-
sion, at once enthusiastic and devoted, of the immense majo.
rity of this multitude, composed of adult men and artisans.
He clearly perceived that it was not the populace of 1793;

ANXIETY OF LAMARTINE, 183
that these masses were pervaded by a spirit of intelligence
and order, and that right reason expressed in words would
find an echo in the minds of these labouring men, and an
enforcing power in their arms.
But he saw fluctuating hither and thither, in the midst of
this determined throng, another body, restless, turbulent, and
light as foam. This was composed of children or of youths
from twelve to twenty years of age. Thoughtless by nature,
undisciplined, owing to their daily habits of roaming about
a metropolis, irresponsible for their actions by their age
and excitability, armed, though without a leader or an intel-
ligent purpose, ever ready to take the first who presented
himself as their chief, and the first breach of order as their
CăliS62.
He had a fearful presentiment of the terrible and com-
plicated results which might be produced by this multitude
of youths, who had escaped from workshops, which they
might find no longer open to them, and who might throw
their misery, their impetuosity, and their disorder into the
metropolis, if the republic did not immediately take posses-
sion of them, assist them with its pay, enlist them into its
force, and place them in the rank of useful citizens. At a
glance he guessed their number as ranging from twenty to
twenty-five thousand. A shudder of anticipative terror
passed over his brow, while a flash of foresight and resolu-
tion lighted up his mind. These twenty-five thousand
youths of Paris, left among the ranks of the excited populace,
seemed destined to constitute an irresistible element of lasting
Sedition. The national guard, composed solely of a class of
citizens in easy circumstances, and of a fixed abode, would,
for a few months, be virtually disbanded. The equality
of the right of Suffrage was about to be extended by the
bayonet. The army, the object of temporary suspicion to the
populace, against which it had just been fighting, could not
return to Paris without kindling within the city a civil war.
In order to its being restored by the capital to an honourable
and safe civilization, it was essential that the capital itself
should be defended by these two hundred thousand of nationai
guards. While the army was absent, while the municipal
guard had been decimated and had vanished, during this
new enlistment of a national guard, and the arrangements
184 INSTITUTION OF THE GARDE MOBILE.
for its government, the appointment of its officers, and
supply of arms, Paris would be left for an indefinite period
to its own mercy, while civil war in the provinces and a
possible invasion on the frontiers might necessitate imme-
diate reinforcements. Lamartine calculated at a glance that
these twenty-five thousand young persons, abandoned to the
chances of sedition or to vagrancy, or, on the other hand,
these twenty-five thousand young soldiers enlisted beneath
military discipline, and the control of the government, might
make an actual balance of fifty thousand men on the side of
order, and against that of anarchy. He returned, and in a
few words presented these hasty suggestions to his colleagues.
Without discussing them, they felt their force; a nod of
assent was the only vote which passed amidst these emer-
gencies. The numerous decrees which had been signed
within the last three hours, had exhausted the writing mate-
rials of the council-table. Payer procured for him a scrap
of common paper, torn from a leaf already half-filled. On
this Lamartine wrote the decree, appointing at once a force
of twenty-four battalions of garde mobile, and passed the
document to his colleagues. They signed it, and on that
very night the lists were opened for enrolment.
Proud of their names, these youths threw themselves in
crowds into this, the first corps formed by the republic, and
soon showed themselves worthy of the part they had assumed
in the establishment of freedom.
The force appointed to maintain, and at the same time
to control, the revolution, was thus drawn from the revolu-
tion itself. It was the genuine arming of a military people
enlisted by enthusiasm, recruited by destitution, disciplined
by its own innate spirit, partly dressed in rags, and yet
defending the state and property of a luxurious capital.
The garde mobile was destined to save Paris from disorder
for four months, and to preserve Society in Safety amidst the
confusion of the fifth month of their existence. Their enrol-
ment was the omen of the public safety during the days of
June. That body has subsequently incurred the ingratitude
of those fellow-citizens for whom it shed its blood.
Thus within a few hours spent in agitations, shocks, and
assaults, and in the threats of a reviving insurrection, in the
midst of a palace occupied by twenty thousand armed men,
SUCCESSFUL EFFORTS OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. 185
divided, tossed to and fro, and rent into opposing factions,
the provisional government, not losing a single minute,
fathoming all the depths, and watching the glimmer from
every lighthouse of public Safety, catching up all the
dropped threads from the woof of annihilated power, had
brought about the recognition in itself of that dictatorial
authority which constitutes the first and last instinct of a
dissolved social system. In a right which it had usurped,
but usurped from anarchy, it had protected the Supreme
power of an endangered nation. By one bold effort it had
put a stop to all intestine attempts at the substitution of
another government in place of itself. It had rendered the
return to Paris of the conquered dynasty impossible. It had
caused the firing to cease, and a pathway to be made through
the barricades. It had extinguished the conflagrations, re-
opened the communications between Paris and the provinces,
informed and surprised the departments by the promptitude
of its measures, created new magistrates for the people, or
confirmed the former ones in their offices, despatched agents,
received declarations of allegiance from the troops, provided
for the maintenance of Paris, appointed ministers, reorganized
the municipal police, dissolved the Chamber of Deputies,
suspended the Chamber of Peers, proclaimed its wish and
that of the people of Paris, to change the monarchy into a
republic, subject to the ratification by the sovereign voice of
the people, established the republican guard as a police,
and the garde mobile as a social force, appointed generals,
taken possession of the forts, received the submission of
Vincennes, and preserved that arsenal. Lastly, it had
tended the wounded, preserved the Tuileries, by convert-
ing it into a temporary hospital for the people, ordered
the enlargement of the regiments of the national guards,
enrolled the people (that civic force then the only one at
their disposal), caused religion and property to be respected,
proclaimed the fusion and concord of different classes under
the name of fraternity, and changed that night of anarchy
and civil war, of conflagration, plunder, and death, in which
the citizens were threatened by the common overthrow of
all authority, into one of almost peaceful security. Sixty-
two proclamations, deliberations, orders, or decrees, issued
in a few hours, and executed by the zeal and courage
186 FATIGUED CONDITION OF ITS MEMBERS.
of the citizens, who had made themselves the allies of the
government, had before midnight produced and established
these results.
The fatigue of the people, who had been on foot for twenty-
four hours, the cool resolution of the government, and the
last effort of Lamartine, had at last cleared the Hôtel de
Ville and the Place de Grève of the crowds by which
they had been besieged since the morning. The men who
desired the tyranny of a government composed of the victo-
rious populace of Paris, overpowered by the good sense of the
people, and by the acclamations which had greeted Lamartine,
had for that night abandoned their designs. Enthusiasm
had hurried everything along with it, even to the thoughts
of resistance, and participating in it themselves, they retired
mingling murmurs with their applause. The wild idea of a
government tumultuous and violent as the element from
which it sprang, had eluded their grasp at the very moment
when they thought themselves sure of their prey. They
withdrew to conspire during the night, to seize it by open
force during the morrow. Neither Lamartine nor the members
of the government, a few of whom remained with him at the
Hôtel de Ville, suspected so near and so threatening a return
of the dangers they had just put down. Overcome with
fatigue and with exhausted voices, with no other couch to rest
their limbs than the floor of the council-chamber, with no
other food to recruit their strength than a morsel of bread
broken between them on the table, with no other beverage
than a few drops of wine, the remnants of the breakfast of
one of the attendants of the mayoralty, and drunk from a
broken piece of crockery found among the lumber of the
palace, they at length began to breathe, looking back upon what
they had accomplished, and forgetting what still remained to
be done. The members of the government had successively
retired one by one ; the fellow-labourers who seconded
them with all their courage and zeal, Buchez, Pagnerre,
Barthélemy Saint Hilaire, Recurt, Flottard, Payer, Bastide,
Flocon, and fifty or sixty other intrepid citizens, were still on
foot, and furnished suggestions to meet all those minor emer-
gencies which arose with every minute. The more important
arrangements had been promptly made,-occasions for more
were hatching amidst the darkness of the night. Marie and
NOHCTURNAL ASPECT OF THE CITY. 187
Lamartine agreed to share the last watches of that night, only
going away by turns for a short time to reassure their families
before retiring to resume that post at which on the morrow
they were to encounter fresh assaults. Lamartine thus quitted
the Hôtel de Ville at midnight without being recognized. He
was accompanied by Payer, Ernest Grégoire, and Doctor
Faivre, undaunted companions of his dangers during the day,
and with whom but a few hours before he was unacquainted.
He had seen them by the fire of the revolution; and that was
sufficient to attach these citizens to each other. Such moments
reveal characters more than years of common-place intercourse.
The night was gloomy and tempestuous; the wind, which was
mingled with rain, was driving the clouds that lowered in the
sky, and the wreathing Smoke of the lamps on the tops of the
barricades, and made the weather-cocks and iron cowls of the
chimneys creak and groan upon the roofs. At the entrance
of every street, Sentries who had volunteered from among the
people kept watch with loaded muskets in their hands, but
withorº any other watchword than their spontaneous zeal to
defend the safety of their respective districts. They might be
said to be keeping watch over their own honour, for fear that
their victory should be tarnished with crime. At short inter-
vals were found large fires lighted, around which groups
of combatants were lying asleep on a little straw. Their
sentinels, like disciplined soldiers, obeyed chiefs whom they
had instinctively chosen, or whom they recognized on the
evidence of a moral superiority. No disordered tumult,
no threatening clamour, no reproach, disturbed these armed
assemblages; they politely challenged the citizens as they
passed, and informed themselves of the news of the hour,
and the resolutions and decrees of the government. They
applauded the mention of the republic, and swore to de-
fend and to honour it by a magnanimous and forgiving
spirit. They testified no resentment, no anger, nor thirst
of vengeance; their only emotion was enthusiasm and hope
for the best. The earth might trust, and heaven might
Smile upon the Sentiments of the people during such a night.
Only occasionally, and at distant intervals, a few reports of
fire-arms were heard, and bullets whistled through the air.
These came from the posts of the combatants, who fired at ran-
dom, in order to apprize the troops, whose dispositions were
188 MOVEMENTS OF THE PEOPLE NEAR THE PLACE DE GREVE.
unknown, that the army of the people was on foot, and
surprise impossible. Lamartine and his friends everywhere
harangued them, encouraged them, and were received with
cries of “The provisional government for ever !” It was
only in proportion as their distance from the Hôtel de Ville
became greater, that these posts were more rare. Here and
there a few persons who had been fighting for three days were
wandering about in groups and without chiefs, in the streets
and on the quays, stupified with the wine and the firing.
They uttered cries of victory; they knocked at the doors
with the butt-ends of their muskets or the hilts of their
swords, and fired by files in token of joy rather than of any
destructive intention. At the extremity of the bridges of
the Tuileries, at the entrance of the Rue de Back, and the
adjacent streets of the Faubourg St. Germain, this party
firing was kept up all night, and it was only by passing
through it that Lamartine could reach the door of his
house.
After having changed his clothes, which were torn to rags
in the encounters of the past days, and taken two or three
hours of sleep, he set out again on foot at four o'clock in the
morning for the Hôtel de Ville. The lagging hours of the
night had now more completely lulled the city; the fires had
gone out on the barricades, and the Sentinels of the people
were sleeping with their elbows supported on the muzzle of
their muskets. A certain dull Sound was heard issuing from
the deep and dark streets which surround the Place de
Grève; armed groups of four or five men in each, here
and there were traversing the quay, the streets, and the
squares, with hurried steps. As they walked they conversed
in a low tone of voice, like conspirators. These men were in
general differently dressed from the rest of the people. They
wore coats of dark colour, and caps of black cloth with an
edging of red, trowsers, and boots of a certain degree of ele-
gance. Their beards, curling on their chins and lips, carefully
trimmed and combed ; white and delicate hands, more fit to
hold the pen than the tool; intelligent expressions of coun-
tenance, marked with the suspicious ardour of a plot;-all
this showed that these men did not belong, as far as their
occupation was concerned, to the indigent classes, but that
they were rather their directors, their agitators, and their

SYNOPSIS OF PARTIES WHICH EFFECTED THE REVOLUTION. 189
chiefs. Lamartine thought he could perceive by the light of
the fires of the bivouac, that they wore redribbons in their but-
tonholes, and a red cockade in their caps. He supposed that
it was simply a rallying sign, worn for the purpose of mutual
recognition during the days of conflict that had just passed
away. He entered the Hôtel de Ville without suspicion, and
relieved his colleague, Marie, who went in his turn to See and
comfort his family.
Quiet, silence, and sleep reigned at this time throughout
the vast building, which a few hours before had been the
scene of so much tumult. This silence was only interrupted
by the groans and the delirious talk of the wounded and the
dying, who lay about the state-room. Lamartine resumed
his post in the somewhat enlarged, half empty, and better
protected precincts of the provisional government. There,
while writing orders and drawing up decrees, he awaited the
dawn of day and the return of some of his colleagues.
B O O K. VII.
THAT period of stillness and repose in which the late hours
of the night and still more the early dawn of day invariably
enfold the minds and actions of men during the convulsions.
even of battles or revolutions, was, on the present occasion,
spent in watching only by that one party, whose object was to
recover on the following day the victory and the control of
power, of which, as we have already seen, they had been de-
prived by the provisional government on the preceding evening.
In order the better to comprehend this narrative, it will be
necessary to enter into a precise and impartial consideration
of the three parties which had effected the revolution, and
were unanimously agreed in proclaiming or adopting a repub-
lican form of government, as soon as the king's flight had
confirmed the revolutionary movement.
These consisted, in the first place, of the liberal or national
party, composed of all the friends of the liberty and the pro-
gress of institutions, without reference to class, social condition,
or fortune; and, secondly, of the socialist party, which was com-
} 90 THE FIRST, OR NATIONAL PARTY.
posed of the aggregate mass of all the different sects, schools,
or systems, which aimed at effecting a more or less radical
renovation of Society, by means of a new distribution of the
conditions of labour or the bases of property; lastly, of the
revolutionary party, composed of those who enter into a revo-
lution for its sake alone—men alike indifferent to philo-
Sophical views of progress, or dreams of radical amelioration;
who look only to the excitement of the moment; whose
Souls are destitute of the moral devotion of those who regard
governments as instruments for the good of a nation, and
whose imaginations are unfired by the chimerical enthusiasm
of those who believe that social order may be renovated from
its foundations without burying man beneath its ruins. Such
revolutionists, without faith and without understanding, but
full of passions and tumultuous emotions, seek to model revo-
lutions according to their own image, and find the consumma-
tion of all they desired only in the protraction of convulsive
movements. The single theory to which they aspire is a re-
volutionary government, devoid like themselves of faith, of
laws, of result, of peace, of moderation, and morality.
The first of these parties, that is to say, the national and
liberal, whose opinions were entirely republican, had actually
contributed more than the others towards the revolution,
by their aversion to the power of royalty, their reform ban-
quets, the personal opposition they manifested to the king in
the chambers, by the desertion of the national guards of Paris
to the cause of the people, by the passive state of the army,
and by the prompt adhesion of the generals to the new
government. This party, which had increased in genuine
liberalism during the last thirty years, and was penetrated
with the true sentiments of the dignity of a citizen, feeling
themselves capable of dispensing with the king and governing
themselves, entered with alacrity into the cause of the repub-
lic, while they congratulated themselves with having escaped,
at the first bound, the perils of anarchy. -
The popularity, promptitude, and energy of the provisional
government had in eighteen hours re-established elements
of order by boldly throwing themselves amid the ruins of the
general convulsion.
The national party were already exclusively occupied in
endeavouring to control and regulate the revolution they had
THE SOCIALIST PARTY. 191
determined to accept, provided it could be brought to conform
to the grand outlines of the general interests of Society.
They were ready to give the weight of their adhesion to
the government, in order to complete and close the revolution
by a republic based on civilization.
The second or socialist party was divided into rival Schools,
adhering to various doctrines. These schools had hitherto
agreed only in the more or less radical change they desired to
bring into the social and traditional order of society; and
while their theories all tended towards a better distribution of
benefices and offices, the Suppression of personal property, and
a community of goods, they nevertheless differed as to the
means and the degrees, according to which this radical
levelling of mankind was to be effected. Some were for
effecting this by means of what they termed the organization
of labour; or, in other words, by the substitution of the
arbitrary intervention of the government for the free compe-
tition between capital and wages—a Sure means of destroying
both ! Such was the character of M. Louis Blanc's School,
which, by establishing a kind of industrial and fluctuating
communism, which nominally neither dispossessed the capi-
talist nor the proprietor of the Soil, actually annihilated both,
by depriving them of their independence, and which was
equivalent to a confiscation of all capital, since it destroyed
all interest.
This system, which was moderate and disguised in its
formulae, founded on a real principle of justice and equality,
and of pity for the oppressions of competition, and the
frequent iniquities to which capital may give rise, and
expounded by its founder with a persuasive sophistry that
attracted the ignorant, and a talent in style and words which
dazzled the young and penetrated the masses, was of all
systems the most abundant in earnest followers. The rallying
word of theſorganization of labour) thanks to the obscurity of
its meaning, had become the watch-cry of these crusaders
against political and Social order.
Although these words conveyed no meaning to the more
cultivated classes, they possessed in their eyes all the charm
and illusion of mystery, embodying ideas of philosophy,
while in the eyes of the industrial classes they were regarded
as significant of justice, reparation, hope, and consolation.
192 SUBIVISIONS OF THAT PARTY : FOURRIERISM.
Too imperfectly enlightened to analyze them and discover the
impracticability, deceit, and misery with which they were im-
brued, these orders of men venerated them from the apparent
pledges they afford of a practical and easy amelioration, alike
innoxious to all conditions of labour, and compatible with their
ideas of the constitution of property, wealth, and capital, which
they would shrink from attacking by violence and spoliation.
Such a system as this could not fail speedily to rally
around its standard an army of proselytes at a period and in
the midst of cities where the competition of industry accu-
mulated floating masses of suffering, worn-out, or indolent
working men. This party acted as the advanced guard of
communism, under a name which deceived all men, not ex-
cepting even its own adherents.
The other socialist schools were, in the first place, that of
Fourrier, remodelled from the ruins of Saint Simonism, and
which had been at once developed and extinguished in 1830.
Fourrierism, which was more vastand profoundin its ideas, and
more deeply penetrated by a sentiment of immaterialism, had,
by the faith and talents of its principal promulgators, raised itself
to the standard of a species of apostolical religion. Its form
of faith was daily set forth at Paris in the Journal de la Démo-
cratie pacifique, under the direction of Considérant, Hennequin,
and Cantagrel. It had its chapels, its missions, its coenacles,
its muster-rolls, and subscriptions from all classes in the de-
partments of France and in other parts of Europe. It did
not present itself as in favour of a subversion of the existing
state of Society, but simply of an experimental regeneration;
and asked for nothing more than an opportunity of presenting
its theories for discussion, while it advocated a deferential
tolerance for already existing privileges. All it required was
the right of testing its experiments; its aim was to convince,
not to constrain. It was the embodiment of a dream ; for
the community it advocated, under the name of phalansteries
(which were a kind of industrial and agricultural monasteries),
required angels for its members, gods for its rulers, and mys-
teries for its consummation. Yet these very mysteries, which
had in vain been attacked by reason, and insulted by ridicule,
seemed only to bind the sectarians more firmly to their opin-
ions; for mysterious is the cement of illusions, which it ren-
ders more Sacred in the eyes of those who partake them.
DESCRIPTION OF OTHER SOCIALIST SECTS. 193
Pnthusiasm is incurable when those who cherish it believe
themselves inspired, and when the inspired believe themselves
to be martyrs.
Although Fourrierism cherished in its principal adherents
the illusions and Superstitions of a religion, it also possessed
its honesty and virtues. It had hitherto always refused to
ally itself with the political parties hostile to the established
government; while its principles of philosophy and religion
caused it to despise and detest the part of faction. It en
joined peace to all nations, order and tolerance among citizens,
and courageously practised in its acts and writings that which
it had preached. It was a creed of good faith, of concord,
and of peace ; a non-militant creed like that of the Quakers
of America, which like theirs might be feared, discussed, or
ridiculed, but which could not fail to elicit esteem, and
might make madmen, but never criminals.
Besides this great sect, other secondary and partial sects
were divided among themselves on the practical appli-
cation of the doctrine of community amongst the individuals
of one social body. Some of these adopted the incoherent
chimeras of the Icarians, under the guidance of M. Cabet,
a species of posthumous but humanized Basbeuf, exciting
the fanatic devotions of all who were discontented with
labour, proscribed from the pale of wealth, or victims of the
industrial competition of cities, by the vision of an agra-.
rian community. Others tried to perceive some faint out-
lines of a new society without the sphere of man's primordial
instincts, across the vista of M. Pierre Leroux's metaphy-
sical perspective illumined by a ray of Christianity. Others,
again, as if to avenge themselves of circumstances, endea-
voured to follow the desperate doctrines of a great Sophist,
who boldly avowed his audacious design to effect the utter
ruin of the world of thought and of politics, and who re-
velled in the ruin of the present and the chaos of the future.
This Nemesis of ancient forms of Society was M. Prudhon ;
but the ruin he schemed Savoured at least of wisdom, for all
the genius that can appertain to Sophistry was his, and he
sported with truths and falsehoods as did the children of
Greece with bones.
Besides these there were the true barbarians of civilization,
who admitted neither doctrines, faith, Social religion, leaders,
G
194 DESCRIPTION OF OTHER SOCIALIST SECTS.
illusions, nor sects; but who hungered and thirsted for con-
vulsions, be they what they might. An inveterate Sentiment
of dissatisfaction, sharpened into hatred and perverted into
vice, had for many years fermented in their breasts. These
feelings urged them at least to the plunder of the institu-
tion to which they attributed those sufferings, which should
have been ascribed only to the imperfection inherent by
nature to all human institutions. They were but few in
number, and were hidden in the sinks and purlieus of the
capital and the larger manufacturing cities.
The remaining Socialist leaders and sects that we have
enumerated were far from resembling these unruly despera-
does. Together with grand and legitimate aspirations for
the amelioration of society, they cherished many false and
impracticable views, whose accomplishment would be alike
subversive of all justice, of family ties, of property, and of
instinct; but they were not voluntarily immoral or perverse.
These men, impassioned even to fanaticism, and of whom
some were moved by pride to adhere to their systems, and
others by religion to advocate the progress of societies, at
least believed strongly in an idea; and an idea, although
false, in which one has faith, and to which one devotes
oneself with fanatic zeal, brings with it its own morality.
Such an idea may be absurd, but not criminal. It is what
false religions are to mankind in general—a delusion before
the tribunal of reason, and a virtue before that of conscience.
It requires impossibilities, but it does not seek them through
crimes.
Such was at that moment the true character of the differ-
ent Socialist Schools, which joined the republicans in pro-
claiming the republic. None of these sects, none of these
theorist leaders, entertained a thought of impelling the re-
public to convulsions, violence, or bloodshed for the sake of
illustrating the victorious problem of their schools amid ruin
and blood. The historian must not calumniate thoughts which
did not degenerate into factions until a later period, and
which at the moment of which we are speaking were but
hopes; his duty is to proclaim all he has seen in the honour
and in extenuation, not less than in condemnation, of
Socialism.
A sincerely religious spirit of enthusiasm animated at this
THE TERRORISTS. 195
moment the majority of the adherents of the different
Socialist sects. It raised both leaders and followers above
evil designs, schemes of abject ambition, and most strikingly
perhaps above that ferocity of mind which has since been
imputed to them. Enthusiasm, which, for the moment, Sanc-
tifies all hearts, was inflamed to ecstasy in the breasts of all
Socialists, although more especially in the adherents of Four-
rier and Raspail. The mould of the older world appeared to
them to be suddenly and miraculously broken before their
eyes, and all hoped that they might be able to recast the new
order of Society in one more or less in conformity with their
ideas. This joy caused their hearts to expand with senti-
ments of humanity, fraternity, and indulgence for the past,
promising respect for acquired rights, reparation for Social
iniquity, security to the wealthy, and provision for the poor.
They offered the members of the government the aid of their
numbers, their influence, their vigilance, their arms, and
their blood, to co-operate with them in maintaining order,
humanizing the revolution, disciplining the republic, and
defending commerce, agriculture, and wealth. They desired
a gradual and rational transformation, not a deluge. No
word of anger, vengeance, resentment, or division amongst
themselves escaped their lips at that first moment of excite-
ment, when the soul is wont to reveal itself. They gave utter-
ance to no sentiment that might not have been registered to
the honour of the human race. Their aspect, their emotion,
and their deportment, testified the sincerity of words, which
they had assuredly no intention of belying on the morrow
by their actions. Such is the testimony that the members
of the government, however much opposed they may be to
their theory, owe them in the sight of history, of man, and of
God.
The third party was one which conspired, before it was
fully accomplished, against the revolution it had created.
It is alike important to history, the nation, and mankind
at large, that the elements of this party should be correctly
analyzed, for it ruined the first revolution by its interference,
and strove to destroy the second one from the first night of
its development. This party exists everywhere as an element
of disorder and crime—and consists of the Scum of the people;
but it is only in France that it enjoys a theoretical and
N.
o 2
196 HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE TERRORISTS.
political existence. It is called Terrorism. Its history is as
follows:—
The first French revolution, which originated in philoso-
phy, encountered in its struggle between the past and the
future many terrible shocks in trying to rend from the
aristocratic, despotic, and clerical powers, which then held
possession of the old world, equality, liberty, tolerance, and
the other applicable truths that the reason of the French
nation desired to introduce into the mechanism of legisla-
tion and government. In this triple civil war of ideas, con-
science, and interests, which lasted from 1789 to 1796, all
the good and evil elements of revolution were mingled and
confounded. The philosophers, legislators, orators, soldiers,
and tribunes of the revolution, generously threw themselves
into the contest, each one, at first, fighting by the help of his
opinions or his arms. But the effervescence of events soon
caused anger, violence, tyranny, cruelty, and other revolu-
tionary crimes to come on the stage to act their parts in
these dark and terrible days. The dictates of demagoguism,
proscriptions, confiscations, the scaffold, punishments, nay,
even wholesale assassinations (as for instance that of Sep-
tember), had all in turn their day or year in the annals of
the revolution.
These dark overshadowings of justice, moderation, and
humanity appalled the world, dishonoured the nation, and
brought opprobrium on the republic, while they rejoiced the
unruly spirits and perverse hearts of some few among the
people. Danton, on that one day which brought such infamy
on his name, Marat and his accomplices at all times, and
St. Just sometimes, pleaded an excuse for crime. They
exalted it as an instrument of daring—a victory of logic
over pity—a meritorious triumph of will over conscience.
While men suffered them to strike and inveigh, history has
indignantly refuted their sophisms. When we coolly analyze
in the present day their theory of the pretended redemption
of the republic by crime, we find that the republic of 1793
owes nothing to the horror with which it was stained—unless
it be the downfall of the republican principle, reprobation of
the means employed, the postponement of the true republic,
and the despotism of a soldier.
But Sophistry is pleasing to men, whether it present itself
HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE TERRORISTs. 197
as a new manifestation of mental power, as the audacity of the
conscience, or as a defiance to the opinions of the vulgar.
Scarcely was the blood of the revolution stanched, when the
press and history, in one case from perverseness, in another
from fatalism, in others again only from complaisance for
Sophisms, in cold blood revived the fiery effusions of Danton,
and the aphorisms of St. Just, to build up a theory of revo-
lutions, and a Superhuman system of history. Men, who
wrote in this strain, affected a lofty pity for scruples of
integrity and humanity, attributing to statesmen, in a time
of revolution, some unknown right of constraining, proscribing,
and immolating their enemies or their rivals; and this right,
according to their opinions, placed them, not only above all
written prescripts of justice, but above the decrees of equity.
They subverted nature, in order to give credit to their his-
torical system, and deified the executioner, while they despised
the victim.
This school multiplied during the restoration and the reign
of Louis Philippe, and its Sophisms were rendered popular by
oppression, fostered by immorality, propagated by imitation,
and made the subject of rejoicing to the after-taste of crime,
which lurks in the depths of Some minds. To suppress re-
morse was not enough, it was necessary to Sanction the
offence; and even this degree of absurdity was attained.
Generations of minds were nourished in these ideas. False
natures diffused them—feeble natures yielded to them, and
perverse ones converted them into a Scheme of government,
and a fierce and turbulent spirit.
These were the elements from which arose in France, not
the republican body, which thrilled with horror at such theo-
ries, but the Conventionalist and Terrorist party, whose rally-
ing word was the Convention, and whose ideal was terror.
This party, which suffered their ideas to transpire in
their writings, journals, and public addresses, disclosed them
more clearly, and commented on them with more acerbity in
some of their associations and subterranean assemblies. There
the words revolution and republic were not, as in the councils
of true republicans, synonymous with liberty, equality, and
the morality of the citizens, under a government of reason and
unanimous rights; but with this party they signified the
violent triumph of one portion of the nation over the rest.
198 - THEIR TEMPORARY DISCOMFITURE.
It was the avenging dominion of one class over all the others
—the tyranny of the low in exchange for that of the high.
The substitution of a bitrary will for law, resentment for jus-
tice, and the axe for the power of government.
In addition to the enrolled and fanatic adherents of its
different sections, this party was reinforced by the ignorant
portion of the floating population, made up, as in all large
capitals, by those who belong to no country and no class of
society, but who in all convulsive and revolutionary move-
ments are always found ready to inundate every street and
square with their agitation, misery, and destitution.
It is one of the greatest crimes of our older form of society
that it left this suffering remnant of the population of our
cities without instruction, organization, or protection. Great
vices germinate in extreme misery; for where there is stag-
nation there will also be corruption. Crime is the miasma of
indigence and brutality; and the duty of a republic is to
enlighten, purify, and ameliorate such masses.
Such was the army of this party, which set up as its
standard the red flag.
Wanquished the evening before in the last convulsive
disturbance, at the Hôtel de Ville, by the resolution of
the provisional government, supported by the energetic co-
operation of Lamartine's presence and address, the Terrorists
had retired in silence, but not with resignation. They
renounced for the moment all hope of disputing the Supreme
power with a government that had been established by
the twofold acclamations of the Chamber of Deputies and
of the Place de Grève, for they had no names they could
bring forward to compete with the popularity of those of
Dupont de l’Eure, Arago, Ledru Rollin, Marie, Crémieux,
and Lamartine; Some of which had been rendered illustrious
by parliamentary contests, others by letters, science, or the
bar; some by all these modes of celebrity combined; others,
again, by the reputation of public integrity—the noblest
of all forms of popularity. Obscure names, known only to
the different sections, would at that moment have inspired
the departments with astonishment, hesitation, and per-
haps even apprehension. The republic would have shrunk
back with distrust at the first step; and it was absolutely
necessary that the government should have guarantees and
THEIR PROJECTS FOR THE FUTURE. 199
sponsors to induce men to believe in its reality, and trust to
its pledges.
The Terrorists were compelled in spite of themselves to
admit this truth. Their ambition prompted them, indeed, to
seize on the power which they desired to retain exclusively to
themselves. They admitted neither peace, concord, nor tole-
ration towards the national guard, the bourgeoisie, the depart-
ments, the clergy, the great or lesser landed proprietors, or
indeed towards any party whom they included under the
name of the aristocracy. Their premeditated sway was
nothing more than universal ostracism ; but, conscious of the
horror which the open manifestation of their principles would
produce throughout the whole of France, they resolved,
despairing of winning by their audacity, to impose themselves
surreptitiously on the country by displaying their strength
on the following day, vanquishing the capital by the fascina-
tion of terror, and the provisional government by the force
of arms and by intimidation, by embarrassing its operations,
and by the introduction of some of their chiefs into its
councils, and thus finally compelling the republic to adopt at
once the red flag, in proof of its acceptance of their opinions,
and of their own participation in the Supreme power.
The agents of their party had consulted together during
the night, and spread themselves before the break of day
through the different places of meeting of the conspirators, the
resorts of vice, and the quarter of the indigent and ignorant,
in order to raise and recruit the elements of a second revolu-
tionary deluge which might devastate what the first national
convulsion had spared, and demolish what the moderation of
the people had established.
They succeeded but too well. The universal fermentation
served their designs, for all the both sound and corrupt ele-
ments of the population had been So disturbed and confused
amid the general excitement of events, that it was easy to give
them a new impulse and direct at will an extensive insur-
rection, guided by skilful and daring leaders, and accomplished
by blind and involuntary agents. To impel this mass to the
destruction of the republic, under the pretext of aiding in its
accomplishment, was the hope of the Terrorists.
Every nation consists of two parts; that is to say, what-
ever may be the equality in rights enjoyed by a people, they
200 INDUCEMENTS HELD OUT BY THEM TO THE PEOPLE.
will always exhibit an inequality in their habits and instincts.
The most virtuous man bears within his nature certain ele-
ments of vice, a certain possibility of committing crime, which
he subjugates and annihilates by virtue and humanity. The
human kind collectively is organized like man individually,
and is but the individual multiplied by millions. Crime is an
element of the human kind, and is found to be increased in a
formidable proportion in every agglomeration of men; and
hence the necessity for laws and public forces.
It was this vicious part of the people, ferocious in their in-
stincts, that the Terrorists appealed to on this occasion for the
support of their theories; pointing out the abasement of
the higher classes as a source of vengeance, disorder as a
Season of rule, society as a prey, spoliation as a hope,
the Supremacy of one class above all others as the only
true democracy, confiscation and proscription as legitimate
arms, a convention ruled by the demagoguism of Paris as
the republic, and promising tribunes for legislators, execu-
tioners for lictors, and the revolutionary axe in the place of
reason and conscience among a victorious people.
Those who took such a view of the republic were few in
number, and composed for the most part of young conspirators,
pallid from their vigils in Secret societies, and elated by noc-
turnal disputations, without respect for decency, and irre-
sponsible in the midst of associations where all was feverish
excitement; poisoned from infancy by those evangelists of
terrors, who had deified Danton for his daring in murder, and
Saint Just for his coolness in immolation. They were men
rendered bitter by the isolation of their thoughts, of whom
some were tempted by the idea of imitating actions which
they deemed great, because they were of rare occurrence;
others mere parodists of the drama of the first revolution,
plagiarists of the scaffold; others, again, were ambitious of
securing a name in history, whatever might be the price
which conscience must pay; while others, jealous of the cele-
brity of crime, dwelt with ardour on the immortality of
Marat and Basbeuf.
It had long been seen, by the schemes and writings of these
men, that their souls were filled with sinister thoughts, and
that if a revolution gave scope to their perverse designs, they
would hesitate at no act, and no thought, that could call
TERRORISTS UNFAvour ABLY REGARDED BY ARTISANS. 201
forth the reprobation of the human race. They were the
Sophists of the axe and block, deliberately rekindling ex-
tinguished embers of fury, with the design of justifying
by-gone acts, and making victims instead of citizens.
These men could only recruit their forces from the lowest
and most mephitic dregs of the population of large capitals.
Crime ferments only in masses of idleness, debauchery, and
the voluntary misery of vice and immorality, far from the
light shed abroad by discipline and social industry.
The mass of the industrious population of Paris had,
during the preceding fifty years, made immense progress in
knowledge, true civilization, and practical virtue. Equality
had ennobled and industry enriched them. Contact with
the different classes formerly known as the bourgeoisie had
polished and softened their ideas, language, manners, and
habits; the diffusion of instruction, the promotion of eco-
nomy by the establishment of Savings banks, the increasing
numbers of books and journals, of social and religious Socie-
ties; the increase of competence, which affords a greater
opportunity for leisure, and leisure which favours reflection,
had all tended to produce in them the happiest change,
while a rational conception of the true community of interests
between them and the bourgeois classes with whom they
became amalgamated had also produced a community of
ideas. The immense mass of information that had pene-
trated through all channels among the working classes of
Paris, guarded them against a blind predilection for the
domination of the Terrorists; while the recollection of the
terrors, punishments, proscriptions, confiscations, assignats,
and forced loans of the first republic, rendered familiar by
the general diffusion of historical knowledge among all classes
of the nation, inspired horror in the poor as well as the
rich. Conscience occasionally decides with more justice
among the general masses than the élite of the population,
for it is almost the only moral organ which they exercise.
Sophistry is only for the use of the learned—nature has no
knowledge of it.
Conscience and memory interposed their barriers between
the people and the excesses to which the Terrorists would
lead them. Although half a century is more than half the
span of life allotted to man, it is so short an interval in the
&
202 RECRUITED ONLY FROM THE DREGS OF THE PEOPLE.
life of nations, that 1848 actually appeared only as the
morrow of 1793, and the people trembled lest the pavement
of their streets should stain their feet with the blood of the
first republic.
The Terrorists of 1848, therefore, in their design of seizing
on the control of the second republic, could only appeal to
the two elements which are always to be found at seasons of
convulsion in a city numbering fifteen hundred thousand
inhabitants, crime and error, both of which were at that
moment at their disposal.
There were the party of the freed convicts, debased in
morals, stagnating in vice, revelling in crime, ever leaving and
returning to their prisons, and existing in one fatal alternation
of crime and punishment; men ejected from the galleys, per-
verted by contact with dungeons. Then, too, there were the
miserable wretches who exist in Paris on the chances of the
passing hour, the Snares they spread, and the infamous
callings they pursue in a corrupt capital; men driven by bad
repute to hide their lives amid the throng, who, having lost
the regular conditions of existence by disorderly conduct, and
unwilling to recover them by dint of industry, assume an
attitude of hatred and war against every form of discipline
and Society; men who, perverting all relations of human
morality, make a profession of vice and a glory of crime;
men who live in the eddying whirl of unruly license, inflated
with incessant agitation, ever feeling thirst for blood and
rapture in chaos.
All these men, whom one blushes at designating by the
Same name as the people, constitute a mass of nearly twenty
thousand vagabonds ready for every work of destruction,
unnoticed in times of quiet, but emerging from the shade and
Swarming through the thoroughfares in moments of civil
commotion,-men, whom a signal from their leader, a noc-
turnal appeal to their accomplices, suffices to rally at a
minute's notice.
They had been called forth, during the preceding three
days, by the report of firing and by the downfall of a
government; they formed the bands which were then setting
fire to Puteaux and Neuilly, and which were devastating
and pillaging the residence of the king and of the Roths-
childs, at the very moment that this family had sent an
THEIR. UNION WITH THE COMMUNISTS. 203
enormous voluntary subsidy to the wounded or famished
workmen. It was they who sacked the Tuileries, which
had with difficulty been preserved by the true combatants.
The people had resolutely cast them from their bosom, and
many amongst them paid the penalty of their rapacity with
their lives. Indignantly repulsed by the people of the revo-
lution, they had plunged again disappointed into their genial
sloughs, from which agitation might at any time call them
forth. *
The other element which was equally at the disposition of
the Terrorists, and which they might lead on by deception to
the attack of a new government, consisted not, as we have
already seen, of workmen who had been led away, enrolled
and disciplined under different leaders of Socialist schools, for
these men were at that time honestly and heroically opposed
to all violence and disorder, but of those who belonged to the
brutal, ignorant, and perverse party of the Communists, that
is to say, the destroyers, ravagers, and barbarians of Society.
All the theories of these men were limited to the feeling of
their sufferings, and to the desire of transforming them into
enjoyments by the invasion of property, industry, land, capi-
tal, and commerce, and by the distribution of their spoils, as
the legitimate conquest of a starving republic over a deposed
bourgeoisie, without concerning themselves with the future
amendment, by legislation, of such organized ruin.
These two elements, the one criminal, the other blind,
united naturally and without premeditation, under the direc-
tion of some active leaders. A similarity of thought, though
from different instincts, rallied them to the same headlong
desire of overthrowing, in the provisional government, the
barrier which had just been erected against their excesses, or
of forcing it to become the docile instrument of their tyranny.
They collected a third element of number and widlence from
among the indigent classes of the precincts and the suburbs
of Paris, who had flocked in during the evening at the
sound of cannon, and assembled in countless masses by torch-
light on the vast Square of the Bastille, that Mount Aventiae
of revolutions, into which converge the great streets emerging
from all the thoroughfares of Paris. Upon this square, until
midnight, armed groups were kept in a state of the utmost
excitement by their own numbers and oscillations and by the
Yº
204 OPINIONS UPON MEMBERS OF PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.
murmurs which issue from such immense bodies of men, aug-
menting tenfold their strength, as the waves of a rising sea
increase the force of the winds. These groups were not ani-
mated by any malevolent intention towards society; on the
contrary, they had come down armed to defend the hearths of
the citizens of Paris against the return of the troops, who, they
were told, menaced the capital with the vengeance of the king.
But, in proportion as the return of royalty and of the army
appeared formidable, was the revolution they had accomplished
dear to them ; the greater also was their alarm and indigna-
tion at the dangers of weakness or treason which it appeared
to incur. Distorted rumours from the Chamber of Deputies
and the Hôtel de Ville were circulating among them. They
questioned one another respecting the worth of the names
composing the government, and these had to pass a stormy
ballot from group to group, from mouth to mouth, and
from speaker to speaker. Dupont de l'Eure, though he
received blessings for his constancy and virtue, was censured
on the score of his years. They refused to believe that a
man on the brink of his political existence, at the advanced
age of eighty-two, could possess sufficient power of will and
resistance, to give to his country the weight and impulse
which a revolutionary government required. The old man,
nevertheless, was destined to show, in a remarkable manner,
the falsity of this opinion.
The name of Arago was Saluted by unanimous acclama-
tions. He possessed the twofold charm which so fascinates
an intelligent people; science, a species of right divine which
never meets an obstacle in France; and the reputation of
honesty, to which every head bows with reverence.
Ledru Rollin gave dazzling pledges in the character of
tribune of the militant democracy which he had assumed in
parliament, at the banquets, and the Radical journal La Ré-
forme. His age, and revolutionary ardour, directed by elo-
quent intelligence; his aspect, attitude, and gestures, were in
their eyes the very personification of democracy; all these
gave a sort of inviolability to his name. If they did not
admit his merits as a statesman, they acknowledged him as an
untiring accomplice in their revolutionary conquests. They
admired him as their tribune.
The names of Marie and Crémieux presented only recollec-
$1
THEY INVESTIGATE THE CLAIMS OF LAMARTINE. 205
tions of opposition to the fallen government, integrity and
talent in the twofold arena of the bar and of parliament; they
feared lest their republicanism should prove of too feeble a
nature.
Lamartine's name inspired them with, at the Same instant, a
greater feeling of favour and aversion; in his case they fluc-
tuated between attraction and repulsion. Liberal, he bore the
stain of aristocratic origin. Although he had been, since 1830,
in opposition, yet he had, in his youth, served the restoration,
and had never heaped insult upon it since its fall. In “The
Girondists” he had professed a theoretic admiration for the
regular attainment of all their legitimate rights by the people;
but had repudiated, both at the tribune and in his writings,
a demagogue spirit and the organization of labour. He
had been impartial but just towards the grand conceptions of
the first actors of the revolution, but had pitilessly exposed
their slightest excesses, and branded their crimes without a
word of excuse. Such a name would naturally be sternly scru-
tinized by the ultra and suspicious among the people. “What
is the object,” said some, “ of this man in coming among us?
Is it to betray us?” “No ; ” replied others, “he has a
feeling of conscious honour; nor will he devote a name already
celebrated to the scorn of posterity.” “But he is of the
blood of our enemies;–he will have considerations to observe
towards the nobility and rich landed proprietors like himself;
—he has an innate horror of what the aristocracy call an-
archy;-he has, during the last reign, defended the representa-
tive system and a peaceful policy. Doubtless he has a feeling
for the national dignity; but he will have his arrangements
and his compositions with cabinets and thrones. These are not
men for the people. What they require are not moderators,
but accomplices in their revolutions; men who partake all
their passions, not those who restrain them. To restrain our-
selves in revolutionary affairs is to betray ourselves. Let
not the reward of the blood shed in the revolution be filched
from us a second time at the Hôtel de Ville. Let us not
forget Lafayette | Let us take heed lest Lamartine prove a
republican Lafayette. If he wishes to be with us, let him be
our hostage. Let us compel him to serve us as we wish, and
not as he wishes! Let us replace these names by others taken
from our own ranks, or let us unite with them men who will
206 DELEGATES APPOINTED BY THE PEOPił5. .
represent us in their councils, and answer to us for themselves.
Let us stand, with arms in our hands, behind them. Let their
deliberations be only in the presence of the delegates of the
people; that thus their decrees may really be of our own
issuing, and that the axe of the people may be ever visibly
suspended over the heads of those, who, while they govern
the revolution, may have the desire to curb it and the perfidy
to betray it.”
These suggestions, literally as they were offered to the
groups about the Bastille, were applauded and voted by
acclamation in tumultuous ballots. Fourteen individuals of
greater activity, eloquence, and mark than the rest were
designated to assist in the name of the people at the delibera-
tions of the provisional government. Arriving at the Hôtel
de Ville, after devoting some moments to assuming the insignia
of their mission, they expressed a wish that their titles and
offices should be recognized by the government, but their
voices were lost amidst the tumult of the different motions
which resounded perpetually round the council-table. . The
members of the government to a man rose to oppose this
tyrannical pretension to tear all liberty and dignity from its
deliberations, by obliging it to carry them on under any
other direction than that of conscience and of patriotism.
The delegates, at whose head was Drevet, a man of ability
and discretion, were staggered at the murmurs of reprobation
which arose on every side from the midst of those first groups
which had already, from sympathy, collected round the
government. They were harangued by Arago, Ledru Rollin,
Crémieux, and Marie. -
Lamartine himself gained their confidence by his frankness.
“Either do not take me at all, or take me unshackled,” said
he, pressing their hands. “The people are the masters of
their own confidence—I, of my conscience. If they wish
to depose me, they can ;-but I will not degrade myself, either
by flattering or betraying them.” *
These men, the youngest of whom was suffocated in the
following night while opposing an heroic resistance to one of
the assaults of the people upon the Hôtel de Ville, remained
for some time confounded among the crowds present. They
received afterwards employments from the government itself,
became of the number of its most devoted auxiliaries, and
rendered useful services to the cause of order and the republic.
IMMENSE ASSEMBLAGES NEAR THE HôTEL DE VILLE. 207
In the meantime, the day had dawned. The confused
army, composed of the three elements we have just pointed
out, and which the chiefs of the Terrorist and Communist party
had rallied during the night, began to descend by Small
bands, collecting in compact masses upon the square and
quays of the Hôtel de Ville, as far as the Bastille.
The different centres, around which these groups, scattered
at first, had united, were formed of from fifteen to twenty
men, young, but yet mature, and who appeared invested with
a certain habitual or moral authority over the rest. Their
costume was the intermediate one between the bourgeoisie
and the people. Their countenances were grave, their com-
plexions pale, their looks fixed, and attitude martial.
Resolute and disciplined, they appeared like advanced
posts, waiting before an action until the army they were to
guide should encompass them. One of the principal men of
each of these revolutionary knots carried a red flag, hastily
fabricated during the night from all the pieces of cloth of that
colour, which they had appropriated from the shops in the
neighbouring streets. Those second in command had red arm-
lets and belts, and all carried at least a red ribbon in their
button-holes. As the bands, armed with every kind of
weapons,—muskets, pistols, Swords, pikes, bayonets, daggers,
arrived in the square, men posted for the purpose, unrolled,
tore in pieces, and distributed or threw strips of Scarlet to the
thousands of hands raised to receive them. These were hastily
fastened to the waistcoats, blue linen shirts, or hats of the
rioters, and in a moment this gleaming red, darting like so
many sparks from hand to hand and from breast to breast,
ran along the entire circuits of the quay, the streets, and the
Place de Grève, dazzling or alarming the spectators from the
windows of the Hôtel de Wille.
Groups of workmen, not initiated in the movement, and
hastening from distant quarters to offer their services to the
republic, kept continually presenting themselves from the
bridges and quays, marching under the tri-coloured banner to
the cry of “Long live the provisional government l” Astonish-
ed at seeing the standard changed, and blending slowly with the
crowd, they endeavoured to approach the steps of the palace,
but were almost immediately surrounded, pressed upon,
irritated, and sometimes insulted by the Terrorist groups.
Taunted for their choice of colours which had borne the
208 CONTESTs BETWEEN RED AND TRI-COLOURED FLAGMEN.
Tiberty, name, and glory of France, they were presented with
another standard, which Some accepted from astonishment or
imitation, while others hesitated, and lowered it.
Some of the groups defended it against the insults of
the red bands. These flags were to be seen, in turn, beaten
down or elevated amid gestures and cries of fury or of
indignation, and to float in rags or disappear gradually
over the heads of the multitudes. They vanished from
the windows and roofs of the houses in front. They were
replaced by the ill-boding colour of the victorious faction,
and some armed bands, bounding over the gates, and mount-
ing to the summit of the portal, planted the red flag in the
hands of the statue of Henry IV., in the place of the tri-coloured
banner. Two or three of these strips of Scarlet were waved
by accomplices or men who had been intimidated, from the
windows at the corner of the palace. They were Saluted
with discharges of ball, which broke the glass as they re-
bounded into the halls.
The members of the government who had passed the
night at the Hôtel de Ville were defended only by a small
number of citizens, united to them by the instinct of devo-
tion, and that attraction which danger has for hearts above
the common stamp. Some calm, but active and intrepid,
pupils of the Polytechnic School, and the school of Saint
Cyr, and the confused and unknown mass of the combatants
of the preceding evening, were stretched by the side of their
arms on the pavement of the courts, or on the steps of the
staircases. But in spite of the efforts of Colonels Rey,
Lagrange, and Some other chiefs of the combatants, who
had been appointed to, or who had installed themselves in,
the different commands in connection with the palace of the
people, these assailants of the evening, now become defenders
on the morrow, could, neither by heart nor hand, resist this
Second wave of revolution, come to force back and submerge
the first. There were on both sides the same men, the same
dresses, the same language, the Same cries; the companions
of the barricades of the night, who had met in the morning,
not to combat, but to unite and to congratulate each other.
The weak post of national guards, drowned in such an
ocean of armed men, consisted at present only of two or three
courageous citizens, of whose names history ought to make
ENTRANCE OF THE MOB INTO THE HôTEL DE VILLE. 209
mention. They came to offer the aid of their bayonets and
to demand orders. Tamartine instructed them to retire into
the interior, until the mayors of Paris, warned by Marie and
Marrast, should succeed in assembling some detachments, and
in directing them to the succour of the assaulted government.
Scarcely had these orders been issued, when bands of
meanly-attired men, recruited from the poor streets of the
faubourgs, and remotest boundaries of Paris, on the east and
west, poured with such continued and violent currents, such
songs and cries, into the square, that the multitude, already
crowded, was seen to undulate like a sea. Dashing with all
their force against the gates, which their weight caused to give
way, they were engulfed, pell-mell, in all the entrances of
the palace. Crowds, tumult, and confusion filled it in an
instant. The number of those who then covered the square,
the quays, the outlets of the streets, the gardens, courts, stair-
cases, corridors, and halls of the Hôtel de Ville, cannot be esti-
mated at less than from thirty to forty thousand men.
The entrance of this mass of people, preceded by the prin-
cipal chiefs who had recruited them, and who had inspired
them with their spirit, was followed by the low roarings and
clamours of a tide that has burst its dyke.
The different divisions of this crowd spread themselves
through every part of the edifice, vociferating, gesticulating,
and brandishing their arms. Here and there they fired with-
out discrimination or direction; and with no other motive
than to display their weapons, or their intoxication. The
bullets struck the ceilings, and tore away portions of the
entablatures of the doors and windows. The more numerous
mass, not being able to enter, commenced an incessant chorus.
of the Marseillaise. The entire square was one continued
surface of faces, pallid, or red with emotion, and all turned
towards the chief front of the palace, with hands raised and
banners waved above their heads. The latter sign was
intended as the symbol and signification to the government of
the republic of convulsions, which they wished to impose on it.
The small number of the pupils of the schools, of devoted
men, and combatants of the evening, already somewhat disci-
plined by what they had gone through in the night, and by
the confidence which the government had displayed by rally-
ing them around it as the first praetorian guards of the republic,
P
210 VIOLENT LANGUAGE OF THE LEADERS.
had retired before this crowd, taking refuge in the highest
landings of the staircases, in the narrow corridors, and in
the apartments crowded by citizens, and ringing with the
tumult' which reigned about the approaches of the seat of
government. These posts, invincible, from sheer impossibility
of falling back, on account of the general crowding, and the
barriers formed by the doors and walls, were in vain pressed
upon by the new-armed columns who rushed to the assault.
They opposed a rampart of living bodies to these irruptions,
continually recurring and as often repelled. m
From the small council-chamber were heard the bellowing
of the multitude, the bursts of contention, the sound of loud
singing, the roar of voices and cracking of doors, and the
breaking and falling of glass at the firing of the muskets.
Loud and frantic dialogues were carried on between the
chiefs and orators of the assailants and the groups defending
the approaches of the reserved apartments. At each instant,
shocks still more terrible than the preceding were hurled
against the advanced guard of citizens who filled the ante-
chambers or passages, and being communicated to the very
doors of the council-room, shook them with violence, and
overthrew on the flagstones of the corridors men who were
trampled under the feet of Such as had preserved their
footing. “Let us come to speech with this government of
men unknown to or suspected by the people,” was the cry
uttered by the leaders and repeated by the frantic yells of
those behind them. “Who are they What are they
doing? What republic are they manufacturing 2 Is it one
in which the rich man will still enjoy himself and the poor
suffer—the manufacturer wear his workmen out by con-
demning them to the Salary he fixes himself, or to famine,
and the capitalist make his own conditions of use for his
capital, or bury it ! Is it a republic which, after having
been obtained by our blood, will rest content with washing
the pavements for the carriages of the wealthy to roll over
them anew, and bespatter the rags of the people with mud. 3
Is it one to connive at the vices of society in the head, and
punish them in the members; which will have neither judges,
nor vengeance, nor Scaffold, for traitors; which will practise
humanity at the expense of human nature; make its compacts
with tyrants, priests, nobles, bourgeois, and proprietors, and
EFFORTS OF THE REPUBLICANS TO APPEASE THEM. 211
bring back to us, under another name, all the abuses, privi-
leges, and iniquities of royalty?” “No, no,” added the most
exasperated ; “these are not men of our race; no confidence
is to be placed in Such as have not undergone the same
privations, who are not actuated by the same resentments,
who do not speak the same language, and are not clothed in
the same rags | Tet us depose and expel them, hurl them
from that power which they have usurped, surprised, and
plundered in a single might ! What we want is to make our
republic ourselves; that the government of the people should
be of the people, and composed of men known and loved
by them. Down with the flag of royalty, which reminds
us of our servitude and its crimes | Hurra for the ºad one,
the symbol of our freedom l’
Thus were these groups harangued by orators, who, for
the most part, only affected the misery and resentments of
the people, but, in fact, partook neither its labours nor
its sufferings. Just as in ancient times there were hired
mourners to feign grief and tears, so on that day had the
Terrorist party cold and calculating monsters, to counter-
feit the hunger, miseries, and resentments of the people.
Yet, behind them the true people were to be recognized, with
their miseries only too real; and in their confused aspirations
for equality and ease, sometimes mingled with envy, respond-
ing to the orators with their looks, their gestures, and their
hearts. They applauded their words, elevated their red flag,
and, brandishing their arms, gave vent to suspicions and
imprecations against the government. The calm and well-
intentioned republicans exerted themselves to appease these
men by representing to them that if the members of the new
government had felt the wish to indulge in schemes of
treachery to the people and a retreat in royalty, they would
not the preceding evening have proclaimed the republic ;
that if their names were not, in the eyes of the people, suffi-
cient guarantees for political probity, their heads were the
pledges of fidelity to the revolution, into which they had
freely and courageously thrown themselves; that the govern-
ment of a wise and intelligent nation, such as France, required
men well acquainted with internal and external affairs, and
who, by education and habit, knew how both to debate and
write, carry on the details of office, and command; that the
P 2
212 "VIEWS OF THE RIOTERS.
men in question had been elected during the evening by public
acclamation, to save the country and the people themselves;
that they had boldly plunged ankle-deep in blood to arrest its
further effusion; that in a few hours they had done much;
that time should be left them to do yet more, and that they
should afterwards be judged according to their works.
These words made an impression upon the most reason-
able portion of the crowd. “Good,” said some men, coming
forward from the ranks to press the hands of the friends of
order and the government, “you are in the right. We are
unable to govern ourselves; our education has not been
sufficient to give us a knowledge of things and of men; let
each carry on his own trade. These are honest men; they
have been during the last government on the side of the
people in the ranks of opposition. Let them govern us—we
are content to let them ; but it must be as we wish to be
governed—in our interest, under our flag, and in our pre-
sence. Tet them tell us what they purpose to do with us
and for us. Let them set up our colours; let them surround
themselves with ourselves alone; let them deliberate in the
presence of the people, and let a certain number of us assist
at all their acts, and dive into all their thoughts; to answer
to us for them, and to wrest from them not only the tempta-
tion, but the possibility of deceiving us!”
At these last propositions the applause became more frantic.
Not to violate the government, but to keep the closest eye
upon it, to overrule it, to subject it absolutely, to force from it
a change of the revolutionary banner, the measures of 1793,
proscriptions, confiscations, popular tribunals, proclamation of
the dangers of the country, declaration of war against all
thrones; finally, that extreme government, which, in order to
rouse a nation and throw it wholly into the hands of faction,
has need of war at its frontier and the scaffold at its centre.
Add to this programme of the republic of 1793, the open
struggle of the impoverished class with the bourgeoisie, of
Salary with capital, workman against master, consumer against
trader. Such was the tendency of the resolutions so violently
discussed, and of the speeches and vociferations which ema-
nated from the groups of the assailants. ł
This spirit was, however, far from being unanimous and
without contradictors among the crowd of good citizens, which,
every hour increasing, poured into the Hôtel de Ville.
RENEWED EFFORTS OF THE MoDERATE REPUByrcºs. 213
- *
The Terrorists and Communists inspired horror and affright
among the enlightened and cour; geolf; republicans, who, since
tº evening before, had clºng round a government which they
deemed of a moderate and conciliating character. These,
like the vast majority of the people of Paris, viewed in the
republic a humane and magnanimous emancipation of all
classes, without oppression to any. They saw in it a per-
fectioning of justice; an equitable, rational, and progressive
amelioration of political and civil society, and of that in which
property was vested. They were far from seeing in it
a subversion of family and of fortunes; a sacrifice of one or
two generations for the gratification of impossible chimeras
or detestable passions. They strove to bring back to such
thoughts as these, to reason, to a feeling of confidence in the
government, the wavering and unsettled mass of the poor
and ignorant, recruited from the suburbs. These had set
up the red flag, Solely because that colour excites men as well
as brutes; they followed the Communists without understand-
ing them; they shouted with the Terrorists without partaking
their thirst for blood. The good workmen, republicans, com-
batants, even the wounded themselves, addressed themselves
to these bands, less guilty than deluded, with the authority
of an opinion upon which no suspicion could rest, and of the
blood which they had shed in the evening for the same cause,
and succeeded in Sowing some doubt and indecision amongst
them. Sometimes softened by the reproaches, the suppli-
cations, and the sight of their bleeding companions of the
evening, they threw themselves into the arms of those who
had spoken to them, and, dissolved in tears, united with them
in exhorting to patience, harmony, and moderation. A
certain degree of wavering began to be perceptible in these
masses of men and minds.
But all means seemed skilfully combined, either by chance,
or by the ringleaders of the day, to neutralize this power of
good example; to excite by all their senses the irritation of
the people to madness, and to hurry them into the most
desperate resolutions. The spectacle of their own misery,
which, by inspiring them with pity for themselves, natu-
rally impelled them to vengeance upon the rich ; intoxica-
tion, increased not only by wine, but by the noise and smell
of powder; and, finally, the sight of blood, which so easily
produces the thirst for more. -
214 ... GREAT ACCUMULATION OF DEAD BODIES.
* * *
Nothing appeared either naturally or artificially to have
been omitted to prodiſtºkis triples-Éct-aſºn the seſses
of the multitude. A crowd flºags, shoeless, and without
hats, or with clothes so tattered as to allow the naked skin
to be seen, were posted in the courts, and covered with their
livid faces and attenuated arms the steps between the entrance
and the courts of the palace. Men, drunk with brandy, stag-
gered about on the staircases; stammering their inarticulate
cries, they threw themselves headlong into the tumult. In
the brutal blindness of uncouth drunkenness, they brandished
before them broken swords, which had to be torn from their
hands. Finally, men half-naked, and with blood-stained
shirts, were every minute passing in parties of four through
the multitude, which opened respectfully before them, bearing
the bodies of the dead. The arches, the courts, the steps
of the grand staircase, the Hall of St. John, were strewed
with corpses.
All the zeal of the physicians, Thierry and Samson, aided
by their officers of health, whose intrepid humanity was
remarkable, could not succeed in clearing and piling
them up. It was not known where they came from, nor
on what account they were brought to the only point where
they ought to have been kept from the sight of the people.
At one moment, Dr. Samson, stepping up to Lamartine, said
to him in a whisper, “The dead are getting too much for us;
their bodies first terrify, but afterwards still more infuriate
the multitude. If they keep bringing them in this way from
all the hospitals and ambulances of Paris, I know not what
will become of us.”
While—by whose order is not known—these men were
carrying the remains of their brethren slain in the three
combats, like sacred burthens, in solemnity to the Hôtel
de Ville, bands of insensate men and ferocious boys were
seeking in all directions for the carcases of horses drowned in
pools of blood. Passing cords around their breasts, they
dragged them amid yells and laughter over the Place de
Grève, and thence under the vault at the foot of the staircase
of the palace. This hideous spectacle did not fail to steep the
thoughts, as well as the feet, of the multitude in blood. No
Sooner had one body been thus deposited than another was
sought for, and the lower court of the prefecture of Paris be-
came choked with carcases and inundated with pools of blood.
DEMANDS OF THE RIOTERS UPON THE GOVERNMENT. 215
Within, the tumult was continually on the increase. The
violent dispositions of the rioters encountered a moral resistance
and Salutary counsels from the crowd of good citizens, and in
the magnanimity of the combatants among whom they had
been thrown. These simple men, impelled by signals and
words, of which they only half comprehended the disorderly
and Sanguinary sense, were astonished at seeing those who
had been wounded the previous evening, men begrimed with
powder and in tatters, like themselves, reproach their impa-
tience and fury, and curse them in the name of the republic,
which they were tearing to pieces on the very first morning of
its existence. Some opposed these counsels, others yielded,
and shrunk at the perpetration of outrage; while all floated
at hazard between audacity and repentance, crime and remorse.
It was only by dint of harangues and intoxication, by displays
of dead bodies and firing of muskets, that their chiefs could incite
them to successive assaults against the seat of government.
Marie, always impassible, Garnier Pagès, always devoted,
Crémieux, always attractive by word and action, had remained
since the evening with Lamartine. Flocom was below in the
square struggling with a mob of many thousands, who
demanded the surrender of Vincennes and the pillage of that
arsenal. Flocon endeavoured, at the risk of his life, to calm
this mass, which continued for a long period deaf to his repre-
sentations. Unable to cause it to disperse, he, though with
difficulty, was enabled to form them into a regular body.
Proceeding to Vincennes, he distributed a few thousands of
muskets, reclosed the gates, confirmed the commanders in
their posts, re-established the counter-signs, and, taking away
from anarchy the powder and the arms which it would have
turned against the people themselves, preserved its arsenal to
the republic.
Meanwhile the chiefs and foremost ranks of rioters, pene-
trating at times into the narrow and encumbered corri-
dors, where they were stified by their own masses, kept
harassing and addressing the most imperious orders to the
members of the government:-‘‘We require an account
of the hours you have already lost, or only too well employed
in lulling and postponing the revolution,” said these orators,
with arms in their hands, sweat on their foreheads, foaming
lips, and threatening eyes. “We require the red flag, the
216 DEMANDS OF THE RIOTERS UPON THE GOVERNMENT.
sign of victory to us, of terror to our enemies. We require
that a decree should instantly declare it the sole banner of
the republic. We require that the national guard should be
disarmed and their muskets given up to the people. We must
reign in our turn over this bourgeoisie, the accomplices of all
the monarchies, who sell the Sweat of our labours; over the
bourgeoisie, who make a profit of royalties, but who do not
know how to instruct or defend them. We desire an
immediate declaration of war against all thrones and, all
aristocracies. We desire that our country should be
declared in danger, the arrest of all the ministers past
and present of the fugitive monarchy, the trial of the
king, the restitution of the national property, terror for
traitors, and the axe over the heads of our eternal enemies.
What is this fine revolution of promises that you are making
for us? We must have a revolution of deeds, of blood,
and one which can neither halt nor go backward. Are
you revolutionists after such a fashion ? Are you repub-
licans, the issue of such a republic 3 No ; you are like
your vain and wordy accomplice, Girondists at heart, aristo-
crats by birth, advocates of the tribune, bourgeois by custom,
and perhaps traitors! Make way for true revolutionists, or
pledge yourselves to them by your measures. Serve us, as
we wish to be served, or take heed to yourselves.” Thus
speaking, some of them cast their naked Swords on the tables,
as a token that they would not take them up until obeyed.
Mingled murmurs and applause resounded from hall to hall
in reply to these speeches; but Garnier Pagès, Marie, Cré-
mieux, and Lamartine, did not allow themselves either to be
insulted or intimidated by the orators. They looked them in
the face with folded arms, calming them by their gestures,
and exercising a sort of charm over them by the impassi-
bility of their countenances and attitudes.
Authority is so necessary to men, that its disarmed image
alone impresses involuntary respect even upon those who
brave it. These orators had hardly spoken, when, although.
excited by their own frantic gestures and harsh accents, they
seemed terror-stricken at the expressions they had used, and to
feel horror at their own audacity. Some of them melted into
tears, or fell fainting into the arms of their comrades.
Marie addressed them with austerity; Crémieux with fer-
THEY ARE ADDRESSED BY SOME OF ITS MEMBERS. 217
vour; Garnier Pagès with tenderness; and Louis Blanc, who
now presented himself, aided the government with his influ-
ence over them. The good citizens, the pupils of the mili-
tary schools, the magistrates of Paris, men known to the
people, ancient republicans,—such as Marrast and Bastide,-
pressed their hands, admonished them, and interposed between
them and the government.
Conferences were established at intervals in different parts
of the hall. The most violent among the rioters, moved or
softened, allowed themselves at last to be drawn away, and
vacate the first floor. They returned to the multitude to give
an account of what they had seen and said, and of the answers
they had received. They checked the sedition for the moment,
but it was re-established elsewhere at the command of other
chiefs more implacable and determined. It launched into new
assaults, which must have ended in carrying, or at least in de-
luging with blood, the last narrow asylum of resistance.
The government, thus besieged, would have found, perhaps,
its whole moral force ineffectual to have overawed the Sedi-
tion, had not that, of itself, separated a part of its members
from the rest. -
Dupont de l'Eure, whose old age would have softened to
respect; Arago, in whom his manly appearance and illustrious
name served as a mutual support to each other; Ledru Rollin,
whose name, aspect, and language, found sympathy with the
indigent, were absent; the two first, overcome by weari-
ness after the magnanimous efforts of the evening ; the
third, coming in the morning from the ministry of the
Interior to rejoin the seat of government, had been im-
mersed in that ocean of the people who were pressing and
stifling one another at the entrances of the building, and found
it impossible to penetrate to the floor where the council was
sitting. He had been made a prisoner by the tumult in one
of the lower halls, without communication with his colleagues
above, and had afterwards withdrawn to await an opportunity
to approach with greater freedom and to establish Some ele-
ments of order without. Touis Blanc did not at that time form
part of the provisional government. He had been admitted
only as a secretary, as were Flocon, Albert, Marrast, and
Pagnerre, to fortify it with all the popularity which talent,
eloquence, and facility at composition could bestow.
218 THE COUNCIL-CHAMBER ASSAULTED.
Louis Blanc attempted at this moment, for the first time,
the power of his name and eloquence upon the masses. He
exercised it, one must allow, with the desire of pacifying
and moderating them ; but he was, nevertheless, less im–
pressed than his colleagues with the dangèr of yielding the
flag of the nation and the signification of the republic to a
party of insurrectionists. Louis Blanc believed that the con-
cession would be the signal of concord, and that this portion
of the people, Satisfied with their victory on that point, would
renounce the violent opinions and hateful and ill-boding
measures which it did not cease to urge upon the govern-
ment. Favoured by the smallness of his stature, he never
ceased to descend and ascend between the government and
the insurgents, gliding amongst the ranks of the Terrorists,
haranguing the most animated groups, upon whom his eloquence
was not without its effect, and supplicating his colleagues to
avoid the last excesses of their antagonists, by accepting the
red flag, if only as a temporary measure, to disarm the people.
Muskets resounded at intervals, balls struck the windows, as
the Summons and ultimata of the armed and impatient crowd.
The vociferations of fifty thousand men, and the report of
so many fire-arms, too often gave weight to the arguments of
the young tribune. Louis Blanc was no accomplice; he
wished to be a peacemaker; but the people were determined
not to retire, except upon conditions which the government
energetically persisted in refusing.
At this moment a tumult of still more ill-boding character
burst forth from the passages, which, by their crowded state,
prevented approach to the seat of government. An assault of
the people made the vaults tremble, the partition-walls groan,
the doors" give way, and the pupils of the school and the
intrepid combatants, who opposed the weight of their bodies
and the rampart of their levelled muskets to these attacks,
fall over one another.
A mass of people forced the Sentinels, and, vociferating
and brandishing arms of every description, penetrated to,
surrounded, and pressed upon the government. These men
came, they said, to bring the final summons of the people,
and to carry back to them the last word of the revolu-
tion. They had chosen for their spokesman a young work-
man, the Spartacus of this army of the intelligent poor.
jº
DESCRIPTION OF THE LEADER OF THE BAND. 219
This was a man of twenty or twenty-five years of age, of
middle stature, but erect and strong, with limbs firmly knit
and strongly moulded; his face, partially blackened with
powder, appeared pale with emotion; his lips trembled
with anger, and his eyes, sunk under his projecting fore-
head, darted fire. In his look the electricity of a whole
people was concentrated, and his physiognomy had at once
the character of reflection and of error, strange contrast,
which is found in certain countenances, in which a notion
founded in falsehood has nevertheless become a sincere con-
viction, and a determination to effect impossibilities. He
waved in his left hand a strip of red ribbon or cloth, and in
his right held the barrel of a carbine, the butt-end of which,
at every word he spoke, he caused to ring upon the pave-
ment. He appeared at once intimidated and resolute. It
was evident that he was hardening himself against all weak-
ness or measures of accommodation by some firm determin-
ation previously taken. He seemed to feel and to hear,
behind the vast and furious assemblage of which he was the
organ, but which also heard him, and would require an
account of his words. His eyes rolled in vacancy round the
hall, but he did not rest them upon the face of any one, in fear
lest he should encounter another's look, and be involuntarily
influenced by it; his head swayed perpetually from left to
right, and from right to left, as if he was himself refuting the
objections which would be made to him. He was the per
Sonification of obstinacy, the incarnation of a multitude that
feels its force, and will yield to reason no longer. -
He spoke with that rude, brutal, unanswerable eloquenc
which does not discuss, but commands. His feverish tongue
was glued to his parched lips; he had that terrible stammer-
ing which irritates the uncultivated man, and which redoubles
his rage by his very inability to give vent to it, and it was by
his gestures that the sense of his words was completed. All
were on their feet, and silent, to attend to him. He spoke
not as a man, but as a people, who will be obeyed, and will
brook no delay. His imperious mandates would have imposed
the most minute directions upon the government. He com-
manded from it the performance of miracles. He repeated,
in accents of increasing energy, all the conditions of the
manifesto of impossibilities, which the vociferations of the
220 HIS WIO.ſ, ENT DEMANDS.
people enjoined it to accept and to realize on the instant,--
the overthrow of all known Social order, the extermination of
property, and of capitalists, Spoliation, the immediate instal.
lation of the destitute in the community of goods, the pro-
scription of bankers, of the rich, the manufacturers, the
bourgeois of every condition above those in the receipt of
wages; a government, axe in hand, to level every supremacy
of birth, competence, inheritance, even of labour; finally,
the acceptance, without demur and without delay, of the
red flag, to signify to social order its defeat, to the people
their victory, to Paris a system of terror, and to all foreign
governments invasion. Each of these mandates was enforced
by the orator with a blow of the butt-end of his musket upon
the floor, by the frenzied shouting of those behind him, and
by salvos of musketry from the square.
The members of the government, and the Small number of
ministers and friends who surrounded them, Bastide, Bucher,
Barthélemy St. Hilaire, Payer, heard these injunctions to
the end without interruption, as one listens to delirium, for
fear of aggravating it by contradiction. But this was a deli–
rium of sixty thousand men, armed, and masters of every-
thing; and there were moments in which the government,
despairing of the public Safety under the pressure of such
a tumult, bowed its head, shrunk within itself, resolving
to die upon the breach rather than set up the standard of
distress and terror to the Society which it protected. Cré-
mieux, Marie, Garnier Pagès, Marrast, Bucher, Flottard,
Louis Blanc himself, replied to the injunctions of the
orator of the people with the intrepidity, the dignity,
force, and logic, which the reaction arising from such violence
excites in resolute men. Others endeavoured to seduce and
captivate the stoical coarseness of this man and his infu-
riate accomplices by all the blandishments of language
and of gesture. All was to no purpose. Their ears were
closed to their accents, and their eyes to their gestures. . The
immediate proclamation of the revolutionary government
and red flag, without reflection, was the sole answer of
these men of iron. The less man is enlightened, the more
exacting is his will; he borrows from violence in all that he
cannot obtain from reason, for tyranny is the reason of
brutality. When one cannot convince or be convinced, he
HE IS CONFRONTED BY LAMARTINE. 221
becomes obstimacy personified. Such on that day was the
people, and attempts have been made to make it such again.
Lamartine observed this scene from a window with terror.
Looking now upon the heads of the people which waved to
and fro on the Square, and now upon the Smoke, which,
floating over the thousands of faces, formed a sort of halo to
the red flag, he saw the efforts of his colleagues powerless
against the obstimacy of these envoys of the people.
Irritated at the insolent defiances of the armed man, who
never ceased to present his carbine, as an argument from which
there was no appeal, to men, who, though unarmed, knew how
to look death in the face, he broke through the groups
which separated him from the orator, approaching, placed
his hand upon his arm. The man shuddered, and endeavoured
to disengage himself, as if he had feared that the touch of
another would fascinate him. He turned, with Savage but
fearful disquiet, towards his companions, as though inquiring
with whom he had to do. y -
“It is Lamartine,” said some of his party. “Lamar-
time!” cried he, distrustfully; “what does he want with
me? I will not listen to him. I wish that the people
should be obeyed instantly, or, if not,” added he, carrying
his hand to the trigger, “no more words, but bullets. Un-
hand me, Lamartine,” he continued, moving his arm, to dis-
engage it; “I am a simple man, and one that cannot defend
himself by words, nor answer by ideas. I however know
how to require. I require what the people has charged me to
say here. Speak not to me! Deceive me not Lull me not
to sleep by the ingenious eloquence of your tongue; behold
one which cuts everything, a tongue of fire,” and he struck
the barrel of his carbine ;-‘‘there is no other arbiter be-
tween us.”
Lamartine Smiled at this expression of the poor man, and
continued to hold him by the arm. “You speak well,” said
he ; “you speak better than I do. The people has well
chosen its interpreter; but to speak well is not sufficient;
we should understand the language of reason, which God
has bestowed upon men of good faith and of good will for
mutual explanation, and to help instead of destroying another.
Sincerity of speech is peace among men. Silent obstinacy is war.
Do you wish for war and bloodshed ? We accept them; our
222 ARGUMENTS EMPLOYED BY LAMARTINE,
heads are devoted; but then may war and bloodshed fall
back upon those who have been unwilling to listen to rea-
son 1"–" Yes, yes! Lamartine is in the right ; listen to
Lamartine,” cried his comrades.
Lamartine then spoke to this man with that accent of per-
Suasive sincerity, which he in his heart felt, and which the
Serious nature of the circumstance rendered deeper and more
religious. He represented to him that revolutions were bat-
tles on a grand scale, in which the conquerors had greater
need of leaders after than before the combat; that the people,
however Sublime in action, and however respectable in the
opinion of the statesman, possessed in the tumulf of public
commotions neither the coolness, moderation, nor information
necessary for its preservation, unassisted, from the dangers of its
own triumph; that the action of internal and external govern-
ment did not consist in voting such or such a regulation by
acclamation, without deliberation, and arms in hand, at the
direction of any popular orator, nor in dictating at the point of
the bayonet arbitrary, violent, and often unjust decrees, at a
table of conspirators; that it was necessary to consider, to
weigh, and appreciate freely, conscientiously, and silently,
the rights, interests, and wishes of a nation of nearly forty
millions of men, having all the same titles to the justice
and protection of a government; that it was necessary, be-
sides, to know that Paris was not all France, nor France all
Europe; that the Safety of the people consisted in balancing
these great interests against one another, and to do justice
to the Suffering part of the people without injustice and vio-
lence to other citizens and nations; that the people who
should not have patience nor confidence enough in its chiefs
to await the time of prosperity would be slaughtered; that
it would cause the most promising revolutions to result in
disorder and anarchy; that the chiefs who should degrade
themselves to be the instruments of the fickle wishes and
tumultuous impulses of the multitude, would be beneath the
multitude itself; for although devoid of its madness, they
would be the executioners of its errors and fury; that such a
government, at the absolute dictation of the crowd, would be
equally unworthy both of the nation and of the devoted men
who had interposed between it and anarchy; that if the
people desired such servants, they had only to enter and
RENEWAL OF THE ATTACK. 223.
strike them at once, for their own resolution was to effect all
for the people, except their ruin and dishonour. Lamartine
finally refused, in a few words, in the name of the govern-
ment, to erect the red flag, and thus dishonour the past glories
of the revolution and of France.
During the address of Lamartine, there was seen struggling
on the savage physiognomy of the orator of the poor the in-
telligence with which it seemed to be illumined in spite of
itself, and of that brutal and settled obstinacy with which it
appeared to be overshadowed: it seemed like the conflicting
clouds and rays reflected in a running stream under a chang-
ing sky.
At last intelligence and emotion prevailed. Tetting his car-
bine fall to the ground, he gave way to tears. They surrounded
and softened him ; his comrades, still more deeply affected
than himself, bore him in their arms out of the precincts, and
caused the column, of which they were the head and voice, to
fall back into the courts, indicating to the people by their
cries and gestures the Sensible words uttered by the govern.
ment, and the good resolutions they had formed themselves.
A movement of hesitation, and of returning good Sense, oc-
curred in the palace and at the gates—the government breathed.
Scarcely, however, had the leaders of the multitude become
conscious of the shock communicated to the morale of the
masses by the return of this column to the Place de Grève,
than they implanted anew among the crowd feelings of im-
patience and fury at finding themselves deceived in their
designs. They heaped the terms of traitor and of coward
upon those who had descended without obtaining the red flag
and the government of the poor, with the tool for its sceptre
and the sword in its hand. An uproar, heavy at first, after-
wards louder and more sinister, mounted from these floods of
people to the windows of the palace. Soon these compact
masses, waving their banners, split like crumbling walls, to be
succeeded by fresh currents of armed men, forming and flow-
ing slowly as they pressed with loud shouts through every
gate and entrance of the building. Panting for the conquest
of the government, nothing but the pressure alone prevented
them from a desperate rush upon the upper stories.
The heads, however, of these columns, arriving at the grand
landing-places of the courts, and midway up the staircases,
224 SUCCESS OF LAMARTINE IN APPEASING THE R. OTERS.
became somewhat enlightened and humanized by this mi-gling
with the well-meaning citizens. Some irresistible groups even
penetrated to the ante-chambers.
At every instant messages of distress arrived, through the
agency of the pupils of the military schools, whose undaunted
courage braved every danger. Their object was to entreat
the most influential leaders to show themselves, and so allay
these last extremities of violence. Marie, Crémieux, went
out with intrepidity in turn; the ministers Goudchaux, Beth-
mont, and Carnot did the same. Some devoted citizens formed
themselves into groups, to shield them with their bodies, and
protect them by the influence of their popularity. For some
moments they received respectful treatment, but returned
worn out and vanquished by the tumult. -
Five times did Lamartine issue forth. He harangued, he
excited applause among the multitude, and Succeeded in
causing it to draw back a little, while he caused to be
waved before him the tri-coloured banner, the offspring, as he
termed it, of the revolution, the contemporary of liberty,
consecrated by the blood of the national triumphs. His gar-
ments were torn, his head bare, his forehead streaming with
perspiration. At his approach, enthusiasm and insults were
excited in almost equal proportions. They refused for a
long period to listen to him. Wehement apostrophes nailed
his first words to his lips; but scarcely had he given utter-
ance to a few phrases inspired by the genius of the place, of
the hour, and of the last extremities in which the country was
involved, than those nearest to him passed over to his side,
giving themselves up to his entire disposal.
Echoing his words, both with voice and heart, they
drowned his speech with plaudits, which were prolonged in
passing from hall to hall, and from staircase to staircase, and
finished at last by melting into tears, and precipitating them-
selves into his arms. Never was more apparent than during
these hours the intelligence, electric sympathies, generosity,
enthusiasm, and love of the people, who need but a word of
softening tendency to quiver to a man, even in the very midst
of insurrection, with the most sublime sentiments of humanity.
But of short duration were these triumphs of sympathy and
eloquence; diffusing themselves but slowly and imperfectly in
a crowd of sixty or eighty thousand men, they seemed to
IRENEWAL OF THE SEDITIOUS MOVEMENT. 225
evaporate with the last echoes of the orator's voice. Often it
occurred that he had hardly retired when he heard murmurs
at the foot of the staircases, and shots fired in the courts,
which made the bullets whistle over his head, and the stones
fly from the arches of the staircases.
Each hour of the day, as it advanced, brought to the insur-
gents fresh reinforcements from the outskirts and suburbs.
Towards noon the Place de Grève, and the windows and roofs
of the houses which surround it, were filled to overflowing
with people, and seemed hung with red. A movement more
decisive was made at the approaches and lower parts of the
building. The cry “To arms!” was raised. Some intrepid
citizens who wished to oppose themselves to an assault still
more desperate in its character, were thrown down upon the
staircases, and trampled under foot. The torrent mounted,
and rushed under the Gothic arches in front of the vast hall of
the republic, strewed with dying men. “Lamartine ! Lamar-
tine!” cried the citizens from the extremity of the corridors,
as they were driven back by the people. “He alone can
attempt to stay such an inundation as this. The people
will listen to no one else. All is lost unless he appears.”
Lamartine, who, utterly exhausted by eighteen hours of phy-
sical efforts, lay stretched at length upon the floor, arose at
these cries, and went out, accompanied by Payer, Jumelle,
Marechal, and some young and intrepid pupils of the School of
Saint Cyr, together with a group of generous youths belonging
to the Polytechnic School, and some citizens, who threw them-
selves in front of him. He crossed the corridors; he ad-
vanced to the ends of the landing-places; he descended the
steps, which bristled on both sides with swords, pikes, daggers,
gun and pistol barrels, brandished over his head by the hands
of frantic and sometimes intoxicated beings. Borne along,
and swimming as it were, upon the very waves of sedition, he
arrived at the steps which opened upon the square. He
showed himself; he spoke. His appearance, which excited
the curiosity of the people, his gestures, and the confiding and
open expression of his countenance, still more than his words,
which were often rendered inaudible by the tumult, drew a
long manifestation of applause from the multitude. Some
red flags were lowered, and some tri-colours reappeared at the
windows.
Q
226 REVOLUTIONARY INCIDENTS. MADAME FLOCON.
He reascended the staircase, followed by the echoes of the
applause of the square, which seemed to fortify him, and,
as it were, charm him against the balls and poniards of the
inner groups. “Traitor l’ cried some men, upon the last
steps, in tattered habits and of sinister aspects.
Lamartine stopped, opened his dress, pointed to his breast,
and looking the mutineers in the face with a smile of pity
—“We traitors,” he exclaimed, “if you believe so, strike.
But even you who say it do not believe it; for, before betraying
you, we must be traitors to ourselves! Who is it, then, who
risks most, you or we ? We have put our all at stake; our
name, our reputation, and our life. You risk nothing, unless
perchance to soil your shoes, for it is not your names by
which the republic has been counter-signed ; and if the
republic should fall, it is not upon you that the vengeance of
its enemies will fall.” These words, and the gestures by
which they were accompanied, took effect upon the good
sense and reason of the people; opening their ranks, they
applauded him as he passed.
Re-entering the hall, where the wounded were lying, La-
martine met a young woman dissolved in tears, who ap-
proaching, hailed him as the preserver of all. Her husband
was extended upon a mattress in a corner of the hall, and
appeared in the last stage of fatigue and sickness. This was
Flocon, brought back some hours before in a dying state
from Vincennes, after pacifying the faubourg Saint Antoine,
and preserving the national arsenals, Lamartine clasped
him by the hand, and thanked him for his courage and devo-
tion. Thus was this friendship between the republican of a
whole life and the republican of a day's date, founded, as it
were, upon the field of battle.
These triumphs of the well-disposed citizens were, how-
ever, but momentary truces; despair at the impotency of their
attempts, the vain expectation of a result which still con-
tinued to deceive them, the shame at having to retire without
obtaining anything—hunger, thirst, cold—the frozen pools
of water, the mud in which they had been standing since
morning, raised every quarter of an hour new waves upon
these human oceans. The chiefs who had seen the Sun rise
now saw the daylight fail, but would not let the sun go down
COLONEL LAGRANGE. 227
upon their defeat. A furious horde of between four and
five thousand men, which apparently issued from the most
remote and indigent quarters of Paris, at about two o'clock,
mingled with some groups better armed and clothed, passed
the balustrades of all the courts of the hotel, inundated the
hall, and, overcoming all opposition, rushed, amid cries of
death, the clashing of arms, and the firing of random shots,
into a species of portico rising from the centre of a narrow
staircase, where terminated the passages which protected on
this side the asylum of the government.
With hair dishevelled, two pistols in his belt, with excited
gestures, his lofty stature towering over the multitude, La-
grange struggled in vain in the midst of his friends of the
evening before, and of these who now went farther than he did,
to satisfy and at the same time to restrain the impetuousness of
this crowd, intoxicated by enthusiasm, victory, impatience,
suspicion, tumult, and wine. His almost imarticulate voice
excited as much frenzy by its tone as it desired to appease it
by its exhortation. Tossed about like the mast of a ship from
group to group, he was borne from the staircase to the passage,
and from the door to the windows. With arms extended and
salutations of the head, he poured out from above to the
multitude in the courts a stream of Supplicating addresses,
which were carried away by the winds, or drowned in the
bellowing of the lower stories' and noise of the firing. A
weak door, so narrow as scarcely to allow two men to pass
at once, served as a dyke against the crowd, arrested by its
own weight. Lamartine, raised upon the arms and shoulders
of some good citizens, rushed to this door.
Passing it, preceded only by his name, he found himself
anew struggling alone with the most tumultuous and foamy
waves of the Sedition. In vain the men nearest to him
shouted his name aloud to the multitude, in vain did they
raise him at moments upon their entwined arms, to show him
to the people and to obtain silence, if only from curiosity.
The undulating motion of this crowd, the cries, the shocks,
the resounding of musket-blows against the walls, the voice
of Lagrange, interrupting with its hoarse Sentences the short
periods of silence of the multitude, rendered it impossible
either to stand or to speak.
Engulfed, stified, and forced back against the door which
Q 2
228 H.A.RANGUE OF LAMARTINE.
was closed behind him, there only remained for Lamartine
to allow this blind and headstrong irruption to pass over his
body, while the red flag was raised over the heads of the
insurgents in token of their triumph over the defeated
government.
At last some devoted men succeeded in bringing him
a broken straw-bottomed chair, upon which he mounted, and
was supported on this tottering species of tribune by the
hands of his friends. At his aspect and calm expression,
which he endeavoured to make more impassible in proportion
as he had passions to restrain, at his patient gestures, at the
cries of the good citizens imploring that he might be heard,
the crowd, whose attention is always commanded by a novel
spectacle, began to group itself into an audience, and by
degrees to abate its noise. Tamartine proceeded several
times to speak; but at each successful attempt to obtain
attention by his looks, his arms, and his voice, in the midst
of the tumult, the voice of Lagrange, haranguing on his
side another portion of the people from the window, again
raised guttural cries and broken speeches, together with such
a roaring of the crowd as to stifle the words and action of
Lamartine, and create the triumph of sedition by confusion.
At length Lagrange was quieted and removed from his post.
He proceeded to carry persuasion to other parts of the edi-
fice ; and Lamartine, whose determination increased with the
danger, was at last able to make himself heard by both
friends and enemies.
He commenced by Soothing the assemblage by a species of
hymn upon the victory, so sudden, so complete, and unhoped
for, even by the republicans most ardent for liberty. He
called God and man to witness the admirable moderation and
religious humanity which the mass of the people had ex-
hibited, even in the combat and the hour of triumph. He
succeeded in rekindling that sublime instinct which had
during the evening thrown this people still armed, but
obedient and disciplined, into the arms of a few men who had
devoted themselves to calumny, exhaustion, and death, for the
Safety of all.
The crowd at these representations began to experience
sentiments of admiration for themselves, and to shed tears of
tenderness over the virtues of the people. Enthusiasm soon
HARANGUE OF LAMARTINE. 229
raised them above their suspicions, their vengeance, and
their anarchy.
“Behold what yesterday's sun has seen, citizens !” con-
tinued Lamartine. “And what will the sun of to-day
witness? It will see another people, only the more furious
for having fewer enemies to combat, distrust the very men
whom they yesterday raised above them; curtailing their
liberty, humbling their dignity, and despising the authority
which is in fact their own ; substituting a revolution of
vengeance and of punishments for one of unanimity and fra-
termity; and commanding the government to raise in token
of concord the standard of war to the knife between the
citizens of one and the same country ! That red flag, raised
sometimes in terror to enemies, but which ought, imme-
diately after the combat, to be lowered in sign of recon-
ciliation and peace. I would rather see that black flag which
sometimes in besieged cities floats like a winding-sheet, to
distinguish those neutral edifices which are consecrated to
humanity, and which even the bullet and the bomb must
respect Is it your wish that the banner of your republic
should be more menacing and sinister than the flag of a bom-
barded town 2"
“No, no l’’ cried some of the spectators, “Tamartine is
in the right. Do not let us preserve this flag of terror to
the citizens!” “Yes, yes!” cried others, “it is ours; it is
the people's. It is that beneath which we have conquered.
Why should we not, after the victory, preserve the standard
which we have stained with our blood?”
“Citizens,” resumed Lamartine, after having combated
the change of flag by all the reasons best calculated to
strike the imagination, and, falling back as it were upon his
personal conscience as a last argument, thus intimidating the
people, who loved him by the threat of his resignation;
“Citizens, you have the power to commit violence against
the government; you have the power to command it to
change the banner of the nation and the name of France. If
you are so ill advised and so obstinate in error, as to impose
upon if the republic of a party and the standard of terror,
the government, I am well assured, is as determined as
myself to perish rather than to dishonour itself by disobeying
you. As for myself, never shall my hand sign such a
230 FRESH BANDS OF RIOTERS ADVANCE TO THE ASSAULT.
decree I will reject, even to death, this banner of blood,
and you should repudiate it still more than myself; for this
red flag you offer us, has only made the circuit of the
Champ de Mars, through the people's blood in 1791 and
1793; while the tri-coloured banner has made the circuit
of the world, with the name, with the glory and liberty
of your country !”
At these last words, Lamartine, interrupted by almost
unanimous cries of enthusiasm, fell from the chair which
served him as a tribune into the arms that were stretched from
every side towards him The cause of the new republic
triumphed over the bloody reminiscences which would have
been substituted for it.
A general commotion, Seconded by the gestures of Lamar-
tine, and the exertions of the good citizens, made the rioters
who filled the hall fall back as far as the landing-place of the
great staircase, with cries of “Lamartine for ever ! The
tri-coloured flag for ever!”
The crowd, however, carried away by the words it had
just heard, encountered the head of a new column which had
been unable to penetrate into the interior, or participate in
the emotion excited by the oration. This band ascended
with more spirit and determination than any of the seditious
bodies, hitherto restrained or dispersed. A collision had taken
place under the porch, and upon the last steps of the stair-
cases, between these two crowds, each of which wished to
draw the other into its own vortex, the one for the red
flag and the other for the one regained by the persuasions of
Lamartine. The menacing dialogues, impassioned vocifera-
tions, violent and obstinate gestures, the cries of Suffocation,
the occasional shots fired from the foot of the staircase,
the strips of red flags, and naked weapons waved over-head,
made the present mêlée one of the most tumultuous and sinister
scenes that had yet occurred in the revolution. Lamartine
threw himself between these two parties.
“It is Lamartine,—make way for him, listen to Lamar-
tine!” cried the citizens who had heard him once. “No, no,
down with him 1 down with Lamartine ! death to Lamartine !
no bargains, no talking-the decree the decree!” or “To the
lamp-post with this government of traitors,” howled the
assailants.
These words did not cause him either to hesitate, draw
EXTREME DANGER OF LAMARTINE. 231
back, or grow pale.* After considerable efforts, the broken
chair which he had just mounted was dragged to the landing-
place behind him. He ascended it, and leaned against the jamb
of the great Gothic gate, which had been pierced with bullets
both on that morning and the evening before. At his appear-
auce, the fury of the assailants, instead of being tranquillized,
broke forth in imprecations, clamour, and menacing gestures.
Musket-barrels, levelled from afar, upon the steps most distant
from him, seemed to be aimed at the gate. A nearer group
of about twenty men, with looks stupified by intoxication,
were brandishing their bayonets and naked swords. Still in
advance of these, and almost touching his feet, eight or ten
furious beings, sword in hand, threw themselves headlong
as if to batter down the feeble group which surrounded him.
Two or three of the foremost appeared to have lost their
Senses. With arms stained with wine, they blindly dashed
about their naked weapons, which the courageous citizens
grasped and took up in bundles, as mowers take up sheaves.
The points of the brandished swords reached every moment
as high as the person of the orator, and grazed his hand. The
moment was critical, and the triumph still in uncertainty. An
accident decided it. Lamartine could not be heard, but would
not descend. The good citizens were in consternation, and he
himself expected to be overthrown and trampled under the
feet of the multitude.
At this instant a man, detaching himself from a group on
the right, entered the crowd. He ascended upon a jamb of
the gate, almost as high as Lamartine, and in sight of the
people. He was of colossal stature, and endowed with a
voice strong as the roaring of an insurrection. His dress
alone would have attracted the attention of the multitude. He
wore a loose coat of unbleached linen, old, Soiled, and torn,
like the rags of a mendicant; his wide trousers, flapping
against his knees, did not reach to his feet, which were bare ;
his long large hands protruded with half his meagre arms from
his short sleeves; his open shirt allowed his ribs and the
muscles of his breast to be counted; his neck and head were
bare, his hair brown, long, and matted with straw and dust,
floated on both sides of his face; his eyes were blue, luminous,
and moistened by tenderness and gentleness; his open coun-
* See Capt. Dunoyer’s History of these days, by a Society of
Combatants.
232 INTERESTING INCIDENT,
tenance breathed enthusiasm even to tears and delirium, but
it was the enthusiasm of hope and of love. He was a genuine
type of the people in their moments of grandeur, at once
miserable, terrible, and good. A ball fired from below had
just grazed the upper part of his nose, near his eyes. The
blood, which he did not cease to wipe off, flowed in two
streams over his cheeks and lips; but he did not seem to think
of his wound ; he stretched out his arms to Lamartine, and
invoking him by look and gesture, called him the counsellor,
the light, brother, father, and god of the people. “Suffer me
to see and touch him | Let me only kiss his hands !” cried he,
and turning to his comrades, continued, “Oh I listen to him,
follow his counsels, embrace him, strike me before you injure
him. A thousand times will I meet death to preserve this
good citizen to my country.”
At these words the man, rushing to Lamartine, embraced
him convulsively, covered him with his blood, and held him
for a long time in his arms. Lamartine extended to him not
only his hand but his cheek, and was melted by this magna-
nimous personification of the multitude. At the sight, the as-
tonished and affected multitude were themselves softened. The
love of a man of the people, of a wounded man too, a pauper
bathed in his own blood, and bearing on his naked limbs all
the marks, rags, and miseries of indigence, proved to Lamar-
tine himself, and was in the eyes of the crowd, a visible and
undeniable token of the confidence to be reposed in the inten-
tions of this unknown moderator, of the faith to be placed in
the words of the organ of the government. Lamartine, ob-
Serving this impression, and the hesitation in the looks and
movements of the multitude, took advantage of it to direct
his final strokes at the fickle hearts of the excited peo-
ple. A prolonged tumult roared at his feet, among those
desirous of hearing him, and those who were determined to
listen to nothing. The beggar still stood at his side, with one
hand wiping the blood from his face, and with the other, by
signs, imposing silence on the people.
“What, citizens!” said Lamartine, “if you had been told
three days back that you would have overturned the throne,
destroyed the oligarchy, obtained universal suffrage in the
name of man, conquered all the rights of citizens, and, finally,
founded the republic, that republic, the far distant dream
even of those who felt its name buried, like a crime,
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE. 233
in the inmost recesses of their consciences. And what a
republic | Not one like that of Greece or of Rome, containing
aristocrats and plebeians, masters and slaves. Not a republic
like those aristocratical ones of modern times, embracing citizens
and paupers, Some great in the eye of the law, and some little,
—a people and a patrician order—but a republic of equality,
in which is neither aristocracy, nor oligarchy, nor great, nor
little, patricians or plebeians, masters or helots before the law;
but one in which there is a single people composed of the uni-
versal body of the citizens, where the public right and power
are only formed by the right and the vote of each individual
of whom the nation consists, comprised in one single collective
power, called the government of the republic, and reverting in
laws, popular institutions, and benefits to that people from which
it has emanated. If you had been told all this three days ago,
you would have refused it credence. ‘Three days?' you
would have said; “three centuries are required to accomplish
such a work of profit to humanity.” (Acclamations.)
“Well! what you have declared impossible is accom-
plished! Behold our work in the midst of this uproar, these
weapons, these dead bodies of your martyrs, and still you
murmur against God and against us!”
“No, no!” cried several voices.
“Ah you would be unworthy of these efforts,” resumed
Lamartine, “ did you not know how to contemplate and
acknowledge them.
“And what do we ask of you to complete our work? Do
we ask for years ?—No. For months?—No ; not even weeks,
—only days. In two or three days your victory will be regis-
tered, accepted, assured, and organized in such a manner that
no tyranny, except that of your own impatience, can tear it
from your hands. And would you refuse us these days, these
hours, this short interval of calm, these few minutes; and
would you strangle in its very cradle the republic born of
your own blood?”
“No, no l’ again cried a hundred voices. “Confidence,
confidence | Let us fly to encourage and enlighten our bre-
thren 1. The provisional government for ever ! The republic
for ever ! Lamartine for ever !”
“Citizens,” he continued, “I have been speaking to you as
a citizen. Now hear me as minister of foreign affairs. If you
deprive me of the tri-colour, mark me, you take from me
234 LOUIS BLANC.
one-half of the external force of France 1 for the only stand-
ard Europe knows is that of its defeats and our victories,
and that is the flag of the republic and empire. Looking
upon the red flag, she will view it as that of a party. The
banner we must hoist in the sight of Europe is that one under
which our armies have conquered, our triumphs have been
achieved. France and the tri-coloured flag—the idea is the
Same, the fascinating charm is the same, and if it be needful,
the Source of terror to our enemies is the same also.
“Oh, suffering and patient people !” continued he, “peo-
ple who, by the action of this poor but brave man (embracing
him with his right arm), have shown what disinterestedness
is to be found in your wounds, what magnanimity and
reason in your souls! Yes, let us embrace, let us love one
another, let us fraternize like one united family, condition
with condition, class with class, wealth with indigence Un-
grateful, indeed, would be the government you institute, if it
forgot that its first care should be for the most unfortunate.
For my part, never shall I forget it. I love order, and devote,
as you see, my life to it. I execrate anarchy, because it
involves the dismemberment of civilized society. I abhor
demagoguism, because it is a disgrace to the people and a
scandal to liberty. But, my friends, although born in a more
favoured and a happier sphere than you, and precisely, if I
may so speak, because I was born there, because I have
laboured and suffered less than yourselves, because it has
been my lot to possess more leisure and reflection to con-
template your distresses and to pity them from a distance, I
have always aspired to a more fraternal government, and one
with laws more imbued with the charity which unites us at
this moment, in these meetings, these tears and embraces, of
which you have given me such evidences, and by which I
feel myself overwhelmed.”
At the moment when Lamartine was on the point of con-
tinuing, and was stretching out his arms to invite the nearest
groups to approach him, he suddenly stopped. His words
became suspended on his lips, his action petrified, his looks
fixed and riveted on an object invisible to the rest of the
multitude.
He had in fact, for some minutes, seen confusedly, through
that species of mist which extemporaneous speaking casts
EFFECT OF THE SPEECH OF LAMARTINE UPON THE PEOPLE. 235
before the eyes of the orator, a strange incomprehensible
figure advancing towards him, and which he considered to be
an optical delusion, or the creation of a confused imagination.
This was the bust of a young man, dressed in blue, raised a
little above the crowd, and approaching without walking, like
a phantom gliding over the ground without the movement of
feet. The nearer it approached, the more amazed was Lamar-
tine, and the more his words seemed to hesitate. At last
he recognized the countenance of Louis Blanc. The face
had colour, but the eyes were open and fixed as in a fainting-
fit. It was in fact Louis Blanc, who, as it appeared, had
fainted in the lower story, through heat and exhaustion,
and whom a group of his friends were bearing slowly and
silently across the mass of attentive people. At the same.
moment, the wounded man who had embraced and pre-
served Lamartine fell exhausted, and overturned the chair
in his fall. Lamartine was supported by the hands of some
of the people. Louis Blanc recovered his senses in the air at
the windows. The confusion which this caused interrupted
the harangue, but did not destroy its effect.
Notwithstanding this diversion, the people, feeling the re-
proaches directed against their impatience, and carried away, as
if for the first time, by the vision of their own glory repudiated
by them in their flag, were, above all, touched with that species
of confidence reposed in them by a minister of foreign affairs
when sustaining the interests of their adored country. They
turned back, if it may be so said, against themselves. They
rushed, putting aside the muskets and lowering the swords of
those who stood nearest, to embrace the knees and touch the
hands of the orator. Tears streamed from all eyes, those of
the mendicant included, and they mingled with the noble
blood on his cheek.
This man had contributed more to the preservation of the
tri-colour and the republic of 1793, than the voice of Tamar-
tine or the firmness of the government. After his triumph, he
was lost and confounded in the crowd, which descended to
the square for the last time. Lamartine was not even
acquainted with his name, and has subsequently never seen
him; but it is to him that he is indebted for his life, and
France for her banner.
Meanwhile a crowd of good citizens had learned, by the
{
236, RENEWAL OF THE THREATS OF THE RED FLAG PARTISANS.
voice of rumour, the scenes of tumult by which the government
had for the space of eighteen hours been assailed. It was
reported that the red flag had been hoisted; the government
overthrown, and its members prisoners in the hands of the Ter-
rorists; that Lamartine had been wounded by a shot, and seen
from a window with his face and hands covered with blood.
They knew not it was that of the poor, but noble-minded, man.
Alarm reigned in the distant, confusion in the nearest quarters.
The most courageous came voluntarily, and by the summons
only of their own patriotism. They mingled with the masses
occupying the Place de Grève. Here they combated, inch
by inch, and by every method, both of word and action, the
designs of the seditious, and addressed severe or fraternal
reproaches to the groups most obstinately bent upon pre-
serving the banner of terror. It was at this moment that
cries of “The republic for ever!” proceeding from the stair-
cases, windows, and courts, and the return of the last irruption
of invaders, who issued from the great door with the tri-colour
again raised, restored the courage of the champions of the
purity of the republic, and threw hesitation and disorder into
the divided ranks of sedition. The entire square gave way in
a confused movement of retreat, with cries of “The republic
for ever !” “The provisional government for ever !” “La-
martine for ever!” mingled with some stifled murmurs of anger
and disappointment. Disordered bands were seen to retire,
lowering thered flag, along all the openings of the streets which
lead to the Bastille, or by the quays to the faubourg Saint
Marceau, and to Bercy. A chant executed by a hundred voices,
rose like a hymn to the tri-coloured flag, from the midst of the
people remaining on the square. This was the Marseillaise.
Soon the square itself was almost entirely emptied. There
only remained two or three hundred national guards in uni-
form near the gates, and a few courageous citizens, who con-
cealed their weapons under their dresses, ready to devote
themselves to the cause of the government and of their
country.
All was not, however, over. The red bands, as they
retired, were heard to utter threats, and had, by the move-
ments of their weapons, indicated a return of the insurrection
with renewed force on the following day.
While Lamartine was thus struggling and triumphing face
PROCEEDINGS OF DIFFERENT MEMBERS OF GOVERNMENT. 237
to face with the people without, his colleagues, from whom he
had been separated by the crowd, sustained with the same
resolution the summonings and assaults of the partisans of
violent measures, confounding them by the energy of their
resistance and the promptness of their reorganization of every-
thing. Garnier Pagès, the mayor of Paris, re-established order
and strict subordination in the Hôtel de Ville, and confirmed,
nominated, or recalled the mayors of the different quarters of
Paris. Ledru Rollin restored order in the vast establishment
of the Ministry of the Interior, which had devolved upon him,
and came to an understanding with Caussidière for the Pe-
modelling of a summary police, of such necessity in a capital
without government, and filled with the elements of disorder
and crime. In the prevention, too, of the disbanding of our
brave army, Subervie showed the fire and vigour of his repub-
lican youth. That army was for the moment absent from
Paris; but its displacement and loss of discipline would have
disarmed the country while agitated by revolution. Up
night and day, in uniform and on horseback, at the office or
at the council, this old man caused his soldiers to feel the
same forgetfulness of his years that he himself did. Full of
the recollections of the first republic, ever fresh and active
on his mind, Subervie did not find it impossible to revive
those grand days of our armed patriotism of which he had
preserved the enthusiasm. A few weeks later, the pretext of
his age was employed to remove him from the ministry. It
was a mistake. Neglecting his ardour, activity, and firm-
ness, which resembled that of the ancients, they looked only
at the date of his birth; but Subervie was worthy of con-
tinuing the work of Carnot.
Arago devoted his entire thoughts to the preservation of
the scientific department which had been confided to him,-
that of the Marine. He struggled undeviatingly against all
disorganization of the mechanism of government. Goudchaux,
called at once to the care of the finances, Sacrificed to his
patriotism not only his repugnance, but his interest, and
shielded public credit by his probity and skilfulness,
Crémieux, Marie, Carnot, Bethmont, as well as Lamar-
tine, neglected for a few days their less-important ministries,
to face the general exigences and the incessant Seditions in
the heart of the Hôtel de Ville, that head-quarter of the
238 SECRET COUNCIL, HELD BY THEM.
revolution. Marrast, as indefatigable as he was firm, conti-
nued night and day at the council-table. He prepared the
well-constructed preambles, with instantaneous and luminous
precision, while Crémieux and Marie drew up the decrees,
and Lamartine the proclamations to the people, the army,
and to Europe. •
At his re-entrance into the building, henceforth no more
harassed by Sedition, Lamartine found his colleagues occupied
with these important details.
Breathing once more, they cast looks of Security and hope
towards the empty square before the hotel,
It was four o'clock in the afternoon. A ray of the sun,
piercing the February clouds, was reflected on the moistened
pavements, and in the pools of water still mingled with blood
about the dead bodies of some horses, which the scavengers
were engaged in removing. The tri-coloured flag had re-
Sumed its place over the statue of Henry IV., and floated at all
the windows of the houses. All breathed that still doubtful
Species of Serenity which Succeeds popular tumults, and
which, even when experienced, hardly admits of being
trusted. But the people had shown too much feeling and
even sublimity to prevent the triumph of hope over anxiety.
in the hearts of the members of the government.
Dupont de l'Eure and Arago had returned in the after-
noon, on hearing a rumour of the dangers with which their
colleagues were threatened. They met in a small apartment,
left vacant by the disencumberment of a portion of the
edifice, and held a secret council with the members of the
government present.
The silence which had succeeded to uproar; the security
which had followed agitation; the hour; the ray of Sun;
the feeling which expands the heart, and the hope. that
levels all obstacles; admiration for a people so capable of re-
straining and even disarming themselves at the voice of a few
unknown citizens, all was of a nature to excite in the Soul
those grand thoughts which spring from the heart, and
are Sovereign policy, because Sovereign nature and truth.
Instinct is the Supreme legislator, and he who enacts laws
under its guidance, writes under the dictation of God.
The members of the government were all under the do-
minion of these impressions, and no moment could be more
favourable to impart its character to the republic by the
GRANDEUR OF THE MEASURES CONTEMPLATED BY THEM. 239
enactment of some great measures. It was in duty bound
to respond to the magnanimity of the people by the magna-
nimity of its own institutions. The government did not
contain at this moment any single member whose evil genius
could imbrue him with the wish to make the republic the
monopoly of a party to the terror of the rest, and to arm it in
its victory and tyranny with the proscriptions, spoliations,
and scaffolds of a reign of terror. But the name of the
republic was dishonoured by such reminiscences in the
minds of the masses. The blood of 1793 discoloured the
republic of 1799. It was necessary on the first day to
wash away these stains, to repudiate all connection between
the two epochs, and to break the weapon of revolution by
the hands of revolutionists themselves, for fear, lest the mad-
men, or wretches who had been attempting to pervert the
people, should subsequently seize on these arms, and cause
the republic itself to be confounded with the memory and
terror of the crimes committed in its name.
Each of the members present at the council searched the
depths of his heart and understanding, for the source of some
great measures of reform, some great legislative, political,
and social ameliorations. It is thus that the philosophy of
revolutions is to be extracted. It is thus that there can be
established in a single day, the level between the advanced
ideas of the period and the past facts of a government.
By Some, was proposed the immediate abolition of negro
slavery, Sullying the very morality of our laws, and threaten-
ing our colonies with perpetual disturbance. By others, the
repeal of the laws of September, by which the people were
weighed down by fines equivalent to confiscations.
Some were for the proclamation of fraternity, as a prin–
ciple between nations, and by abolishing conquest to abolish
war itself; others were desirous to annul the electoral census,
that political materialism which placed the right of property
above that of man. All maintained the principle, not only
of the equality of rights, but also of charity between the dif-
ferent classes of citizens, a principle capable of application by
all the institutions for assistance, succour, association, and
beneficence, compatible with the liberty of capital and the
security of property, the first charity of governments aiming
at the preservation of society and the protection of family.
240 PROPOSITION OF LAMARTINE TO HIS COLLEAGUES.
As soon as these great democratic truths, rapidly felt,
rather than coldly discussed, were converted into decrees,
these decrees passed in the form of proclamations to the
people, under the hands of one of the members, ministers, or
secretaries of the government. Printers, established in the
lobby at the door of the council-chamber, received, printed,
and distributed them through the windows to the crowd, and
couriers conveyed them to the departments. It was the ex-
temporaneous burst of the eloquence of a century to which
the revolution had just given language; the rational explo-
sion of all the Christian, philosophical, and democratic truths,
which had been engendering for half a century in the minds
of enlightened originators, or in the confused aspirations of the
nation. But the experience of this half-century had brought
to maturity the ideas of the country, and of the men who
were thus issuing decrees in its name. This experience had
taken its seat in the persons of Dupont de l'Eure, Arago,
Marie, Carnot, round the table, where these truths received
at once their realization and their degree. It was a remark-
able circumstance, that in so gifted and prolific a sitting,
there was not a single specimen of rashness or exaggeration
in the acts and words of this government of enthusiasm; not
one amongst these legislators would have to efface at a later
period a single engagement contracted with the country and
futurity. Each of these decrees might remain as law in the
hands of a national assembly. When the sitting had almost
terminated, and the plan of the republic was thus completely
sketched, Lamartine commenced speaking with uneasy hesi-
tation. An idea had heen revolving in his mind since the
evening. He had kept brooding over it before producing it,
being apprehensive of presenting it before its maturity. He
did not distrust the hearts of his colleagues, but he distrusted
some of the prejudices of their minds. It was evident by his
attitude and accent that he was afraid of compromising a
great truth, and a great political virtue, by premature pro-
duction. He wished to present them at first in the form of a
doubt, to allow this measure, when first looked at, to be per-
haps adjourned, and to be resumed afterwards on reflection.
“Messieurs,” said he, “revolutions also have an immense
progress to make, and a generous tribute to pay at last to hu–
manity. I am so convinced that this progress is commanded
PROPOSITION OF LAMARTINE TO HIS COLLEAGUES. 241
by God, and would be comprehended and blessed by man, that
if I were the first dictator and discoverer of this revolution,
I should not hesitate to make this the first decree of the re-
public. And by this decree alone I would gain for it more
free hearts in France and Europe than hundreds of repressive
laws, of exile, proscriptions, confiscations, and punishments
would ever bind to it in forced fidelity. I would abolish
capital punishment.
“I would abolish it for every reason, for society has no
longer need of it; its example in inflicting death on the cri-
minal perverts more than it intimidates. Blood calls for
blood. The principle of the inviolability of human life would
be better defended if society itself would recognize this inviola-
bility, even in the evil-doer. But if this grand advance in
your criminal legislation ought to be reserved to the national
assembly, sole mistress of her social laws, I would, at least,
immediately abolish it in political cases. I would thus
disarm the people of a weapon which they have in all revo-
lutions turned against themselves. I would reassure those
timorous imaginations who dread to find in the republic the
era of fresh proscriptions. I would put human blood out
of the question. I would inaugurate the reign of democracy
by the most divine amnesty, and by the most intelligent
courageousness of heart, ever proclaimed by a conquering
people with their feet still in blood. I would boldly hurl
this defiance of generosity to the enemies of democracy; and
if ever the republic should succumb, it should at least not be
by her own crime, and she would soon revive, out of the
admiration with which the world would regard her.”
Lamartime saw by the countenances of his colleagues that
this proposition, although it astonished their minds by its
audacity, had yet a charm for every heart. All declared
these sentiments to be their own. Some objections were
raised on the score of time and legal obstacles; but the
project was rather adjourned for subsequent consideration
than entirely set aside.
Lamartine was content with having excited this inward
feeling. He had dived into their thoughts, and he confided
in the future. He did not press the subject. The future
would report to him the interior working of a truth in
rightly-framed minds and generous hearts. -
R.
242 ENTHUSIASM OF THE WELL-AFFECTED INHABITANTS.
B O O K WHII.
THE truce seemed destined to endure throughout the night.
The session ended with the daylight. The minds of men, how-
ever, were not devoid of anxiety for the next day, and the re-
newal of hostility threatened by the Terrorist and Communist
bands. In the absence of regular force, with which those
composing the government were totally unprovided, each of
them appealed to his own personal energies and the good
citizens of his quarter. They were conjured to surround the
Hôtel de Ville before daylight with a rampart of breasts or
bayonets to intimidate the rioters, should they attempt a last
assault. The day was destined to be decisive.
Tamartine quitted the seat of government, and employed a
part of the night in rallying his friends around him, and dis-
tributing them through the city, to recruit, from house to
house, those courageous men who were disposed to come
voluntarily, one by one, to save the flag and the purity of the
republic. He particularly warned the young men belonging
to the Polytechnic and Normal schools and that of Saint Cyr,
as well as the students of law and medicine, knowing the
ascendancy exercised by these youths over the people, who
respected in them the flower of their race. The mes-
sengers, returning to Lamartine before daybreak, reported to
him the unanimous and heroic devotion of the young men.
They had all risen to go from door to door to warn their
comrades, and there was not one amongst them who would not
have given his life to prevent the republic from the profana-
tion of demagogues in its cradle. Wives excited their
husbands, mothers their sons, sisters their brothers; they
would have fought themselves, had their sex allowed them
the use of arms. In heart, at least, they did combat for
the Safety and purity of the revolution. It is a peculiar
characteristic of the foundation of the republic, that the
lettered and military youth were engaged in it from the
first hour, and without pause, as undaunted in moderation
as in impulse. They unanimously entertained a passion
for philosophical democracy, and a horror of the sanguinary
spirit of demagogues. They were young in heart and old
SECRET DEBATES IN THE GOVERNMENT. 243
in wisdom. Lamartine, from the very first, observed this
phenomenon, and, surrounded by the young volunteers who
crowded round him, he conceived good omens for the republic.
Moderation would assuredly triumph. Wherever the heart
of the young is, there is the spirit of the future.
Five or six thousand armed citizens appeared on the fol-
lowing day before dawn, called together by the single impulse
of desire for the public Safety, at the gates and principal
outlets of the Hôtel de Ville. Upon the arrival of the scat-
tered bánds who bore the red flag, they encountered a re-
sistance which disconcerted their projects. The Place de
Grève was soon covered by a multitude, whose composed
aspect and physiognomy, at once animated and firm, attested
the grave thoughts of a people engaged in its own regenera-
tion, rather than of those intoxicated and Sanguinary ideas
indulged by a mob whose next step would be sedition.
The members of the government were all at their posts, with
the exception of the minister of the interior, who was
intrusted with the safety of Paris, and who did not present
himself till later in the evening. Each time that Dupont de
l'Eure, Arago, Marie, and Crémieux were seen at one of the
windows, a hundred thousand heads were uncovered. Cries,
gestures, and clappings of hands recalled them to the sight
and enthusiasm of the people. The groups, bearing the red
flags, less numerous and compact, appeared isolated in the
midst of this crowd. These depressed flags were seen in
quick succession lowered amid the aversion of the masses.
The true people had reassumed the place of which dema-
gogues and their followers wished to dispossess them.
The members of the government and the ministers resumed
their labours for universal reorganization with more marked
concurrence on the part of the good citizens. It was debated
in a secret council what attitude the republic should assume
with reference to the king, his family, and ministers, and also
the princes who commanded in Algeria. Some men con-
nected with the government, believing that resistance would
be excited in the interior in the name of royalty, urged the
government to adopt measures not of rigour, but of prudence
towards the fugitives. To institute a search for the minis-
ters, who were still concealed in Paris, and might easily be
discovered by means of domiciliary visits; to pursue the king
R 2
344 MAGN ANIMITY OF THE GOVERNMENT.
and queen, who were wandering upon the roads leading
towards England, which it was not difficult to close against
them; to overtake the duchess of Orleans and her sons,
whose traces were followed, and whose asylum was suspected
even by the members of the government; to retain these
two generations of royalty as hostages of the republic ; to
confiscate their immense possessions; to put restraint upon
their persons; to bring those ministers to trial upon whom
the passionate vengeance of the moment threw the blame of
the blood shed in Paris—such were the counsels that some
politicians, who wished to conform to revolutionary routine,
whispered from without to the dictators.
These counsels were instantly rejected by the good sense
and unanimous generosity of the government. Seize the
ministers ? It was, upon the one hand, to bear hardly upon
misfortune, and convert faults into crimes; on the other, as
in 1830, to prepare for the republic and government the
embarrassments of an uncertain trial, in which it would be
as dangerous to condemn as to acquit. To pursue the king
and his family It would be to bring them back to Paris,
into the midst of a people who, just and compassionate to-
day, might be irritated and vindictive to-morrow; it would
be, perhaps, to bring to the chances of an unknown futurity a
prey for a reign of terror, and the victims for an odious scaffold.
To detain the duchess of Orleans and her children : It would
be to imprison misfortune and to punish innocence. Con-
fiscate the personal property of the royal family’ It would
be to confound the king and the man, and public domains
with private possessions. It would be to strike at the principle
of property in the highest fortune of the empire, at the
very moment when the government and society wished to
defend, in property, the basis of families, and the existence of
future generations, Policy, morality, and good feeling com-
manded the government to fortify the republic against these
dangers, these political severities and rigours. All notions
and acts of national recrimination were rejected with indig-
nation. The revolution with which the government had
associated themselves, to Save and exalt it, was not to become
a shameful relapse of the people into the Scandals and crimes
of all preceding revolutions. It was to be a victory, and
not a measure of vengeance; an advance in sentiment and
public reason, and not a vile Satisfaction given to the
PROCEEDINGS OF LAMARTINE. 245
jealous and cruel instincts of parties. Some would even
have wished to go to greater lengths, in a defiance hurled at
once against the persecutors and courtiers of the fallen dynas-
ties. They spoke of the speedy possibility of readmitting
without danger the whole of these dynasties, interdicting to
them only for a certain number of years the office of president
of the republic.
“The true dynasty,” said Lamartine, “is universal suf-
frage. The people never permit the crown of sovereignty to
be torn from their head to restore it to a family. Nations,
once upon the throne, abdicate no more. Det us accustom
them to consider themselves inviolable in the face of those
whom they have dethroned.”
These suggestions, apparently somewhat premature for the
morning after a revolution, were only a subject of conversa-
tion; but the measures of safety for the ministers, and of
national generosity for the members of the deposed dynasty,
were converted into secret resolutions. In order to effect a
better reception of these on the part of the people, and to
reassure the people while preserving the life and liberty of
the king, the government proceeded to proclaim the abolition
of royalty under every race that had disputed the crown for
the space of fifty years.
Lamartime took upon himself, upon his personal responsi-
bility, and at his own risk and peril before the people, to
allow the ministers to escape, if seized in their places of re-
treat; he caused also the track of the king, queen, and prin-
cesses, together with the children of the latter, to be followed,
and sent commissioners accredited by himself, to aid, in case
of necessity, their departure from the French territory; to
convey to them the sums indispensable for their subsistence,
and to give them as far as the frontiers, not only protection,
but also those tokens of respect which reflect honour upon
the people who confer them, as much as they console the
victims of human vicissitudes.
The minister of finance was authorized to assign to him, on
demand, under the head of Secret service money, a sum of
three hundred thousand francs for the safety of the royal
personages. He took fifty thousand only, which he credited
to the account of foreign affairs, in order. to transfer them to
the commissioners at their departure. The precaution was
useless, for no expense was incurred. It will be seen in the
246 - SPEECH OF LOTIS BLANC.
sequel what prevented that use of it which the government
had authorized. In this sitting the council framed its decrees
as it were under the dictation of the national feeling and
the applause of the public square. The day advanced, but
the people, who from early dawn continued to arrive in
innumerable masses, were never weary of taking part in the
proceedings of the government. A mighty chorus of voices
under the windows, upon the quays and bridges, found its
Way by hymns, acclamations, and murmurs, to the hall of
deliberation. But they respected its mystery and liberty at
the moment.
The faces of the members of the government beamed at last
with Serenity. The thought which had been impressed in
their hearts the evening before by Lamartine could not fail,
at such an hour, to mount to their lips.
Joy is magnanimous in the masses, and this thought floated
in the eyes of all. Louis Blanc proceeded to give expression
to it.
“I was, gentlemen,” said he, “forcibly struck yesterday
with the idea of M. de Lamartine, an idea which, at first
sight, appeared to me too advanced for the present state of
affairs, but which the generosity of the people has matured
in twenty-four hours, and which they are, perhaps, capable
to-day of comprehending and accepting, the idea, in short,
of disarming the people of that punishment of death which
saddeng hearts, envenoms opinions, and imbrues the conquests
and even the virtues of the people in blood. I demand that
we deliberate anew upon this proposition of M. de Lamartine,
and that we grant to humanity this gift, as a joyous welcome
to democracy "
Lamartine thanked his young colleague with heart and
look, and seized the hand which had been extended to take
up his own thought. The deliberation was a short exchange
of assent and reciprocal congratulations. The heart stifled the
timid objections of the head. The greatness of the act, by
which seven men, whose feet had been steeped in the blood
of civil war the evening before, dared to propose to this
people to abandon for ever the sword and Scaffold, elevated
the thoughts and the courage of all. A superhuman inspiration
was visible in the attitudes of those who were deliberating.
Their eyes were moistened, their lips trembled, and their
GoyFRNMENT PRESENT THEMSELVES TO THE PEOPLE. 247
hands shook as in fever, while their pens ran over the paper.
Each sought a form of expression, worthy of the thought, to
present to the people. That of Lamartine, corrected and
ameliorated by a phrase of Louis Blanc, was adopted. After
having heard it, the members present rose, with an electric
movement of enthusiasm. Dupont de l'Eure, Lamartine,
Arago, Marie, Crémieux, Pagnerre, threw themselves into
each other's arms, like men who had preserved the whole
human race from deluges of blood. They put on their tri-
coloured sashes, sole marks of their sovereign functions. They
prepared to present, for the ratification of the people, the
adventurous decree which they had dared to propose in its
name. Lamartine was intrusted with this appeal to the
hearts of the multitude.
The voices of those who filled the Hôtel de Wille announced
to the people without that the provisional government were
about to descend. A confused escort was formed around them.
They passed the steps, under an arch of peaceful weapons
and floating banners, and appeared at the grand flight of
steps before the palace.
Dupont de l'Eure, bowed down by fatigue, but sustained by
courage, gave one arm to Lamartine, and the other to Louis
Blanc. A strict silence was preserved by the crowd.
Lamartine, advancing as far as the gate, mounted on
an estrade near the cannons, and uttered, at the full pitch of
the human voice, a few phrases of congratulation and good
augury over the thousands of heads which bowed before
him. Their heads were uncovered ; the Sun was shining upon
them, and their looks and half-opened lips seemed to pant
for the words before hearing them ; those nearest to the
speaker transmitted them to the more distant. Lamartine
spoke slowly, as the mariner on the sea, to give time to the
Sounds to glide over these human waves.
He commenced by softening and, so to speak, Sancti-
fying the multitude, in order to prepare them, by a religious
accent and sentiment, for the decree which he wished to
carry by universal assent. When he saw composure upon
their faces, emotion in their eyes, and acclamations on their
lips, he then read the decree.
A slight hesitation, of astonishment, was manifested among
Some groups. A murmur might destroy all, but it did not
248 DECREE FOR THE ABOLITION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.
burst forth. At each phrase of the preamble and decree,
the people, beholding their own grandeur in the idea of the
government, interrupted the reading by clappings of hands
and benedictions, which spread themselves like the breeze on
the Sea. The decree was received as the message of good
tidings of humanity. The government re-entered the ves-
tibule obeyed and adored.
The remainder of the day was devoted to joy. “Had the
revolution but this day,” said Dupont de l'Eure, “and if this
were the sole hour remaining to me, I would not regret the
eighty years of labour which God has assigned to me.”
Upon quitting the Hôtel de Ville, to take the measures
agreed upon relative to the royal family, Lamartine was
recognized by some people at the entrance of the quay. In
an instant the whole crowd in the square was impelled to
form a retinue for him. The gestures and words he employed
to dismiss it were ineffectual. A long column of citizens of
every class, mostly workmen, accompanied him with their
benedictions and songs as far as the Tuileries. Arrived at the
gate of that palace, the multitude which formed the head of
the cortège wished that he should enter, as though the people
wished to assert its sovereignty by installing the new govern-
ment in the residence of the monarchs. Lamartine opposed
this with energy.
“The citizens,” said he, “in whom power is temporarily
placed by the people, should have no palaces but their own
houses.”
He dismissed a part of his retinue; the other portion con-
ducted him by the bridge and the Rue du Bac, as far as his
residence. The crowd drew up respectfully before his door.
Lamartine harangued them upon the threshold :—
“You have shown to-day, to God and to men,” said he,
“that there is nothing which cannot be obtained from such
a people, by appealing to their virtues. This day will be
inscribed in your history amongst the greatest of your na-
tional grandeur; for the glory you have acquired in it will
call down upon you neither the maledictions of victims, nor
the resentment of nations, but the blessings of posterity. You
have torn the flag of terror from the hands of the second re-
public You have abolished the scaffoldſ Enough for two
days, Go and reassure your families and your children
WISIT OF LAMARTINE TO M. DE MONTALIVET, 249
in their homes, and tell them that you have deserved well not
only of history, but of humanity and of God.”
After night-fall, Lamartine went out alone, and on foot,
wrapped up in his cloak, to avoid recognition, and proceeded
to the house of M. de Montalivet, the friend and confidant of
the king. Lamartine did not doubt that M. de Montalivet
was acquainted with the designs, the route, or asylum of the
royal family. He assured the ex-minister that the govern-
ment had more dread of the seizure of the fugitives than they
could themselves have of being arrested. He confided to him
the sheltering intentions of his colleagues; and the sums
placed at his disposal to facilitate the fugitives' departure
from the territory, and to offer the first bread of exile to those
who had the evening before been on the throne of France.
He conjured him to yield himself up to his discretion and
the magnanimity of the government, which was decided to
prevent, even at the cost of its own popularity, a crime, a
Subject of remorse, and a disgrace to the republic.
M. de Montalivet was touched by this loyalty and mag-
nanimity of a government, which so well interpreted the
minds of a great people; but he knew nothing as yet, except
the direction of the king's flight.
This prince, upon quitting Paris, escorted by a regi-
ment of cuirassiers, had stopped for some minutes at Saint
Cloud, persuaded that the revolution had been suppressed
by his abdication, and that his grandson already reigned in his
stead. He had written to M. de Montalivet to send to him,
at his château of Eu, the papers and articles which his hur-
ried departure had prevented him from taking from the
Tuileries. From Saint Cloud he continued his route to the
Château d’Eu,-the retreat which he had prepared for his old
age, the asylum which he had destined for his widow,-the
tomb which he had raised for his ashes, and for those of the
children who had preceded him to the grave.
The anxious affection of M. de Montalivet had been unable to
learn more respecting the lot of the king whose friend he was.
He knew only that after a brief stay at Eu he had departed,
disguised and unattended, in a carriage, by circuitous roads,
and that he was either actually embarked on the British
Channel, or wandering along its coasts. He gave his promise
to Lamartine to communicate to him any information which .
:
:
:
250 COMMISSIONERS FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE Ex-RING.
might reach him. Lamartine returned, caused a travelling-
carriage to be prepared, and requested the commissioners,
warned by him, to be ready to set out at the first signal, to
proceed as the cortège of protection and respect, destined by
the government to the royal exiles. One of the commis-
sioners whom Lamartine had charged with this delicate and
pious duty was the grandson of Lafayette. He considered
that in case the king should have been recognized and arrested
at Rouen, Havre, or any other town upon the coast, the
name of Lafayette, dear to the revolution and a pledge of
respect for the king himself, would protect the royal family,
and assure the execution of the measures of personal invio-
lability and becoming treatment taken for their free depar-
ture. The two other commissioners designated were M. de
Champeaux and M. d’Argaud, particular friends of Lamar-
tine, and men of courage and intelligence, both with hearts
devoted to their mission, and initiated into the intentions with
which this measure of safety was framed.
The morrow was the day appointed by the government for
the proclamation, or rather the acclamation, of the republic
on the Place de la Bastille. For the people it was an empty
ceremonial ; but for the government a twofold political
measure: it wished, in the first place, to verify by an au-
thentic Solemnity, the defeat of the partisans of the red flag,
and of the republic of violence; it wished, next, to review
the national guard of Paris, and to ascertain the civic force
which the well-disposed citizens could supply it with, in case
of need, against Sedition. It was problematical whether the
moral Spirit of the national guard of Paris, composed in a
vast majority of the bourgeoisie, would, after the downfall
of the government, consider itself to have been vanquished
with royalty. Would it abandon the streets to the armed
combatants of the three days, who alone were armed; or
would it rally round the republic, as it had rallied, during
the struggle, round the revolution ? Would it associate itself
with the unanimity of the people, in one and the same ardent
pursuit of order and of liberty? This the government wished
to know ; this it wished especially to demonstrate, in order to
produce an imposing effect upon agitators, by the harmoni-
ousness and magnitude of the manifestation.
The proclamation and military display under the column of
:
:
*
35
THE ARTISANS CF PARIS. 251
July, had been fixed the evening before for two o'clock in the
afternoon; but while the different legions were taking their
positions upon the boulevards, and the people were pouring
into the Rue Saint Antoine, and the quarters which discharge
their currents into the Bastille, and the cortégé of the govern-
ment was forming in the square, a new Sedition, but a Sedition
of ideas rather than of anger, was murmuring loudly under
the windows, and in the halls of the Hôtel de Ville.
The terrorists, the communists, the demagogues, vanquished
the evening before, seemed to have renounced fresh assaults
for the moment. The energy of the good citizens, the
wisdom of the mass of the people, had driven them back into
the shade, and into inactivity; and they had preserved of their
repudiated banner only the red cockades and ribbons, which
they affected to wear still on their heads and in their coats.
There exists, however, in Paris, a mass of workmen,
artists, and artisans, belonging to those employments in which
the hand and mind are most closely connected : printers, en-
gravers, mechanicians, cabinet-makers, locksmiths, carpenters,
and others, forming together a mass of about fifty thousand
men. These artists, artisans, and workmen are, in general,
born, domiciliated, and established, or married, in Paris; and
they receive considerable salaries at those periods when in-
dustry competes for their services. They have their moments
of leisure, and they employ them, some in profligacy and
debauchery, to an extent which their labour can never suffi-
ciently gratify; the greater portion of them have their pro-
fessional studies, their reading, their courses of Science, phi-
losophy, and religion, by which their minds are sharpened for
political or social controversies; an inferior, but still an edu-
cated stratum, under that great one of intelligence and letters
which covers the moral soil of France.
These men form the élite of the portion of the people
working by hand, and may be said to be confounded by
information, manners, and dress, with the classes who live by
the liberal professions; at the root, on a par with those
devoid of all property, but at the top, already on a level with
the respectable citizens. They have among themselves, in their
respective trades, their societies, unions, organizations for
mutual assistance, orators, delegates, who obtain a hold upon
their confidence, and who discuss their interests with the
252 SYSTEM OF LOUIS BLANC,
contractors; of sufficient probity to detest blood, to shrink
with horror from pillage, end to be repugnant to disorder:
they are sufficiently informed to be accessible to sophistry,
but not profound enough to put it to confusion and to repel it.
It was among these men that the different Socialist schools,
which had sprung up since 1830, at Paris, Lyons, Rouen, and
in Germany, recruited the greatest number of their followers.
The problem, up to the period without radical solution, of the
inequality of human situations, extreme misery by the side
of extreme wealth, Scandalized them, as it has Scandalized, and
without effect, all the philosophers and religious men of all
ages. They flattered themselves at having found a solution,
some by the imitation, with Fourrier, of the monastic system;
others by that of the brutal Indian system of castes, with
Saint Simon; others by the religious united possession of land,
with Pierre Leroux; others by the suppression of the sign
of riches in specie, with Proudhon ; the great proportion, re-
volting at the impossibility, violence, and chimerical projects
of these schools, had imagined they had found a practical
adjustment in the system, at first sight less unreasonable, and
in appearance less subversive, of Louis Blanc.
This system, called by the elastic name of association, and
in fact applicable with advantage within certain limits, was
generically defined by them as the organization of labour.
Now, organization of labour thus conceived, being nothing
but the enslavement of capital, and the sovereign and arbi-
trary fixation of wages by the state, suppresses the free action
of the proprietor, and the interest in his own labour on the part
of the workman; and, consequently, suppresses capital, wages,
and labour at a single blow. It is the maa'imum generalized,
and bearing upon the entire industrial and territorial Society.
It is making the state, God, and labour the slave; it is the
death-blow to all free dealing between man and man,
under the pretence of destroying the abuses of competition.
This party abolishes, purely and simply, the possession and
liberty of capital; that is to say, it indirectly abolishes pro-
perty in the same way as all the other schools of this nature;
and with property it would abolish society, the tie of family,
and man. This last system, nevertheless, exposed with much
faith, moderation, and eloquence by the young writer, had not
convinced, but dazzled a considerable number of these work-
VAST ASSEMBLAGES OF THE SOCIALISTS. 253.
men. Louis Blanc was their apostle; they believed in him,
if not as a discoverer, at least, as their master and guide in
the investigation of the industrial problem. Its final conse-
quences did not strike thern—Louis Blanc did not seem
to avow them to himself; for he destroyed when he thought
he was simply ameliorating.
The masses had been for several days worked upon by these
shadowy ideas. They beheld their master at the gates of
power in the post of secretary, and soon to be member of the
government. They were perhaps instigated by the ambitious
desires concealed under a popular name. They wished to
profit by the breach opened by the revolution to every inno-
vation, to launch their system upon the republic, and so to
confound it from the first day with that itself, that the two
would no longer admit of separation.
They had been pouring armed since morning upon the
square and into the Hôtel de Ville. They had been sending
deputations upon deputations to the members of the govern-
ment to demand that Louis Blanc should be appointed minister
of progress, and the words “organization of labour” be in-
stantly inserted in the programme of the promises guaranteed
to the people. Louis Blanc himself strenuously advised his
nomination to this vague and undefined office. He appeared
to believe that this satisfaction to his name would of itself
appease the multitude.
The whole of the members of government energetically
resisted, during five hours of agitation, the reiterated sum-
monses of industrial Socialism under every form. By turns,
Dupont de l’Eure, Arago, Goudchaux, and Marie harangued
the delegates in unmeasured terms, but were unable to restrain
the urgency of their solicitations.
It was demonstrated to them, but to no purpose, that the
hand of the republic, pressing thus upon capital, would cause it
instantly to vanish or bury itself; that all labour and all
wages would disappear with it ; that in matters of business
liberty and security were the essence of all industry and com-
merce; that what they demanded would prove the suicide of
the workmen. All objections were stifled by vociferations.
A thousand forms of expression were attempted to find one
which would satisfy them without binding the republic in an
impracticable Sophism. It was even proceeded to such a
254 TſIEIR FINAL DEPUTATION TO THE GOVERNMENT,
length as to write the word organization of labour, defining
the word inoffensively and practically, and giving it the sole
sense which it could assume under the hand of the legislator
—that of an attentive superintendence of labour and aid
to the labourers. A very large majority of the government
refused to sign a word of double interpretation, and the work-
men themselves would not accept it on these terms.
The irritation, formidable at such a moment, increased. A
final deputation filled the halls, and those composing it struck
the council-table with their fists, or the handles of their
weapons. Lamartine, standing, in the faces of the most
animated delegates, spoke to them in the name of his col-
leagues with the resolution of men who are exposing their
own lives for the protection of Society. “Citizens,” said he,
pointing to the square where their comrades, with lighted
matches, guarded four pieces of cannon posted at the gates,
“you should put me to the mouths of those cannons before
making me sign these two words associated together—“ orga-
nization of labour.” A murmur of astonishment and anger
arose in the halls. The table only separated Lamartine and
his colleagues from the most incensed of the workmen.
“Suffer me to speak reason to reasonable men,” continued
Lamartine. “I am going to tell you why it is I will never
sign the decree. My reasons are two, citizens. The first is,
that I believe myself neither more nor less intelligent than any
other man of my age and country, and that after twenty
years of reflections and studies upon the conditions of industrial
Society, it has been found an impossibility for me to under-
stand these two words united, one of which excludes the
other. I will not sign what I cannot understand.
“The second is, that if we should promise to you the organ-
ization of labour, we should promise what no human power
could fulfil. I will not give my signature to engagements
which I cannot perform to the people.”
These firm words, accompanied by the tone of conviction
which inspired them, began to make the most intelligent and
moderate workmen reflect. Lamartine, opportunely profiting
by their softened dispositions, invited them to a free and frank
discussion of the important question in agitation under the
republican institutions. He treated it in extension, in details,
and with proofs. He demonstrated by the absurdity of the
WHICEI IS HARANGUED BY TAMARTINE. 255
consequences, the vanity and odiousness of the principle of the
violation of the liberty of capital, in industry. He made the
impracticability of their system palpable to these men, whose
fanaticism had been excited by a mere word. He laid that
word bare before their eyes, and drew forth from it its nullity,
its emptiness, and the ruin which would occur to all through
the oppression of a few.
“You see it,” he added, “in demanding the absolute control
of the state over capital and wages; it is the annihilation of
capital, viz. of the source of all labour, of which you are made
to dream. It is hunger and thirst ; it is the misery and ema-
ciation of yourselves, of your wives and children, that you are
demanding. But we will be courageous enough to refuse you
these scourges, which you mistake for realities, and which as
yet are only the representations of illusion and misery. No ;
we will not be accomplices in the delirium of this fever which
is being kindled in the most interesting, because the most
suffering, portion of the people. We will refuse you that de-
struction which you would force from us.
“But perhaps you understand by the organization of labour,
the eye and the hand of the republic opened incessantly to the
condition of the workmen, to elevate, enlighten, and amelio-
rate it, and to improve its moral tone?” (“Yes, yes!” cried
these men, already recovered from their chimerical visions.)
“Do you understand by it institutions for professional in-
Struction, apprenticeship, assistance, intellectual as well as
material, to the workmen’ education gratuitously given to
their children Ž a regard to health in their labours ? aid to
their sick and aged 2 mutual associations, favoured by the
state, to enable them to pass through the periods of involun-
tary cessation of labour, and of crises like the present ? Do
you understand a more and more equitable and Christian dis-
tribution of taxation, which would deduct a part to relieve the
undeserved miseries of the labouring classes as in England, and
which would proportion the charges to the fortunes 2" “Yes,
yes,” replied the delegates with enthusiasm, “that is all we
require. We ask only justice and impartiality in the govern-
ment, only guarantees against the stagnation of labour, and
the destitution of our families. Our arms will suffice for the
rest, and we will devote them again for our country.”
“Well!” rejoined Lamartine, “if such are your wishes,
256 REVIEW OF THE NATIONAL GUARDS.
ours are the same, and in a still greater degree; for we are
not of the number of those who impose limits to the progress
of a divine morality in Society, nor to the duties of property
and government towards the indigent, men and citizens
like ourselves. Our desire is, that this revolution be to
their profit; that it should elevate them in the first place
to political rights, and then to those of property acquired by
labour. But we wish it to benefit some without injuring
others; without throwing Society into chaos, pillage, and
chimeras, which would overwhelm it in the ruin of all, and of
yourselves the first. Now, the organization of labour is, in
our eyes, nothing but confiscation of capital, a robbery per-
petrated upon wages, the annihilation of a part, and that the
most active, of property; it is to impose impossibilities upon
government, to create the immediate cessation of all labour,
and the starvation of the pauper and the proprietor at the
same moment. Once more, I will never sign your own misery
and your own condemnation;" and with his left hand he
put away the paper on which the proposal had been already
written. The workmen applauded and mingled with the
train which attended the government as it descended.
A crowd innumerable attended the new power. The
ministers, the generals remaining at Paris, the principal
authorities, the mayors of Paris, encircled the members
of government. Some battalions of national guards mixed
with the armed people, opened the procession. It was a task
of difficulty to penetrate the multitude. The members of
the government were on foot, attired simply as citizens, and
distinguished only by tricoloured Sashes. This simplicity, far
from humiliating, added to the greatness of the republic.
The people appeared to rejoice at Seeing power descend
again into their own bosom, disdain the pomp and external
attractions of royalty, and only offer to their eyes a power of
necessity and reason, personified by five or six men habited
like themselves. The quays, the streets, the balconies, the
windows, and the roofs were loaded with spectators. The
Rue Saint Antoine, at the part where it becomes wider, like
the mouth of a river, on approaching the Bastille, was ob-
structed by waves of people. Upon issuing from the Hôtel de
Ville, some red flags, and a great number of red ribbons upon
coats, still struck the eye. As the procession advanced
FECEPTION OF THE GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE. 257
amidst the noise of acclamations, these flags were lowered vo-
luntarily. The pavements were strewn with red cockades and
ribbons, discarded by those who wore them, and thrown under
the feet of the dictators. Incessant cries of “Long live the
provisional government l” were raised, and prolonged, mount-
ing from story to story, and reverberating through every part
of the building.
Arago, his head uncovered, and his white hair exposed
to the Sun and wind, walked at the side of Lamartine.
These were the two names that were shouted the most.
That of Dupont de l'Eure seemed to inspire more venera-
tion ; that of Ledru Rollin, more passion ; that of Louis
Blanc, more of rare but rough fanaticism. Their counte.
nances breathed the hope and the Serenity of a return of calm
after a season of tempest.
The members of the government placed themselves at the
foot of the column. Dupont de l'Eure and Arago took the
lead, and replied to the congratulations and speeches. The
Tepublic was Sanctioned by the unanimous acclamations of
the people and the national guard. These were prolonged
as by electrical consent along the line of the legions, from
the bridge of Austerlitz to the Madeleine. The repub-
lic, originating in a few, became the asylum of all. Society,
abandoned by monarchy, took refuge in liberty. There was
no more a struggle of systems, there was the harmony of
I'ê8,S(\{1,
The review lasted four hours, the men marching in double
quick time. A hundred and twenty thousand armed men,
belonging to every rºofession and opinion, saluted the re-
public, and raised their weapons to the sky to attest their
readiness to defend order by defending the government.
During this display, Lamartine kept himself constantly in
the rear of the party. Having taken off his badge of office, he
mingled with the crowd for the purpose of retiring, but being
recognized, as on the evening before, at the angle of the rue
Saint Antoine, he was followed. The people of that quarter
had beheld his conduct during the scenes occasioned by the
red flag. They had conceived for him that enthusiasm which
Cnergy, even when it resists them, excites in the multitude.
An immense assemblage, forming at his steps, surrounded
him and filled the Place Royale. Lamartine could only
S
258 LAMARTINE AND THE CABIRIOLET-DRIVER,
escape a popular triumph, which would have agitated and
disturbed Paris, by running for shelter into one of the houses
in the square, which was inhabited by Victor Hugo. The
genius possessing eternal popularity gave an asylum to the
possessor of the popularity of a day. While the crowd was
knocking at the door, the porter enabled Lamartime to pass
through the inner courts and over a wall into an unfrequented
street. After covering his face with his cloak, he ascended a
hired cabriolet which happened to pass, and requested the
driver to convey him by retired streets to his residence.
He kept silence. The driver, seated by him, showed
him the broken handle of his whip, and acquainted him that
it had occurred while conveying, two evenings before, one of
the fugitive ministers of royalty from Paris. Lamartine, silent,
was struck with the vicissitude of human fortune, by which,
in the interval of two days, and in the same carriage, one
politician had escaped from pursuit, and another from triumph.
The manifestation of force and concord which the review
of the armed people and the national guard had given in this
unanimous and pacific proclamation of the republic, restored
to Paris the security and order of a capital which had not
changed its government.
The republic was proposed or accepted with the same
unanimity in the departments. Thirty-six millions of souls
changed their sovereignty without the loss of a life. Blood
had flowed in Paris for or against reform; not a drop was
shed in France for or against the republic ; in some the
voice of passion whispered, “The republic is your conquest;”
in others, “the republic is your safety;” to all,—“it is your
necessity.”
RESTORATION OF ORDER. 259
B O O K IX.
ENTHUSIASM took possession of the whole mass of the
people from the moment when government stopped the effu-
sion of blood, extended protection to persons and property,
proclaimed the republic, and denounced the emblems of
terror and anarchy. Concord once more animated the hearts
of the citizens, and joy beamed on every countenance; the
fraternity of words was transformed into that of acts, and
the revolution resembled a festival rather than a catastrophe.
The measures of the government were seconded by the
three most powerful of human passions—fear, hope, and
enthusiasm. Persons of wealth and those in easy circum-
stances,—the bourgeoisie, landowners, manufacturers, mer-
chants, had naturally been apprehensive that the downfall of
the throne, and the word republic, would give the signal for
the spoliations, massacres, and executions, the remembrance
of which had, during half a century, been confounded with
the image of republican institutions. All these classes were
filled with astonishment, and their sympathies were aroused
when they saw and heard programmes and decrees openly
repudiating any analogy or connection between the two
republics. Forgetting for a moment the advantages, the
monopolies, the public employments, the emoluments, and
the favours they had lost by the downfall of the royalty of
July, they thought only of the Safety vouched by the govern-
ment for their titles and fortunes. Accordingly they rallied
round the new government, and clung to it as the drowning
mariner clings to the wreck. They flocked to the Hôtel de
Ville, offering their purses, their arms, their hearts, to aid
the men who had taken the helm in the hope of Saving
society from destruction. They willingly resigned them-
selves to the republic, provided the republic should be the ,
Salvation of all.
The agricultural and manufacturing classes, who live by
order, credit, commercial exchange, and industry, had felt
the same fears, and shared the same sentiments. The poor
and working classes, who have no capital but their hands, no
revenue but their earnings, no patrimony but their mo-
S
260 REVIVAL OF TRADE AND COMMERCE.
rality and economy, viewed with enthusiastic gratitude and
hope a revolution which was to raise them to the Tank of
citizens, and to restore to them their just share of Social
privileges and political sovereignty; they felt that their fate
was thenceforward in their own hands. The republic, by
receiving into its councils representatives chosen by the lower
orders, and in some instances chosen from among them, pro-
mised an era of equality, justice, and prosperity, to immense
masses of the people, who had long been deprived of all
participation in the laws. Nevertheless they did not ex-
aggerate their grievances, their rights, nor their demands.
They openly proclaimed respect for property, inviolability of
capital, and fair adjustment of wages between the work-
man and the master manufacturer, who proportions them in
accordance with his own advantage. It may fairly be said,
that Society possessed a clear intelligence of its own interests.
An incalculable amount of reason, information, moderate
views, and religious feeling, had, during the interval of
half a century, penetrated through every pore into the bulk
of the population. Not only were the people calm, resigned,
and obedient to the voice of an unarmed government, but
they armed themselves to defend that government. They
readily allowed it time to work out its measures, and gave
evidence of patience by contenting themselves with half-
wages from their masters, or with the remuneration of a
small allowance of food in the national workshops opened by
the mairies of Paris. Some there were who disinterestedly
refused to accept even this scanty stipend, to avoid augment-
ing the burthens of the republic. Others went further still:
having formed themselves into trade unions, under the Sole
impulse of patriotism, each union levied an assessment on
itself, and hourly conveyed to the government this voluntary
tax, collected from the retrenchment of bread, this tithe of
hard labour. All this was done without parade, nobly and
generously. Those who witnessed these acts will never
despair of such a people. They are the heart of the country;
and it is only necessary to touch that heart to draw forth
treasures of disinterestedness, resignation, and courage. Hope
was their leading star.
The courage with which some men, uninfluenced by ambi-
tion, hazarded their lives by heading the people at the Hôtel
ASPECT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 26]
de Ville, to repress anarchy, and to save at once the revolu-
tion and society, the desperate and triumphant resistance
which those men opposed to the red flag, to terror, and to
the wild excesses they had been ordered to commit, all this
inspired sincere deference for them among the most rational
of the popular parties. The dramatic scenes of the Hôtel de
Wille, of which a hundred thousand witnesses propagated
exaggerated accounts through Paris and the departments,
had proved that the nation was not headed merely by pup-
pets of sedition, but by men capable of opposing and subduing
demagogues. Those days, during which a few men fought
unflinchingly against armed masses, had inspired confidence,
and imparted vast authority to the provisional government,
which had consolidated its popularity by boldly risking it.
At first the provisional government was a mere shadow, but
at the Hôtel de Ville it became a power. Lamartine, whose
name at the outset was the least popular with the mass of the
Parisian populace, made a deep impression on the public
mind both by his acts and by his words. His popularity,
instead of wearing out, gained growth by resistance, and
it soon became a thing inviolable to the people, who were
continually seeing and hearing him. Public favour, which
smoothes down all difficulties, Supported the government
through the dangers it encountered. Everything seemed to
fall back, as it were naturally, within the boundaries of law,
reason, moderation, and order, impelled by that occult power
which raises up nations as Soon as they fall. The organizing
instinct of human aggregations, which materialists call
social habitude, which history calls civilization, and which
philosophy calls by its true name, the divine law of our
nature, the finger of God, was never more visible to the
mind, and even to the eye of the religious man, than during
that crisis when a nation without a government was in itself
its own ruler, its own strength, and its own law.
But whilst the old government was retiring from the land,
and the new one installing itself in the interior, all Europe
seemed to look frowningly on the provisional government.
It was now time to take this point into consideration.
Hitherto the revolution, the republic, the measures against
civil war, the acceptance of the new order of things by the
departments the navy, the army, and by Algeria;-the
262 BASTIDE.
difficulty of restoring order in Paris, supplying the capital
with food, establishing workshops, administering succour to
three millions of starving people ;-the organization of the
ministry, the measures preparatory to the formation of the
new national guard, which was to embrace all the domiciled
portion of the population;–the whole net-work of the ad-
ministration, which had to be caught up, and spread over
a territory containing so many millions of population ;-the
treasury to be emptied and filled every day, the army to be
completed, the frontiers covered, and the ports guarded,
speeches to be delivered, counsels held, Seditious attacks re-
pelled at the Hôtel de Ville;—all these duties had absorbed
the attention of the government by day and by night.
It was not until the evening of the sixth day that Tamar-
tine was enabled to quit the Hôtel de Ville, and to take
possession of the office of the minister for foreign affairs.
The minister of the interior, and the other ministers, who were
also members of the provisional government, and were charged
with various details of administration, in addition to their
own official duties, had, on the evening of the 24th, assumed
the direction of their several departments. The office of
Foreign Affairs could, without inconvenience, be left till France
should recover from the convulsion that had shaken her.
The presence of the minister, in most continuous contact with
the people, was more necessary in the area of revolution than
in the cabinet of his hotel.
On the 27th the minister for foreign affairs appointed
M. Bastide to the post of under-secretary of state in his
department. He begged M. Bastide to go, in his name, to
order the evacuation of the hotel, which was occupied by
combatants, and protected by a detachment of the first
legion of national guards. The voluntary zeal of these citi-
zens, and the spontaneous respect manifested by the people
for the mainsprings of national organization, subdued the
indignation, which might otherwise have vented itself on the
habitation of the fugitive minister. The hotel was taken
possession of, but its interior was respected. The persons
employed were not molested; neither were the minister's
cabinet and the archives touched. M. Bastide was a cool and
resolute man; his name had been popularized by republi-
can opposition long maintained in the columns of the Wa-
BASTIDE—PAYER, 263
tional. He had a high character for integrity, and he well
deserved it. The people knew M. Bastide; but he was un-
known to Lamartine prior to the 24th of February. During
the tumults of the first night of the revolution, and the
assaults of the second day, Lamartine had been struck with
the good sense and firmness displayed by a man of tall
stature, hard features, and Soldier-like bearing, who put him-
self on duty. This man he thought would be an admirable
auxiliary in a revolution which was destined, during several
months, to maintain a daily conflict with demagoguism, and
whose leaders were resolved to remain pure or to perish. He
also thought that the name of Bastide, a republican of old
standing, would, by its authority in his party, cover the
name of Lamartine, whose republicanism, heretofore purely
philosophic, might readily excite the suspicion of the multi-
tude. Under the eyes of Bastide no treason to the republic
could be apprehended. The minister might moderate the
revolution in its relations with Europe, he could repress
war, save the blood of France and of mankind, without in-
curring the charge of betraying the revolution. Bastide
modestly accepted a post, which, in his own opinion, was
above his powers; as to ambition, he had none, Save that of
serving his cause, and of Sacrificing to it his own welfare
and his life. The language, and the character of Bastide,
impressed Lamartine with the idea that he had discovered
the somewhat mutilated statue of incorruptibility in an age
of intrigue, weakness, and corruption.
Lamartine selected on the field of battle the chief of his
private cabinet. This was Payer, who had not quitted the
IHôtel de Ville, the council-table, or the steps of Lamartine in
the most critical moments since the evening of the 23rd. He
was young, active, honest, intrepid, and devoted. Lamar-
time made his selection, without knowing Payer otherwise
than by sight; but he did not repent his choice. In such
a crisis of disorder hours count for years. A glance suffices
to reveal an aptitude ; and when a man is chosen, there is
rarely any mistake, because his character has developed itself
in action.
On entering the office of the minister for foreign affairs,
Lamartine found the hotel occupied by detachments of na-
tional guards and combatants. Bastide had established mili-
264 LAMARTINE, MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRs.
tary regulations; and the place resembled a fortress rather
than a ministerial office. Its occupants were bivouacking in
the courts, in the antechambers, in the apartments, and on the
staircases. -
The new minister was ushered into the cabinet and .
chamber so recently occupied by M. Guizot, whose shadow
seemed still to be flitting from room to room. The chamber,
the bed, the tables, strewed with papers, all remained just
as they had been left on the night of the 23rd, bearing
evidence of the precipitate departure of the minister, who
possibly thought he was leaving his office for a brief interval;
but who left it never to return. A lady, a friend of the
ex-minister, accompanied Lamartine in his first inspection of
the apartments. She solicited, in the name of the mother
and children of the proscribed individual, his private papers,
together with some objects dear to the ex-minister as a hus-
band and a father, and also what little money he had left
behind. Lamartine consigned, with respectful inviolability,
these cherished relics to the lady who represented M. Guizot's
family; and he then hastened to quit the chamber in which
two governments had met and, as it were, taken each other
by surprise, within the short space of a few hours. With-
out any feeling of hatred to the dethroned family, without
animosity to an eminent man, whose fall must have subdued
enmity even had any existed, Lamartine was deeply impressed
with this melancholy evidence of political vicissitude and
national versatility, it was the eclipse of great fortune and
high talent, the desolation of a house which only the day
previously had been the scene of Social happiness. He could
not prevail on himself to take up his abode in the apartments
which might be said to have brought misfortune on their late
occupants. He was not superstitious, but he was sensitive;
he feared not the presages, but the recollections which every
surrounding object retraced; he therefore ordered his bed
to be prepared in one of the dark and empty rooms of the
ground-floor, where he preferred to encamp himself rather
than to take possession of a palace which had ruined its
possessors.
On examining the political documents left behind by the
minister of the monarchy, as they lay scattered on the
writing-table in the cabinet, Tamartine perceived on one of
HIS VIEWS ON THE POLICY OF THE REPUBLIC. 265
thèmy his own name. Curiosity riveted his eyes to the
It was a note made by Guizot for his last speech in
hamber of Deputies, and it contained these words:
“The more I listen to M. de Lamartine, the more I feel
convi ºed that we can never come to an understanding.”
The Worrent of revolutionary tumult interrupted the discus-
sionſ and submerged the tribune before the reply could be
gigen. A strange sport of chance threw this note of M.
Guizot on the table, and placed it under the eyes of his suc-
cessor. To Lamartine this incident was not a triumph. The
ministerial post on which he had entered, or rather into
which he had been driven by the revolutionary tide, he
regarded not as an honour wrested from another, but as a
labour, a duty” devolving on himself. He spent a part of
the night in reflecting on the attitude which the republic
should be made to assume in the eyes of foreign nations.
The republic, considered according to Lamartine's view,
was not the result of a mere chance convulsion of France
and of the world; it was a revolutionary movement, irregular
and abrupt in its form, but regular in its development of
democracy. It was an onward step in the paths of philo-
sophy and humanity; a second and more fortunate attempt
of a great nation to escape from the tutelage of dynasties,
and to learn to govern itself.
Tw ar, far from denoting human improvement, is wholesale
massacre, which retards improvement, whilst it afflicts, de-
cimates, and degrades Society. Nations who sport with
blood are instruments of destruction, and not instruments
of life in the world. They grow into greatness, but their
growth is not in accordance with the designs of God, and
they end by losing in a day of retributive justice all that they
may have conquered in years of violence. Unlawful slay-
ing is not less a crime in a nation than in an individual.
Conquest and glory may impart a brilliant colouring to the
crime, but they do not remove its guilt. Now every national
crime is a false foundation, on which civilization, instead of
standing, must sink. Taking this philosophic, moral, and
religious view (and the highest views are always most correct
in politics), Lamartine would not engage the new republic in
war, either for an object or for a diversion: a diversion of
blood belongs only to tyranny or to Machiavellism."




266 LAMARTINE’s VIEWS ON FOREIGN POLICY.
In the republican point of view, Lamartine was nº less
averse to war. He knew too well the instability
people whose history he had written, not to be corºvinced
that the republic, before time and good conduct shoujill have
enabled it to take root, would perish under the first illi
victory it might gain. A victorious general returning to
Paris, escorted by the popularity of his name, and supported
by the attachment of a numerous army, would have no º
native but to choose between ostracism and dictatorship. The
former would be the disgrace of liberty; the latter would be
its death-blow. Finally, in the political and national point of
view, Lamartine regarded offensive war as being adverse to
the institution of the republic itself and fatal to the nation.
The situation of Europe at the time here in question may
be thus described: the treaties of 1815, which formed the
basis of the European law of nations, had forced France to
retrograde within territorial boundaries too circumscribed for
her pride and possibly for her activity. Those treaties, too,
by restricting her diplomatic relations and depriving her of
alliances, had rendered her distrustful and uneasy. The
government of the restoration, which was imposed quite as
much as it was accepted, might have renewed the lost
alliances, and have created by land and by Sea a French
system, either by joining Germany against Russia and
England, or by coalescing with Russia against England and
Austria.
In the first case, France would have obtained accessions in
Savoy, in Switzerland, and in the Prussian Rhenish pro-
vinces, in return for concessions accorded to Austria in Italy,
in the Lower Danube, and on the coast of the Adriatic. In
the second case, France would have compressed Austria between
herself and Russia. She might, without impediment, have
overrun Italy, repossessed herself of Belgium and the frontiers
of the Rhine, and maintained her influence in Spain. Constan-
tinople, the Black Sea, the Dardanelles, and the Adriatic, con-
ceded to Russian ambition, would have secured these advan-
tages. To France the Russian alliance is a natural sº it
is geographically determined; it is the alliance of war for the
future fortunes of two great races;–it is the balance of peace
by two great weights at the extremities of the continent,
holding the central part in check, or limiting the movements ºf

FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ORLEANS DYNASTY. 267
England, as a satellite power, to the Atlantic and to Asia.
The restoration, by its monarchical and anti-revolutionary
nature, seemed to hold out pledges for both these alliances:
it had sprung from the race of legitimate kings.-it claimed
kindred with the thrones of Europe, and could not menace
them without destroying its own nature.
The Orleans dynasty would fain have kept up these con-
ditions of moral security for the reigning houses, and it
speedily sought to naturalize itself in the sovereign families.
But it was marked by two stains which caused it to be
shunned and feared; viz., a semblance of usurpation in its
accession to the throne, and a semi-revolutionary character in
its popular election of 1830. Russia repelled its advances;
Austria exacted a high price for her tolerance; Prussia kept
watch upon it; and England alone accepted it, but on con-
ditions of subordinacy and an occasional humiliating partici-
pation in British policy. The Orleans dynasty was odious to
the revolution which it had cheated, suspected by the people,
who despaired of deriving any good from it, and annoying to
kings, who reproached it with the usurpation of a throne.
Accordingly, it could maintain merely an isolated, personal,
and temporary authority, concluding truces with every
power, alliances with none. Even its fall, whilst it alarmed
the sovereigns of Europe, gave them a sort of Secret Satisfac-
tion at variance with their interests, but in accordance with
their nature. There was vengeance in the satisfaction felt by
the reigning houses. The revolution of February was in their
eyes an expiation; their policy suffered, but their hearts
rejoiced.
Russia, having no contact with France, did not greatly
concern herself about a revolution in Paris. She was too
well convinced of the physical impossibility of French inter-
vention in Poland, so long at least as Germany should not
open the road, and become the auxiliary of Polish inde-
pendence.
Austria might, indeed, have taken the alarm; but the
eminent man who for thirty-three years had ruled the Aus-
trian monarchy—Prince Metternich—had long maintained a
Servile policy, which lulled all around him into a state of
slumber, and allowed the monarchical fatality to rule in his
stead. He was a man of experience, but of worn-out powers,
268 CONTINENTAL POLICY OF ENGLAND.
and he had so often seen the fortune of Austria decline and
rise again, that he concerned himself but little about its
changes. Consequently, Hungary, Croatia, Gallicia, Bohe-
mia, and Italy, were rapidly breaking into revolt under his
rule, and the influence of the house of Austria was drawing
to a close. The republic startled this apathy without rous-
ing it.
Prussia was the sensitive, living, and active point in that
direction. On the Prussian cabinet England rested the lever
of her continental diplomacy. It was also through the me-
dium of the Prussian court that Russian influence operated
in Germany; but in the Prussian states, the mass of the
people, annoyed by British ascendancy, humbled by Russian
omnipotence, fired by the ambition of governing Germany,
and imbued with the liberal and constitutional ideas which
came to them from their Rhenish province, were all disposed
to favour France. Many of their distinguished statesmen
were induced to take the same views. They regarded the
republic as the accession of a twofold destiny for Prussia:—it
was the continental system in lieu of the military monarchy;
ascendancy over Austria, instead of a secondary part, little
corresponding with Prussian civilization and strong military
power. The alarm which Prussia might naturally have felt
for the security of her Rhenish provinces did not subdue her
transports of national ambition. Even in the event of those
provinces being reannexed to France, she flattered herself she
might reap compensations in Germany, in Hanover, in Hol-
stein, and elsewhere. *
With regard to England, she had at first been favourable
to the Orleans dynasty, because that ill-seated dynasty pro-
mised to keep France long in a state of oscillation, and to
protract in Europe a system of indecision and distrust which
the British cabinet might easily turn to its own advantage.
But the administration of M. Thiers in 1840, by the vain
threat of disputing with England her natural route to India,
and her necessary ascendancy in Egypt, had alienated Eng-
land, irritated the national feeling of both nations, revived old
prejudices, and stirred up old animosities, hitherto only par-
tially extinguished. That administration had, it is true, pru-
dently shrunk from war at the last moment, and ended the
quarrel by the humiliating note of the 8th of October. But
distrust remained amidst reconciliation.
ENGLISH AND FRIENCEI ALLIANCE. 269
England had seen the king erect the fortifications of Paris,
and encourage, by voice and gesture, the singing of the Mar-
seillaise, that tocsin of extreme war. She therefore approx-
imated more closely to Russia. The ministry of M. Guizot
made every concession, with the view of regaining the confi-
dence of England. That minister, who at first found favour
in England, because he was formed on the model of a British
statesman, and because he maintained with high dignity and
talent the part of a Tory of the revolution, had also sunk in
the estimation of the English.
When ambassador in London, during the warlike adminis-
tration of M. Thiers, M. Guizot stood in the eminently false
position of a man wishing for peace, and yet threatening his
friends with war in a bad cause. He was recalled to France
by the king and by the Conservatives, for the purpose of re-
pairing errors to which he had been a party, as member of the
parliamentary coalition in Paris, and as the ambassador of
M. Thiers in London. His position, which had been false in
France, was still more false in London. He found it neces-
sary at once to maintain and to repudiate to a certain length
what he had said in the tribune when in opposition, and what
be had done in London as the agent of the administration of
1840; whilst at the same time he found it expedient to
console, to flatter, and to pacify the Conservative party, of
which he had once more become the leader. No human genius
can rise to the level of a false position. M. Guizot, when
giving full Satisfaction to England on the Egyptian ques-
tion, was urged, by the desire of regaining a certain popu-
larity in another war, to annoy England by a conflict of
influence in Spain. By this means he also served or flattered
the family ambition of the king, to whom he held out the per-
spective of winning in Madrid another crown for the house of
Orleans.
The impolitic marriage of the duke de Montpensier with the
sister of the queen of Spain, which was prepared as an intrigue,
discovered all at once as a snare, and finally proclaimed as a
victory, gave deep umbrage to England. The consequent
coolness of the latter power prompted the cabinet of the
Tuileries to cultivate more friendly relations with Austria, by
consenting, in the affairs of Switzerland, to concessions adverse
to the interests of France, to the independence of nations, and
especially at variance with the spirit of the revolution. The
270 EUROPEAN INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND.
marriage of the duke de Montpensier with the Spanish princess
must inevitably have led to a rupture with England, and to a
war of succession, in which the treasure and the blood of
France would have been lavished in support of an interest
purely dynastic. That marriage bore in itself the seeds of
destruction to the policy and even to the throne of Louis
Philippe, too obviously to escape diplomatic observation. On
the day on which this pretended triumph of the Orleans dynasty
was made public, Lamartine exclaimed in the presence of
several political men : “The house of Orleans will cease to
reign in France by attempting to reign also in Spain. Be-
fore two years are at an end, there will be a revolution in
Paris | *
England then, as might naturally have been expected,
beheld without concern the downfall of a dynasty, which,
after a long course of flattery, had threatened her in Egypt
and deceived her in Spain. The republic was received with-
out repugnance in London. The statesmen of England were
too impartial and shrewd, and too familiar with history, not to
comprehend that fifty years of revolution, of the experience of
liberty, and of advancement in public intelligence, must create
between the new republic and the republic of 1793 as wide a
difference as that existing between reason and passion, or
between an explosion and an institution. A nation like
France brings forth in her revolution only what she has in her
nature. The republic of the 23rd of February could be
nothing else than the France of yesterday installed in her
institutions of to-day.
Now the question of peace or war for the republic turned
wholly on the disposition of England. No coalition is practi.
cable unless fomented by England. As soon as the continent
is armed, England holds it in her pay. Without the concur-
rence of England, a continental war can only be partial; and
no merely partial war can be attended by results very injurious
to France. Peace, therefore, was possible; but to insure its
certainty, two conditions were requisite; viz., to respect Bel-
gium, whose independence was at once an English and a
Prussian interest; and to respect Germany, whose violation
by us would have armed Austria, which was allied to Eng-
land and supported by Russia.
With regard to Spain, the downfall of the Orleans dynasty
WARLIKE '. ASPIRATIONS OF FRANCE. 271
broke up at once the rival pretensions maintained by France
and England on the other side of the Pyrenees.
As yet Italy had made no movement. She was merely
beginning to demand from her princes the first degree of free-
dom in constitutional institutions, and the first degree of Italic
independence, by the fragments of nationality forming a fede-
ration among themselves.
But though it was easy for statesmen to comprehend this
situation of Europe, and this fortunate coincidence of the re-
public with European circumstances, which admitted the pos-
sibility of maintaining peace on the continent; yet it was not
easy to convince the young and turbulent revolution that it
must practise self-restraint, confine itself within its own in-
terior, and from thence diffuse light over the horizon of foreign
nations, without trespassing on other states, or Seeking to
kindle political agitation within them. The treaties of is 15
weighed heavily on the memory of France. The disasters of
1813, 1814, and 1815 were still felt as the remorse of glory
in the hearts of the French people. France, so essentially a
military nation, was not only weary of peace, but she felt her-
self humbled by it. The revolution seemed of itself to throw
open the gates of war. The army yearned for war, the people
invoked it, the superabundant idle and active population urged
it, even the spirit of fraternity seemed to Sanctify it for the
deliverance of oppressed nations. Imprudent republicans, by
their hatred of thrones, incited the desire for war; violent
statesmen by words and gestures preached war to the multi-
tude; and finally, empirical statesmen regarded war as a
lucky expedient for thinning the allied revolutionary popu-
lations of cities; for creating a diversion from international
agitation, and for casting on the frontiers the brands of con-
flagration, which would burn themselves out in the interior of
France, if not scattered over the continent. Revolutions,
observed these men, endure but an hour; they must be seized
whilst they are burning; when the flame is extinguished, the
ambers are trampled under-foot. Insane revolutions, it is
true, have but an hour's duration, replied the more sensible
men of the party favourable to peace; but humane, moderate,
and well-considered revolutions have years and ages before
them. They do not, in a fit of wild and frequently wicked
energy, stake the fate of liberty and the progress of nations on
272 LAMARTINE ON THE POLICY OF WAR.
a card; they never play any but a sure game, and they rely
for their success on law and reason, on the justice of their cause,
on nations, and on God.
Lamartine was convinced of these truths. He was more-
over convinced that should France be the first to attack, the
aggression would be the pretext and the inevitable signal for
an armed coalition,--a league of kings against the republic.
He doubted not that the combined energy of France would
long triumphantly resist such a coalition; but history and com-
mon sense assured him that the offensive war of one nation of
Europe against all the rest, would end, Sooner or later, in in-
vasion, even though that nation should possess an army com-
posed of the soldiers of Napoleon, with the head of Napoleon
to direct them. The republic, by bringing about the invasion
of France, would retard liberty during another half-century;
and it was this latter consideration which had most weight
with him. Lamartine knew from history, as well as from the
nature of things, that every war of a single nation against
Several is an extreme and desperate war; that every extreme
and desperate war requires, on the part of the nation maintain-
ing it, efforts and resources as extreme and desperate as the
war itself; that such efforts and resources can be employed
only by a government which is itself also extreme and des-
perate; and that those resources are reckless taxation and
bloodshed, forced loans, paper money, proscriptions, revolu-
tionary tribunals, and scaffolds. To inaugurate the republic
by a government of this description, would have been to
inaugurate tyranny instead of liberty, crime instead of public
virtue, the ruin of France instead of her salvation. Lamar-
time and his colleagues would sooner have forfeited their heads
to the revolution, than have sacrificed one drop of blood to it.
Moreover, Lamartine had absolute faith in the power of
honesty and justice in politics. He was convinced of the
fact that almost all wars are merely the expiation of acts of
injustice committed by nations one against another. He felt
assured that justice, and the respect manifested by the repub-
lic to neighbouring states, would be two hosts of strength,
more effectual for the defence of the French frontiers than
two millions of men; and that they would propagate the de-
mocratic idea more rapidly than fire and sword. France is
beloved by foreign nations. The charm of her intelligence,
ITS PROBABLE RESULT. 273
her high character, and her genius, is one great Source of her
power in the world. France, though disarmed, would still be
the admiration of the universe. To convert this prestige of
love and admiration for France into the fear and horror of her
arms, would have been to lower the character of the nation.
The fear which she might momentarily inspire would but ill
atone for the loss of that power of sympathy with which God
has armed her. *
The same might be said of the democratic principle now
about to make a new trial of the force of moral contagion on
the minds of nations. Lamartine clearly foresaw, that, if
French democracy became aggressive, if, at the outset, it
were Sullied by the spirit of conquest, or blended with
national ambition, it would repel instead of attracting. The
principle of nationality is in the minds of men paramount to
the principle of internal liberty. Rather than lose their name
and their soil, nations will consent to forfeit their liberal in-
stitutions. They would rally against France the moment that
sovereigns could show that a French bayonet had unlawfully
encroached on their territories. Besides, what was the nature
of the revolution of February 2—was it a territorial revolution,
or a revolution of ideas? It was evidently a revolution of
ideas, a question of internal government. To change it into
a territorial, a military, or an invading revolution, would have
been to enfeeble its very principle, to transform its nature,
and to betray it. A hundred leagues of territory would not
have enlarged it by a single idea. It was therefore necessary
to declare it to be fraternal, and not offensive to other nations,
whether the governments of those nations might be despotic,
monarchical, mixed, or republican. -
But these ideas would have been too philosophic to pene-
trate the masses which had then risen up full of impatience to
overrun Europe, had they been proclaimed only by a minister
for foreign affairs, and by a government. Fortunately, they
were seconded by influential men of all philosophic parties;
even by the Socialists themselves, who, as history is bound in
justice to admit, at that time honestly and powerfully Sup-
ported the principles of fraternity and peace. The labouring
classes, themselves predisposed to war by their ardour and
courage, were, by the doctrines and theories of the Socialists,
restored to the intelligence and morality of peace. The idea
T
274 LAMARTINE's DIPLOMATIC INSTRUCTIONS.
of the organization of labour annihilated the idea of war in
the masses of the population. Socialism stifled the spirit of
conquest, and the people understood reason.
Before submitting these thoughts to the provisional govern-
ment, Lamartine wrote to all the diplomatic agents a short
and vague letter, directing them to notify the accession of the
French republic to their respective courts.
“The republic,” said he, in this letter, “has not changed
the position of France in Europe; and is ready to renew re-
lations with other countries.”
The avowal thus made in this first communication was
thrown out as a hint, with the view of assuring foreign govern-
ments and nations of the civilized character with which the
republic intended to stamp its foreign policy. Lamartine
assembled together all the individuals holding employments in
the office of Foreign Affairs. “Set your minds at rest,” said
he to them ; “I represent a revolution, but it is a paternal
revolution; those among you who are willing to serve the
republic with fidelity will be retained in their functions. The
country has not disappeared with royalty. Diplomatists are
like soldiers; the flag is their rallying-point, and their un-
alterable duty is to defend and maintain the greatness of the
nation in foreign parts.”
However, a revolution at the moment of its consummation
cannot confide its Secrets and intrust its Salvation to those who
only the day before dreaded and opposed it. This would be
to betray itself. Lamartine would not break up the machi-
nery or dismiss the persons engaged in the central office of
Foreign Affairs, which time had organized,and which numbered
in its employment several trustworthy men distinguished for
special talent and experience. He left these men at their posts,
either unemployed or occupied only in business of mere for-
mality. He drew into his own cabinet and into his own em-
ployment all the talent, all the secrecy, and all the discretion
of the diplomacy of the republic.
But persons who were the more patriotic in heart, in propor-
tion as their minds had been more or less exclusively directed
to the permanent interests of the country, were not backward in
adhering with all the force of their patriotism to the republic,
as the representation at once of order and of France. Even
those who had retired voluntarily, from scruples of honour
LAMARTINE's DIPLOMATIC HNSTRUCTIONS. 275
(for example, the director of the political department, M. De-
sages, a man of first-rate merit) gave the government the
benefit of the experience and intelligence they possessed, MM.
de Wiel Castel, Brennier, Cintra, and Lesseps remained at the
head of their several departments of the Foreign Office. They
rendered indefatigable service to the republic in that long
tumult of events and assaults, during which the minister's
hotel was at once a council and a camp.
Tamartine, on the other hand, successively recalled from
abroad all the ambassadors, and nearly all the ministers
plenipotentiary. Their presence in the different courts was
objectionable on two grounds. As yet the republic was not
acknowledged, and there seemed reason to fear that the resi-
dence of the French envoys at courts, either undecided or
hostile, might give occasion to collisions unfavourable to the
establishment of new relations. Moreover, those ambassadors
were, for the most part, political men; some had been minis-
ters, and were personally attached by sentiments and sympa-
thies to the fallen royal family. To intrust to these persons
the negotiations of the republic, while she was yet struggling
against royalty, would have been to incur the risk of disservice.
The minister therefore sent, in lieu of those official individuals,
certain secret or confidential agents, Selected from among men
of republican opinions, or those not prepossessed in favour of
the fugitive dynasty. To each he gave verbal instructions
suited to the countries to which they were respectively sent.
These instructions were summed up in the following words:—
“Observe and inquire, and in your conversations with sove-
reigns, ministers, and people, give its true character to the
new republic, viz., pacific if it be understood, terrible if it be
provoked.” *
He, moreover, confided to each of his agents in foreign
countries the plan of diplomacy he proposed to follow, so that
each envoy, notwithstanding the necessary vagueness of his
instructions, and the uncertain and sudden occurrences inci-
dental to his mission, should be initiated beforehand in the
foreign policy of the republic, so that he might frame all his
words and acts in accordance with the general plan.
* To await with dignity the decision of England, to conci-
Iiate Prussia, to keep watch on Russia, to soothe Germany,
to elude Austria, to smile on Italy, but without exciting her,
T 2
276 FOREIGN POLICY OF LAMARTINE.
to encourage Turkey, to leave Spain to herself, to deceive no
one by Vain fears or hopes, to be cautious not to drop a
single word which it might be necessary one day or other to
retract, to make republican probity the soul of a diplomacy
devoid alike of ambition and weakness, such were the con-
fidential instructions given to the foreign envoys. Whatever
might be the turn of events, it was the desire of Lamartine
that the republic should stand right everywhere.)
He held the same language to the ambassadors, ministers,
and chargés d'affaires, who, in Paris, represented the different
foreign courts. The rapidity of the revolution, the enthu-
siasm with which it had been unanimously accepted through-
out France, without a single protest against such a demo-
cracy; the magnanimity of the people, intrepid in action,
moderate, merciful, and cordial after the victory; the spectacle
of the capital, where seven men ruled thirty-six millions of
citizens by the mere power of speech; the abolition of the
punishment of death ; the repudiation of the spirit of war;
the voluntary restoration of order in the streets; the in-
violability of religious toleration; the respect for foreigners;
the adhesions and deputations from departments, communes,
and from foreign nations, pouring into the Hôtel de Ville,
like continuous explosions of popular intelligence; the
firm but respectful tone maintained to foreign nations and
governments; the Speeches of Lamartine and his colleagues,
in answer to the foreign deputations;–all these prodigies
made a deep and happy impression on the eyes and minds of
the ambassadors. Enthusiasm for France pervaded even the
enemies of the republic.
The members of the diplomatic body, without having yet
acknowledged the new government, held official interviews
with the minister for foreign affairs. The feelings of umbrage
which their courts might have conceived were dispelled in
these unreserved communications between men all alike
desirous of averting human misery, and sparing the effusion
of blood. How fortunate for mankind was this pre-exist-
ing concert of good intention, intelligence, and wisdom, be-
tween the provisional government and the representatives of
Europe then in Paris. Lord Normanby, the English ambas-
sador; Baron Won Arnim, the Prussian minister ; M. de
Kisseleſ, the Russian minister; M. d’Apponi, the Austrian
OWERTURES TO ENGLAND. 277
minister; M. de Brignole, the Sardinian minister; the Prince
de Ligne, the minister from Belgium ; the Pope's nuncio,
together with all the principal members of the diplomatic
body in Paris at that juncture, were luckily men of en-
larged intelligence, and friends to peace. The characters of
statesmen may exercise as great an influence over events
as their opinions. Their characters are the commentaries of
their instructions; they may predispose their courts to justice
and to peace.
Friendly relations quietly but speedily established them-
selves between the cabinet of Paris and the foreign cabinets.
The first indication of the wish to establish pacific rela-
tions with the new French government was an observation
dropped by the duke of Wellington to Lamartine, in answer
to an indirect overture verbally made by the latter through
the medium of a nephew of the duke. To this observation
Lamartine returned a written reply, expressive of the high
gratification he felt at hearing words of peace from the lips
of the man of war. The first impression of England, de-
clared by her first citizen, was an augury which held out
hope to the world. When France and England agree to—
gether to Secure the peace of Europe, no power can with
impunity disturb it.
France had made the movement. On France all eyes were
fixed; it was for France to speak first. Europe, as well as
France herself, anxiously awaited the first declaration of the
republic to the world. To defer this declaration for a few
days was alike prudent and dignified. It did not become the
republic to rush forward to embrace peace like a timid power,
fearful of war. It was for the republic to avow peace to be
possible, but not to implore it as a necessity; and before
giving utterance to the dogmas of peace, it was necessary for
the republic to assure herself that those dogmas would not be
insultingly disclaimed by other powers. The republic might
have incurred the risk of Seeing a misinterpretation given to
her advances in favour of the pacific principle:—instead of
well-merited sympathy, she might have received challenges,
which must have been overlooked or resented. These reasons
determined Lamartine not to be precipitate. In those brief
mccturnal intervals, during which he could escape from the
tumult of popular assemblages, he employed himself in draw-
278 LAMARTINE'S MANIFESTO TO EUROPE.
ing up the manifesto of the republic. On the 6th of March
he submitted it to the consideration of his colleagues, the
ministers, and a few distinguished political men of repub-
lican opinions, who were that day present at the deliberation.
It was a solemn conference. Seven men, who a few days
previously had emerged from a political storm, held in their
hands the decision of peace or war. With a single word they
could set principles and men throughout the world in deadly
contention; or dispel the clouds which overhung the horizon
of the globe. Lamartine had determined to make the decla-
ration of peace the absolute condition of his presence in the
government. On this point, the majority of his colleagues,
as well as the ministers, were not less decided than he was.
The manifesto, in its principle, created no dissent. The deli-
berative parties concurred without any preconcerted under-
standing. The only difference of opinion turned on certain
expressions, which were discussed and modified; but there
was an almost unanimous accordance as to the manner in
which the republic should declare its understanding of the
treaties of 1815. Louis Blanc himself hailed with applause
the fraternal era which this manifesto would open to man-
kind. Those parties who were secretly dissatisfied with the
pacific resolution of the government, felt so assured that these
words were merely words scattered to the winds, and that the
French people would speedily, of their own will, invade the
continent, that they did not think it worth while to dispute
the manifesto. Belgian, German, and Polish clubs continued
to hold their meetings, headed by Secret conspirators, and
the armed propaganda party was preparing to tear up the
page of national philosophy to make cartridges for the musket
of invasion.
On the following day this manifesto appeared:—
MANIFESTO TO EUROPE.
“You know the events of Paris—the victory of the
people; their heroism, moderation, and tranquillity; the
re-establishment of order, by the co-operation of the citizens
at large, as if, during this interregnum of the visible powers,
public reason was, of itself alone, the government of France.
“The French revolution has thus entered upon its definitive
period. France is a republic. The French republic does not
LAMARTINE'S MANIFESTO TO EUROPE. 279
require to be acknowledged in order to exist. It is based
alike on natural and national law. It is the will of a great
people, who demand the privilege only for themselves. But
the French republic, being desirous of entering into the family
of established governments, as a regular power, and not as a
phenomenon destructive of European order, it is expedient
that you should promptly make known to the government to
which you are accredited, the principles and tendencies which
will henceforth guide the foreign policy of the French govern-
ment.
“'The proclamation of the French republic is not an act of
aggression against any form of government in the world. Forms
of government have diversities as legitimate as the diversities of
character, of geographical situation,-of intellectual, moral,
and material development among nations. Nations, like indivi-
duals, have different ages; and the principles which rule them
have successive phases. The monarchical, the aristocratic, the
constitutional, and the republican forms of government, are the
expression of the different degrees of maturity in the genius of
nations. They require more liberty in proportion as they feel
themselves capable of bearing more. They require greater
equality and democracy in proportion as they are inspired with
a greater share of justice and love for the people over whom
they rule. It is merely a question of time. A nation ruins
itself by anticipating the hour of that maturity; as it dis-
honours itself by allowing it to pass away without seizing it.
Monarchy and republicanism are not, in the eyes of wise
statesmen, absolute principles, arrayed in deadly conflict
against each other; they are facts which contrast one with
another, and which may exist face to face by mutually under-
standing and respecting each other.
“War, therefore, is not now the principle of the French
republic, as it was the fatal and glorious necessity of the
republic of 1792. Half a century separates 1792 from 1848.
To return, after the lapse of half a century, to the principle
of 1792, or to the principle of conquest pursued during
the empire, would not be to advance, but to retrograde.
The revolution of yesterday is a step forward, not bäckward.
The world and ourselves are desirious of advancing to fra-
ternity and peace.
“If the situation of the French republic in 1792 explained
280 LAMARTINE'S MANIFESTO TO EUROPE.
the necessity of war, the differences existing between that
period of our history and the present time explain the neces-
sity of peace. Endeavour to understand these differences,
and to make them understood by those around you.}
“In 1792 the nation was not united. It may be said that
two nations existed on the Same Soil. A terrible conflict was
kept up between the classes who were deprived of their
privileges and the classes who had just conquered equality
and liberty. The dispossessed classes coalesced with captive
royalty and jealous foreign powers, to dispute with France
the right of her revolution, and by invasion to force back
upon her monarchy, aristocracy, and theocracy. At the
present time, there are no distinct and unequal classes. Tiberty
has enfranchised all. Equality in the eye of the law has
levelled all; fraternity, of which we proclaim the application,
and of which the National Assembly will organize the bless-
ings, will unite all. There is not a single citizen in France,
whatsoever may be his opinion, who does not rally round the
principle of the country before every other consideration, and
by that very unity France is rendered invulnerable to the at-
tempts and to the alarms of invasion,
“In 1792 it was not the whole body of the people who
made themselves masters of the government; it was the
middle class alone that wished to exercise liberty, and to
enjoy it. The triumph of the middle class was therefore
selfish, like the triumph of every oligarchy. The middle
class wished to secure to itself alone the privileges acquired
by all. Accordingly it was found necessary to create a
powerful diversion against the advent of popular supremacy,
by urging the people to the field of battle, and thereby pre-
venting them from taking part in their own government.
This diversion was war. War was the ardent wish of the
monarchists and the Girondins; but it was not desired by
the more enlightened democrats, who, like ourselves, were
anxious for the sincere, complete, and regular reign of the
people themselves; comprising under that denomination all
classes, without exclusion or preference, which compose the
nation. “
“In 1792 the people were made the instruments of the re-
volution, but they were not its objects. The present revolution
has been achieved by them and for them. The people and the
LAMARTINE’s MANIFESTO TO EUROPE. 281
revolution are one and the same. On entering upon the
revolution, the people brought with them their new wants of
labour, industry, instruction, agriculture, commerce, morality,
welfare, property, cheap living, navigation, and civilization.
All these are wants of peace. The people and peace are but
one word. -
“In 1792 the ideas of France and Europe were not pre-
pared to conceive and to accept the great harmony of nations
among themselves for the benefit of the human race. The
views of the century, then drawing to its close, were confined
to the heads of a few philosophers. But at the present day
philosophy is popular. Fifty years of the freedom of thought,
speech, and writing, have produced their results. Books,
journals, and tribunes, have accomplished the apostolic mis-
sion of European intelligence. Reason, dawning everywhere
over the frontiers of nations, has given birth to that great
intellectual nationality, which will be the achievement of the
French revolution, and the constitution of international fra-
termity throughout the globe.
“Finally, in 1792, liberty was a novelty, equality a scan-
dal, and the republic a problem. The very name of people,
only just then revived by Fenelon, Montesquieu, and Rous-
seau, had been so far forgotten, buried, profaned by old feudal,
dynastic, and Sacerdotal traditions, that even the most lawful
intervention of the people in their own affairs appeared a
monstrosity in the eyes of statesmen of the old school.
Democracy at once spread terror among thrones, and shook
the foundation of society. But now, on the contrary, both
kings and people are accustomed to the name, to the forms,
and to the regular agitations of that freedom which exists in
various degrees in almost all states, even those subject to
monarchical rule. They will become accustomed to repub-
licanism, which is public liberty in its most perfect form,
among the more mature nations. They will acknowledge
that there is a conservative freedom;-they will acknowledge
that there may exist in a republic, not only greater order,
but that there may even be a more genuine order in the
government of all for the sake of all, than in the government
of the few for the sake of the few.
“But independently of these disinterested considerations,
interest alone for the consolidation and duration of the
282 LAMARTINE’s MANIFESTO TO EUROPE.
republic would inspire the statesmen of France with a desire
for peace. It is not the country, but liberty, which is
exposed to the greatest danger in time of war. War is
almost invariably a dictatorship. Soldiers are regardless of
civil institutions and laws. Storms tempt ambition; glory
dazzles patriotism. The prestige of a victorious name veils
the design against national sovereignty. The republic doubt-
less desires glory, but she desires it for herself, and not for
Caesars and Napoleons.
“But let no misapprehension exist. These ideas, which
the provisional government charges you to convey to the
powers as the pledge of European Security, must not be
understood as suing for pardon to the republic for having
presumed to rise into being;-still less must they be regarded
as humbly soliciting that a great right and a great people
may hold their place in Europe. They have a more noble
object in view, which is to make sovereigns and people
reflect, and to prevent them from being deceived respecting
the character of our revolution; to place the event in its true
light, and in its proper character; finally, to give pledges to
humanity before giving them to our rights and our honour,
should they be disavowed or menaced.
“The French republic, therefore, will not commence war
against any state; it is unnecessary to add, that it will
accept war should conditions incompatible with peace be offered
to the French people. The conviction of the men who
govern France at the present moment is this:—it will be
fortunate for France should war be declared against her, and
should she be thus constrained to augment her power and her
glory, in spite of her moderation; but terrible will be the
responsibility to France should the republic itself declare war
without being provoked thereto In the first case, the
martial genius of France, her impatience for action, her
strength accumulated during many years of peace, would
render her invincible on her own territory, and perhaps
redoubtable beyond her frontiers: in the second case she
would turn to her own disadvantage the recollections of her
former conquests, which give umbrage to the national feelings
of other countries; and she would compromise her first and
most universal alliance, the good-will of nations and the
* -º º
LAMARTINE'S MANIFESTO TO EUROPE. 283
“According to these principles, Sir, which are the prin-
ciples coolly and deliberately adopted by France, and which
she avows without fear and without defiance, to her friends
and to her enemies, you will impress upon your mind the
following declarations.
“The treaties of 1815 have no longer any lawful existence
in the eyes of the French republic; Revertheless, the terri-
torial limits circumscribed by those treaties are facts which
the republic admits as a basis, and as a starting-point, in her
relations with foreign nations.
“But if the treaties of 1815 have no existence save as
facts to be modified by common consent, and if the republic
openly declares that her right and mission are to arrive regu-
larly and pacifically at those modifications,—the good sense,
the moderation, the conscience, the prudence of the republic
exist, and they afford to Europe a surer and more honourable
guarantee than the words of those treaties, which have so
frequently been violated or modified by Europe itself.
“Endeavour, Sir, to make this emancipation of the repub-
lic from the treaties of 1815, understood and honestly
admitted, and to show that such an admission is in no
way irreconcilable with the repose of Europe.
“Thus we declare without reserve, that if the hour
for the reconstruction of any of the oppressed nations of
Europe, or other parts of the world, should seem to have
arrived, according to the decrees of Providence; if Switzer-
land, our faithful ally from the time of Francis I., should
be restrained or menaced in the progressive movement she is
carrying out, and which will impart new strength to the
fasces of democratical governments; if the independent states
of Italy should be invaded; if limits or obstacles should be
opposed to their internal changes; if there should be any
armed interference with their right of allying themselves
together for the purpose of consolidating an Italian nation,--
the French republic would think itself entitled to take up
arms in defence of those lawful movements for the improve-
ment and the nationality of states.
“The republic, as you perceive, has passed over at one step
the era of proscriptions and dictatorship. It is determined
never to veil liberty at home; and it is equally determined
never to veil its democratical principle abroad. It will not
284 LAMARTINE'S MANIFESTO TO EUROPE.
suffer anything to intervene between the peaceful dawn of
its own liberty and the eyes of nations. It proclaims
itself the intellectual and cordial ally of popular rights and
progress, and of every legitimate development of institutions
among nations who may be desirous of maintaining the same
principles as her own. It will not pursue secret or incen–
diary propagandism among neighbouring states. It is aware
that there is no real liberty for nations except that which
Springs from themselves, and takes its birth on their own
soil. But by the light of its intelligence, and the spectacle
of order and peace which it hopes to present to the world,
the republic will exercise the only honourable proselytism,
the proselytism of esteem and sympathy. This is not war,
it is nature; it is not the agitation of Europe, it is the life of
nations; it is not kindling a conflagration in the world, it i
Shining in our own place on the horizon of nations, and a
once to anticipate and to direct them.
“We wish, for the sake of humanity, that peace may be
preserved; we also expect that it will. A question of war
was agitated a year ago between France and England; that
question was not agitated by republican France, but by the
dynasty. The dynasty has carried away with it that danger
of war which it created for Europe by the exclusively per-
sonal ambition of its family alliances in Spain. That domestic
policy of the fallen dynasty, which for the space of seventeen
years has been a dead weight on our national dignity, has
also, by its pretensions to a crown in Madrid, operated as an
obstacle to our liberal alliances, and to peace. The republic
has no ambition; the republic has no nepotism, and it inherits
no family pretensions. Let Spain govern herself; let Spain
be independent and free. For the consolidation of this natural
alliance, France relies more on conformity of principles than
on the successions of the house of Bourbon.
“Such, Sir, is the spirit of the councils of the republic ; such
will invariably be the character of the frank, firm, and mode-
rate policy which you will have to represent.
“The republic pronounced at its birth, and in the midst of
a conflict not provoked by the people, three words, which
have revealed its soul, and which will call down on its cradle
the blessing of God and man:—liberty, equality, fraternity.
It gave on the following day, in the abolition of the punish-
ITS RECEPTION, 285
ment of death for political offences, the true commentary on
those three words, as far as regards the domestic policy of
France; it is for you to give them their true commentary
abroad. The meaning of these three words, as applied to our
foreign policy, is this:—the emancipation of France from
the chains which have fettered her principles and her dig-
nity; her reinstatement in the rank she is entitled to
occupy among the great powers of Europe; in short, the
declaration of alliance and friendship to all nations. If
France be conscious of the part she has to perform in the
liberal and civilizing mission of the age, there is not one of
those words which signifies war. If Europe be prudent and
just, there is not one of those words which does not signify
peace. “LAMARTINE.”
This manifesto was received throughout France with ap-
plause, and throughout Europe with respect. It gave to the
republic its attitude, to democracy its existence, to war its
significance, if it were to break out, and to peace its dignity, if
it were to be maintained. It rendered democracy a diverse
but integral part of the European system : so that, without
violently menacing governments founded on another principle,
it would successively rally round the French principle the
nations which attained different degrees of liberty. It was the
reason of revolution expressing itself in the face of the world,
instead of its fury making Europe tremble, as in 1793. The
manifesto did not admit a single ground of war beyond the limits
prescribed by the law of nations. It repudiated several grounds
of war; above all it repudiated ambition and conquest.
The effect which Lamartine had anticipated from this
declaration, and the results he had promised to the govº-
ment, speedily became manifest throughout Europe. We,
shall presently take a review of them. *
But this diplomatic attitude of the government entailed the
necessity of an armed attitude capable of meeting the conſin–
gencies that might arise. The minister for foreign affairs
demanded armaments of security commensurate with possible
danger, or with the precaution which the state of things reli-
dered advisable. g e o tº tº
Spain had not yet explained her intentions. Secret intelli,
gence revealed dispositions of no very friendly character at
286 RISING OF ITALY.
Madrid. There were rumours of the assembling of troops on
the other side of the Pyrenees, and in near proximity to the
French frontier. The recent marriage of the duke de Mont-
pensier with the sister of the queen of Spain, had necessarily
established between the proscribed dynasty of France and the
Spanish government, sentiments of unity and friendship which
might lead to hostility to France. It was announced that the
princes of the house of Orleans were about to seek an asylum
in Spain, where their presence might denote vague ideas
of restoration by armed force. The minister required that
an army of observation, comprising from fifteen to twenty
thousand men, should be forthwith sent to the Pyrenees. This
measure was decreed.]
Italy, already agitated to her furthest extremities by the
revolution of Naples, which preceded the revolution of Paris,
seemed likely to be shaken by the rebound of the republic.
The Pope by his words and acts had roused the spirit of inde-
pendence, and a feeling of hatred to Austria. That well-
intentioned, but rash and timid pontiff, already began to
experience the difficulty of repressing the movement to which
he had given the impulse. He had wished merely to restore
vital warmth to the benumbed body of central Italy: he
kindled the spark, and the whirlwind stirred up by the events
of Paris, fanned it into a flame.
Tuscany could not, in the nature of things, escape the in-
fluence of this agitation. Though in the enjoyment of free-
dom and happiness under the municipal and paternal govern-
ment of the descendant of Leopold, yet she wished to establish
her freedom on the security of law, to establish her habits of
liberty on the basis of institutions,
Yºnice and Genoa thrilled at the name of the republic,
which Conjured up recollections of their former glory.
Finally Piedmont, the only military power of Italy, had
long previously been prepared for war. Its king, in his
schemes of ambition, had dreamed of winning the twofold title
of liberator and protector of Italy. Wavering, during a series
of years, between the Austrian alliance, which would render him
a Satellite of servitude, and the French alliance, which might
make him ruler of the Peninsula—pressed in two opposite ºx-
tremes, first by the priestly influence, which had made him the
persecutor and the gaoler of liberalism ; and next by the
DISTRIBUTION OF THE FIRENCEI ARMY. 287
liberal spirit of his own subjects, who sought to convert him
into an innovator and a constitutional prince—what course
could he take 2 If he declared himself hostile to the republic,
and wished to make his army of one hundred thousand men
an advance-guard of Austria against us, it was necessary that
we should prepare to meet him at the debouches of Savoy and
on the boundary of the Alps. Should he himself raise the
standard of Italian independence, it would be requisite alike to
provide against the event of his defeat and of his triumph ;-
either would involuntarily draw us into Italy. An army of
observation, to be called the army of the Alps, ready, according
as events might require, to cover the Alps from War to
Grenoble, or to march across them, was dictated by the pru-
dence as well as the energy of the republic. The minister
demanded the immediate formation of this army of sixty-two
thousand men; and the government unhesitatingly agreed to
the measure.
The presence of this army at the foot of the Alps, and in
the valley of the Rhone, had also its use for the protection of
the interior. The republic might be menaced by the attempts
of monarchical restoration, in favour of the elder branch of
the Bourbons in the South ;-by detachments of the army of
Algiers, influenced by affection for the princes of the Orleans
family, and landing with them on the southern coasts;–by the
anarchical agitations by which Toulon, Marseilles, Avignon,
Arles, and other cities of the South, had annoyed the first
republic;-or, finally and most especially, by Socialist move-
ments similar to those which had disturbed Lyons, the capital
of industry, in 1830 and 1832. An armed force, moveable,
disciplined, and imposing, would thus be available at once for
exterior and interior defence.
Finally, the minister desired that an army of one hundred
thousand men should be dispersed along the Rhine, destined
to observe Germany, and to unite with the army of the north
(comprising thirty thousand men), to cover our frontiers or tº
cross them, according as the movements of Belgium, frussia,
or Austria, might call for precautions or acts.
The provisional government adºpted all these measures.
On the 3rd of March it -appointed a committee of defence,
composed of the most eminent generals, without any formal
acceptance of opinion. The French army was above suspicion.

288 ARMIES OF THE RHINE, AND OF AFRICA.
The sentiments of gratitude which some of its chiefs might
have retained towards the princes vanished before the
sentiment of patriotism. The government did not inquire
whether they were republicans;–it knew that they were
Frenchmen.
During the first days of the revolution, Marshal Bugeaud
had written to Lamartine in terms worthy of his character
and his rank, tendering his adherence to the republic. La-
martine returned for answer that the republic was France ;
that her pride and her strength were alike centred in her
children;–that she hoped not to be forced to unsheath the
sword; but that if war were declared against her, she would
confide the most important point, that is to say, the Rhine, to
the general whose name, courage, and talents were dear to the
army and imposing to Europe. The marshal perfectly under-
stood that his co-operation in the government then existing
could be justified only by war. The attachment he had
recently manifested for the banished royal family, the services
he had rendered to the house of Orleans, the soldier-like sin-
cerity of his regret for their misfortunes;–in fine, the suscep-
tibility of the French people, and the necessary reserve of
the government itself, dictated to Marshal Bugeaud a tem-
porary retirement, until such time as the republic, ratified by
the National Assembly, would cease to tempt any general to
play the part of Monk. But Generals Lamoricière, Bedeau,
and Oudinot were included in the government committee.
Those three generals had not for a moment hesitated to rally
round the republic, after the fulfilment of their honorary duty
to royalty.
The members of the government assisted several times at
the deliberations of this committee of war, with the view of
impressing upon it their own thoughts, inspirations, and energy.
'Lamartine recommended that forty or fifty thousand men
should immediately be recalled from the army of Africa, then
sout a hundred thousand strong. It appeared to him that a
hundreč 'housand men in Africa, to defend an almost unin-
habited-colony agºnst a few tribes without leaders, without
government, and without-sºmies, was, at least at a moment so
critical to Europe, a useless and onexons luxury. He thought
fifty thousand men a force sufficient to hold the colony ; that
if we should have war with England, these hundred thousand.

RECALL OF TROOPS FROM AFRICA. 289
men, cut off from the mother country, would share the fate
which had visited the army of Egypt after Bonaparte left it;
that in the event of our continuing at peace, the sort of armed
peace to be maintained on the continent would burthen the
treasury with the expense of fifty thousand troops, which must
be raised, armed, and equipped, to supply the place of the fifty
thousand whose return from Africa, he called for ;-in fine, he
represented that the troops in Africa, being already disciplined
and inured to war, would be equivalent on the Alps and on
the Rhine to a force of double the number of young soldiers
and raw recruits. "
The African generals strongly opposed this reduction of our
active forces in Algeria. Lamartine was vexed by these
mistaken views, the tendency to which he conceived would
be the systematic paralyzing of a portion of the forces, which
prudence as well as policy would naturally have concen-
trated on the territory of the republic. A battle in Belgium,
on the Rhine, or in Piedmont, lost through the absence of
fifty thousand men, would sacrifice the republic. A few skir-
mishes more or less successful in Algeria would only entail the
loss of a desert, which might be easily regained after the con-
clusion of peace. On this subject obstinate discussions were
renewed and prolonged. Warm words and remonstrances
were interchanged between General Lamoricière and Lamar-
time; and at length the latter began to regard the young
general with distrust. He doubted not his integrity, but he
suspected his connections. He believed him to be on terms
of intimacy with the party which cherished implacable re-
sentment to the revolution. He afterwards acknowledged
that he had been mistaken, and that General Lamoricière,
as brave in action as he was intelligent in council, was as
ready to shed his blood as to hazard his popularity for the
welfare of the government.
Generals Bedeau and Oudinot, who were both deserving of
the highest commands, at that time vainly endeavoured to
justify their brethren in arms, and to overcome unjust preju-
dices in the mind of Lamartine. The government, half satis-
fying the demand of the minister for foreign affairs, decreed
that first twenty thousand men, and afterwards ten thousand,
should be recalled from Algiers, and their place in Africa
filled up by troops of new levies.
Tſ
290 INCREASE OF THIE ARMY.
The minister of the war department, General Subervie,
was the president of this committee of national defence, of
which M. Charras, a young staff colonel, was secretary. The
measures of the committee were not only accepted ; they were
pressed forward with an ardour approaching to impatience
by the unanimous accord of the government. The reorgan-
ization of our forces was urgent; for Algeria had absorbed
all. The preceding government was constructed for peace;
but we did not regard that fact as a reproach. The republic,
at its birth, was called upon to reconstruct military France in
the twofold anticipation of peace or war. To enable France
to stand fairly on her guard, as she did in 1792, and at the
same time to keep her occupied and laborious as she was in
1847, it was requisite that her active and paid force should
be merely the advanced guard of her armed population.
With these views, Lamartine had already urged the creation
of three hundred battalions of departmental mobile guards,
to be kept disciplined and armed, and in readiness to serve
either as a reserve on the frontiers, or as a restraining force
in the interior of the republic. At a subsequent period he
succeeded in realizing this idea. The measure which was
voted by the National Assembly, and momentarily abandoned
by the authorities who succeeded the provisional government,
was calculated to impart to the republic a force of order .
everywhere present in the interior, and a force of defence,
capable of being made promptly active abroad. Lamartine
conceived this plan would lead to the perpetual federation of
the departments, of property, and of Society, against anti-
social factions and anti-French coalitions.
On the 1st of March the army comprised an enregistered
force of three hundred and seventy thousand men, of whom
ninety thousand were in Algeria, exclusive of the native
forces. The number of troops fit for service amounted only
to three hundred and thirty-six thousand, of which number
eighty-two thousand were in Algeria. This number seemed
sufficient for the incidental necessities of a government
resolved not to attack. But when the government appealed
to the generals for information as to the amount of immediately
active forces to be counted upon, either for a campaign on
the Rhine, or for an expedition beyond the Alps, the cipher
was so reduced by garrisons, coasting, and colonial defence,
AUGMENTATION OF THE ARMY. 291
and invalids, that the minister for foreign affairs and his col-
leagues trembled to reflect on the hapless condition of the
country, had they been overtaken by events. To gain time,
whatever might be said by the partisans of aggressive war,
was to gain strength ; it was to Save at once the blood of
France and the destiny of the republic.
The government, whilst gaining time upon Europe, lost none
for itself. It was resolved that the army should be raised to
five hundred and eighty thousand men. All the orders of the
government, all its appeals, and its purchases of horses;–ali
the labours of the committees of defence, all the efforts of the
two successive war ministers (General Subervie and M. Arago)
were directed to that augmentation. Every week, every
month, brought us nearer to its completion. On the 1st of
April we counted three hundred and thirty-eight thousand
men fit for service ; on the 1st of May, three hundred and
forty-eight thousand; and on the 1st of June, four hundred
thousand. The prompt execution of the measures decreed by
the provisional government, which were successively carried
out by M. Arago, M. Charras, General Cavaignac, and
General Lamoricière, raised the army, before the close of
the year, to upwards of five hundred thousand men; whilst
the number of horses, which on the 1st of March was forty-
six thousand, increased to sixty thousand in July, and to
seventy-five thousand in November. The mobile and repub-
lican guards, temporary and improvised corps, which had
been armed, disciplined, mounted, and equipped in anticipa-
tion, moreover, composed in Paris a force of about twenty
thousand men, all excellent soldiers, raised from among the po-
pulace, and during the excitement of revolutionary commotion.]
General Duvivier, a soldier, a philosopher, and a repub-
lican, had been directed by the government to organize and
command the mobile guard. Never did a more difficult duty
devolve on a military commander : it was nothing less than
to form an army of order, in a capital in a state of revolution,
and to form that army out of elements the most confused, the
most uncertain, and the most turbulent. And how marvel-
lously was this difficult task accomplished in the short space
of a few weeks General Duvivier's battalions were chiefly
composed of young men of the lower class of the Parisian
population ; and hour by hour, whilst yet clothed in their
U 2
292 THE MOBILE GUARD.
tattered garments, they were drilled into perfect soldiers.
The general won them by affection; the government won
them by confidence. The mobile guards saved Paris day
after day. They were admired and worshipped in the capital.
They were first the heroic pupils of the republic, and after-
wards the defenders of social order. Their generals, Duvi-
vier and Damesne, fell, whilst leading them on. On the
mobile guards devolved all the duty of those three months,
during which sedition was everywhere repressed. Their
battalions were a rampart to the government of the 16th of
April. They surrounded the assembly on its arrival. They
defended it on the 15th of May with the national guard.
They shed their blood for it on the 23rd of June. They re-
opened to the army the gates of Paris, and deemed it an
honour to range themselves under the orders of their seniors
in military service. They well deserved to be adopted by the
National Assembly, instead of being disbanded and forgotten.
But though contemporaries may forget, history will remember.
The page of the mobile guard will be recorded in the services
it performed, and inscribed with drops of the blood it shed.
Whilst General Subervie, General Duvivier, and the
generals of the committees of defence, Seconded the efforts of
the government for re-organizing our land forces, M. Arago,
whose very name flattered the pride of our navy, maintained
with a firm hand the discipline of our fleets. He armed our
squadrons, fortified our ports, and gave the unreserved con-
fidence of the government to those officers of the French
navy whose honour sufficiently guaranteed their fidelity to
the republic. With views at once patriotic and pacific,
M. Arago made the French flag wave along the coasts of the
Mediterranean.
But these great developments given to our national forces,
with the view of preventing surprise, either by land or by
Sea, guarding against any risk of invasion, or any insult to
the republic, demanded corresponding efforts on the part of
the treasury.
On the accession of the provisional government, the finances
were in a condition which must have been deemed low, even
in ordinary times, and which, in the course of a very few
months, would have rendered necessary a loan of six hun-
dred millions. Loans require credit, and revolutions ex-
FINANCIAL CONDITION OF FRANCE, 293
tinguish credit; because they not only shake interests, but
they excite alarm. The public mind being alarmed, the
hands which hold money in an industrial nation are closed.
Accordingly, the prudent members of the provisional govern-
ment directed their first attention to the financial question.
They were aware that the whole character of the revolution,
either for violence or for moderation, must depend on the
first financial measures adopted by the government, on en-
tering upon its functions.
They openly declared that there were only two alterna-
tives which would enable the republic to pass the abyss of an
unforeseen revolution, without the ruin of the public fortune :
—these alternatives were dictatorship or credit.
Dictatorship might have effected bankruptcy, created
assignats and maximum, and it might have supported those
desperate attacks upon property by appeals to the poor
against the rich. Means for carrying out these measures
were not wanting. The fact of the revolution, sudden and
complete as it had been, accomplished by the arms of
proletaries;–two hundred thousand workmen in Paris, who
might be fired with fanatical fury against wealth, as easily as
they had been inspired with enthusiasm for virtue;—two mil-
lions of labouring people let loose over the surface of the
republic, demanding bread in the manufacturing towns or in
the workshops, and about to unite and combine together ;-
these were elements of terror for the classes possessing pro-
perty, and elements of irresistible compression for a desperate
government. There is nothing which such a government
might not have felt itself strong enough to do during the first
two months of the republic. It was backed by the impulse
and the weight of a revolution, which might have pressed it
on to destruction ; but which still would have pressed in a
manner to defy resistance. If that government did not launch
into tyranny, it was because it had wisdom enough to despise
it, and policy enough to fear it. Day by day it became more
and more difficult to decline than to assume the exercise of
tyrannical authority. At that moment a word from the
government would have swayed all France. “We have
power enough to do all the evil that man can contemplate,”
observed Lamartine to Dupont de l'Eure: “as to doing
good, that is a different matter; good must be effected slowly
294 DANGER OF NATIONAL BANEKRUPTCY.
and gradually.” Accordingly, the means of assailing wealth
was not a question which could create any perplexity to the
provisional government; these means superabounded.
But all these means,—bankruptcy, assignats, forced loans,
taxing the rich, decimation of capital, Sequestration, confis-
cation, proletaries imposed as garnisaires on landed pro-
prietors, implied violence against things established. The
wise and moderate members of the government well knew
that between violence to things, and violence to persons, there
is no greater interval than that which separates to-day from
to-morrow. Each of these measures would have led to the
burying of money, stopping the sources of taxation, destroy-
ing credit, and annihilating labour. To recover money, taxes,
credit, and labour, would demand the exercise of rigour. The
Severity of the law would have led to resistance; resistance
would have caused crimes, and crimes must have been fol-
lowed by condemnations, fines, and incarcerations, from
whence the scaffold was but a step. That step being passed,
blood would have flowed. The first drop shed by the revolu-
tion, and in the name of the republic, would have reopened
the floodgates of blood. Human life would have been sacri-
ficed, the revolution perverted, liberty dishonoured, France
Sacrificed to crime, the rich held in terror, the poor plunged
into civil war, and the republic consigned to the execration of
future generations.
These ideas, which were incessantly present to the mem-
bers of the government, and which were forcibly put forward
in the council, both by political and financial men, left no
possibility of hesitation to the majority of the council. The
first measure of violence that might have been decreed would
have caused prudent men to retire from the government, to
avoid participation in crime and disgrace. To retire would
have been to delivet up the republic to chance, Paris to in-
stantaneous tumult, and France to the lictors. No one could
think of this without feelings of horror.
Meanwhile it was fearful to contemplate the condition of
the treasury. It could not be filled in proportion as it was
drained, except from daily sources, as abundant and as inex-
haustible as the urgent necessities which consumed the public
finances. On the 25th of February the treasury contained
one hundred and ninety millions; a sum very far below the
THE TREASURY AND M. GOUDCHAUX. 295
amount usual in that month, when there is an accumulation
of receipts preparatory to the payment of dividends in March.
It was evident that if the treasury manifested the least hesi-
tation in fulfilling its engagements, the word bankruptcy,
synonymous with that of ruin, in the estimation of the people,
would instantly have been uttered by every mouth, would
have appalled every mind, locked up all capital, and deci-
mated the taxes. This crisis was approaching, and it threat-
ened to come upon us in a few days. It was requisite to
make a show of confidence for the sake of inspiring it. The
name of the minister of finance imparted confidence to the
capitalists and the bankers of Paris. M. Goudchaux was a
man of probity, of uncompromising scruples, of upright inten-
tions, of financial experience, the determined opponent of
schemes and devices for creating the confidence which ought
to prevail in the region of financial business. He was pre-
cisely the man required at such a moment, one intent on
maintaining financial regularity in the midst of political revo-
lution. But he had the defect which usually accompanies the
good qualities he possessed; he was of a timid and doubtful turn
of mind. He too readily took alarm at the doctrines rashly
broached by those who imagined that tyranny imposed on
capital was identical with what they termed the organization
of labour. The harangues of industrial socialism, delivered
at the Luxembourg—(harangues which evaporated in the
atmosphere of the good sense of France) and indeed the
speeches of some of the workmen themselves, caused the
utmost anxiety to M. Goudchaux, in his capacity of Superin-
tendent of the treasury.
The speeches at the Luxembourg had altogether produced
a fatal effect. At first the workmen were raised to a pitch
of ecstasy by the high-sounding words which appeared to be
of evil import to the capitalists. The manufacturers, alarmed
at the theory of wages arbitrarily fixed by the state, imagined
the scheme to be more dangerous than it really was. Panical
fears closed the manufactories; the progress of production
and consumption received a check; yet, nevertheless, as the
enlightened members of the government had foreseen, the
mass of labouring people began to be convinced of the fallacy
of the Luxembourg theories. The equal distribution of wages
among workmen, unequal in strength, skill, steadiness, and
296 RETIREMENT OF M. GOUDCIHAUY.
industry, outraged all their notions of justice. The compul-
sory disbursement of capital in the mere payment of labour,
without reaping its interest, or utilizing its products, was
irreconcilable with their common sense. They were charmed
by the eloquence of their young tribune, Louis Blanc ; but
when he had ceased to address them, they naturally asked each
other what there was applicable to their condition in this
gospel of equal wages. They weighed the words, and dis-
covered that they were mere empty sounds. They looked at
the consequences, and found that they tended only to impos-
sible results. Accordingly, they shook their heads, and said
with the emphatic energy of their plain language, “This
Luxembourg is a pastime which the revolution has furnished
to the idle. They think to lull us with fair words, so that
we may not feel the pangs of hunger. Let us go back to
plain common sense. Neither capital, wages, nor work can
exist without liberty. If we take liberty from the manufac-
turer, and capital from the man of wealth, we shall all be
equally miserable. The doctrine that is preached to us here
is the equality of starvation.”
The problems of Louis Blanc, of the socialists, and of the eco-
nomists, were confounded together at the Luxembourg like the
tongues at Babel. The heart of Louis Blanc overflowed with
fraternal sentiments and his language with imagery, but his
system was involved in misconception. He was the O'Connell
of the labouring classes, setting forth problems, promising
impossibilities, and holding out remote results to those who
were suffering from pressing and immediate wants.
Some members of the majority of the government assembled
at the residence of M. de Crémieux, the minister of justice, to
examine the position and to hear the troubles of M. de Goud-
chaux. There, in the presence of MM. Marie, Bethmont,
Crémieux, Garnier Pagès, Duclerc, Pagnerre, Carnot, and
Lamartine, M. Goudchaux announced his irrevocable deter-
mination to retire. The members of the government who were
present, and the ministers, were filled with consternation. They
felt that whatever little degree of public confidence yet survived
would receive a heavy blow by the retirement of a minister
so highly esteemed, and one who possessed the confidence of
the capitalists. This was an open avowal of distress in the
public eye. Dupont de l'Eure, Garnier Pagès, Lamartine, in
GARNIER PAGES ACCEPTS OFFICE. 297
short all the members of the conference, entreated M. Goud-
chaux to renounce his resolution. They urged upon his con-
sideration the deplorable consequences that would result from
it ; the hostile feeling of capitalists, the alarm of tax-payers,
the monetary panic, the closing of work-places, the inundation
of Paris by masses of workmen out of employ, &c.
M. Goudchaux was inexorable; a mournful pause ensued.
Each one felt that at a juncture so critical, when everything
depended on the direction of the department of finance, when
a bankruptcy might lead to the disappearance of specie, and
when specie itself might perhaps disappear with M. Goud-
chaux, the resignation of the finance minister was the most
terri blow the government could sustain.
T re ensued a moment of agony, the impression of which
mus, remain vivid in the minds of those who felt and under-
stood the magnitude of this catastrophe of affairs, occurring,
as it did, within so brief an interval after the proclamation of
the republic.
Lamartine quitted the conference, overwhelmed with dread.
He felt convinced that bankruptcy, terror, and war were then
one and the same word. But he was likewise convinced that
the government could not avow itself subdued by financial
difficulties, without succumbing entirely.
“To acknowledge ourselves to be conquered or disabled by
the perils of the treasury; to allow the enemies of France to
say that the republic commenced its career by bankruptcy
rather die on the rack º’ he exclaimed, rising in a transport of
despair. “The resignation of the minister of finance dismays
us, but it shall not dishearten us. Now, having made every
endeavour to avert the misfortune, let us exert every effort to
repair it.”
The same feeling animated every individual who had
assisted at the conference. Garnier Pagès, though greatly
exhausted by illness and debility, felt within his heart that
courage of honesty which never flinches. He accepted the
burthen, the full weight of which no one was more competent
to estimate; but at that moment his patriotic piety equalled
his self-devotedness. His acceptance of office Saved the
treasury, and by protecting the finances against the rash and
extreme measures counselled by imprudence and despair, he
was really the Saviour of the republic.
298 MANDATES UNSANCTIONED BY THE GOVERNMENT.
B O O K X.
As yet the government had received no precise information
relative to the fate of the king, the queen, and the royal family.
The commissioners appointed by Lamartine to protect their
flight, awaited in vain the order for departure. It has been
seen that the government was anxious to facilitate the de-
parture of the king, the princes, and ministers, instead of
throwing any impediments in their way. Accordingly re-
course was had only to official modes of ascertaining the
direction they had severally taken. Without the knowledge
of the government, and by a spontaneous judicial measure,
a mandate had been signed by the procureur-general, or-
dering that the fugitive ministers should be arrested and
brought to trial. With astonishment and regret the govern-
ment heard of this proceeding, which was at variance with all
its intentions, and excited the most painful emotions in the
capital. The measure was adverse to the character of mild-
ness and magnanimity which the members of the government
were desirous of stamping upon the revolution. Lamartine
summoned the procureur-general to the office of Foreign Affairs,
and expressed to him his sentiments on the subject;-Sentiments
which appeared to be shared by the magistrate himself, who
alleged that he had acted only in obedience to a superior
order. M. Portalis promised Lamartine that the mandate
should be regarded in the light of a mere formality, and suf-
fered to perish in oblivion.
A similar misintelligence arose out of a government decree
for the suppression of titles. The question had been dis-,
cussed at the Hôtel de Ville, on the 27th of February, and
had been contemptuously dismissed by the council. “Let us
not begin the republic by an absurdity,” observed Lamartine;
“nobility is abolished; but it is impossible to abolish either
recollections or vanities.”
The members of the government were surprised some days
afterwards at Seeing a decree for the abolition of titles. Their
measure had referred only to desuetude. The innumerable
decrees which crowded upon them in circumstances of the
greatest urgency, and amidst the tumult of the Hôtel de Ville,
THE KING's FLIGHT FROM PARIS. 299
gave occasion to some errors of this nature. In several in-
stances decrees were signed by only one or two of them, then
carried away from the council-table, and printed without having
been submitted to the Sanction or verification of the council.
It has already been stated that the king and queen, with
the duchess de Nemours and her children, seated themselves
in two hired coaches, drawn by a single horse, on the Place de
la Concorde. They took the road to Saint Cloud, escorted by
a regiment of cuirassiers, commanded by General Regnaud de
Saint-Jean-d'Angely. On reaching Saint Cloud, the king
took court carriages and proceeded to Trianon, where he
stopped for a few moments, as if to allow time for fortune to
overtake him and arrest his flight. General Regnaud de
Saint-Jean-d'Angely at length inquired what orders the king
wished to give to the troops, and whether he desired to
assemble them round him at Saint Cloud Z “That is no
longer any affair of mine,” replied the king; “it is now for
the duke de Nemours to determine.” The post-master of
Versailles brought twenty-eight horses to Trianon for the
king's carriages; conduct very different from that of the
famous post-master of Sainte Menehould, who by detaining
Louis XVI. in his flight from Paris, caused that unfortunate
monarch and his family to forfeit their heads. The post-
master of Versailles thus addressed Louis Philippe:—“These
are the best horses my stables contain, and I have selected them
for their strength and Swiftness, to insure the departure and
the safety of the king, by the indirect routes he may deem it
expedient to take. Urge them forward as long as they have a
gasp of breath remaining. Think not of my interests. Kill
them, Sire, but let them save you.”
When evening set in, the king departed, taking the road to
Dreux, which place he reached in the early part of the night.
As yet the inhabitants of the town knew nothing of the
recent events of Paris. M. Maréchal, the sub-prefect, being
informed of the arrival of the court carriages at that un-
wonted hour, concluded that some of the princesses, alarmed
by the tumults at the Tuileries, had sought refuge in the royal
residence of Dreux. He immediately repaired to the palace,
and there recognized the king.
“I am king no longer,” said Louis Philippe, addressing
the sub-prefect; “I know not even whither I shall fly to
300 LOUIS PHILIPPE DESCRIBES THE EVENTS OF PARIS.
save my life; I have abdicated to avoid the worst misfortunes.
I now place myself under your protection in my evil fortune,
as I have done in my days of happiness. Ascertain what
has taken place, and inform me; for as yet I am ignorant of
the result of events, and counsel me according to the circum-
stances which this night may reveal to you.”
Just as these words were uttered, the mayor of Dreux
entered to pay his respects to the king. He was in ignorance
of all that had transpired. The king, then becoming the
messenger of his own misfortunes, related in detail, and with
much emotion, the vicissitudes of the few preceding days;
ending with the Sad moment when, surrounded in his palace
by the insurrectionary storm, ill inspired by his late ministers,
ill aided by those newly appointed, ill defended by his troops
(nevertheless faithful), and forsaken by the national guards,
his only alternative was abdication, and his last resource
flight, amidst volleys of musket-shot. The king told all this
with feeling and firmness. He spoke indignantly of the
blindness of the national guards, of the vacillations of his
ministers, of the ingratitude of nations, who raise a man to
a throne to save themselves from anarchy, and in a moment
of caprice, hurl him down into the gulf from whence they
drew him. He reflected on the nullity of services rendered
to mankind, and adverted sorrowfully to the position of the
queen, and to the fate that awaited both himself and her—
that of lingering out their yet green old age in the dulness
of royal exile, far from Paris, which they both so dearly
loved ;-far from the government he had directed,—and far
from the councils he had enlightened by his knowledge and
experience.
The two magistrates were deeply moved on hearing the
fallen monarch thus vent reproaches on his fate and his
country. Turning from these melancholy reflections, the
king next alluded to his grandson, and expressed concern for
his children, thus by a demi-revolution cast on a throne
which he himself, with all his caution, could not consolidate.
He seemed to presage misfortune, and he despondingly in-
voked heaven to watch over the destinies of his family.
Meanwhile the king still cherished the hope that his retire-
ment had appeased all violent feeling, and that by his abdica-
tion he had left behind him the throne, the chambers, and
THE KING's SOJOURN AT DREUX. 301
the government. He informed the mayor and the sub-prefect
that it was his intention to remain four days at Dreux, and
there to await the decision of the chambers respecting his
future place of residence, and the position which the nation
might thenceforward allot to him. He partook of some
refreshment, and inspected by torch-light the works he had
ordered to be undertaken at the palace. In short, his man-
ner was altogether that of a man who feels no misgivings for
to-morrow.
The palace of Dreux had been for some time unoccupied,
and objects of indispensable necessity for the use of the king,
the princesses, and the children, were wanting. The inhabi-
tants of the town, who were attached to the royal family, has-
tened to provide furniture, linen, wearing apparel, and plate.
A sum of money, in gold specie, was collected as a loan for the
king. The sub-prefect proposed to Send for the regiment
which was in garrison at Chartres, but the king would not
suffer this to be done. The national guards of Dreux formed
themselves into posts of protection and guards of honour.
The repast being ended, the king wrote a letter to M. de
Montalevet, the minister of his household, directing that his
portfolios, dressing-cases, and articles requisite for the
toilette, should be forwarded to Dreux, and giving some
preliminary instructions relative to the arrangements to be
made for his future destiny. -
The courier set out with this despatch at two o'clock.
The king then retired to bed, and fell into a profound sleep.
Whilst he was sleeping, a friend of M. Bethmont arrived
from Paris, and announced to the sub-prefect the proclama-
tion of the republic.
M. Maréchal would not disturb the king, thinking that a
few hours' rest would recruit his strength, and enable him
the better to bear the shock he had to sustain. At seven
o'clock he proceeded to the palace, where he informed the
aides-de-camp and the duke de Montpensier of what had
occurred. The king was still sleeping, but the royal family
awoke him, and the queen communicated the intelligence,
giving it as mild a colouring as possible. The courage which
the queen had manifested during the turbulent scenes she
had just passed through now gave place to calm resignation.
A council, composed of the members of the royal family
302 DEPARTURE FROM OPEUX.
and their friends, was held at the king's bedside. It was
determined that the members of the family should effect their
escape separately and in different directions, so as to evade
any suspicion that might be created by the carriages being
noticed, or their occupants recognized on the roads.
The place of rendezvous assigned to the king and queen
was a secluded and unoccupied country house belonging to
M. de Perthuis, situated on the Cap d'Honfleur, whence, it
was hoped, they might easily find means secretly to embark
and reach the English coast. The duke de Montpensier, the
duchess de Nemours and the children, were to take the road
to Avranches, and from thence to proceed to Jersey or
Guernsey.
It was determined that the court carriages were to be left
at Dreux; others less likely to attract motice were provided
by the sub-prefect, who borrowed them from the inhabitants
of the town. The fugitives were disguised in clothes of the
plainest possible description. A calèche, containing the duke
de Montpensier and the duchess de Nemours, took the road
to Avranches. The king, the queen, a femme de chambre, a
valet, and M. de Rumigny, the king's aide-de-camp, got into
a close carriage. The queen had ordered that on the following
morning a mass should be performed in the chapel containing
the tomb of the duke of Orleans; but time pressed, and she
could not even utter a parting prayer over the ashes of her
son. The sub-prefect of Dreux, having mounted the coach-
box, departed with them. The carriage took the road leading
to Anet and Louviers. ºr
On arriving at Anet, the first post relay, the king was re-
cognized and greeted with respect. M. Maréchal procured
eight or ten thousand francs in gold, and obtained passports
under fictitious names.
At Saint-André the party had to wait for a short time, the
horses not being ready. It was market-day, and the town
was crowded with people, whose suspicions seemed to be
roused. They gazed at the carriage, and some of them at a
distant view fancied they recognized M. Guizot. Shouts of
“C'est Guizot / C'est Guizot / " were immediately raised.
The excitement increased and became somewhat alarming.
The sub-prefect, who was known to some of the inhabitants
of Saint-André, endeavoured to undeceive the multitude; and
THE FUGITIVES PROCEED TO EVRIEUX. 303
with this view he made some partial disclosures, which were
understood and respected.
Meanwhile three men advanced close to the carriage, and
looked towards the back seat, where the king was sitting.
He wore a black cap drawn down over his forehead, his eyes
were concealed by spectacles, and his bald head was uncovered
by a wig. The three men looked at him doubtfully, and after
retiring for a moment, returned again, accompanied by two
gendarmes. The passports were demanded. M. Maréchal
presented them, and then drawing one of the gendarmes aside,
he confided to his generosity the secret of the escape of the
king and queen. The gendarme was dismayed; but instantly
recovering his self-possession, he pretended to examine the
passports and to find them right. The horses were then har-
nessed, and the king departed.
The carriage drove on all day without impediment. The
only difficulty that presented itself was in passing through
Evreux. M. Maréchal trembled lest the king should be re-
cognized and detained in a town so near to Paris, where popu-
lar excitement might create some commotion. His anxiety
every moment increased. Already the church spires of Evreux
appeared in sight, when a sudden recollection occurred to his
mind. Remembering that one of his friends possessed a
country house near the high road leading to Evreux, he ordered
the carriage to stop, and questioned a labourer who was
breaking stones at the wayside. The man immediately
pointed to the house of M. Maréchal's friend, and directed him
how to reach the cross-road leading to it. The postilion was
Immediately ordered to drive in that direction.
The owner of the house was absent, but the farmer and his
wife received the travellers, without knowing who they were.
The king and queen were shown into an apartment adjoining
the kitchen of the farm. There they warmed themselves at
the fire, and partook of the rustic hospitality of their humble
hosts, who supposed them to be friends of their master.
Leaving them to enjoy a little interval of repose, M. Maré-
chal proceeded to Evreux on foot, sought his friend, and
informed him who were the individuals whom he had lodged
in his house.
The intelligence of the events of Paris, which successively
reached Evreux, had thrown that place into a state of fer-
304 THE KING AND QUEEN MEET AT CAP D'HONFLEUR.
ment. To pass through the town was impossible. M. Maré-
chal and his friend, having ascertained the best route that
could be taken for turning the wall of the town, joined
the royal family in their retreat.
The farmer, who was now made acquainted with the rank
and misfortunes of the guests he had sheltered beneath his
roof, ardently devoted himself to their service. He, who
was acquainted with all the by-ways in that part of the
country, harnessed his own horses to the carriage, and him-
self drove the king.
A confidential man was intrusted to drive the queen by
another route. The travellers set out at Seven o'clock in the
evening, and travelled all night. Before daybreak, the king
and queen, each arriving in different directions, met at the
Cap d'Honfleur, and without attracting any notice, they
alighted at the house of M. de Perthuis. This house, con-
cealed amidst trees, is built on an eminence, at the distance of
about half an hour's walk from the town.
This was on the 26th of February. M. de Perthuis, the
owner of the house, was not there at the time, but the gar-
dener, an intelligent and confidential man, had been pre-
viously made acquainted with the trust that was about to be
reposed in him. This man inspired his wife and children
with the discretion and devotedness requisite for carrying
out the plan for Securing the safety and escape of the king
and queen. None of the inhabitants of the country around
suspected for a moment that the lonely house contained
those personages who, only two days previously, had been
the sovereigns of France and the owners of palaces. The
window-blinds were kept constantly closed; and it was
only during the night that smoke was suffered to issue from
the chimneys. This confinement and restraint lasted nine
days, and that interval was employed by Generals Rumigny
and Dumas, and some other trustworthy persons, in arranging
means to Secure the safe landing of the king in England.
Louis Philippe and his friends were not aware that the
government had authorized Lamartine himself to provide the
means of escape with all the prudence which the peril of the
case demanded, and with all the consideration due to misfor-
tune.
The king, fearful of being recognized and arrested at
CAPTAIN PAUL REQUESTED TO AID THEIR ESCAPE. 305
Havre, if he repaired thither to embark for England, pro-
coeded during the night, and on foot, to Tronville, where a
merchant of that town, M. Gueltier, gave him shelter for two
days. Acting on the advice of M. Gueltier, the king deter-
mined to hire a fishing-boat of the port of Tronville, to convey
him out to Sea. and put him on board an English steamer.
The master of one of these fishing-boats, who was first applied
to, appeared to have some suspicion; he bargained, and
wished to exact an exorbitant sum for his services. He was
dismissed, and application was made to another, who, though
he likewise suspected that the object in view was to effect the
escape of fugitives, tendered the use of his boat gratuitously.
His generous offer was accepted ; but the man who had been
first applied to, instigated by feelings of jealousy and shame,
on being informed of the projected departure, divulged the
secret, and denounced his comrade. The king, hearing the
rumours which were circulated about the town, began to be
apprehensive of the domiciliary visits to which they might
give occasion, and he consequently left his place of refuge.
Setting out at night, walking through the muddy roads, under
a pelting rain, and in continual fear of pursuit, he returned to
the house of the gardener. There, dejected in spirits, and
worn out by fatigue, he rejoined the queen. The coast now
appeared to be closed against them. The general feeling of
enthusiasm for the republic, though it was manifested inoffen-
sively and generously, seemed nevertheless to give to the
whole country an appearance of hatred to royalty.
A young officer of the French navy, who happened at that
time to be at Havre, and who was ignorant of the king's
proximity to that port, though rumour led him to suspect that
the royal family were vainly seeking means of escape, re-
solved to make an effort to aid them. With this view he
took upon himself to ask Captain Paul, of the English navy,
whether he would consent to receive Louis Philippe on board
the steamer he commanded, if the king should succeed in
getting out to Sea in a fishing-boat. Captain Paul returned
for answer, that he could not do so consistently with his
orders; but on his arrival at Southampton he hastened to
communicate confidentially to the Admiralty the overtures that
had been made to him, and to point out the service which a
steamer, cruising along the coast of France, might render to
2× -
306 PLAN FOR EMIBARKING AT HAVRE,
the king. This communication induced Lord Palmerston im-
mediately to despatch orders for the guidance of the English
consuls resident in the northern ports of France.
The young French naval officer, who had interested himself
in behalf of the royal fugitives, having received a message
from the English consul at Havre, succeeded in discovering
the king's place of concealment. He introduced the vice-
consul to Louis Philippe, and it was arranged that the king
should embark at Havre, on board one of the vessels em-
ployed in the conveyance of cattle and provisions from France
to the English coast.
For the space of five days adverse winds and a violently
tempestuous Sea, retarded the departure of those vessels. All
this time the king was counting the hours, and consuming
himself with inpatience and anxiety. Several times he pro-
ceeded from his place of refuge to the port of Havre, and from
the port back to his place of refuge; journeying on foot.
across the open fields, in the darkness of night, and during
the most inclement weather. At length he resolved on a
scheme more hazardous than any that had yet been contem-
plated. This was to embark at some distance from Rouen in
the steamboat which runs from that place to Havre. This
boat would reach Hayre at night, a circumstance which,
the king conceived, was calculated to afford him a fair
chance of getting through the town unobserved. Passing for
one of the travellers who had arrived from Paris by way of
the Seine, he would go on board the steamboat which would
be in readiness at Havre to convey the passengers from the
Seine boat direct to England.
To carry out this scheme, the king disguised himself and
assumed the name of Theodore Lebrun. The mayor, by a
little pious connivance, favoured the embarkation. The English
vice-consul offered his arm to the queen, and the royal couple
having reached the deck, discovered to their no small surprise
that they were on board the identical steamer they had them.
selves engaged a year previously for a marine excursion
during one of their happy sojourns at the Château d'Eu.
Several of the sailors who were then on board the vessel
now formed part of the crew. The man whose business it
was to collect the fares of the passengers went round with a
lantern, the light from which happened by chance to fall full
THE KING AND QUEEN DEPART FOR ENGLAND. 307
on the countenance of Louis Philippe. The man instantly re-
cognized the king, who, had other eyes discerned him, might
have been betrayed. With great presence of mind the sailor
turned his lantern, at the same time bowing with respectful
discretion to his old master.
Whispers ran from mouth to mouth among the crew, that
the fugitives of Eu were on board the steamer; but not one
for a moment conceived the thought of serving the republic by
a base betrayal of old age and misfortune. The crew pre-
tended to observe nothing, whilst they were closely watching
every one on board. When the steamer was moored to the
quay of Havre, they ranged themselves as if accidentally in
two lines, between which the royal travellers passed, whilst
uncovering and bowing respectfully, the men uttered in a Sup-
pressed tone of voice, “May heaven preserve you !” Such
was the prayer of the republic itself, uttered through the voice
of its government, during that interval when guns were still
firing, and the stains of blood were not yet washed from the
streets of Paris. g -
The only difficulty now remaining was limited to the breadth
of a quay, which had to be crossed, in passing from the Rouen
boat to the Southampton steamer. The king and queen, pre-
ceded by General Rumigny and General Dumas, crossed the
quay, without attracting any notice, and soon all were on
board the English steamer. At the moment when the king
was stepping down the ladder, a woman rushed forward with
a lantern in her halid, exclaiming :-‘‘It is he it is the
king !” An officer advanced, apparently for the purpose of
ascertaining the fact by the evidence of his own eyes. “It is
too late,” said the captain of the steamer; and he immediately
ordered the ladder to be withdrawn.
This incident made a deep impression on the persons who
accompanied the king. They were convinced that his pre-
servation depended on that critical moment, when his safety
might have been compromised by the exclamation of a
woman, and the curiosity of a soldier. Yet no order for
opposing the departure of the king had been issued by any
one, and instructions perfectly adverse to any attempt against
his safety or liberty, were in the hands of the government
agents.
The steamer departed, and, during a stormy night, con-
X 2.
308 THE DUCHESS OF OR LEANS.
veyed the king to Southampton,” where he was informed that
the hospitality of his son-in-law, the king of the Belgians,
had assigned the palace of Claremont as his abode.
Other vicissitudes, arising out of a similar misconception
respecting the intentions of the government and the magna-
nimity of the people, attended the flight of the duchess of
Orleans and her children, the duke de Nemours and his chil-
dren, and the duchess de Montpensier. -
It has already been mentioned that the duchess of Orleans,
when obliged to leave the Chamber of Deputies on the
Second entrance of the people, retired in company with the
count de Paris, and attended by MM. de Mornay, Scheffer,
Lasteyrie, Courtais, and Clement. With admirable courage
and presence of mind, M. de Mornay, who protected her
departure, conducted her from the Chamber of Deputies to
the Hôtel des Invalides; and the carriage, which conveyed
the princess, escaped the observation of the populace. Mar-
shal Molitor received the princess, the count de Paris, and
the duke de Nemours, and lodged them in his apartments.
But the veteran marshal, who was suffering from illness,
began to be alarmed at the responsibility he was incurring.
Some doubts which he expressed respecting the disposition of
the invalides themselves, and also relative to the Security of the
hotel as a place of refuge, very greatly shook the confidence
of the princess and her friends.
Whilst the marshal was ordering dinner for his guests, the
princess, in whose mind the recollection of the captivity of
the Temple was ever present, and who imagined she should
See her son consigned to the custody of another Simon, re-
Solved not to remain an hour longer in the Invalides. Before
evening set in, she departed with her son under the Safeguard
of M. Anatole de Montesquiou for the Château de Ligny,
Some leagues distant from Paris.
M. Anatole de Montesquiou had been one of the em-
peror's aides-de-camp, and was afterwards attached to the
court of Queen Amelia. He was one of those courtiers
whose only courtier-like qualities are grace and refinement,
and who unite in themselves the courage of the Soldier, the
* Lamartine has here committed a little mistake, which it may not be
unimportant to correct. Louis Philippe did not land at Southampton,
but at Newhaven, on the Sussex coast.—(TRANSLATOR.)
THE ESCAPE FROM THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 309
chivalry of the poet, and the devotedness of the honest man.
The duchess of Orleans, protected by M. de Montesquiou, and
hour by hour apprized by her friends in Paris of all that
concerned the fate of her children, together with every cir-
cumstance that might render it expedient either to suspend
or to hasten her flight, remained concealed in the Château
de Ligny for several days. Meanwhile she was harassed by
anxiety for the fate of her second son, the duke de Chartres.
Whilst escaping from the Chamber of Deputies, the
princess was separated from her children by the crowd of
people, who, forcing their way in, filled the staircases and
passages. In this confusion the duke de Chartres was knocked
down. The duchess implored that he might be brought to
her; but in vain. The crowd, which rolled in like the waves
of the sea, was deaf as those waves to the mother's cries.
Some of the deputies, and several attendants, employed in
the chamber, undertook to rescue the young prince. They
conjured the duchess not to hazard her own safety and that
of the count de Paris, by remaining longer in the crowd,
where she incurred the risk of being crushed to death or
made prisoner. Two brothers, ushers to the chamber, moved
by the distress of the duchess, exerted the most strenuous
efforts to find and save the young prince. These brothers
were named Lipman, and they were of an Alsatian family.
One of them, Jacob Lipman, raised the child in his arms to
give him breathing-room and to Save him from the pressure,
whilst the other stood at the entrance of the corridor and
kept off the crowd, resisting the crush of the multitude, which,
like a torrent, threatened to overwhelm him. Jacob Lipman
carried the child to his lodgings, situated near the Chamber
of Deputies. There he sheltered the young prince until he
had an opportunity of intimating to M. de Lespée, the questor
of the assembly, the trust which the chances of the day had
thrown into his hands.
At eight o'clock in the evening, M. de Lespée, imagining
the duchess of Orleans was still in the Invalides, went to
Lipman's lodgings to convey the duke de Chartres to his
mother. The young prince, dressed like a child of the
common class, was carried by Lipman in his arms. The
duchess having by that time left the Invalides, M. de la
Valette and M. d'Elchingen consigned the prince to the care
310 MARKS OF RESPECT SHOWN TO THE DUCHESS BY THE MOB.
of M. and Madame de Mornay. During two days, and
whilst Suffering from illness, the young prince remained in the
house of a poor woman in the Rue de l’Université, to whom
M. de Mornay had intrusted him for the purpose of conceal-
ment. On gaining intelligence of the feelings of the govern-
ment, M. and Madame de Mornay removed the prince to
their own residence, where they rendered him every atten-
tion, and then consigned him in Safety and with restored
health to the arms of his mother.
The princess left the Château de Ligny, in disguise, and
proceeded to Versailles in a carriage which her friends had
provided. At Asnières she took the railroad to Lille. She
passed a sleepless night, watching and praying by the bed-
side of her children.
The shadow of the revolution still pursued her ; and even
when she reached the utmost boundary of France, she trem-
bled lest she should be detained there, and her sons doomed
to share the fate of the children of Marie Antoinette; but
France was no longer devoid of justice and humanity; it
had ceased to be the France of prisons and Scaffolds.
General Baudrand, the governor of the count de Paris,
and a man on whose advice the princess placed great reliance,
though ill and scarcely able to move, repaired to his post at
the palace the moment he heard of the forcible entrance of
the mob. Just as the duchess had departed, the people
rushed in, and the general, addressing himself to some of the
ringleaders, informed them that they were in the apartments
of the widow of the duke of Orleans. At these words they
took off their hats. The apartments were respected, and
some of the mob did duty as Sentinels at the doors, to protect
from depredation or injury objects dear to the memory of
the mother and the widow. The people were maintaining a
conflict against royalty, but they bowed to the feelings of
nature.
The duchess of Orleans had friends among the military
commanders at Lille, and the numerous force garrisoned in that
city might, by her presence, have been won from the republic,
and urged by enthusiasm to defend the cause of a woman and
a child. The thought of showing herself to the troops, and
claiming the throne for her son, occurred to the duchess
during this last night of her stay in France; but the crime
of civil war stood between the throne and this thought, and
THE DUIKE AND DUCHIESS DE MiONTPENSIER. 311
the duchess of Orleans renounced it. She left Lille, and tra-
velling under the title of the countess de Dreux, she reached
the bank of the Rhine. At Ems she was met by her mother.
Whilst her memory reverted to the pure but short-lived hap-
piness she had enjoyed in France,—to her bereavement, her
sorrow, and the ruin of her fortune through the faults of
others, she tranquilly resigned herself to the doom pro-
nounced by her adopted country, where, among persons of all
political parties, the name of the duchess of Orleans will ever be
associated with Sentiments of admiration, affection, and respect.
The duke de Nemours quitted France without any impe-
diment as soon as he had discharged his duty to his father,
his sister-in-law, and his nephew. This prince proved him-
self more worthy of his popularity in adversity than in
prosperity. He had evinced at once courage and disinter-
estedness; for he neither bargained to save his own life, nor
set up his claim to the regency, for the sake of preserving the
crown for his brother's son. History will render him the
justice which contemporary opinion has denied him.
Two of the princesses were separated from the king and
queen in the precipitate departure from the Tuileries. These
were the Princess Clementine, wife of the duke of Saxe-
Cobourg, and the duchess de Montpensier. The duke de
Montpensier, having escorted his father to the coaches which
were waiting on the Place de la Concorde, hoped to return
uninterruptedly to the Tuileries to take charge of his wife.
The duchess, then in an advanced state of pregnancy, had not
quitted her apartments for several days. The crowd rushing
into the palace by all the doors leading from the gardens,
soon convinced the duke de Montpensier that his return was
impossible. On his departure he had confided the princess to
the care of some of the gentlemen of his household, especially
M. de Lasteyrie, whose high character and popularity seemed
to be a security against danger whatever might ensue. The
duke de Montpensier hastily mounted his horse, and followed
the king to Saint Cloud.
As soon as the populace began to force their way into the
Tuileries, M. Lasteyrie thought it time to remove the prin-
cess. Leaning on his arm, she passed through the riotous
crowd; and, as was naturally to be expected in the excite-
ment of that moment, a young lady walking through the
gardens attracted no attention.
*
312 THE DUCHESS DE MONTPENSTER REPAIRs To EU.
M. de Lasteyrie hoped to reach the Pont-Tournant in time
to enable the duchess de Montpensier to depart in Safety with
the royal family; but just as he issued from the gardens of
the Tuileries he saw the coach, the door of which was hurriedly
closed by M. de Crémieux, drive rapidly off. The Princess
Clementine, who had been left behind, was running to and fro
on the Place, not knowing where to seek refuge. Luckily she
espied M. de Lasteyrie and her sister-in-law, and she joined
this wreck of her family.
M. de Lasteyrie conducted the two young princesses to his
mother's residence, without being either recognized or ques-
tioned on the way. The house, which derived a twofold
claim to respect, from the name of Lafayette and the virtues of
his daughter, Madame de Lasteyrie, was an asylum invul-
nerable alike to popular suspicion and violence. After re-
maining there a short time, the Princess Clementine set out
for Trianon, where she rejoined her father. The young duchess
de Montpensier remained until the 25th in the house of
Madame de Lasteyrie, and under that lady's protection. The
duke then sent his aide-de-camp, General Thierry, from Dreux,
with instructions to conduct the duchess to the Château d’Eu,
where he would join her. He supposed at that time that the
king would be able to proceed to Eu, and to make the chateau
his place of residence. But the current of events had over-
taken Louis Philippe on his road to that place of exile, and he
was wandering from place to place on the sea-coast.
On arriving at Eu, the duchess alighted at the chateau, and
found no one there to receive her. Alarming reports an-
nounced that a body of workmen from Rouen were advancing
on the Château d’Eu, there to perpetrate the same sort of de-
vastation as had been committed at Neuilly. The duchess,
therefore, left the chateau, and sought an asylum in the resi-
dence of M. Estancelin, a diplomatist attached to the French
embassy at Munich. At night-fall she set out for Belgium,
accompanied by M. Estancelin and General Thierry. They
proceeded direct to Brussels.
As the carriage passed through Abbeville, it excited at-
tention. The populace assembled, stopped the horses, exclaim-
ing that the carriage contained some members of the royal
family who were making their escape. M. Estancelin, who
was known by name in that part of the country, looked out at
SHE PROCEEDS FROM EU TO A.B.B.EWTLLE. 31 3
the carriage window, affirming that the princess was his wife,
and that they were both returning to Munich, where he was
to resume his diplomatic functions. With the view of more
effectually averting suspicion, he directed the postilion to drive
to the house of one of his friends, whose republican opinions
were a guarantee to the people. He alighted at the door of
this friend, and in a whisper acquainted him with the rank
and the flight of the young lady by whom he was accom-
panied. This man, either from timidity or cold-heartedness,
refused to afford them refuge; expressing fears that the Secret,
if discovered, would render him unpopular, and possibly place
his life in jeopardy. In vain did General Thierry and M. Es-
tancelin conjure and supplicate, representing the Sacredness of
misfortune and the sex of the fugitive, who, then emceinte,
might be exposed to the turbulence of popular commotion, to
the terrors of captivity, or to the risk of an impracticable
flight on foot. But fear is deaf; selfishness is implacable.
The travellers perceiving that a group of men of the lower
class had assembled round the door, alighted, and leaving the
carriage in the street, they proceeded on foot to seek another
place of refuge. Thinking it would be most expedient to
separate, M. Estancelin directed General Thierry to proceed
in the direction of one of the gates of the town. It was
arranged that the general should pass through the gate with
the duchess, and having conveyed his charge safely out of
the town, he was to wait at the boundary of the Belgian
road for M. Estancelin, who engaged to meet them with the
carriage about eleven or twelve o’clock at night.
In pursuance of this plan, they separated in Abbeville,
M. Estancelin seeking some other friends to aid him in pro-
curing horses.
General Thierry and the young duchess groped their way
through the streets of Abbeville in a cold and rainy might.
The wind, which blew violently, had extinguished the lamps,
and they advanced, as it were, blindfolded, in the direction
traced out to them. -
After losing their way several times, they at length arrived
at one of the city gates, then being built, or undergoing
repair. A scaffolding was erected before it, and it was closed
by planks of wood on the side towards the open country.
Finding that there was no egress, the general and the duchess
314 MISERABLE NIGHT PASSED BY THE DUCHESS.
walked back a little distance, and found an outlet by a nar-
row side door, which had been left open by the workmen.
Having by this means got beyond the gate, they thought
themselves safely out of the town.
But the road, which had been soaked by the heavy rain,
was furrowed by the ruts of cart-wheels; whilst here and
there it was flooded by pools of water, or choked up by rub-
bish and fragments of stone. This road led direct to a
quarry, and appeared to have no visible outlet. The duchess,
who had several times been ankle-deep in mud and water,
now lost her shoes, which stuck fast in some soft clay. The
general was in despair; he trembled lest the excessive fatigue,
and exposure to the inclemency of the weather, might be
fatal to the princess, as well as hazardous to the life of the
infant yet unborn. At length she found a temporary rest-
ing-place on a stone, where General Thierry persuaded
her to sit down ; and having wrapped his cloak round her,
he entreated she would remain on that spot whilst he went
back to the town to seek shelter or obtain a guide.
He stepped up to a door, but feared to knock, lest the
princess might find beneath its threshold a snare instead of
an asylum. Whilst hesitating what to do, he was accosted
by a stranger. This person proved to be a friend of M.
Estancelin, who had been despatched by that gentleman in
search of the fugitives. Having made known his errand to
General Thierry, they both immediately repaired to the spot
where the duchess was waiting. Escorted by their guide,
the fugitives then proceeded to some little distance from the
town, and the young princess found shelter in a cart-house
attached to a tile-kiln.
There General Thierry and the duchess de Montpensier
wearily counted the moments, until their suspense was relieved
by the arrival of the carriage which conveyed the duchess to
Brussels. From thence she speedily departed to rejoin her
husband. * ,
Throughout the whole of the miserable night passed in the
vicinity of Abbeville, the princess evinced the courage of a
heroine, combined with the lightheartedness of a child. When
she lost her shoes in the mud, and was obliged to walk on
without them, General Thierry sought to fortify her courage
by appealing to the excitability of a romantic imagination.
THE D'UKE OF WURTEM BURG, - 315
“Madame,” said he, “we have encountered some marvellous
adventures during this horrible night.” “Yes, indeed,” re-
plied the duchess, “but I like these adventures a vast deal
better than the monotony of the round work-table in the well-
warmed and splendid saloons of the Tuileries.”
The duke of Wurtemburg, the husband of the Princess
Marie (whose premature death was mourned in the world of
art no less than in her father's court), was the last member of
the royal family who remained in Paris. Lamartine furnished
him with passports in a name less distinguished than his own,
and he returned to Germany.
Such was the emigration of the Orleans family;-a family
aggrandized by revolution and expelled by revolution;–who,
after having returned from exile to ascend a throne, had once
more gone back into exile. Of that family, some of the
members carried with them veneration, others esteem, others
hopes. France in her emancipation was just and magnani-
mous. The republic, the offspring of intelligence, and not of
fury, was satisfied in establishing the Supremacy of the nation,
No proscription was waged against princes and princesses,
the throne only was set aside. The republic already beheld in
perspective the time when it would be sufficiently strong and
consolidated to allow a share in the country to those who would
claim no more than the rank of Frenchmen and citizens.
The confiscation of the property of the king, the princes,
and princesses was oftener than once proposed by that reckless
class of republicans who harassed the provisional government
with their injunctions and their advice. The proposition was
unanimously rejected. The members of the government
would not, for any consideration, found the republic on
spoliation or injustice. To provide alimentary succour to the
starving workmen, they merely awarded the grant of a mil-
lion, being the sum paid by the nation to royalty.
The consideration of what the republic was to determine in
reference to the pecuniary affairs of the king and the princes,
was postponed until such time as public tranquillity should
cool down excitement and restore right feeling among the
people. It was merely resolved, in the first instance, that
the personal property of the king and the princes should
remain inviolable: that in the event of insufficiency, the
nation would make for the exiled king a provision suitable to
316 PECUNIARY AFFAIRS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY.
his rank and commensurate with the expenses of his position:
that in the event of any excessive amount of personal pro-
perty being retained on the French territory by the king and
the princes, his sons, the nation would hold it in trust during
the first years of the foundation of the new government:
that it would allow a suitable portion of the revenues to the
use of the princes, and capitalize the rest for their benefit,
to be surrendered to them in full as soon as it was proved to
be out of their power to keep up civil war by the help of
money : that, finally, the nation would offer to the duchess
of Orleans and her son, a subsidy commensurate with the
rank she had held and the sentiments she had inspired in
France. M. Lherbette, a man whose high character was
universally recognized, and who had formerly been a member
of the Chamber of Deputies, was accepted at once by the na-
tion and by the royal family, and was appointed to superintend
and pay these allowances. From a scrupulous feeling of
honour, M. Lherbette declined the office, and M. Wavin was
requested to accept it. Every time that the question came
under the consideration of the government, it was discussed
and disposed of in the same manner by the majority of the
council. In this intermediate régime the ultimate decision
was referred to the National Assembly. That body, when
convoked, adopted the resolution of the provisional govern-
ment, thus giving it the authority and dignity which belong to
the will of a great nation.
The questions relating to the private property of the
princes and princesses were discussed in the same spirit by
Lamartine, in interviews which he held with the Spanish and
Brazilian ministers. All that was said on the other side of
the Channel respecting the rapacity and harshness of the re-
publican government in reference to the king, princesses, and
ministers, was devoid of foundation. So much at least for
the proscriptions and spoliation of the first government of the
republic.
The apprehensions of civil war, suggested by the presence
of the duke d'Aumale at the head of the army of Africa,
speedily vanished. The government had appointed General
Cavaignac to be governor-general of Algeria. The name of
Cavaignac was consecrated in the minds of the republicans by
the memory of the elder brother of the general, Godefroy
THE DUKE D'AUMALE. 317
Cavaignac, whose character held the same high place as
that of Carrel in republican esteem. He died before the
triumph of the political opinions he advocated, but those
opinions rendered homage to his memory in the person of his
brother. That brother was himself an officer who had earned
military renown. He had won the confidence of the army by
his courage; and without repudiating the principles of his
brother, and the aspirations of his mother in favour of re-
publican government, he gained the esteem and confidence
of the princes. The frankness with which he avowed his
opinions placed him beyond suspicion ; for frankness and
conspiracy are things incompatible. Cavaignac was known to
be incapable of treason. The duke d'Aumale, on receiving
intelligence of his father's abdication, published an address to
the inhabitants of Algeria and to his army, couched in terms
worthy of the early days of the first republic. His address
was as follows:—
“Inhabitants of Algeria, +
“Faithful to my duties as a citizen and a soldier, I have
remained at my post as long as I could believe that my pre-
sence would be useful in the service of my country. It can
now no longer be so. General Cavaignac is appointed gover-
nor-general of Algeria ; and until his arrival here, the func-
tions of governor-general of the colony ad interim will be
discharged by General Changarnier.
“Submissive to the national will, I depart; but in my
place of exile my best prayers and wishes shall be for the
prosperity and glory of France, which I should have wished
still longer to have served. “H. D'ORLEANs.”
“General Changarnier will discharge, ad interim, the
functions of governor-general, until the arrival in Algiers of
General Cavaignac, who is appointed governor-general of
Algeria. In Separating from an army, which is a model of
honour and courage, and in whose ranks I have passed the
happiest days of my life, I cannot but wish that it may enjoy
new triumphs. A new career for its valour is perhaps about
to open; that it will pursue that career I feel firmly con-
vinced.
“Officers, sub-officers, and Soldiers, I hoped again to have
fought with you in the service of France; that honour is
318 ASSEMBLAGES AT THE LUXEMIBOURG.
denied me. But though in exile, my heart will be with you
wheresoever the will of the nation may call you : it will
triumph in your success, and its wishes will ever be for the
glory and happiness of France. “H. D'ORLEANs.”
Whilst public opinion gained confidence on this point, the
state of our finances was a source of continually increasing
uneasiness. The congress of waged men who assembled at
the Luxembourg excited alarm, and it doubtless portended
danger. But history is bound to acknowledge this fact : the
voice and the intervention of Louis Blanc, which had in the
outset exercised a powerful influence over two hundred thou-
sand workmen, had also a moderative effect on the passions
of the people at large. Louis Blanc set forth false systems,
but he did not preach evil sentiments. His theories held out
sickly and extravagant hopes, but they did not breathe ven-
geance. He promised chimeras, but he did not promote dis-
order, violence, or bloodshed. The Luxembourg, under his
sway, contributed greatly to intimidate capital; but it also
contributed to maintain order, to prevent expropriations, to
depopularize war, and to cultivate the instinct of humanity
among the masses of the people. A false notion may be per-
fectly honest; and that which is honest, is not to be wholly
condemned because it may happen to be allied with mistaken
views on the subject of industry. Such was in their com-
mencement the nature of the harangues delivered by Louis
Blanc at the Luxembourg.
The other members of the government supported this con-
gress, viewing it doubtless as an evil; but as an unavoidable
evil, and one which was attended by a counterbalancing be-
nefit. Louis Blanc, had he been thrown out of the govern-
ment, expelled from the Tuxembourg, and by that very perse-
cution made the idol and the eloquent Masaniello of between
two and three hundred thousand idle and fanatical Parisian,
workmen, would have become an infinitely more dangerous
element of trouble than Louis Blanc haranguing at the Lux-
embourg, himself restrained by his connection with the go-
vernment, and in his turn restraining the multitude within
a visionary circle, the boundary of which he did not suffer
them to overstep. -
Nor would it have been just to withhold from the working
FINANCIAL PANIC, 319
classes (those soldiers of a revolution effected in the name
of labour) full freedom of discussion on those questions re-
lating to labour which constituted at once their systein of
politics and their very existence.
Meanwhile it was necessary to arrest the hourly increasing
panic, and several measures were sketched out, of a nature
tending to impart confidence to capital, labour, and credit.
The word bankruptcy had been uttered with the view of
exciting terror in the public mind; but it was answered by a
decree which anticipated by several weeks the payment of
dividends to the creditors of the state. Here was a fact
given in answer to a suspicion ; a challenge thrown in the
face of distrust. But even this measure was insufficient to
restore confidence. The bankers regarded it as a bravado
set forth for the purpose of disguising fear. They calculated
that when once the dividends should be paid, the treasury
would be found empty. Alarm increased, and money grew
more and more scarce. The seven hundred millions due
from the state to the Savings banks, to the holders of trea-
sury bonds, and to the public service, pressed heavily on the
minister of finance, and he hinted at sinister contingencies, to
which he trembled to lend the Sanction of his name. Garnier
Pagès, who had accepted the burthen of the department of
finance, did not disguise from himself the extreme dangers
which were impending. In entering upon the duties of office,
he yielded less to the solicitations of his colleagues than to
the impulses of his own courage. He is one of those men
whom peril tempts, and whose great qualities grow still
greater in momentous crises. He devoted all his energies
and all the weight of his high name to the duties he had
undertaken; and he selected as his coadjutor, Duclerc, a man
no less courageous and indefatigable than himself.
In the space of a few hours, these two men sounded the
state of the finances. They imbibed confidence; and in their
turn inspired the same feeling in the government. Before
the 8th of March, Garnier Pagès had fully developed to the
council the disorders of our financial position, and the reme-
dies he proposed for their cure.
France had suffered greater injury during fifteen years of
peace, than a protracted war could have inflicted on her. The
finances were pledged to such an extent as to deprive the
320 DIFFICULTIES CREATED BY THE KING's GOVERNMENT.
country of all freedom of action, in the event of extraordinary
demands occurring unexpectedly. The king's government
had made its financial system accord with its own plans.
Everything was arranged with a view to a long peace. This
System, good in intention, flowed in its excess into innumera-
ble industrial shares—a fictitious sort of money, which filled
the portfolios of private individuals and bankers; repre-
senting only problematical capital, producing no interest, and
furnishing a source of agency speculation. In this fictitious
way the value of at least two milliards was represented; and
all was now about to disappear, or to be left standing in the
hands of tradesmen and contractors for great public works.
The aggregate sums required for the service of one year,
as fixed by the budget, amounted to seventeen hundred and
twelve millions. Five hundred and fourteen millions were
promised and due for the continuation of works already in
progress. The public debt amounted to five milliards one
hundred and seventy-nine millions; which debt had aug-
mented by nine hundred millions in the space of seven years.
The monarchy had counted largely on the future. The re-
public was about to be charged with a heavy weight of
responsibility, together with the unpopularity of a liquidation
which it had had no share whatever in causing. Neither the
debt nor the revolution was the work of those now doomed to
bear the blame of both the one and the other. The monarchy
created the debt, and its ministers caused the revolution.
But besides the budget of seventeen hundred millions, the
public works entered upon to the amount of five hundred
millions, the two milliards of industrial shares thrown into the
Bourse by the government, and five milliards capital of public
debt, besides all this, the monarchy had left nine hundred
and sixty millions of debt at short exchange, or immediately
demandable, in three hundred and twenty millions of treasury
bonds and Saving-bank funds deposited in its hands.
The treasury had thus to meet a milliard of funds imme-
diately demandable ; also seventy-three millions required for
payment of the half-yearly dividend due on the 22nd of
March ; and also the expense of the ordinary services and
outlays demanded by those unforeseen incidents which might
suddenly arise in a country in a state of revolution, and
threatened with internal and foreign war.
CouTAGE AND ENERGY OF GARNIER PAGäs, 321
To satisfy all these demands, the government found only
one hundred and ninety-two millions in the treasury; a loan
in the course of negotiation for two hundred and fifty millions,
but which the lenders refused to conclude ; and a tax, direct
and indirect, which was likely to be nullified amidst the panic
and distress of capitalists and consumers, added to the dis-
appearance of gold and silver.
The Bank of France, that independent instrument of credit
and of temporary resources for the government, had itself ex-
perienced a deficiency of cash a few months previously. Some
little relief was afforded by the investment of fifty millions or
specie from Russia. Bills of exchange, which among private
individuals supply the place of cash to an incalculable amount,
were withdrawn, suspended, or annihilated all at once, under
the apprehension of a general liquidation. The consequence
was, that cash alone, and that in the hands of government
only, was required to keep up the whole existence and circu-
kation of the country. Again, by a most unfortunate coinci-
dence, it happened that the crisis was general throughout
Europe. No country was able to lend aid to another. In
St. Petersburg, in London, in Vienna, and in Berlin, business
transactions had been multiplied to a degree totally dispropor-
tionate with the capital in circulation. Gold and silver were
wanting, and paper was held to be of no value.
These concurrent causes of distress presented formidable
difficulties in the way of a revolutionary government, a
government which had at once to feed a working population,
to recruit and equip an army, to face extinct credit, misery,
poverty, internal disorder and foreign war; to replace cash,
restore credit, and re-establish trade and industry:-and all
this was to be done without having recourse to revolutionary
exactions and violence. These difficulties, it must be con-
fessed, were of a nature to dismay even men of the strongest
resolution.
Garnier Pagès encountered them with that sanguine
courage which performs miracles, because it ventures to
hope for their attainment, when the rest of the world
regards them as impossible. He as well as his colleagues
placed full faith in honesty of purpose, and Providence
rewarded him. He conceived, as it were by a sort of inspi-
ration, the only plan by which the republic could be saved
Y
322 THE BANK OF FRANCE.
from bankruptcy. Though this plan might be found deficient
in some of its details, and though certain measures might fail
in their execution, yet the whole scheme was nevertheless
equally logical and bold. }
Above all things, the government stood in need of money,
and there were only three modes of raising it, viz. by credit,
by the circulation of paper, or by exactions. Exactions
would have been synonymous with bloodshed on the first
symptoms of resistance. The government was resolved at all
risks to live and die pure. The issue of assignats would have
produced a general panic, and would have caused the total dis-
appearance of specie. To enforce the reproduction of specie,
would have required violent measures; these in a revolution
are tantamount to proscription ; confiscation is equivalent to
murder. The majority of the government was always in-
flexible in its opposition to any proposal for the introduction
of assignats. The next resource was credit ; but of this the
government had been deprived by the revolution. It was
necessary to seek the restoration of credit in an institution
independent of the government itself, and which should be,
as it were, Security for the government, in the eyes of France.
Such an institution, though feeble in proportion to the im-
portant part proposed to be assigned to it, was to be found
in the Bank of France. There were two modes by which
the aid of that establishment might be rendered available;
viz. by constraint or by protection. The latter course was
determined on.
Thrice did Garnier Pagès save the Bank of France. First,
by resolutely refusing to grant to the tradespeople of Paris
three months' suspension of their liabilities to the bank; next,
by repressing that sort of paper money which would have had
the effect of submerging the bank; and thirdly, by adopting
the bold but effectual measure of authorizing the acceptance of
bank-notes as money. The bank thus saved, was, in its turn,
the means of Saving the government, by supplying a loan of
two hundred and thirty millions. The bank in allying itself
with the government, was animated by a spirit of intelligence
and patriotism. M. d’Argoult, the governor of the bank, was
not withheld by his old attachment to the fallen monarchy
from devoting himself exclusively to the financial salvation of
his country. He was at once the mainspring of the bank aud
TERRITORIAL IMPOSTS. 323
the soul of the treasury. He proved himself a true patriot
and statesman by the courage with which he met distress, and
the readiness of his resources amidst difficulties. The bank,
which had hitherto been serviceable only to commerce, now
became useful to the country. Heretofore public opinion had
at best only held it in respect, and sometimes had regarded
it with jealousy; it now obtained and merited the gratitude of
the nation. At the suggestion of Garnier Pagès, the pro-
visional government was not slow in merging and national-
izing the credit of the other banks of the republic in the
central credit of the Bank of France,
But to enable the bank, thus protected and centralized, to
continue supplying loans of hundreds of millions to the
government, some moral security was requisite. The cer-
tainty of the replenishment of the treasury, which had been
unexpectedly drained, was calculated to afford this security.
The territorial imposts were well paid. Indeed, such was
the enthusiasm of those on whom the imposts were levied,
that the payments were made in advance. All ranks of the
public were eager to aid the good intentions of the govern-
ment, and to avert the temptation or the necessity of resort-
ing to revolutionary extremities. The clergy preached in
behalf of the imposts, and recommended the payment of
them as a public virtue. The rich paid the whole year in
advance, and the poor brought their twelfths. The offices at
which the imposts were collected were thronged by persons
who rushed thither to pay money, as eagerly as though they
had been going to receive it. Payments became the subject
of emulation ; so firm was the conviction that the grand
danger lay in the emptiness of the treasury.
Amidst this enthusiasm, and eagerness to Secure the public
safety, a national loan was practicable, and it would have been
attended with advantage during this first transport of public
spirit. Several members of the government impatiently
urged Garnier Pagès to seize this opportune moment for
proposing the loan ; but prudent considerations withheld
him from consenting to adopt this measure. The conse-
quence was, that the right time passed by, public feeling
cooled down, and the people contented themselves with the
payment of the taxes. Here the government committed a
fault.
y 2
324 EMBARRASSMENT OF THE TREASURY.
Meanwhile the indirect taxes, the immediate and daily
results of consumption and production, were decreasing. The
army required a prompt and vigorous reorganization. The
treasury might be taken by surprise, and the country thereby
rendered defenceless. The continually increasing aid required
by workmen without wages, and consequently without bread;
the pay and equipment of the mobile guard; the establishment
of discount banks in all the manufacturing towns; loans of
money to the great central points of industry; a certain pro-
portion of public works to be kept up in order to avoid an
influx of idlers into the departments; the navy, foreign affairs,
the elections, and in short the whole internal administration of
the country; all naturally created sinister fears of an empty
treasury. One day's insufficiency of resources would have
brought about a general catastrophe. Functionaries and
capitalists might wait; but hunger admits of no postpone-
ment. Six millions of workmen were supported by public
assistance, and one day's adjournment of their pay would have
been a signal for the mad Sedition of starvation and despair.
It was necessary at once to provide, and to foresee. -
The government, resolving to avoid bankruptcy at any
sacrifice, had only the alternative of choosing between the
issue of paper money, or a tax for the crisis, such as those
levied in 1815 and 1830. The question was to save landed
property, and it was for landed property to help to save
itself. Assignats, on the day after their issue, would pro-
bably diminish in value by one-half: the money for which
they were to be exchanged would disappear, and provisions
would rise in price in proportion to the falling credit of the
assignats. It would have been found necessary to create a
maafimum in order to place these provisions within the reach
of the poor. The maa'imum would have created want; want
would have produced despair, and despair would have led to
crimes. In the space of a fortnight we should have come to
assassinations and scaffolds.
There remained then the land-tax, which may be said to
be the summary of all the other taxes, and which extends
over all sources of wealth, in times when every conventional
value disappears.
Garnier Pagès and the government, therefore, determined
to levy a supplementary land-tax, by the addition of forty-
THE SUPPLEMENTARY LAND-TAX. 325
five centimes on all the other taxes. This additional impost
created murmuring among the landed proprietors, but never-
theless it preserved them from ruin. It saved the poor from
perishing of hunger, it saved labour from stagnation, it warded
off the deficit which threatened the treasury, and it protected
the great manufacturing cities from sedition, idleness, and
misery. It moreover defended the country against external
danger, by affording the government the means of maintaining
public credit, and establishing banks of exchange in all the
important towns in which they were required. This tax enabled
the government to enrol in the mobile guard the superfluous
and most restless portion of the young population of Paris, to
augment the army, to provide for its pay, to furnish food to a
million of indigent labouring men, to calm the growing excite-
ment against the rich and the murmurs vented upon the selfish-
ness of property. It was the means of suppressing the stamp-
duty on the circulation of thought, of abolishing almost im-
mediately the salt-tax, reducing the entrance-duty on meat in
Paris, and diminishing the tax on wines in the Paris octroi.
This supplementary impost, it was computed, would bring
one hundred and ninety millions into the treasury, if distri-
buted impartially and levied on all persons liable to it. The
government authorized the collectors to make an equitable
estimate of the contributive powers of the small landed pro-
prietors, and to enforce payment only from those who were
able to pay. This considerate course, dictated alike by jus-
tice and policy, reduced the produce of the tax to one
hundred and sixty or to one hundred and fifty millions. These
one hundred and fifty millions, with the two hundred and
thirty millions advanced by the bank on security of the
state forests, sufficed for all demands, and left in the treasury
the sums necessary for covering all the ordinary expenses of
the year 1848, as well as the extraordinary expenses incurred
by the outlay of a million per day in public works for the em-
ployment of unoccupied hands. Such was the price of the revo-
lution, and never did a nation purchase a revolution so cheaply.
Yet this prudential and salutary tax, which established credit
and industry, and afforded succour to a suffering nation;–this
tax, which intervened between bankruptcy and the republic,
between property and beggary, between France and foreigners,
between the lives of the citizens and the fury of starvation,
326 PROPOSED PljRCHASE OF RAILWAYS.
excited, after a little interval of time, as much murmuring
as though the government had been guilty of some act
of violence against property, or had committed depreda-
tions on private fortune, and ravaged the soil. The
rich whom this impost had saved, the poor whom it had
relieved, the proletaries whom it had fed, joined in one
general malediction: in short, the whole population of Paris
raised their voices, not against the extra burthens, but
against the reduction of the taxes on butcher's meat and wine
made in their favour. The selfishness of the landed pro-
prietors and the ingratitude of the proletaries will be judged
in the pages of history. There will stand recorded the fact
that the raising of one hundred and sixty millions by the
supplementary tax of the forty-five centimes was an act of
necessity and prudence, on the part of the republic, whose
peace and safety were thereby secured. France will blush
on comparing this price with that which she paid in blood
and treasure for the first republic, the empire, the restoration,
the invasion in 1815, the second restoration, and the revolu-
tion of 1830.
As the crowning of his scheme, Garnier Pagès conceived
the idea of the purchase of all the great limes of railway by
the state. The shares in these railways had fallen in price in
a degree ruinous to the companies to whom they belonged.
By buying them up at a reduced yet equitable price, the
republic would immediately have raised their value by
state Security, and at the same time there would have been
thrown into circulation a property previously dormant or held
in little credit, Actual property would thus be restored to
the hands of private individuals instead of the fictitious
money which filled their portfolios. The lines already com-
menced might have been completed and new ones traced out ;
finally, the government would have effected the loan of a
milliard, thus secured with a few years' mortgage on the value
of three or four milliards.
Those particular companies, to whom this plan was a mea-
sure of security, pressed its adoption on the government;
whilst others, with the view of raising the price of shares,
declared the measure to be one of spoliation. Lamartine
used all his endeavours to induce the government to enter
into the arrangement whilst the companies were willing to
DISPOSITION OF THE ARMY. 327
consent to it. He foresaw too well that this bargain between
the companies and the state, which might be carried out by a
concentrated and dictatorial government, would become
impracticable with a sovereign assembly, worked upon in
various ways by the influence of companies making higher
demands. The delay of this affair was the only fault with
which Lamartine reproached the minister of finance.
But the government having thus secured the means of
paying the interest of the national debt, and defraying the
expenses of the public Service, could not, without the issue of
paper money, pay, at short dates of exchange, the whole
capital of the floating debt, amounting to seven hundred
millions. The reimbursement of the treasury bondholders
and the Savings banks was postponed. The effects of this
unfortunate but necessary postponement were mitigated by an
increased rate of interest to the bondholders, and by partial
reimbursements to the most needy individuals having deposits
in the Savings banks.
Whilst the provisional government thus saved the republic
from the incalculable consequences of bankruptcy, the war
minister, supported by all the power of the public treasury,
actively carried out the measures agreed upon for augmenting
the army in a degree commensurate with our external dan-
€I’S.
g Some symptoms of insubordination showed themselves, but
immediately disappeared. These symptoms were the inevita-
ble result of the temporary anarchy which might be expected
to prevail in Paris immediately after a revolution. The
soldiers, who were for a brief interval disbanded, were restored
to their regiments, and voluntarily resumed that yoke of dis-
cipline and obedience which patriotism enjoins as a duty and
honour regards as a virtue. The spirit of France is shown in
her army. Revolutionary agitation did not cross the threshold
of the barracks. Society stood in need of the aid of the army,
and the army gave that aid unreservedly. The govern-
ment was annoyed by some trivial seditious movements,
which, however, were suppressed as soon as manifested. These
movements occurred in one or two regiments of cavalry and
artillery, in which some sub-officers had attempted by club
speeches to sow the seeds of insubordination. Never did a
national army exhibit a nobler example of calmness amidst
328 DISCONTENT IN THE HôTEL DES INVALIDES.
general agitation, of intelligent obedience to its commanders,
fidelity to its colours, and attachment to the government. It was
the armed instinct of the country. Those four months during
which the troops distinguished themselves by incorruptibility
amidst disorder; by resignation to the necessity of being kept
at a distance from Paris; by implicit respect for their com-
manders; by restraining their impatience to overstep the
frontiers; and by moderation towards the populace, will be
recorded in history among the most glorious campaigns of the
French army. It will show how the blessings of liberty and
information diffused among the rural classes of our population,
since the close of the wars of the empire, had transformed the
character of the nation; for the army is always the criterion
of the real state of a nation. When at the close of an intes-
time commotion, the Soldier remains a soldier, there is no
reason to fear that revolution will degenerate into anarchy.
There was, however, one melancholy symptom which cast
a gloom over public feeling, and revived recollections of the
hideous scenes of the first French revolution. This symptom
reflected no discredit on the army in active service. It mani-
fested itself among the idle inmates of the Hôtel des Inva-
lides, that pompous establishment founded by Louis XIV. for
the veterans of war. It is just and magnanimous on the part
of a nation to provide by pensions and gratuities for the old
age and infirmities of those who have shed their blood and lost
their limbs in the public service. But these pensions, gratui-
ties, and rewards should be paid and granted in the home and
in the family of the invalid soldier. An assemblage of three
or four thousand idle soldiers, under a system of discipline ne–
cessarily lax, and in a focus of licentiousness and vice like a
great capital, may gratify the vanity of a country, but it must
be attended by danger to morals, to order, and to military
regulations. A system less ostentatious, but more truly
remunerative of military service, would break up these con-
gregations of idleness, and disperse into cottages those pecu-
niary aids which are squandered and wasted in palaces.
In the Hôtel des Invalides there had long existed a
grievance of some kind or other, in connection with the
food of the soldiers; and murmurs on this subject were per-
petually breaking out. In these sullen murmurs, which are
frequently the forerunners of sedition, charges were made
against the internal management of the establishment.
ATTACK ON GENERAL PETIT, 329
One evening, about the end of March, when Lamartine had
just returned to the hotel of Foreign Affairs, after attending a
sitting of nine hours duration at the Hôtel de Ville, he was
informed that a numerous deputation of Invalides, in a state of
angry excitement and intoxicated by drink, had been at the
hotel during his absence. These men, in violent and inde-
corous language, had set up claims subversive of order, and
irreconcilable with the rules of the establishment. The
deputation withdrew on being informed that the minister was
absent.
No Sooner was Lamartine informed of this movement, and
the threats which had been uttered, than he received infor-
mation of the insurrection in the Invalides. A few turbulent
spirits, exciting others to violence, had broken into the apart-
ments of General Petit, a brave and loyal officer, who filled
the post of sub-governor of the hotel. General Petit was
an honourable relic of the old French army, and was histo-
rically celebrated by the embrace he had received from the
Emperor Napoleon, in the tragical farewell scene at Fontaine-
bleau. Unmindful of the respect attached to that recollection,
the reverence due to old age, and the authority of com-
mand, this group of Seditious men had, in the presence of
three thousand veterans (either passive spectators of the out-
rage, or accomplices in it), dragged the aged general from his
apartments, into the court-yard of the hotel. There, having
bound him in a cart, like a criminal, they issued forth from
the Invalides, accompanied by a numerous retinue, composed
of that vile class of the populace who may be called men and
women of prey, and who never fail to track the path of vic-
tims. Two or three Invalides, seated in the back part of the
cart, and holding drawn Sabres in their hands, by turns vented.
imprecations, and addressed the mob, announcing that the
object of their errand to the government was to demand the
punishment of their commandant. In this manner they
passed along the quays of the Seine. Every one who beheld
them trembled lest a nocturnal crime should be committed,
and the general hurled into the river.
Intelligence of these occurrences was communicated to
Lamartine, just as he had sat down to dinner. He instantly
rose from table, and, without waiting for a carriage, he hurried
away on foot, accompanied by his secretary. He proceeded
towards the quays, in the direction which he was informed
330 LAMARTINE PURSUES THE INSURGENTS.
the procession had taken, resolved to throw himself between
the fierce insurgents and their victim, and to make his own
body a shield of defence for the unfortunate general. He
dreaded to reflect on the sinister consequences of the first
revolutionary massacre; and his mind revolted at the idea
of veteran soldiers setting the first example of crime to
a populace whose conduct had heretofore been characterized
by humanity, but who might by such an event be incited to
acts of barbarity. He inquired at every post, and of every
person he met, what route the cart had taken. He despatched
messages to give intimation of the occurrence to General
Duvivier, who commanded the mobile guards, and to the
head-quarters of the national guards. In the midst of a
heavy rain, he continued to pursue the cart as well as he was
able ; but the confused directions he received, once or twice
caused him to lose the track. On arriving at the Hôtel de
Ville, he inquired of M. Marrast, who, however, could give
him no information. He then repaired to the prefecture of
police; but M. Caussidière knew nothing of the matter. He
resumed his course along the quays in a state of unutterable
anxiety. He trembled lest the crime should have been com-
Initted in darkness, at some solitary spot on the bank of the
Seine. At length he learned that the unfortunate general
had been rescued from his assailants, near the Hôtel de Ville,
—that his life was safe, and that he had received shelter for
the night at the head-quarters of the Place.
That night the members of the government, filled with
horror and indignation at this outrage, deliberated on the best
mode of arresting its consequences, and punishing its perpe-
trators. The national guard, which during this interim was
awaiting its reorganization, had no existence Save in its head-
quarters, and in the persons of some good citizens, who were
ready to volunteer their services in case of danger. There
were at this time no troops in Paris. To leave such a crime
unpunished would have been to surrender up all restraint
over the army;-to Sanction insubordination and sedition, by
an avowal of inability to arrest the criminals. On the other
hand, to have attempted their arrest in the midst of three
thousand men, supplied with artillery, would have been to
attempt an impossibility, and would have exposed the autho-
rities of government to flagrant defiance. This latter course,
PUNISHMENT OF THE RINGLEADERS. 33].
though desperate, was nevertheless that dictated by honour
and duty, and the government resolved to adopt it.
The minister of the war department, M. Arago, with General
Courtais, and M. Guinard, the chief staff officer of the national
guard, undertook the execution of this measure. On the fol-
lowing day they assembled some men of tried courage to form
an escort for General Petit, and they proceeded to the Champ
de Mars, where two or three thousand labourers, belonging to
the national ateliers, were at work. M. Arago and General
Courtais, addressing these men, described the outrage which
the aged general, the living wreck of our military glory, had
sustained at the hands of the unruly body of soldiery, and
they pointed out the necessity of aiding the government in
Suppressing acts calculated to disgrace the nation and to destroy
the army. Reason and right feeling asserted their sway in
the minds of the men to whom this appeal was made ; and the
assembled workmen immediately shouted, “Vive le général f
Vive Arago / Vive Courtais !” They offered of their own
accord to go to the Hôtel des Invalides, and restore subordi-
nation among its refractory inmates. MM. Arago, Courtais,
and Guinard placed themselves at the head of these men,
and, entering the court of the hotel, they assembled the In-
valides, and reprimanded them for their disgraceful conduct.
An order was given for the arrest and imprisonment of the
principal ringleaders of the outrage, who submitted to this
sentence without resistance, and General Petit was reinstated
in his post, amidst acclamations of repentance and enthusiasm.
This energetic measure, and some others of the same kind,
taken by General Subervie and M. Arago, had the effect of
consolidating the army, and checking all attempts at dis-
organization in the different corps. Those two ministers, by
the confidence they felt in their own authority, thenceforward
established it on an incontestable footing, and the army, on its
part, rendered full justice to the government. It permitted
no inquisitorial examination of the opinions of officers. It
adopted, in the name of the republic, all who served their
country.
A union of the war department with that of the minister of
marine had just been formed, and these combined ministerial
offices were placed under the direction of M. Arago. This
measure of government, whilst it was a mark of deference and
332 GENERAT, SUBERVIE.
confidence justly due to M. Arago, was at the same time an
injustice to General Subervie, and a surprise to some mem-
bers of the government. The circumstances which led to this
change were the following.
|For several days vague complaints had been raised against
the minister of war. It was believed that the advanced age
of General Subervie operated against his activity, or rather
this was pretended to be believed; for the fact was, that all
the ardour of General Subervie's early youth was rekindled in
favour of the republic. The reality was, that the new army
was eager to repudiate the veterans of the old army. The
young officers of the army of Africa were desirous, though
perhaps without avowing it, to maintain in the councils of the
war department that paramount and exclusive authority which
they hoped to exercise more completely under a minister who
was a stranger to the army than under an old general of the
republic and of the empire.
The generals who assembled to hold councils of defence
were desirous to deliberate independently of the minister of
war, and of communicating in a direct way with the govern-
ment without his intervention. Some articles inserted in the
National, a journal erroneously supposed to be the government
organ, had adverted in an uncalled-for way to the war minis-
ter, representing him as oppressed by a weight of duties dis-
proportioned to his age. These articles were supposed to
reveal the first traces of a plot hatched in the very heart of the
government against General Subervie. Though this notion
was wholly devoid of foundation, yet the position of the
minister seemed to be in some degree affected by the mere
suspicion. The general naturally felt hurt at an opposition
which seemed to have accomplices in the government itself.
He complained of this to Lamartine, who endeavoured to satisfy
him, and was resolved to support him. In an incomplete sit-
ting of the government, held one day when Lamartime, Flocon,
Ledru Rollin and other ministers were absent, the opinion of
the National and of the military officers opposed to Subervie
was put forward. The general was dismissed, and M. Arago
was made provisionally minister of the war department. M.
Arago was far from desiring this appointment; on the contrary,
he long hesitated to take upon himself the responsibility of this
twofold duty.
HIS INTERVIEW WITH LAMARTINE. 333
At six o'clock in the evening, on his return from the Hôtel
de Wille, where he had passed the day, Lamartime received a
visit from General Subervie, who informed him of what had
taken place at the Luxembourg. “You See,” said the gene-
ral, “that my suspicions were well founded; they have
waited only for your absence, and that of some of your col-
leagues, to carry out the proscription of the National and its
friends.” “Nothing has been done,” replied Lamartine.
“Steps so important as the dismissal and nomination of the
war minister cannot be taken without the cognizance of the
minister for foreign affairs, and during the absence of two or
three members of the government. I have promised to Sup-
port you with all my power. I will keep my word, or I
will declare myself at variance with the government. To-
morrow I will bring the subject again under deliberation; I
will protest against a resolution for your dismissal, and the
question shall be put to the vote of all the members of the
government. I feel confident that the republic will not
willingly be deprived of the indefatigable services you have
rendered it since the first hour of its birth.”
“No,” replied the general ; “it is enough for me to know
‘that you have kept your word, and that I am sacrificed,
without your participation, to some feeling of hostility or
ambition. I decline the reparation which you offer me. It
would make me unhappy to reflect that my name should
have furnished a subject for division in the government.
Besides, I perceive clearly that I have enemies either in the
government oramong persons connected with it; and those per-
sons would not forgive my triumph over them, nor would they
scruple to injure the public cause for the sake of injuring
me. I am one of that generation of soldiers who have always
counted themselves as nothing, and willingly sacrificed them-
selves for their country. I will prove myself worthy of my
contemporaries.” He then embraced Lamartine and withdrew.
As soon as M. Arago entered upon the duties of the war
department, he presided at deliberations held by the generals
who were members of the council of defence. These delibe-
rations had for their object the reorganization of the army
on the bases proposed by Lamartine as minister for foreign
affairs. The differences of opinion which had arisen between
Lamartine and the generals, on the subject of the forty thou-
334 WARLIKE FORCES OF THE REPUBLIC.
Sand men, whom the former wished to recall from Africa,
and whom the latter wished should remain there, had several
times broken into almost angry discussions. At length this
variance of opinion was veiled in the Secrecy of the delibe-
rations of the council of defence, whose meetings (not identi-
fied with the proceedings of the government) were under the
responsibility of the war minister only. However, the intel-
ligence, activity, and energy of this council, counterbalanced,
in the opinion of the government, everything that might
have been objected to. M. Arago, following up the plans of
General Subervie and the generals of the council, raised the
army, in the space of a few months, from three hundred and
Seventy thousand men to four hundred and sixty-five thou-
Sand men; and the horses were increased from forty-six
thousand to seventy-five thousand. Arms, equipments, uni-
forms, coast defence, and the fortification of strong places,
all were augmented and extended on a proportionate Scale.
It was computed that the republic, including its naval force
and its mobile guard, would possess, before the month of
October, an armed force of five hundred and eighty thousand
men, independently of the three hundred battalions of depart-
mental mobile guard, which, having been subsequently de-
manded as a reserve by Lamartine and Flocon, were decreed
by the provisional government, and voted by the National
Assembly. I shall again advert to this reserve, and the two-
fold view which dictated its creation. It was an object to which
the thoughts of Lamartine had been earnestly directed, for
the sake of establishing the external force and the internal
federation of the republic, on a footing capable of resisting
any meditated aggression on the peace and safety of Society.
At this time, when all trade was suspended, the task of
Soothing and mitigating the distress of the industrial classes
devolved on M. Bethmont, the minister of the departments of
commerce and agriculture. No man could be better fitted for
this office. His disposition was patient, serene, and resigned ;
he was gifted with eloquence, and he possessed a heart over-
flowing with compassion for the sufferings of his fellow-
creatures. M. Bethmont reflected on the republic that cha-
racter for probity, solicitude, and sympathy, which belonged
to himself personally. He was regular and attentive in his
presence at the sittings, and he profited by his intervals of
SCHEME FOR, AGRICULTURAL LABOUR. 335
respite from official duties, to assist at the government
council. There he invariably took the side of republican
moderation, law, and order, on the model of the great magis-
trates of the assembly of 1790. His post should have been
at the head of the magistracy.
M. Marie, who possessed a more active temperament,
greater boldness of conception, and who took a wider and
more enterprising range in matters of business, temporized
with the public works, which were too much protracted, and
kept up with too much routine. One of the political and
social solutions of the crisis would have been, in the opinion
of certain members of the government, a vast body of un-
employed men, suddenly occupied in some great public works
for the fertilization of the French soil. Lamartine shared
this opinion. Some of the Socialists, then moderate and
prudent, though afterwards violent and factious, urged the
government to take a first step in furtherance of this scheme.
A great campaign, in the interior of France, with agricul-
tural implements for arms, like the campaigns undertaken by
the Romans or the Egyptians for digging canals or draining
the Pontine marshes, appeared to these persons to be the
course marked out for a republic desirous of continuing at
peace, and of Saving property, by protecting and raising up
the proletarian class. This was the idea of the hour. The
appointment of a ministerial department for the administra-
tion of public works on a vast scale would have been the
policy appropriate to the situation of affairs. One of the
great errors of the government was postponing too long the
realization of these ideas. During this postponement, the
national workshops, crowded by misery and idleness, became
day by day more burthensome, more unproductive, and more
menacing to public order.
In the outset, however, they exhibited no alarming cha-
racter. They were merely an expedient for restoring order;
a rough plan of public assistance contrived on the morrow of
a revolution, by the necessity of furnishing food for the
populace, and yet not maintaining them in idleness, for fear of
the disorders to which that idleness would lead. M. Marie
manifested considerable intelligence in his manner of organ-
izing these labourers, though their work was unattended by
any useful result in the way of production : he formed them
336 THE NATIONAL WORKSHOPS.
into brigades, to each of which a chief was appointed, and
he inspired them with a spirit of discipline and order. From
being a force at the mercy of the Socialists and the insurgents,
M. Marie transformed them, in the space of four months,
into a praetorian force. They were, it is true, an idle body of
men, but they were commanded and directed by chiefs, who
Secretly shared the anti-socialist opinions of the government.
Until the convocation of the National Assembly, these work-
shops formed a counterpoise to the sectarian assemblages
at the Luxembourg and the seditious meetings in the clubs.
They were offensive to the eyes of the Parisians, by reason
of their vast magnitude, and the inutility of their labours,
yet they several times protected and saved Paris, though
that fact was not known to the inhabitants of the capital.
So far from being in the pay of Louis Blanc, as was alleged,
the workmen were inspired by the spirit of his adversaries.
At first they numbered only twenty thousand, but every
day brought a fresh reinforcement of poverty or idleness.
The fortification works, commenced so improvidently and
precipitately, had drawn to Paris a mass of about forty
thousand workmen, who, being once established in the capital,
would not leave it. These men, who were for the most part
carpenters and masons, had none of the conditions of a resi-
dent population. The republic was thus doomed to expiate
the imprudence of the monarchy. Those branches of in-
dustry which supply the demands of luxury, and which are
naturally the first to suffer in political convulsions, were Sud-
denly suspended throughout Paris. The savings of the
workpeople soon became exhausted, and their families were
reduced to severe privation. Some of the more wealthy
manufacturers, from a generous desire to assist their work-
people, retained a portion of thens at half-wages. In cer-
tain manufactories, one-half of the workpeople, instead of
being employed throughout the whole week, worked only
four days, whilst the other half were idle; then those who
had been employed left off work, in their turn, for the sake of
making way for their comrades. But from week to week
large establishments were successively closed; and the con-
sequence was, that two hundred thousand artisans of Paris
gradually enrolled themselves in the temporary army which
occupied the national workshops.
BRIGADES OF WORKMEN. 337
To these artisans were speedily joined numerous professors
of the liberal arts, whose last resources were likewise ex-
hausted. These consisted of artists, designers, correctors of
the press, booksellers' clerks, literary men, actors, &c. Per-
Sons whose occupations had heretofore been confined to the
pen or the graver, now presented themselves at the national
workshops courageously asking for pickaxes or spades, where-
with to dig the earth in the Champ de Mars; or requesting
to be sent to any carpenter's yard where labour might be
assigned to them.
Every morning, on the boulevards, in the Champs. Elysées,
and in the faubourgs, parties of from twenty to a hundred
men, of all ages and in all sorts of attire, might be seen
proceeding to their work,+each party being preceded by a
flag and headed by a brigadier. The countenances of these
men wore a melancholy, but earnest and patient expression.
It was evident that they felt an honourable conviction of the
sad duty they had to fulfil to their families; but it was also
evident that they were fully sensible of the duties which the
government was fulfilling towards them, in aiding them by
means of labour. Owing to the defective way in which that
labour was organized, it was unfortunately but a semblance of
public assistance—an expedient dictated by the urgency of
the moment, with the view of providing against want, trouble,
and despair. Every evening these men returned in the same
order to their respective quarters. They themselves performed
their own police duties, and kept up a voluntary system of dis-
cipline among themselves. Their wages were paid to them every
Saturday. This was not a government organization, as was
subsequently endeavoured to be shown ; it was a sacred and
indispensable distribution of alms on the part of the state, and
honoured by the semblance of labour. These workshops of
Paris (and the same necessity caused similar ones to be
instinctively organized in all the manufacturing towns) had
certainly the effect of weaning many workmen from the habit
of serious labour; but they rescued the masses from starvation
and despair, saved society from tumult, and property from
pillage.
The government committed one grand error in the outset.
It was that of neglecting to apply the labour of these work-
shops to great works of public utility, and of not dispersing
them at certain distances from Paris and other great cities,
Z.
338 NATIONAL EDUCATION.
which were the nurseries of sedition. When this dispersion
was found to be desirable, it was too late to effect it. Ano-
ther army would have been required to enforce the evacuation
of the capital. Humanity as well as necessity caused the
workshops to be tolerated until such time as the revolutionary
crisis having passed over, these elements were re-absorbed
by private labour, and their overflowing stemmed by restored
public energy.
So much for the national workshops, which have been repre-
sented as a system, but which were merely a transient expedient,
terrible, but necessary. Those members of the government
possessed of most foresight looked forward with apprehension
to the moment when sedition would creep into this nucleus of
misery and idleness, and when it might be found necessary to
dissolve it either by gentle means or by force. However,
Sedition did not find its way into those workshops until after
the meeting of the National Assembly in Paris. They were
the rock on which the first regular government of the re-
public seemed destined to split. We shall presently see by
how marrow a chance this danger was escaped.
Of all the institutions of the republic, popular education
and elementary instruction, given gratuitously to the people,
was one of the most organic and vital. The germ of a na-
tion's civilization lies in its educational institutions. Whilst
one generation grows up and dies, another comes into life;
and this new generation follows on the track of the other,
which at length it supersedes. The traditions of the first gene-
ration are the patrimony of the second : thus Society has
eternally a child to instruct and to bring up,
The attention of the government had heretofore been wholly
absorbed by the storm with which it had to contend both at
home and abroad. A few days and nights, disturbed by the
turmoil that prevailed in the streets, had afforded little oppor-
tunity for maturing plans for a system of popular education.
Nevertheless, the government was desirous to redeem this
pledge of the republic to the people, and to prepare the way
for bringing the matter under the consideration of the
National Assembly.
This great work was consigned to a man cast in the mould
of a patriot of antiquity; one possessed of a feeling heart and
a firm mind; a man who at a subsequent time was misunder-
stood and calumniated for some words imprudently written
REPUBLICAN SCHEME OF EDUCATION, 339
amidst the toil of incessant business, and to which malignity
and party spirit gave a colouring at variance with his nature
and the tenor of his whole life ; this man was M. Carnot.
The scheme which had its birth in the revolution was precisely
what it ought to have been. It was to diffuse instruction
among the people by means of an educational system emanat-
ing from the republic itself; to render obligatory the elemen-
tary, general, and neutral part of this education, that sense
of intellectual light which a truly moral society is bound to
confer on all who are born within its bosom ; not to enslave
the youthful mind beneath the monopoly of an educational
establishment, but to give to Society that which belongs to
Society, to families that which belongs to families, and to
God that which belongs to God. -
Republican education may combine all these things, by a
strong organization of the educational establishment, and by a
complete system of liberty in education in concurrence with
the instruction furnished by the state.
A rational republic could not be willing to consign civiliz-
ation and conscience to the coercion of the clergy, nor to in-
terpose a profane hand between the religion of the father and
the soul of the child. Its task was to emancipate the religious
conscience from state tyranny, as well as to emancipate popu-
lar intelligence from the Supremacy of dogmas. Its scheme,
the fulfilment of which might be looked forward to hereafter,
was to establish intellectual liberty, like the civil liberty of
religious worship ; to acknowledge the faith individualized in
man—God manifesting himself in the ever-growing reason of
the human mind,-the pure sentiment of piety under all its
forms, guided, propagated, honoured, and cultivated as the
universal dogma of all religious society.
In this spirit M. Carnot thought and acted. M. Reynaud,
his under-Secretary of state, brought to his aid the traditions
of the philosophic era, corrected by religious sentiment, and
applied in conformity with the democratic sentiment. The
enlightened views of the Constituent Assembly, and the fra-
ternal instincts of the true republic, combined with the tole-
rance and the moderation of the present age, were the qualifi-
cations with which M. Carnot was endowed. He of all the
ministers had most leisure for reflection, and he meditated most
for the public good.
z 2
340 CARNOT's EDUCATIONAL MEASURES.
M. Carnot's first act on entering upon office was a circular
addressed to the clergy. This circular declared that the re-
public was desirous of being religious, and it encouraged the
clergy to return to their churches, which had been respected
by the people and protected by the government. Carnot pro-
posed two laws; one relating to primary instruction con-
ciliated the three principles above referred to, viz. the obli-
gation, the gratuity, and the liberty of popular instruction,
and it proposed to make the teacher a functionary of public
morals and intelligence. He likewise founded the school of
administration, which, however, had the fault of singleness of
object, instead of being special to each branch of administration.
He raised the salaries of teachers; he founded the maternal
school (a nursery of charity for forming adoptive mothers for
houses of refuge); he gave increased extension to agricultural
instruction in the primary schools; and he urged the state to
adopt those pupils who distinguished themselves by superior
talent in their particular vocations. Carnot restored the
Lycées, where he ordered that the History of the French Revo-
lution should be read and studied; and he emergetically re-
pressed the spirit of insubordination, which it was feared the
counter-stroke of the crisis of February might kindle in those
institutions. He proposed the establishment of a free Athénée,
to be the complement of the high branches of study and the
public courses, and for exercising the minds of youth in the
loftiest speculations of philosophy. He organized public
lectures for the leisure hours of the people; encouraged
popular literature, a thing which has scarcely any existence in
France ; and he gave directions and offered premiums for this
mode of propagating thought.
Carnot was deceived by the injudicious editors of these popu-
lar books, and he was accused of mischievous propagandism,
whilst the fault consisted only of omissions in his censorship.
Like the legislators of ancient times, he established musical
instruction as tending to the elevation and refinement of
the moral and civilizing feelings of the people. He grouped
around him, as it were in a philosophic and literary council,
the men whose names were highest and purest in philo-
sophy and republican literature. Among them the people
complacently beheld Beranger, the man of their predi-
lections.
HIS MEANING MIS1 NTER PRETEL). 341
A phrase, badly constructed and wrongly interpreted, in a
circular of M. Carnot, operated unfavourably to his adminis-
tration, and obliterated the recollection of all his services.
The phrase had no other meaning than that of recommending
the completion of the agricultural representation, by intimat-
ing to the labourers that they were more capable of under-
standing and promoting their interests than more highly
educated representatives who were strangers to the soil. M.
Carnot, being apprized of the erroneous interpretation alluded
to, immediately corrected the phrase, and expressed his mean-
ing in terms which left no doubt of his right intentions.
“My circular,” said he, “of the 6th of March, has been
cited as the complement of those which emanated from the
office of the minister of the interior. It is necessary that I
should explain my meaning. In the eyes of the public, two
opposite tendencies were personified in M. de Lamartine and
in the minister of the interior. I need not state that my
sympathies belong to the former.” In fact, Carnot was the
very last man who could fairly have been charged with
demagoguic violence or fury. Had the new republic desired
to present to its friends or to its enemies a model of intelligent
and moral republicanism, Carnot was the man who should
have been singled out for that purpose. He was punished
for words, whilst his thoughts and his acts were forgotten ;
but the integrity of the man remains unblemished, and the
republic will sooner or later feel the necessity of recalling
him.
Next to the ministers of the interior and the war depart-
ment, the minister of justice was the individual to whom
were intrusted the most extensive duties, official and per-
sonal. These duties involved the most serious and important
questions. M. Crémieux entered upon them all with so
much judgment and shrewdness, that the Constituent Assembly
converted almost all the decrees of that minister into laws.
As to the measures which belonged to the department of
the minister of the interior, they consisted chiefly in sending
commissioners and sub-commissioners to supersede the pre-
fects and sub-prefects in the departments. Nearly all the
departments, without awaiting orders from Paris, had volun-
tarily and tranquilly passed from monarchical into repub-
lican forms of administration. Nowhere had a prefect, a
342 CHOICE OF GOVERNMENT COMMISSIONERS.
general, or a soldier resisted. It appeared as though the
revolution had been previously accomplished in the public
mind, and had only to declare itself in order to be recognized.
Everywhere, and without disturbance, those citizens who had
been prominent in their opposition to the old government
were, when the events of Paris came to be known, surrounded
by their fellow-citizens, and escorted to the hotel of the pre-
fecture or sub-prefecture, where the functions of office were
quietly transferred to them by the retiring authorities.
Everywhere, too, and with the same readiness, the prefecture
councils, the mayors and the provisional councils of munici-
palities, were changed or recruited by new members having
the conſidence of the people. There was not an intervening
minute during which anarchy could have introduced itself
between the two governments.
The new authorities were instinctively obeyed, with even
greater unanimity than those whom they superseded. It
seemed as though all France had been endowed with a genius
which adapted itself naturally to revolutions; for the com-
plete transition from a monarchical to a republican order of
things was effected just as an army executes a manoeuvre in
which it has been exercised and disciplined. This was one of
the results of the thirty years of constitutional liberty which
France had enjoyed since 1814: liberty and reason progress
side by side among the masses.
The minister of the interior, M. Ledru Rollin, confirmed
in several instances the selections of commissioners made by
the departmental populations. Other commissioners he sent
from Paris. At first the choices were unexceptionable, and
they bore evidence of the high and conciliatory spirit which
the majority of the government, together with the minister
of the interior, wished to keep up between themselves and
the departments as the type of republican administration.
To second the good spirit of the departments in their spon-
taneous elections; not to constrain, but to win their confi-
dence by the esteem their commissioners inspired; to mode-
rate whatever was excessive ; to temper whatever might be
too ardent; to impart fervour to that which was too luke-
warm ; to hold the reins of government in the hearts of
good citizens; not to leave the excited populations time to
perceive a chasm in the execution of the laws for maintaining
MINISTERIAL CIRCULAR. 343
public order; to prevent at any sacrifice civil war and blood-
shed; to console and protect the conquered; to show the
conquerors how to ennoble their triumph by generosity; to
forget the mutual hostilities of party feeling, and to confound
together in the national family all who shared in the love of
their country, and in the defence of Society—such were the
wishes expressed in the council by the unanimous voice of the
members of the government. These wishes were repeated
and commented on by Lamartine in his addresses to the depu-
tations from the departments, as well as in his harangues to
the populace at the Hôtel de Ville and in the public streets.
The same wishes were embodied in all the first instructions
issued to the government commissioners by the minister of
the interior.
In the first instance these commissioners consisted for the
most part of members of the Chamber of Deputies who had
been distinguished for moderate opposition to the old govern-
ment, editors of the most respectable of the democratic
journals, and contributors to the republican press of Paris,
especially to the National. To these the minister of the
interior added the contributors to the democratic journal
called La Réforme : this publication had been the active and
revolutionary focus of the anti-monarchical conspiracies.
Finally, there were among the commissioners a very few of
the supporters of the Socialist schools, men as temperate in
their conduct as they were extravagant in their ideas.
These precipitate selections, made as it were at the urgent
call, and even at the dictation of various parties, at first excited
no disapproval. The minister of the interior unfolded to his
agents the spirit of his administration in a first circular, dated
March 8th:—“All France,” said this circular, “speaks with one
voice, because it is throughout of one mind. This union of all
in one and the same thought is the most certain pledge of the
duration of the republic, and it should be the source of mode-
ration after victory. Your first care must be to make it
understood that the republic should be free from all thought
of vengeance and reaction. Yet let not this generosity dege-
nerate into weakness. Whilst abstaining from all scrutiny
into former opinions and acts, observe as a rule that political
functions, in whatsoever degree of the hierarchy they may have
place, can be intrusted to tried republicans only ; in a word,
to men of the day before, and not men of the day after.”
344 ILL-TIMED PROVOCATION.
The first words of this instruction were entirely congenial
with the spirit of the government; the latter part pointed at
a sort of purification of France. To purify France from all
that had not been republican the day before was to alienate it
from the republic. The republic, by alienating from itself
the majority of France, would become a government of mi-
nority; and a government of minority would find it necessary
to intimidate the majority—that is to say, the nation—in order
to establish itself and maintain its stability. To do this, the
republic of the 24th of February must have perverted its own
nature.
The radical difference of opinion prevailing among the
members of the government as to the right mode of under-
standing the new republic, and the best method to be adopted
for its practical working, was unfortunately revealed in
this circular. It was evident that the posthumous, con-
ventional, and dictatorial spirit of the supporters of the
Réforme was seeking to draw the internal policy of the
government back into the channel of revolutionary inspection
and intimidation. Though acts were tolerant, words were
harsh. This was sufficient to alarm the country at the very
moment when it was above all necessary to inspire confidence,
and to conciliate it wholly to the republic.
This ill-timed provocation, addressed to all who were to
be adopted by the republic only on condition of carrying to it
the whole plenitude of their honour and their rights, raised
up the first feelings of resentment, and gave cause for the first
umbrage. However, the measures of the minister of the
interior, and of the majority of the commissioners whom he
had appointed, did not, at that time, correspond in any way
with this language. The words seemed to be a concession to
a violent party, to whom acts could not be conceded ; and
they were allowed to pass without the government thinking
it worth while to cancel or contradict them. The minister of
the interior, who was absorbed in the immensity of the details
of his department, could not really be held accountable for all
that was put forth under his moral responsibility. He rarely
attended the councils of the government, which were still
held at the Hôtel de Ville, amidst a continual succession of
popular crowds. He governed apart that branch of the public
service which was consigned to him.
Tamartine, on his part, ruled with absolute independence
LOUIS BLANC AND ALBERT. 345
the foreign policy, and directed that portion of the public
mind which corresponded with his views. Each minister
exercised sovereign authority in his own centre of action,
whilst they all mutually submitted to each other only those
very important questions which had reference to the general
policy of government.
Louis Blanc and Albert, who had been at a former period
connected with the party of La Réforme, now connected them-
selves with other active men of that party, and sought to give
weight to the Socialist doctrines and republican discontent
which they severally cherished. Flocom, whose turn of mind
was rather politic than speculative, endeavoured to bring back
to a due equilibrium these pretensions of the Socialists and the
extreme republicans. He is entitled to the credit of having
ably effected many compromises which the two parties of the
government made with each other to avoid a violent rupture
of that seeming unity which repressed disorder throughout the
country.
Caussidière, who possessed a pliant and refined mind under
a rough and unpolished exterior, inclined, in appearance, to the
policy of the minister of the interior, but he served his friends
less than he made them subservient to his own use, for the
Sake of enhancing his importance. He was a man of action,
in contact with the people, and surrounded by a militia ready
for anything. The consequence was, that his friends could do
nothing without him, and he assumed an independence which
sometimes exposed him to suspicion and rendered him always
redoubtable. The party of the National was in hostility to
Caussidière. That party believed the prefect of police to be
the Satellite of the minister of the interior, and his agent
against them.
Lamartine had understood at a glance how immensely
useful Caussidière might be in aiding the re-establishment of
order, and he perceived that it would be very desirable to
augment his importance in the eyes of more dangerous enemies.
He showed Caussidière that he reposed confidence in him, and
urged him to apply to government for more extensive police
powers and larger funds. In the council Lamartine took the
lead in the questions relating to armed municipal corps,
republican guards, and watchmen of Paris under the im–
mediate orders of the prefect of police. He conversed con-
fidentially and frankly with Caussidière respecting general
346 CAUSSIDIłRE.
policy, internal and external. He did not in the least degree
disguise from himself the complex position or the ambition of
Caussidière ; but he could discern probity under his ambition,
and good faith under his finesse. Caussidière had a heart,
and that heart was honest and generous. If his opinions were
not to be trusted, his principles, at least, might be implicitly
relied on. He might dream of great revolutionary changes,
but never of criminal acts. He was a man of conflict, but
not of anarchy. He was anxious to see the results of the
victory promptly established on a footing of order; to retain
the confidence of the friends who had conspired and fought
with him; to win the esteem of the conquered and the grati-
tude of Paris; to legitimize his conquest, and to transform the
conspirator into a magistrate. Caussidière loved the people,
but he did not flatter their excesses, not even in his
dreams.
Lamartine frequently pointed out to him the danger of the
communist propagandism of his friends at the Luxembourg,
and the necessity of restraining his theories of social change
within the limits of institutions for assisting, instructing, pro-
viding work for, and bettering the condition of, the proletaries.
Caussidière was entirely of this opinion. “I feel,” said he,
in a tone of contempt, as it were sullied by meddling with
this Socialism, “I am for order, fraternity, and progress, but
not for chimeras l’’
He powerfully aided Lamartine in restraining the Polish,
German, Belgian, and Italian refugees, who were labouring
to draw the republic into wars of aggression in furtherance of
the interests of foreign factions. At first these schemes seemed
to be, if not secretly favoured, at least tolerated by men
closely connected with the government. Lamartine pointed
out to Caussidière the danger of these attempts, which might
raise up the hostility of Europe against the republic, and cause
the renewal of a coalition. He sought to convince him that a
more upright line of policy, and one marked by greater talent
as well as by more honesty, would render such a coalition
impossible.
A lady, exceptionable by the style she has assumed, and a
favourite orator (Madame Sand, and M. Jules Favre), lent the
assistance of their talents to support the policy of the minister
of the interior.
MADAME SAND. 347
On hearing the first intelligence of the revolution, Madame
Sand had hastened to Paris, and had seen Lamartine. The
minister for foreign affairs sought to gain over to his views
thatgenius, masculine in its form, but feminine in the mutability
of its convictions. He had had an interview of several hours
with Madame Sand, at a crisis when the popular storm could
only be quelled by the direction of the winds which might
be made to blow over the waves. He had convinced Madame
Sand that the safety of the new institutions could be secured
only by the prompt, energetic, and complete repudiation of
those excesses and crimes which had dishonoured and ruined
the first revolution. He conjured her to devote the talent with
which God had endowed her to the cause of order and the
moralization of the people. Madame Sand promised to do so,
in that tone of impassioned enthusiasm which reveals the
sincerity of conviction. She expressed a wish to go only
for a few days to Berri, for the purpose of arranging her
affairs, and, on her return, she was to become the editor of a -
popular journal, which would disseminate in the minds of the
masses the principles of peace, discipline, and fraternity, and
which her pen and her name would invest with the influence
of her brilliant popularity. -
Madame Sand departed from Paris with this intention : on
her return, her old predilections in favour of the dangerous
theories of Socialism drew her, through the medium of Louis
Blanc, into a vortex of opposite politics. Lamartine learned
that she was editing, at the office of the minister of the
interior, an official paper entitled Le Bulletin de la Répub-
lique. This paper, imbued with the inflammatory inspiration
of the Communists, revived by its language terrible recollec-
tions of the first republic. In some persons this paper ex-
cited a frenzy of rage and impatience; others it filled with
terror.
The majority of the council, being informed of the exist-
ence of the Bulletin, lamented this misapplication of high
talent, which had the effect of placing under the responsi-
bility of the government language and doctrines in direct
opposition to its sentinents. The minister of the interior
himself had not leisure to exercise a supervision over this.
publication, though it emanated from his office, and conse-
quently he did not forbid its mischievous exaggerations. It
$%
348 - THE APPROACHING ELECTIONS.
was determined that no more of these Bulletins should be
sent to the departments, without being previously examined
by one of the members of the government. This examina-
tion was assigned to one or the other on different days of the
week; but the numberless details of business which pressed
upon them, and the urgent circumstances which every suc-
ceeding day brought forth, frequently caused the duty to be
neglected. By dint of this negligence some numbers of the
Bulletin were suffered to escape unexamined, whereby false-
hoods and incendiary opinions were conveyed to the depart-
ments. Some commissioners very prudently took upon them-
selves to interdict in the communes, not only the Bulletin
itself, but also the announcements of its publication.
Meanwhile Paris, though stirring, was calm. The govern-
ment had convoked all France to the elections, which were
fixed for the 24th of April. That date afforded the interval
of time strictly necessary for the operations of the mechanism
of universal suffrage.
The anticipation of this grand installation of the sove-
reignty of the people appeased the minds of the great bulk
of the public. To some, however, it was tantalizing. Two
months of revolution and dictatorship, yet to come, seemed
like two centuries. In the ultra-revolutionary party it was
hoped that these two months, agitated by events, by various
factions, by threats of war abroad, and by trouble and
misery at home, would prevent the government from real-
izing this great act. Between the time then present and the
24th of April, a thousand gulfs were perceived, into which
the government might be hurled, before the arrival of the
day fixed for vesting authority in the hands of the nation.
B O O K XI.
THE moderate party of the government (and at that time
it was very nearly unanimous) looked forward hopefully to
the moment when the nation, calling up from her own bosom
all her rights and all her strength, should herself come to her
own aid, and take the control of her own revolution. The
anarchical and terrorist party abroad anticipated with dismay
©
TEIE CLUBS, 349
the hour which would take from them all chance of prolong-
ing their reign, and of realizing their hopes of subversion.
During the first days of the revolution, that party having
been put down by the defeat it sustained at the Hôtel de
Ville, and by the unanimous enthusiasm in favour of order
and moderation, was now endeavouring to pervert the re-
public in the clubs.
These clubs are revolutionary institutions, or rather revolu-
tionary results. They are merely tumultuous assemblages
of men regularly and periodically brought together: the
mobs of the Place Publique concentrated in areas more con-
fined, but animated by the same passions, agitated by the
same storms. But there is one danger connected with
clubs which does not attend out-door mobs:–they are ani-
mated by sectarian spirit, and they are ruled by the com-
bined discipline of parties. As soon as order was restored in
the streets, through the spontaneous good-feeling of the
people, and the intelligence and vigilance of the rising au-
thority, clubs began to be formed in all quarters of Paris.
The government could not oppose their establishment without
falsifying its own nature, and disavowing the position of
France. The clubs, at that juncture, were but the dominant
voices of public opinion,-the deliberate assemblies of the
revolution.
Some persons, alarmed at the supposed analogy between
these assemblages and the meetings of the Jacobins, regarded
the republic as lost, and the government coerced from the
day when the first clubs were established. Others were sensi-
ble of the difference between a single revolutionary club (like
that of the Jacobins, affiliating to itself all the intelligence of
a revolution, and even ruling the Convention), and a multi-
tude of clubs, animated by various views, differing in their
objects and theories, forming opposition and counterpoise the
one to the other, already depopularized in the opinion of the
citizens by the sinister recollections of 1793, and presenting
to an able and firm government points of support and points
of resistance against the dangerous unity of a single faction.
Accordingly, the members of the provisional government did
not conceive the alarm with which it was sought to inspire
them. “I should tremble,” observed Lamartine to the
alarmists, “if there were only one Jacobin club, and I
350 THE CLUBS.
should not endeavour even to struggle against Such an assem-
blage otherwise than by the insurrection of the departments.
I would resign to it the victory and the supremacy. But
with numerous clubs, all free, unprivileged and unconstrained,
I fear nothing Save confused and isolated attempts, to oppose
which, public feeling will aid us, and even the clubs them-
selves will support us against the clubs. Let them call upon
me! I am ready to present myself to them as Dumouriez
did in 1792, and I will join in the discussions which their
orators may bring forward.”
Accordingly, Lamartine himself aided well-disposed citizens
in hiring halls and establishing committees, with the view of
founding in various quarters of Paris well-managed clubs,
which would afford occupation for those evening hours of
idleness so dangerous to the mass of the people, and which
would lead the public mind in the direction of his policy. He
also entered indirectly into relation with the more turbulent
and ill-inspired clubs, for the purpose of watching over their
explosions, and causing incendiary motions to be refuted by
orators whose speeches were calculated to neutralize sedition.
With the exception of some few infuriated men, who from
time to time demanded, at the club of the Palais National,
that Lamartine should be impeached and brought to the scaf-
fold, and who were in consequence hooted and driven from the
tribune, the spirit of the clubs was excellent, and in general
they exercised a wholesome influence. The weight of public
good sense pressed upon ill-disposed citizens, and the well-
disposed were fortified by the consciousness of unanimity. The
mayor of Paris had placed provisionally at the disposal of the
clubs several large public rooms and theatres for the purpose
of facilitating their meetings. The majority of the clubs was,
by this means, in harmony with the government itself, and
they propagated among the multitude the spirit of order,
patriotism, free discussion, and conciliation. One circum-
stance imparted a novel and characteristic feature to these
clubs.
The government had thrown open the dungeons in which
some precursors of the republic, found guilty of plots and
attempts to subvert the monarchy, had languished during
several years in captivity. Two of these first champions in
the cause of democracy had just been liberated. These were
THE SISTER OF BARBăs. 351
Blanqui and Barbès. Lamartine did not know Blanqui; he
had become acquainted with Barbès in the following manner.
Barbès had been condemned to death by the Court of
Peers under the late government. At four o'clock on the
morning of the day appointed for his execution, a young lady
called at the house of Lamartine, and requested to see him.
Lamartine immediately rose and went to her. The young
lady, in tears, threw herself at his feet, informed him that
she was the sister of Barbès, and implored him to save her
brother. Lamartine had no connection with the court, but he
recollected that he had once enjoyed the acquaintance of .
M. de Montalivet, the minister and friend of the king. He
hastened to him. M. Montalivet possessed a generous heart,
whose noble impulses were not less quickly aroused than his
courage. He was then very ill; but, without considering
his health or calculating his strength, he rose from his bed,
and ordered his carriage to be got ready to convey him to
Neuilly. The king, whose feelings in this matter had anti-
cipated those of his minister, spared the life of Barbès.
But, during M. de Montalivet's interview with the king at
Neuilly, the insurrection in Paris had spread. Musketry
was fired in the streets, and the Chamber of Deputies was
surrounded by artillery and troops. On seeing this, Lamar-
time trembled lest the government should order the sentence
to be carried into effect, under the impression that pardon
might seem to be weakness, or might be interpreted as a con-
cession to the insurgents. But his anxiety was soon relieved by
a second message from M. de Montalivet. The king resolved
to spare the shedding of blood, and Barbès was saved. His
sister was waiting to hear his doom in one of the apartments of
the Chamber of Deputies. Lamartine informed her that her
brother's life was spared; she fainted whilst kissing the
hands of the bearer of this intelligence.
Seven years had elapsed since this occurrence, when Lamar-
time, some months prior to the revolution of February, re-
ceived from Barbès two letters which the prisoner had secretly
contrived to forward by eluding the observation of his jailers
at Nimes. In these letters Barbès said to Lamartine, “To
you I am indebted for existence. Next to God, you are my
Saviour. If I should escape from these prison walls, when
the certain triumph of the republic will force an opening
352 LAMARTINE’s ADVICE To BARBăs.
through them, my first visit shall be to the man to whom I
so earnestly long to offer the outpourings of my gratitude;
and I pray that, after having saved me, he may also save my
country.”
Barbès kept his word. On the day after his arrival in
Paris he came and threw himself into the arms of Lamartine.
“Your deliverance,” said the minister for foreign affairs,
“makes me doubly happy. You are free, and it is the re-
public, that government of your predilection, which receives
you in liberty. At this moment you may be useful to the
republic. The people, who are now restrained only by our
words, require to be guided and subdued to moderation. They
will lend ear to you ; you are one of their martyrs. They
will listen to your voice as to that of an oracle. Counsel
them, not with the fury of a combatant, but with the gene-
rosity of a conqueror, and with the coolness of a statesman.
The republic is exposed to no dangers, Save such as may arise
out of its own excesses. Show as much heroism in restraining
republicanism as you have manifested impatience and courage
in promoting it. Ideas can be moulded into government only
on condition of their being restricted within the limits of order
and moderation. Forget the traditions of the first republic,
and help us to found one which may be unsullied either by
anarchy or scaffolds, in which the grievances of all may be
merged in the rights of all.”
Such were the words of Lamartine. Barbès listened to
them with every appearance of acquiescence, in heart and
mind, “Your ideas,” replied Barbès, “are identical with
those I have matured in my own mind during my captivity,
and which constitute my political faith. I will not employ
the influence which my fame as a victim may give me over
the people, except in the way you have suggested. But I
have been for years a stranger to the political world. I was
young when I was thrown into captivity, and now I have no
knowledge either of men or things. Will you permit me to
consult you from time to time? You may help me to regain
the right path, if my ignorance of affairs should cause me in-
voluntarily to Swerve from it.”
Lamartine promised that he would open to him his heart
whenever he might desire it. He recommended him not to
connect himself with those who confounded democracy with
demagoguism, or who sought to improve the Social condition
BARBīs MADE COLONEL. 353
of the proletaries by the subversion of property; property
being the common foundation which supports all, and without
it proprietors as well as proletaries would be hurled together
into one common gulf of destruction.
Tamartine found in Barbès the instinct of an exalted mind
and an honest heart, combined with the disposition to promote
conciliation and moderate views among the people. This
disposition was maintained for some time, and it would have
been permanent, but that Barbès was speedily drawn into
another focus of political opinion. He again imbibed his old
doctrines relative to the radical levelling of conditions and
fortunes, that eternal illusion of the zealots of the absolute
equality of wealth, from the ages of the early Christians and
the Gracchi, down to the time of Babeuf and Marat. These
doctrines inculcate virtue in principle, and fraternity in insti-
tutions, but they tend to madness and crime in revolutionary
realization.
Barbès was shortly afterwards made colonel of the 12th
arrondissement of Paris. He founded a club which took his
name, and in which the doctrines of socialism were mingled
with the energy of republicanism. The name of Barbès
sounded in the ears of the people like the tocsin against
monarchy and the bourgeoisie. Barbès was somewhat
taciturn, and when he spoke, it was not with any brilliancy of
effect. He was a Spartacus liberated from the dungeon. He
was like the statue of the revengeful slave, handsome, but
marked by chains, and devoured by the unextinguishable
flame of revolutions.
Barbès, when in conversation with Lamartine, several times
spoke in a tone of bitterness of another man, who had been
his rival in conspiracy and captivity, who, by a coincidence
of chances, had, like himself, been liberated, and who had
become an object of suspicion to his associates. This man
was Blanqui.
Whilst Lamartine was still permanently located in the
Hôtel de Ville, an unknown hand, disposed to favour certain
compromised men, Surreptitiously removed some Secret docuſ
ments which had been deposited in the ministerial portfoliq
Among the papers there was a disclosure to which no sig
ture was attached, and addressed to the king's governmen;
relation to the plots of the Secret Societies. This disc









2 A s
354 BLANQUI AN OBJECT OF SUSPICION.
was evidently the work of an intelligent leader of these so-
cieties. It had been imprudently shown to Some one who
gave it publicity, and a half-suppressed murmur of indig-
nation had immediately accused Blanqui.
Blanqui had just then opened a club, where he delivered
speeches marked by talent, and as yet restrained within the
bounds of moderation. In this club, over which he presided
with the active genius of conspiracy, he gained fame and
popularity, and enlisted in his own cause a phalanx of extreme
Opinions.
Rumours of the accusation above alluded to threw a cloud
of doubt and suspicion over Blanqui. It deprived his name
of the influence that had hitherto belonged to it, and detached
from his club the crowds who had been accustomed to attend
it. His old associates, and especially Barbès, called upon
him for explanation. They tried and condemned him before
the tribunal of republican opinion. Blanqui, like a man
contaminated by suspicion, withdrew from his club for a few
days, prepared a written defence of his conduct, and circulated
it through Paris.
This defence, though it did not entirely exculpate him from
having made some vague disclosures (relative to things,
though not to persons), nevertheless so far cleared him, that
he was enabled to resume his post and his influence in a club
composed of his own partisans. His reappearance in his
club was hailed as a triumph. The cloud which had tempo-
rarily hung over him urged him to make a point of ex-
aggerating his republicanism, and to indulge with greater
force and vehemence his passion for public speaking. His
club became the focus of demagoguic extravagance and fury.
However, as this violence was vented merely in flourishes
of words, and in reminiscences which bore no real reference to
the actual state of the people, the revolution, or the time
present, the frequenters of the club attended it as they
would have visited a theatre, to see the events of a by-gone
age represented or parodied by actors, clad in antiquated
jostume. The fact was, that individuals belonging to the
\istocracy and the bourgeoisie, who were insulted and menaced
"... the orators of this club, attended the meetings from
ºves of curiosity, and to hear, as it were, from a distance
without danger, the ravings of Babeuf and Marat.







ECCENTRIC HABITS OF BLANQUI. 355
Blanqui himself was pleased by the alarm his name created,
and he made a display of fury which he did not really feel.
He, however, showed no disposition to diffuse that fury among
the multitude, and he even adroitly flattered by looks and
gestures those whom his tongue menaced. He was a tribune;
but one who seemed to have more policy than sincerity. In
tact, in intelligence, and in that quality which may be termed
popular diplomacy, he was Superior to all the agitators of the
moment. He disconcerted his associates by going beyond
them ; whilst he was incessantly challenging them to go
beyond him. - -
Whenever Blanqui left his club, he withdrew into solitude.
He took no part either in the acts of the government or of the
multitude. He lived in some poor and obscure place, and his
dwelling was known only to a few of his friends and fol-
lowers, among whom were Lacambre and Flotte. He never
showed himself but at night, when he was miserably dressed,
and sought to excite the interest of the populace by ex-
hibiting in his own person a specimen of proletarian wretched-
ness. Though not gifted with eloquence, yet he was an
impressive and able speaker, and his speeches always em-
braced a plan and an object, means and an end. Blanqui's
club was not a mere vain echo of tumultuous passions, like
the other anti-social clubs. It was a revolutionary instru-
ment, the keys of which were touched by his hands for the
purpose of exciting and directing the passions of the masses.
But such was at that time the ascendancy of right feeling
and general intelligence, that Blanqui's club gave little in-
quietude or alarm to the reflecting members of the govern-
ment. Indeed, the harangues delivered in that assembly,
disgraceful as they were, may be said to have been ser-
viceable rather than injurious to the regular republic. The
persons who figured in that club were like the inebriated
helot who was exhibited to the Spartans to disgust them
from the vice of drunkenness.
Raspail, who was less of a politician but more of a secta-
rian than Blanqui, exercised, through the influence of his
name, his journal, and his club, an ascendancy more moderate
but more direct over the faubourgs. Fifteen or twenty thou-
sand men from those districts, which might be called the
Mount Aventinus of Paris, attended the sittings of Raspail.
2 A 2
356 CABET's SYSTEM.
He was personally beloved by his followers, and his word
was their law. He professed and preached Communism to a
certain extent, but his was the Communism of Sentiment
rather than of subversion, and it was impressed with an
inoffensive philosophy and a practical charity, which sought
to attain equality by voluntary levelling, and not by violent
expropriation. He worked on the minds of the people by
exciting their hopes, and not by rousing their hatred against
the rich and the happy. His social philosophy did not vent
itself in imprecations against Society, and still less against
government. He preached patience, order, and peace; but
his grand mistake was to promise more than the republic
could accomplish. His vague and golden theories were like
clouds which present to the fancy a thousand perspective
images, but which can only be viewed from a distance, and
never reached.
Cabet, the founder of another sect, had opened, in the very
centre of Paris, in the rue Saint Honoré, a club in which he
ruled seven or eight thousand individuals. He was the poet
of Communism, and he had dreamed of a chimerical Sallen-
timus, to which he gave the name of Icaria. Here, all
inequality, all indigence, all asperities, even those of labour,
were to vanish in a fantastic organization, the elements of
which were but incoherent hypotheses, suggested by an
imagination not very rich even in idealities.
Cabet was the son of an artisan at Dijon, and he had been
educated with the view of obtaining an appointment in the
magistracy. In 1830 he was elected a deputy to represent
his native town; but his political career was checked in 1834,
when he was expelled from the chamber and proscribed.
After having passed his term of banishment in Belgium, he
returned to Paris, where he now threw himself into the pro-
letarian ranks, whence he had originally sprung, and in which
he fixed his central point of thought and action. The most
distressed and ignorant portion of the working people of
Paris were attached to his doctrines. Delusion is at once
the consequence and the consolation of extreme suffering.
Cabet was the philosopher and the high priest of the religion
of social comfort, but that was a religion without a God. The
whole system consisted in the satisfaction of the mere mate-
rial instincts, mechanically combined in an order inverse to
LAMARTINE’s OPINION OF IT. 357
every known social order. It was the worship of alimentary
life; not indeed a sanguinary, but a sensual worship—a.
religion in which mind as well as a deity was wanting.
Prior to the revolution of February, Cabet had frequently
entered into conversation with Lamartine on the subject of
his Utopia. Lamartine did not give him any encouragement.
He expressed his conviction that the soil of France would of
itself rise up in rebellion against any such chimerical experi-
ment; and he predicted that Communism would be buried
in the furrows made by its own ploughshares, on the first
piece of land it might venture to usurp. He recommended
Cabet not to await the day when insurrection would rise up
against impossibility; and he told him that the only field on
which he could attempt to carry his theory into practice
would be a regular and legal colonization of clearance in the
forests of the New World.
“You would there commence,” pursued Lamartine, “with
an association of planters, protected by a proprietary civi-
lization which would defend you against your own anarchy, as
it defends the Quakers. Property will introduce itself into
your agricultural colony, and if chimeras may have deceived
you, the earth at least will feed your unfortunate secta-
rians !”
Cabet seized this idea, and he accordingly determined to
transplant his system to America, where he solicited a con-
cession from the government. However, whilst he was yet
in Paris, the revolution broke out, and the republic was
established. His followers flattered themselves that they
would see their association realized on the soil of France; and
whilst Cabet himself fed their hopes, he kept them within the
bounds of order, and of respect for persons and property.
Far from preaching insurrection to his adepts, he preached
patience, and pictured the horrors of anarchy. By this
means, it has been said, he hoped to gain, through his
ascendancy over that portion of the people, the share of
popular dictatorship which a revolution throws within the
grasp of almost every man.
Other clubs, ruled by men less known, held their nightly
meetings, and kept up agitation in the populous districts of
Paris. The club of the Quinze-Vingts and the club of the
Sorbonne chiefly attracted the attention of the government,
358 FOREIGN AGITATORS IN PARIS.
as they kept up excitement among the most idle, the most
thickly populated, and most irresponsible of the poorer dis-
tricts of the capital. The minister of the interior had
agents who daily reported to him the spirit of these popular
assemblages. Lamartine likewise kept watch upon them. He
neutralized their mischievous tendencies by his tendencies of
a contrary nature, which were openly favoured, and by commu-
nicating to their speakers suggestions calculated to counteract
the views of anarchists, Communists, and foreign agitators.
These foreign agitators gave the government serious alarm.
Paris was rapidly filling with Polish refugees, Belgian con-
spirators, German demagogues, and Italian patriots, all of
whom had been roused to action by the outbreak of a revolu-
tion whence they hoped to kindle a European conflagration,
which would spread over the whole continent. Eight days
after the revolution there were upwards of fifteen thousand of
these persons in Paris. The Italians, the most intelligent
and most naturally political class of these foreigners, caused
no embarrassment to the government. On their part it would
have been unnatural to seek to stir up anarchy in a rising
republic, the birth of which was propitious to their hopes.
That republic, if well directed, was destined to grow great to
their advantage, and to extend over them a Salutary influence,
and a legitimate protection from the summit of the Alps.
But the Belgians were fermenting disturbance. Their
emissaries had been connected by anterior conspiracies with
Some of the secondary men who surrounded the government,
and with these men they now Secretly formed plans for
republican insurrection in Belgium. They hoped to draw
France, in spite of herself, into invasions, which, after having
indirectly kindled a flame in Brussels, would spread it into
the Rhenish provinces. By thus fomenting universal war,
they thought to secure in France the triumph of the war of
demagoguism.
Irishmen, in conjunction with English Chartists, rushed in
numbers to the continent, with the view of stirring up insur-
rectionary plots in France, among the demagogues in the name
of liberty, and among the leaders of the Catholic party in the
name of Catholicism.
The German refugees, from the Rhenish provinces, from
Wurtemberg, Bavaria, and the grand duehy of Baden,
THE POLISH REFUGEES. 359
summoned their countrymen who had been engaged with
them in conspiracies in these various countries. Their in-
tention was to recruit and organize in Strasburg a nucleus
of republican emigration ready to pass the Rhine under
the apparent sanction of the French name, and thus to
engage the republic in a war of propagandism against consti-
tutional Germany. Lastly, there were the Poles, a banished
people, who have adopted the world as their country, and
who carry into every land of their adoption the virtues and
vices of their own great and unfortunate nation. Thus did
heroism, turbulence, and anarchy excite the population of
Paris. France doubtless owed much to brave and ruined
Poland, but it was too much to expect that she should sacri-
fice her policy, or break the peace of the world for that
nation.
The Poles, however, demanded nothing less from the
French government; and not being able to obtain these con-
cessions from the ruling authorities, they endeavoured to
wrest them from the people. During the eighteen years just
elapsed, the French chambers, rather from compulsion than
just conviction, had, on the opening of every session, repeated
the formula of uttering prayers and wishes in behalf of
Poland. The wishes of a great people are but a mockery,
when they are merely words unaccompanied by acts; and it
is evident that France can reach Poland only by the help of
Germany, and in a general revolution of the continent.
Polish committees were now formed in Paris. Many of the
persons composing them were doubtless actuated by generous
sympathy for the exiles of liberty; but others sought only to
turn to their own personal advantage the popularity attached
to the name of Poland.
Encouraged by this support, the Polish refugees fanned the
flame of war in the clubs, and formed unions of their own,
even more incendiary than the French clubs. Some of the
refugees abused hospitality so far as to kindle discord in the
country in which they had found an asylum, and the pecu-
niary aid which France afforded them they employed in agi-
tation, and in the instigation of insurrection and anarchy.
The Secret Polish society, to whose meetings the police con-
trived to gain access, revived in Paris the language and the
traditions of 1793. In these meetings the name of Lamar-
360 POLICY OF SWITZERLAND.
time was nightly consigned to execration, and to the justice of
assassins, as that of the man who resisted most inflexibly the
plots of foreign demagogues against the new republic. These
few first weeks gave birth to the plot and the crime of the
15th of May following.
Another class of Polish refugees followed the patriotic in-
spirations of Prince Czartoriski and other refugee leaders.
The conduct of these men was worthy of the respect they
bore to their cause, and to France. They were content to
look back fondly on their country, hoping to return and die
there for their independence, as Soon as a favourable oppor-
tunity should present itself.
Meanwhile, Europe seemed to be suspended between the
terror inspired by the revolution of Paris, and the hope of pos-
sibly maintaining peace,—a hope which was strengthened by the
manifesto of the provisional government. The American minister
had been the first to recognize the French republic: in so doing
he anticipated the orders of his government; but he felt
warranted in taking that step, by the conformity of insti-
tutions now established between France and America. Swit-
zerland, which the French revolution had fortified by an immense
accession of force against the almost violent pressure of Austria,
showed dispositions less favourable. The minister for foreign
affairs was surprised to see the French republic less cordially
greeted in Berne than it was in Berlin. He could not be
blind to the fact that this coolness of Switzerland, a
nation for which France had manifested such warm interest in
recent legislative discussions, might, perhaps, arise out of the
selfishness of mercantile democracies, who act upon calculation
more than upon feeling. It was evident that Switzerland,
from her geographical position between Germany and Italy,
feared she might be agitated by the contact, and conse-
quently forced to Sacrifice her peace, her treasure, and her
%lood, in the cause of an independence not her own. Tamar-
time, who had been meditating a proximate triple alliance of
republican France, constitutional Italy, and federal Switzer-
land, to support, in case of need, the equilibrium of the north,
was profoundly mortified by the attitude of Switzerland, and
concerned for her liberty. Switzerland, however, was not
chargeable with any act of disaffection towards France, and
she officially recognized the republic.
RECOGNITION OF THE REPUBLIC BY FOREIGN STATES. 361
Couriers, successively arriving from all parts of Europe,
brought intelligence that the manifesto had been everywhere
received as the basis of an undisputed line of policy, and as
the type of the character which the new French republic
desired to maintain in the world. The foreign ambassa-
dors and ministers received orders from their respective
governments to continue to reside in Paris, and to maintain
official and cordial relations with the republican minister for
foreign affairs. These relations, which circumstances multi-
plied, gave occasion to frequent communications between the
ambassadors and Lamartine. Conversations, in which the
minister manifested without any reservation the decidedly
republican, but sincerely inoffensive views of the French
government, contributed powerfully to the maintenance of
peace, in the absence of those diplomatic notes which the
Suspension of official relations rendered impracticable. The
office of Foreign Affairs became a permanent and preparatory
congress; a direct medium of communication with all the
different courts to which the ambassadors submitted the words
and views interchanged between themselves and the minister
of the republic. These verbal negotiations between men who,
in mutual conversation, openly expressed their opinions on the
very theatre of events, advanced affairs with more rapidity
than could have been effected by years of negotiation. There
is a heart in words which cannot be communicated to paper;
and heart is something even in negotiating the great interests
of empires.
As soon as the minister for foreign affairs felt that he could
be confident of the favourable disposition of the continental
governments, he nominated the ambassadors and ministers of
the republic. M. d’Harcourt, formerly a peer of France, a
man whose personal dignity was equal to his high name, was
appointed ambassador to Rome. This choice, though savour-
ing strongly of liberalism, had in it nothing of a revolutionary
character. It announced to the old French aristocracy, to
the religious portion of the French people, and to the sove-
reign pontiff, that the republic was desirous of treating the
spiritual chief of Catholicism with the respect due to the
representative of a vast portion of religious conscience. The
pope, on his part, gave assurance, through the medium of his
minister in Paris, that he made no exception to the govern-
362 THE POPE AND THE REPUBLIC.
ment. His words were benedictions, not anathemas. The
French government replied frankly to these overtures, avow-
ing to the pope, that the tendency of the republic was to break
off the connection existing in a greater or less degree between
affairs temporal and spiritual; to suppress state interference
in the direction and in the pay of religion. At the same
time assurance was given that the republic, eminently religious
in spirit, would effect this great and necessary change only
after providing for the existence of the ministers of religion, in
the service of churches and private individuals, and by organ-
izing the free association of the faithful for their own religious
wants. This change of state payment into voluntary payment,
made by persons associated for their own religious worship,
would operate only to the extinction of the ministers of the
different communions. Piety would gain in purity; indivi-
dual faith would gain in liberty, and conscientious feeling
would gain in dignity and respect. This was the key-stone
of the revolution; for the regular emancipation of religious
worship is the liberty of God in the soul. Rome and the
superior individuals among the clergy, appeared to be in no
way alarmed by these avowals, or by the philosophic ten-
dency of the new republic. On the contrary, they beheld in
them safety, dignity, and increase of power, of that power
which it is fitting should be exercised over the heart in the
empire of religious sentiment.
The minister for foreign affairs spoke in the same tone to
the archbishop of Paris, a truly pious man, and one capable
of comprehending a higher destiny for his church than that
of being the paid instrument of governments, now their
tyrant, now their slave.
General Aupick was appointed to the embassy at Constan-
tinople. He had been long attached to the royal family;
nevertheless the members of the government, and the minister
of the interior himself, selected him with full confidence as
the representative of the republic, at one of the most import-
ant points of foreign diplomacy. Every one knew that
General Aupick’s first allegiance was to his country. High
military capacity, combined with a reflective mind and accu-
rate judgment, marked him out as a man well fitted for a post
where the diplomatic interests of the whole world might
clash together. General Aupick’s aptitude alone was con-
THE BRITISH CABINET, 363
sidered, his conscientious honesty of purpose could admit of no
doubt. -
To London only a chargé-d'affaires was in the first in-
stance sent, with the view of obviating, by the absence of an
agent of a higher order, any opportunity of misunderstanding
between two great governments, each of which cherished a
desire for mutual agreement, for the sake of maintaining
the peace of the world, and between which chicanery might
have excited irritation and disagreement. Subsequently
Lamartine sent M. Tallenay to London. M. Tallenay, who
had filled the post of French minister at Hamburg, belonged
to the old school of diplomacy. He was a man of frank,
conciliatory, and easy manners; well fitted for maintaining
confidential conversations with monarchical statesmen, and
quietly preparing the way for official negotiation, whenever
the recognition of the republic should afford opportunity for
the free exercise of his powers.
But the daily conversations of the English ambassador,
Lord Normanby, with the minister for foreign affairs, and the
unreserved cordiality of their relations, rendered the post of
French ambassador in London a superfluity. Lord Palmer-
ston and the English cabinet seemed to have understood with
singular Sagacity the pacific, moderate, and civilizing charac-
ter of the republic, directed in a spirit of respect and invio-
lability towards the institutions of foreign countries. A
contrary attitude on the part of the English government
would have revived that anti-Britannic prejudice which
Lamartine, like Mirabeau, Lafayette, and Talleyrand, was
most anxious to annihilate in France. England, by accepting
the fraternity which was offered with dignity by the repub-
lic, merited the gratitude of mankind. The administration of
Lord Palmerston will gather the fruits of that gratitude in
history. The minister of the republic was perfectly aware
that no serious coalition against France was possible on the
continent without the concurrence and the pay of England.
He would not, for any consideration, furnish the English
aristocracy with a pretext for forcing the English cabinet
into a crusade against the republic. To gain time was in his
estimation to gain blood and strength for France. If at some
future period dissension and war might arise, he was anxious
that France should be in a right position to meet those dis-
364 REVOLUTIONARY DESIGNS ON BELGIUM.
asters, and that the republic should be armed. Such was
not then the case. A coalition at that time would have
taken France unawares, and might possibly have over-
whelmed her.
This was one of the motives which induced the minister of
the republic to resist with inflexible determination the idea of
revolutionizing Belgium by the rash and traitorous enter-
prizes attempted on the frontier, which enterprizes the minis-
ter was continually reproached for checking. He had
repudiated all contact with the Belgian republicans, who
came to Paris to concert schemes with the French republicans
of the old School. He had despatched to Brussels several
confidential agents, with instructions to observe the real state
of public opinion, and to check rather than to excite the
demagoguic feeling in the Belgian capital. The principal
agent was a man of energetic spirit, but he was not suffi-
ciently well versed in European diplomacy. The minister
recalled him without delay, and sent in his stead a man of
experience and prudence, M. Bellocq, an old diplomatist,
well practised in the tact demanded in difficult political
emergencies. f
That the republican government should feel any uneasiness
in having in Brussels a king, connected by the ties of blood
with the fallen dynasty of France, was a susceptibility un-
worthy of the republic. A revolution in Belgium, and the
annexation of that country to France at this time, would
have been a premature and impolitic declaration of war
against England. Such an event must have had the effect
of immediately breaking up the liberal English ministry, and
of throwing England into the coalition. France would have
been rendered neither stronger nor weaker by the annexation
of Belgium ; but that nation remaining inviolate, secured to
the republic the passiveness of England, the silence of Ger-
many, and the respect of the world.
The minister watched, with a vigilant eye, the plots
hatched in Paris for prematurely effecting the union of
France and Belgium. In his conversations with the prince
de Ligne, Lamartine gave assurances of his prudence and
good faith, and the ambassador from the king of the Belgians
manifested the utmost confidence in the minister for foreign
affairs. This mutual good understanding powerfully con-
INDECISION OF SWITZERLAND. 365
tributed to check designs of propagandism, injurious to both
nations, to European peace, and to the republic itself.
M. de Lurde, who was appointed ambassador to Holland,
was well acquainted with the diplomacy of the North, and
he understood the twofold influences which, from St. Peters-
burg and London, were at work in the court of the
Hague.
To Berne M. de Thiard was sent. He was a man of
aristocratic family, enlarged mind, and shrewd observation.
Since the close of the emigration and the fall of the empire,
he had been devoted to the party of the Liberal opposition.
The veterans of that party, who were writers for Le
National, considered an embassy offered to M. Thiard as a
pledge granted to their opinions. The minister for foreign
affairs regarded M. Thiard as a man well fitted to maintain
the republican but anti-demagoguic line of diplomacy, which
he was desirous should be carried out. He recommended the
observance of the utmost delicacy and caution with respect to
Switzerland, in order to win that power to cordiality, as the
first step towards alliance. He did not succeed so well as he
could have wished, either because the ambassador did not
make the disposition of France sufficiently manifest, or be-
cause Switzerland was afraid of compromising herself with a .
republic which, as yet, numbered only days of existence.
This was unfortunate for both nations, and still more un-
fortunate for Italy. The views of the minister for foreign
affairs tended towards a system of pacific league. That
system was checked by the coldness of Switzerland, com-
promised by the battles of Goito and Novare. But it is in the
nature of things that it should revive under governments more
intelligent and better understood. Switzerland will repent of
her wavering and delays. -
M. Bixio was sent as chargé-d'affaires to Turin. The un-
certainty of the relations between the French republic and
the court of Turin, which had hitherto been under the in-
fluence of Sacerdotal and absolutist principles, did not admit
of an ambassador or minister being sent thither.
M. Bixio elevated his functions to the level of his own
intelligence and patriotism. He was unpractised in diplo-
matic affairs, but the ability he evinced proved that diplo-
matic talent is innate, and not acquired. His mission was a
366 PIEDMONT AND LOMIBARE).Y.,
delicate one, precisely because it was to be discharged in a
spirit of good faith. His task was to inspire the court
of Turin with dispositions favourable to France, and to re-
frain from throwing out even the slightest hint that might have
the effect of instigating war with Austria—a war in which
Turin was likely to become involved through her own rash
ambition. The French chargé d'affaires was instructed to
impart confidence and authority to the constitutional and
Tiberal party in Italy, but without flattering and exciting the
republicans, whose movements were premature and ruinous,
to the emancipation of Italy.
Unforeseen chances, and the contradictory fortunes of Pied-
mont and Lombardy, put the tact of the young diplomatist to
a severe test. He did not commit a single fault in a situation
in which more experienced negotiators might readily have
erred. France could fairly say that not a drop of Italian
blood stained the hands of her diplomacy in Piedmont and
Lombardy. Italy received no counsel for which she could
justly reproach France. M. Bixio, who was of Italian de-
scent, was a Frenchman at heart; and he was alike imbued
with the Sentiments of his native land and of his adopted
country. The minister was about to raise him to higher
functions, just at the moment when the National Assembly
opened, and M. Bixio wished to have a seat in the assembly.
During the turbulent days of June, he fought with the
courage of an advance-guard soldier; and he shed his blood
unsparingly for the republic. After the election of the presi-
dent, M. Bixio filled a post in the ministry, which, however,
he resigned after a few days, through some susceptible feeling
of honour imperfectly explained. He gave decided proofs of
his ability for diplomatic negotiation—a department in which
his talents ought to be again employed.
M. de Boissy had been appointed minister to Florence.
He was an experienced diplomatist and well acquainted with
Tuscany. His wife, a native of Ravenna, was distinguished
for beauty and enthusiastic patriotism. Her name alone was
a passport to negotiation with the high liberalism of Central
Italy. She was united in literary friendship with all the
illustrious patriots of the Roman states, Pisa, Venice, and
Florence. M. de Boissy, a bold and decided man, had reso-
lutely adopted the republic ; and whilst in Paris, he had
THE GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY. 367
evinced great personal courage in defending it against the
encroachments of demagoguism. His splendid position and
aristocratic name would have enabled him to render good
Service to the republic abroad. However, he did not depart
for his post in Florence, but preferred becoming a member of
the National Assembly ; being more desirous to mount a
tribune than to figure in a court. The appointment of envoy
to the grand duke of Tuscany was therefore transferred to M.
Benoit Champy, who was the ally of M. de Lammenais, and
was patronized by that illustrious and popular man. The
choice of M. Benoit Champy was a most happy one. He
was a man worthy to be sent to the enlightened and liberal
prince, who was preparing to make Tuscany a republic, or
rather a national family by the help of free and mild govern-
ment. M. Benoit Champy caused the French republic to be
favourably regarded even by that very prince who, by the
rebound of the Paris revolution, has since been expelled from
his dominions. Had the advice of M. Benoit Champy been
more energetically followed, Tuscany might have been spared
that disaster, and Saved from the reaction which arose against
Central Italy.
For the court of Madrid, it was exceedingly difficult to
Select a French envoy suited to the post. General Narvaez,
a man very superior to the mere soldier-like renown for which
he is distinguished in the eyes of foreigners, was to Spain a
Sort of military Richelieu, all-powerful in the second rank. In
a court divided by dissension, and deeply sunk in dissipation,
Narvaez had studied, with sombre anxiety, the character of
the French revolution at its first outbreak. Judging of France
by Spain, he might well imagine that civil war would be the
offspring of the revolution, and that it would select its leaders
from among the princes of the house of Orleans. Anticipating
events in which Spain would have a part to play, through her
family connection with the dynasty of July, Narvaez had ex-
plained himself with sinister ambiguity, and had concentrated
troops in the direction of the Pyrenees. The manifesto of
the provisional government, and the explanations of its minis-
ter with the Spanish chargé-d'affaires in Paris, changed the
views of Narvaez. The intrigues of France and England in
Madrid agitated Spain, and kept the general in continual
alarm for the preservation of his authority. Lamartine, by
368 GENERAL IN A RV AFZ AND M. DE LESSEPS.
withdrawing France from these intrigues, and leaving Spain
in possession of her internal independence, tranquillized the
Spanish government, and left to Narvaez no other source of
inquietude than that which related to England. The result
of this policy was such as might have been expected; France
ceased to give umbrage, and was the better liked in propor-
tion as she was the less imposing.
But to maintain this system, it was necessary that the
French envoy at Madrid should not be a man whose ardent
republicanism might render him adverse to the constitution,
and tempt him to stimulate the fermentations of impotent in-
Surrection in Catalonia;-nor one whose high military name
would revive recollections of the war of independence;—nor a
diplomatist of July, who, being lukewarm to the republic,
and influenced by attachment to the house of Orleans, might
have closed his eyes upon plots in favour of dynastic restora-
tion in France—plots which might possibly be hatched in the
palace at Madrid, or in Seville, or wheresoever the duke de
Montpensier might reside. The minister for foreign affairs
found in M. de Lesseps, the French consul-general at Barce-
lona, a man well acquainted with the Spanish character, one
who was agreeable to Narvaez, and who would implicitly
obey the instructions he received. M. de Lesseps was sent
to Madrid, and the consequence was that mutual distrust
yanished, and repugnance gave way to the well-understood
interest of both nations. Never did France and Spain more
completely enter into that amicable feeling which naturally
connects them together, when they are not separated by a
false policy. General Narvaez understood well the spirit of
France, and the favourable sentiments cherished by the
people of both countries towards each other were suffered to
develop themselves freely. The provisional government averted
the necessity of assembling an army on the Pyrenees, and the
country was more securely protected by friendly relations and
reciprocal good faith than by armed legions.
The state of Italy, though not yet perfectly revealed, was
foreseen by the minister of the republic. It was evident that
the situation in which France would be placed in conse-
quence of the affairs of Italy, precluded the possibility of
establishing confidential negotiations with Austria.
M. de Metternich still reigned in Vienna, unconscious of
M. DE METTERNICH. 369
the volcano which was ready to burst beneath his feet. Old
age had not impaired the intelligence of that great minister,
but his strength of character had been enervated by the long
prosperity of the empire. He believed in the eternity of the
Germanic aristocracy, and he trusted to his own genius. He
was happy in his elevated position, and with easy unconcern
he had, for the space of several years, left everything in the
hands of fate. His long course of good fortune was a Snare,
and Lamartine knew it as it were instinctively. During
several previous years an air of decline had been perceptible
in the cabinet of Vienna. Hungary, Gallicia, Poland, Bohe-
mia, Lombardy, Venice, as well as all those members of the
Austrian empire which were but ill-cemented with the body
of the empire itself, appeared to be tending to dissolution.
France, whilst unwilling to exercise any constraint in that
part of the world, was ready to accept whatever advantages
fortune might present.
It was evident that the first differences that might arise
between the French republic and the continent would have
their origin in questions relating to Italy or Switzerland.
In principle, therefore, war existed, though it was not
declared, between Vienna and Paris, or it might be more
properly said, that there prevailed neither war nor peace,
but a state of things which was a combination of both. The
French government did not endeavour by false appearances
to disguise this fact. It neither sought to deceive M. de
Metternich by subterfuges, nor to deceive itself. The dispo-
sition of the republic was frankly avowed to M. d’Apponi,
the Austrian ambassador in Paris. He, with the good faith
and chivalrous feeling which characterized him, declared his
willingness to leave in Vienna a French chargé-d'affaires
beloved by old Germany and by the court; one who would
be content to hear and See, but not to act; for, to act would
have been to deceive. The diplomacy of the republic wished.
not to deceive any one, not even its natural enemy, Austria.
The envoy sent to Naples was less happily chosen. The se–
lection was made to favour the party of the National ; it being.
thought desirable to employ the talents and gratify the ambi-
tion of some individuals of that party. To the Secretary of lega-
tion appointed to the court of Naples, the minister for foreign.
affairs gave instructions in conformity with his idea of Italian.
w
2 B
370 DIPLGMATIC RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA.
federation, an idea no way Subversive of the thrones existing
in Italy. But the chargé-d'affaires wholly departed from the
line traced out for him; and he seemed to have taken his direc-
tions either from the radical propaganda party in Paris, or from
the extreme parties in Naples. He held the language and
assumed the attitude of those envoys of the Convention, whose
mission was to outrage kings and to excite subjects. Admiral
Baudin, who commanded the fleet at Naples, better under-
stood the dignity of the republic; and he repressed, as far as
lay in his power, all violent ebullitions of zeal. The chargé-
d'affaires was recalled, and M. de Bois-le-Comte, a man of
moderation and prudence, was sent in his stead. M. de Bois-
le-Comte had been the fellow-labourer of M. Buchez in the
task of writing the great history of our first revolution.
Since the 24th of February, he had borne the irksome
weight of official details, whilst working in the true spirit of the
new republican diplomacy in the cabinet of the minister for
foreign affairs. He was afterwards sent to Turin.
Lamartine was desirous of maintaining amicable intercourse
between the republic and the cabinet of St. Petersburg. He
felt convinced that there existed between the two powers no
incompatibility save that arising out of the condition of
Poland. That point, the only one on which the two nations
could differ with each other, was not a question of territorial
interest, but one of moral feeling. The first execution of the
treaties of Vienna, together with some liberal institutions
restored by the emperor of Russia to the kingdom of Poland,
Seemed to hold out a prospect that the two governments
might enter into mutual reconciliation with honour and safety
to all parties. But time and consideration were required.
Lamartine would not incur the risk of having his own views
thwarted and the dignity of the republic compromised by
sending envoys to St. Petersburg, who might perhaps be
coolly received there. A secretary of legation, appointed by
the minister of the monarchy, but who had no political mis-
sion, was accordingly left in St. Petersburg. The Russian
minister in Paris was an active, able, and well-disposed inter-
preter of the wishes of the emperor and of France. The cool
intercourse interchanged at intervals between the Russian
and French governments was devoid of any trace of acrimony;
there can be no clashing from Such very remote points, unless .
INFLUENCE OF THE PRUSSIAN CABINET. 371
people are resolved to clash by antipathy and by system.
The emperor of Russia was too just, and the French republic
too wise, to suffer any other feeling than mutual coolness to
exist between them.
But the post to which the minister at that moment attached
the highest importance was Berlin. Then, as in 1791, the
base of the continental equilibrium rested in the Prussian
cabinet. There Russia, England, and Northern Germany
might be said to meet together to dispute the favour of a
powerful military monarchy, and of a public spirit prepon-
derating in the councils of a philosophic king;-that king, a
man of daring and restless genius, ever eager to take the
initiative and to enter dauntlessly on the path of innova-
tion, capable of understanding, risking, and daring anything.
The knot of European peace or war-—of the emancipation
and reconstruction of Germany, of the pacific and partial
regeneration of Poland, was to be unravelled in Berlin.
The first word that the king of Prussia might utter in
reference to the French republic would necessarily influence
the whole continent. No one of the continental powers
would venture to think of war, if the king of Prussia.
desired peace. It will be readily conceived that Lamar-
time, who was so anxious to avert war, devoutly hoped
that the genius of humanity, together with some predispo-
sition in favour of the French republic, would inspire the
king of Prussia to utter the word peace.
He sought for and found theman capable of filling the im-
portant post of envoy at Berlin. Philosophic tendencies,
Germanic science, and the far-sighted diplomacy of the new
French revolution, all were represented at the court of Berlin
by a genius almost universal.
This man, heretofore but little known except in the aristo-
cratic, literary, and Scientific circles, was M. de Circourt, who
had exercised diplomatic functions under the government of
the restoration. The revolution of July threw him into
retirement; and his sentiments of opposition approximated
more nearly to legitimatism than to democracy. During the
years of his seclusion from public affairs, he devoted himself
to studies which would have wholly absorbed the lives of
Some men, but which formed merely the recreation of his.
These studies were directed to geography, history, philosophy,
2 B 2
37.2 Mi, DE CIRCOURT,
travels, together with the constitutions, languages, and reli-
gions of different countries and races of people, from the
infancy of the world to the present time, from Thibet to the
Alps. In the mind of M. Circourt, all this knowledge was
stored up, maturely digested, and readily available. Had he
been asked questions involving the whole range of facts and
ideas comprised in the world, he could have answered them
without the necessity of appealing to any other record than
his memory. His mind was a vast field, an immense depth
of ideas, of which it was impossible to calculate either the
boundaries or the depth ; it was a living map of human
knowledge. M. de Circourt was all intellect, and his intel-
ligence rose to the height of every truth. He was married to
a young Russian lady of aristocratic family and highly culti-
wated mind. Through her he was established on a footing
of friendly intercourse with all the distinguished persons who
figured in the literary circles and in the courts of northern
Germany. He had himself resided in Berlin, where he had
formed acquaintance with the principal Prussian statesmen.
That literary and liberal sovereign, the king of Prussia, had
honoured him with some intimacy when he was at the court
of Berlin. M. de Circourt, without being a republican at
heart, was strongly impressed by the grand perspectives
which a French republic, arising out of the progressive and
pacific genius of young France, might open to mankind.
Accordingly he gave his allegiance to the new government,
and declared his readiness to serve it. Like Lamartine, he
was fully convinced that liberty required peace, and that
the maintenance of peace depended on the cabinets of Berlin
and London.
Lamartine gave to M. Circourt, in writing, his confidential
instructions for the ear of the king of Prussia and his minis-
ters. These instructions were indeed merely framed in the
spirit of that philosophy of peace common to all minds pene-
trated by a ray of divine light, a philosophy which has
become part of a political system, through accordance between
the heart of a king and the spirit of a minister in a great
rising democracy. M. de Circourt was a man capable of
commenting on his instructions, and adapting them both to the
Prussian court and to the events that might occur in Ger–
many. The alliance, tacit at least, between Germany and
THE REVOLUTION IN BERLIN. 373
France; the inviolability of territory; the tendency to moral
unity in Germany, which would remove the small states from
the exclusive influence of Austria; the powerful arbitration
of Prussia between Germanic independence and Russian
repression ; the restitution of a moral portion of constitutional
nationality to the yet living dismemberments of Poland;—
such were the texts indicated in the instructions given to
M. de Circourt.
He departed, and from his post in Berlin he maintained with
the minister for foreign affairs a confidential and voluminous
correspondence relating to the state of the north of Europe.
He never once erred in any of his calculations. He inclined
the heart and the mind of the king of Prussia to all those
ideas of conciliation and equilibrium which were for the true
interest of both states. At the time when disturbances broke
out in Berlin, a revolution in that capital was no longer an
event to be regarded by the French republic as essential for
securing the triumph of the cause of peace and humanity,
which M. de Circourt had been sent to defend. Lamartine
and his envoy in Prussia saw more reason for regret than
for gratulation in a revolution which, by urging the king of
Prussia to go beyond his wishes, might possibly in the end
drive him into the arms of Russia.
B O O K XII.
WHILST these negotiations, together with information given
privately, but in a way consistently with good faith, pre-
pared and threw light on the European ground, whereon the
republic desired to take her stand without violating foreign
nationalities;–whilst republican diplomacy held the world in
suspense, and thus gained time to enable France to rally and
defend herself, Paris continued to live on enthusiasm, and on
the almost unanimous hopes of her revolution. The repub-
lic had no enemies, and but few were distrustful of its per-
manency. Those who, at the first moment, had been alarmed
at its very name, were now amazed by its magnanimity, its
calmness, and its harmony. The first programmes of the
government, the spontaneous respect of the people for a ruling
374 PEACEFUL ORGANIZATION OF THE REPUBLIC.
authority (which was the offspring of chance), the patience of
the labouring people, the charity of the rich, the Serenity of all,
diffused a cloudless light over the first weeks of the republic.
The unfortunate waited hopefully; the happy enjoyed their
Security; opinions, the most adverse, became reconciled on
the wide field of liberty, that common and secure refuge,
open to all. Individuals who had been hurled from power,
and who were yet stunned by their fall, were grateful to the
government for its interdiction of all recriminations and pro-
Scriptions, and for inviting them to the free and full exercise
of their political rights.
The departments organized themselves peacefully into
patriotic committees, with the view of selecting, earnestly,
and in mutual accordance, not mere party men, but the best
citizens of every profession; in short, the men best qualified
to unite and consolidate the different parties of the republic
in a national assembly. Those who are most Sceptical re-
specting the advantages of liberty need only turn their eyes
to the picture of those two months of concord and hearty joy,
to be convinced of the all-powerful influence which generous
Sentiments and the amnesty of opinion exercise on a
people. With the exception of Some furious declamation,
vented here and there, in incendiary clubs, and which the
government suffered to evaporate in general indifference
and public contempt, no insult was offered by one citizen to
another ; there were no contests on matters of opinion, and
nothing to call for violent measures of repression, either in
Paris or in the country at large. Thirty-six millions of im-
passioned minds, at the bidding of a few men, passed without
disorder from one form of government to another. The scaf-
fold was abolished; prisons were opened only to receive
malefactors; laws were respected; even laws of taxation
were implicitly obeyed by a suffering people. Honour and
conscience Superseded law, and the spirit of conquest was
repudiated. War, that natural allurement to French genius,
was repressed by the hand of philosophy. The inspiration
of God throughout a nation was seen and felt.
This state of things would have continued indefinitely, had
not the inspiration of reason, truth, and practical fraternity,
been disturbed in the very heart of the government itself by
less favourable inspirations;–the posthumous inspirations of
LEDR.U. R.O.T.T.I.N. 375.
a past age, which had not, and could not have, any analogy
with the time present. A deplorable attempt was made to
parody the first republic; the words deprivation and exclusion
were heard; coarse language and menaces were addressed to
people who were amazed to find themselves rebuked and
intimidated at the moment when they were voluntarily and
unanimously adopting a republic of concord and good-will.
The first effect of this error, on the part of certain members of
the government, became manifest on the 15th of March, at a
time when events were proceeding in a perfectly smooth
COUITSé.
The department of the minister of the interior was under
the almost absolute control of M. Ledru Rollin. That de-
partment, which in the vastness of its attributes had refer .
ence to almost every object of public interest, acquired addi-
tional importance from the name, the talent, and the demo-
cratic popularity of the man who was at the head of it. To
give a right direction to the public mind, and to organize the
elections, were among the functions assigned to the minister
of the interior. It is not known whose hand drew up the
first circular addressed by that minister to the republican.
authorities in the departments. The transactions of the
other ministerial offices were as much out of the cognizance
of the minister for foreign affairs, as the business of his
department was out of the knowledge of his colleagues.
Whilst united in the great tendencies of order and repub-
licanism, they diverged in details, each following the dictates
of his own judgment, and being responsible only to his own
conscience and to the country.
The republican circle in which the minister of the interior
moved was not the circle of Lamartine, nor that of the
majority of the government. Disagreements frequently arose
between the minister of the interior and his colleagues; but
the latter entertained no suspicions: indeed the frank energy
with which the minister avowed bis opinions banished all idea
of perfidy.
The differences existing between the two systems of
republicanism occasioned opposition and clashing; but most
frequently these adverse sentiments were modified and
conciliated in the council. Soon, however, party discord
began to extend beyond the deliberations of the government.
376 MINISTERIAL CIRCUIAR.
The majority of the country rallied round the men who were
favourable to liberty and moderation ; the more ardent and
violent minority rallied round the minister of the interior and
his partisans. It has been alleged that these partisans
molested the minister with their advice and their extreme
republican ardour; and that they sought to force him beyond
the boundaries of unity and concord, within which he, like
all his colleagues, was desirous of restraining measures and
opinions. These intemperate counsellors wielded their pens
in his office, and promulgated, in equivocal and ill-sounding
language, their own opinions instead of the Sentiments of the
government. The opposition of these two parties, the One
seeking to soothe, and the other to excite, the passions of the
people, occasioned an agitation which was sensibly felt by
those who had the direction of public affairs.
The first important circular issued by the minister of the
interior, in reference to the elections, appeared on the 12th of
March.
This circular, like the sound of the tocsin, startled the
country and banished the dream of concord and peace which
the government was desirous of prolonging. After offering
much useful advice, this circular launched into a strain of
violent language calculated to produce a reaction in the
minds of persons whose opinions were menaced. -
“Your powers are unlimited,” said the minister, address-
ing his agents. This was nothing less than a revival of the
dictatorial mandate given to the commissioners of the Con-
vention; and every recollection of that kind spread horror
through the country. “We will have all men of the day
before, and no men of the day after, in the National Assem-
bly l’ This was to banish opinion itself from its own sove-
reignty. It was the public ostracism of almost the whole
nation ; for, in proportion as the republicans of reason were
numerous, the republicans of faction were few. Here was, in
short, an 18th Fructidor of words against France, and it pro-
duced a most sinister impression.
This circular, which was most important, inasmuch as it was
intended to be understood as promulgating to the nation
the spirit of the government, had in reality never been
Submitted to the deliberation of the ministers. It was the
work of abused power on the part of certain persons,
ITS DANGEROUS TENI) ENCY. 377
usurping authority in the office of the minister of the inte-
rior. The pressure of business and the complication of
events afforded not a moment's leisure, either by day or by
night, to the members of the government, who were inces-
santly engaged at the Hôtel de Ville, or in the public streets,
addressing assemblages of the people and deputations from the
departments or from foreign nations. This continuous occu-
pation had so engrossed Lamartine, that the circular escaped his
knowledge, and he was only made aware of its existence by
the feeling of anxiety and irritation it created in Paris. He
immediately felt the conviction that if this document were
not disavowed by the government, the republic would change
hands in changing its doctrines; that it would become the
tyranny of a minority instead of being the common field of
liberty; that this insolent tyranny of a minority could only
be sustained by terror at home, war abroad, and everywhere
by trouble, exaction, and revolutionary deprivation and seques-
tration. Lamartine and the majority of his colleagues were
resolved to perish rather than associate their responsibility
to God, to history, and to their own consciences, with so
execrable a government.
Moreover, his political experience assured him that such a
government would, before the expiration of three months,
end in civil war, and that civil war would be death to the
republic.
Accordingly, he demanded that a secret council of all the
members of the government should be held at the Hôtel
de Ville on the 16th of March, at noon. He de-
termined to bring under the consideration of his colleagues
the question of the two principles of government which at
length seemed to be arrayed against each other face to face;
he was also determined to break up the government at any
risk, rather than belie himself by continuing in connection
with it.
He did not conceal from himself any of the consequences
that must attend a rupture of the government at that mo-
ment. He knew that the opinion of the better portion of
the people, of the national guards, and of the bourgeoisie of
Paris, would instantly and emphatically be declared for him;
he also knew that the ultra-revolutionists, the socialists, the
terrorists—in short, the active and armed portion of the
378 DEPUTATION OF THE NATIONAL G U.A.R.D.
Parisian population, would frantically adhere to the leaders
of the opposite party; he knew, moreover, that his retire-
ment from the government would be the signal for a struggle,
in which all chances were against him ; for, though opinion
was with him, arms were opposed to him. No matter; we
had then arrived at one of those junctures in which it behoves
public men to consider, not their own preservation, but their
dutv.
§ the evening of the 16th, Lamartine received at the
Hôtel de Ville a deputation of the club of the national
guard, headed by M. de Lepine, who was colonel of the Ban-
lieue, and an influential citizen. He seized this opportunity
of boldly announcing to the people of Paris the pain which
the circulars had caused him, and the struggle to which he
looked forward on the following day.
“Citizens,” said he, on being interrogated by the depu-
tation respecting the intentions of the government, “it is not
for me, in a question so general and so important, to take the
initiative on the opinion of all my colleagues, collectively.
Nevertheless, I may say, that they will be deeply sensible of
and most grateful for the step which you have now taken
and the words which you have here uttered.
“The provisional government has not authorized any one
to address the nation in its name, and least of all, has it
authorized any one to hold language inconsistent with the
laws. (Cries of ‘Bravo !') That privilege it has granted to
no one ; for the government itself has not used that privi-
lege, even at the moment when, like an acclamation of the
popular voice, it arose to fill temporarily the difficult place
it occupies. The government never wished to use this privi-
lege ; it never has, and never will use it. Of this, the names
of the men who compose it are a sufficient guarantee.
(‘Bravo!”)
“Rest assured that within a few days the provisional go-
vernment willitself speak out; and that anything in the terms,
though not in the intentions, of this document which may
have wounded or alarmed the liberty and conscience of the
country will be explained, commented on, and settled by the
united voice of all the members of the government. (Cheers,
and shouts of, “Long live Lamartine !’)
“Rather say “Long live the whole government!’” resumed
T} ECLARATION RELATIVE TO THE EI, ECTIONS. 379
Lamartine, “for this thought is not exclusively mine; it is
shared by all the members of the government, by the min-
ister of the interior himself.”
A member of the deputation exclaimed:—“We accept it
as such.”
“Citizens,” continued Lamartine, “ of all the principles
which have survived the great falls of thrones and empires
which we have witnessed during the last half-century, there
is in our eyes only one imperishable principle:—it is national
sovereignty (‘Bravo, bravo!');-that national sovereignty
which we will never ourselves assail, and which we will never
suffer to be assailed either in our name or yours.
“Be assured that the provisional government will rejoice
that you have come like a presentiment of true republican
opinion, that is to say, free opinion, to elicit explanation
respecting the course which it is proposed to pursue in the
elections, out of which the republican government of France
must take its birth. The provisional government wishes not
to influence the elections, nor ought it to influence them
either directly or indirectly. Yes, as a government—as men
armed with a portion of public authority, we should blush
for the reproaches we have addressed to the governments
which have preceded us, if, instead of the corruption which
by its scandals caused the revolution out of which the republic
has arisen, we should now resort to another and a worse
species of corruption—that of intimidation and the moral
oppression of conscience. (‘Bravo! bravo!')
“No, the republic ought to issue and will issue only from
a free and pure source. Set your minds at ease, citizens, and
repeat these words to your fellow-citizens. (Several voices
—‘Yes, yes, we will repeat them with pleasure.')
“I wish,” continued Lamartine, “we all wish, that these
words may resound from the public voice, in Paris and
throughout France. We are anxious that they may satis-
factorily show the wrong interpretation given to certain words
not conveying the signification assigned to them by persons
who took alarm at expressions which have misrepresented
thoughts. Know this, and tell it to those who are waiting
for you outside. The government of the republic collectively
feels the necessity of offering a twofold satisfaction to the
public mind; now, in this interview which we hold here
380 PROCLAMATION DRAWN UP BY LAMARTINE.
together, and by-and-by in a proclamation which will be
addressed to all the citizens of France. (Prolonged acclama-
tions.) s r
“It is your desire, and it is ours, that the republic and liberty
should be but one word (cries of ‘Yes, yes!'); otherwise the
republic would be a falsehood, and we wish it should be
a truth. (‘Bravo!') We want a republic which shall make
itself beloved and respected by all; which shall be feared by
no one save the enemies of the country and of her institu-
tions. (‘Bravo!') We wish to found a republic which may
be the model of a moderate government, and not the mere
copy of the faults and the misfortunes of a former period.
We adopt the glory of that period, but we repudiate its
anarchy and its errors. Help us to found the republic and to .
defend it. Vote according to your consciences, and if, as I
doubt not, they are the consciences of good citizens, the re-
public will be consolidated by your votes, as it has been
created by the arms of the people of Paris.” (Unanimous
shouts of “Bravo!”)
The deputation withdrew amidst reiterated cries of “Vive
Lamartine !” “Vive le gouvernement provisoire 1* “Wive la
république !”
This address was received with frantic enthusiasm by the
deputation, and by the vast assemblage formed of other depu-
tations, which Lamartine continued to harangue until mid-
night in the great hall of the Hôtel de Ville. The address itself,
which was regarded as a good stroke of state policy, was
circulated from quarter to quarter with the swiftness of
thought. It inspired courage in those citizens who had been
intimidated; it proved to the partisans of violent measures
that the government would not make itself their accomplice;
and that, on the following day, they must either defend or
disavow their professions.
Lamartine employed a part of the night in drawing up,
with his own hand, a government proclamation, which em-
bodied the true principles of a free, representative, moderate,
and national republic ; a proclamation which, in ideas and in
words, was the most literal disavowal and denial of the
circular of the minister of the interior. Ready for all, even
for the last extremity, and carrying arms about his person to
defend himself against violence, Lamartine repaired alone,
and on foot, at the appointed hour, to the Hôtel de Ville.
THE GRENADIERS OF . THE NATIONAL GUARDS. 381
There all the members of the government were already
assembled. Lamartine was astonished, on arriving at the
Place de Grève, to find it occupied by twenty or thirty
thousand men belonging to the picked companies of the
national guard. He was recognized and greeted with ener-
getic acclamations. Shouts of “Vive Lamartine !” accom-
panied him, even after he had entered the Hôtel de Ville,
and were renewed, with increasing enthusiasm, every time he
was perceived, or was thought to be perceived, at the windows
of the reception-rooms.
On his inquiring the cause of this spontaneous assemblage
of such vast numbers of the national guards, he was informed
that they were companies of grenadiers, and that they had
come to protest against a decree of the government, by
which they would be debarred the privilege of wearing their
fur caps. They complained that this decree would have the
effect of breaking up their Squares, for the purpose of
admitting into them all citizens, privileged or unprivileged,
and without regard to the uniform fur caps. Lamartine
expressed regret at hearing so puerile a complaint at so
serious a moment. He harangued the grenadiers, and pre-
vailed on them to consent to the abolition of a distinction,
consisting of a mere military vanity, at a time when it was
proposed to merge all vanities in the sentiment of patriotism.
During this parley with the grenadiers, General Courtais,
their commandant, entered the Place de Grève on horseback,
accompanied by his staff. The general galloped into the
midst of the tumultuous ranks, receiving insults, braving
menaces, and exposing himself to danger. The mob, excited
by this scene, hurried to the outlets of the quay, and into the
adjoining streets, shouting –“A l'aristocratie / au privi-
lège 1” Meanwhile all remained motionless on the Place,
which was covered with unarmed legions, who seemed to be
expecting an event.
Under these auspices the Secret sitting of the government
was opened. The two camps were in hostile array within
and without doors. Without by the effect of chance, and
within by the will of Lamartine. The countenances of all
present wore an expression of gloomy and thoughtful resolu-
tion, like those of men on the eve of a battle.
Lamartine laid on the table the proclamation which he had
382 SECRET SITTING OF THIE GOVERNMENT.
written during the night, and which he had not yet com-
municated to any one.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “up to this time we have been
bound together in one single fascis of opinions and Senti-
ments by the force of great revolutionary events. We
rushed into the fire of the revolution that we might be the
better enabled to extinguish it, and to convert it into a strong,
unanimous, and regular republican government. Now, we
must no longer deceive ourselves. The acts and words of the
minister of the interior are at variance with the spirit with
which we were unanimously desirous of imbuing our dictator-
ship, and they seem to indicate clearly two things, first,
that the minister is desirous of pledging the whole govern-
ment to his individual acts; whereas the government ought
to deliberate collectively on what he says and what he does in
a matter so important ; second, that the minister wishes to
govern in a spirit which I do not believe to be the spirit of
the republic, nor the spirit of the majority of the government,
and which, at all events, is not consistent with my views.
We Inust, therefore, at this moment, here, and in this sitting,
know whether there are two minds in the government. If
such be really the case, one or the other must gain the
ascendancy; and that party which is overruled must retire
and yield the government to the party that is triumphant,
The one party cannot take the responsibility of the acts of the
other; nor can the republic, at its most problematic, most
perilous, and most agitated crisis, be ruled by two adverse
policies. Let us know then, once for all, whether there are
two irreconcilable policies prevailing among us, and to which
of the two you give your adhesion. Let us know this, and
let us make it known to the country, for the policy so
imprudently promulgated in the circular of the minister of
the interior has occasioned great excitement in the public
mind. It must either be contradicted or commented on
by common accord, or we must separate without the possi-
bility of reconciliation. Here is the proclamation which I
propose to the government, as the text of opinions which
I believe to be those of the country at large, and those of
the government, as they are my own. I will now read it
to the council, and the discussion, of which this text will be
the subject, will determine the question as to which line
GOVERNMENT PROCLAIMATION. 383
of policy is to direct our commissioners, and thereby satisfy
or dismember the nation.” He then read the plan of the
proclamation as follows:—
“Citizens,—
“In all the great acts of the life of a nation, it is the duty
of their government to make its voice heard by the people.
“You are about to accomplish the greatest act in the life
of a nation—to elect the representatives of the people;—to
create from your convictions and your suffrages, not merely a
government, but a Social power, a complete constitution You
are about to organize the republic |
“We, on our part, have only proclaimed it. Raised by
popular acclamation to power, during the interregnum of the
people, we then desired, and we now desire, no other dicta-
torship than that required by absolute necessity. Had we
refused the post of danger, we should have been cowards;
were we to continue in it an hour longer than necessity en-
joins, we should be usurpers.
“Strength is with you alone !
“We count the days, for we are impatient to restore the
republic to the nation.
“The provisional electoral law, which we have made, is of
wider range than any law by which any other nation of the
earth ever convoked the people to the exercise of the Supreme
right of man,—his own sovereignty.
“The privilege of election belongs to all without exception.
“From the date of this law there are no proletaries in
France.
“Every Frenchman, having attained the age of manhood,
is a political citizen;–every citizen is an elector;-every
elector is a sovereign. The right is equal and absolute for
all. No citizen can say to another—“You enjoy more of
Sovereign power than I. Reflect well on that power, prepare
yourselves for exercising it, and render yourselves worthy to
enter on your reign.
“The reign of the people is the republic.
“If you ask us what republic we understand by that
name, and what principles, what politics, what virtues we
desire to see in the republicans whom you are about to elect,
our answer is—‘Took at the people of Paris and France
since the proclamation of the republic P
384 GOVERNMENT PROCLAMATION.
“The people fought with heroism
“The people triumphed with humanity
“The people repressed anarchy from the first hour.
“The people, of their own accord, broke the arms of their
just anger as soon as the conflict was ended. They have
burned the scaffold, and proclaimed the abolition of the
punishment of death upon their enemies.
“They have respected personal liberty by proscribing no
one. They have respected conscience in matters of religion,
but without inequality and without privilege.
“They have respected property; and they have carried
probity even to the extent of that Sublime disinterestedness
to which history will render a tribute of generous sympathy.
“They have chosen as their rulers the most honest and
firm men who have come within their observation. They
baye Taised no outcry of hatred or envy against wealth ; no
outcry of vengeance against persons; in short, they have
made the word people identical with courage, clemency, and
virtue.
“We have but one instruction to give you : take your
inspiration from the people imitate them I think, feel, vote,
and act like them
“The provisional government, on its part, will not imitate
governments which have usurped the sovereignty of the people,
corrupted electors, and purchased, at the price of morality,
the conscience of the country. &
“To what purpose should we have succeeded those govern-
ments were we to resemble them 2 To what purpose should we
have created and worshipped the republic, if that republic, on
the very first dawn of its existence, should enter the paths of
absolute royalty 2 The provisional government regards it as
a duty to diffuse over the electoral operations that light which
directs men's consciences without controlling them. It con-
fines itself to neutralizing the hostile influence of the old
system, by which the character and object of election were
perverted.
“The provisional government is desirous that the public
conscience should reign paramount. It does not concern
itself about old parties; those parties have grown older by a
century within an interval of three days! The republic will
bring conviction to them, if they find it to be true and just.
GG VERNAf ENT PROCLA MATION. 385
Necessity is a great master; and the republic, remember, ,
has the good fortune to be a government of necessity. The
reflection that must occur to us all is this: we cannot attempt
to retrograde to impossible monarchy; we will not descend
into the unknown depths of anarchy; we will be republicans
by the force of reason. Give safety, liberty, and respect
to all; insure to others that independence of suffrage which
you yourselves wish to enjoy. Consider not what names
those whom you believe to be your enemies may inscribe
on their bulletins; but assure yourselves beforehand that they
inscribe the only names which can save them, viz. those of
intelligent and honest republicans.
“To secure safety, liberty, and respect for the consciences
of all citizen electors is the intention of the republican govern-
ment; it is its duty, and it is yours. Therein consists the
safety of the people! Have confidence in the good sense of
the country, and it will have confidence in you. Give it
liberty, and it will repay you with the republic
“Citizens, in the midst of some financial difficulties be-
queathed by royalty, but nevertheless under providential
auspices, France is, at this moment, attempting to accomplish
the greatest work of modern times; the foundation of the go-
vernment of the people at large, the organization of democracy,
the republic of all rights, all interests, all intelligence, and
every virtue. -
“Circumstances are propitious. Peace is possible. The
new idea may take root in Europe, undisturbed by any other
obstacle than that of the prejudices entertained against it.
There is no vindictiveness in the popular mind. If fugitive
royalty has not carried away with it all the enemies of the
republic, it has at least left them powerless; and though they
are invested with all the rights which the republic guarantees
even to minorities, their interest and their prudence afford
sufficient Security that they will not interrupt the peaceful
foundation of the popular constitution.
“In the space of three days that work, which was believed
to be postponed to some distant period of time, has been
accomplished in France, without a drop of blood having been
shed ; without any other tumult than shouts of admiration
resounding through our departments and along our frontiers.
Let us not miss this opportunity, single in history; let us
2 C
386 DISCUSSION IN THE COUNCIL,
... not surrender the main strength of the new idea, the security
with which it invests the citizens, the astonishment with
which it inspires the world.
“Yet a few days of magnanimity, devotedness, and pa-
tience, and the National Assembly will receive from our
hands the new-born republic. Thenceforward all will be
safe When the nation, by the hands of its representatives,
shall have grasped the republic, the republic will be strong
and great as the nation itself, sacred as the idea of the people,
imperishable as the country.”
The discussion opened with a frank, energetic, and un-
reserved examination of the two principles, by one or the
other of which the course of the government was to be guided.
The speeches, and the replies they called forth, revealed the
inmost depths of the minds and hearts of the speakers. Reason
and passion mingled in the arguments of the two adverse parties.
Marie, Lamartine, Garnier Pagès, Arago, Crémieux, and Dupont
de l'Eure, who constituted the vast majority, poured forth their
whole souls in the deliberation. The minority modified rather
than defended the terms of the circulars. Opinions gradu-
ally assimilated and sentiments concurred, and the necessity of
a disavowal was determined by the preponderating voice of
the Assembly. All admitted the liberal and magnanimous
character given to the spirit of the government by the plan of
the proclamation, some words of which were altered by Lamar-
time at the suggestion of Louis Blanc. The minority itself
signed this programme of the majority; it was sent to the
national printing-office; it was posted on the walls of Paris,
and was most extensively circulated throughout France. It
cheered the public mind ; but looked, nevertheless, like what
it really was, the ill-disguised token of an internal conflict in
the very conscience of the government.
During the two hours occupied by this sitting at the council-
table, the clamours from the national guards, who filled the
Place de Grève, were audible from without, a circumstance
which, in the opinion of some, gave additional power and spirit
to the majority. But this supposition was illusory. Lamar-
tine and his friends deplored this accidental and ill-timed mani-
festation. It might possibly give rise to counter manifesta-
tions, exciting class against class, and stirring up the people
against the people. Rumours of the assemblage of the na-
EFFECT OF THE PROCLAMATION. 387
tional guards on the Place de Grève, and the puerile motive
which caused them to muster there, had by this time spread
to the faubourgs, and parties of workmen, who thronged to
the place, broke the ranks of the unarmed guards, reproached
them for their absurd jealousy respecting a privileged uniform,
hooting and insulting them as their detachments retired from
the place.
Lamartine and Crémieux, on leaving the council, came out
together by a private door at the back of the Hôtel de Ville.
They were recognized on the quay, and surrounded and fol-
lowed by a crowd of people, who accompanied them as far
as the Louvre, uttering cries of enthusiasm as they passed
along. At length they took refuge in the court-yard of a
house, and the door was closed upon them, by this means
escaping from an involuntary triumph, which might have
alarmed the capital.
Next day the hearts of all the inhabitants of Paris were filled
with joy at reading the proclamation to the French people,
which so energetically re-established the true and liberal spirit
of the republic. This victory of the moderate party seemed to
be felt as the victory of all good citizens. In the departments,
where greater alarm had prevailed, the proclamation was
received with still greater applause. The departments had
trembled under the expectation of being visited by pro-
consuls, armed with unlimited mandates, reviving in peaceful
France the arbitrary and violent proconsulates of the Con-
vention.
But though the furious conventional party, which had
commenced the work of agitation in certain clubs, felt itself
conquered ; yet it nevertheless imagined itself to be strong
enough to regain the ascendancy by help of a subterfuge.
They pretended to believe, and perhaps did believe, that the
manifestations, completely accidental, of the national guards, on
the day of the deliberation of the council, had been concerted
by Lamartine and his friends for the purpose of intimidating
the minority of the government. Possibly the minority itself
actually believed such to be the fact. But be that as it may,
a sinister rumour was artfully spread through Paris. En-
deavours were made to persuade the people that the national
guard had surrounded and menaced the government, and that it
meditated a coup d'état by the hands of the bourgeois aristo-
2 C 2
388 GREAT POPULAR GATHIERING.
cracy against its most popular members. The numerous agents
of the prefecture of police, and the armed men who encamped
in the court-yards of that establishment, were employed to
spread this panic among the people. The workmen and the
clubs were invited to assemble for a general meeting in the
Champs Elysées, to show their force in the presence of their
alleged enemies, to defile in their countless numbers before
the Hôtel de Ville, and there to make oath to defend the
government. w
Caussidière, with good intentions at bottom, was himself one
of the principal promoters of this prodigious gathering of the
people, and he also maintained, on this occasion, a degree of
discipline and order which filled the capital at once with dismay
and astonishment. The people had, in reality, gathered to-
gether only for the praiseworthy object of manifesting their
attachment to the government, and showing their readiness to
support it. There was not a germ of sedition in this greatest
pacific act of sedition that a capital ever witnessed. The
worst that was done was a sort of Secret insinuation, on the
part of the leaders, tending to show that their shouts of pre-
dilection were intended to avenge the minority of the govern-
ment for the triumph of Lamartine.
But whilst the people were thus flocking in crowds from
their faubourgs and their workshops for what they supposed to
be a loyal and civic demonstration, certain men, chiefs of
sects, leaders of clubs, instruments of fanaticism, and agents
of sedition, were devising schemes for turning to their own
use this popular army recruited in a good cause, and for ren-
dering it the unconscious instrument of their perverse or
seditious designs. Luckily these men were in the minority
even in the clubs; but what they wanted in numbers they
made up for in boldness and desperation.
The committees of the clubs being informed of the assem-
blage which was to take place on the following day, proposed
to head the columns, under pretence of speaking in the name
of the people themselves. Some of these leaders of clubs, dis-
satisfied with the insignificance of their own position, had
plotted with their principal confidants to effect a change in
the government by violent means. Their scheme was to get
rid of some of the ministers, and especially of Lamartine;
they, themselves, and their friends to fill the places of these
PLOT AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT. 38.9
ministers, and thus to make the spirit of the government
favour the views of their factions and the interests of their
ambition. Enterprizing and imperious men armed, if not
with concealed weapons, at least by the vast numbers whom
they controlled, and the chances which always attend the
movements of numerous assemblages, might, in the name of
the surrounding multitude, call upon the government to obey
them and to retire. In case of resistance and a tumult, they
might make themselves masters of the government.
Such men existed, and everything seems to indicate that
such a plan was contemplated. Other men, leaders of im-
portant clubs, and more especially attached to the minister of
the interior, to Louis Blanc, and even favourably disposed to
Lamartine—as, for example, Barbès, Sobrier, and Suall; and
others who were exclusively devoted to the interests of their
sects and their own predominant opinions—as, for example,
Cabet and Raspail, surrounded the leaders of factions, kept
watch upon them, awed them by their superior credit and
numbers, and might possibly have sufficient influence to
neutralize any attempts to carry out extreme designs.
Blanqui, and his friends Lacambre and Flotte, were to take
their places in the foremost rank of this vast assemblage. It
was a popular review, at which were arrayed opinions and
chimeras, good and evil, welfare and misery, patriotism and
faction, virtue and vice.
In the morning the majority of the government received
information of the immense gathering about to be held in the
Champs Elysées, whither torrents of people were already pour-
ing from all the working districts of Paris and the suburbs.
Lamartine and his friends were not blind to the fact that
such a mass of men assembled together, and floating under
some unknown influence, might compromise the safety of
the revolution and of the government. The minister of
the war department, M. Arago, had no armed force capable
of opposing such a deluge of people. The national guard
had lost popularity by its demand of the preceding day;
and their appearance would only have provoked displeasure.
There was nothing to be done but to trust to the chances of
the day, and to seek to counteract a possible delusion of the
popular mind by instilling right ideas into the minds of the
people themselves.
390 PROCESSION OF THE CLUBS.
To this object all the members of the government directed
their personal influence and that of their friends. Marie
could exercise considerable power over the national workshops.
Lamartine dispersed upwards of a thousand voluntary and
well-disposed agents among the groups of people, to preach
concord and oppose evil suggestions. Louis Blanc might
probably act in a similar way on the delegates of the work-
men of the Luxembourg. He might foster errors, but never
sedition.
At noon the members of the government assembled at the
Hôtel de Ville, with the exception of the minister of the
interior and the minister of war, who arrived together some
moments later than the rest. A low dead murmur was heard
on the quays and in the streets. The whole population of
Paris had poured into the Champs Elysées, there to form a
cortège for the popular manifestation. Every other part of
the capital was deserted, as though it were to make room for
the procession. The citizens, in dismay, were standing on
the thresholds of their doors, at the windows, or on the
roofs of the houses, anxiously awaiting what was to happen.
A breathless suspense pervaded the capital. Every minuts
the members of the government stepped out on the balconies
of the Hôtel de Ville to watch whether the head of the
column was visible on the bridge. At length it appeared in
sight. Five or six hundred picked men, from each of the
clubs of Paris, marched in order and in silence, headed by
their speakers and tribunes. These men were ranged in files,
thirty or forty abreast. They advanced at the slow solemn
pace of a religious procession, some hand in hand, others
linked together by long red or tricoloured ribbons, which
like vast girdles, encircled each of the principal groups.
Before each club a banner was carried; and the van was led
by two or three men and one woman, all wearing red caps,
Those hideous symbols of our Saturnalia of terror seemed to
excite in the mob feelings of indignation and disgust. The
workmen hooted, and pulled the caps from the heads of the
insane creatures who wore them. Indeed the disapprobation
expressed by the workmen plainly indicated that they felt
the dignity and humanity of the republic of 1848 to be com-
promised by this reminiscence of 1793.
This procession of the clubs was followed by a compact
DEMEANOUR OF THE PEOPLE. 391
column of the workmen of all trades, marching in order, ten
by ten. All were decently clothed, and their deportment
was grave, unassuming, and inoffensive. They advanced in
silence, scrupulously refraining from the least outcry, or even
from any sign or gesture that could possibly alarm or intimi-
date the other citizens. They looked like men who were
calmly proceeding to perform a Sacred act of patriotism, and
keeping a watchful eye one upon another, that their conduct
might present an edifying spectacle to their country.
This column, or rather this army, inundated the square of
the Hôtel de Ville, extending from the Place de Grève to
the extremity of the Champs Elysées. The number of men,
of which it was composed, was estimated to be from a hun-
dred to a hundred and forty thousand. When the square
was entirely filled, the surplus of the assemblage halted on
the quays to wait till the rest had defiled. The leaders of
the clubs and their principal satellites ranged themselves in
front of the gateway of the Hôtel de Ville. The govern-
ment had ordered Colonel Rey to close the gates, and to
defend them by a troop of the volunteers of February. This
disorderly troop consisted of two or three thousand men,
brave, but undisciplined, and in rags. They were the deposit
of sedition, and would not fail to return into the element of
Sedition at the first contact. But the turbulent and revolu-
tionary elements out of which this troop had sprung, imparted
to it in less serious disturbances the degree of boldness and
authority requisite for resisting the seditious movements.
In this state of things about an hour elapsed. The govern-
ment, surrounded and motionless, seemed to be awaiting a
movement of the people; whilst the people, on their part,
appeared to be awaiting the issue of a deliberation of the
government. From time to time, the motionless crowd, as if
to amuse themselves, looked up to the windows of the Hôtel
de Ville, and sang the Marseillaise and the hymn of the
Girondins. Repeated shouts of “Vive le gouvernement pro-
oisoire /*—“Vive Ledru, Rollin l'—“Vive Louis Blanc ſ”
were mingled, but only rarely, with shouts of “Vive Lamar-
time !” This plainly indicated that among the motives
which instigated the gathering, at least in the intention of its
leaders, one was to protest indirectly against the proclamation
to the people, attributed to Lamartine alone ;-to avenge the
392 SCENE IN THE IIóTEL DE VILLE.
minority of the government for what was regarded as an
humiliation;–and to prove to the majority, and especially to
Launartine, that the voice of the people was not so much with
him as with those who were supposed to be his enemies.
Meanwhile the crowd were becoming weary of waiting for
a result, of the nature of which they themselves could form
no idea. They seemed by their impatience to authorize the
delegates of the clubs to enter the Hôtel de Ville in the
name of the people, and to convey to the government the
expression of their adherence and the homage of their
strength. Cabet alone entered, on an order from Lamartine,
with whom he had an interview on the great staircase. In
consequence of the assurance given by Cabet of the inoffen-
sive intentions of the clubs, the government directed Colonel
Rey to allow the delegates alone to enter; and, after having
admitted them, to close the gates. This order was respected.
About a hundred leaders of the clubs and self-styled delegates
of the people, but who were in reality only the most furious
of the clubbists, were admitted into the interior of the Hôtel
de Ville; and the members of the government adjourned to
one of the most spacious halls to receive them.
The president of the provisional government, Dupont de
l'Eure, then eighty-three years of age, though bowed down
by lassitude, was intrepid in heart, and serene in counte-
nance. He was seated with his back against the wall of the
grand hall. Arago, Albert, Ledru Rollin, and Louis Blanc
stood on his right; on his left stood Lamartine, Marrast, Cré-
mieux, Pagnerre, and Garnier Pagès—all alike resolved to
maintain the dignity, the moral independence, and the inte-
grity of the government, or to perish. -
The clubs now appeared in the persons of their principal
leaders. Most of them were unknown to the members of the
government, though some few had already been received indi-
vidually by Lamartine at the head of their clubs. The most
remarkable of these men, who walked at the head of the
delegates, were Blanqui, with Lacambre and Flotte (two
of his satellites), Barbès, Sobrier, Cabet, Raspail, Lucien,
Michelot, Longepied, Lebreton, Laugier, Danse, and about fifty
other popular speakers and leaders of meetings, with whose
names and countenances the members of the government were
alike unacquainted. Several groups of delegates of the people,
MEASURES PROPOSED BY BLANQUI. 393
who might be regarded as secondary actors in the drama,
filled the halls and staircases behind the delegates of the
clubs. These delegates ranged themselves in front of the
members of the government, at the distance of a few paces
from the chair of Dupont de l'Eure.
“Citizens, what do you ask?” said Dupont de l'Eure,
addressing them in a firm tone of voice.
Blanqui then became spokesman in the name of all, and in
an address, measured in terms, but imperative in meaning, he
announced to the government the pretended plebiscita of the
people, with which in reality the people had nothing what-
ever to do. Among the proposed measures were the adjourn–
ment of the elections, placing the future national assembly
under suspicion, the removal at once and for ever of regular
troops from Paris, implicit obedience to the dictatorial will
of the multitude as expressed by the clubs,-in other words,
the enslavement of the government, the outlawry of all per-
sons throughout the nation, save only the populace of Paris,
and an indefinite dictatorship imposed on the government, on
condition that the government should submit, and itself ratify
the dictatorship of sovereign demagoguism.
Whilst Blanqui spoke, an expression of indignation and
sorrow overspread the countenances of the members of the
government. The violent sections of the clubs manifosted
by looks, attitudes, and gestures, their approval of the most
marked observations made by the speaker. Blanqui concluded
his address by calling on the government, in the name of the
people, to deliberate with all possible despatch on the sub-
stance of these resolutions, and to make known the result of
the deliberation before the close of the sitting then being
held.
Lamartine was fully aware of the secret motive of this
great popular movement, which there could be no doubt was
specially directed against himself. The programme of the
clubs had a tendency precisely the reverse of that of the pro-
clamation to the French nation, which he had caused the
government to sign on the preceding day. Shouts of “Down
with Lamartine,” and “Long live the minority of the govern-
ment,” sufficiently indicated the feelings of the leaders of the
grand movement. But Lamartine could clearly perceive that
this popular demonstration, which had been exaggerated and
394 - LOUIS BLANC AND LEDRU ROLLIN,
changed in its character by the clubs, and especially by the
Blanqui club, had gone far beyond the object proposed by its
original projectors. Though he was evidently the person
most interested in the programme of the clubs, and naturally
most nearly connected with the speakers, yet he thought it
right to observe silence, and to leave to those of his colleagues
who were more popular than himself, and less suspected by
the demagogue agitators, the task of answering the challenge,
and either avenging the government or surrendering up its
independence. To see the government avenged, would have
satisfied him ; but against the surrender of its independence
he was prepared to protest, in the name of himself and his
friends. i
His colleagues did not leave him long in this perplexity.
They avenged the government in terms alike eloquent and
energetic.
Louis Blanc spoke like a man who identified himself com-
pletely with the spirit of his colleagues, who was roused in the
name of their independence and his own, against the tyranny
of having ideas forced upon him ; ideas which he might, per-
haps, voluntarily adopt, but which he would not submit to
have dictated to him. His speech visibly disconcerted those
to whom it was addressed. -
Ledru Rollin spoke as a member of the government who
would yield up none of his independence and moral liberty,
even to the influence of his friendships. He defended the
army, which, though, from motives of prudence, temporarily
withdrawn from Paris, had been speedily reconciled with the
nation, of which it bore within itself the rights and the
strength. He made no concession on the subject of the elec-
tions and the sovereignty of the representation: and alto-
gether he maintained his firmness with great ability. These
two replies, coming from men in whom the agitators expected
to find confederates, or, at least, supporters, rendered them
for a moment motionless and silent. There was observed
among them a sort of wavering, like that which pervades
the ranks of a conquered army. The most prudent seemed
disposed to induce them to retire; but a group of seven or
eight men who surrounded Blanqui, and who over the
head of their leader, confronted the government, seemed
determined to urge matters to the last extremity. These
SEDITIOUS ADDRESS TO THE GOVERNMENT. 395
were the friends of Blanqui. One of them was a young
man, stated to be fanatically devoted to the opinions and to
the person of his leader. His pale martial countenance bore
the fixed expression of unalterable conviction. His tall, erect,
and motionless figure was marked by rectangular lines.
His right hand was thrust under his coat, which was but-
toned closely up to his throat. The cold and inflexible reso-
lution expressed in his looks, whilst his eye was fixed on one
of the members of the government, resembled that of the
statue of Brutus meditating the last conspiracy of liberty, his
hand on the dagger concealed beneath his toga.
Though this young man appeared to be as timid in speech
as he was resolute in bearing, yet when he observed the
apparent wavering of the assembled delegates, he raised his
voice, and advanced a few paces nearer the members of the
government.
“All this sounds very well,” said he, alluding to the
speeches of Louis Blanc and Ledru Rollin, “but these are
mere words. We want acts, and we must have them upon
this very spot. We will not withdraw until you have
deliberated, here, immediately, and in our presence.” These
words were succeeded by a murmur of approbation from the
persons immediately around the speaker; whilst expressions
of indignation burst from the ranks of the government.
Louis Blanc replied with considerable excitement, and Ledru
Rollin manifested displeasure. Crémieux, Marie, Dupont de
l'Eure, and all the members of the government boldly pro-
tested against these seditious injunctions of this group of
men and their spokesman. It was admitted that the govern-
ment was prepared to assent to some points of the pro-
gramme, whilst dissenting from others; but that it was
ready to deliberate on them all. It was, however, declared
that the deliberation could not be held in the presence of
the ringleaders of the seditious movement, but in a free and
proper manner, at a convenient day and hour; that no
pledges could be entered into, nor could the resolutions of
the government be in any manner prejudiced; in short, that
this declaration of the clubs could be considored in no other
light than as a petition.
These representations were received with approval by the
reasonable and moderate individuals among the delegates; but
396 ANGRY ALLUSIONS TO LAMARTINE.
the followers of Blanqui shook their heads in token of obsti-
nate resistance. Sobrier, who was then friendly to Lamartine,
and who had a horror of bloodshed, made useless endeavours
to appease these violent men. The young man in the group
of Blanqui's followers, who had first spoken, then said,
“Well, well, citizens, these sentiments are not objectionable,
but are they entertained by all of you? Are there not
traitors among you? Is there not one man among you who
has held language adverse to the wishes of the people 2 Lamar-
time, for example, is he not among you?”—“Let him explain
himself! let him explain himself l’ vociferated in a menacing
tone the delegates of the principal clubs. “No, no,” exclaimed
Sobrier, Cabet, Raspail, and Barbès, “all the members of the
government are united. Our mutual confidence is indissoluble.”
But as the first speaker and his friends by their looks and
gestures still continued to call upon Lamartine, he then
stepped forward a few paces and placed himself before them.
Having by a sign signified his desire to speak, he looked
steadfastly in the pale and menacing countenances of his in-
terlocutors, and thus addressed them :-
“Citizens, I have heard my name called upon, and I
answer the summons. I have nothing to add to that which
has been said with so much dignity and propriety by our
colleague Louis Blanc. You must be convinced as we are,
we in whom the people have placed their confidence, and ap-
pointed to represent them in the day of battle and victory,
that there can be no government, unless you have the good
sense to confer a moral authority on that government. What
is meant by this moral authority of the government, whether
in reference to itself, to the public, to the departments, or to
Europe, whose eyes are upon us? What does it mean
but complete independence from the trammels of all external
coercion or influence? Therein consists the independence of
the government; therein is its dignity, therein lies its whole
moralstrength. Of that rest assured. Whom do you behold here
before you ? Here is our venerable president, bending beneath
the weight and glory of eighty years of age, who at our head is
anxious to exert the last efforts of his life in the re-establish-
ment of the republic (cries of ‘Bravo!'), but its re-establish-
ment with independence, dignity, and liberty; for assuredly,
with liberty and independence, every French citizen must
His ADDRESS TO THE DELEGATES. 397
associate in his mind the honoured name of Dupont de l'Eure.
Around him whom do you behold? A small group of men
unarmed, without material support, without soldiers, and with-
out guards; men who have no authority save that which is
derived from the support and respect of the people, men
who desire no other authority, who are ready to replunge into
the mass of the people from whence they issued, and who
have taken this energetic and perilous part in the republic,
only that they might be the guarantees of popular interests
heretofore sacrificed by the monarchies, aristocracies, and
oligarchies, now annihilated.
“But in order that these sentiments may have effect,
to enable these popular principles to be usefully applied for
the happiness and the rights of the people, what is required ?
The tranquil and undisturbed continuance of the confidence
you have placed in us. What can we oppose to you ? One
thing only—your own reason | That power of general reason
which here stands alone between you and us; which inspires
us, and which holds you in check before us! It is this power,
invisible yet omnipotent, which renders us calm and inde-
pendent, and makes us feel strong in conscious worth in sight
of the mighty multitude which surrounds this palace of the
people, a palace defended by its own inviolability" (Shouts
of approbation from the moderate clubs.)
“This last barrier of our independence,” resumed Lamar-
tine, “as members of the government, and as men, we will
defend with our lives, should popular violence attempt to
break through it. Not for our own sakes only, but more
especially for yours we will perish in its defence What
would the people be without government 2 and what would a
degraded government be to the people 2 (Approbation.)
“I now come to the three questions you have proposed.
First ; you wish a delay of ten days longer for the elections
of the national guards.
“In previous deliberations on the subject, we thought we
had anticipated the legitimate popular wish as well as that you
now express. It was represented to us that this imposing, com-
pact, patriotic, republican mass of the population which consti-
tutes the great popular element of Paris, had not, perhaps, had
time to inscribe their names on the lists, and thereby to be
placed on that vast patriotic register, on which we propose
308 DEFENCE OF THIE ARMY.
henceforth to enrol the whole public force. We first de-
termined on the adjournment of a week, and subsequently we
determined to adjourn until the 25th of March. I cannot
decide, individually, nor would I, at the present moment,
pronounce an opinion respecting the results of the renewed
deliberation which may take place on this subject ; but you
have fifteen days in all for inscribing your names.
“To the question regarding the troops, I have already re-
plied in the answer I returned the day before yesterday to
one of the patriotic associations of which you form a part.
The question has no existence. There are no troops in
Paris, excepting about fifteen hundred or two thousand men
dispersed at the outer posts for the protection of the gates
and railways; and it is untrue that the government enter-
tains the intention of bringing them into the capital. Such
a thought would be madness after what has taken place ;
after fallen royalty beheld eighty thousand troops give
way before the unarmed people of Paris, what could be ex-
pected from a few scattered corps animated by the same spirit
of republicanism, if required to obey commands contrary to
your will and to your independence? We have not con-
templated any such design; we do not, nor ever shall con-
template it. This is the truth ! Tell it to the people. Their
freedom is their own, for they have conquered it; it is their
own, for they will know how to defend it against disorder
The republic, within itself, requires no other defenders than
the armed people.
“But though this be true at the present time, and though
we may homestly declare that we desire no other defenders than
the armed people to protect our institutions, you must not
thence conclude that we will ever consent to any degradation
of the French soldiery. (Shouts of ‘No, no!’ and ‘Bravo!”
Do not imagine that we will cast suspicion on our brave army;
or that we would refrain from calling it into the interior—
even into Paris itself—if a state of war should render neces-
Sary any special disposal of our forces, for the external Safety
of the country.
“The soldier who was yesterday merely a soldier, to-day
becomes a citizen like you and ourselves. (Cries of ‘Yes,
yes I’) We have given him the right, by his vote as a citi-
Zen, to have a voice in the representation, and in the esta-
THE QUESTION OF THE ELECTIONS. 399
blishment of liberty, which he will defend as well as any other
individual among the people. *
“As to the third and principal question, that of proroguing
to a distant period the convocation of the National Assembly,
I will not consent to pledge the opinion of my colleagues, and
certainly not my own, to a measure which appears to me most
deeply to concern the interests of the whole country. Out of
respect for our independence, I will not prejudge a decree tend-
ing to declare to the nation that Paris claimed the monopoly
of liberty and of the republic. This decree would, in the
name of the capital alone, and under the influence of a mass
(well-intentioned, assuredly, but imperative, from its very
numbers), make us assume the dictatorship of that liberty
which has been won by the efforts of all—by the whole of
France, and not by a few citizens only Were you to com-
mand me to deliberate under coercion—to pronounce the out-
lawry of all that part of the nation which is not in Paris—to
declare that during three months, six months, or any given
interval of time, it shall be debarred from its representation
and its constitution, I would reply as I did to another go-
vernment a few days ago, ‘You should not tear such a vote
from me, even though my breast were pierced with bullets.”
(Approbation.)
“No, rather a thousand times deprive us of our posts than
wrest from us our free opinions, our dignity, and our invić la-
bility—an inviolability, remember, which must be held sacred
without as well as within ; for a government cannot be re-
spected unless it possess liberty in fact, as well as liberty
in appearance. (Shouts of approbation.)
“Know, then, that your power is in ours, that your dig-
nity is in ours, that your independence is in ours; and leave
us, for the interests of the people at large, to reflect and
deliberate calmly, to adopt or reject the propositions conveyed
to us through you. We only promise, I, for my part, only
promise, to weigh these propositions conscientiously, without
fear and without prejudice, and to decide, not according to
what may appear to us the mere will of the people of Paris
alone, but the right and the will of the whole republic l’
Here the deputation applauded, and several of its members
shook hands with Lamartine.
“Rest assured,” observed one of them, “that the people are
assembled there only to support the provisional government.”
400 DISSENSION AMONG THE DELEGATES.
“I am convinced of that,” resumed Lamartine, “but the
nation may not be so clearly convinced of the fact. Beware
of assemblages of this nature, however grand they may appear.
An eighteenth Brumaire of the people, may inadvertently
lead to an eighteenth Brumaire of despotism; and neither you
nor we wish to see that.”
These words were succeeded by silence in the group of the
violent clubs, and by expressions of applause among the more
moderate group. Some individuals, more furious than the
rest, recovered their boldness, and were evidently desirous of
effecting the expulsion of Lamartine. “We have not confi-
dence in all the members of the government,” they exclaimed.
“Yes, yes, in all of them, in all of them,” replied Suau, So-
brier, and Barbès, and the words were re-echoed by a hundred
voices among their friends. Then arose confused cries of
“No, no;” “Yes, yes;” “They must be compelled;” “They
must be respected.” A thousand contradictory outcries
emanated from the groups. Fury was in every voice and in
every look. The members of the government stood perfectly
firm. Barbès, who was then friendly to Lamartine, with
Sobrier, Raspail, and Cabet, pressed into the space between
the two parties. Blanqui stood motionless, and appeared
more desirous of appeasing than supporting his partisans.
Cabet delivered an address which produced a salutary
effect upon the assembly; Barbès, Raspail, and others ex-
pressed their approval of what fell from Cabet, and defended
the independence of the government. Disorder pervaded
the groups, and confusion of opinions seemed to prevail
among them. Shouts of “Long live the provisional govern-
ment!” now heard from the square, bore evidence of the
good-feeling of the people without, and brought reflection to
those men who were urging extreme measures. These shouts
convinced them that, if they committed any violence against
a government approved by the people, popular vengeance
would speedily make them expiate their crime. Barbès,
Sobrier, Suau, and Cabet profited by this interval of reaction
to effect a retreat, and thereby to release the government
from its painful position. The delegates retired from the
halls and the staircases, and resumed their position in front
of the railing of the Hôtel de Ville. The members of the
government, who were now called upon by shouts from a
I.O.UIS BLANC HARANGUES THE MULTITUDE. 401
hundred thousand voices, preceded by their president, de-
scended to the outer steps of the grand staircase. They were
greeted by enthusiastic exclamations, amidst which the names
of Ledru Rollin and Louis Blanc were more loudly con-
spicuous than usual. Lamartine perceiving that to them was
directed the favour of the nearest portion of the multitude,
caused them to step forward to present themselves to the
view of the people, who were thus eager to invest them with
popularity. Lamartine fell back into the rank behind them,
and received but few acclamations.
Louis Blanc harangued the people, thanking them for the
irresistible array of force with which they had surrounded
their dictators. The people, deceived by these expressions of
gratitude, sincerely believed that they had performed an act
of patriotic adherence, and struck a blow at faction; whilst
they had, in reality, committed an act of seditious violence
against the government, under the influence of a minority of
the clubs and a minority of Paris.
The members of the majority of the government prudently
feigned to take this demonstration for such as it had been
intended by the greater number of those who assisted in it; but
nevertheless they did not disguise from themselves its true
import, and they began to feel distrustful of an influence
which extended so widely, and could accomplish so much.
They made a show of satisfaction and gratitude, whilst they
were in reality deeply mortified at the boldness and success of
a few conspirators. Paris itself was only partially deceived.
From two o'clock in the afternoon till nine at night, there
had been seen defiling along the boulevards and through the
principal quarters of the capital a population, not armed with
muskets, it is true, but armed by the strength of their own
numbers, and resembling one of those migrations of ancient
times, by which a whole nation sometimes moved from one
bank of a river to another. This army of the populace,
calm, silent, and well-disciplined, guided by secret watch-
words implicitly obeyed, overawed the capital by its imposing
aspect. Though it menaced no one, it filled every mind with
dismay, and visibly denoted that Paris was thenceforth
wholly at the mercy of the proletaries. But it was also
evident that these same proletaries, so calm in their triumph,
so generous and civilized in the use of their power, who had
2 D
402 PEACETUL CONDUCT OF THUD, POPULACE.
risen up against what they believed to be anarchy, and for
the support of a government which they had been informed
was in danger, were not the brutal populace of 1793, but the
people of 1848, and the harbingers of a new era of civiliza-
tion.
Lamartine departed from the Hôtel de Ville at nightfall,
and alone. Mingling with the throng collected at the end of
the rue Saint Honoré and on the Place Vendôme, he spent
two hours in viewing the defile of the mighty procession.
The men, all decently dressed, walked at a military pace.
Their countenances expressed tranquillity of feeling and self-
consciousness of their own power. They evidently sought to
avoid alarming the º citizens or terrifying women.
The overawing impression produced by their numbers was
greatly modified by their tranquil demeanour. Paris shook
beneath their footsteps. During the interval of twelve
hours, occupied in the gathering and dispersion of this multi-
tude, no seditious outcry was raised; no menace, insult, or
violence was offered to any one ; not even an accident oc-
curred to excite regret.
Lamartine returned to the hotel of the minister for foreign
affairs, uncertain as to the interpretation which public
opinion would give to this event on the morrow, whilst he
did not disguise from himself the designs of those who had
instigated the demonstration. It was a signal defeat of the
majority of the government, and an act of insolent overbear-
ing on the part of certain men under the pretext of a great
popular gathering and a homage to the republic; it was, in
short, a review of the forces of the ultra-revolutionary
minority of Paris, commanded by a few individuals who
wished to rule the republic by intimidation, and who were
desirous of ascertaining the amount of real patriotic enthu-
siasm entertained by the people towards the government.
He resolved to pretend to be deceived by these arts, and
to affect to take as a support what he knew to be in reality a
tyranny. This was the only way to prevent Paris and France
from being struck with stupor, and regarding the restoration
of public order as hopeless. But from that moment Lamar-
time felt that the government was animated by two spirits,
nor easily reconcilable, and with whose conflicts he should
have to struggle till the close of the dictatorship. The pro-
VIEWS ENTERTAINED BY THE CLUBBISTS. 403
gramme of the clubs had for its object the perpetuation of the
dictatorship, the adjournment of the elections, placing France
without the pale of the law, and enabling one city, and one
class of the population of that city, to rule paramount, through
the agency of a few individuals. This scheme might find
sympathy in the circle of the government. The clubbists, the
delegates of the Luxembourg, and the emissaries of the
Club des Clubs (a sort of official agency serving as a channel
of communication between the minister of the interior and
the public mind), all were imbued with the idea that France
was not yet prepared to receive liberty in the sense in
which they understood it. They seemed to be of opinion
that the country could not be intrusted with its own govern-
ment; that the republic was exclusively their own, by right
of the priority of their efforts in establishing it, and of their
democratic superiority; that it was necessary they themselves
should rule in the name of the republic ; and that to enforce
obedience they must hold the language and maintain the
attitude of the committee of public safety. -
Lamartine, on the contrary, and the majority of the govern-
ment, were convinced that the liberty monopolized by a few
would entail the enslavement and degradation of all; that to
adjourn the elections and to place the National Assembly with-
out the pale of the law, would be to give the signal for the
insurrection of the departments and for civil war; that the
dictatorship of those republicans who laid claim to democratic
supremacy would be the dictatorship of the populace, aggra-
vated by violence and crime; that every succeeding week,
would witness the creation and destruction of one or another of
these self-appointed dictators; that Paris would be plunged
into bloodshed and anarchy, and that the name of the republic
would a second time perish in the execration of contemporaries
and the doubts of posterity. Lamartine resolved to oppose to
the utmost, and by all lawful means, the plots of partisans of
the dictatorship and of committees of public safety, and even
to sacrifice himself, if it must be so, for the immediate and com-
plete restoration of the sovereignty of the whole French people
and government, and in defence of the national representation.
But before the coming of that day, an abyss of anarchy
and eventual despotism must be traversed, which it then
seemed impossible to pass through. Of the practicability of
2 D 2
404 DIFFICULTIES OF THE GOVERNMENT. .
passing it, even the wisest men and most experienced poli-
ticians entertained doubts. These persons declared their
conviction that Lamartine was attempting a chimerical enter-
prise, which would lead him to destruction. They repre-
sented to him that the ultra-republican and conventionalist
party had obtained a footing in the government, and pos-
sessed control over two hundred thousand men in Paris; that
they held under their influence the commissaries and the clubs
in the departments; that, ruling the industrial population
everywhere, they were masters of the police, of the Luxem.
bourg, and of the public streets, through the withdrawal of the
army; that they controlled a portion of the national guard,
through the arming of the faubourgs; and that the national
workshops were under their sway by the help of money and
turbulence. Was it them to be expected that the party
would suffer their power to be wrested from their grasp by
the elections without struggling for it, and imbruing it in
blood, ere they surrendered it to the nation ?
Lamartine was fully aware of all these difficulties and
dangers. But he was sure of his colleagues, and he felt
strong in the conviction of being in the right. He was dis-
posed to judge favourably of men, it is true ; and he judged
quickly, and as it were instinctively. But he had no choice
left. He saw that he must either triumph or perish glo-
riously and honourably in the enterprise. If death awaited
him, he was resigned to his fate, feeling the assurance that
his sacrifice, speedily avenged, would be the signal for the
general rising of the country against the tyranny of dema
goguic dictatorship. He therefore pursued his object without
self-delusion, but not without hope, determined to negotiate
or to fight, provided he triumphed in the two points of para-
mount importance,—namely, the question of war abroad, and
the question of the convocation of the National Assembly at
home. - f
The demonstration of the 17th of March, and the impe-
rious programme of the clubs, sufficiently revealed the idea of
dictatorship entertained by the leaders of the movement,
secret as well as avowed. They had artfully prompted the
voice of the people to proclaim this idea at the Hôtel de
Ville on the day of the meeting. From that day, the writ-
ings of the revolutionary journalists, the resolutions passed
THREATENED CATASTROPHE. 405
in the clubs, the harangues of itinerant orators to the street
mobs, the furious speeches and circulars of certain commis-
sioners in the provinces, words dropped in the warmth of
conviction by men who were in the secrets of the clubs,
declarations announced both verbally and by placards,-all
assured Lamartine that the adjournment of the elections, and
the indefinite prolongation of the dictatorship, were the
watchwords of the Secret ultra-republican committees. If
this idea, which flattered the pride of the turbulent popula-
tion of Paris, into whose hands it would throw supreme
power, should have time to take root and propagate, so as to
become the doctrine and creed of the masses of the people,
there must be an end of the republic. This idea could then
be extirpated only by fire and sword, and France would have
to re-conquer her capital by fighting through torrents of
blood. The reign of the turbulent and exclusive party of the
population, supported by tribunes, at once sovereigns and
slaves (like the dictator dreamed of by Marat), must inevi-
tably be a reign of executioners destined speedily to become
victims, to make way for other executioners doomed to be
victims in their turn. Lamartine trembled for his country,
and he determined, at all risks to himself, to spare no efforts
to avert the threatened catastrophe.
Two courses were open to him :—force and negotiation.
He resolved to avail himself of both, resorting to each
alternately, and at any price, according to the nature of the
men and circumstances he might have to cope with.
The brave General Négrier, who has since perished in the
cause of his country, an intrepid soldier, a leader adored by
his troops, a citizen of antique mould,—at that time com-
manded the army of the north. This army of eighty thousand
men was controlled by the general with a vigour and gentleness
of command, which rendered it obedient to his authority by
affection rather than by discipline. Négrier had occasionally
been assailed in the council by the denunciations of demagogue
commissioners, who reproached him for having served under
princes, and who impugned his honour by throwing out sus-
picions of his fidelity to the republic. These suspicions were
groundless : Négrier's heart might be grateful; but his duty
was to his country. M. Arago, the minister of the war de-
partment, the constant and courageous defender of the officers
406 GENERAL NEGRIER.
of the army, had always resolutely refused to take cognizance
of the backbiting accusations brought forward by certain tur-
bulent commissioners. Lamartine had likewise defended the
generals, and especially Négrier, against the revolutionary
omnipotence of the proconsuls. As minister for foreign
affairs, he deemed it advisable to have in the direction of
Belgium, a disposable army, free from the influence of faction.
Belgium might, at any time, as in 1793, become the battle-
field of European war; for that country is one of the great
breaches of France. As a statesman, too, Lamartine saw the
expediency of forming the nucleus of an army at Lille, so
that in the event of an anarchical and Sanguinary party be-
coming triumphant in Paris, the moderate republicans, con-
quered and expelled from the capital, might have a reserve in
readiness in the department of the North. Such a reserve,
commanded by Négrier, would, in that case, form a rallying-
point for the national guards of the northern provinces, and
the whole would compose a force capable of wresting Paris
and the republic from the tyranny which daily menaced
them.
Négrier, on his part, without personally knowing Lamar-
tine, was convinced, from his speeches and his acts, that he
had, in the minister for foreign affairs, a man after his own
heart. A friend of the general, M. D. , commanding a
battalion of the national guard of Paris, who had actively
Seconded Lamartine, in his efforts to preserve order and re-
press revolution, made several journeys to the army of the
north, and proved an intelligent agent between Lamartine and
Négrier. The latter held himself in readiness to receive the
government at Lille, in the event of its compulsory retirement
from Paris, or to march on Amiens or Abbeville, the moment
the government might summon the northern departments to
send succour to the capital. This reserve of the army of the
north, under the command of a resolute and faithful general,
was the last resource of Lamartine. It afforded assurance,
not to himself, but to the Parisians and to France; for he
well knew that if the demagogues should triumph over the
well-disposed part of the citizens, he himself would be their
first victim ; but he also well knew what would immediately
ensue. Within ten days, the army of the north, recruited by
the twenty thousand troops of the army of the Rhine, by five
COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE PARTY LEADERS. 407
hundred thousand national guards, from the departments of
the north, east, and west, would deal destruction on the dic-
tators and the committees of public Safety, who might dream
of renewing the tyrannies of 1793. This thought, even amidst
the worst extremities to which the government was reduced,
brought comfort to the mind of Lamartine; and the name of
Négrier secretly sounded in his ear like a last hope, or at
least like that of the 'avenger of subverted society. But he
communicated this thought to no one, lest he should draw
upon Négrier the suspicions and accusations of the dema-
gogues.
Being satisfied on that head, he resolved to make efforts of
another nature on the minds and on the patriotism of the
principal party leaders, who influenced opinion in the clubs,
and controlled the extreme journals: these men alone had at
that time power sufficient to stir up excitement in Paris,
whilst without their help, even the boldest conspirators could
work no mischief among the people. If in his communications
with these men he should fail to bring them to reason and
moderation, and induce them to wait patiently the event of
the general elections, he determined then, in concurrence with
his friends in the government, to stand prepared for a despe-
rate conflict between the two camps of the republic in Paris.
If, on the other hand, he succeeded, he would gain a mastery
over the most active elements of the revolution, and would
have power to paralyze communism, terrorism, the supporters
of dictatorship, and the partisans of war. He had faith in
the good intentions of some even of the most fanatical among
these men, and he was prepared to repose full confidence in
the sincerity of their communications with him. This faith
saved Paris and France from the worst disasters. Had
not Lamartine opened his heart to adversaries who were
prejudiced against him, had he not penetrated into their
minds and designs, these same men would have persevered in
believing that he had taken part with the republic only to be-
tray it; that he was plotting a counter-revolution, and pre-
paring to play the hackneyed character of a popular Monk.
The consequence would have been, that, uniting against him
the partisans of war and dictatorship, these violent men would
infallibly have thrown France into the convulsions attendant
on a conventionalist government. *
408 . M. DE LAMFNNAIS.
With some of these leaders Lamartine was acquainted.
To the others he made advances for drawing them into inter-
views with him.
One of the most distinguished of the political writers of
the day was M. de Lamennais. He had formerly been the
apostle of Catholicism ; but having changed his faith and his
mission, he had become the apostle of the proletaries. His
heart was softened by their misery; and his style was har-
dened by resentment of their wrongs. For the space of
twelve years his voice had proclaimed their grievances, and
sometimes uttered the cry of vengeance. Lamennais had
been suddenly, and as it were miraculously, appeased by the
proclamation of the republic. That event produced on him
the effect which victory creates in a generous heart. He
immediately sided with society, threatened by terrorism,
socialism, and demagoguism. He edited a journal, called
Le Peuple Constituant, which displayed considerable talent,
and exercised great influence over the public mind. Lamar-
time had hitherto known M. de Lamennais only as a writer;
and he was astonished to find that he possessed the firmness,
the moderation, and the Sagacious views which might qualify
him for a statesman. The journal he edited was opposed to
war, as well as to ultra-democratic and anti-social doctrines;
and had M. de Lamennais persevered in the course he was
then pursuing, France might have possessed in him one.
statesman more. At the time here alluded to, Lamartine
was in the frequent habit of meeting him in the house of a
lady distinguished for her talent and her liberalism. De
Lamennais drew up the plan of a constitution, which, how-
ever, had the fault of being wanting in a due centralization
of popular power. Whilst he was on the side of moderation,
the very name of De Lamennais held violence in check, and
owerthrew chimeras. When subsequently nominated to the
Constituent Assembly, he too readily took alarm at reaction,
and retracing his steps, entered once more into the path of
visions. This was a serious loss to the practical republic.
When genius deserts a cause it has supported, that cause
must suffer, and has reason to deplore.
Raspail, a powerful man in the faubourgs of Paris, con-
sented to have an interview with Lamartine. They had a
long conversation, which was maintained without reserve on
RASPAIL AND CABET. 409
both sides. Lamartine, who had heard Raspail defend his
cause before the court of peers, had been forcibly struck with
the picturesque flow of his eloquence, the tone of which
was at once bold and subdued. Raspail's political views,
which were mixed up with religious aspirations, were of a
popular and levelling character, and they appeared to be
felt rather than thoroughly digested in his mind. But a fit
of impatience seized him ; and in his journal, as well as in
his club, he urged the people to demand that the elections
should be adjourned, and the government consigned to a
popular dictatorship. Lamartine pointed out to him the
dangers so intolerable a usurpation would entail on the re-
public. He pictured to him the endless perspectives of pro-
gress and social charity, which republican institutions would
secure in proportion to the development of reason and virtue
in society. He convinced him of the impracticability of
effecting violent changes in the bases of property, and con-
jured him to give time and confidence to the country, by re-
fraining from any encroachment on the sovereignty that was
the right of all. Raspail, who possessed more of philosophy
than ambition, was touched by the reasoning and the ardour
of Lamartine. He promised to retrace his course, to oppose
the plotting of the partisans of dictatorship, to await the
establishment of the national sovereignty, and to conspire
only in speeches from the tribune. The almost superstitious
influence which Raspail exercised over the minds of the
masses, contributed greatly, during this period, to check
plotting, and to restrain the people of the faubourgs within
the limits of patience and order. -
Cabet, though his mind was less imaginative than that of
Raspail, had evidently fallen into dreams of ambition the
most boundless, and accordingly he was not so readily acces-
sible to reason. The phantom of communism, which he had
conjured up, was ever floating between him and his interlo-
cutor. Nevertheless, Lamartine, as a citizen, had every rea-
son to congratulate himself on his relations with Cabet. That
sectarian leader could not view with satisfaction efforts to
establish a dictatorship, which would give supremacy to
socialists or to tribunes who were his rivals in system and
in popularity. He restrained the communists of his own
party, and through them a large body of the people, by hold-
410 APPOINTMENTS GIVEN BY LAMARTINE.
ing out the idea that Lamartine's intention was to impose a
check on all parties.
A young man, who, at a former time, had evinced great
talent in the Chamber of Peers, M. Alton Shee, was now
gaining applause in popular meetings. He was an ardent
and disinterested opponent of anarchical plans and extreme
doctrines. Subsequently, his mind being directed to other
pursuits, he was drawn out of the track of the republic, and
Lamartine, who had hoped much from his activity, energy,
and talent, lost sight of him.
Barbès still continued to visit Lamartine from time to
time. His intentions were upright, but his ideas were con-
fused. He was beginning unknowingly and unwillingly to
get bewildered under the inspirations of his prison associates.
Barbès was a man of action, and men of system were linking
him to their schemes whilst he was not aware of their
designs. He was a soldier fighting in the cause of impossi.
bility; and it was evident that he must soon fall into the
ranks of the desperadoes of democracy.
But Barbès, though capable of conspiracy, was incapable of
treachery. His presence among the anarchists was more
calculated to console than to alarm Lamartine, who, though
aware of his ready excitability, was quite certain of his good
faith. -
A friend of Barbès, and one who had been the companion
of his captivity, young Lamieussens, exercised a favourable
influence over the extreme republicans of that camp of the
revolution. Lamartine had noticed him and proposed to
employ his talents. At that time he sent many young repub-
licans to foreign countries, giving to some posts in the offices
of the embassies, and appointing others to vice-consulates,
and in several instances to consulates which depended on his
department. These nominations, though they have since
met with disapproval, were in fact highly politic. The go-
vernment could not allow men who had suffered in its cause
to become dissatisfied and corrupted amidst the factions of
the capital; men, too, who had rendered good Service to
the republic by directing and moderating the people of
Paris. -
Sobrier continued to see Lamartine frequently. He had
more enthusiasm than ambition, and he daily acquired in-
SOBRIER AND HIS JOURNAL, 411
creasing ascendancy over the revolutionary youth of the
central districts of Paris. At that time he employed his
ascendancy in the service of order and moderate opinions.
He counterbalanced by his journal and his club the influence
of other journals and other societies under the control of the
dictatorial and extreme party. He was desirous of maintaining
the integrity of the government even by force of arms. His
journal, La Commune de Paris, frequently promulgated hymns
and doctrines of sinister tendency; yet, nevertheless, it re-
commended order, the fraternity of all classes of citizens,
respect for property, inviolability of conscience, peace with
foreign powers, and temporization until the day when the
National Assembly should be empowered to represent all rights
and to make laws. The doctrines of Sobrier had the more
credit with the multitude, owing to a certain exaggerated
fanaticism and extravagant hopes, in which no one surpassed
him. His fanaticism was theoretical, his hopes were patient.
He was endowed with personal courage. He was aware of
the schemes daily projected in ultra-republican meetings for
decimating the government, taking by surprise the depart-
ments of finance and foreign affairs, putting aside Lamartine,
and substituting in his stead men of extreme opinions. Sobrier
had, with perfectly honest intentions, enrolled in his service
five or six hundred men, for whom he had obtained arms from
Caussidière, and he had fixed the head-quarters of this sort of
armed police in the rue de Rivoli. Lamartine, who was made
acquainted with all these circumstances by Sobrier himself,
was instrumental in procuring for him from the civil list the
loan of the money required for paying the rent of these head-
quarters, which were situated in front of the Tuileries. When-
ever Lamartine received intimation of any contemplated
movement of a nature to disturb the public peace,—whenever
he was informed of a plot against the government or against
himself, he made the matter known to Sobrier, who sent his
men to watch the seditious meetings, and to defend those
departments of the government which might happen to be
threatened.
Paris was at this time entirely clear of regular troops, and
undefended by the national guard. Parties mutually defied
one another; and each had its own police and armed force.
Sobrier was the Caussidière of the other half of Paris. Lamar-
412 INFLUENTIAL POPULAR LEADERS.
tine had every reason to laud his disinterested zeal in main-
taining the public peace until the approach of the elections.
He then gave himself up to evil inspirations, mingling in the
electoral plots of the most determined socialists, allowing the
spirit of his journal to be perverted, and with puerile pertinacity
surrounding himself with a parade of armed conspiracy, which
was merely absurd, despite of its formidable aspect. Lamartine
being informed of these proceedings by General Courtais, re-
fused any longer to see Sobrier; but on two occasions he sent
him a message, directing him to dismiss his satellites, to lay
down arms, and to cease to act in violation of the law ; other-
wise he informed him the government would deal vigorously
with him. Sobrier obeyed, but only partially. We shall en-
counter him again in the events of the 15th of May.
Lamartine maintained open communication with the most
influential men and most popular speakers connected with the
various active parties and democratic clubs of Paris and the
faubourgs. He received them in his own house, and by rea-
soning endeavoured to bring right conviction to the minds of
the principal leaders of the populous districts of the Bastille,
the faubourg Saint Marceau, and the faubourg Saint An-
toine. He frequently spent whole nights in unreserved con-
versation with these men relative to the situation of the
republic abroad and at home, and in discussing those urgent
questions of political economy which then furnished texts for
popular discontent and excitement. He sometimes found
these men rebellious, but more frequently accessible to rea-
soning and advice. He invariably succeeded in convincing
them of the policy of not distracting the republic by civil
dissensions, which would defeat all the plans of social pro-
gress they might have conceived for the future; and he per-
suaded them to oppose the dictatorship of parties, and to calm
the people until they should be subjected to their own sove-
reignty in the National Assembly. -
These men, moved by the sincere and frequently impas-
sioned language of Lâmartine, pursued with sincerity the line
of conduct he recommended, retaining their own opinions on
certain points under discussion, but concurring with him in
all essential questions. From time to time they gave him
information on the state of popular feeling in their respective
districts. This open-hearted police, or rather these continu-
ous and candid negotiations between one of the heads of the
THE CLUB OF THE SORBONNE, 413,
government and the principal leaders of the clubs, prevented
discontent, defeated plots, saved Paris, and paved the way for
the advent of the National Assembly. This was a conspiracy
of honest men against the conspiracies of the wrong-headed.
Lamartine particularly attached himself to young men who
were sincere even in their revolutionary extravagance. He
did not allow himself to be repelled by certain names which
then excited great prejudice and odium in Paris. He was
well aware that a man's reputation frequently becomes a
calumny, which is taken for granted by those who know him
only by name. He was aware, too, that many shadows would
be dispelled on a near approach to the light of the heart;
besides, no feelings of personal repugnance are allowable in
the man who desires to save his country.
Thus it was, that without lowering himself or degrading
others, he became acquainted with and made use of the prin-
cipal agitators of the demagoguie clubs of the Sorbonne, in
whose meetings forty thousand proletaries listened to the
voice of agitation. Among the speakers were delegates from
the workmen of the Luxembourg, who were beginning to be
weary of the industrial and economical sophisms of Louis
Blanc. The other favourite speakers in the meetings of the
Sorbonne, were a young mulatto, who by the fervid tropical
character of his eloquence, attracted the people in crowds
from club to club, and De Flotte, one of the most devoted
disciples of Blanqui.
The young mulatto, whose name was Servien, was enthu-
siastic and persuasive as a public speaker, was timid and some-
what taciturn in private conversation. He avowed to Lamartine
that he was influenced by passion rather than by ideas, when he
delivered these harangues on social questions, which produced
so powerful an effect on his hearers. Lamartine communicated
to Servien the results of his own reflections, and represented to
him that socialism of sentiment by which all classes of citizens
might fraternize without injury to any one. Servien breathed
the spirit of conciliation and peace to the masses who were
charmed by his voice. Lamartine afterwards sent him among
the negroes, his brethren, to prepare them for emancipation
by concord with the colonists. He hoped that Servien’s
remarkable talent would secure his return from the colonies
to the National Assembly. -
De Flotte, who was an officer in the navy, was a young
414 DE FLOTTE AND BLANQUI.
man of good family, of studious habits, and honest principles;
but he was too fanatical a disciple of the subverting innova-
tions projected in the systems of the socialists. He followed
Blanqui as the most radical of the revolutionists, but he ex-
ercised an influence over his leader by his superior intelli-
gence. Lamartine, who thoroughly sounded his mind, was
convinced that he was free from any thought of crime, vice,
or prejudice, incompatible with the conservative and pro-
gressive social order which should be guaranteed by a well-
directed republican government. He felt assured that this
young man, who was misplaced among the factious parties,
with which he was associated, might be rendered serviceable
to the republic; and he resolved to think of him, when the
right opportunity presented itself. He afterwards learned
that De Flotte, though not implicated in the insurrection of
the 15th of May, had been arrested under the prejudice
created by his connection with Blanqui, and that he was
languishing in prison. He interceded in his behalf. Through
the medium of De Flotte, Lamartine intimated to Blanqui his
readiness to see him, adding that he himself would receive
him with no unfriendly feelings, and that their interview might
perhaps prove of service to the republic. -
Blanqui was at this time viewed with suspicion both by
the government and the extreme parties. The clubs which
he ruled by his violence and his talent envied him, and the
partisans of dictatorship, who beheld in him a rival or an
avenger, feared him. They all marked him out for public
opinion as the only dangerous mover of faction, in order that
they might be the better enabled to conceal their own fac-
tious movements under the shadow of his. Blanqui, on his
part, detested these men, who, he knew, were attempting to
stigmatize his honour. He kept aloof from them, and endea-
voured to go beyond them in radicalism, that he might sur-
pass them in popularity. He charged them with motives of
selfish ambition, and alleged that they were merely attempting
to dupe the people. Every evening the echo of his voice
made them tremble; for they knew that Blanqui had among
his followers several fanatics capable of avenging him by the
poniard or the pistol. This sinister reputation of Blanqui
was a phantom which incessantly hovered between them and
their ambition; consequently the most alarming rumours rela-
PLOTS ASSIGNED TO BLANQUI. 415
tive to Blanqui and his party were incessantly circulated,
though those who gave currency to these rumours put but
little faith in their truth. Blanqui was, in short, a sort of
imaginary Catiline. Now it was stated that he intended to
lay siege to the government at the Luxembourg, and during the
night to lodge it in Vincennes;–now that it was his intention
to set fire to Paris, and, profiting by the tumult, to proclaim
his own tyranny in the name of the people;—at another time,
he and a party of his accomplices were to surprise the hotel
of the minister for foreign affairs, and to assassinate Lamartine.
The credulous populace whispered those rumours from mouth
to mouth, but Lamartine put no faith in them. He regretted
the shameful declarations in which that little faction indulged,
but he was in no degree alarmed by the charges of treason
and threats of death which were nightly echoed through the
club. He well knew that the danger to which the govern-
ment and France might be exposed was to be apprehended
from factions held in less discredit than that in which Blanqui
took the lead. He indeed felt some hope that the really
powerless faction of that open-mouthed conspirator might
have the effect of counteracting and intimidating other fac-
tions, in other clubs, and in other parties. Lamartine, whose
colleagues were unable to comprehend his motives, had on
several occasions opposed the suggestion that Caussidière
should order the arrest of Blanqui; and yet this new tribune
was launching his thunderbolts over all Paris, and the
public mind was kept in a ferment by the fearful notoriety of
Blanqui.
About six o'clock one morning about the end of March
or the beginning of April, a man, presenting almost proletarian
appearance, accompanied by two or three other strangers of
suspicious aspect, entered the court of the hotel of foreign
affairs. This man gave his name, and requested to see the
minister. Lamartine had just risen, and the weather being
warm, he had sat down to write in his chamber without
having quite finished dressing. Blanqui's name was announced.
He immediately ordered him to be admitted, and advancing to
meet him with outstretched hand and uncovered breast, he
said, with a smile, “Well, Monsieur Blanqui, have you come
to stab me ! The hour is propitious, and the opportunity
favourable. Behold ! I wear no cuirass.”
416 BLANQUI's YISIT TO LAMARTINE.
Planqui having, at Tamartine's request, taken a seat oppo-
site to him, he thus continued, “Let us now speak seriously. ]
have much wished to see you, and you yourself have consented
to converse with me. This perhaps betokens that our ideas on
the subject of the republic are not so irreconcilable as appear-
ances lead unthinking persons to imagine. Let us then discuss
the matter fully. I will without reserve disclose to you all my
ideas, as a man who wishes to conceal nothing even from his
enemies. You will see whether my political horizon is suffi-
ciently expansive and luminous to afford to all the friends of
democracy free Scope for their legitimate action and their
legitimate views of progress, I beg you will interrupt me
whenever objections may occur to your mind, and I will ex-
plain what may appear to you obscure.”
Lamartine then unfolded to Blanqui his ideas of a republic,
such as he conceived was fitted to a continental nation, long
inured to the monarchical yoke, and in which Socialist pro-
blems, arising out of industry, luxury, and poverty, had, during
fifteen years, agitated the sub-strata of Society. He pointed
out the guarantee to be given to property, and the aid to be
extended to institutions for the benefit of the proletaries. He
went to the utmost extent of his conceptions, but not further
than common sense and practicability warranted, and the result
was a very strong government, responding to the will of the
whole nation, and therefore irresistible. He proved the danger
of war both as regarded the democratic principle and French
nationality. He declared himself the inflexible enemy of every
faction desirous of monopolizing the government by dictator-
ship, of desecrating it by bloodshed, or of distracting it by
anarchy. He professed the absolute dogma of the sovereignty
of the nation, in opposition to the tyranny of a single class,
even though that class should usurp the name of the people.
He declared his abhorrence of all ambitious corrupters of that
people, and his pity for the sophists, who were lulling them in
chimerical dreams, from which they would awaken to be
plunged in despair.
Whilst all this was uttered, Blanqui listened without offer-
ing any interruption, and his ascetic and expressive countenance
indicated profound attention. His deeply-set eye penetrated
as it were the inmost Soul of his interlocutor, and seemed to
betray the design of persuading or deceiving. He was too keen
INTERESTING CONVERSATION, 417
an observer not to perceive that the language, the looks, and
manner of Lamartime all bespoke sincerity. He made no fun-
damental objection to the ideas which had just been developed.
He even spoke in a tone of ironical disdain of the men who
set themselves up to be the prophets of socialism and ter-
rorism, observing that he admitted their theories only as theories
and tendencies, and that any immediate and practical realiza-
tion of them was impossible, without the guarantee of pro-
perty and established rights.
Referring to the government, he readily admitted the ne-
cessity of resorting to measures of force for the repression of
anarchy; and he candidly avowed that it was incumbent
on Lamartine to discourage the ambitious and turbulent
partisans of dictatorship, by insisting on the convocation of
the National Assembly. Indeed, he did not hesitate to speak
in the same tone to his club, and to recommend the re-
tractation of the factious protests which had been put forth
against the elections.
This political dialogue having fully answered the end de-
sired, which was to gain concurrence for the convocation of
the Assembly, and the promise of opposition to dictatorial
attempts, Lamartine turned the conversation to familiar
topics. Blanqui then seemed to pour into his discourse the
feelings of a lacerated heart;-a heart which, having been
hardened by persecution, now expanded, and overflowed in
an intimacy of chance. He related to Lamartine the story
of his life, which had been one long conspiracy against go-
vernments. He told him of his love for a woman whom
captivity could not separate from him, but who had died of a
broken heart, caused by his misfortunes. He described his
long imprisonments, his solitary reflections, his aspirations to
God; and he spoke of his anti-sanguinary instincts, whilst he
admitted his almost uncontrollable passion for plotting. This
passion, which was now identified with his nature, had been
contracted in the conspiracies into which he had entered
early in life. His manner was simple, natural, and digni-
fied, and was sometimes even marked by a touch of gentle-
ness. Lamartine recognized in this conspirator the sort of
talent and tact which would peculiarly fit him for diplomatic
negotiation, if he could prevail on himself to bend his inde-
pendence to the yoke of a government. He inquired whe-
2 E
418 THE MOBILE GUARD.
ther Blanqui would be willing to serve the republican govern-
ment, at home or abroad, in a manner consistently with his own
views; and he asked him whether the part of an eternal con-
demner and assailer of the institutions of his country was
not at once onerous, ungracious, and useless in itself, as well as
injurious to the republic 2 Blanqui admitted that it was; and
he did not show himself very averse to the idea of serving
abroad, a government whose views he could share, and
whose ministers he could respect. After a conversation of
Several hours duration, Blanqui and Lamartine separated, in
appearance Satisfied with each other, and ready to meet again,
should circumstances suggest the expediency of their holding
further interviews.
From that day forward Lamartine regularly kept up
honest and sincere communication with the different parties
who were contending for the government of the nation. He
constantly influenced them in one direction only ;-a direc-
tion tending to promote the convocation of the National As-
sembly, and its acceptance by the people of Paris. Having
assured himself that the leaders of the various factions could
co-operate with him in furtherance of that object, the only
difficult task that remained for him and his colleagues was to
keep a vigilant eye on any seditious manifestations, which
might submerge the government, or take it by surprise.
There was, hourly, impending danger. The mobile guard
as yet counted only a few battalions, and they were unpro-
vided with uniforms. The delegates of the Luxembourg
beheld with dissatisfaction the levying of that guard, and
raised up a thousand obstacles to impede the equipment of
the men. General Duvivier naturally became impatient
at these delays; for he could maintain order and duty among
his troops only by dint of encouragements and indulgences.
The national guard, aided by the activity of their general,
Guimard, had clothed, armed, and organized themselves
into a corps amounting to one hundred and ninety thousand
men; , and they were preparing to appoint their officers.
Still, however, this corps had no real or practical existence ;
for the governmert, very properly, would not call it into Ser-
vice until it should be furnished with uniforms, lest the
contrast exhibited by the poverty of some, and the military
Splendour of others, might, here and there, give rise to aris-
SCHEME FOR INVADING BELGIUM. 4:19.
tocratic divisions where it was desirable to create per-
fect unity of feeling as well as of action. The foreign
refugees in Paris were increasing both in numbers and
in boldness. They aimed at coercing the government,
and taking the war of force into their own hands, and to
carry it into their own countries, headed by the French flag.
The Belgians, especially, besieged with their importunities
the minister for foreign affairs and the minister of the interior.
The government was firmly resolved to withhold all such con-
currence, which was alike inconsistent with policy and good
faith, but it could exercise only a moral authority in opposi-
tion to their enlistments and plans of invasion.
The minister for foreign affairs had several times defeated
the plots of these Belgians, and had prevailed on the prince
de Ligne to make them return to their country. Some hun-
dreds of them had in consequence quitted Paris, but two or
three thousand of them still remained, dispersed about the
capital as well as in different parts of the département du
Nord. It appeared that, wearied by importunities and re-
proaches, some individuals connected with the government, but
acting without its cognizance or Sanction, had allowed them-
selves to be worked upon by the refugees. These persons had
furnished them with the means of proceeding to Belgium, by
preparing ammunition-waggons for their use on the extreme
frontier of France. On arriving at Lille, the Belgian
column demanded arms from General Négrier, who, having
been warned by Lamartine, refused to supply them. Whilst
this was passing in Lille, Lamartine, being informed of the plot,
wrote officially to the minister of the interior, desiring that he
would employ all his agents to oppose the refugees in their pre-
parations for the invasion of Belgium. The minister of the in.
terior obeyed, and transmitted orders to that effect to the frontier.
The government commissary at Lille, who at first probably
supposed he was acting conformably with the views of the
government by favouring the arming of the refugees, imme-
diately desisted, and endeavoured to render the return of the
Belgians to their native country inoffensive. The Belgians,
finding that they had been joined by two or three pupils of the
Polytechnic School, who had brought with them some wag-
gons filled with muskets, believed the French government
to be conniving at their plot. They crossed the Belgian
2 E 2
420 DISTURBANCES AT CHAMBERY.
frontier with arms in their hands, and were received by a
round of musketry by the king's troops, upon which they
fled back into France, raising cries of treason. These cries
found their way to Paris, where they excited the German and
Polish refugees, and raised commotion in the clubs. This is
what was called at the time the invasion of Risquons-Tout,
from the name of the village at which the encounter took
place. There was, however, no treason in the matter,
though there was some intelligence between certain democrats
and the Belgian refugees. Counter orders, promptly and
firmly issued by the government, had revoked orders given by
secret agents. The foreign powers reasonably complained;
but their complaints were made in a tone of moderation, and
they could not but acknowledge the good faith and even
the energy of the repressive measures adopted by the minister
for foreign affairs.
Similar attempts were made to muster hostile bands at
Strasbourg and on the banks of the Rhine, in spite of the
incessant resistance of the French government. At length an
expedition of Savoyard volunteers departed from Lyons,
crossed the Rhone, and, advancing on Chambery, took that
place by surprise and made themselves masters of it. They
were, however, expelled on the following day by a sponta-
neous rising of the mountaineers. M. Emanuel Arago, who
was with difficulty holding in check the industrial anarchy of
Lyons, wrote to Lamartine informing him of the band of
conspirators he had to oppose, but whom he could not subdue
without armed force. M. Ledru Rollin, acting on informa-
tion he received from the minister for foreign affairs, de-
spatched to Lyons commissioners with orders immediately to
dissolve these musterings of armed men. Larmartine pro-
posed the aid of the army of the Alps for the re-establishment
of order at Chambery, and to defeat the attempts of the
refugees and the French to violate Savoyan nationality. Her
government was as much a stranger to that violation as the
preceding government had been to the invasion of Savoy by
the Italians. A. proclamation was published, ordering all
the refugees to withdraw from the frontiers. Lamartine and
the minister of the interior made arrangements together for
effecting the dissolution of these armed gatherings. Con-
siderable sums were employed by M. Flocon for the purpose
THE POLISH REFUGEES. 421
of dispersing these multitudes of refugees, by giving them
succour and the means of returning to their homes.
But the most active still remained in Paris. These were
the Poles, a class of refugees who may be said to be the
leaven of Europe, and who constitute the revolutionary army of
the continent. The Poles are as brave on the field of battle
as they are turbulent in civil discord. They find themselves
at home in every country in which they can keep up agita-
tion; and they agitated Paris, and menaced the government.
Acclimated by national hospitality, supported by French
committees, surrounded by indefatigable protectors, such as
MM. de Montalembert and Vavin, ever ready to defend their
rights in opposition to power, the Polish refugees presented
not the least formidable of the many embarrassments which
involved the position of the minister for foreign affairs.
Polish brigades, paid by France, had been opened for their
enrolment. This was going to the utmost verge of the law of
nations. To declare war against Prussia, Austria, and Russia,
on behalf of the Poles, would indeed have been entering on a
crusade to win a sepulchre. By refusing to make this decla-
ration of war, the provisional government exposed itself to un-
popularity and to seditious plots in favour of the Poles. These
refugees had a voice in every club, a shout in every disturb-
ance, and a hand in every act of popular violence. They openl
enlisted sympathy in the national workshops, and they boldly
announced Polish manifestations for the purpose of intimi-
dating the government. The more sensible portion of their
countrymen sought to restrain them, but in vain; and French
demagogues made use of the name of Poland for the purpose
of stirring up excitement in France. Lamartine, who kept
an attentive eye on their agitations, was annoyed to find that
there was more difficulty in controlling these guests of France
than in ruling France herself. *: “J .
One evening, after he had returned home, worn out by
the struggle which daily occurred at the Hôtel de Ville, and
when he counted on snatching a few hours' sleep, a thing so
rare to him at that time, he was informed that a numerous
deputation of Poles desired to have an interview with him.
These Poles were members of some democratic club or other,
which claimed for itself the right of representing the whole
Polish nation. This was the pretension of each one of the
422 SEDITIOUS AND MENA ºf NG LANGUAGE.
five or six hostile parties into which the Polish refugees were
divided; for even in a foreign land they were anarchical
among themselves, and antipathetic one to another. The
deputation was ushered into the cabinet of the minister for
foreign affairs, and they ranged themselves before Lamartine
in two separate groups. One of their orators addressed the
minister in a speech in which there was nothing objectionable
except that its tone was somewhat too imperious for a colony
of foreigners. Lamartine was preparing to reply with the
respect due to expatriation and misfortune, when he was
stopped by exclamations from the other group, who protested
against the moderation of the address.
Another speaker, who with furious gesticulations stepped
forward from the ranks of the dissatisfied party, insolently
apostrophized the minister, and, in his person, the French
nation. He read a seditious speech, which concluded by
informing Lamartine that the Poles possessed greater autho-
rity in Paris than he did; that they would call the govern-
ment to account; that forty thousand men belonging to the
national workshops had enrolled themselves to join them;
that all were to match together on the Hôtel de Ville, and if
the government refused to yield, they would be found suffi-
ciently strong to overthrow it. g
On hearing the government thus menaced, and the dignity
of the nation insulted, Lamartine became irritated. He
accepted the challenge offered to him, and contented himself
with replying, that when France suffered her government to be
overthrown by a handful of foreigners, who wished to dictate
laws to her, then indeed France would be degraded even
below the level of a nation who could not boast a country.
A warm altercation ensued, accompanied by angry words
and gesticulations. The first group sought to prevail on the
noisy speakers in the second group to listen to reason, but
their efforts were unavailing. At length the rational and
prudent members of the deputation, who were in the majority,
interposed, appeased the factious orator who had first spoken,
and at length drew from him some apologies. The deputa-
tion agreed to adjourn their proceedings until the following
day, and then to assemble at the Hôtel de Ville. Or, their
departure, Lamartine observed to them, that if the deputation
should degenerate into a manifestation, and if they should
LAMARTINE’s ADDRESS TO THE POLES. 423
bring a single Frenchman in their train, they should no
longer be treated as the guests, but as the disturbers of
France.
Accordingly, on the following day, they made their appear-
ance on the Place de Grève in a numerous body, but with a
peaceful and decorous bearing. France and Europe anxiously
awaited the reply which Lamartine would return to them, for on
that reply rested the question of peace or war for the whole
continent. Theminister addressed them in the followingspeech,
as reported by the short-hand writers of the Moniteur :—
“Poles, the French republic receives as a happy augury
the homage of your adhesion and of your gratitude for its
hospitality. I need not tell you what are the sentiments che-
rished by the republic for the sons of Poland. The voice of
France has given you assurance of those sentiments year after
year, even though that voice was repressed by the monarchy.
The republic has a voice still more free and sympathetic. It
will repeat to you those fraternal sentiments, and will give you
proofs of them in every way compatible with the policy of
justice, moderation, and peace, which the republic has pro-
claimed to the world.
“Yes, since your last disasters, since the Sword has effaced
from the map of nations those last protestations of your
existence, as the vestige or as the germ of a nation, Poland
has not only been a reproach, she has been a living remorse in
the midst of Europe. -
“France will repay what she owes you : of that rest as-
sured; for the hearts of thirty-six millions of Frenchmen are
pledged to you. Only leave to France what belongs to her
exclusively, viz., the time and the manner which Providence
may determine as most proper for restoring you, without aggres-
sion and without the effusion of human blood, to the place which
belongs to you under the light of the Sun and in the catalogue
of nations.
“You know the principles which the provisional govern-
ment has invariably adopted in its foreign policy. If you do
not know them, I will now explain them.
“The republic is republican doubtless; as such it has loudly
proclaimed itself to the world. But the republic is not at war,
either openly or secretly, with any existing nations or govern-
ments, whilst those nations and governments do not, on their
424 THE REPUBLICAN POLICY.
part, declare war against the republic. The provisional govern-
ment will not therefore commit, nor willingly suffer to be com-
mitted, any act of aggression or violence against the Germanic
nations. Those nations are themselves at the present time
labouring to modify their internal system of confederation, and
to create unity and establish justice among the nations who
claim to be included in that system. It would be nothing
short of madness or treason to the liberty of the world to
disturb those efforts by warlike demonstration, or to transform
into hostility, suspicion, or hatred, the liberative tendency
which approximates them in feeling to us and to you.
“And what moment do you ask us to choose for this vio-
lation of policy and liberty ? Is the treaty of Pilnitz mili-
tating against us? Is the coalition of absolute Sovereigns
drawn up in hostile array on our frontiers and on yours?
Nothing of the sort : On the contrary, every courier brings
us the victorious acclamations of nations who sanction our
principles and who fortify our cause, precisely because we
have declared that those principles bind us to respect the
rights, the popular will, the forms of government, and the
territorial possessions of all nations. Has then the policy
of the provisional government been attended abroad by such
unfavourable results that we should be forced to change it, and
to present ourselves on the frontiers of neighbouring coun-
tries armed with bayonets, instead of offering assurances of
liberty and peace 3
“No ; this policy, at once firm and pacific, has succeeded
too well to cause the republic to change it until the time
shall arrive when the foreign powers themselves may oblige
her to alter it ! Look at Belgium, at Switzerland, at
Italy —Look at the whole of Southern Germany —Look at
Vienna, at Berlin -—What would you wish more ? The
very possessors of your territories have opened for you the
road to your country, and invite you to reconstruct its foun-
dation peacefully. Be not unthankful to God! nor unjust to
the republic or to us! The sympathetic nations of Germany,
and the king of Prussia himself, are opening the gates of
their citadels to your martyrs and your exiles,—Cracow
is enfranchised,—the grand duchy of Posen once more annexed
to Poland—these are the arms with which we have fur-
nished you in one month's duration of our policy.
VIEWS IN REFERENCE TO POLAND. 425
“Do not ask for others | The provisional government
will not suffer the policy it is now pursuing to be changed by
a foreign nation, however much that nation may command
our sympathies. We love Poland; we love Italy; we love
all oppressed nations; but we love France still more; and
we have, at this moment, the responsibility of her destinies,
and possibly those of Europe.
“This responsibility we will resign into no other hands
than those of the nation itself! Put your trust, then, in
France; put your trust in the future; put your trust in the
thirty days just past, during which French democracy has
gained more ground than could have been won by thirty
pitched battles. Disturb not, either by armed hostility or
agitation, which would recoil to the injury of our common
cause, the work which Providence has accomplished, with no
arms save human intelligence, for the regeneration of nations
and the fraternity of mankind.
“As Poles, you have spoken well; and it is our duty to
speak as Frenchmen. Both of us have our respective duties
and feelings. As Poles, you may be justly impatient to fly
to the land of your fathers, and to answer the appeal which
that part of Poland already free has made to her generous
sons. Those sentiments we cannot but applaud, and we will
provide, as you desire, pacific means of aiding the Poles to
return to their country, and to rejoice in the dawn of Polish
independence at Posen. r
“For our own parts, as Frenchmen, we have not merely
to consider Poland; we have to consider the universality of
European policy in every quarter in its connection with
France, and with all the interests of liberty, of which the
republic is the second, and we hope the most glorious and the
last explosion in Europe. The serious importance of those
interests, and of the resolutions they may call for, withholds
the republic from resigning into the hands of any nation, or
of any party in a nation, however sacred its cause, the re-
sponsibility and the liberty of adopting those resolutions.
“The policy in reference to Poland, which we were en-
joined to follow under the monarchy, is not the policy
which the republic requires us to pursue. The language
which the republic has addressed to the world she will
remain faithful to ; she will not allow it to be said by any
426 THE QUESTION OF INTERVENTION.
power on earth, “Your words here are at variance with your
acts there !’
“The republic ought not, and will not, allow its acts to
contradict its words; it wishes to have its promises respected,
and therefore will not break them. What has the republic
said in its manifesto to the powers ? It said, turning a
thought to Poland: “Whenever it shall appear that Providence
has marked the hour for the resurrection of a nationality un-
justly obliterated from the map of nations, we will fly to its
aid; but we justly reserve to France the privilege which
belongs exclusively to her; viz. that of determining the time
for rendering justice to the cause, and of choosing what she
may deem the most proper means of interference.’
“These means we have already chosen; we have de-
termined that they shall be pacific. France and Europe
may now see whether these pacific measures have deceived
us, and whether they deceive you.
“In the space of thirty-one days, the natural results of
this system of peace and fraternity, declared to foreign
nations and governments, have done more for the cause of
France and liberty, and for the cause of Poland herself, than
could have been gained by ten battles, accompanied by tor-
rents of bloodshed.
“Think of the spontaneous popular explosions, and the
constitutions in Vienna, Berlin, Italy, Milan, Genoa, Southern
Germany, and Munich ! Think of your own frontiers, at
length opened to you amidst the acclamations of Germany,
which is rising in new forms of life, fostered by the inviola-
bility with which we have invested her governments and her
territories' All this is the work of the republic; thanks to
her system of respect for liberty and for human blood! Rest
assured, that we shall not retrograde into any other system
The disinterested end at which we aim is more easily attain-
able by a straightforward course than by winding through
the crooked paths of diplomacy. Seek not, therefore, to lead
us out of that direct course. There is something which
restrains, whilst at the same time it elevates, our love for
Poland;—it is our reason | Lef us listen to that monitor, in
complete liberty of thought; and be assured, that in that
thought there is rºo separation of the two nations, whose blood
has so often intermingled on the ‘ield of battle.
REPLY TO THE IRISH DELEGATES. 427
“Our solicitude in your behalf, like our hospitality, will
extend as far as our frontiers, and our eyes will follow you
into your country. Thither carry with you our best wishes
for the prosperity of the regeneration now dawning for you
even in Prussia, in whose capital the banner of Poland waves.
For the asylum which France has afforded you she seeks no
other reward than the amelioration of your national destiny
and the recollections of the French name which you will carry
with you.
“Forget not that it is to the republic you are indebted
for the first steps you are about to take in the direction of your
country.”
This address had at once the effect of Satisfying Europe and
checking the impetuosity of the Polish refugees.
England awaited with solicitude the reception which Lamar-
tine might give to the Irish agitators, who had departed from
Dublin to demand succour and arms from the French republic.
The old standing national hatred between France and England
favoured their cause. There were in France three parties,
viz., the demagogues, the military, and the Catholic party,
who united together to enforce the belief that the Irish insur-
rection was identical with the cause of liberty, of the church,
and of France. Tamartine was fully aware of the clamour
which these three parties would raise against him, should he
venture to withhold the concurrence of the republic in a civil
war against England. Nevertheless, he did venture to do so,
relying on the good faith of the republic. He did not consider
it right to employ all weapons against a rival but friendly
power, between whom and liberated France he wished to
strengthen the bonds of union. To the address of the Irish
delegates, Tamartine replied:—
“Citizens of Ireland, if we required another proof of the
pacific influence of the proclamation of the great democratic
principle—that new Christianity, whose light, blazing forth at
the opportune moment, divides mankind, as in time past, into
pagans and Christians—we should find this proof of the all-
powerful action of an idea in the visits which nations, or
fractions of nations, are spontaneously making to republican
|France
“We are not surprised to see here to-day a portion of the
Irish nation. Ireland well knows how greatly her destinies,
428 FRIENDLY FEELING OF FRANCE TO TRELAN.D.,
her sufferings, and her successive progress in religious liberty,
constitutional unity and equality, with the other portions of the
United Kingdom, have at times excited the interest of Europe
We said this, only a few days ago, to another deputation of your
fellow-citizens, and we will repeat it to all the children of the
glorious isle of Erin, which by the genius of its inhabitants as
well as by the vicissitudes of its history is at once the poetry
and the heroism of the nations of the North.
“Be assured, then, that you will find in France, under the
republic, a return of all the sentiments you bring hither. Tell
your fellow-citizens that the name of Ireland and the name of
liberty courageously defended against privilege are identical
in the mind of every French citizen. Tell them that the re-
ciprocity they invoke, the hospitality they remember, will
ever be proudly extended by the republic to the Irish people.
Tell them, above all things, that the French republic is not an
aristocratic republic, in which liberty is the mere mask of pri-
vilege, but that it is a republic embracing the whole of the
people in the same privileges and the same benefits.
“As to other encouragement, it would not be fitting in us
to give it, or in you to receive it. I have already made the
same observation in reference to Switzerland, to Germany, to
Belgium, and to Italy. I repeat it in reference to every nation
which has internal differences to settle with itself or with its
government. When our blood does not flow in the veins of a
people, we are not permitted to meddle in their internal affairs.
We take no side in Ireland or elsewhere, save the side of
justice, liberty, and national happiness. In time of peace we
are not desirous of taking any share in the interests and pas-
sions of foreign nations. France wishes to keep herself free
for the rights of all.
“We are at peace, and it is our wish to remain in Sound
relations of equality, not with this or that party in Great
Britain, but with the whole of the British nation. We be-
lieve the peace now existing to be useful and honourable,
not only to Great Britain and the French republic, but to the
whole human race, We will not commit any act, we will
not utter any word, we will not put forth any insinuation
which may be at variance with those principles of the re-
ciprocal inviolability of nations which we have proclaimed,
and of which the continent is already reaping the fruits.
THE CIVIL WAR IN LA VENDEE. 429
The deposed monarchy had treaties and diplomatists; we
have nations for diplomatists, and sympathies for treaties. It
would be madness to change this open and wide-spread diplo-
macy for secret and partial alliances with parties, even with
parties the most legitimate, in neighbouring countries. We
are not qualified to judge of those parties so as to enable us
to determine our preference for one or another. To declare
ourselves friends to this or that party, would be to avow our-
selves enemies to others. We wish not to be the enemies of
any of your countrymen ; we wish, on the contrary, by the
good faith of the republican word, to overcome the prejudices
which have existed between our neighbours and ourselves.
“This course, however unsatisfactory it may be to you, is
enjoined on us by the law of nations and by historical
recollections.
“Do you know what it was that most irritated France,
and most contributed to create animosity between France and
England, during the last republic It was the civil war,
countenanced, instigated, and paid by Pitt, on a part of our
territory. It was the encouragement, the arms supplied to
Frenchmen, as heroic as yourselves, in La Vendée ; but,
nevertheless, Frenchmen fighting against Frenchmen. This
was not honest warfare; it was royalist propagandism carried
on against the republic by the shedding of French blood. In
spite of all our efforts, this conduct is not yet quite oblite-
rated from the memory of the nation: our imitation of that
conduct shall not be the cause for renewing resentment
between Great Britain and ourselves. We receive with
gratitude the testimonials of amicable feeling offered by the
different nations forming the great Britannic fascis. We
pray that justice may bind still more closely the union
of those nations, so that it may be more and more firmly
based on equality. But whilst we proclaim with you and
with all the sacred principle of fraternity, our conduct will
be fraternal, like our principles and our sentiments.”
The immense crowd which surrounded the Irish deputation
received this address with shouts of “Vive la république !”
“Vive Lamartine !” These shouts enabled the delegates
sufficiently to understand that the minister's refusal of their
request, and the reasons on which that refusal was grounded,
were more popular than even their cause. Accordingly they
430 CONSEQUENCE OF TſſB, REVOLUTION.
did not urge their suit, but feigned to be satisfied with the
reply that had been addressed to them. On the following
day the leaders of the deputation dined with the minister for
foreign affairs, but merely as private individuals, and not a
word was uttered in reference to the address or the answer
to it.
B O O K XIII.
IN the meantime the manifesto addressed by France to
foreign governments and people was not without its effect
upon the continent. The nations, now tranquillized as re-
garded the ambition of the republic, yielded themselves to
the natural direction of their inclination to liberty. The
reaction of the revolution of Paris, thus explained, shook the
world in a greater degree than the cannons of Marengo or
of Austerlitz.
The first, and the most unexpected effect, was experienced
at Vienna, upon the 14th of March. Prince Metternich,
whose government had for a long period been a mere system
of complaisant flattery to the wishes of the nobility, and to
the Superstitious bigotry of three women who surrounded an
emperor in a state of perpetual childhood, was taken quite by
Surprise by the event.
An unforeseen and irresistible insurrection carried away
with it the priesthood, the court, the aristocracy, and the
government. -
The imperial family abandoned Vienna to revolution. The
prince abandoned the monarchy itself, and took refuge in the
Tyrol. t
ºn the 18th of March, Berlin followed the example of
Vienna. The king, at the head of his troops, on the first
day, resisted and triumphed.
Astonished at his victory, and less embarrassed in conquer-
ing than in governing, he gave up his sword again to the
people whom he had vanquished. The Poles, on issuing from
the prisons of Berlin, found themselves, on the 20th of March,
masters of the monarchy. They urged the people to a re-
public. The king, upon the advice of the sole minister who
1TS RESULTS AT BERLIN, VIENNA, IN HUNGARY, ETC. 431;
had preserved his coolness of mind, anticipated this move-
ment by a Machiavelian species of flattery to the German
genius. Ambitious from necessity, that minister suddenly
caused the monarch to adopt the colours of the German
union, which was the ardent desire of the middle ranks of
Germany. Frederick William thus regained popularity with
the revolutionary mass of his people at the very moment
when he ran the risk of losing his own crown.
A second movement, still more democratic than the first,
agitated Vienna some days after. The Poles were in this
instance also the parties who, conjointly with the students,
accomplished it. The republic was the cry of this third revo-
lution. It rent in twain the constitution granted by the
emperor on the 15th of March, and appealed by universal suf-
frage to a constituent assembly. Hungary, a nation of twenty
millions of men, weighed down by the yoke of Austria, pro-
fited by the revolution at Vienna to attempt her own eman-
cipation, and form herself into an independent government.
This effort at emancipation, complicated by a civil war of
races between the Croats and Hungarians, aroused the armed
populations. Sometimes beaten back, sometimes menacing
Austria, this war holds, to the present moment, the fate
of Hungarian independence and the Austrian revolution in
Suspense.
Beyond the Alps, Lombardy felt that the hour of her
emancipation, which had been sounded at Paris, and repeated
at Vienna the 14th of March, had arrived. Milan, her capital,
rose in revolt upon the 20th of that month, and drove the
Austrians far from her walls.
Venice imitated her; and, steeped in servitude, her peo-
ple recovered the heroism which had been asleep in the lap
of her ancient prosperity,
At the beginning of April, the duchies of Parma and
Modena drove out their governments, which were little more
than vice-royalties of Austria. These duchies proclaimed
provisionally a republican form of government, until the lot
of arms should decide upon the unity of northern Italy.
Tuscany, anticipated in her desires by a popular and liberal
prince, bestowed a constitufion on herself. Rome, initiated
in liberty, and urged on to independence by a pope more rash
than politic, boiling with impatient excitement, in turn was
432 CONDUCT OF THE KING OF SARDINIA.
agitated and held back by him. Naples had extorted a con-
stitution from her king. The army remained stanch to him,
and combated the republican attempts under his command.
Sicily proclaimed her independence, and shed her blood to
Seal it.
Finally, the king of Sardinia, Charles Albert, imitating
the king of Prussia, at the head of a hundred thousand men,
raised the standard of the independence of Italy. The sub-
sidized ally, and almost the vassal of the policy of Austria, he
profited by the reverses of that empire to march upon Lom-
bardy. Hurried along by his wonted ambition, urged on by
his people, restrained by his anti-liberal principles, blamed by
his court and clergy, applauded and menaced at the same
time by the republicans, he threw himself, without foresight
or proper consideration, into an abyss of inconsistencies, faults,
and difficulties. He thought to escape by conquest the in-
fliction of a republic, but found only exile for himself and
ruin for his country. A good soldier, but a bad chief; as a
man, inconsistent; as a prince, by turns revolutionary and
persecuting, he was born to be the passive and unfortunate
instrument of every ruling party. He atoned by personal
heroism for the deficiencies of his understanding and cha-
racter. History will, at once, lament and honour him.
The reports of each of the events, thus put together,
arriving one by one at Paris, had one vast acclamation of
joy for its echo. The greatest danger for the republic was
the fear of a coalition against her. Fear is cruel. Rais-
ing the cry of treason, and preparing scaffolds, she paves
the way for dictatorships, and hands over the govern-
ment to extreme parties. Tamartine dreaded, above all,
those panic terrors of coalitions which might seize upon
France, and drive her to convulsions and blood. The suc-
cessive violent agitations occurring in Europe, the dethron-
ings, the emancipations of the people, which he had predicted
to his colleagues and to the public, came, week after week, to
fortify the system of peace which he had laid down. The hori-
zon opened on every side. Democracy fraternized from the
TJanube to the Tiber. Public spirit at Paris breathed nought
but Serenity and security. Fear was banished from even the
most Suspicious minds. A pretext was wanting to the most un-
governable partisans of aggression connected with the govern-
FOREIGN rºley OF THE GOVERNMENT. 433
ment. The very clubs loudly proclaimed the benefits of
peace. The confidential agents, whom the minister of foreign
affairs had sent to all the capitals of Europe, announced to
him by every! courier the popular success of his diplomacy,
inoffensive -ó nations, irreproachable towards governments,
but all-powerful in its results.
All discussion upon the subject of foreign affairs had ceased,
even in the very centre of the government. The minister
directed, alone and undisputed, the destinies of the policy
of the country. Fortune justified his designs. He never
entered the council-chamber of the ministers without bringing
new and favourable prognostics, or new triumphs for the
republic. His colleagues and he mutually congratulated one
another. The melancholy forebodings felt with regard to the
interior of the country were for a few moments dissipated by
the encouraging perspective which met their eyes from
abroad.
“Each time a courier reaches me,” said he to the govern-
ment, “and that I enter here to bring before you the subject of
our foreign affairs, I present you with a fragment of Europe 1"
Europe, in fact, fell to pieces at the recoil of the republic
established at Paris, for the very reason that the republic
had been wise enough to offer her no violence.
The minister did not dissemble to himself that after this
movement of decomposition, Europe would have one of vio-
lence for the re-establishment of the ancient monarchical order
of things. He neither believed, nor desired, that the different
nations should pass, ill-prepared, and at the first bound, into
republicanism. It was sufficient for France that the spirit of
the people by whom she was immediately surrounded should
introduce itself by constitutional institutions into their own
governments, as the element of fraternity, solidity, and peace
with France. Such were his real thoughts. Thus, his agents
abroad had all, without exception, formal instructions not to
enter into any plot against the governments; not to involve
themselves in any republican manoeuvre, and not to excite
any people to insurrection, nor any prince to hostilities. He
did not desire to engage the republic, by any moral complicity
whatever, in causes, or fortunes, which at a later period it
would have to disavow. He pushed his scrupulousness on this
score to the point.9frefusing to explain himself, by any sign

2 F
(.
434 Foreign Policy of THE PRovisiºnAL government.
of blame or encouragement, at the period when King Charles
Albert caused to be notified to him his tº of war
against Austria. It was impossible for the Marquis Brignole,
the ambassador of that Sovereign, whom Lamartine saw daily,
to know whether this declaration was approved/or disapproved
by the French government. If it approved it, it would
have been to have taken a tacit engagement to follow the
course of events, and carry on an injäfect war against Austria.
If it blamed it, it would have beeſ to discourage the attempt
of Italy to achieve her own independence. He preserved
silence, and limited himself to hastening the formation of the
army of the Alps; for whether it failed or succeeded, the
war carried on by Piedmont against Austria would cause the
French army to pass the Alps, either to serve the purposes
of action, or armed negotiation. This plan, in which was
summed up the entire policy of Lamartine in Italy, was
broken up after the events in June by the government which
succeeded him. He is unacquainted with the necessities and
motives of this the Second government of the republic. He
is not writing a criticism, but a history.
Upon the side of Germany the provisional government
had but one plan,—a respectful neutrality accompanied with
good wishes towards every German power; the friendship
of Germany, recovered at any price by the renunciation of
all conquest and all interference in her affairs; an army of
two hundred thousand men, prepared in the space of six
weeks, to hang upon the Rhine, and, if required, to pass it, in
a disinterested spirit of assistance, upon the call of the Ger-
man people, should Germany invite it against any effort
of foreign oppression.
The whole policy, whether French, German, Hungarian,
or Polish, turned on that point. Nothing has changed there.
But, on the side of Italy, the opportunity of forming an
Italian league has been lost. Mediation could only have
effect upon the other side of the Alps. French democracy,
moreover, has nobody to accuse but itself for the failures of
the provisional government in regard to Italy. It is the de-
magogue and social risings of June which, doubtless, fettered
the army of the Alps, under the command of General Ca-
Vaignac, and gave rise, as a necessºry and fatal result, to the
Bui-ºunce-
odious war engaged in by France against #6;e.


LoRD BROUGHAM. WISCOUNT PALMERSTON. 435
and Italy will not allow themselves to be disunited by the
misunderstandings of governments. Their treaty is written
by the hand of nature herself.
Such, at the commencement of April, was the situation of
France with respect to foreign states. England, recalled by
the wise moderation of her government to Sentiment, to a
feeling of respect and admiration for a democracy which
restrained anarchy and war at the same time, had no pretext
either for irritability or hostilities, and the new French re-
public became popular at London.
One man alone, through all Great Britain, calumniated it
in his words and writings. This was Lord Brougham, a man
of an eminent but capricious and incongruous spirit. A
universal but superficial writer, a vigorous orator, but devoid
of genius, himself the offspring of democracy, Lord Brougham
affected the posthumous part of Burke against a republic
which had on its hands neither the blood of a queen, nor even
that of a single citizen. His sarcasms recoiled upon him-
self, for Lord Brougham, in imitation of Anacharsis Klootz,
had solicited the title of citizen of the French republic from
the provisional government. *
The parliament and Lord Palmerston showed themselves
penetrated with the sentiment of the inviolability of nations
in their internal changes. They, as well as the British
ambassador at Paris, Lord Normanby, evinced less political
susceptibility at certain acts and words of the republic than
they would perhaps to a firmly-seated monarchical govern-
ment. It was evident that they made allowances for the
difficult circumstances against which the provisional govern-
ment was struggling for the preservation of peace. In their
forbearance they allowed time to French policy to establish
iº and to form its character, and in doing that, Lord
*government deserved well of humanity. Demo-
*o take umbrage. It was a task of difficulty
o dispel the remains of long-standing anti-
| A display of impatience on the part of
would have compromised everything. It
lis political life when he was most states-
host forbearing and philosophical.
\mbardy, and the first advantages gained
the disturbances in Bohemia, the inde-








2 F 2
436 M. THIERs. APPROACH OF THE GENERAL ELECTIONS.
pendence of Hungary, the convocation of the diet of Frank-
fort to establish the metaphysical principle of German unity
in a Germanic confederation, had so dismembered and em-
barrassed Austria, that it, un-encouraged, made to France
and England the first overtures of concession in Italy of
a nature to satisfy those two countries, as well as Sar-
dinia, and all who aimed at the independence of the north of
Italv.
º statesman, badly informed upon this point, M. Thiers, at
a later period asserted at the tribune, when misinterpreting the
foreign policy of the provisional government, that it had
turned a deaf ear to these propositions. It is the reverse that
is true. Tamartine was too much the friend of peace and
Italy to disregard propositions which, to a considerable extent,
insured both peace and independence. The Austrian envoys
voluntarily made him the judge of the offers which the cabinet
of the emperor was disposed to make to Sardinia. The
questions in agitation were the abandonment of Lombardy
and the duchies of Parma, the bestowal of a constitution
upon Venice under the independent vice-royalty of a prince
of the house of Austria. Lamartine did not hesitate to
acknowledge that these propositions would contribute greatly
to satisfy the legitimate ambition of Italy for enfranchise-
ment, and he encouraged the Austrian cabinet to negotiate
upon such bases. These overtures were twice made to him
semi-officially, and twice he held the same language. He
would have been neither statesman nor patriot if he had
repulsed them. For the conclusion of such an arrangement
permitted the republic to restore one of its frontiers, which had
been mutilated, after the hundred days, by the second treaty
of 1815; and his thoughts were directed, though at a dis-
tance, to this object. --Y- .
Within, France was calmly meditating uſ."
proaching general elections. She canvassº
without prejudice and without exclusion.
Paris alone were-agitated. A people, trar
amounting in number to two or three hund
awaited its lot from the National Assembly
believe the republic to be definitively st
been adopted by the representative bq
Those motive forces of labour, confidenç




DISSENSIONS IN THE GOVERNMENT. CLUB OF CLUBS. 437
only revive under a settled government. Till then, all was
an unknown void.
The tendencies of the dictatorial government were equi-
vocal in the eyes of the population. Contradictory symp-
toms were perceived. It was believed that there were violent
dissensions among its members. The immense majority of
the nation was attached to the moderate men personified in a
few names. The dreaded and turbulent minority of Paris,
and of the clubs of the departments, were attached to others.
The hotel of the ministry of foreign affairs, and that of the
ministry of the interior, were, it was said, the head-quarters
of two opinions, which would before long enter into armed
combat. This notion had been to such a degree spread
among the people, that several hundreds of armed citizens of
the suburbs, and the interior of Paris, came, sometimes of their
own accord and without the knowledge of Lamartine, to
pass the nights under the court-yard gates, and on the foot-
paths of the streets adjacent to his residence, to defend him
from being surprised or carried off. The ministry of the
interior, as was said, had also its adherents and its forces;
the club of Barbès, the disciples of Louis Blanc and Albert,
and the leaders of a species of meeting, called the Club or
Clubs, which formed the centre of democratic agitation,
assembled there. These men gave information to the
minister of the interior of the movements which were in
preparation in the subterranean regions of Paris; they nego-
tiated between every party to acquire a preponderating
influence over them all, and even over the government.
They generally employed this influence to appease the
people; but they spoke in the name of the masses; they
paraded their wants; they made their moral authority of
more power than the truth. These members of the Club of
Clubs came two or three times by deputation to the ministry
of foreign affairs. Lamartine spoke to them with frankness,
and encouraged them to put their trust in the National As-
sembly. He told them distinctly that he would listen to no
proposal for prolonging the dictatorship ; that he had on the
24th of February devoted himself to the preservation of his
country from anarchy, and by the establishment of the re-
public to bestow a regular government upon France; but that
when once the sovereignty of the people should be recovered
4.38 TREES OF LIBERTY. INSUI.T TO AMIBASSADOR.
in the National Assembly, no Seduction or violence should
force him to take part in a government of insurrection.
These men appeared ardent, but actuated by good intentions.
Some disorders of no importance, but which were, per-
haps, capable of degenerating into Scandals and collisions,
were, at the commencement of spring, a source of annoyance
to the peaceable citizens of Paris. Such disorders had only
the idleness of the workmen of Paris for their cause, and
the civil rejoicings for their pretext. These were the plant-
ing of trees of liberty in all the squares, and in front of all
the monuments of Paris. Bands of vagabonds and children
went about the neighbouring villages to buy young poplar
trees, and bringing them on their shoulders, planted them,
at will, in different places; then firing off their muskets,
they uttered loud cries, sometimes importuned the clergy
to come and bestow a blessing on their trees, and levied
Some trifling and voluntary, but odious supplies, upon the
neighbouring houses, for the purpose of sprinkling the roots
with wine. M. Arago, the minister of war, by the display
of an armed force, forbade these groups to assemble in the
court of the ministry of marine. Caussidière did not ven-
ture to use violence towards such tumultuary assemblages,
for fear of increasing by attempting to repress them. These
demonstrations had, by the 16th of April, degenerated into
a species of noisy mendicity which could no longer be
tolerated.
The repressive force, however, was not yet sufficiently mu-
merous to be engaged in contention with these seditious move-
ments of indigence, this gaiety of a people devoid of bread.
The government, on two or three occasions, was distressed by
other symptoms of seditious movement of a more harassing
character.
On the occasion of a defeat experienced by Austria, a
column of people, excited by some German refugees, assembled
for the purpose of going to insult the ambassador of that
power. Lamartine, being informed of the circumstance, and
not having any repressive force at hand, trusted to the force
of reason over the people alone. He went forth unattended,
and for the space of two hours waited, like a sentinel, for
the Seditious gathering before the ambassador's door; and in
the mean time some adroit and persuasive agents, who had
THE RETURN OF THE ARMY DESIRED, 439
been commissioned by him, succeeded in deciding the chiefs of
the rioters to renounce so shameful an attempt against the
right of nations. They took another direction, proceeded to
the Champ de Mars, and from thence to the ministry of the
interior. The minister harangued them with eloquence and
firmness. He aimed, principally, in his speech, at reinstating
the army in the hearts of the people of Paris, and preparing
the return of the troops to the capital.
To contrive this return, patiently and prudently, was the
principal thought of M. Arago and the majority of the
government. But it could only be founded upon the desire
of the national guard itself. The army returning prematurely,
before the susceptibilities of the people were extinguished,
would have been the inevitable signal of a shock from which
would issue a second civil war. The return of the army
began, however, to be keenly desired. The party of the
Socialists and demagogues alone instilled alarm and prepared
Sedition at each announcement of the return of the soldiers.
The nearer the elections, fixed at first for the beginning of
April, approached, the more the parties, which dreaded
removal from their dictatorship, trembled and threatened in
Paris. The clubs, although influenced by the intelligence
which Lamartine preserved with their principal directors,
rebelled against their own chiefs, at the sole name of the
sovereign assembly which was coming to close the mouths of
all these volcanoes.
Violent motions, anticipated seditions, declared resolutions
of continuing armed, to watch and constrain the representa-
tives, oaths exacted from the candidates for the rank of
officer of the national guard, to march against the represen-
tative assembly itself, should it disavow or betray the re-
public, attested the repugnance of the revolution to recognize
any other sovereignty than that of Paris. It appeared evi-
dent that the capital would not yield without a shock the
absolute and dictatorial power with which the revolution had
invested it.
Even in the bosom of the government, opinions were
divided, not upon the right of calling upon the definitive
sovereignty of the nation, but with regard to the date to fix
for the meeting of the Assembly at Paris. The majority
wished to hasten the day of elections as much as possible, the
440 DIFFICULTY IN FIXING PERIOD OF THE ELECTIONS.
minority seemed to hesitate to fix it. Petitions from the
Workmen and delegates of the Luxembourg never ceased,
under different pretexts, to demand the adjournment of the
elections. Sometimes they were not sufficiently prepared for
this new exercise of their rights as citizens; sometimes they
had not the necessary time for the discussion of the merits of
their candidates; sometimes their inexperience in electoral
rights required the instruction afforded by their preparatory
meetings. Such pretexts, as vain as they were diversified,
revealed the real motives of the resistance which lay concealed
under such sophistries of adjournment.
On another side the minister of the interior awaited com-
plete reports from his commissioners in the departments,
before deciding upon a definitive resolution in the government
council. These reports arrived only one by one. Some of
the commissioners sowed the seeds of alarm in their reports.
They gave the name of reaction against the republic to the
least liberty of opinion manifested in their provinces, and to
the signs of independence or dissatisfaction, often very legi-
timate, against the omnipotence of their administration. The
men who at Paris aspired to an indefinite prolongation of the
dictatorship, armed themselves with these reports to raise the
cry of treason against those who wished to restore to the
nation a power, thus far prosperous and mild, but which
might, if perpetuated, be changed into tyranny and anarchy.
Upon both sides suspicions were awakened. The partisans
of a deferred election suspected their adversaries of conspiring
with the abettors of future restorations, and of preparing the
shortest ways for the re-establishment of the governments
and men of the old monarchies. The partisans of immediate
election regarded those of the opposite party as ambitious
men, and as the upstarts of liberty, trembling at being de-
prived of an unhoped-for power which fortune had lodged in
their hands, and ready to declare themselves the sole guar-
dians of the republic, in order to govern the country, and
perhaps tear it to pieces, in its name. In fine, the leaders of
the Socialist sects, and the chiefs of the industrial class,
trembled to see their tribunes overthrown and their empire
destroyed by the arrival of the representatives of the pro-
vinces at Paris. This common unwillingness for the instal-
lation of the national power seemed to draw Socialists and
CONFIDENCE RESTORED AMONG MEMBERS OF GOVERNMENT. 441
Conventionalists closer together, two parties who were destined
to unite at a later period, but who, up to that moment, felt a
mutual hatred to each other. The deliberations of the
government itself were affected by the influence of these
parties from without, whose spirit laboured hard to pene-
trate to them. They became rare, suspicious, short,
and often angry. The majority was decided to make this
question the text of the union, or of the dismemberment of the
government. A final day was fixed to take a last resolution
on this point. The sitting was long, but devoid of extreme
violence. M. Ledru Rollin read an extract of the reports of his
commissioners. He proved, upon evidence, by the dates, and
by the nature of the preparatory operations to be accomplished,
that the actual time necessary for their completion demanded
seven or eight days beyond the term fixed by the first decree.
It was unanimously acknowledged that it was necessary for
the safety of the National Assembly to wait until the national
guard should be organized, clothed, and armed, in order that
this civic force might be able to environ the representatives of
France with security and respect. It required a certain
number of days for this remodelled national guard to be
under arms. Easter-day, the 27th of April, was appointed
for the general elections, and the 4th of May for the
opening of the National Assembly. This resolution, taken
loyally and by common accord, dissipated many a doubt in
mutually prejudiced minds, and calmed many a secret, lurk-
ing irritation in the hearts of men.
The majority of the government saw that the minority
was confounded with it, and delivered itself up, although,
perhaps, with less confidence, yet with the same sincerity,
to the country. From that day, men who had kept apart
drew closer to each other. The majority had obtained
its desire, for the dictatorship was loyally abjured by all
parties. -
Some casual differences were still to be remarked in the
discourses and acts relating to the elections. A circular of
the minister of the interior became the subject of discussion.
Agreeing upon its spirit, they came to an accommodation
upon the terms of it. A more revolutionary measure was
perseveringly demanded, not indeed by M. Ledru Rollin, but
by the delegates of the Luxembourg and of the clubs of the
442 AGENTS TO DEPARTMENTS, ORGANIZATION OF ARMY.
working men of Paris. This measure consisted in allowing
these meetings to send two or three emissaries, chosen from
the different classes of the workmen of the capital, into each
department, to be paid from the funds of the ministry of the
interior, under the title of supplies to the republic. These
would amount to a sum of a hundred or a hundred and twenty
thousand francs. M. Ledru Rollin refused to take upon his
single responsibility the employment of So large a sum, unless
protected by the formal consent of the council. The council
authorized the measure and the expenditure. It recommended
the minister to be scrupulously careful in the choice of his
emissaries, to appoint only upright, honest, and moderate men,
who should be examples and not agitators, and to limit their
mission to the propagation of Sound republican doctrines,
and technical information upon the exercise of their electoral
rights. All admixture, even confidential, of those agents,
in the name of the government, in the choice of the can-
didates, was interdicted to them. On these conditions the
measure was authorized. It was justified in the minds even
of those opposed to it, and who foresaw its inconveniences,
by the necessity of inducing the two hundred thousand work-
men of Paris to accept voluntarily the term assigned to
the elections. It was a concession to an emergency, a sacri-
fice to concord. An insurrection of two hundred thousand
workmen of Paris in favour of the postponement of the date of
the elections would have cost more gold and caused more blood-
shed. Such was the spirit of this concession. It was a fault,
The minister of foreign affairs felt it when he consented to it.
Some of these men Scandalized opinion and morality by acts
and relations which were a stain upon their missions. But
their mission, demanded by some, tolerated by others, recog-
nized as necessary by all, had no other motive, no other
object. Although unfortunate in its selection, this measure
powerfully contributed to cause the elections to be accepted,
as well as to hasten them.
At this epoch Lamartine, foreseeing the inevitable agita-
tions and military necessities which would arise after the
meeting of the National Assembly, employed himself earnestly
and Secretly with a more active organization of the army,
with bringing it nearer to Paris, and bestowing the command
of it upon a firm, popular, and republican chief. To restore
M. ARAGO AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE ARMY. 443
popularity to the army, it was necessary that the definitive chief
to be assigned to it should be at once a member of the military
profession, possessed of a character agreeable to the soldiery,
and a politician above all suspicion of treason to the republic.
M. Arago, minister of war and minister of marine at the
same time, was equal to the direction of these two great
administrations, by the activity and extent of his intelligence.
Thus far his name had served to extinguish the rivalries
which might have arisen among the general officers, easily
excited to jealousy by the preference given by the govern-
ment to one over the rest. The name of a civilian neutral-
ized the command of the army. M. Arago had been re-
spected by the military more as in the place of the law than
as a minister. His impartial energy had re-established and
maintained discipline. The army was recruited and obeyed
as well as at any other epoch of our history; but the assembly
would soon open, and M. Arago would re-enter, perhaps, the
ranks of the representatives. The assembly would have need
of a force at and around Paris, and it would require a minister
capable at the same time of organizing and of fighting.
Tamartine gave way to no illusion on the subject of the
future. He knew from history that a government has at its
birth assaults for several years to sustain, and that the cradle
of this government, whether republic or monarchy, requires
the shadowing protection of bayonets. Democracy especially
aims at being strong, and so much the stronger as it is the
nearer to demagoguism. All the crimes of anarchy proceed
from weakness. Socialism and pauperism, dangers peculiar
to a civilization too industrial in its character, rendered the
necessity of arming the republic efficaciously the more evident
to all eyes. For this purpose Lamartine had been for a long
period busied in the preparation of three measures. The first
was the possession of anarmy, powerfully organized,and disposed
over the territory in three great bodies, serving as a support to
one another, and enabled by rapid and extended evolutions,
not only to repress in this or that direction any insurrection
which might arise, but to manoeuvre on a grand Scale through
the whole extent of the French territory, upon bases fixed
beforehand, as in the great civil wars of Rome. Three
generals were lestined to command these three bodies of
troops. One at Paris and its immediate radius the other at
444. FORMATION OF GARDE MOBILE FOR THE DEPARTMENTS.
Bourges and the neighbouring provinces, and the third from
Lyons to Marseilles.
The second idea was the formation of a reserve of three
hundred battalions of the garde mobile of the departments,
armed, disciplined, equipped, exercised, and organized, but
remaining at their homes, and only emerging from them at
the call of the council of the department, the prefect, or the
government, in Sudden cases of outbreaks or intestine war.
It was the anti-social and anti-anarchical federation pre-
viously established, and made ready to be put in motion in
the hands of the departments. In case of defeat at Paris,
social order would acquire, independently of the army, three
hundred thousand defenders, and could in eight days stifle a
seditious movement under the walls of the capital. Instead of
the revolutionary army of 1793, it was the republican army
of 1848, everywhere protecting order, property, and the
lives of the citizens, against terror and the dismemberment
of the empire. In case of foreign war, these three hundred
battalions would serve to form a second line upon our fron-
tiers and strong places, and would leave the rest of the army
at liberty.
Finally, his last idea was to give to the republic and the
National Assembly, as minister of war, a soldier and a re-
publican, who would cause the republic to be beloved by the
army, and enable the army to be received without distrust by
the republic.
The first of these projects was already half accomplished
by M. Arago and the government. The army would soon be
raised to the amount of five hundred thousand men. The
creation of three hundred battalions of the garde mobile of
the departments had already been repeatedly mentioned by
Lamartine to the council, in anticipation of the event of a
foreign war. Lamartine was not ignorant that this measure
revealed in its truelight would have given umbrage totheradical
party, whose evident aim was to suppress the army, in Paris
especially, and to substitute for it the omnipotence of the
social organization of the clubs and workmen ; an organiza-
tion governed by the chiefs of the sects against the com-
mercial classes, property, and the bourgeoisie.
He adjourned then, several times, the formal proposition
of the measure; but he entered into the subject of it, sepa-
M. FLOCON. GENERAL CAVAIGN.A.C. 445.
rately, with some of his colleagues. After impressing them
well with the idea, he prepared them to propose it themselves
to the government.
M. Flocon, who after a protracted illness had just returned
to active life, and who possessed a quick perception of all
which had reference to the power of the country, approving
this measure, undertook to bring it forward in conjunction
with the minister of foreign affairs, under the form of a
formal and pressing proposition. The well-approved patriot-
ism of this young member of the government, and the as-
cendancy of his energy over the radical party, disconcerted
their objections. Tamartine supported him, as if this idea
had been for him a sudden revelation of endangered patriot-
ism. The decree was carried unanimously. Lamartine, on
returning home, thus expressed himself to his friends:—“If
my decree for raising these three hundred thousand men is
put into execution, with activity, by the National Assembly,
civil war is henceforth impossible, and society can receive
no molestation for more than ten days.” But a minister was
requisite for the execution of this decree, and he believed that
he had found one in the person of General Eugène Cavaignac.
General Cavaignac, the son of a man of revolutionary and
conventionalist renown, was the brother of one of the young
precursors of the republic, another Carrel, whose character,
talent, and memory had caused him to be regarded as a saint
by the party of the active democracy.
This name was so popular among those who survived
him, that it even reflected a portion of this feeling of rever-
ence upon his brother. The second Cavaignac was serving
in Africa, and the provisional government had, at its first
sitting at the Hôtel de Ville, nominated him governor-general.
At a later period it had called him to Paris, and had offered
him the post of minister of war. The general rephied in
Somewhat arrogant terms to the government, and made such
excessive conditions, that, wounded at this first offer, it had
renounced his services at the capital.
Affairs were in this position, when Lamartine, always
imbued with the thought of strengthening the National As-
Sembly by giving a military chief to the army, accidentally
opening a journal, read a clear, brief, and republican declara-
tion of faith, bearing the signature of Cavaignac. This was
446 THE MOTHER OF GENERAL CAVAIGNAC.
a letter from the young general to the electors of his depart-
ment, who had offered to make him a candidate to represent
them in the National Assembly.
This letter expressed with precision, and with remarkable
honesty and boldness, all that republicanism, order, liberty,
and morality which was according to Lamartine's own heart.
It had a great effect upon his mind, and he resolved to make
every attempt to win such a character, such opinions,
and such a sword, to the service of the assembly and the
government. He was not acquainted with the general, or
his family; but learning that M. Flocon was on terms
of intimacy with his mother, he requested his young col-
league to introduce him to that lady, who, it was said, was
as highly distinguished for her qualities of heart and mind
as for her patriotism. He did not conceal from M.
Flocon the object of the interview he solicited with Madame
Cavaignac. M. Flocom participated in the desire of the
minister of foreign affairs to give a military and republican
chief to the army ; but was apprehensive that Madame
Cavaignac, being already in mourning for her eldest son,
would be unwilling to contribute to compromise the life of the
Second, by recalling him, at so stormy a period and for such
perilous employments, from a peaceful colony, and a climate
necessary for the restoration of his health. Madame Ca-
vaignac consented, notwithstanding, to receive the minister of
foreign affairs. Lamartine found in a remote quarter, and
in a modest apartment, furnished with all the signs of widow-
hood, retirement, and piety, a female in mourning, of an ex-
tremely thoughtful and expressive aspect, where sensibility
and strength of mind contended in features of a grave and
resigned character. He comprehended at the first glance
how it was that the republicans had styled this woman
the mother of the Gracchi. She had, in fact, in her ele-
vation of character, in her simplicity, and in her accent,
Something of the antique, mingled with something Chris-
tian. Under such a look as hers, freemen might indeed be
nurtured.
Her conversation did not belie her exterior. Lamartine
had rarely met anything bearing analogy to it, unless in Some
celebrated women of the heroic stocks of Rome or Florence.
The tenderness of a mother, the energy of a citizen, echoed
SHE IS VISITED BY LAMARTINE. 447
in the manly accents of her voice. He proceeded at once to
the subject of the interview. He spoke to Madame Cavaig-
nac of the republic, should it become feeble, or be impelled
too far forward at its outset; of the necessity of Surrounding
it with a degree of honest and moderate force, to save it from
the convulsions of feeble and spasmodic governments; of the
sacrifice which the establishment of free and democratic
order demanded of every one, even of mothers themselves;
and of the extreme desire which he had to see the army ap-
proach Paris under that republican guarantee which the
name of her son would confer. Madame Cavaignac resisted,
but was softened, not upon her own account, but for that of
liberty, and she allowed herself, at last, to be vanquished.
“You demand of me,” said she, “the greatest of sacri-
fices; but you demand it in the name of the most absolute
of duties. What you ask is granted. I consent to be the
medium for communicating your desires to my son ; I will
immediately recount to him our conversation, and bring you
his answer.”
Some days after, the general himself replied to Lamartine.
That answer was worthy the son of such a mother, and was
without eagerness, as without weakness. It was agreed that
the general should request leave of absence from the govern-
ment, and come to France. From this day the three principal
subjects of provident forecast on the part of Lamartine, viz.
against foreign war, against civil war, and against anarchy at
Paris, at the moment of the meeting of the National As-
sembly, appeared provided for; and he moved forward with
more confidence towards the unknown future.
But this unknown future, for the space of several weeks,
was yet full of problems and conspiracies.
The nearer the termination of the dictatorship approached,
the more the extreme parties, who felt that their reign, was
vanishing, strove violently to dispute it with the nation.
They shuddered at the sole name of the National Assembly.
They loudly declared in their assemblies and clubs, sometimes
that they would overthrow the majority of the government
before the day of the elections; sometimes that they would
not permit the National Assembly to enter Paris, but as a
Suspected representative body, held captive in the midst of
a hedge of two hundred thousand destitute men, whose decrees
448 GOVERNMENT ALARMED BY NOCTURNAL MEETINGS.
it would have to promulgate as those of the people, or else
subject themselves to their violence.
Sinister and atrocious words escaped like the involuntary
explosions of the feeling of revolt which was so deeply seated
in the hearts of certain men. The discourses of the clubs and
delegates of the Luxembourg became more bitter and signi-
ficative. Secret reports revealed to the government the ex-
istence of nocturnal meetings, in which the chiefs of the prin-
cipal factions opposed to the opening of the Assembly sought
either to anticipate the day by a preconcerted movement, or
to display such large armed revolutionary forces that the
National Assembly would be a mere plaything of their own.
The members of the majority of the government were pointed
out to the suspicion and resentment of a part of the people.
Journals were distributed, which opened their columns to accuse
them. Placards, in which they were denounced to public
indignation, were drawn up by German demagogues, and
issued at night from suspected presses, to inflame the public
spirit against the men who were determined to restore the repub-
lic to the country. Some of these placards, directed expressly
against Lamartine, were posted up without the knowledge of
his colleagues by emissaries who abused their names and
protection. Witnesses and confidants, indignant at such
dangerous proceedings, in which they believed they saw brood-
ing conspiracies, came by might to Lamartine to reveal them,
but he placed in them no belief. Convinced of the truth of
his adversaries, he considered that their course would be one
of open contest, not of treason.
There were, however, two distinct camps in the government,
and around these were grouped different tendencies, opposite
republican systems, and men unsympathizing, suspicious, and
violent. Such were able to direct, although irregularly, the
will of their chiefs, to stimulate one against the other, to Sow
distrust and afterwards snares among them, and make use of
their standard to create factions and lead them afterwards into
extremities.
The majority of the government were constantly besieged
with alarming reports respecting the conspiracies which were
Said to be framing against their safety. The place of meeting
of the council was frequently changed. Provision was made
against surprises. So large a number as two or three hundred
SECRET POLICE OF LAMARTINE, HIS POPULARITY, 449
armed men were sometimes assembled Secretly in the neigh-
bourhood of the ministry of finance, or of the Luxembourg,
to prevent surprise. All parties suspected and watched one
another.
Lamartine was informed by the voluntary communications
of those whose position enabled them to know everything, and
by his secret police for strangers, that half-formed designs
were being debated in the minds of the principal chiefs of the
factions and of the clubs against him. Some demagogue
fanatics spoke loudly of getting rid of him. He received every
day written menaces of assassination from Paris and the de-
partments. Even the police of Caussidière transmitted notices
to him to this effect, but he trusted to his destiny.
He had devoted himself on the 24th of February even to
death itself to give its true Sense to the revolution, to pre-
serve it pure from crime and blood, and to cause it to pass
through the interregnum which might swallow up his country,
without internal catastrophe and foreign war. The shore was
now in his sight. He was assured that his death would be the
signal of insurrection to an immense majority of the people of
Paris, and unanimously to the departments, and that it would
assure the triumph of the National Assemblyover the dictators.
The certainty of this bestowed upon him happiness and
Serenity. He did not take any precaution, although aware that
evil designs were prepared at his very door. He went out at
every hour of the night and day, alone and on foot, without
other arms than a pair of pistols under his coat. His popular-
ity watched in his defence, without his being aware of it.
This had increased to such a degree throughout France and
Europe, that he received to the number of three hundred letters
a day, and was asked by all the departments if he was willing
to represent them in the Assembly. The people, who must
personify an instinct in a man, had then personified in him the
instinct of threatened but preserved society. He was the
man for the common safety. Many of his colleagues would
have deserved it as much as himself; but popularity has its
favourites, and he was the favourite of the multitude. He had
too much experience in history to believe in the continuance of
this fanaticism for his name. He sought to moderate rather
than inflame it. He purposely kept himself in the back-
ground in the presence of the people and of his colleagues.
2 G
450 HIS PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS WITH HIS FAMILY.
He foresaw the day approaching when this popularity would
ask of him things which he believed contrary to the true
interests of the republic. He did not desire that one man
should be more popular than the whole body of the represen-
tatives of the nation. Resolved beforehand to abdicate the
public favour, it was imprudent to carry it as far as delirium.
He sometimes astonished his friends by the changes of public
opinion which he predicted with regard to himself. Often
on returning to his home, after days and nights of contention,
and preceded or followed by acclamations which were raised at
his steps and resounded from the boulevards as far as the
interior of his apartments, he said to his wife and Secretaries,
“You see what efforts the National Assembly and the restitu-
tion of regular power to the nation have cost me ! Ah ! well,
when the nation shall have again recovered its own empire,
and the National Assembly shall be here, this people, though
preserved, will draw back from me, and, perhaps, put me
under accusation for conspiring against that Assembly which
has been the sole object of my thoughts"
Smiles of incredulity received these expressions, but
Lamartine knew the unjust tendencies and ignorance of the
people. If they were just and intelligent, there would be
no virtue in serving them. Everything indicated at that
time a final and desperate attempt of the parties opposed to
the meeting of the Assembly.
The 14th of April was close at hand. The election was to
take place on the 27th. The national guard of Paris, re-
organized, but not reunited, was, as to the spirit which should
animate it, still a problem.
From one day to another the government, which was still
completely disarmed, might appeal to it. Would it arise at
its voice 3 Would it divide itself into two armies, as the
people had done into two classes 2 Would it be an element of
intestine war, or an unanimous element of force and of pacifi-
cation ? No one could as yet know except from conjecture.
All would depend upon the direction, more or less politic,
more or less unanimous, which the government should have
the tact to impress upon it. The extreme parties would
attempt everything to prevent the calling out of the national
guards, and to obtain possession of the government before
Paris could rise up in the defence of the Assembly. These
PROPOSED GRAND POPULAR MANIFESTATION. 451
parties felt it, and offered no obstacle to its being strongly
foreseen by the government. For some days the internal
discussions were bitter and animated. Energetic dissensions
were manifested between the majority and minority. The
minister of the interior, being occupied by the preparations
for the elections, came more rarely to the council, and then
his stay was but short. Louis Blanc and Albert, avowed
patrons of the delegates of the Luxembourg, and of the
thirty or forty thousand workmen who composed their army,
spoke of menacing discontents, and promulgated imperious
requisitions in the name of this section of the people. They
did not justify them, but gave utterance to them under the
form of cautions to the government.
- They appeared to have been informed by these men, and
by their personal relations with the clubs and other centres
of action, of the contemplation of Some grand popular move-
ment of a nature to impose on the majority the extreme
desires and final demand of the multitude.
At the sitting of the 14th of April, which was prolonged
to a late hour of the night, the indications appeared more
significative ; and the two chiefs of the Luxembourg avowed
with grief, mingled with reproaches, that an immense mani-
festation, similar to that of the 27th of March, but more
decided to obtain the adjournment of the elections together
with Satisfaction for other grievances, would take place on the
day after the morrow ; viz. Sunday, the 16th of April.
The government was more indignant than astonished.
Rumours in abundance, collected by the different members of
the majority from all the quarters of the horizon, had for some
days past announced an attempt of the ultra parties to purify
the provisional government of the principal members of the
majority, and to change the minority into a majority by the
addition of a certain number of the chiefs of the clubs and
factions. Mention was made of a committee of public Safety,
which would merge the dictatorship into the Sovereignty, in
this case, verging upon that of a mob, of a single portion of
the people, which would tear the decree for the elections in
pieces, concentrate the government in the capital, and exercise
it for a certain time before divesting itself of it; and which,
after purifying the elections, would convoke a convention.
Lamartine feigned to have learnt this project of a demon-
2 G 3
452 LAMARTINE’s ExFIORTATIONS TO LOUIS BLANC AND ALBERT.
stration for the first time from the mouths of his two col-
leagues. He did not suspect them of being concerned in it,
much less the minister of the interior; but he thought that
Albert, Louis Blanc, and the men in the minority of the go-
vernment, might possess over the organizers of this move—
ment an influence, or an authority, which he himself had
not over this section of the revolution.
In consequence he implored them with genuine grief, but
with an energy of language that he designedly exaggerated,
to employ all the power of their moral action upon that part
of the people whom they were able to direct, to prevent so
unseasonable a manifestation, and one so odious to the depart-
ments, so alarming to the peace of Paris, and so mortal to
the acceptance of the republic. He traced before them in a
rapid, but striking sketch, the consequences of a violent rup-
ture of the unity of the government, hitherto preserved at
the price of so many Sacrifices. He drew for them a picture
of the new dictators, appointed by right of popular purifi-
cation; exposed to the selfsame process eight days after, and
made the inevitable victims of the people after having been
their instruments and accomplices. He affected more alarm
and discouragement than he really experienced, in order to
breathe it into themselves, and by their means to carry terror
and repentance into the breasts of those who had devised the
movement.
The colleagues alluded to appeared moved, and decided
upon interposing, should there yet be time, between the con-
trivers of the project of demonstration and the government.
Flocom, who, although more closely connected with the
extreme parties than Lamartine thought, as he himself did,
swore faithfully that he detested such projects, and would
never betray, after uniting with them, that faith which the
members of the government, although sometimes differing in
views, owed to each other. These exhortations, which Lamar-
tine addressed with Solemnity more to those without than to
those within, and this frank declaration of Flocon, closed the
sitting. -
The following day Lamartine learned, through Louis Blanc
and Albert, that their endeavours to prevent the manifesta-
tion had been ineffectual, but that the subaltern leaders
had promised them to exert their efforts in moderating the
BETERMINATION OF THE LEADING GOVERNMENT MEMBERS. 453
movement, in disarming it, and in taking away from it all
character of violence. Lamartine replied despairingly to
his colleagues, that the violence consisted in the assemblage
itself; that the weight of the mass and of the number was
too potent an arm against a disarmed government; that the
people would dishonour itself, and would soon lose what it
had acquired, if it distressed, constrained, and scandalized the
republic by a day similar to, and perhaps worse than, that of
the 17th of March.
The watchword had, however, been given; the die was
cast; and it was too late for any chiefs, whoever they might
be, to countermand and dissolve the movement. Louis
Blanc and Albert appeared deeply distressed at this them-
selves. Lamartine, and those colleagues with whom he was
most intimately associated, resigned themselves to sustain the
assault which was ānnounced to them, and delivered the
destiny of the morrow to God and the people.
Nevertheless the members of the government, although not
armed, were warned, and neglected nothing individually, by
means of the intelligence they kept up in the different parties
of the factions, in the national workshops, and in the great
suburbs of Paris, to deter the people from the attempt to
which the subterranean plottings of the clubs, and Socialist
and terrorist conventicles, were striving to drag them. Gar-
nier Pagès, Duclerc, Pagnerre, at the ministry of the finances,
Marie at the national workshops, Marrast at the Hôtel de
Wille, kept on foot the means of observation, influence, and
voluntary force of which they were able to dispose. Lamartine
passed a part of the night in despatching emissaries through
the faubourg Saint Antoine, in the quarter of the Pantheon, and
in the precincts, to arouse and give the rallying-cry to the good
citizens, the masters of workshops, the contractors, keepers
of lodging-houses, and honest and influential persons in these
different quarters. He also caused to be called the officers of
national guards, who had been appointed, but were not yet
known by their companies, of whom he felt sure ; the young
men belonging to the schools, who were devoted to the cause
of order, and possessed influence over their comrades, and some
pupils of the Polytechnic School, remarkable for their intelli-
gence, activity, and bravery, who served as his aides-de-
camp in critical circumstances, such as M.M. Jumel, Baude,
454 THE HôTEL DE VILLE SELECTED TO BE DEFENDED.
Maréchal, &c. He informed them of the projects for the
morrow, *and employed them during the whole might in
Warning, rallying, and arming the citizens, and keeping them
in readiness to fly at the first report of cannon, or at the first
Sound of the tocsin, to the Hôtel de Ville.
The Hôtel de Ville was the position to conquer or to
defend in all revolutions, the cradle or the tomb of govern-
ments, the sign of victory or defeat. Lamartine was resolved
to shut himself up there, and there to sustain the siege of the
great insurrection; prepared to perish or triumph, according
as the people who had been warned should or should not rise
up at the noise of the combat. MM. Marrast, Buchez,
Recurt, Barthélemy, Saint Hilaire (a man as thoughtful as
intrepid), Flottard, Colonel Rey, and the principal chiefs of
the administration of the city of Paris, had notice given them.
They made Secret provision against the seditious movement
of the morning. Their numerous friends in these quarters
and the faubourgs were summoned, at their respective doors,
by their care. Each of them was to bring a squad of resolute
citizens for the common defence. The non-existence of the
national guard, and the rancorous feelings which existed be-
tween the different parties, had not admitted of more general
measures. Great mutual distrust, though wrongfully, pre-
vailed, and no one could rely but upon himself and friends.
These measures being taken, Lamartine committed to the
flames all the papers which contained proper names or govern-
ment Secrets at home or abroad, of a nature to serve as a pretext
to the revengeful passions of the factions, should the day, as
there was too much reason to dread, bestow the victory upon
the advocates of proscription and blood. This done, he threw
himself upon his bed to take a few moments of repose.
Scarcely had he fallen asleep than the devoted men whom
he had in the clubs, escaped from those rendezvous of the
night, forced his door, and awoke him to give him the lates
accounts. -
The directing clubs had at eleven o'clock at night formed
themselves in permanent Session. Armed, and provided with
the munitions of war, they had resolved to assemble the people
on the following morning at the Champ de Mars, to the number
of a hundred thousand men, to adjourn there themselves at
noon, to assume the direction, to march along the quays,
REPORTS OF THE SECRET AGENTS. BLANGUI. 455
rousing the floating population of Paris, to the Hôtel de
Wille, to obtain possession of it by force, to expel the pro-
visional government, and to decimate those members of the
majority who were most repugnant to them; such as Lamar-
time, Marie, Garnier Pagès, Marrast, and Dupont de l'Eure.
They had already nominated, in the place of these, a com-
mittee of public Safety, composed of Ledru Rollin, Louis
Blanc, Albert, and Arago, whom they wrongly supposed
favourable to the extreme party. They had joined to them
the names of the principal chiefs of faction, or of the terrorist
or Socialist sects, who represented the violent systems of
government or the destruction of Society. After having thus
freed themselves of the majority of the government which
restrained them, their purpose, strange to relate, was to march
to the club of Blanqui, and disembarrass themselves in the
same manner of this rival tribune, by whom they were inti-
midated.
This last circumstance by no means surprised Lamartine.
He knew that Blanqui was the terror of the terrorists, less
popular and less audacious than himself. It was not inconse-
quent for them to profit by a single insurrection to liberate
themselves at once frºm their adversaries in the moderate
party of the government, and from their enemy in the des-
perate party of demagoguism.
Blanqui, to all appearance, knew what awaited him ; but
did not less pretend to associate himself with the movement
in preparation for the morrow against Lamartine and his
friends. It is presumed that Blanqui did not wish to appear
to remain with his party in the rear of those who wished to
get the start of him in revolution. He thought, perhaps,
that the 'movement, being once set a-going, he would be
able to overtake his rivals, and that they would be over-
whelmed by the popularity of a name collected among still
º of the people. He also then assembled his
club, ſad established himself in armed and permanent session,
like the rest of the conspirators.
A# break of day, Lamartime observed successive groups of
those who intended taking part in the demonstration ad-
Vange, by small detachments of fifteen to twenty men, pre-
cºdºd by drums and flags, by the route of the boulevards.
Thfly proceeded, led by some chiefs better attired than them-

456 visiT OF LEDRU ROLLIN TO LAMARTINE.
selves, the delegates of the clubs, to the place of meeting on
the Champ de Mars. The greater part were in total ignorance
of the real object of the assemblage. The pretext was some
unknown preparatory ballot for the nomination of the candi-
dates of the workmen.
From hour to hour, the emissaries appointed brought infor-
mation to Lamartine from their posts relative to the state of the
Champ de Mars, and the progress and appearance of the
assemblage. It reached, towards eleven o'clock, to about
thirty thousand men. They began to speak of marching at
two upon the Hôtel de Ville. The clubs had not yet arrived,
and the masses appeared wavering, and but little animated.
The men employed in the national workshops, instigated by
Marie, and the numerous emissaries of Lamartine, broke up
these groups as they formed, and discouraged them from
insurrection. Sobrier himself employed his friends in dis-
Suading them from all excesses.
Affairs were in the condition described, and Lamartine
was awaiting more precise information and a commencement
of the execution of those projects before further action, when
a visit of the minister of the interior was announced. Lamar-
time was, as has been said, aware that the name of M. Ledru
Rollin was one of those of which the projected insurrection
had constructed its committee of public safety. He knew,
moreover, that the political chiefs of the Sosialist sects, the
partisans of the coup d'état of the people belonging to Barbès's
club, and the Club of Clubs, were busily employed about the
minister of the interior, that they sought to molopolize his
influence and talent, and endeavoured to drag him into
resolutions contrary to the unity of the governmert and the
peace of the republic. Lamartine, without previous con-
nection with his colleague, would have found it neither loyal
to suspect him, nor becoming to inform him of the unjust
rumours diffused on the subject of his relations with the
conspirators. He had not long to wait before he found he
was not deceived. -
M. Ledru Rollin informed him of the information which he
had himself received during the night-the project of the armed
demonstration; the purification of the provisional govern-
ment; the institution of the committee of public Safety,
the usurpation of his own name, in spite of his efforts, by
CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE TWO COLLEAGUES. 457
the factious; his indignation at being believed capable of
lending his name to plots against his colleagues, and his firm
resolution to perish rather than associate himself with any
act of treason. “In a few hours,” said he, “we are to be
attacked by upwards of a hundred thousand men. Whaft
part are we to take? I am come to concert measures with
you, for I know you preserve your coolness in these rebel-
lions of the streets, and that extreme perils do not trouble
your heart.”
“There are no two parts,” replied Lamartine, rising and
extending his hand to his colleague, “there is but one ; we
must combat, or deliver the country to anarchy, the republic
to adventurers, and the government to disgrace. You are
minister of the interior ; you are loyal and resolute; your
powers of office give you the right to cause the générale to
be beaten in Paris, and to call the national guard to arms.
Let us not lose a minute. Go at this moment and give
the order to raise the legions. For my part, I will cause
the battalions of the mobile guards, who may be in a condi-
tion to fight, to be raised. I will shut myself up in the
Hôtel de Ville with these two or three battalions. There I
will sustain the assault of the insurrection. Of two things,
one will come to pass. Either the national guard, as yet in-
visible, will not answer to this appeal, and then the Hôtel
de Ville will be carried, and I shall perish at my post; or,
if not so, the call to arms and the noise of the musketry will
cause the national guard to fly to the succour of the govern-
ment, attacked in my person at the Hôtel de Ville, and the
insurrection, taken between two fires, will be quenched in its
blood; the government will be delivered, and an invincible
organized force will at last be found for the service of the
republic I am ready for either eventuality.”
That which was said was done. The minister of the in-
terior, as resolved as Lamartine to try the chances of re-
sistance and combat, went to give his orders for the beating
of the rappel.
Lamartine did not see his colleague more during the day.
He confided his wife to some friends, who were to provide
for her safety in case of his fall. He went out, accompanied
by a young pupil of the school of Saint Cyr, the son of the
brave General de Verdières, and the staff-colonel Callier, a
458 GENERALS D'UWIWIER AND COURTAIS.
man of cool intelligence and impassible bravery, whom he
had known in the East, and had attached to the ministry of
foreign affairs. -
He proceeded first to General Duvivier, at the quarters
of the staff of the garde mobile. He went up stairs alone.
The general was absent. The chief of his staff and his
Secretary, informed by Lamartine of the movement which
was in preparation, supplied the place of the general, and
selected in conjunction with him the four battalions who were
the best exercised, and whose quarters were nearest to the
Hôtel de Ville. They transmitted to them the order to pro-
ceed instantly to the Place de Grève. t
At the moment when Lamartine descended the staircase to
go there himself, he met General Duvivier coming up. He
reascended with him. -
General Duvivier was one of those men whom no ex-
tremity surprises, no danger troubles, because they believe
religiously in the law of duty, and because their faith reposes
in God, whilst their courage acts upon earth ; a kind of
pious fatalists whose destiny is Providence. The general
coolly corrected some orders given in his absence; ordered
his horse to be saddled, and promised to be found at the
head of his young soldiers, whom he loved as children, and
led along with him like heroes. . He had not, however, a
supply of cartridges, and Lamartine hastened to procure them
at the office of the staff of the national guard in the court
of the Tuileries.
General Courtais was absent. A slight altercation arose
on the subject of the call to arms between Lamartine and the
chief of the staff, who refused to believe in the movement, and
was alarmed at the effect which would be produced in Paris
by the beating of the rappel, and by the conflict which would
be the result. Lamartine was irritated at the delay. The
return of General Courtais put an end to this hesitation, as
he declared that the minister of the interior had given
him the order to beat the rappel, and that it should be
executed.
Lamartine departed, followed by a supply of cartridges,
and proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville.
The assemblage at the Champ de Mars was increasing,
and began to form itself into five columns and move off.
GENERAL CHANGARNIER. M. MARRAST. 459
During these forced delays, General Changarnier, whom
Lamartine had named ambassador at Berlin, had presented
himself at the hotel of the ministry of foreign affairs, to enter
into the subject of Some details connected with his instruc-
tions with the minister. Madame Lamartine had received
the general. She had informed him of what had passed; and
Suggested that the presence and concurrence of a brave and
most distinguished officer would probably be of great utility
at that moment to her husband at the Hôtel de Ville, and
of a powerful effect upon the moral courage of the young
Soldiers.
The general, eager for danger and for the opportunity of
evincing his zeal, arrived at the Hôtel de Ville at the mo-
ment when Lamartine himself entered, accompanied by
Colonel Callier and Payer, the chief of his cabinet, and sub-
Sequently a representative of the people, to whom danger was
ever an attraction.
M. Marrast, firm and impassible, awaited the coming
insurrection. Lamartine acquainted him with the details
which have just been read, the order to call the national
guard to arms, given by the minister of the interior, and
the speedy arrival of the four battalions. General Chan-
garnier, Marrast, and Lamartine concerted measures toge-
ther for the best possible disposition of this feeble body
of troops. It was agreed, that instead of leaving these
battalions, which scarcely amounted to four hundred bay-
onets each, upon the square, where they would be over-
whelmed in the thousands of assailants, they should cause
them to enter into the courts and interior gardens of the hotel,
protected by the iron gates. The general, taking the chief
direction of the forces thus enclosed in the walls, was a sub-
iect for admiration, for his presence of mind, his ardour,
activity, and confidence. “If you answer for our being
able to hold out three hours,” said Lamartine to him, “I
answer to you for the rising of the good citizens and of the
definitive success of the day.”
“I answer for seven hours,” replied General Changarnier.
Marrast had the calm and patient courage of men who
have extensively read and practised in the history of revolu-
tions. His friends, Buchez, Flottard, Recurt, and Colonel
Rey, had collected about the hotel or its neighbourhood a
460 ENTHUSIASM OF THE GARDE MOBILE FOR LAMARTINE.
battalion of volunteers of the revolution called the Lyonnais,
and a certain number of those of the neighbouring quarters.
Lamartine caused them successively to enter, harangued them,
and inflamed them with the fire of the passion which ani-
mated himself for the integrity and purity of the republic.
General Changarnier distributed them at all the posts.
Lamartine had engaged him to provide for the possibility of
a Sally to be made at the back of the palace, for the purpose
of taking the insurgents in the rear by the quay, at the
moment when the national guard should attack them by the
bridge of Saint Michel. The battalions of mobile guards
arrived one by one. They saluted Lamartine with acclama-
tions. It was he that had formed them. These youths loved
him as a vision seen and heard during the first days of the
revolution, as the man who had enrolled them, and had,
when in the government, continued to be their patron.
In the mean time, the numerous messages sent by Lamar-
tine to the Schools, the suburbs, the workmen of the quarries
of Belleville, and to the Pantheon, hurried the arrival of the
well-disposed citizens. Other messages coming from the
Champ de Mars brought intelligence that the army of the
insurgents was already defiling in an immense column upon
the Quai de Chaillot. Nowhere was the rappel heard.
Tamartine, rendered anxious by the hesitation of which he
had been witness at the quarters of the staff, communicated
his uneasiness to General Changarnier and M. Marrast. All
three agreed to give fresh orders through the mayor of Paris.
These orders were written by M. Marrast, and, being sent,
were everywhere most fully executed. It was said that
counter-orders had been given after the departure of Lamar-
time from the Tuileries. Hence the slowness with which the
Tappel had been beaten in different quarters, and the neces-
sity of the new orders sent by M. Marrast from the Hôtel
de Ville. However this may have been, the citizens flew to
arms from all quarters.
Lamartine, henceforth certain that the minister of the
interior himself had given this order, and engaged his respon-
sibility in the cause of the unity and integrity of the govern-
ment, adopted, from motives of policy, the words “unity of
government,” as the watchword of the day for the troops, the
deputations, and the armed people who filled the square.
His SPEECH To THE VOLUNTEERS OF CHATEAU-RENAUD. 46%
The government, if torn into two pieces, eleven days after
the elections, would, appeared to him, lacerate not only the
unity of election, but that of the republic itself. He stifled
his resentments and suspicions, in order that no cry should
be heard but that of the concord, real or apparent, between
all parties of republican opinions. The brave Château-
Renaud, having entered the Hôtel de Ville at the head of a
column of armed volunteers, who called with loud cries for
Lamartine to pass them in review in the court, he descended,
followed by Payer, and addressed them.
“Citizens,” said he to them, “they had announced to-
day to the provisional government a day of danger to the
republic ; we were assured beforehand that it would be one
of triumph for the country and for order. I know, from
recent experience, and I can recognize in the countenances
of many among you, in the energy at once intrepid and
moderate, which is so deeply seated in the hearts of the
armed citizens of the capital, that we may count upon them.
France, which for the moment is comprised in the government,
has need of no other guard, no other army than this voluntary,
spontaneous army, which forms of its own accord, not indeed
at the first sound of the drum, for you were in arms before its
call, but at the first rumour of danger to the country and to
public order.
“Citizens, “the provisional government to a man, ought this
day to be the watchword of the armed and disarmed popu-
lation of Paris; for it is against the integrity, against the
indivisibility of the provisional government, that the move-
ment against which you have come forth to form for us a
Tampart of your breasts had, it has been said, been conceived.
“It was hoped, by means of these divisions which have
been aroused among us, to divide the country as well as the
government. No possible division exists among its members.
If some differences of opinion, as are naturally to be found in
the Superior councils of a country, may be met in the details
of administration, the unity exists in the same love of the
republic, in the same devotion which animates them towards
Paris and towards France.
“This union is the symbol of that of all the citizens !
“Permit me to offer to you, not in my own name, but in
the name of the unanimity of my colleagues, the most profound
462 CONTINUATION OF THE SPEECH of LAMARTINE.
thanks, not of the provisional government, but of the whole
of France, for whom this day would have been one of
calamity and civil war, if the government had been divided
in itself, and which, thanks to your energy, will be for you
that of the definitive and peaceful triumph of the new in-
stitutions we wish to remit, inviolable and entire, to the
National Assembly, itself the Supreme unity of the country.
Long live the republic.
“At the epoch of the first republic, there was a fatal
word which lost all, and led the best citizens to tear one
another in pieces by misunderstanding one another. That
word was distrust. And yet that word was then explained
by the situation of the country, menaced by a coalition
abroad, and by the enemies she had within her own bosom.
“To-day, and when the single proclamation of our demo-
cratic principles of fraternity and of respect for nationality
has opened the horizon of France over all Europe, and has
made the people aim at our friendship, instead of dipping
themselves in our blood; to-day, when the republic has been
accepted everywhere without opposition in the interior, and
promises to all, property, Security, and liberty, there is but
one word which answers to our situation, and that word is
confidence. Inscribe it upon your banners and in your
hearts | Tet it be the watchword between all the citizens and
between all the parts of the empire, and the republic is saved.
“The provisional government gives you the example of this,
in the deserved confidence which each of us feels towards his
colleagues and receives from them in turn It gives to-day
proof of it, by refusing, at any price, to disunite and separate
itself from any of the members who conjointly form the force
of its union. The indivisibility of the provisional government
must thus be the civic conquest of the day. Paris and the
departments, reassured as to the strength of the govern-
ment and the attachment which you feel for it, will unite
together as you do, and as we do, for the Safety of the
republic, and will restore intact to the National Assembly that
deposit, viz. the country, which the people of the 24th
of February have remitted to your hands. This confidence
which I recommend to you, citizens, is the cry, is the senti-
ment, which I have heard go forth every day of combat,
even here, on this staircase, in these courts, from the lips of
THE INSURGENTS’ APPROACH FROM THE CHAMP DE MARS. 463
the wounded, during that struggle between the throne and the
people, from which anarchy might have arisen for the latter!
Yes, I have heard it issue from the lips of those who here.
gave up their lives for the republic, and who thus, in this last
recommendation, seemed to bequeath to us the word which
was to be the preserver of the new republic and of the
country.”
These words caused an unanimous cry of devotion to burst
from all the steps of the staircases, from all the courts, and
from all the galleries of the Hôtel de Ville. Victory was in
that cry. For two hours Lamartine heard it issue from the
lips of all the groups of citizen volunteers, workmen, mobile
guards, and pupils of the schools, whom he harangued thirty
or forty times successively at these most critical moments. He
affected always to comprehend the whole provisional govern-
ment in his addresses, and thus to destroy, beforehand, all
germs of division which might spring from it. He did it to
take away all pretext for civil war, and for the recriminations
which could lead to it. The enthusiasm for him was, on that
day, so ardent and unanimous among the battalions, the people,
and the corps of volunteers, who hastened to the palace and
square, that if he had denounced a conspiracy and himself
demanded vengeance, proscription, or a dictatorship, they
would have been guided entirely by his wishes. But by avow-
ing divisions and delivering up his colleagues to the suspicions
of the people, he did not conceal from himself that he would
have betrayed the public and torn his country to pieces. In the
meantime, from a window of the Hôtel de Ville, he looked
upon the square, without yet knowing which would arrive first
and in greatest numbers, the battalions of the national guard
or the insurgents from the Champ de Mars.
A column of about twenty-five or thirty thousand heads,
led by the most furious clubbists, and by some Socialist chiefs,
had just issued forth by the Pont Royal and clashed with a
numerous column of national guards, whom General Courtais
had drawn up in battle array under the walls of the Louvre.
They had not proceeded to blows, but the meeting had been a
confused tumultuous one; hostile looks, cries, and gestures
had been exchanged. The national guard had allowed the in-
surgents to pass, and contented itself with cutting them off and
following them in their procession towards the Hôtel de Ville.
464 THEY ARE CONFRONTED BY THE NATIONAL GUARDS.
It was as it were two armies marching upon the same line in
silence, and for the purpose of mutual observation. Already
the first groups of this column of the Champ de Mars, preceded
by flags and men wearing red caps, began to emerge slowly
from the quay upon the Place de Grève. At this mo–
ment a forest of bayonets glistened on the other side of the
Seine at the extremity of the bridge of Saint Michel. This
was a body of thirty or forty thousand national guards of the
left bank of the river, running at full speed at the call of
Tamartine and Marrast. The breadth of the bridge was
not sufficient to allow them to pass freely. They rushed
in a compact column into the Square to the cries of “The
republic for ever !” “The government for ever !” They
blocked up the quay against twenty or thirty thousand
insurgents. These remained immoveable, undecided, and in
consternation, at the angle of the Place de Grève, being unable
either to advance, retire, or receive in their rear their rein-
forcements from the Champ de Mars, intercepted by the legions
under arms from the Champs Elysées to the extremity of the
quay Lepelletier. The legions of the left bank drew up in
order of battle on the square. The legions of the precincts, of
Belleville, Bercy, the faubourg of the Temple, the faubourg
Saint Antoine, and all the streets on the right bank, arrived at
the same moment by all the quays, and all the outlets of the
great arteries of Paris, at their very utmost speed, amid cries
of enthusiasm. These legions inundated with torrents of
bayonets all the streets and Squares from the Arsenal to the
Louvre. In three hours Paris was in arms and on foot. Not
only was victory impossible to the conspirators, but even for
them to attack was folly. Lamartine thanked General
Changarnier, whose services were henceforth unnecessary.
He entreated him to go and inform his wife of the triumph
of the good citizens, and the re-establishment of the public
armed force, hitherto a problem, but now brought to a state of
certainty.
General Duvivier was on horseback in the square, in the
midst of all his battalions of the garde mobile whom he had
brought up. Two hours were thus passed in an imposing
silence, as if it was sufficient for the national guards to show
their two hundred thousand bayonets to the sun to confound
every thought of conspiracy and anarchy |
LAMARTINE, LOUIS BLANC, AND ALBERT. 465 :
Lamartine, until four o'clock, the only member of govern-
ment present with Marrast, received the deputations of all
these corps, and harangued them, sometimes from the win-
dows, sometimes in the courts, and on the steps of the stair-
cases. The twenty thousand insurgents of the Champ de
Mars, after experiencing much obstruction at the extremity
of the quays, defiled sorrowfully in the midst of the hootings
of the people, between the ranks of the national guards as
they went in great dejection to hide themselves at their
clubs.
Two hundred thousand bayonets afterwards passed in
review before the Hôtel de Ville, with cries of “Long live
Lamartine !” “Down with the Communists "
A deputation of workmen from the Champ de Mars was,
after the review, introduced into the interior, under the pre-
text of doing homage by their contribution of patriotism.
M. Buchez and his colleagues addressed them in severe
language. Lamartine did not speak to them : he was occu-
pied at this moment in the hall of the council in writing some
orders to the national guards of the outposts, for the Security
of the night. He saw his two colleagues, Louis Blanc and
'Albert, enter. He continued to write, without saluting
them. He heard them murmur against Such an assumption
of omnipotence on the part of those who had, without
concerted deliberation, and upon their sole authority, caused
the rappel to be beaten, repulsed a manifestation of the
people, called out the national guard, and addressed harsh
and severe language to a deputation of the people. Lamar-
time, experiencing a feeling of irritation, could not conceal
from himself against whom these murmurs were directed,
He turned round, threw down his pen, and, approaching
his two colleagues, replied to them for the first time with
pride and ill-restrained anger. The two members of the
minority retired, and went to carry their complaints to
M.M. Buchez and Recurt in another hall. Lamartine, after
having provided for the safety of the night by his orders to
the legions, went out by a secret door from the Hôtel de
Ville, to escape an ovation from the national guard and
people. With his face muffled in his cloak, he plunged
into the little narrow winding streets which lie behind the
palace. A hired carriage was brought to him. He got into
it without being recognized, and gave the coachman orders to
2 H
466 ENTHUSIASM. DEPUTATIONS TO THE MINISTERS.
convey him to the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin, where his
wife awaited the issue of the day.
Five times on the way the carriage in which he was con-
cealed was stopped at the openings of the Rue Saint Antoine,
the Rue du Temple, the Rue Saint Dénis, the Rue Saint
Martin, and the Rue Montmartre, by columns of ten to
twenty thousand men of the national guard, Some in uniform,
others in the dress of workmen, all armed, who in their
measured tread shook the pavement of the streets. These
columns passed either in majestic silence, or uttering cries at
regular intervals of “Long live the republic l’ “Long
live Lamartine !” “Down with the Communists | * These
bodies of troops, issuing from every threshold, re-assured
the citizens, women, and children, who pressed about the
doors and windows. They were far from believing that
the man whose name they thus raised to the skies as a
national war-cry, heard these shouts as he lay hidden at the
bottom of the closed carriage, the passage of which they were
intercepting.
Lamartine could not rejoin his wife till towards evening.
This day was the happiest of his political life. The factions
were more than vanquished; they were discouraged. The
people had pronounced its decision, and this was the presage
of that which the nation was about to repeat at the elec-
tions. Paris had risen in arms, without distinction of rank
or fortune, and these arms had been completely united for the
protection of the republic, moderate government, order, pro-
perty, and civilization. Society was re-established.
The members of the majority of the government had passed
this great day in permanent session at the hotel of the finances,
in order to provide for events, and to avoid being carried
off by the same party stroke. They met, for the purpose
of refreshment, at ten o'clock, at the residence of the minister
of justice, M. Crémieux. They embraced like shipwrecked
mariners who had regained the shore.
During the repast, deputations from the national guards,
belonging to those legions for whom there had not been
sufficient light to defile before the Hôtel de Ville, came to ask
permission to do so, by torchlight, at the Place de Grève.
They consented, and proceeded thither.
Lamartine alone, overcome with fatigue, and hoarse with
haranguing, was not present.
GRAND REVIEW APPoſNTED FOR THE 21ST OF APRIL. 467
The legions, of which some did not consist of less than
twenty-five or thirty thousand men under arms, traversed
Paris during a part of the night, shouting “Long live Lamar-
time !” “Down with the Communists l’” No disorder shed a .
gloom over this awaking of the true people. With that cry
security entered into the abodes and the minds of the citizens.
The clubs of Communists and demagogues were in dismay,
deserted, and silent. Some groups of children, ever the cor-
rupt echo of the popular voice, went to vociferate cries of
“Long live Lamartine ! down with Cabet !” under the win-
dows of this sectarian chief. Upon receiving information of
this, Lamartime immediately sent to disperse these mis-
chievous groups, and wrote to offer Cabet an asylum for him-
self and family in his own house.
Such was the day of the 16th of April—the first great
coup d'état of the people itself against the conspirators,
demagogues, dictators, and barbarians of civilization. Paris
breathed, and France felt the consciousness of her safety.
But the 16th of April was only an accidental symptom.
The majority of the government wished to know if this
symptom would be revived, in a spirit of order, at their voice,
and if the spontaneous fusion of all the elements forming the
national guard would present a solid and fixed point of opinion
and force to the republic. The good citizens had need of being
re-assured, the factions of being taught a lesson, and Europe
of intimidation, by a grand and vital action of the new repub-
lic. The public voice demanded a general review of all the
bayonets voluntarily devoted for the protection of the country
and society. The people of Paris began to desire the return
of the troops within its walls. A large majority of the
government were pained by the absence of the army. They
desired to effect its insensible return into the national
framework of Society, from which fatality and prudence had
for a moment removed it. They wished that it should be
recalled by enthusiasm, and not imposed by constraint. An
occasion was sought for to re-accustom the eye of the people
to the presence, to the dazzling pomp, and to a renewal of
kindly feelings to the troops. The government, on that day
unanimous in opinion, appointed a general review of all the
national guards from Paris, the precincts, and even the nearest
towns; of the guard mobile, and of the regiments of artillery,
infantry, and cavalry within reach of the capital. This
2 H 2
468 REVIEWS OF NATIONAL GUARDS.
review took place on the 21st of April, under the name of
the review of fraternity.
The members of the provisional government and the mi-
nisters, placed themselves at daybreak on the first Seats of a
platform erected at the back of the triumphal Arc de l'Etoilé.
The vernal sun illumined the immense avenue which
extends from this arch of Napoleon to the palace of the
Tuileries. It was reflected upon the cannons, helmets,
cuirasses, and bayonets of the national guards and troops,
formed by batteries, squadrons, and battalions, upon the
causeway of the Champs Elysées and the Place de la Con-
corde. Dividing there, the two columns of the armed peo—
ple extended without interruption, one by the quays as far as
Bercy, and the other by the boulevards, to the Bastille.
It was an entire capital and its neighbouring provinces,
which had exchanged their fire-sides for a camp. One
vast and joyous murmur,. mingled with the clashing of
arms and the neighing of horses, arose from this multitude.
Every face bore the impress of the enthusiasm and happiness
of restored social order. The people had become the army;
the army had become the people. No sign of impatience
or weariness was manifested in this assemblage, unexampled
since the times of the great migrations of races.
Upon the call of the government, at eight o'clock in the
morning, these masses put themselves in motion. They
defiled by battalions, to the sound of drums and military
bands, before the platform in which the members of the go-
vernment, standing, Saluted by turns the legions and regi-
ments, and distributed to them the new colours of the republic.
These legions, of which some did not number less than
thirty thousand men under arms, were followed, as in the
marches of caravans, by an immense multitude of unarmed
people, old men, women, and children, the residue of the human
family, attached to the steps of their armed fathers and sons.
The trees and gardens of the environs of Paris had been
stripped of boughs and lilacs to decorate the muskets and
cannon. The bayonets were entwined with flowers. Nature
threw her veil over these weapons. An immense inexhausti-
ble river of steel and foliage floating at the ends of muskets,
wound over the whole horizon of the Champs Elysées. On
approaching the platform, in front of which this human stream
REVIEWS OF NATIONAL GUARDS. 469
divided itself into two branches to flow with more facility,
women, children, and soldiers tore these decorations from
the musket-barrels, and cast them, like a rain of flowers,
upon the heads of the members of the government. A mighty
cry of “The republic for ever !” “The provisional govern-
ment for ever !” “The army for ever!” was raised, without
interruption, from the compact masses of the battalions and
people. The cries of “Lamartine for ever !” constantly pre-
dominated in these voices, and were mingled with those of
“Down with the Communists l’ The popularity of his name,
instead of becoming exhausted among the people by such a time
of anguish and misery, seemed to be strengthened and made
universal in the public mind. The people from the country
and the departments pointed out Lamartine, and Saluted him
with the most enthusiastic acclamations. The 16th of April
had made of him, in their eyes, a sort of personification of
defended and restored society.
Behind these compact battalions marched legions of poor
old men and women, carrying their little children in their
arms. Rustic carts contained even the indigent and the
infirm of the villages. -
It was from the bosom of these ragged groups that the
most impassioned cries of “War to disorder!” of “Hatred to
Communists " of “Long live Lamartine !” “Long live the
republic l’’ were raised.
The feeling of Society is so divine, so instinctive in man,
that it interests in the re-establishment of Social order, property,
and family ties, even those who seem the least interested
in its cause, and the least blest with its benefits. Tears streamed
from the eyes of these people; the eyes of the spectators
were also moistened with them. The shouts redoubled at the
appearance of those fine regiments of the line who lowered
their Swords before the government, and thus seemed to have
reconquered their place in the great reconciled family.
Night set in before this armed people, although moving
in double-quick time, and thirty to forty abreast, could
pass the triumphal arch. The review continued by torch-
light until eleven at night. Fourteen hours were not suffi-
cient to exhaust this river of human beings, steel, flowers,
and torches, which flowed among the trees of the Champs
Elysées. Two legions, forming together fifty thousand
470 REVIEWS OF NATIONAT, GUARDS.
bayonets or Sabres, had defiled during these two days before
the eyes of the government. Paris returned to its home,
with the feeling of the revival of the nation and of society.
On the Second day, two legions from the central quar-
ters of Paris, which had not been passed in review, from
want of time, murmured and demanded leave to perform
their act of adhesion to the provisional government, by de-
filing before it upon the Place Vendôme.
The members of the government, after assembling at the
office of the minister of justice, appeared at the balcony.
Their presence was Saluted by an unanimous shout of “Long
live the government l” over which, on this day above all,
predominated the cry of “Long live Lamartine !” His own
colleagues showed him by the hand to the legions who defiled
with this cry.
He descended, and passed with them into the ranks of this
army, which covered the Square. Although he affected to
walk among the last of the members of the government and
the ministers, his presence was at every step a triumph. His
name was almost the sole cry of this armed centre of Paris,
comprised of the eighth and ninth legions. A thrill agitated
the legions at his approach, and when he had passed, enthu-
siasm pursued his steps. Hands, glowing with love, touched
his own and his garments. He heard whispers in his ears
urging him to the dictatorship, and enticing him to that
which, though a truly popular one, would still be a royalty.
Having re-entered the office of the minister of justice, and
taken his station at the balcony to witness the continuation
of this review of an armed people, the same cries ascended
without interruption to his ears. He withdrew embarrassed
at a fanaticism for which he was indebted only to the caprice
of the multitude, and humiliated by a predilection as much
due to his, colleagues as to himself. But popular instinct
makes no selection; it hurries along, and not seldom loses its
way. Upon this day, Lamartine began to be troubled at an
excess of public favour which he was resolved should not be
monopolized by one man; but which should be restored in its
integrity to the representative body of the people and to the
republic. He felt that in a few days it would be more
difficult for him to abdicate this uncertain power than to
usurp it.
DISSENSIONS. LAMARTINE VISITS MINISTER OF INTERIOR. 471
|B O O K XIV.
FROM the date of the 16th of April all became easy to the
government. The factious and ambitious had been con-
vinced of their impotency. The surprise prepared by the
clubs to bear away the dictatorship, and to perpetuate and
corrupt the revolutionary government, had been baffled. The
parties were not resigned, but trembled with apprehension.
They gained in irritability that which they had lost in hope.
The clubs became conspirators; the journals added venom to
the rare but embittered discussions of government. An in-
Surrection of workmen, inflamed by the desperate partisans at
Paris, attempted at Rouen what had failed in the capital.
Energetically put down by the national guard and the army,
this insurrection, and the measures taken for its repression,
became the subject of violent recriminations. M. Arago
indignantly and courageously defended the general officers
inculpated by the petitions of the demagogues.
But the hour of the National Assembly approached. The
majority of the government temporized. Lamartime, his
eyes exclusively fixed upon the day of the elections, ne-
glected from that moment all dissensions respecting details,
and even principles, which might arise between the majority
and minority of the government. He dreaded more than
ever any violent disturbance which might compromise the
only real object of his efforts, and those of the majority; viz.
the convocation of a National Assembly without civil war.
“I have endeavoured,” said he, “to be the minister of the
resistance of true democracy to the odious demagogue spirit
in the government; and I would be now the oil to soften
all dissensions between opinions, and to prevent all ruptures.”
One day, during his absence, the minister of the interior
having come to a disagreement with his colleagues, and hav-
ing withdrawn with the resolution of giving in his resig-
nation, Lamartine offered himself as mediator. He went
himself to the house of that minister. He represented to
him, for the common interest of the country, the danger of a
disruption which would open the way to anarchy; he was
enabled to pacify their minds.
472 CONSTITUTION OF DUPONT DE L'EURE AND LAMARTINE,
The elections were at hand; the government had for a
long time been deliberating whether it should present itself
before the National Assembly with the plan of a constitution
completely prepared, or whether it should content itself with
its own abdication, and should abstain from every initiatory
proceeding which could bear a resemblance to a continued
dictatorship, or a usurpation of the national sovereignty.
Dupont de l'Eure, a man who had the foresight of experience
itself, did not cease to conjure Lamartine to employ himself
with this plan of a constitution. The ideas of Lamartine
were in conformity with those of Dupont de l'Eure. He
thought that the debates upon the subject of a constitution
would be long and tumultuous for an assembly; that they
would waste time which might be better employed in pro-
viding for the dangers and numerous emergencies attending
the inauguration of a democratic government; that a con-
stitution, that is to say, the two or three principles on which
a government was to be founded, ought to be written in
a few lines as the engraved summary of a revolution, and
a grand act of civilization ; and that then, the organic laws
of this constitution ought to be flexible, consecutive, capable
of being modified, and written at leisure, according to the
emergency and the time, without that character of immu-
tability which belonged to the constitution itself.
He had, consequently, reduced the basis of a constitution
to five or six axioms. He desired that this might be voted
by acclamation in two or three sittings, and that the govern-
ment should emanate immediately from the constitution
yoted,
Lamartine was convinced that the unity of the executive
power, constituted in a presidency, a dictator, or a council,
was the definitive form that the republic would adopt after
the period of its creation. But being destined for the first
time to accustom the country to a republican form, and to
bind together in an interest of community and concord the
principal forces of opinion, he was inclined to admit for two
or three years a threefold executive power, in which three
men, chosen by the National Assembly, should represent the
three elements of which all public opinion is composed—
progress, resistance, and moderation.
These three forces combining together in a consulate of
GREAT DIFFERENCES OF OPINION ON THE SUBJECT. 473
three years, and each corresponding to one of the three
parties in the nation, the progressive, the conservative, and
the moderate, appeared to him, doubtless, a possible cause of
divergencies and languor in the executive power; but his
principal fear for the republic, at its origin, was civil war.
This mixed dictatorship, giving Security and pledges to oppo-
site opinions, was of a nature to prevent it. He occupied
himself with this idea; he entered into the subject of it with
Some of his colleagues; he undertook to Sound the disposi-
tions of the members of the National Assembly at their
arrival in Paris, and to determine upon the course which
appeared to him the most universally adopted by the majority
of minds. A secret conference took place between him and
some members of different opinions on this subject. They
endeavoured to come to an understanding, but after adjourning
everything, they could decide on nothing. All, in respect to
this, depended upon unknown elements—the mind, the dis-
positions, the majorities and minorities, among the members
of the National Assembly.
As regarded the plan of constitution to present, it was re-
nounced entirely in the last sittings which preceded the 27th
of April.
The three parties, which by turns were opposed to, or
in harmony with, the government, were too much divided,
and sometimes too irritated, to come to an understanding
upon a common plan for a constitution. The Socialist
party, the Conventionalist party, and the Republican and
Constitutional party, could not give origin to the same
idea. They felt this; they avowed it, and they referred it to
the National Assembly, which was destined to draw the line
of demarcation between these parties.
The two last might, by making some efforts, come to an
agreement.
The first was incompatible with the National Assembly,
for that was destined to proceed from the soil, from the time,
and from traditions. The Socialist party would proceed upon
an absolute theory; and an absolute theory is violence, and
violence can only result in tyranny. *~s
At last the dawn of Safety arose for France with the da A
of the general elections. This was on Easter-day, tºº }
of April, an epoch of pious solemnity selected by the pro-
474 EASTER-DAY APPOINTED FOR GENERAL ELECTIONS.
visional government, in order that the labours of the people
might not cause any diversion or pretence of withdrawing
from the accomplishment of their duty as a people; and
also, that the religious feeling which hovers over the human
mind, during these days consecrated to the commemoration of
a grand Sacred act, would penetrate into the thoughts of the
public, and give to liberty the Sanctity of religion.
It was the boldest problem ever presented before a nation
organized in revolutionary times, and was solved by this ex-
periment for the Safety and the glory of the nation.
At Sunrise the people, collected and moved by patriotism,
formed into columns at the entrances of the religious edifices,
under the direction of the mayors, curates, instructors, justices
of peace, and influential citizens, and proceeded by villages
and hamlets to the principal places of the districts, and
deposited in the urns, without any other impulse than their
own conscience, without violence, and almost without pre-
liminary steps, the names of the men whose probity, attain-
ments, virtue, talent, and, above all, moderation, inspired them
with the most confidence for the common safety and future
interests of the republic.
In the towns it was the same. The citizens, rich as well
as poor, soldiers or workmen, proprietors or those possessed of
nothing, were seen to issue one by one from the thresholds of
theirabodes, with composure and Serenity on their faces,to carry
their written suffrages to the ballot, and pausing sometimes to
modify them under a new idea or sudden feeling of repentance
in the conscience, to deposit them in the urn, and return with
satisfaction depicted on their countenances as from a pious
ceremonial. Never were public conscience and the general
good Sense revealed in a people with more scrupulousness,
religion, and dignity. It was one of those days when a
nation has its eyes upon heaven, or heaven its eyes upon a
nation. After three months the government had this day of
repose. It felt that God and the people were working
for it.
The churches were filled with crowds, who, on their knees,
invoked the divine inspiration and the spirit of peace for the
guidance of the electors. They felt that their prayers were
heard before they had even offered them. The calmness
with which the electoral operations were accomplished was a
RELIGIOUS DEPORTMENT EXHIBITED BY THE PEOPLE. 475
presentiment of the choice which emanated from the heart of
this people. Anarchy could not spring from So unanimous
an inspiration of good.
At the decline of day, Lamartine wandered alone with a
heart charged with gratitude in a populous quarter of Paris.
He saw the crowd descend and ascend the steps of a church;
the court in front of which seemed overflowing with wor-
shippers, men, women, children, old men, and young ones, all
with eyes beaming with the future, their carriage firm, and
their countenances in repose. The Sounds of the organ pene-
trated even to the street, when the doors opened to give
emission to the tones of the instrument and the echoes of the
psalms.
He entered. He glided, unknown in the darkness, among
the crowds by which the church was filled. He sank on his
knees under the shadow of a column, and returned thanks to
the Almighty. His work was accomplished. Great per-
sonal dangers might yet menace him, before the day when
the National Assembly should enter Paris, and take posses-
sion of its sovereignty. There were still to be encountered
desperate resistance and guilty hopes, conspiracies for ad-
journment, coups d'état aimed by demagogues, and menaces
of purification and assassination against himself and his col-
leagues. Not a few men of eminence, to the last hour incredu-
lous, wrote to him, or told him, that the national representatives
would never take their seats without marching through
waves of blood to the conquest of Paris. He received daily
from the departments sinister informations respecting real or
imaginary plots framed against his life. They spoke to him
of fanatics who had departed from such or such a town to
poniard him, and cause the revolutionary government to be
proclaimed over his corpse. “I may, in fact, fall yet myself.”
said he, in the secret belief of his heart ; “but at the hour
at which France has arrived, she can no longer sink; her
chosen are in the urn, and to-morrow they will issue from it.
Her sovereignty exists; her legal representatives are named.
If the government is to be overthrown by conspiracy, these
chosen candidates of France will meet in every department.
They will arrive at the gates of Paris escorted by two mil-
lions of armed citizens. They will submerge the dictators or
the committees of public safety. They will recover France
476 SATISFACTORY RESULT OF THE ELECTIONS.
from the hands of the factious! What matter if I die?
France is saved " t
France, in fact, could henceforth breathe. The National
Assembly was, in almost all its names, an act of public Safety.
The name of Lamartine had issued ten times from the electoral
urn without his knowing even a single one of his consti-
tuencies. If he had uttered a word, insinuated a wish, or given
a sign, he would have been nominated in eighty departments.
His popularity was without bounds at Paris, in France,
Germany, Italy, and America. For Germany, his name was
peace. For France, it was a safeguard from terror. For
Italy, it was hope. For America, it was the republic. He held
really at this moment the sovereignty of the European con-
Science. He could not move a step without exciting accla-
mations. They followed him even to his residence, and
interrupted his sleep. Twice recognized at the opera,
although hidden in the inmost recesses of a box; the pit and
the spectators rose, suspended the representation, and for five
minutes hailed him with one continued shout of applause. In
him France personified her joy at the restoration of her go-
Vernment.
The country had chosen with reflection, impartiality, and
wisdom, all the men of worth whose opinions, at once liberal,
republican, honest, moderate, and courageous, could adapt
themselves without impatience or repugnance to the new
order of things, made requisite by the revolution. France
had shown her genius for the transition, and her Sovereign
tact in adapting herself to circumstances. She had put out of
the pale only the names made too conspicuous by the favour
or faults of the last government. She had not by any means
proscribed them, but had only deferred them. She had
feared resentments and recriminations. This assembly of
nine hundred members was the honesty and patriotism of
France resumed in her sovereignty. History ought to engrave
upon tables of stone, for posterity, the names of these citizens.
With the exception of a small number of demagogues, super-
annuated imitators of 1793, and five or six chimerical fanatics,
the names of all these citizens, collected together, signified
the safety of France, and the foundation of the constitutional
republic.
The following are their names:—
AIN.—Bodin (Alex.-Marcel-Melchior), Bochard. Cha-
LIST OF THE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 477
rassin. Francisque Bouvet (François-Joseph). Guigue de
Champvans. Maissiat (Jacques). Quinet (Edgar). Re-
gembal (Antoine). Tendret.
AISNE.—Barrot (Odilon). Bauchart (Quentin). Baudelot.
De Brotonne. Desabes. Dufour (Théophile). Lemaire
(Maxime). Leproux (Jules). Lherbette. Nachet. Plocq
(Toussaint). Quinette. De Tillancourt (Edmond). Vivien.
ALLIER.—Bureaux de Puzy. De Courtais. Fargin Fay-
olle. Laussedat (Louis). Madet (Charles). Mathé (Félix).
Terrier (Barthélemy). Tourret (Charles-Gilbert).
BASSES-ALPES.—Chais (Auguste). Duchaffault. Fortoul.
Taidet.
HAUTES-ALPES.—Allier. Bellegarde. Faure (Pascal-
Joseph).
ARDi CHE.-Champanhet. Chazallon. Dautheville (Fran-
gois). Laurent. Mathieu. Rouveure. Royol (Jean).
Sibour. Walladier.
ARDENNES. — Blanchard. Trappier. Payer. Robert
(Léon). Talon. Ternaux-Mortimer. Toupet-Desvignes.
Tranchart.
ARRIBGE.-Anglade (Clément). Arnaud. Casse. Dar-
naud. Galy-Cazalat. Vignes (Th.), Xavier-Durrieu.
AUBE.—Blavoyer. Delaporte. , Gayot (Amédée). Gerdy
(Pierre-Nicolas). Dignier. Millard (Jean-Auguste). Stourm.
AUDE. — Anduze-Faris. Barbès (Armand). Joly, fils
(Edmond). Raynal (Théodore). Sarrans (Jean). Solier
(Marc). Trinchant.
AvKYRON.—Abbal (Basile-Joseph). Affre (Louis-Henri).
Dalbis du Salze. Dubruel (Edouard). Grandet. Médal.
Pradié. Rodat. Wernhette. Wésin.
BouchEs-DU-RHôNE. — Astouin. Barthélemy. Berryer
(Pierre-Antoine). Laboulie (Gustave). Ollivier (Démos-
thènes). Pascal (Félix). Poujoulaf. Rey (Alexandre).
Reybaud (Louis). Sauvaire-Barthélemy. -
CALVADOs.—Bellencontre (Joseph-Pierre-François). Bes-
nard (Jean-Charles). Demortreux (Pierre-Thomas-Frédéric).
Desclais (Jacques-Alexandre). Deslongrais (Armand-Roche-
rullé). Douesnel-Dubosq (Robert-Alexandre). Hervieu
(Pierre-Sosthène). Lebarillier (Louis-Constant). Lemon-
nier (Jean-Nicolas). Marie (Auguste-Alphonse). Person.
(Félix). Thomine-Desmasures.
CANTAL-Daude. Delzons (Jean-François-Amédée).
478 LIST OF THE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
Durieu-Paulin, Murat-Sistrières. Parieu (Félix-Esquiron
de). Richard. Teilhard-Latérisse.
CHARENTE. –Babaud - Laribière. Garnier – Laboissière.
Girardin (Ernest de). Hennessy (Auguste). Lavallée.
Mathieu-Bodet. Pougeard. Rateau.
CHARENTE-INFERIEURE.—Audry de Puyraveau (Pierre-
François). Baroche. Brard (Pierre-Lucien). Bugeaud.
Debain (Léon). Dufaure. Dupont de Bussac. Gaudin
(Pierre-Théodore). Regnault de Saint - Jean-d'Angély.
Renou de Ballon. Target. 2
CHER.—Bidault. Bouzique (Etienne-Ursin). Duplan
(Paul). Duvergier de Hauranne. Poisle - Desgranges
(Jacques-Damien). Pyat (Félix). Vogué (Léonce de).
CoRRÉZE.—Bourzat. Ceyras. Du Bousquet Laborderie.
Favart. Latrade. Lebraly. Madesclaire. Penières.
CoRSE.-Bonaparte (Napoléon). Bonaparte (Pierre-Napo-
léon). Casabianca (Xavier). Conti (Etienne). Pietri
(Pierre-Marie).
CôTE-D'OR.—Bouguéret (Edouard). Godard-Poussignol.
James-Demontry. Joigneaux. Magnin-Philippon. Maire
(Neveu). Maréchal. Mauguin. Monnet. Perrenet (Pierre).
,CóTES-DU-NoFD.—Carré (Félix). Denis. Depasse
(Emile-Toussaint-Marcel). Glais - Bizoin. Houvenagle.
Ledru. Legorrec. Loyer. Marie. Michel. Morrhéry.
Perret. Racinet. Simon (Jules). Tassel (Yves). Tré-
veneuc (Henri-Louis-Marie de).
CREUSE-Desaincthorent. Fayolle (Edmond). Guisard.
LaSSarre. Lecler (Félix). Leyraud. Sallandrouze-Lamor-
Ilºll.S.
DoRD0&NE.—Auguste Mie. Barailler (Eugène). Cha-
voix (Jean-Baptiste). Delbetz. Dezeimeris. Ducluzeau.
Dupont (Auguste). Dussolier. Goubie. Grolhier-Des-
brousses. Lacrouzille (Amédée). Savy. Taillefer (Timoléon).
T}oUBS.—Baraguay d’Hilliers. Bixio. Convers. Demes-
may. Mauvais. Montalembert. Tanchard.
DRóME.—Bajard. Belin. Bonjean. Curnier. Mathieu
(Philippe). Morin. Rey. Sautayra.
EURE.-Alcan (Michel). Canel. Davy. Demante (An-
toine-Marie). Dumont. Dupont. Langlois. Legendre.
Montreuil (de). Picard (Jean-Jacques-François). Sevaistre
(Paul).
IIST OF THE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 479
EURE-ET-LoIR.—Barthélemy. Isambert. Tebreton (Eu-
gène-Casimir). Marescal. Raimbault-Courtin. Subervie.
Trousseau (Armand). -
FINISTRE.-Brunel (Alexis). Decouvrant (André-Marie-
Adolphe). Fauveau (Joseph). Fournas (Balthazar de).
Graveran Kéranflech (Yves-Michel-Gilart de). Kersauson
(Joseph-Marc-Marie). Lacrosse. Le Breton (Charles-
Louis). , Le Flo. Mège (James). Riverieulx (Armand-
Marie-Emile). Rossel (Victor). Soubigou (François-Louis).
Tassel.
GARD.—Béchard (Ferdinand). Bousquet. Chapot. De-
mians (Auguste). Favend (Etienne-Edouard-Charles-Eu-
gène). Labruguière-Carme. Larcy (de). Reboul (Jean).
Roux-Carbonnel. Teulon.
HAUTE-GARONNE.—Azerm (Louis). Calès (Godefroi).
Dabeaux. Espinasse (Ernest de l'). Gatien - Arnoult
(Adolphe-Félix). Joly (Henri). Malbois (Jean-François).
Narrast (Armand). Mulé (Bernard). Pagès de l'Ariège
(Jean-Baptiste). Pegot-Ogier (Jean-Baptiste). Rémusat
(Charles de).
GERs.—Alem-Rousseau. Aylies. Boubée (Théodore).
Carbonneau. David (Irénée). Gavarret. Gounon. Panat
de).
( GIRONDE-Billaudel (Jean-Baptiste-Basilide). Denjoy.
Deseze (Aurélien). Ducos (Théodore). Feuilhade-Chauvin.
| Hovyn-Tranchère. Hubert–Delisle. Lagarde. Larrieu.
Molé, Richier. Servière, Simiot. Thomas (Clément).
HóRAULT.—André (Jules). Bertrand (Jean-Pierre-Louis-
Toussaint). Brives. Carion-Nisas (André). Cazelles
(Brutus). Charamaule (Hippolyte). Laissac. Reboul-
Coste (Aristide). Renouvier (Jules). Vidal.
ILLE-ET-VILAINE.—Andigné de la Chasse (d’). Bertin,
Bidard. Fresneau (Armand). Garnier-Kéruault. Jouin
(Pierre). Kerdrel (Vincent-Audren de). Legeard de la
Diriays. Legraverend. Marion (Jean-Louis). Méaule
(Charles). Paul Rabuan. Roux-Lavergne (Pierre-Célestin).
Trédern (de). -
INDRE-Bertrand (Henri). Charlemagne (Edouard)
Delawau (François-Charles). Fleury. Grillon (Eugène-
Victor-Adrien). Rollimat.
INDRE-ET-LOIRE-Crémieux (Isaac-Adolphe). Foucque-
480 LIST OF THE MEMBERS OF THE NATYONAL ASSEMBLY.
teau. Gouin (Alexandre). Julien. Jullien (Amable).
Luminais. Taschereau (Jules). M. Bacot.
IsèRE.—Bertholon. Blanc (Alphonse). Brillier. Cholat.
Clément (Auguste). Crépu. Durand-Savoyat. Farconnet.
Froussard. Marion de Faverges (André). Renaud. Re-
pellin. Ronjat. Saint-Romme. Tranchand.
JURA.—Chevassu. Cordier (Joseph). Gréa. Grévy
(Jules). Huot (Césaire). Jobez (Alphonse). Tamisier.
Walette. z
LANDES.—Bastiat (Frédéric). Dampierre (Elie de). Du-
clerc (Eugène). Duprat (Pascal). Lefranc (Victor). Mar-
rast (François). Turpin (Numa).
LOIR-ET-CHER.—Ducoux. Durand de Romorantin. Gé-
rard. Normant (Antoine). Salvat. Sarrut (Germain).
LOIRE.-Alcock. Baune. Callet (Pierre-Auguste). Cha-
vassieu. Devillaine. Favre (Jules). Fourneyron (Benoist).
Levet (Henri). Martin-Bernard. Point. Verpilleux.
HAUTE-LoIRE:—Avond (Auguste). Badon. Breymand.
Grellet (Félix). Lafayette (Edmond). Lagrevol (Alex-
andre). Laurent (Aimé). Rullière.
LoIRE-INF#RIEURE.-Bedeau (Marie-Alphonse). Billaut.
Braheix, Camus de la Guibourgère (Alexandre-Prosper).
Desmars. Favre (Ferdinand). Favreau (Louis-Jacques).
Fournier (Félix). Granville (Aristide de). Lanjuínais.
Rochette (Ernest de la). Sesmaisons (Olivier de). Waldeck-
Rousseau.
LoIRET.-Abbatucci. Arbey. Considérant (Victor). Mar-
tin (Alexandre). Michot. Péan (Emile). Roger. Rondeau.
LoT.—Ambert. Carla. Cavaignac (le général Eugène)
Labrousse (Emile). Murat (Lucien). Rolland. Saint-
Priest (de).
LOT-ET-GARONNE. — Baze. Bérard. Boissié. Dubruel
(Gaspard). Luppé (Irène de). Mispoulet. Radoult-Lafosse
Tartas (Emile). Vergnes (Paul).
LozåRE.—Comandré (Edouard). Desmolles. Renouard
(Fortuné). M. l'abbé Fayet.
MAINE-ET-LOIRE. — Bineau. Cesbron-Lavau (Charles).
David d’Angers. Dutier. Falloux (de). Farran. Freslon
(Alexandre). Gullier de la Tousche. Jouneaulx. Lefrançois
Louvet (Ch.). Oudinot. Tessié de la Motte.
MANCHE. —Abraham-Dubois. Boulatignier. Delouche.
LIST OF THE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 481
Temésange. Diguet. Dudouyt. Essars (des). Gaslonde.
Havin. Laumondais. Lempereur. Perrée (Louis). Toc-
queville (Henry-Alexis de). Vieillard (Narcisse). M. Rei-
bell.
MARNE.—Aubertin. Bailly. Bertrand (Jean). Dérodé
(L-Emile). Faucher (Léon). Ferrand. Leblond. Périg-
non. Soullié. -
HAUTE-MARNE.—Chauchard. Couvreux. Delarbre. Mil-
houx. Montrol. Toupot-de-Besvaux. Walferdin.
MAYENNE.—Bigot. Boudet. Chambolle. Chenais. Du-
bois. Fresney (Joseph). Dutriel. Goyet-Dubigon. Jamet
(Emile). Roussel (Jules). -
IMEURTHE.—Adelswaerd (d’). Charron, fils. Deludre.
Ferry. Taflize. Leclerc. Liouville. Marchal. Saint-Ouen.
Viox. Wogin. A.
MEUSE-Buvignier (Isidore). Chadenet. Etienne. Gil-
lon (Paulin). Launois. Moreau. Salmon. M. Dessaux.
MoRBIHAN.—Beslay. Crespel de la Tousche. Dahirel.
Daniélo. Dubodan. Fournas (de). Harscouet de Saint-
Georges. Leblanc. Parisis. Perrien (Arthur de). Piogeh
(de). Rochejaquelein (de la). -
MosBLLE.-Antoine. Bardin. Deshayes. Espagne (d’).
Jean-Renaud. Labbé. Poncelet. Rolland (Gustave). To-
tain. Valette. Woirhaye. -
NIávrB. — Archambault. Dupin. Gambon. Girerd.
Grangier de la Marinière. Lafontaine. Manuel. Martin
(Emile).
NoRD.—Antony-Thouret. Aubry. Bonte-Pollet. Bou-
langer. Choque. Corne. Delespaul. Descat. Desmou-
tiers. Desurmont. Dollez. Dufont. Duquesne. Farez.
Giraudon. Hannoye. Heddebault. Huré. Lemaire
(André). Lenglet. Loiset. Malo. Mouton, Négrier.
Pureur. Regnard. Serlooten. Vendois.
OISE.—Barillon. Désormes. Flye. Gérard. Lagache.
Leroux (Emile). Marquis (Donatien). Mornay (Jules de).
Sainte-Beuve. Tondu-du-Metz.
ORNE.—Charencey (de). Corcelles (de). Curial. Druet-
Desvaux. Gigon-Labertrie. Guérin. Hamard. Piquet.
Tracy (Destut de). Simphor-Vaudoré. Ballot.
PAS-DE-CALAIS.–Bellart-Dambricourt. Cary. Cornille.
Degeorge. Denissel. Emmery. Fourmetin. Fhéchon.
2 I
482 LIST OF THE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
Hérembault (d). Lantoine-Harduin. Lebleu. Olivier.
Petit (de Bryas). Piéron. Pierret. Saint-Amour. Lenglet.
PUY-DE-DôME.—Altaroche. Astaix. Baudet–Lafarge.
Brayard (Toussaint). Bravard-Veyrières. Charras. Com-
barel-de-Leyval. Girot-Pouzol. Gouttai. Jouvet. Jus-
Serand. Lasteyras. Lavigne. Rouher, Trélat.
BASSES-PYRÉNéEs—Barthe (Marcel). Boutoey. Condou.
Dariste. Etcheverry. Laussat (de). Lerenbouré. Lestapis.
Nogué. Renaud. Saint-Gaudens.
HAUTES-PyRáNÉES.–Cenac. Deville. Dubarry. Lacaze
(Bernard). Recurt. Wignerte.
, PYRáNÉES-ORIENTALEs. – Arago (Emmanuel). Arago
(Etienne). Guiter. Lefranc. Picas.
BAS-RHIN.—Boussingault. Bruckmer. Champy. Chauf-
four. Dorlan. Engelhardt. Foy. Gloxin. Kling. Lauth.
Liechtemberger. Martin (de Strasbourg). Schlosser, Wes-
tercamp. Culmann.
HAUT-RHIN.—Hardy. Dollfus. De Heeckeren. Heuchel.
Kestner. Koenig. Prudhomme. Rudler. Stoecklé. Struch.
Yves. Chauffour.
RHôNE.—Auberthier. Benoit. Chanay. Doutre. Fer-
rouillat. Gourd. Greppo. Lacroix (J.). Laforest. De
Mortemart. Mouraud. Paullian. Pelletier. Rivet.
HAUTE-SAONE.-Angar. Dufourmel. Grammont (de).
Guerrin. Lélut. Millotte. Minal. Noirot. Signard.
SAONE-ET-LOIRE-Bourdon. Bruys. Dariott. Jeandeau.
Lacroix (A.). Martin-Rey. Mathey. Mathieu. Menand.
Petit-Jean. Pézerat. Reverchon. Rolland. Thiard (de).
SARTHE.-Beaumont (Gustave de). Chevé. Degousée.
Gasselin (de Chantenay). Gasselin (de Fresnay). Hauréau.
Lamoricière. Tanglais. Lebreton. Lorette. Saint-Albin
(Hortensius de). Trouvé-Chauvel. . -
SEINE.—Albert. Arago (François). Berger. Blanc (Louis).
Boissel. Buchez, Carnot. Caussidièré. Changarnier. Co-
querel. Corbon. Cormenin (de). Flocon. Fould (Achille).
Garnier Pagès, Garnon. Goudchaux. Guimard. Hugo (Vic-
tor). Lagrange. Tamartine (Alphonse de). Lamennais
(de). Lasteyrie (Ferdinand de). Dedru Rollin. Teroux
(Pierre). Marie. Moreau. Perdiguier (Agricol). Peupin.
Proudhon. Raspail. Wavin. Wolowski. Bonaparte (L-N.).
SEINE-INFáRIEURE,-Bautier, Cécille, Dargent. Déma-
LIST OF THE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 483
rest. Desjobert. Dupin (Charles). Germonière. Girard.
Grandin (Victor). Lebreton (Th.). Lefort-Gonssolin. Le-
vavasseur. Loyer. Morlot. Osmont. Randoing. Sénard.
Thiers.
SEINE-ET-MARNE.—Aubergé. Bastide (J.). Bayoux.
Chappon. Drouyn de Lhuis. Lafayette (G.). Lafayette
(Oscar). Lasteyrie (J. de). Portalis (A.).
SEINE-ET-OISE.-Albert de Luynes (d’). Barthélemy
Saint-Hilaire. Berville. Bezanson. Durand. Flandin.
Landrin. Lécuyer. Lefebvre. Pagnerre. Pigeon. Rémilly.
DEUx-Sèvres.—Baugier. Blot. Boussi. Charles (ainé).
Chevallon. Demarçay. Maichain. Richard (J.).
SOMME.—Allart. Beaumont (de). Creton. Defour-
ment. Delatre. Dubois (A.m.). Gaultier de Rumilly.
Labordere. Magniez. Morel–Cornet. Blin de Bourdon.
TARN.—Boyer. Garayon-Latouir. Marliave (de). Mou-
ton. Puységur (de). Rey. Saint-Victor (de). Voisins (de).
TARN-ET-GARONNE.-Cazalès (de). Delbrel. Detours.
Faure-Dére. (Maleville (de). Rous.
WAR.—Alleman. André (Marius). Arène. Arnaud
(Ch.). Baune (Edm.). Cazy. Guigues (Luc.). Maurel
(Marcell.). Philibert. *
WAUCLUSE.—Bourbousson. Gent. La Boissière (de).
Pin (Elz.). Raspail (Eug.). Reynaud-Lagardete.
VENDKE.—Bouhier de l'Ecluse. Defontaine (Guy). Gre-
lier Dufougeroux. Despinay (de). Luneau. Mareau. Pa-
renteau. Rouillé. Tinguy (de).
VIENNE.—Barthélemy. Bérenger. Bonnin. Bourbeau.
Junyen. Pleignard. Drault. Jeudy.
HAUTE-VIENNE. Allègre. Bac (Théodore). Brunet. Co-
ralli. Dumas. Frichon. Maurat-Ballange. Tixier.
Vosges.—Braux. Duffet. Doublat. Falatieu. Forel.
Hingray. Houel. Huot. Najean. Turck. Boulay (de
la Meurthe).
YoNNE.—Carreau. Charton. Guichard. Larabit. Ram-
pont. Rathier. Raudot. Robert (L.). Vaulabelle.
ALGERIE.-Barrot (Ferdinand). Didier. Prébois (de).
Rancé (de).
MARTINIQUE.-Mazulime. Pory-Papy. Schoelcher.
GUADELou PE—Dain (Charles). Louisy-Mathieu. Périnon.
SENEGAL-Durand-Valentin. &

2 I 2
484 OPENING OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
The National Assembly was opened on the 4th of May,
Never had the sovereignty of a great nation been installed
by a solemnity more majestic in its simplicity. The national
guard, the people, and some brilliant deputations from the
army, called to Paris, to be present at the re-establishment of
the Supreme power, had been in motion since the morning.
The members of the government, after having assembled at
the office of the minister of justice, advanced on foot along
the boulevards between a double rank of two hundred
thousand men, and preceded by the general of the national
guard and his staff, who opened the crowd before the dic-
tators on their way to resign their offices. The windows
and roofs in the quarters traversed by the procession rang
with shouts of applause. Never was a government making
its entry into a capital, and preceded by the enthusiastic
hopes of an entire people, welcomed with more acclamations
than this, which in an hour would be no more, received at
the close of its career. Its weakness, its faults, and its
failures, as well as the legitimacy of its origin, were for-
gotten. Its efforts were appreciated. Its disinterestedness
was received with gratitude. Its members made no claims to
distinction. They were but simple citizens, humbly attired,
having had the authority, but not the pomp of power.
They were pointed out to public attention,-Dupont de
l'Eure on the right, Lamartine on the left; then Louis Blanc
and Arago, who everywhere experienced that noble species
of respect which is always claimed by science and political
eminence; Garnier Pagès, distinguished for a simplicity and
probity which recalled that of the ancients; Crémieux, Marie,
and Marrast, who bore names respected for the services
they had performed; Flocon, Ledru Rollin, and Albert,
whose names were dearer to the republicans of ancient date,
and with whom were associated more recollections and hopes;
Carnot and Bethmont, who, though simple ministers, had
shared the labours, dangers, and responsibilities of the govern-
ment. . Each of these names received its share of gratitude,
or esteem. The bearers of them were on their way to abdi-
cate, and though they were no longer feared, they were still
hailed with acclamations.
The members of the government being introduced into the
hall, were received by the nine hundred representatives
standing. An immense cry of “The republic for ever !”
RECEPTION OF GOVERNMENT, ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT, 485
revealed to France that this government, provisionally voted
on the 25th of February, by the general anticipations of
Paris, was unanimously adopted and ratified by acclamation,
at the deliberate choice of the country.
The president of the provisional government, Dupont
de l’Eure, ascended the tribune, and was received with the
respect which is attached to a long succession of days de-
voted to patriotic Service. In him was to be seen one of
those old men by whom institutions are bequeathed to the
great human family, and whose lives seemed to have been
prolonged by Providence that they may serve as a point of
transition between two distinct epochs.
“Citizens,” said he, in a voice the gravity of which detracted
nothing from the energy, “the provisional government of the
republic is come to do homage to the nation, and to reverence
the sovereign power with which you are invested.
“At last, the moment is arrived for the government to de-
posit in your hands the unlimited power with which the
revolution arrayed it. You know whether our dictatorship
has been aught else than a moral power exercised in the
midst of the difficult circumstances through which the nation
has just passed. Long live the republic l’’
This cry, after issuing from the lips of the old man, rang
in repeated echoes from three hundred thousand voices, until
it reached the Place de la Concorde, where it was saluted.
by the cannon of the Hôtel des Invalides. Dupont de l'Eure
descended from the tribune, and fell into the arms of Béranger,
who, like his friend, had been the wise and patient harbinger
of the republican era, the Tyrtaeus of the glory of the French
arms in his youth, and when his hair had become blanched
by agº, a representative of the people and a moderator of his
country.
The Assembly employed three days in the verification of
its powers, and chose M. Buchez for its president, as a mark
of gratitude for the services he had rendered and the courage
he had displayed during the three months of administration
at the Hôtel de Wille.
pon the 7th Lamartine ascended the tribune, in the place
and in the name of the president of the provisional govern-
ment, and rendered an account of the acts of the revolution,
in the following terms:– - -
*Citizen representatives of the people! At the moment

486 . SPEECH OF LAMARTINE.
when you enter on the exercise of your sovereignty, at the
moment in which we resign into your hands those special
powers which the revolution provisionally confided to us, we
are in duty bound, first, to give you an account of the
situation in which we found, and in which you yourselves
find, the country.
“A revolution broke out on the 24th of February. The
people overthrew the throne, and swore upon its ruins to
reign henceforth alone and altogether by themselves. They
charged us to provide provisionally for the dangers and
necessities of the interregnum which they had to pass before
arriving regularly and without anarchy to their unanimous
and definitive sovereignty. Our first thought has been to
shorten this interregnum by the immediate convocation of
the national representative body, in which alone right and
force reside. Simple citizens, summoned without any other
call than the public danger, and without any other title
than our own devotion, after having trembled to accept, but
now eager to give up, the deposit of the destinies of the
country, we have been influenced by but one ambition, that
of abdicating the dictatorship in the bosom of the Sovereignty
of the people.
“The throne overturned, the dynasty falling to pieces of
itself, we did not proclaim the republic: it proclaimed itself
by the mouth of an entire people, and we did but record the
cry of the nation.
“Our first consideration, as it was the first want of the
country, after the proclamation of the republic, was the re-
establishment of order and security in Paris. In this work,
which would have been more difficult and meritorious at another
period and in another country, we were aided by the general
concurrence of the citizens. While it yet held with one hand
the musket with which it had blasted royalty, this magnani-
mous people raised with the other the vanquished and bleed-
ing victims of the opposite party. It protected the lives
and properties of the inhabitants. It preserved the º:
monuments. Each citizen of Paris was at once the soldi
of liberty and the voluntary magistrate of order. History
has registered the innumerable acts of heroism, probity, and
disinterestedness which characterized these opening days of
the republic. Up till that time the people had someti


SPEECEI OF LAMARTINE. 487
been flattered by allusions to its virtues, but posterity, which
is no flatterer, will find all these expressions too lukewarm
for the dignity of the people of Paris at this crisis.
“They it was who inspired us with the first decree destined
to give its true signification to the victory, the decree for the
abolition of capital punishment in political cases. They sug-
gested, adopted, and proclaimed it, by the condensed cry of
two hundred thousand voices, on the square and quay of the
Hôtel de Ville. No single exclamation of anger protested
againstit. France and Europe understood that it was God by
whom the crowd was inspired, and that a revolution inaugu-
rated by greatness of Soul would be pure as an idea, mag-
nanimous as a sentiment, and holy as a virtue.
“The red flag, brought forward for a moment, not as a
symbol of menace or of disorder, but as the momentary banner
of victory, was thrust aside by the combatants themselves, to
throw over the republic the shield of that tricolored flag
which had overshadowed its cradle, and borne aloft the glory
of our armies over every continent and over every sea.
“After having established the authority of the govern-
ment in Paris, it was necessary to effect the recognition of
the republic in the departments, the colonies, in Algeria, and
the army. For this, telegraphic messages and couriers were
sufficient. France, her colonies and armies, recognized their
own idea in that of the republic. There was not offered the
resistance of a single hand or voice, nor of a single free heart
in France, to the installation of the new government.
“Our next thought had reference to foreign states. Eu-
rope, as yet undecided, waited for the first word spoken by
France. This was the abolition, in fact and right, of the
treaties of 1815; the restoration of liberty to our foreign
policy; a declaration that territorial possessions should be
undisturbed; that sympathy should be felt for nations; and
justice, loyalty, and moderation be observed to governments.
France, in the manifesto she issued, though she disarmed
herself of her ambition, did not disarm herself of her ideas.
She allowed the principle on which she acted to be evident.
All her measures of hostility consisted in this. The special
report of the minister of foreign affairs will acquaint you with
what this system of open and undisguised diplomacy has pro-
duced, and ought naturally to produce, of all that is legitimate
and great for the general influence of France.
488 SPEECH OF HAMARTINE,
“Such a policy required from the minister of war measures
of harmony in accordance with the system of armed nego-
tiation. He re-established with energy that discipline which
had, though but in a slight degree, been shaken. He re-
called, with honour to Paris, the army which had for a mo-
ment been removed from its walls, to allow the people to arm
themselves; and the people, henceforth invincible, did not
long delay to demand again in the loudest manner their
brethren of the army, not only as a source of protection, but
as an ornament to the capital. The army was henceforth in
Paris, only an honorary garrison, destined to prove to our
brave soldiers that the capital of the country pertains to all
its children.
“We decreed, in addition, the formation of four armies of
observation—the army of the Alps, that of the Rhine, that of
the North, and that of the Pyrenees.
“Our marine, confided to the hands of the same minister, as
the Second armed force of France, was brought under its chiefs
to a discipline commanded by its consciousness of the neces-
sity of vigilance. The Toulon fleet proceeded to display our
colours to the people friendly to France on the shores of the
Mediterranean. The army of Algiers had not a moment
nor a thought of hesitation. In its eyes the republic and the
country were united in the sentiment of a common duty. A
chief, whose republican name, sentiments, and talents were
at once pledges to the army and the revolution,-General
Cavaignac,+received the command in Algeria.
“The corruption which had penetrated the most Sacred in-
stitutions, compelled the minister of justice to those purifica-
fions which the public call demanded. It was necessary
promptly to separate the political part of the administration
from that of the judicial. The minister was not deterred from
the execution of this measure, however painful.
“In proclaiming the republic, the cry of France had not
only proclaimed a form of government, but a republican
principle ; and this was practical democracy, equality in
rights, and fraternity in institutions. The revolution, accom-
jplished by the people, required, in our opinion, to be organ-
ized to the profit of the people by a series of fraternal and
sheltering institutions, adapted to bestow, regularly upon all,
the conditions of individual dignity, instruction, information,
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE. 489
morality, the elements of labour, compensation, ease, succour, and
the acquisition of property, which would suppress the servile
name of proletary to elevate the workman to the possession of
rights, duties, and well-doing, those first consequences of pro-
perty; to elevate and enrich the one without abasing and degrad-
ing the rest; to preserve property, and render it more productive
and Sacred, by multiplying and dividing it into the hands of a
greater number, distributing the tax in such a way as to cause
it to fall most heavily upon the strongest, by alleviating
and succouring the wants of the feeble; establish, by order
of the state, employment when it should accidentally fail
through intimidation to capital, in order that there might not
be a labourer in France whose bread should fail with the
failure of his wages; finally, to study with the workmen
themselves the true and practical phenomenon of association,
and the, as yet, problematical systems for the purpose of
Seeking conscientiously their applications and ascertaining
their errors.
“Such was the idea of the provisional government in all the
decrees of which it conferred the execution or the preparation
to the minister of the finances, the minister of public works, to
the commission of the Luxembourg in fine; forming as it were
a laboratory of ideas, the preparatory and statistical congress
of labour and industrial pursuits, enlightened by studious
and intelligent delegates from all the laborious professions,
find presided over by two members of the government itself.
“The sudden fall of the monarchy; the disorder of the
finances; the Sudden disorganization of an immense mass of
manufacturers; the shocks which these unoccupied masses
might have caused to society if their reason, patience, and
practical resignation had not been a miracle of popular rea—
son and a subject of admiration to the world; the debt which
might at any time be demanded, of nearly a thousand millions,
which the government had incurred in the two first months
of the republic; the industrial and commercial crisis, universal
on the continent and in England, coinciding with the political
crisis in Paris; the enormous accumulation of railway shares,
and other fictitious property, seized at once in the hands of the
bearers and bankers, through the panic which had fallen on
capital; finally, the imagination of the country, always ex-
cited beyond the truth at epochs of political convulsion and
º
490 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE.
social terror, had drained the sources of the capital locked
up in labour, caused coin to disappear, and suspended free
and voluntary labour, the only one sufficient for thirty-five
millions of men. It was necessary to provide for this, or to
be false to all the principles, all the counsels of prudence, and
all the necessities of succouring by the beneficent medium of the
republic. The minister of finance will tell you how provision was
made for these disappearances of labour and credit, by waiting
for the moment, at last arrived, when confidence, being restored
to the minds of men, will bring back capital to the hands of the
master manufacturers, and wages to workmen; and when yoru
wisdom and national power will triumph over every difficulty.
“The ministry of public instruction and worship, deposited
in the same hands, served for the government as a manifesta-
tion of its purpose, and for the country as a presage of the new
situation which the republic could and ought to take, when
placed in the twofold necessity of affording national instruc-
tion, and more real independence to the creeds which were
free before conscience and before the law.
“The ministry of agriculture and commerce, a ministry by its
nature foreign to political affairs, could not but prepare with zeal
and sketch with Sagacity the new institutions called upon to
give vigour to the first of the useful arts. It extended
the hand of the state over those suffering interests of com-
merce which you alone are able to raise up by giving to them,
Security. \
“Such were our different but incessant sources of Solicitude.
Thanks to Providence, which has never more evidently mani-
fested its intervention in the cause of nations and of the human
mind; thanks to the people themselves, who have never
better manifested the treasures of reason, good citizenship,
generosity, patience, morality, and the true civilization which
fifty years of imperfect liberty have wrought in their
souls, we have been able to accomplish, very immerfectly
doubtless, but nevertheless not unhappily, a portion the
immense and perilous task with which events have loaded us.
“We have founded the republic, that government declared
impossible in France upon other conditions than foreign and
civil war, anarchy, prisons, and the scaffold. We have ex-
hibited the republic, happily compatible with peace through-
out Europe, with internal security; voluntary order, indi-
|SPEECEE OF LAMARTINE. 491
vidual liberty, and combined with the gentleness and calm-
ness of manners in a nation to which hatred is a punishment,
and harmony a national instinct.
“We have promulgated the great principles of equality,
fraternity, and unity, which must in their daily development
in our laws, made by ourselves, and for ourselves, accomplish
the unity of the people by the unity of representation. -
“We have made the right of the citizen universal by making
the right of election universal, and the votes of all have
been given to us in reply.
“We have armed the entire people in the ranks of the
national guards, and the entire people have answered us by
devoting the weapons we have confided to them to the unani-
mous defence of the country, of order, and of the laws.
“We have passed through the interregnum without other
executive force than the moral authority, entirely devoid of
arms, of which the nation was willing to confer the right upon
us; and this people has consented to allow itself to be governed
by the mere force of language, by our counsels, and its own
special and generous inspirations.
“We have gone through more than two months of crisis,
accompanied by the cessation of labour, by misery, the ele-
ments of political agitation, Social anxieties, passions accumu-
lated in innumerable masses in a capital of a million and a
half of inhabitants, without any violation of property, without
a single life having been menaced by anger, without a single
act of repression or proscription, without an act of political
imprisonment, or a drop of blood in Paris to afflict the
government. We have now the power to descend from
the elevation conferred on us by this protracted dictatorship
into the public square and mingle with the people without
any man being enabled to say to us:—‘What has been the
fate of my fellow-citizen?’ - -
“Before summoning the National Assembly to the capital,
we have insured its complete security and independence by
arming and organizing the national guard, and giving you a
whole people in arms to be your guards. Faction is no
longer possible in a republic where no more division exists
between citizens in the enjoyments of political rights and
those who do not possess them, and between armed and un-
armed citizens. All have their rights. All have their army,
492 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE FOR TELE PRESIDENT.
In such a state insurrection is no longer the extreme privilege
of resistance to oppression ;-it would be a crime. He who
Separates himself from the people belongs no more to the
eople ! -
“Behold the unanimous act which we have performed;
perpetuate it, for in it consists the safety of all.
“Citizen representatives our work is accomplished, yours
is commencing. The presentation even of a plan of govern-
ment, or a proposal for a constitution, would have been on our
part a rash prolongation of power, or an encroachment on your
sovereignty. We disappear from the stage at the moment
when you rise to receive the republic from the hands of the
people. . We will only allow ourselves a single word of counsel,
and a single wish, and that in our titles of citizens, and not of
members of the provisional government. This wish, citizens,
France emits in conjunction with us; it is the voice of circum-
cumstances. Dose not the time, that principal element of
human crises. After having absorbed the sovereignty in
yourselves, let not a new interregnum enfeeble the main-
springs of the country. Let a commission of government,
issuing from your own bosom, prevent power from hovering
for a single moment, in a precarious and provisional form,
over a nation which has need of power and security. Let a
committee for framing a constitution, emanating from your
suffrages, bring without delay to your deliberations and
votes the simple, brief, and democratic mechanism of the
constitution, the organic and Secondary enactments of which
will afterwards be the subject of your deliberations.
“In the meantime, we, as members of the government,
return its powers into your hands.
“We submit also, and with confidence, all our acts to your
judgment. We pray you, only to glance back to the times,
and to bear in mind the difficulties. Our consciences re-
proach us with no intentional offences. Our efforts have
been favoured by Providence. Cancel our involuntary dic-
tatorship. We ask only to return into the ranks of honest
citizens.
“May history only inscribe with indulgence below,
and at the most humble distance from, the great actions
performed by France, the recital of these three months
passed in the void between a falling monarchy and a republic
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE AS MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 493
in course of formation;–and may it, in the place of the
obscure and forgotten names of men who have devoted
themselves to the common Safety, inscribe in its pages two
names only—the name of the people who have saved every-
thing, and the name of God, who has blessed everything in
the foundations of the republic.”
These last words were drowned with almost unanimous
indications of applause from the representatives and from the
galleries.
Lamartine, on his return to his seat, was obliged to rise
three times to bow to the Assembly, which had itself risen up
as he moved across. There was every sign that the
popularity which had attached to his name in Paris, and
been evinced by two million three hundred thousand suffrages
in the departments, would still encompass him in the National
Assembly, unless he should himself lay it aside.
Each minister brought up and read successively at the
tribune the special report of the acts of his department.
All received the sanction of the applause of the Assembly.
Lamartine developed, at greater length than his colleagues,
the picture of the situation of the new republic with regard
to Europe. France impatiently awaited this outline as she
had done the manifesto to Europe. She knew that her
internal destiny depended on her attitude with reference to
foreign powers. She burned with the desire to receive this
report, that she might judge what might be her future des–
tiny. The following is the speech of the minister. It was
his manifesto put in action, and verified by three months of
proofs:—
“Citizens,” said he, “there are two species of revolutions
to be found in history—revolutions of territory, and revo-
lutions of ideas. The first are resumed in conquests, and in
the subversions of nationalities and empires; the second, in
institutions. To the first, war is necessary; to the second,
peace, that mother of the institutions of labour and of liberty,
is precious and dear. Yet sometimes the changes of insti-
tutions which a nation effects within its own limits, become
an occasion of uneasiness and aggression against it on the
part of other people and other governments; or they become
a crisis of convulsion and irritation among the neighbouring
nations.
494 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE AS MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
“A law of nature requires that truths should be contagious,
and ideas tend to find their level, as well as water. In this
latter case revolutions participate, as it were, in the two
kinds of movement which we have pointed out. They are
pacific, like the revolutions of ideas; they may be forced to
recur to arms as well as the revolutions of territory. Their
exterior attitude ought to correspond with these two necessi-
ties of their situation. They are inoffensive ; but they are
ready for action. Their system of policy may be charac-
terized in two words—armed diplomacy.
“These considerations, citizens, have, from the first hour
of the republic, determined the acts and words of the pro-
visional government in the whole grasp, and in the details of
the direction of our foreign affairs. It has wished, and it has
declared that it wished, three things—the establishment of
the republic in France; the natural progress of the liberal
and democratic principle, avowed, recognized, and defended
in its existence and in its rights, and at its own time; and,
finally, peace, if peace should be possible, honourable and
Sure, on these conditions.
“We now proceed to show you what have been, since the
day of the foundation of the republic until to-day, the prac-
tical results of this attitude of disinterested devotion to the
democratical principle in Europe, combined with the respect
for the actual inviolability of territories, nationalities, and
governments. It is the first time in history that a disarmed
and purely spiritual principle is presented to Europe, which
is organized, armed, and actuated in her alliances by another
principle, and that the political world convulses and modifies
itself, before the power, not of a nation, but of an idea.
To measure the power of this idea in all its extent, let us go
back to 1815.
“The year 1815 is a date which it costs some effort to
France to recall. After the attack of the armies of the
coalition against the republic ; after the prodigies of the Con-
vention, and the explosive burst of France in arms to repel
the league of the powers inimical to the revolution ; after the
expiation of the conquests obtained by the empire, of which
France wishes to claim the glory alone,—the reaction of
violated nationalities and humiliated sovereigns against us
took place. The name of France had no longer limits. The
SPEECH of LAMARTINE AS MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 495
territorial limits of geographical France were again narrowed
by the treaties of 1814 and 1815. They appeared dispro-
portioned to the name, the Security, and the moral power of a
nation which had so much increased in influence, renown, and
liberty. The base on which the glories of the French people
rested appeared so much the more confined as the people
itself had become greater.
“The treaty of 1814, which put the finishing stroke to our
glory and our woes, had,in colonies, swept away from us Tobago,
St. Lucia, the Mauritius and its dependencies, the Seychelles,
French India, reduced to purely nominal proportions, St.
Domingo in fine, from which we had been in fact dispos-
sessed, and which it was necessary either to repurchase or
reconquer.
“In annexation of territory to the national soil, the treaty
of 1814 adjoined as a compensation to France, on the north,
some frontier districts, consisting of about ten cantons annexed
to the departments of the Moselle and Ardennes; on the east,
a precinct comprised in Some districts about Landau; on the
south, the principal part of Savoy, consisting of the divisions
of Chambery and Annecy; and finally the county of Mont-
béliard, Mulhausen, and the German limitation districts
enclosed in the line of our frontiers.
“The treaties of 1815, the compensations for our hundred
days of glory and reverses, despoiled us almost immediately
of these feeble indemnities for the war of the coalition. They
restored French Savoy almost entirely to Sardinia; and thus
made of Lyons the commercial capital of France, a fortified
but exposed military post. The Low Countries retook, from
what had been once our own soil, Philippeville, Marien-
burg, and the duchy of Bouillon, where we had formerly
the right of occupation and garrison ; Prussia took from us
Sarburg, of which the heart alone remained French ;
Bavaria, some districts; Switzerland, that strip of the
territory of Gex, which gave us a port on the Lake of
Geneva at Versoix. We had also to undergo the demolition
of the fortifications of Huminguen, and the absolute interdic-
tion from fortifying our frontier at less than three leagues of
Basle. Finally, we were compelled to renounce, in favour of
the king of Sardinia, the right of protection, and of placing
garrisons, which we possessed before the revolution, in the
496 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE AS MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
principality of Monaco. An humiliating occupation of our
fortresses, and an indemnity of near a thousand millions, as a
fine for our former triumphs, still more decimated the exte-
rior as well as the reproductive power of the nation. The
restored dynasty accepted the throne on these conditions. It
was its fault and its destruction. The peace and the charter
itself, that foundation-stone of liberty, was no adequate com-
pensation for it. No dynasty can aggrandize itself with im-
punity while it enfeebles its country. Nevertheless, if we
consider only the interior interests of the nation, the holy
alliance was an anti-popular system, but not essentially an
anti-French one.
“The dynasty of the elder branch of the Bourbons, in unit-
ing itself to this system, might find there a supporting point for
its legitimate influence, or for acquisitions of territory around
it. If by Italy, over which Austria was obstinately deter-
mined to rule alone, the French cabinet was forbidden all
solid and sympathetical alliance with that empire, the
Russian alliance was opened for France. This alliance,
favourable to the aggrandizement of Russia in the east, her
inclination leading her in that direction, could give to the
continental equilibrium, of which Germany would have been
the axis, two equal and preponderating weights, viz. St.
Petersburg and Paris. The restored dynasty did sometimes
form a confused sketch of these ideas. It dared avow it to
friends and enemies; and it felt itself sustained by the con-
tinental spirit against the jealousies of Great Britain. With
this Secret support, it perseveringly contested the Supremacy
of Austria in Italy, engaged in an unpopular but not anti-
French war in Spain, and conquered Algiers. Its diplomacy
was less anti-national than its policy.
“The revolution of July, a revolution which had burst
forth before its time, established a revolutionary monarchyand
a republican royalty. France did, not feel enough courage to
give full sway to her ideas. The character, both incomplete
and contradictory, of this revolution, gave to the govern-
ment which sprang from the three days the inconveniences
of the dynasty, without any of the advantages of legitimate
royalty. It was still the holy alliance, but without the
dogma, and without the king. It was a monarchy tainted,
in the eyes of kings, with an elective and republican prin-
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE. 497
ciple, and a republic suspected of monarchy and treason to
the democratic principle in the eyes of the people.
“The external and interior policy of this mixed govern-
ment was destined to be, within and without, a perpetual
struggle between the contrary principles which it represented.
The dynastic interest commanded it to return at any price
into the family of the settled and regular dynasties. It was
necessary to purchase this tolerance of thrones by incessant
acts of complaisance. It was necessary to conquer at home
the right of being weak abroad. Hence the system of the
government of July—a France debased to the rank of a
Second-rate power in Europe, an oligarchy purchased by dint
of favours and seductions within. The one involves the
other; and, moreover, the spirit of family, a domestic vir–
tue, may, in the head of a nation, become a political vice, for
nepotism is destruction to patriotism.
“The monarchy of July oppressed our foreign policy with
the weight of the thrones and family alliances which it pre-
pared for its princes. One only of the ideas which it
engendered was a true one, because it corresponded with a
grand want of humanity—peace. This is the one thought
upon which it lived during eighteen years. But the peace
which is proper for France is not a subordinate one, pur-
chasing a short and precarious existence by its own hu-
miliation, and by the adjournment of its influences, by
throwing a veil over its principles, by contracting the power.
of its name, and by shortening the arms of France.
“Such a peace humiliates while it enfeebles a people.
“In order that peace should be worthy of it, the republic.
ought to become great by peace. Now, to become great in
Europe, there was wanting to the monarchy of July the .
banner of a principle. Was it her monarchical banner 3
That was stained by usurpation. Her democratic banner 2
She every day concealed and discoloured it.
“Her foreign policy was compelled to be as devoid of .
bias as her principle. It was a policy of negation. It
avoided dangers, but could aspire to no greatness.
“This was her reign in relation to foreign nations.
“The kingdom of the Netherlands broke of itself into two
pieces, at the reaction of the days of July. One half formed*
that neuter and intermediate power which became, usefully
2 K.
-498 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE,
for France, the kingdom of Belgium. No other modification
in the territorial limitations of Europe took place for the
advantage of France during these eighteen years.
“Russia testified to her a constant and personal aversion,
which was not addressed to France herself, but was reflected
from the dynasty upon the nation. In vain the most pressing
interests of Russia drew her forcibly towards an alliance with
France, the antipathy of the sovereigns interposed itself be-
tween the sympathies of the people. That court was occu-
pied, throughout the eighteen years of the monarchy of July,
in the violent assimilation of Poland to itself, and in patiently
seeking a route to India by the Caucasus. *
“Austria offered alternately caresses and injuries. France,
thus fondled and repulsed by the skilful but superannuated
hand of Prince Metternich, sacrificed the whole of Italy and
the independence of the confederate German states to the
Smiles of the court of Vienna. In 1831, the insurrection in
Italy which was repressed in concert with it; in 1846, the city
of Cracow, effaced from the map, measured the ever-descend-
ing scale of these displays of obsequiousness, on the part of the
cabinet of the Tuileries, to the policy of Austria.
“Prussia, whose Security and greatness are involved in the
alliance of France, entered into a desperate and unnatural
league with Russia. She thus made herself the advanced
guard of the Russian power, of which she is the outpost. By
such conduct she lost that Germanic popularity which Frederic
the Great had bequeathed her.
“The states of the confederation of the Rhine, thus neglected
by Prussia, intimidated by Austria, and agitated by Russia,
floated from the Prussian to the Austrian alliance, according
to time and circumstances, repulsed from the French alliance
by the recollections of 1813, and by the connivance of the
cabinet of the Tuileries, which had abandoned them to
Austrian omnipotence. But during these oscillations of the
secondary states of the Germanic confederation, a third
estate, that germ of democracy, was formed in Germany. It
only waited for its development, an opportunity of emancipa-
tion for the secondary powers, and a return of the thoughts of
France to true principles of alliance and friendship with the
German Rhenish states.
“The Low Countries, irritated at the violent separaſion of
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE. 499
Belgium, continued to feel prejudices against France. They
united themselves to Russia on the continent, and to England
on the ocean, and thus was France doubly excluded from their
system of alliance.
“What were our relations with England 2 Her policy,
which was, before the French revolution, altogether maritime,
became, from the war of 1808 in Spain and the general one
in 1813, at once maritime and continental. Feeling no repug-
nance to the dynasty of July, England had lent that royalty a
useful concurrence in the conferences at London in 1830 and
1831. By the species of continental mediation which she had
exercised between France, Germany, and Russia, England
had maintained the equilibrium of the continent. This
equilibrium was peace. M. de Talleyrand had converted this
peace into a draught of alliance on liberal constitutional prin-
ciples. This is what has been called the quadruple alliance
between France, England, Spain, and Portugal. If this germ
had not been stifled in its origin, if it had been energetically
developed by being extended to Italy, Switzerland, and the
German Rhenish provinces,-it might have changed itself into
a liberal system of progress for the people of the South and
East, and created a family of democratic nations and govern-
ments invulnerable to the absolute powers. But for that
object France required a government which could dare to
avow its principle. The court of the Tuileries laboured only
to efface or cause the oblivion of its own. Ambitious, but
purely dynastic objects, often formed and discovered by the
French government in relation to Spain, were destined at no
long distance of time to ruin, to the detriment of France and
free nations, that English alliance, which, after having been
sought by so many manoeuvres, was so selfishly betrayed.
“The Eastern question, on which the policy of the whole
world turned from 1838 to 1841, was the first occasion of a
coolness, soon to be followed by diplomatic conflicts and irri-
tation, between the two governments. You are acquainted
with that negotiation, which gave such a shock to peace, set
Europe in arms, and finished by the shame and sequestration
of France.
“The Ottoman empire was in progress of decomposition.
The pacha of Egypt, profiting by its weakness, invaded the
half of its territories, substituting Arab tyranny for Turkish
2 K 2
500 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE.
despotism. The void effected in the East by the disappearance
of Turkey was on the point of being inevitably filled up by
Islamism, under another name, that of Ibrahim; or by Russian
or British omnipotence. France had three methods of facing
and resolving the Eastern question—either by frankly sup-
porting the Ottoman empire against the revolted pacha and
the whole world; or by allying itself with Russia, and assist-
ing in her inclination towards Constantinople, and obtaining
at this price a Russian alliance and territorial compensations
on the Rhine; or by uniting herself with England by yielding
her precedence in Egypt, her necessary route to India, and at
this price drawing close the English alliance, and receiving
continental advantages and important French protectorates in
Syria in exchange.
“The cabinet of the Tuileries did not know how to be frank,
and did not dare to be ambitious. It abandoned Turkey to her
aggressor, and then abandoned the aggressor himself to Russia,
England, and Austria. It at once estranged from itself the
Ottoman empire, Russia, England, Prussia, and Austria. It
reconstructed, by its own folly, the moral coalition of the
world against it. The whole ended by the exclusion of the
French cabinet from Europe, and the note of the 8th of
October, the avowal of weakness after acts of defiance, the
acceptance of isolation in the midst of Europe bound together
in one single sheaf of resentments against us. The treaty of
reconciliation of the 30th of July, 1841, palliated this situa-
tion to no purpose. The marriage of a prince of the French
dynasty with an eventual heiress of the crown of Spain was
thenceforth the only thought of the dynastic policy to which
France was made subordinate. The accomplishment of this
wish was destined soon to tear asunder the last ties of friend-
ship between England and France. Possessed of too little
ambition for the nation, the cabinet of the Tuileries desired
two thrones to be filled by the same family at once. The
posthumous policy of the house of Bourbon was rashly sub-
stituted for the policy of liberty and peace upon the continent.
From this marriage France only reaped the permanent en-
mity of the British cabinet, the jealousy of the courts, the
suspicions of Spain, and the certainty of a second war of
succession. From this first insane act of royalty it was not
difficult for statesmen to divine the approach of others, and to
foresee its fall.
SPEECH OF TAMARTINE, 501
“Fresh symptoms were not long in confirming these con-
jectures. Suspected by Spain, odious to Russia, dishonoured
in Turkey, indifferent to Prussia, menacing to England, the
dynastic policy of the French cabinet turned most unnatu-
rally to Austria. This act of stupidity cost it not only its
greatness and security, but its honour. To obtain from Aus-
tria the pardon of the house of Bourbon in Spain, it was
necessary to lower the banner of revolution everywhere
before that empire; and sacrifice to it at once Italy, Switzer-
land, the Rhine, and the independence and the rights of
nations. It was necessary to form a league of absolutism
with Austria, by stifling, to her profit and our shame, the
germs of independence, liberalism, and national strength
which showed themselves from the straits of Sicily to the very
heart of the Alps. The French cabinet ventured to practise
this servile policy, and to defend it before a French cham-
ber. The revolutionary soul of France rose with indignation
in her bosom. The dynastic ministry purchased the vote of
a majority to sell the national and democratic principles
with impunity, in the negotiations of Switzerland and Italy.
A few days later it dragged into the abyss that royalty which
had itself debased it in its personality.
“Thus, after a reign of eighteen years, and a system of diplo-
macy which was believed a skilful because an interested one,
the dynasty restored France to the republic, more hemmed in,
more shackled by treaties and limits, more incapable of move-
ment, more destitute of external influences and negotiations,
and more surrounded by snares and impossibilities than it
was at any epoch of the monarchy. Imprisoned within the
letter so often violated against her of the treaties of 1815;
excluded from the whole of the East; the accomplice of
Austria in Italy and Switzerland, cringing to England at
Lisbon, compromised, without deriving any advantage, at
Madrid, obsequious at Vienna, timid at Berlin, hated at
St. Petersburg, discredited through want of faith at Lon-
don, deserted by the people for her abandonment of the
democratic principle in the face of a moral coalition framed
everywhere against France, and which left her only the
choice of a war of finality against all, or the acceptance of
the subaltern part of a secondary power closely watched by the
whole European world; condemned to languish and humble
itself for a century under the weight of a dynasty to obtain
502 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE.
the pardon of kings, and of a revolutionary principle for
obtaining an amnesty or betraying the people. f
“The republic, finding France in these conditions of isolation
and subservience, had two parts to take:–to make an ex-
plosion against all the thrones and all the territories of the
continent ; to tear the map of Europe in pieces; declare
war, and launch the armed democratic principle everywhere,
without knowing whether it would fall on a soil prepared for
it to germinate, or an improper one where it would be choked
in blood—or to declare republican peace and French fra-
ternity to all nations; publish respect for governments, laws,
characters, manners, inclinations, territories, and nations; to
raise aloft, but with a friendly hand, its principles of inde-
pendence and democracy over the world, and address itself
to the people without either restraining or hurrying events.
“We do not, like barbarians, arm the new idea with iron
or with fire. We arm it only with its own gentle light. We
do not impose on any one forms or imitations, premature or
incompatible, perhaps, with nature; but if the liberty of
any part of Europe is kindled at our own, if enthralled
nationalities, trampled rights, and legitimate and oppressed
independencies should rise, consolidate themselves, enter into
the democratic family of nations, and appeal, through us, to
the defence of their rights, and the conformity of their insti-
tutions,—France is there at hand. Republican France is not
only the country, but she is also the soldier of the democratic
principle of the future.
“It is this last policy, citizens, which the provisional go-
vernment has unanimously thought right to adopt, while
waiting until the nation, comprised in yourselves, should
assume the control of its own destinies.
“What, during seventy-two days, have been the results of
this policy of armed diplomacy over the continent 2 You
know them! And Europe regards them with an astonish-
Iſtent, which Savours less of fear than of admiration.
“Italy, already stimulated in its patriotism by the Italian
and democratic heart of Pius IX., is shaken successively,
but through its whole extent, at the re-echo of the triumphs
of the people of Paris. Encouraged on the subject of every
ambitious feeling of France, so loudly and frankly disavowed
by us, it embraces passionately our principles, and abandons
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE. 503.
itself with confidence to a future of independence and liberty,
in which the French principle will be her ally. Sicily arose
against the domination of Naples, and claimed, in the first
place, her constitution. Irritated at refusal, she is heroically
reconquering her soil and her citadels; tardy concessions
appease her no longer, but she is completely separating
herself, convoking her own parliament, and proclaiming
herself the sole mistress of her destinies. She is revenging
herself for her long subjection to the house of Bourbon, by
declaring that the princes of the line of Naples shall be
excluded for ever from the constitutional throne of Sicily.
“At Naples, even, the constitution promulgated by the king,
on the eve of the formation of the French republic, appeared
on the next day illusory; the monarchy, besieged by the
demonstrations of the people, yielded concession after con-
cession until it reached the level of a democratic royalty of
the year 1791.
“Pius IX., accepting the part of an Italian patriot, retains
only the rule of a pontiff, and makes Rome the federative
centre of a real republic, of which he is already showing
himself less the sovereign than the first citizen. He avails
himself of the force of the movement which is bearing him
along, instead of combating it; and this movement is ac-
celerating its pace. -
“The example is followed by Tuscany. Palermo, Piacenza,
Modena, attempt vainly to find support in Austria in their
struggle with the spirit of life in Italy. Their princes are
yielding, and nationality triumphs. The Lucchese dynasty
is swept away; Venice proclaims her own republic, as yet
undecided whether to isolate herself within her lagunes,
or join the republican or constitutional union of the north of
Ital
ºne king of Sardinia, long the hope of national unity in
the Peninsula, at the very time when his government was the
terror of the liberal spirit at Turin, causes, by the contact
with the French revolution, this contradiction, so fatal to his
greatness, to come to an end. He gives a popular constitu-
tion as a pledge to Italian liberalism. Lombardy understands,
by this token, that the hour of her independence has sounded.
Milan, disarmed, triumphs in an unequal contest over the
army of occupation by which she is enchained. Lombardy
504 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE.
rises in mass against the house of Austria. She proclaims, as
yet, only her enfranchisement, in order not to mingle a ques-
tion of institutions with one of war. The cry of Italy forces
the king of Sardinia to unfetter himself, like the pope and
Tuscany, from the old anti-national treaties with Austria.
He marches upon Lombardy; contingents pour from all parts
upon this field of battle. The campaign of Italian inde-
pendence is carried on slowly by Italy alone, but in presence
of Switzerland and France, in arms, and ready to act if the
interest of their principle or the security of their frontiers
should appear to be compromised.
“Pass the Alps, the results of the policy of the unarmed
principle of France are developed not less systematically in
the events, and rapidly in their consequences. They burst
forth from the very focus of the contrary principle.
“From the date of the 14th of March the revolution breaks
out at Vienna. The troops are vanquished, the palace of
the emperor is laid bare by the people, that the old system
may be expelled, in the person of its most inflexible states-
man—Prince Metternich. The assembly of the notables of
the monarchy is convoked; all the privileges of liberty, those
arms of democracy, are accorded; Hungary becomes national,
and isolates itself by an almost complete separation from the
empire; it abolishes feudal rights, gives up ecclesiastical pro-
perty to Sale, nominates a minister of its own, and, in token
of its entire separation, even bestows on itself a ministry of
'foreign affairs.
“Bohemia, on her side, Secures to herself a separate federal
constitution. By these three different enfranchisements of
Hungary, Bohemia, and Italy, Austria, revolutionized within
and restrained without, only reigns over twelve compact mil-
lions of men.
“Three days after the events of Vienna, on the 18th of
March, the people combat and triumph in the streets of Berlin.
The king of Prussia, whose enlightened spirit and popular
heart seemed to be in intelligence even with those who
fought against his soldiers, hastens to make every concession.
An entirely democratic law of election is promulgated even
before the constituent assembly is met. Prussian Poland
reclaims its distinct nationality at Posen. The king gives his
consent, and commences thus to sketch the first basis of a
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE, 505
Polish nationality, which events will have to enlarge and
strengthen in another quarter. In the kingdom of Wurtem-
burg the king, on the 3rd of March, abolishes the censor-
ship, and concedes the liberty of the press, and grants per-
mission to the people to arm. On the 4th of March the
grand duke of Baden, too near a neighbour to France not to
permit ideas which cross the Rhine to find their level, accords
liberty to the journals, the right of arming themselves to the
people, the abolition of feudal privileges, and, finally, the
promise of concurring in the establishment of a united Ger-
man parliament, that congress of German democracy, out of
which the new order of things is perhaps destined to arise.
“On the 5th of March the king of Bavaria abdicates, and,
after scenes of street conflicts, gives up the throne to the prince
at Munich, who unites his own to the popular cause.
“From the 6th to the 11th of March, a similar abdication
takes place on the part of the sovereign of Hesse-Darmstadt,
—the arming of the people, the right of association, the liberty
of the press, the jury, the French code at Mayence, are all
accorded. The elector of Hesse-Cassel, whose resistance to
the introduction of the democratic principle was notorious in
Germany, has granted to his people, who had likewise taken
up arms, the same pledges; adding, moreover, the concession
of the principle of a German parliament.
“Insurrection has extorted from the duke of Nassau the
suppression of tithes, political organization, the arming of the
people, and the German parliament.
“On the 15th of March Leipsic rose, and obtained from
the king of Saxony, already a constitutional prince, his ac-
cession to the principle of the German parliament. Upon the
Same day, an imperious popular demonstration compelled the
prince of Oldenburg to convoke a representative body.
“A few days after, the people of Mecklenburg took up
arms, and named a preparatory assembly to elect members
for the German parliament.
“Hamburg has reformed, in a more democratic spirit, her
already republican constitution. Bremen has remodelled her
Senate, and acceded to the German parliament. Lubeck,
after violent commotions, has conquered the same principle.
“Finally, on the 18th of March, the king of the Ne-
therlands abolished the institutions restrictive of liberty in
506 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE.
the grand duchy of Luxemburg, where the tricoloured flag
floats of itself as a spontaneous demonstration of the French
principle.
“All these decompositions of the old system, all these ele-
ments of federal unity, are at this moment combined at
Frankfort. *
“Up to this date the diet of Frankfort had been the obe-
dient instrument of the omnipotence of the two great Ger-
manic powers, Vienna and Berlin, over their feeble allies of
the confederation. The idea of a permanent parliament
sitting in the heart of Germany, rises to a contact with our
own ideas. This parliament of nations, henceforth repre-
Senting people instead of courts, becomes the foundation of a
new Germanic confederation, emancipating the weak, and
forming the nucleus of a diversified but single democracy.
Liberty, becoming more and more democratic in Germany,
will necessarily fix its support upon a democratic power also,
without other ambition than the alliance of principles and the
Safety of territorial possessions; and that power is France.
“I will not pursue into the other states of Europe the
more or less rapid march of the national and liberal principle,
accelerated by the revolution of February.
“The invasions of ideas penetrate everywhere deeply
amongst them, and these ideas bear your name. Everywhere
you will only have to choose between a certain and honour.
able peace, or a partial war with nations for your allies.
“Thus, by the sole fact of a double principle, the demo-
cratic and the sympathetic, France, resting one extended
hand on the right of nations, and the other on the inaggres-
sive, but imposing, union of four armies of observation, takes
its part in the agitation of the continent without ambition as
without weakness, ready to negotiate or combat, to restrain
or aggrandize herself, according to her right and honour, and
the security of her frontiers.
“Her frontiers! I am employing a word which has lost
a part of its signification under the republic ; it is principle
which becomes the true frontier of France. It is not her
Soil which enlarges; it is her influence, her sphere of radia-
tion and attraction over the continent; it is the number of
her natural allies, the disinterested and intellectual patronage
which she is destined to exercise over nations; it is the French
SPEECH OF LAMARTINE, 507
system, in fine, substituted in three days and three months,
for the system of the holy alliance.
“The republic has comprehended at the first word the
new policy which the philosophy, humanity, and reason of
the age were at length destined to introduce among nations by
the ministration of our country. I would wish no other proof
that democracy has been the divine inspiration, and that it
will triumph in Europe as rapidly and gloriously as it has
triumphed at Paris. France will have changed the character
of her glory, and that is all.
“If a few minds, as yet backward in the understanding of
true force and true grandeur, or impatient to press forward the
fortune of France, should reproach the republic with not having
done violence to nations, by offering them, at the point of the
bayonet, a liberty which would have resembled conquest, we
will say to them: See what a royalty of eighteen years'
duration did for France ; see what the republic has done in
less than three months Compare the France of the 23rd of
July with the France of the 6th of May, and regard even
patience as glory; give time to the principle which labours,
which combats, which transforms and assimilates the world
for you !
“France, externally, was imprisoned by limits which she
could break through only by a general war. Europe, people
and governments, formed one sole undivided system against
us; we had five great powers compact and united by a com-
mon anti-revolutionary interest against France. Spain was
placed as the stake between those powers and us. Swit–
zerland was betrayed, Italy sold, Germany menaced, and
excited to a feeling of hostility. France was obliged to veil
her popular nature and to humble herself, for fear of agitating
a people or disturbing a king. She sank under a peace
maintained for the interests of a dynasty, and disappeared
from the rank of the primary national individualities—a rank
which geography, nature, and, above all, her genius, com-
manded her to preserve.
“This weight being removed, behold what a different des–
tiny that peace which the republic gives creates for her | The
great powers look, first with anxiety, then, at a brief interval,
with security, upon the least of her movements. No one of
them protests against the eventual and legitimate revision of
508 SPEECH OF LAMARTINE.
the treaties of 1815, which a word from us has as completely
effaced as the steps of a hundred thousand mem. England
need no longer suspect us of ambition in Spain. Russia
has time to reflect on the disinterested question which is
arising between that great empire and ourselves, the con-
stitutional reconstruction of the independence of Poland. We
can encounter no conflicting shock in the North, except in
defending, as devoted auxiliaries, the rights and Safety of the
Sclavonic and Germanic people. The Austrian empire treats
no more except in respect to the ransom of Italy. Prussia
Tenounces aggrandizement otherwise than by liberty. The
whole of Germany is escaping the perpetual interference of
those powers, and is forming a natural alliance with us. A
coalition is at hand, of nations resting from necessity upon
France, without one being turned against us, as of yore, by
the policy of the courts. Switzerland is strengthening her-
self by concentration. The whole of Italy is stirring, and is
almost in the possession of freedom. A cry of distress would
call France thither, not to conquer but to protect. The sole
victory we desire beyond the Rhine and the Alps is the
friendship of the liberated populations.
“In one word, we were thirty-six millions of men isolated
on the continent. No European thought was permitted us;
no collective action was possible for us. Our system was
compression; our horizon limited. Space as well as dignity
was wanting to our policy. Our present system is one of
democratic truth, which will enlarge itself to the proportions
of a universal social faith. Our horizon is the future of
civilized nations, our vital air the breath of liberty in the
free breasts of the entire universe. Three months have not
elapsed, and if democracy, like Protestantism, is to have a
war of thirty years duration, instead of marching at the
head of thirty-six millions of men, France, reckoning in her
system of alliance, Switzerland, Italy, and the emancipated
people of Germany, will march, leading eighty-eight millions
of confederates and friends. What victory gained by the
republic could have been equivalent to such a confederation,
conquered without the cost of a single life, and cemented by
the conviction of our own disinterestedness % France, by the
fall of royalty, has arisen from her abasement, as a vessel
łoaded with an extra weight rises the instant she has been
relieved from it.
VOTE OF THE ASSEMBLY. 509
“Such is, citizens, the exact picture of our actual exterior
situation. The happiness or glory of this position belongs
wholly to the republic. We accept only its responsibility,
and shall always congratulate ourselves on having appeared
before the representatives of the country, restoring to it
peace, insuring its grandeur, with our hands full of alliances,
and pure of human blood.”
Long-continued applause followed this discourse. Its pub-
Jication was called for, as well as its transmission to all the
departments, and to foreign powers.
The Assembly proceeded to vote that the provisional go-
vernment had deserved well of the country.
While Paris was in a state of intoxication from the se-
curity and joy which were excited in it by the restoration of
the national Sovereignty, and by harmony between the repre-
sentatives and dictators, a great question was agitated in the
public mind, and, above all, in the breast of Lamartine.
There was an interval to pass between the accession of the
National Assembly and the vote on the constitution. Who.
was to decree the form of the new executive power ? What
should be the nature of this intermediate power ? Should
the dictators continue to exercise it, in the presence and
under the sanction of the Assembly 2 Should the Assembly
exercise it directly, and through the medium of committees.
of government, subject to constant renewal 3 Finally, should
the Assembly delegate it ! And, in this case, should it dele-
gate it to one only, or to many ? Such were the three hypo-
theses into which minds were divided.
Should the first plan be adopted? That was still the dic-
tatorship. -
The second 2 That would be anarchy and the confusion
of power.
The third alone, was practicable. The necessity of dele-
gating the powers by the Assembly was almost unanimously
agreed upon. But after that, there was a division of opinion.
Some—and these were men recently arrived in Paris, the
least informed of the state of affairs, and the most impatient,
for a return to ancient forms—wished that the Assembly
should nominate a single temporary dictator, to be, at the
same time, prime minister, who should appoint the other
ministers, and govern by means of the Assembly itself.
he smaller number wished the Assembly to choose, by
51() DELIBERATIONS OF LAMARTINE.
ballot, a council, or executive commission of government, as
an intermediate and fixed power between the Assembly and
the administration. This commission should have the power
of nominating and dismissing ministers. It should be, while
waiting for the constitution, no longer the dictatorship, but
the collective presidency of the republic.
This question was one of particular interest to Lamartine;
and it was to him alone that it in reality pertained to resolve
it. France, Paris, the Assembly, and Europe had their eyes
at this moment upon him. His resolution was expected.
By Some, to applaud him and encourage him to the dictator-
ship; by others, to accuse and curse him, if he should refuse
the part which the immense majority had decreed him.
He could not dissemble to himself that his popularity at
Paris had increased so much as even to become a passion,
instead of having been exhausted by three months of a govern-
ment, prosperous, in the midst of such repeated tempests;
that the ten elections which had just invested him with a
species of title by choosing him as a universal representative;
that the seven or eight millions of votes which were offered
him, in case of need, throughout the republic; and, finally,
the favour of six or seven hundred out of nine hundred
representatives, designated him, and, as it were, imposed him,
on the choice of the Assembly, as the man of the emergency,
and the only predestined possessor of power.
He knew better than others, after the experience of a di-
vided and stormy government, the advantages of the union
of the intermediate power in a single hand. He felt that he
himself possessed the strength, and believed that he had the
prudence necessary to manage this power, mildly, but firmly,
to the satisfaction of the Assembly. He alone held the clue
of Europe. He flattered himself he could give the republic an
immense ascendancy without kindling war, by a single ener-
getic movement, Seasonably prepared, and accomplished,
beyond the Alps. The popularity, originating in every good
sentiment, which attached to him, touched more than it
elated him. He blushed at the appearance of ingratitude to
his country, which he would exhibit by coldly refusing its
invitation. The glory, after having called it forth, of in-
stalling the National Assembly, and of being the first legal,
after having been the first revolutionary, power of his coun-
try, was a temptation to him.
DELIBERATIONS OF LAMARTINE. 51]
The renown of being the founder and protector of the
infant constitution, appeared clothed with attractiveness and
light in the future of history.
So far then as he was himself concerned, he felt every
inclination for the part. But in him good Sense and honesty
were not to be stifled by glory and ambition. Before all
things his thoughts were devoted to the republic and to his
country.
The following are the reasonings he used to himself, and
embodied as answers to his colleagues during the three or
four sleepless nights in which he held, as it were, council with
himself in the presence of his conscience and of futurity.
“The republican sentimont is weak in France. This
feeling is ill represented in Paris and the departments by men
to whom the republic is repulsive, and who hold it up to the
horror and dread of the people. The republic which so Sud-
denly came upon us has been converted into a miracle, by the
wisdom of the people of Paris, and by the character of mild-
ness, unanimity, and concord which we have impressed upon
it. But impressions are fickle and brief with the people,
especially in France. No sooner will the majority of the
population, which rushed, impelled by the enthusiasm of fear,
into the bosom of this republic of moderation, have recovered
its spirits, than it will heap accusations upon him who has
preserved it, and will turn against the republicans. Should
there then be none of ancient date in the government, or
should these, who are already few, be divided in the face
of their common enemies, what will become of the repub-
lic' And if that, the only existing refuge of Society,
sink before any precarious or factitious restoration of an
antiquated monarchy, what will become of France 2 It is
therefore necessary that the republicans should not, at any
price, be divided at the first origin of their institutions.
We must continue to restrain them, to moderate them, and
keep them together as long as possible, until the republic
shall have taken root enough, both in facts and ideas, to
employ, indifferently, republicans of all dates as well as re-
publicans of the present time.
“Now, if I take the power, alone, from the hands of a
non-republican Assembly, or one but slightly tinged with repub-
licanism, what will come to pass? One or other of these alter-
natives—either I shall expel my principal colleagues from
512 DELIBERATIONS OF LAMARTINE.
power, and then this power, after undergoing the process of
purification, will become Suspicious and odious to all the re-
publicans of yesterday; or I shall summon these colleagues
to it, and be myself suspicious and hateful to the National
Assembly.
“I cannot dissemble that the Assembly appoints me only
on the tacit condition of excluding them. Thus, on one
side, I ruin the republic by too early an application of the
prüning-knife, or I declare war against the national represen-
tatives, by imposing on them men whom they distrust and
dread — an alternative which a politician cannot accept,
except he wish to destroy the republic, or oppress the national
representation of his country.
“Besides, this alternative even is not admissible. For who
are those of my colleagues of the provisional government,
my equals yesterday, who will consent to be my subordinates
to-morrow, and to engage their names, their honour, and
their responsibility in my acts 2 None. I shall be imme-
diately deserted by them, and forced to take my ministers
from among unknown men, or from the proved adversaries of
the republic.
“But supposing,” added Lamartine, “that I accept this
fatal alternative, and that I take the undivided power decreed
to me by the hands of the Assembly, what will happen
to-morrow %
“All my rivals in the minority of the provisional govern-
ment—all my friends even in the majority—all the republicans,
socialists, terrorists, or moderates—all the representatives, to
the number of three or four hundred, who have been elected
under the auspices of these more democratic opinions, will be
formed into a powerful opposition in the Assembly, in the
press, in the Luxembourg, in the clubs, in public opinion, and
in the national workshops.
“The Assembly, divided, becomes instantly agitated by
storms. Speeches and votes shake not only the interior, but the
capital and the country, Parties laid prostrate and dumb before
the representatives, unanimous or almost so to-day, become
daring and seditious before a body of representatives, divided
into two camps. Before the end of ten days of such a
spectacle presented to Paris, opinions will be armed in Paris
itself. The representatives will be menaced.
DELIBERATIONS OF LAMARTINE. 513
“Where, before the expiration of a certain period, will be
found my ability to protect them : In the army? I have
but six thousand men in Paris, and before I could collect there
a force of thirty or forty thousand, the signal which the Assem-
bly will give to summon them will be the indication of an
insurrection against itself, and of its own dispersion.
“In the national guard? But mure than one-half of the
new-formed militia is in the hands of Socialist or Conven-
tional republicans. This half of the national guard will take
up arms for their defence against the Assembly and the old
militia, prepared on their side to protect the representation.
Thus there will be a civil war around the very cradle of the
constitution.
“I am well aware,” continued Lamartine, “that I could
save the representatives by conducting them out of Paris,
and, by falling back with them on the army of the North ;
that I could, in the course of fifteen days, surround them with
other corps from the banks of the Rhine, and by the national
guards of the departments, thus overwhelming Paris with a
million of men, and re-establishing there the reign of the repre-
sentatives, for a moment violated.
“But at what cost 2 At the cost of torrents of blood which
I shall have to shed to reconquer the capital, and at the price
of the proscriptions which I shall have to put in force against
the republicans. This price, indifferent to an ambitious,
is not so to an honest man. Bloodshed is only innocent when
it is necessary to the law it is defending. Here it would be
gratuitous blood, such as would cry out against my ambition
before God and men.
“But this is not all. After having made its re-entrance
into Paris, in the blood of the republicans, the Assembly will
feel a natural reaction and anger against the movement which
expelled it. Will this reaction preserve the republic in order
to punish republicans? Evidently not. It will swallow
even me up, if I refuse to administer to its vengeances, or it
will decree me the dictatorship to deliver it from the re-
public. In the first case, I am a Cromwell ; in the second, a
Monk; a tyrant, or a traitor. This is the alternative I am
preparing by rashly mounting to power, and expelling thence
my colleagues and the republicans of the genuine republic,
at the voice of a transient popularity;-for the Assembly,
2 L
514 HIS OPINIONS AT WARIANCE WITH otRER STATESMEN.
danger; for the country, civil war; for myself, a blemished
name; for the future, the republic proclaimed and destroyed
by the same man in the space of three months. These are
my prognostications. To accept them would be criminality
—incapacity—folly. The duty of a true republican and a
true patriot is to sacrifice everything, provided that the
republic be not divided at its origin, and that the National
Assembly, obtained by so many efforts, introduced so recently
by us into a centre which repels it, be accepted, fixed,
preserved, and obtain insensible possession of the autho-
rity and force which belong to it. This force is, as yet,
totally wanting. It is necessary to obtain it from every
Source, even through the medium of those who, had it not
been for me, would have set it aside. These men dispose of
a hundred and twenty thousand men from the national work-
shops—an army, docile and patient to-day, liable to be im-
pelled to insurrection at their voice to-morrow. They dispose
of the delegates of the Luxembourg and of a hundred and fifty
thousand workmen, driven to fanaticism by their harangues.
They dispose of the needy portion of the national guard, amount-
ing at least to sixty thousand bayonets. They dispose of clubs
which they could excite to revolt in a single night. They dis-
pose, in addition to all these, by means of the prefecture of the
police and the Hôtel de Ville, of the body of the Montagnards,
the Lyonnese, the republican guard, the guardians of Paris,
the guides, and all those armed revolutionary assemblies who
only receive commands from the most suspicious republicans.
The day following that on which I shall have excluded these
jealous republicans from their legitimate part in the govern-
ment, the National Assembly will be besieged, vanquished,
violated, and constrained to become the degraded instrument
of the conquerors, or else to dye with blood the enclosure to
which I have brought it only to deliver it to its executioners.”
The evidence of these arguments so forcibly struck the
mind of Lamartine, that he was unable to understand why
it did not cqually strike all the statesmen who gave him coun-
Sels which breathed a greater degree of ambition. But these
men, imbued with the spirits of the departments, knew not
the true condition of Paris, and the respective strength of the
Assembly and factions.
“The departments will come up in all haste,” said they.
DECISION OF LAMARTINE. 515
Lamartine was not ignorant of it ; but between the arrival
of the inhabitants of the departments in Paris, and the pre-
servation of the National Assembly, there must intervene
eight days; and these eight days were the snare for the
Assembly, and the destruction of the republic.
Finally, there was a part strongly recommended to Lamar-
time by men more interested in him and his personal popu-
larity than in the country.
“Retire,” said they ; “declare that you require repose;
that you do not wish to form part of the government; that
your work is accomplished, and that it is for France, now
erect and reunited, to perform hers.”
“This part would be the most agreeable and the wisest for
me,” replied Lamartine. “I should invest myself with an
easy popularity, which, by disuniting itself from the difficul-
ties, the faults, and catastrophes inevitable during these first
months, would only keep in store for me sources of regret and
great vicissitudes of fortune. I know it—I know what the lapse
of time will bring with it. But if I remove myself from the
sphere, the Assembly, whose chief confidence is in me, will in-
stantly dismiss all my colleagues of February. It will bestow
the power to a new or old man suspicious to the republicans.
This sudden reaction will immediately exasperate the republic.
Paris will rise in the name of the republicans proscribed by the
government. The same misfortunes will be realized. They will
not bear my name ; and that will be the sole difference. But
in my own conscience, my cowardice and selfishness will equally
be the cause. I shall have saved and aggrandized myself by
destroying the Assembly, the republic, and the country. It
is the contrary which must be done. I must be destroyed.
The National Assembly must be preserved.”
And he formed his resolution without any illusion as to the
consequences of his sacrifice.
|He knew, as well as if he had read it beforehand, that
his courage would be construed into cowardice, his renunci-
ation into the thirst for power, his spirit of concord into
complicity, and his prudence into blindness. He was not
ignorant that a collective government, compressed between
the natural impatience of the Assembly and the seditious
resistance of the people, was but a temporary expedient, soon
to be exhausted, and repudiated by all parties. But this
2 L 2
516 THE ASSEMBLY APPOINT AN EXECUTIVE CommissroN,
expedient was the only one which could subdue the shocks
between the representative body and the people of Paris,
and give time for the reconstruction of the forces and the
means of safety. The price he gave for this time was him-
self; and he never repented it, notwithstanding the contrary
judgment universally passed on his conduct. On his way to
the Assembly to execute this resolution, he encountered a
group of republican representatives on the Place de la Con-
corde. They conjured him to yield to their solicitations, and
allow himself to be invested with the sole power. “No,”
Said he to them, “I have reflected well. There is an abyss
invisible to you between the National Assembly and the day
on which the republic shall be armed. It requires a Curtius
to fill up this gulf. I give myself to be swallowed up, but I
Save you.” And he entered the palace of the National
Assembly.
The Assembly, though long rebellious, ended, though
more from weariness than conviction, by adopting, at his
suggestion, the unsatisfactory but necessary plan of an execu-
tive commission, composed of five members, appointed by
ballot, to exercise the intermediate authority until the definitive
establishment of the constitutional power.
This ballot gave an immediate indication to Lamartine
that he had lost the confidence of a great part of the
National Assembly, by the very sacrifice he had made of his
popularity and ambition. His name, which had ten times
issued from the urns of the departments with more than two
million suffrages, came out only fourth from the urn of the
constituent assembly. He was punished for his devotion, and
vengeance was inflicted upon him for not being willing to
minister to the impatience and blindness of his country. He
bowed his head, and submitted to this token of his growing
unpopularity.
The Assembly had nominated MM. Arago, Garnier Pagès,
Marie, Lamartine, and Ledru Rollin, members of the execu-
tive commission.
The members of the government met at the residence of
their president, M. Arago. They nominated the ministers.
Their selection was dictated by the same spirit of tact,
prudence, and fusion which had animated the resolution of
Lamartine. To M. Crémieux was assigned the department
of justice, to M. Bastide that of foreign affairs. M. Jules
WHO PROCEED TO NOMINATE THE MINISTERS. 517
Favre, a man remarkable for eloquence, and at the same
time possessed of an intelligence as penetrating as it was
manifold, was associated with this minister as under-Secretary
of state, to sustain the discussions, so difficult and frequent,
upon the external interests of the country. M. Charras,
while awaiting the arrival of General Cavaignac, adminis-
tered the war department; Admiral Cary the marine; M.
Recurt the interior, with M. Carteret, a man of very supe-
rior talents, as under-Secretary of state. M. Trelat was
intrusted with the department of the public works—a minis-
try which the existence of the national workshops made at that
time a political one; M. Flocon had the direction of agricul-
ture and commerce ; M. Bethmont, of worship ; M. Carnot,
of public instruction, in which he was seconded by M. Rey-
naud, a man of an adventurous and philosophic, but high-toned
spirit; and M. Duclerc, of the finances.
M. Pagnerre, who had from the 24th of February been
distinguished for his indefatigable services rendered to the
government, in the modest but important part of Secretary
general, preserved this employment, with the power of taking
part in the deliberations. M. Marrast retained the mayoralty
of Paris, until the government had modified this revolutionary
institution. M. Caussidière preserved the prefectship of the
police. There were at once both rashness and prudence in
this last choice; for no one could do more injury or more ser.
vice to the National Assembly than Caussidière. Lamartine
believed him capable of both parts, but considered that he
would loyally prefer the second.
The difference was such between serving factions and
serving the representative body of one's country, that
greatness like this must, in the opinion of Lamartine, tempt
a character such as that of Caussidière. To exclude him was
to throw him back into conspiracy—his native element;
to admit him was to win him to the cause of order by satis-
fying his honourable ambition. Caussidière was retained in
office.
Hardly had the government, thus constituted, the time to seize
the broken and entangled reins of government, than the anti-
cipations of Lamartine were realized, and proved too clearly
to the Assembly how deceitful was its security, and how the
revolutionary soil of Paris could with facility swallow up a
sovereignty which was repugnant to itself.
518 PROJECTED MANIFESTATION IN FAvour of POLAND.
The provisional government had decreed a military and
national festival for the day on which the representative body
would be installed in Paris. Their wish was that Paris,
erect and in arms, should welcome France in her representa-
tives by a ceremonial salute. Their wish was that the sove-
reign representatives should pass in review the innumerable
civic bayonets which, after lowering themselves before them,
were to serve as their protection against the factions.
It was desired also that a memorable acclaim should arise
from a million of voices to hail the sovereignty of France,
embodied in her representatives.
The ill-combined dispositions of those who had the arrange-
ment of the preparations of this ceremony on the Champ de
Mars, had caused it to be postponed till the 14th of May.
The irregular soil of the field of the federation would have
caused danger to the immense mass of population which this
festival was sure to bring together.
On the 12th of May, M. Recurt, the minister of the
interior, again announced that the fête would be necessarily
adjourned to the 21st of May. The deputations of the
national guards of the departments, already arrived in Paris,
were irritated, and by murmuring and carrying their com-
plaints into public places, slightly agitated the surface of the
capital. The leaders of the party, desirous of commotion,
scanned all these symptoms, and saw in them some auxiliary
elements of perturbation. The directors of the clubs, the
ultra-democratic partisans of war, until then deceived in their
plans of a general conflagration in Europe, Sought for a watch-
word to excite the people, and they found it in the name of
Poland.
The people, for fifteen years, had been accustomed to
respond to this name. This word signified to them the op-
pression of a branch of mankind, and vengeance upon
tyranny. Some important members of the National Assem-
bly, such as : MM. Wavin, Wolowski, and Montalembert,
were the patrons of the cause. This patronage within en-
couraged demands from without. This cause, so far as it
was just and generous, could calculate on the generous minds
in the Assembly. The factions seized upon these dispositions
of the people to recommend to them a manifestation in favour
of Poland. They appointed a rendezvous on the 15th of
CONSEQUENT MEASURES OF THE GOVERNMENT. 519
May for all the clubs, and all the friends of Poland, on the
Place de la Bastille. Thence, after having signed a petition
to the Assembly, demanding the declaration of war against
Russia—that is to say, conflagration on the continent, and a
coalition of all the powers against the republic—their in-
tention was to march along the boulevards, rallying as they
passed the still tumultuary masses of Paris, and bring the
petition of the people to the bar of the Assembly.
The Poles themselves, although they had obtained by the
influence of the republic immense restitutions in the duchy
of Posen and in Gallicia, were not strangers to this move-
ment. Lamartine was informed by the letters of his confi-
dential agents in Poland, that the emissaries of the Polish
clubs in Cracow had set out with the mission of effecting a
pressure on the National Assembly at Paris, to compel it to
declare war in their favour. After having formed this
tumultuous assemblage, the leaders of the clubs and dema-
gogues proposed to ask permission to defile before the Assem-
bly, in imitation of the insurrectional displays before the
Convention during the days of crime.
The government was resolved on opposing this. A peti-
tion, brought up by a hundred thousand men, is an act of
oppression, and not a vote. The political parties, violent as
well as moderate republicans, beheld, with equal horror, this
project of masked insurrection. The plot had no sympathy
in the national guard, or in the garde mobile. It was an
attempt of the desperate parties, a species of Saturnalia of
the basest demagoguism. It afflicted more than it alarmed the
government.
The government, receiving information, but not of an
exact nature, on the evening before, from M. Recurt, the
minister of the interior, summoned the prefect of the police.
Caussidière made answer that he was indisposed, and knew
nothing of a nature to occasion serious fears for the next day.
His absence, his silence, and his inaction, before and during
the movement of the 15th of May, awakened suspicions of
connivance or toleration, which nothing has justified or veri-
fied subsequently. Caussidière was, in fact, kept away by
the consequences of an accidental injury from a horse. He
was, moreover, engaged in a struggle of prerogative and
rivalry with the mayoralty of Paris and the minister of the
520 CONDUCT OF CAUSSIDIERE.
interior. Louis Blanc, Albert, and the whole social party,
excluded from the government by Lamartine and his col-
leagues, would seek to exasperate Caussidière against an
assembly which separated him from them. The Montagnards,
to the number of two or three thousand, who occupied the
prefecture of police, and had fortified themselves there, were
connected, by their opinions and relations, with the most tur-
bulent clubs. These were the armed satellites of extreme
radicalism, who shuddered at the idea of subordination to the
regular representatives of the country.
The centre, in which Caussidière thus lived, was a centre
of opposition, irritated by dethroned Socialists, and of a secret
faction initiated into the secrets of demagoguism. Was Caus-
sidière himself their instigator and accomplice 7 I do not
believe it. Was he as vigilant and active as he would have
been in another disposition of mind? Neither will I venture
to affirm that. He doubtless believed only in a slight dis-
turbance, which might be a source of anxiety to the Assembly,
and impress its importance on the new arrivals from the
departments. He was astonished in the morning at the
gravity of the result. He did not take the interest he ought
to have done. He shut up his forces in the prefecture of
police to wait the course of events. He was not an accom-
plice ; he was not guilty; but perhaps not sufficiently in-
dignant at the humiliation of the national representative
body.
*. government employed a part of the night in giving
the most circumstantial orders to General Courtais, the com-
mander of the national guards, and Generals Tampour and
Foucher, the first commanding the garde mobile, and the
second the troops in Paris.
* --ee-e
B O O K XV.
AT daybreak, on the 15th of May, the generals and the
minister of the interior were summoned to the Luxembourg,
the Scat of government, to give an account of the disposi-
tions which they had made, and to concert new ones.
Nothing was neglected which could keep the crowds at a
REOPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY. 521
distance from the Assembly, and protect the inviolability
of the representatives, even should it be found necessary to
fire upon them. The chief command was bestowed on Ge-
neral Courtais. It was agreed that twelve thousand men of
the national guard should be summoned around the Palais
Bourbon, and that the battalions of the mobile guards should
take their station, as a reserve, under the trees in the
Champs Elysées. Mobile guards and artillery were, besides,
posted in the courts.
The sitting of the Assembly opened at noon. Ledru Rollin
and Lamartine were present, as well as the ministers. MM.
Arago, Marie, Garnier Pagès, and Pagnerre had remained at
the Luxembourg to provide for the contingencies of the day,
in case their colleagues should be confined in the Palais
Bourbon. A confused agitation reigned in the hall, an im-
mense din arose from without. The petition in favour of
Poland was read, and was supported by some orators, in
order to answer whom Lamartine ascended the steps of the
tribune. He was then informed that an immense column of
people, preceded by the clubs, and gathering on its passage
the floating Scum of the population of a great capital, was
advancing upon the Assembly, and threatened to force the
bridge. Lamartine, to avoid alarming the Assembly, feigned
not to wish to answer until other orators had spoken. He
warned the president, M. Buchez, in a whisper, of the necessity
of taking the measures which his authority gave him over the
troops within the compass of the palace of the representation.
General Courtais, evidently surprised at the magnitude
and rapidity of the demonstration, not having battalions
enough at hand, and in dread of a shock which he thought he
could still avoid, by opening the passage of the bridge, and
allowing the column of petitioners to pass before the
peristyle and along the quay, wavered in his decision, and
sought advice in conformity with his own thoughts. During
this irresolution on the part of the defenders, the column,
dashing aside half a battalion of national guards on the Place
de la Concorde, and forcing the small array of mobile guards,
who were insufficient to defend the bridge, to fall back, rushed
like an overflowing torrent on the quay in front of the peri-
style, engulfing itself in the Rue de Bourgogne, and shouting
“Poland for ever !”
522 WIOLENT ATTACK UPON THE LUXEMIBOURG,
The quaestors, destitute of force by the absence of national
guards from the interior, came to induce Lamartine and
Ledru Rollin to present themselves to the people and
harangue them from the top of the palace steps. General
Courtais was already at that point, vainly endeavouring to
control the tumult by voice and gesture.
Thousands of men, in different kinds of dresses, but mostly
in rags, with excited countenances and menacing gestures,
their mouths foaming and uttering incessant cries, bore
with the whole weight of a multitude against the railings,
and struggled to shake or scale them, in order violently to
enter the enclosure. Ledru Rollin, although received with
Some applause, could not make himself heard. At sight of
Lamartine, whom the crowd knew to be minister of foreign
affairs, and energetically opposed to war, an immense clamour
arose, and some voices exclaimed “Death to Lamartine !”
The crowd indignantly protested against such cries. They
tore from the railings the two insensate men who had uttered
them, trampled them under foot, and cried “No I Long
live Lamartine!” At the moment when Lamartine had pro-
cured a chair, in order to address the people, fifteen or
twenty men, who had climbed to the points of the railings,
got over them, and fell at his feet in the space which sepa-
rates them from the steps of the peristyle. The gate of the
fence was opened or forced, and the first billow of the crowd
precipitated itself through this aperture. “It is all over,”
said Lamartine; “No ! reason can do nothing more | Nought
remains but defence Well, to arms, and let us defend our-
selves!”
Saying these words he fell back, followed by some deputies
and soldiers, to the gate of the second court, which was
separated by another railing from the square of the peristyle.
This second court was occupied by half a battalion of mobile
guards. The soldiers appeared resolved to do their duty,
when an order, which was attributed to General Courtais,
caused them to sheathe bayonets. Lamartine, perceiving this
movement of disarming among the soldiers in the midst of
the tumult, raised his arms to heaven, and cried out that all
was lost.
He returned with the group of quaestors and deputies into the
interior, and awaited the result with consternation. He still
THE MULTITUDE ARE LED BY LOUIS BLANC AND ALBERT. 523
flattered himself, nevertheless, that the national guards, who
were in the other courts, rallied by some energetic commander,
would prevent at least the violation of the hall of session
itself, and that the invasion of which he had been witness on
the side of the quay, would be confined to a tumultuary
species of procession in the corridors and gardens of the
palace.
After having given notice to the president of what was
passing, he went out again, alone, and in a state of despera-
tion, to face the rioters, who were attempting to cross the
remaining threshold.
After having proceeded a few steps in the hall of columns,
he found himself in front of a group of the leaders of the
clubs, who were advancing five or six deep, with linked
arms. A member of the provisional government, Albert, the
friend of Louis Blanc, was of the number, and the only one
known by sight to Lamartine.
Behind this first rank marched other citizens, their faces on
fire, and with wildness in their gestures.
Lamartine, resolved to do his duty, and without thinking
of his impotence and isolation, advanced a few steps to meet
the head of this column, extending his crossed arms, as if to
oppose a barrier to them :-
“Citizens,” said he to them, “you shall not pass, or if you
do, it shall be over my body 1"–“And by what right would
you prevent our passage?” said the first who approached him.
“By the right,” replied Lamartine, “of a member of the
government charged to defend at every cost the inviolability
of the National Assembly.”—“What do we care for the
National Assembly 7" rejoined they. “We are the people.
We wish to present ourselves, our petitions, and the indications
of our wishes to those whom we have deputed. Have you
then already forgotten that the people communicated freely,
directly, and constantly with the government of the Hôtel de
Wille 2° -
“Citizens,” answered Lamartine, “we were then in a state
of revolution, we are now under a government. The National
Assembly is as far above us as the nation is above you ! It
cannot receive petitions from the hands of a banded faction of
the people, without losing its liberty and its majesty. I tell
you again you shall not pass except over my body.”
524 THE HALL OF THE ASSEMBLY INVADED BY THE RIOTERS.
Then arose vociferations from the centre of the men who
formed the second rank of the group. Ironical and disdainful
apostrophes were addressed to Lamartine. But no outrage, no
violence, occurred to give a painful character to the dialogue
between his interlocutors and himself. The altercation sank
into a discussion upon the respective rights of the people
and the Assembly; some citizens not belonging to the repre-
sentative body, in the number of whom were young Lagrange
of Mâcon, Thomasson, Ernest Grégoire, some courageous and
indignant representatives, M. de Mornay, M. de Montrol, and
others, had run at the noise of the altercation and had formed
themselves behind Lamartine. They addressed themselves in
the same sense that he did to the groups of invaders. These,
still few in number, hesitated, wavered, and at last fell back
into the hall of the pas perdus.
Lamartine returned to the Assembly and took his seat on
his bench, in order to join in the resolutions and acts which
the national representatives would execute in this extremity.
He believed that the gates had been reclosed after the passage
of this first wave of the insurgents, and that the petitions
brought by representatives would soon call him to the tribune.
Scarcely, however, had he resumed his place, penetrated with
horror and grief which he could with difficulty prevent his fea-
tures from displaying, than the doors of the public tribune being
opened or forced with a crashing noise, one very side of the
hall, gave passage to an invading body, consisting of men in
waistcoats, shirts, working blouses, and in rags, who rushed as
if to assault the galleries, brutally thrusting aside both by hands
and feet the peaceable spectators, women included. Throwing
their legs over the balconies, hanging by their arms from the
cornices that they might slide down on the heads of the
representatives, filling the whole in a moment, they poured in
crowds into the hall, with flags, dust, cries, and confusion, form-
ing a true and atrocious image of an invasion of barbarians
upon civilized society. Lamartine recognized the same subter-
ranean class of people, the same chiefs, the same attire, the same
visages,and the same vociferations, which had been overwhelm-
ing him for the space of sixty hours at the Hôtel de Ville,
during the days of the red flag. The Assembly might believe
itself carried back to the unhappy days of September, 1793.
The indignant representatives, to a man, were firm and
THEIR OTTRAGEOUS CONDUCT, 525
impassible, even to sublimity, in their deportment. Not a
cry of affright issued from a single mouth, and not a single
brow grew pale. Not an eye was cast down at the audacity
and ferocity of the faces and actions by which the hall was
sullied. These nine hundred intrepid citizens had wittingly
accepted in their departments the missions of unexampled
dangers they were destined to incur by hastening to legislate
in a republican spirit upon a set of demagogues and their
followers, who would attempt to impose sedition and terror
upon them. They were resolved to perish in a manner
worthy of their departments.
The people were themselves intimidated by their attitude,
and appeared ashamed of their own excesses. Still some
hideous struggles, between men intoxicated by the ultra-
democratic harangues which had impelled them to their
present course, disgraced the interior of the hall. A set of
ruffians, wildly waving a flag fixed at one end of an iron
lance, wished to go and place it on the tribune. Others re-
strained them. They were overthrown, and raised themselves
again in the dust under the eyes of the representatives.
Others made violent efforts to mount the steps of the tri-
bune, an attempt which the devoted ushers and deputies used
every personal exertion to prevent. Others rushed by the
outer staircases to the desk and arm-chair of the president, to
force orders or motions upon him. Partial, but terrible and
ill-omened dialogues took place between the crowd and some
heroic deputies, who, in defiance of it, raised themselves from
their benches, baring their breasts, and making gestures of
defiance to the rioters. Tragic interpellations were exchanged
on all sides between the leading demagogues who pressed to
the foot of the tribune, and the representatives of all parties.
There was then neither left nor right in the Assembly. No
secret intelligence had as yet been established between the
demagogues outside and the representatives. The only party
existing at that moment was one of indignation; Ledru Rollin,
Barbès, and Louis Blanc, expressing by their looks and ges-
tures as much affliction and disgust at these Saturnalia of the
people, as the members of other parties in the Assembly.
These deputies, whose names excited so much popularity,
were seen to be approached by the invaders, and endeavour
to appease them, and dissuade them from their evil designs.
526 TRIBUNE AND CHAIR OF THE PRESIDENT ASSAULTED.
Appeals were made to them to interfere, and, as it were, in-
terpose between the people and the Assembly. These repre-
sentatives, thus solicited by their colleagues, uttered a few
words in a spirit of repression; but every voice was drowned,
and every one's office confounded by the tumult. It was a
conflicting medley of gestures and cries, a battle of unarmed
men, a whirlwind of confused elements, which carried every-
thing along with it, even to the parties who had excited it.
More than an hour thus elapsed before that a silence, the
mere effect of lassitude, could allow the commingled mob and
representatives the semblance, not of a deliberation, but a
species of dialogue or protestation. The excess of anarchy
had paralyzed the action of anarchy itself.
While these scenes were succeeding one another in the hall,
others, still more Scandalous and ill-omened, were passing
around the desk and arm-chair of the president. Some in-
surgents were already masters of these by climbing with the
aid of their hands and feet upon the tribune. At that point
not only the flags of the clubs were waved, but drawn swords
were brandished; two men, one in the uniform of an officer of
the national guard, and the other in the dress of a fireman, were
conspicuous by the insolence and recklessness of their gestures
and vociferations. Bands of demagogues with shaggy,
bloated faces, strove to get possession of the tribune, and then
endeavoured to utter a few words, which were stified by
plaudits and cries; but they were overthrown by one another
in succession. Others making continual assaults on the desk
of the secretaries, and on the arm-chair, threw out horrible
threats against the president. They ordered him to give per-
mission to their orators to speak; they forbade him, under
pain of the massacre of the Assembly, to call the national
guard to the succour of the representatives.
The president, dignified, calm, and fearless for himself, was
placed under an anxiety and mental constraint which accounts
for his apparent inaction. If he did not summon the public
force, he failed in his responsibilty to the Assembly; if he
omitted to call it, he perhaps compromised the lives of nine
hundred representatives, who were at the mercy of an innu-
merable herd.
Besides, had the public force existence anywhere? It
was said that the column of the people which had entered
GREAT CONFUSION PREVAILING AMONG THE AUTHORITIES. 527
the enclosure, was but the head of a column of a hundred
thousand men, extending from the bridge de la Concorde as
far as the Bastille.
General Tampour, who commanded the mobile guards, was
detained in a public tribune, a motionless spectator of these
violences, separated from his troops, to whom he had no
longer the power to give orders. The commander-in-chief,
General Courtais, was wandering about the enclosure, sur-
rounded by floods of people, who prevented his summoning
his battalions. Charras, the chief officer of the war depart-
ment, was paralyzed and in consternation. The members of
the government were either prisoners with Lamartine and
Ledru Rollin, or at a distance from the scene passing at the
Luxembourg, with Arago, Garnier Pagès, and Marie. There
remained nothing to every good citizen but his own individual
action. Each employed it according to his own notions and
conjectures on the nature and magnitude of the exterior
movement, with the extent of which no one was exactly ac-
quainted. The president signed, in turn, orders not to have
the rappel beaten, and secret ones to march upon the Assembly.
He gave the first to appease the insurgents, and the second
he intrusted to faithful citizens to be transmitted to the
colonels of the legions. These colonels, thus receiving con-
trary orders, took counsel of chance only. Lamartine sent,
one after another, by friends whom he had in the crowd, the
order to beat the rappel and assemble the legions. M. de
Chamborand, a man quick to contrive and bold to execute, a
friend of Lamartine, succeeded, through a thousand dangers,
upon his own responsibility, and even by delivering himself up
as a hostage, in causing the order to be executed by one
legion. But these orders were but...intimations carried by the
representatives, or apparent accomplices of the invaders, which
might be turned aside or disobeyed. The Assembly, made
captive, was delivered to the chance of the event.
A single shot, or the stroke of a dagger, might change the
popular Saturnalia into a massacre of the representatives.
In the meantime, the mass of the people, more misled than
guilty, appeared to feel instinctive shame at their excesses,
and blush at their own disorders. Lamartine, having mounted
upon the terrace of the little garden which commands the
quay and the Rue de Bourgogne, to judge of the number and
528 CONTRITION OF SOME OF THE POPULACE.
dispositions of the people without, was received with applause
and cries of “Long live Lamartime !”
Re-entering the halls which face the enclosure, and im-
mersed in the groups which, like agitated waves, were in
incessant motion, he was unassailed by any outrage.
“Speak to us! advise us! assist us!” cried these men,
with minds perplexed by uncertainty. “Fear nothing, we
will throw our arms over you, and avert the daggers from
your breast !” t
His reply to them was dictated by calmness, but severity.
He indicated to them by gestures the scandalous scenes by
which the interior was being violated, and the certain ven-
geance of the departments, thus outraged in their represen-
tatives, and the inevitable civil war, if they did not of their own
accord restrain themselves, by retiring, and signing an act of
repentance and reparation to the Assembly. These words
everywhere found echoes. The people appeared to ask nothing
but to depart and repair their fault. A small number only of
demagogues and infuriated agents of the clubs continued to
prolong the tumult, and carried Louis Blanc in triumph from
hall to hall, accompanied by Barbès and Albert.
Louis Blanc, whatever may have been said since, appeared
more humiliated than pleased with these triumphs, submitted
to, rather than obtained, over public decency. Lamartine,
who was perpetually elbowed in this vortex of riot by the
ovations of his ancient colleague and adversary, heard from
the bosom of the crowd many of the addresses of Louis
Blanc. These expressions breathed joy at beholding the
number and enthusiasm of the Socialists impose respect upon
their enemies, and assume the stamp of the irresistible power
of public opinion ; but while congratulating them, he con-
jured them to retire, to moderate themselves, and to restore
liberty to the general body of the representatives of the
people. General Courtais, as he passed from group to group,
did not cease to address to them the same earnest exhortations.
But while Lamartine, from hall to hall, harangued the
crowd, more and more influenced by his voice, the chiefs of
the clubs were disputing for the tribune, which they mounted,
and read petitions and speeches from it.
Blanqui, in the midst of the applause of his followers, ac-
tuated by a fatal rivalry for popularity, called to it his
RIOTERS TAKE THE HôTEL DE VILLE. 529
enemy, Barbès, up to that time, more an adversary, than an
accomplice, of the seditious.
At last, a more enterprising conspirator, named Huber, a
face recognized in all the ultra-agitations of the people since
the days of February, proclaimed the dissolution of the national
representatives and the revolutionary government.
Applauded by the hordes which were pressing round the
tribune, this motion was proclaimed from mouth to mouth, as
a decree of the people. The members of the Assembly dis-
persed, to seek justice and vengeance in the bosom of the
national guard and the people really representing Paris. The
rioters, preceded by Barbès and their accomplices, marched
in column upon the Hôtel de Ville, took possession of it
without resistance, and encompassed themselves with eight
thousand armed men, some accomplices, and others seduced
by the triumph of the factions.
At this moment, Ledru Rollin, retained by the insurgents
in a porter's lodge of the palace, and Solicited to follow them
to the Hôtel de Ville, and there accept the place which they
had decreed him in this government, resisted them obstinately,
and declared that he would never allow a power to be imposed
upon him which had been gained by a seditious movement
over the national representatives.
At the same moment, Lamartine, pressed by a tumultuous
crowd into the hall of conference, harangued the people,
who were beginning to retire at his command. The move-
ment of retreat, which was executed after the proclama-
tion for the dissolution of the Assembly, interrupted his dis-
COUIPS6.
A group of six or eight good citizens, who had mingled
among the people to influence and restrain them, Surrounded
Lamartine, and conducted him across the garden into the
palace of the presidency, then in course of construction.
They made him ascend to the builder's office. The doors
were closed, and some courageous workmen were placed as
Sentinels at the foot of the staircase, to turn the multitude
aside, should they chance to present themselves. The reso-
lution was taken to await, in the very heart of the National
Assembly, the movement, which was about to consummate
or to repress the outrage of the day. -
“If,” said Lamartine, to his unknown friends, “we do
2 M
530 GENERAL COURTAIS ARRESTED.
not hear the drum beat to arms on the other side of the
river, I shall sleep to-night at Vincennes, or be shot!”
“This will not endure so long,” cried these young men,
indignantly; “it is impossible that France should, for three
hours, endure such a parody on government.”
Lamartine, exhausted in voice, and streaming with per-
spiration, sat down at a little table, on which the workmen
had, from forgetfulness, left a bottle of wine. They drank to
the approaching deliverance of the republic.
General Courtais, informed of the asylum to which Lamar-
tine had retired, knocked at the door of the cabinet. He
was ushered in. Nothing in his features or his language
betrayed the open joy or even the secret satisfaction of an
accomplice; on the contrary, everything in him revealed
the disorder and consternation of a man wavering between
two dangers—that of failing in his duty to the represen-
tatives, or of shedding the first blood after a revolution,
thus far without stain. Courtais asked counsel of Lamartine
before these eight witnesses. He advised him to make his
escape by the gardens, put himself at the head of the first
legion which he could assemble, and march on the palace to re-
establish the Assembly. He thanked him, drank a glass of wine
as he stood, and rushed forth to the performance of his duty.
An instant after he returned. His general's uniform had
caused him to be surrounded by the people, who inundated
the gardens and courts, and closed all the outlets. Lamar-
tine counselled him to make a last effort. The general again
descended, cleared the rioters, and attempted to get out by
the Rue de Bourgogne. But while he was seeking a method
of rejoining and assuming the command of his legions, these,
roused, of their own accord, by public rumours and the emis-
saries of Lamartine and his colleagues at the Luxembourg,
marched, and proceeded to arrest, with but little delay, their
own general.
One vast murmur, issuing from the people, ascended from
below to the asylum, in which Lamartine was counting the
minutes with his friends. A gloomy and unbroken silence
reigned over the remainder of Paris. With their ears glued to
the windows, they were yet unable to discover what would
follow this silence. The conspirators had, it was said, ten
thousand armed accomplices, and cannon at the Hôtel de
THE INSURGENTS DISPERSED, 531
Wille. The bureau of the minister of the interior had been
taken, and that of the minister of war abandoned. The
national guard was without a general officer to command it.
They were floating between the strangest events. Every-
thing was possible at such a moment.
Suddenly, a rush of feet, rapid, as in a charge, from some
as yet invisible body, beating the ground on both banks of
the Seine, comes striking upon the ear. At this sound a bat-
talion of the garde mobile, imprisoned in the gardens of the
presidency which command the quay, rushed to arms, and
formed in order of battle under the walls of the palace.
Lamartine issued from his retreat with his friends, descended
the staircase, traversed the building, and passing by a win-
dow, along a plank, thrown to serve as a bridge from the
palace to the garden, precipitated himself into the ranks of
the mobile guards, by whom he was received with cries of
“Long live Lamartine ! Long live the re resentatives of the
nation l’
He returned with them and the national guards into the
palace. The insurgents, who filled the interior of the halls,
courts, and gardens, dispersed by the outlets before the
bayonets. The representatives, brought back by the detach-
ments of the legions, resumed their places. Lamartine, half-
stifled by the crowds which encumbered the halls and corri-
dors, was carried as far as the first steps of the tribune. He
mounted there in the midst of cries of “The National
Assembly for ever !” “Lamartine for ever!” He waited
for a long time until the clattering of arms should subside,
and a certain number of representatives take their places.
“Citizens,” he then exclaimed, “the first duty of the
National Assembly, returning free within these walls, under
the protection of bayonets, is to vote the gratitude of the
country to the national guard, to the mobile guard, and to
the army.” This proposition was ratified by applause.
“But we should be wanting in our first duty,” continued
he, “if in this public mark of gratitude we did not include
the immense majority of the population of Paris, who, indig-
nant at the scandals which for a moment dishonoured these
precincts, have risen in mass to re-establish the representa-
tives.
“But, citizens, in the urgent circumstances in which we
2 M 2
532 SPEECH OF M. LAMARTINE.
are involved, the tribune is not the place for the politician
whom you have appointed to watch, with his colleagues,
over the safety of the country. While a government of
faction—while a government of violence, momentarily sub-
stituted for the great and unanimous expression of the uni-
versal choice of the people, seeks elsewhere a seat of govern-
ment which will tumble to pieces at their feet, our course is
to go to the Hôtel de Ville.
“I will not say to you, that the moments are precious, for
I have, like you, the confidence and the conviction that the
more time the people of Paris have for reflection, the more they
will blush for the outrage committed on you ! In presence of
the terrible misunderstanding which may spring up between
the departments, isolated in the persons of their representa-
tives, and Paris, the guardian of the safety of the Assembly,
we must bethink ourselves. Well! we are going; we, I say,
in the name of that government which you a few days since
proclaimed ; we are going, assisted, unanimously, by the
national guard, by the garde mobile, and by that army
which it is impossible to keep apart from them ; we are
going to unite with the members of the government, who are
all, I doubt not, animated by the same indignation, the same
sentiments, with me; yes! even those whom the suffrage of
the factions has attempted to dishonour, we go to ratify at
the earliest moment the approving shouts with which you
have just nominated with enthusiasm the brave chief of the
national guard, citizen Clement Thomas.” (Applause.)
“Citizens! yet, one word; one single word.
“At such a moment, the government is no longer in coun-
cil; the place of the government is at your head, citizens,
and national guards! its place is upon the battle-field ! Let
us march 1”
The hall resounded with acclamations. The soldiers and
the national guard raised their bayonets towards the tribune,
as if to make a rampart for the representatives. Lamartine
descended, and advanced towards Ledru Rollin, who had
just entered the hall, and Said to him : “Let us march to the
Hôtel de Wille. Your name has been placed on the roll of
the government of the insurrection ; give the lie to the in-
surgents, by marching with me against them l’ -
The two members of the government went out, accom-
MARCH OF THE NATI () NAL GUARDS, 533
panied by a crowd of mobile guards, representatives, and
citizens; among whom were M. Murat, the son of the hero
of Naples; Morny, and Falloux, men who thirst for action
Arrived at the quay, Lamartine threw himself on a dragoon's
horse; and the horse of an officer was brought to Ledru
Rollin. A battalion of the 10th legion of national guards,
among whom, in the dress of private soldiers, are to be
distinguished the sons of the first families of the French
aristocracy, formed around them.
A battalion of the mobile guard followed them. The
regiment of dragoons, commanded by the brave Colonel
Goyon, took the head of the column, and the advance began
along the quays to the cries of, “Long live the National
Assembly 1° “War with the insurgents 1”
The column, though of invincible energy, was weak in
numerical strength, and it was proposed to await the accession
of other forces. Lamartine was opposed to this, certain that,
in a revolution, time lost counts more than expected forces can
profit. In the midst of the tumult of voices, of cries, of
counsels, clattering sabres and bayonets, which pressed around
his horse, he bore in mind the 9th Thermidor, when the
party of Robespierre, although the most numerous, was
crushed in that same Hôtel de Ville, by his inactivity, and
by the rapid resolution of the Convention and of Barras. He
knew Barbès to be a man of action ; he did not doubt
ut that, already surrounded by seven or eight thousand
accomplices, he would have, if three hours only were left
to sedition, a revolutionary army and government in the
evening.
General Courtais had just been insulted, dismissed, and
made prisoner by his soldiers, deceived and indignant at his
inaction, which they believed the result of calculation.
General Tampour had been separated from his battalions
throughout the day, and it was not known if he was in
freedom. The absent government were sitting at the Luxem-
bourg, assailed by a detachment of rioters, to whom Arago,
Garnier Pagès, and Marie opposed a firm and triumphant
resistance. The bureau of the minister of war was deserted.
No minister, no general, was invested with the universal,
rapid, and decisive command necessary at a moment of such
extremity. Lamartine took upon him the dictatorship com-
534 THE COMMAND OF PARIS IS GIVEN TO GENERAL BEDEAU,
manded by this total eclipse of regular military powers.
He sent for four pieces of cannon, to force, if necessary, the
gates of the Hôtel de Ville. Ledru Rollin and himself
agreed, at a word and on horseback, to give verbally the
command of Paris to General Bedeau, for whom they sent
a messenger, on the quay of the Louvre. Meanwhile the unani-
mous enthusiasm which prevailed, guided, excited, and regu-
lated the column of attack, which increased while marching.
Every door poured forth a combatant the more into its ranks.
From every window proceeded applause, invocations, and
blessings, indicated by the hands of women, old men, and
children, upon the avengers of the representatives of the
nation. Paris, in consternation, shuddered at the triumph of
the demagogues, for a moment victorious, and of whom the
anticipated excesses were compared, in the imagination of
the people, with the crimes of 1793. So sudden a return of
courage, added to the probability of its being attended with
success to the good citizens, elevated the heart, and made the
soul burst forth in invocations and transports.
Upon arriving at the upper end of the Place Saint Michel,
the head of the column was stopped, forced back for a
moment by the masses which obstructed the corner of the
Place de Grève and the quay. Some dragoons came to am-
nounce that the Hôtel de Ville was formidably defended,
that the conspirators had cannon, and that they perceived at
the windows preparations for murderous discharges upon the
column when it should debouche from the quay in front of
the building. Lamartine sent to tell the general to order a
second column to advance by the streets parallel with the quay
and which open, from the side opposite to the river, upon the
square, the same system of manoeuvring as that of the 9th
of Thermidor, when Bourdon de l’Oise marched upon Robes-
pierre by these lateral streets, while Barras marched by the
quay.
After a moment bestowed on the execution of this move—
ment, Lamartine and his colleagues entered the Place de
Grève on horseback, at the head of the column of attack,
to the cries of “Long live the national representatives!” A.
confused movement separated them. The artillerymen and
national guards who surrounded Lamartime conjured him
to dismount, lest, being elevated above the crowd, he should
ASSAULT OF THE HôTEL DE VILLE. 535,
be chosen as a mark for the discharges which were expected
to be received at the foot of the building. “No, no l’ cried
Lamartine; “if any one must fall for the cause of the
National Assembly, I will be the first l” and he passed the
square, under a curtain of bayonets, Sabres, and flags. His
horse walked no longer; it was lifted up and carried as far
as the court of the palace. Not a shot had been fired.
The national guards, who had preceded the head of the
column, and the garde mobile, rushed to the assault of the
staircases. They carried them immediately, without resist-
ance on the part of Barbès and his accomplices. It was a
scene of the greatest confusion, but not a combat. What was
passing above was not known below. It was expected that
there would be some tragical scenes of desperate resistance,
murders, and suicides, such as marked the arrest of Heriot or
Couthon. The crowd was so dense in the court that La-
martine was unable to dismount. “Speak to us; speak to
us!” cried they, extending their hands and arms towards
him.
“Citizens,” exclaimed Lamartine, “the first tribune in the
world is the saddle of a horse, when thus one re-enters the
palace of the people, Surrounded by such an escort of good
citizens, armed to crush the demagogue factions, and to re-
instate, with your assistance, the true republic, and the
‘representatives of the nation.”
Lamartine, after these words, was almost carried upon the
arms of the mobile and national guards, and citizens, across
the vestibules, staircases, and corridors, as far as a small hall,
on the first story, in which the same concourse of people, the
Same tumult, the same arms, and the same exaltation pre-
vailed.
Some of the leaders of the insurrection, including Barbès,
who had been seduced to become their accomplice, were already
shut up in a neighbouring apartment. They had made no
resistance ; the promptitude of the resolution, and the rapidity
of the march of the column of attack, directed by the two
members of the government, had not allowed the conspirators
time to increase their number, call their partisans, or orga-
nize their defence. The five or six thousand men who had
entered the Hôtel de Ville with them, had disbanded and
dispersed at the sight of the first companies of the national
536 CONSPIRATORS SENT TO WINCENNES.
guard, horse and foot, and the dragoons of Colonel Goyon,
an active officer, who had tact enough to know when to
give orders on his own responsibility, and was adored by his
regiment.
They assembled in a tumultuous council in that hall of
revolutions—the Hôtel de Ville. Their triumph was but
one of two hours' duration. These they had employed in
forming themselves, by a sort of popular ballot, into a collec-
tive revolutionary dictatorship, composed of Barbès, Louis
Blanc, Albert, Blanqui, Raspail, Huber, Sobrier, Proudhon,
Pierre Leroux, and Cabet.
It was the government of the clubs proscribing the govern-
ment of the nation; the coalition of sects against the repre-
sentatives of the country. Many of the members of this
government were ignorant even that their names had been
usurped. Lamartine and Ledru Rollin signed in revolu-
tionary form, and without any other title than the urgency
of the case, and for the vindication of the public, the order
to arrest the conspirators present, and to conduct them to
Vincennes.
But the immense armed crowd, which was every minute
pressing into the square, and the indignation of the people of
Paris, increased by horror at the attempt so suddenly re-
pressed, caused apprehension to Ledru Rollin, Lamartine;
and Marrast, lest the guilty parties should not be able to pass)
during the day through the excited streets with impunity.
They did not wish that a revolution, as yet pure, should cause
one drop to be shed, even of the blood of those who had de-
sired to corrupt and stain it. They knew that the worst of
corruptions for a people is that which springs from blood shed
under their own eyes; with the concurrence, therefore, of
M. Marrast, who had intrepidly remained, although imprisoned
by the insurrection, in the Hôtel de Ville, they judiciously
provided against that danger by ordering the prisoners not
to be conducted to Vincennes until a late hour of the night,
and then under a strong escort.
These measures being taken, the tumultuous crowd in the
palace so much increased in number, as to separate the two
members of the government.
Lamartine hastened to encourage the national representatives,
who still continued sitting. During the few moments which
TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 537
he had passed at the Hôtel de Ville, the square and quays
had become covered with the bayonets of all the legions
of Paris. Of the two horses which he had sent for from
home during the march of the column, one, ridden by M.
de Forbin Janson, had been stopped, together with that
brave volunteer, who had been mistaken for one of the insur-
gents, and thrown into prison. The other, which had been
ridden by a young national guard, M. Gullemateau, had
thrown its rider on the Pont Neuf. This horse had been
brought to the square by a dragoon. Lamartine, almost
overwhelmed, upon quitting the Hôtel de Ville, by the enthu-
siastic rush of the national guards and people towards him,
and seeking for a horse to escape from the crowd, and thus
breathe more freely when elevated above the multitude in which
he was immersed, as he passed along the front of the dragoon
regiment, recognized his steed, and sprang into the Saddle.
He returned to the National Assembly by the quays.
Groups of people, intoxicated by this victory of the true
republic over an anarchy of a few hours duration, surrounded
him, with huzzas and acclamations. Artillerymen held the
bridle of his horse. He was followed by a retinue of mounted
national guards, dragoons, and citizens, all successively shout-
ing, applauding, pressing his hands, and touching his clothes.
The footways, the approach to the bridges, the windows,
roofs, and terraces of the Louvre and Tuileries, were
covered with men of all conditions, women, and children,
clapping their hands as he passed along, shedding tears,
waving handkerchiefs from a distance, and throwing flowers
on his horse. Continually-renewed shouts of “Vive la Ré-
publique !” “ Vive l'Assemblée Wationale !” “Viva ſa-
martine !” accompanied him from the steps of the Hôtel de
Ville to the steps of the Chamber of Deputies. The name of
a private citizen was adopted as the symbol of restored order,
and that name, after being thus raised to the highest pinnacle
of popularity, fell, a few days afterwards, into the lowest
depth of public disfavour. Of all triumphs, that which most
elated the French people, was the triumph over anarchy.
Lamartine, on alighting from his horse, immediately
ascended the tribune. He announced to the Assembly that
its authority was once more paramount, and that the govern-
ment was about to take measures for punishing the outrage,
538 REBELLIOUS MONTAGNARDS,
and preventing any attempt to renew it. The Assembly
broke up amidst cries of “Vive la République !” The national
guards of the banlieues and of the departments adjacent to the
capital, voluntarily thronged into Paris during that night and
the following morning, determined to avenge the representa-
tives, should it be deemed necessary to do so. During the
night, the government having assembled at the Luxembourg,
regulated this movement, interrogated the prefect of police,
Caussidière, ordered the arrest of the leaders of the seditious
movement, and appointed M. Clement Thomas commander-in-
chief of the national guards of Paris. Those generals whose
energies had been paralyzed by indecision, were superseded
by commanders more active and more popular with the army.
On the following day, the revolutionary movement, which
spread dismay through France, had left no trace behind it,
except perhaps among the Montagnards in the prefecture of
police, and in the barracks of the republican guard.
These revolutionary armed corps, which Caussidière had
under his control for the security of Paris, being wrongly in-
fluenced by their sympathy with the clubs, or ill directed by
Caussidière, had, on the preceding evening, failed in their
duty; or, to say the least, their inertness left the National
Assembly unprotected against outrage, and consigned the
Hôtel de Ville to a conspiracy. The government ordered the
expurgation of these corps. The republican guards sulkily
laid down their arms at the first command. The corps of the
Montagnards, amounting to about three thousand men, had
fortified themselves in the prefecture of police, refusing to
acknowledge any authority save that of Caussidière, threaten-
ing to maintain a desperate siege, and to shed the blood of
the national guards without mercy, should any attempt be
made to dislodge them by force. General Bedeau was con-
sequently instructed to surround the prefecture of police with
six thousand troops and twenty-five thousand national guards,
to force these rebellious Montagnards to submit and lay down
their arms.
In the morning General Bedeau invested the prefecture of
police. The national guards were highly exasperated against
these presumed accomplices or Secret partisans of the clubs;
and with loud outcries they expressed their desire to com-
mence the assault. Their cannon were pointed towards the
CAUSSIDIERE's RESIGNATION. 539
gates. These three thousand soldiers of Caussidière, who
possessed a good supply of ammunition, were resolved not to
Surrender until after a most Sanguinary struggle; and in case
of extremity, they declared their intention to blow up the
whole district in which the prefecture was situated.
Caussidière, who, at two o'clock, was a second time sum-
moned before the executive commission, refused to tender his
resignation voluntarily. He held an ambiguous strain of
language, in which obedience was artfully blended with me-
nace, and veiled beneath equivocal expressions and gestures.
Only on the preceding day, Lamartine had been of opinion
that it would be right to retain Caussidière in his post. He
had considered him to be a useful and brave man, and one
who, by his good sentiments and his ambition, might be
easily won by the friends of order to join their party in the
republic. Lamartine now no longer hesitated. He went out
with Caussidière, and having stepped into the carriage with
him, they both drove off in the direction of the prefecture of
the police. On the way Lamartine represented the danger
of Caussidière's position, and the immense, responsibility that
devolved on him. He pointed out the absolute necessity of
tendering his resignation, and the high estimation in which
he would be held, if he succeeded, as he must do, in obtaining
the Submission of his troops without bloodshed.
Caussidière knew that of all the members of the government,
Tamartine, though wholly unacquainted with his previous
revolutionary career, was the one who had placed most
confidence in him, and had been most disposed to support
him. He yielded then to Lamartine's representations,
urged as they were with a warmth of interest to which no
suspicion could attach. He authorized Lamartine to convey
his resignation to the government, and he pledged himself to
exert his utmost efforts to dissolve the corps of Montagnards.
Tamartine, who was at that time the idol of the national
guard of Paris and the departments, promised to suspend the
attack on the prefecture, and to dispose the citizens to show
indulgence to the besieged.
Whilst crossing the Pont Michel, the carriage, which con-
veyed the two negotiators, came in contact with a corps of
national guards, blockading the prefecture. Having recog-
nized Lamartine, they forced him out of the carriage, and
540 GENERAL CAVAIGNAC.
gathered round him, with enthusiastic acclamations. When
at length he succeeded in getting across the bridge, he
harangued the guards and exhorted them to concord. The
guards, then breaking from the ranks, rushed to him, shout-
ing “Vive Lamartine !” To escape from these enthusiastic
greetings, he turned down a side street; but was followed
by the national guards, whom he at length eluded by entering
a printing-office. Some officers, who accompanied him, bar-
ricaded the doors on the inside, thus stemming the tide of
enthusiasm poured forth by the national guards and the
populace. Lamartine now summoned in succession several of
the commanding officers of the guards, and directed them to
circulate in the ranks intelligence of a proximate arrange-
ment. The irritation of the assailants was quelled; whilst
Caussidière, on his part, reasoned with and appeased the
Montagnards. The result was, that General Bedeau dis-
Solved them, without concession on his part or resistance on
theirs. The blood of Paris was thus once more spared. The
events of the 15th of May had the effect of inspiring the
National Assembly with increased confidence, and the go-
vernment with renewed energy. We were still Sailing
against adverse winds, but the helm was held by firmer hands. .
General Cavaignac, on his arrival in Paris, was installed
in the post of minister of the war department, which, as has
already been mentioned, was reserved for him. He entered
upon the duties of his office with that firm though modest
confidence which denotes a man's consciousness of his own
capability. Lamartine foresaw the struggles which must
inevitably ensue for the establishment of the republic, which
at its birth had been placed between two classes of enemies.
He scanned Cavaignac's character at a glance, and he doubted
not that he was the man to whom the preservation of the
republic might be intrusted. He, therefore, urged the gene-
ral to take advantage of the popularity of his name, and to
demand that the government should provide disciplined
forces sufficient to defend the National Assembly against the
expected movements of factions. It was estimated that
Paris alone would supply about fifty-five thousand bayonets,
viz. fifteen thousand of the mobile guards, two thousand six
hundred of the republican guards (picked men and reorgan-
ized), two thousand and fifty of the force called gardiens de
UNANIMITY IN THE GOVERNMENT. 541
Paris, and twenty thousand troops of the line in bar-
racks. In addition to all these there were fifteen thousand
troops of the line in the Paris division, which in case of
necessity might be brought in a few hours to the scene of
action.
These military precautions, more than sufficient, were
urgently insisted on by Lamartine, and did not meet with any
opposition in the council. Every one seemed, with equal
sincerity, desirous that the republic should be strongly armed
against anarchy, the greatest danger to which rising repub-
lics are exposed. It was still imagined abroad that dissen-
sion and division existed among the members of the govern-
ment, and especially between Lamartine and Ledru Rollin;
but these disagreements had had no existence since the great
act of concord which rallied round the National Assembly the
three principal shades of republican government, with the
exception of the Socialists. All the members of the govern-
ment and all the ministers unanimously felt that they had the
same duty and the same interest of ambition in faithfully
serving the republic, the government, and the Assembly. The
great and decided differences which, before and since that
period, separated the opinions and sentiments of Lamartine
from the opinions and sentiments of his colleagues, must not
be suffered to discolour the truth of history. Lamartine did
not then observe a single symptom denoting anything but the
most perfect identity of views and the most sincere concur-
rence of efforts for the regular consolidation of the republic.
There was no alliance, but there was no division.
The same feeling of unity did not prevail among certain
agents of the administration, and members of the National
Assembly around the government. Their conduct betrayed
a sectarian spirit, a proneness to personal proselytism, and a
desire to monopolize the republic in their own hands and in
the hands of their friends. Their spirit of proselytism was
marked by narrow-minded jealousy, and was altogether at
variance with the real spirit of the government. It did not
escape the notice of Lamartine, that the administrative
appointments were concerted and determined on beforehand
in meetings of the government. These appointments were
often adverse to his views; but as he was indifferent with
respect to individuals, and had no desire for personal ascend-
542 REVIEW IN THE CHAMP DE MARS.
ancy, he affected not to observe, for the sake of avoiding
disagreement. {
The review prepared by the government in honour of the
National Assembly, which had been postponed in conse-
quence of the seditious outbreak of the 15th of May, took
place on the 21st of that month, in the Champ de Mars.
Three hundred thousand bayonets, and ten thousand sabres,
entwined with flowers, defiled in front of the platform occu-
pied by the Assembly, the ministers, and the members of
the government. Unanimous shouts of “Vive l'Assemblée
Mationale et la République !” resounded from eight in the
morning until might. This was the adoption of the Assembly
by the people, by the army, and by the national guards,-
the consecration of the republican sovereignty.
This festival impressed the representatives of the people
with a consciousness of their inviolability, and it enabled the
nation to feel its own power. Lamartine, who was present,
received a few acclamations and a few crowns of oak from
the national guards and the people of the departments; but
already his popularity, as rapid in its fall as it had been slow
in its rise, was vanishing beneath the resentment of the
friends of fallen monarchy, the ingratitude of the proletaries,
and the menacing agitations of the nationai workshops. The
friends of monarchy reproached him for not having restored
the throne, and the others blamed him for not having reduced
the National Assembly to their yoke, and given up society
to their sway.
It must be confessed that the government stood in a false
position,--a position, nevertheless, which there had been no
possibility of avoiding. It wanted unity; but the necessity
of refraining, at the outset, from any steps which might have
the effect of dividing the republic into two hostile parties,
rendered the immediate restoration of unity impossible.
Every collective government is feeble, undecided, and vacil-
lating, because it is irresponsible : collective responsibility is
anonymous, and anonymous responsibility has no existence.
Doubtless if, at that time, one man only had been at the
head of the executive authority, he would have been able to
foresee, to determine, and to act with a degree of energy
greatly superior to that of the five men who were obliged to
be guided by their united intelligence and opinions. Of this
DiFFICULT POSITION OF TEIE GOVERNMENT. 543
fact these five men were fully conscious. Moreover, they
felt themselves pressed, on the one hand, by the National
Assembly, which demanded the re-establishment of order
without delay; and on the other hand by the convulsive
events of a great revolution, which required them to act with
the utmost prudence and caution, for fear of bringing about a
catastrophe which there was not sufficient force to resist.
The government therefore was not and could not be anything
but a temporary power painfully exercised by those who had
accepted the ungrateful and impossible mission. To fill up
the lapse of a month or two between the revolution ended,
and the constitutional power vigorously commenced; to be
responsible for the National Assembly in the eyes of the
people, and to be answerable for the people to the National
Assembly (thus dissatisfying both); to struggle with daily
renewing difficulties; to prepare the elements of power for
the future government; to resist the assaults of factions
rendered desperate by the installation of the national sove-
reignty; to see the approach of menacing insurrections, and
to delay taking steps for their repression until the day when
they should break out ; to bear the burthen of ingratitude in
defeat, or the pain of ingratitude in victory;-such was the
part traced out for this government of temporization. It
was a part which could be endurable only to those who had
formed an erroneous estimate of it beforehand; and whose
alleged ambition was nothing less than a voluntary and
meritorious sacrifice of their popularity,+a martyrdom of
their names.
I will not therefore dwell on the acts of the executive
commission. Those acts interposed with energy, vigilance,
and disinterestedness, though often ineffectually, between
popular insurrection and the Assembly. Meanwhile a cloud
which had gathered before the eyes of the government be-
tokened an impending storm. It was the national workshops.
The frequenters of these workshops formed altogether a
body of one hundred and twenty thousand men. Among
them was a considerable proportion of idlers and turbulent
agents, the deposit of misery, vagrancy, vice, and sedition left
by a population of thirty-six millions, when the tide of revo-
lution began to ebb.
But in feeding this mass of indigence during four months’
544 THE NATIſ) NAL WORKSHOPS.
idleness of an industrial multitude, accumulated in a revolu-
tionized capital, the provisional government did not, as has
been supposed, entertain the design of making the national
workshops an established institution. They were merely the
means of administering succour—a succour dictated at once
by humanity and policy; for without that subsidy of the
rich for the support of the poor, what must have been the fate
both of wealth and poverty 2 Wealth would have been pillaged
and poverty doomed to starvation, two crimes of which a
government disposed to be just to the rich and humane to the
poor, could not make itself the instrument.
Neither did the provisional government ever close its eyes
to the fact that the day would come when this temporary
system must be changed, the mass dissolved, and the idle,
imperious, and paid multitude dispersed through other parts of
the country, and employed in useful works. It was evident
that, whenever that day should arrive, it would bring with it
resistance, conflict, Sedition, perhaps bloodshed.
For this event the executive commission was silently pre-
paring. But before exposing the Assembly to meet the
difficulty, the commission had a double duty to perform.
First, for the purpose of mitigating the shock, it was advisa-
ble to offer in other parts of the country such a rate of wages
as would draw great numbers of workmen away from Paris;
to provide employment on a very enlarged scale; to make
liberal laws in reference to pauperism, and to manifest an
earnest intention to afford assistance to real distress. Secondly,
it was necessary to meet the difficulty with vigorous means—
to provide an irresistible armed force to dissolve the last
nucleus which might attempt to resist the law, and set up
inexcusable idleness as a pretext for rebellion.
Some members of the executive commission were actively
engaged in carrying out the first part of this twofold duty,
and their efforts were aided by M. Trélat, a minister well
known and beloved by the suffering portion of the population.
Lamartine and the minister of the war department devoted
themselves to the second part of the task.
But the members of the National Assembly who had recently
arrived from the departments were excited by men hostile to
the republic. These members had been eyewitnesses of the
Scandalous vagrancy of that nomade army of workmen, and
M. TROUVE CHAUVEL. 545
knowing but little of the difficulties attending the situation of
the capital, they could form no idea of the temporization and
caution requisite for bringing about a dissolution without a
catastrophe. They consequently became impatient at the
tardy proceedings of the commission. The journals favourable
to monarchy were continually asserting that the members of
the provisional government, being thwarted in their ambition
by the presence of the national sovereignty, were fostering and
paying this army of pauperism, for the purpose of annoying
and intimidating the representative body, and by a visible
menace subjecting it to their culpable desire of rule.
The Assembly was not slow in lending faith to these
calumnies. Whilst the government was making the most
assiduous exertions, and devising the most prudent means of
disbanding, without bloodshed, the pauper legions, whose ex-
istence it deplored, and whose excesses it was seeking to check,
the Assembly regarded the principal members of that govern-
ment as the perverse accomplices of Sedition. Lamartine and
Ledru Rollin were most particularly the objects of this suspi-
cion. Their simultaneous presence in the Assembly, notwith-
standing their well-known variance of opinion respecting the
character to be impressed on the republic at its outset, was
cited as the proof of an odious alliance, in which they had
sacrificed their principles for the sake of combining in their
ambition.
The consequence was, that warm remonstrances were made,
and rash motions proposed in the Assembly. These being
unseasonably bruited abroad, furnished a text, which the
clubs, the demagoguic journals, and the mob orators made use
of in their turn for calumniating the National Assembly and
irritating the populace against the alleged selfishness of the
bourgeoisie.
The anti-republican feelings and ambitious views, concealed
under the disguise of dynastic denominations, also concurred
in promoting the demoralization and Sedition which were
becoming more and more manifest in the national workshops in
proportion as the time approached for breaking them up. The
prefect of police, M. Trouvé Chauvel, was a man unused to
the difficult duties of the post he filled ; but he was ener-
getic, indefatigable, impartially hostile to every faction; and
he was earnestly but calmly devoted to the interests of the
2 N -
546 THE BONAPARTISTS.
country. He did not conceal from himself the dangers which
each succeeding day brought forth. He observed the first
rise of a new faction—a faction which seemed disposed to
grow with the germ of the young republic, so that it might
either blend with it or destroy it.
This was the Bonapartist faction, which was understood to
have numerous agents in the national workshops. Were
these agents paid by voluntary Subsidies emanating from
personal regard for the memory of the emperor, or were
they merely instigated by their own fanaticism in favour of a
great name 2 Did these persons promulgate the principles of
a sect, or were they simply diffusing the natural and spon-
taneous propagandism of a thought living in the memory of
the people, and roused at a time when the popular mind was
powerfully excited ? There appears good reason to conclude
that the immense popularity of the name of Napoleon con-
stituted the whole conspiracy; but this popularity, betrayed
in shouts of “Vive l'Empereur !” and in avowed aspira-
tions for a military dictatorship, proclaimed by demagoguism,
became a menace to the republic. Numerous crowds, which
collected every evening on the boulevards, were harangued
by the partisans of Napoleon. The government ordered the
mobile guard and the national guard to act with energy in
dispersing these crowds; nevertheless, they continued to
assemble. M. Clement Thomas, the commander-in-chief of
the national guard, risked his person and his life in the
midst of these assemblages, to whom he frequently addressed
remonstrances. The government then interposed its autho-
rity, and proclaimed the law against Seditious meetings. In
the course of one night only, M. Clement Thomas arrested
five hundred of these agitators. The mobs ceased to assemble;
but the double leaven of sedition which lay concealed in the
factions of the Bonapartists and the proletaries, did not cease
to poison the spirit of the national workshops.
Lamartine felt the danger, and he resolved to oppose it
with energy before it should acquire irresistible force. He
was an enemy to proscription, but he was not adverse to
vigorous precautions, which, by the temporary removal of an
individual, may preserve an institution or a nation. He
anticipated his colleagues in proposing a decree tending to
maintain the ostracism of Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte
PRINCE LOUIS NAPOLEON. 547
during the foundation of the republic. Of all the members
of that proscribed dynasty, Prince Louis enjoyed the greatest
share of popular favour. He was the heir to the imperial
throne by virtue of a senatus consultum, and at a time when
he was but little known, and ill understood in France, he had
sought to establish his claim to that throne by two enterprises,
which conferred celebrity on his name, and doomed him to exile.
All the members of the government, sharing Lamartine's
solicitude for the republic, signed the decree, and Lamartine
carried it to the Assembly, with the intention of reading it
at the close of the sitting. A discussion relative to some
affairs of the interior caused him unexpectedly to mount the
tribune. Whilst he was replying to a speech from one of the
opposition members, it was announced that mobs of Bona-
partist rioters had assembled on the Place de la Concorde;
that a musket-shot fired at Clement Thomas, the commander-
in-chief of the national guard, had missed its aim, but had
entered the hand of one of the officers. Lamartine's indig-
nation was roused, and pausing in his speech, he drew from
his bosom the decree for the temporary proscription of Louis
Napoleon. Laying it on the tribune, he thus addressed the
Assembly:—
| “Citizens, a fatal occurrence caused me to pause in the
discourse which I was just now in the act of delivering to
you. Whilst I was speaking of the conditions to be ob-
served for the restoration of order, and of the guarantees we
are all disposed to offer for the consolidation of government,
a musket-shot (several musket-shots, it is said,) has been
fired. One was aimed at the commandant of the national
guards, another at one of the brave officers of the army, and
a third, it is alleged, has struck an officer of the national
guard. These shots were fired amidst cries of “Vive
& Empereur !’ -
“Gentlemen, this is the first drop of blood which has
stained the pure and glorious revolution of the 24th of
February. To the honour of the populace 1 to the honour of
the different parties of the republic this blood at least has
not been shed by their hands ! Neither has it flowed in the
name of liberty, but in the name of the fanaticism of mili-
tary recollections, and of an opinion naturally, though per-
haps involuntarily, hostile to every republic. -
* 2 N 2
548 DECREE OF PROSCRIPTION.
“Citizens, whilst deploring with you the misfortune which
has just occurred, the government has taken the precaution of
standing prepared—as far at least as it can stand prepared
—against events of this nature. This very morning, only
an hour before we assembled here, we unanimously signed a
declaration, which we proposed to read to you at the close
of this sitting, but which the circumstance that has just
transpired forces me to read to you immediately. When in-
solent faction is taken in the very act of turpitude; when it
is detected with its hand imbrued in French blood, the law
must be enforced with common accord. (Unanimous applause.)
“The declaration I am about to have the honour to read to
the Assembly,” pursued Lamartine, “has reference only to the
execution of an existing law. But this declaration is
necessary for legalizing the authority which may be called
into execution to-morrow ; it is indispensable as a pre-
paration for deliberating on another proposition referring to
the same subject, and which must be discussed to-morrow or
the day after ; it is necessary, moreover, that the National
Assembly should know the intentions of the executive com-
mission with regard to Charles Louis Bonaparte. \
“Here then is the substance of the decree which we pro-
pose to you :—
“The commission of the executive authority, bearing in
view Article III. of the law of the 13th of January,
“Considering that Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is
comprehended in the law of 1832, which exiles from the
French territory the members of the Bonaparte family;
“Considering that though there have been, in fact, excep-
tions to this law by the vote of the National Assembly, which
has admitted three members of that family to form part of the
Assembly; yet those exceptions were merely individual, and
did not extend either by right or in fact to other members of
the same family;
“Considering that France desires to found the republican
government in peace and order, without being disturbed in
her task by dynastic pretensions and ambitions, of a nature to
create parties and factions in the state, and consequently to
forment civil war, however undesignedly;
“Considering that Charles Louis Bonaparte has twice
placed himself in the position of a Pretender, by attempting
I).ECREE OF PROSCRIPTION, - 549
to establish a mock republic, in virtue of the Senatus con-
sultum of the year XIII. ;
“Considering, that agitations injurious to the popular
republic which we desire to found, and calculated to compro-
mise the Safety of institutions, and to disturb the public peace,
have already taken place in the name of Charles Louis Napo-
leon Bonaparte ;
“Considering that these agitations, which are symptomatic
of culpable intrigues, might be an obstacle to the pacific
establishment of the republic, if encouraged by negligence
or weakness on the part of the government;
“Considering that the government cannot make itself
responsible for the danger to which republican institutions, as
well as the public peace, would be exposed, if it were wanting
in its first duty, by failing to execute an existing law,
justified more than ever in unsettled times, by reasons of
state, and for seconding the public welfare;
“Declares—that it will enforce, as far as concerns Louis
Bonaparte, the law of 1832, until such time as the National
Assembly shall otherwise decide.”
, Here the whole Assembly rose, uttering cries of “Vive la
République !” with the exception of about eight or ten mem-
*ers of the representative body.
“You must be sensible, citizens,” resumed the speaker,
“that the emotion naturally excited in this Assembly by the
event that has just transpired, has obliged me to interrupt
and waive the greater part of the discussion which I should
have desired to open with the National Assembly. I now
come at once to the final considerations excited in my mind
by this event.
“The declaration which you have just heard, the decree
which has just been submitted to you, together with others,
marked by equal moderation and firmness, will restrain
factions, if there be any, within the boundaries of law and
order; and will, I hope, give you no cause to charge the
provisional government with weakness or neglect of its
duty. However glorious the name by which a faction in the
republic may disguise itself, we will tear aside the veil, and
show that faction in its real form.
“France has adopted the republic in earnest, and she will
defend it against every enemy.
550 THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY MAKES CONCESSION.
“Yes, I repeat, we have adopted it in earnest, and we will
defend it against every danger that may assail it, even in the
name of the most glorious and honourable recollections. We
will never suffer France to degrade herself. She shall not
degrade herself So far as to permit, as in the time of the
lower empire, that the republic should be bought, under any
name whatever, from the hands of a few noisy agitators.”
At these words the Assembly again arose, and by general
acclamations ratified the emergetic resolution of the govern-
ment.
Some days afterwards, renewed agitations of the same kind
placed the National Assembly in a difficult dilemma. The
government now resolved to stand prepared for battle, and
surrounded the Assembly with troops and cannon, convinced
that it was better to oppose the capricious demands of the
populace by armed force, than to deliver up the republic to a
faction, whose object appeared to be to substitute a name for
the people itself. But this time the Assembly yielded; thus
committing one of the few acts of weakness which marked
that stormy Session of fifteen months duration. That the
government should not have been supported by the Assembly,
in the spirited defiance it offered to two factions at once, was
a matter to be deplored. The concession on the part of
the Assembly appeased only for a day the exactions and tur-
bulence of the national workshops. The fact was that sedition
had merely changed its flag.
Lamartime, supported by M. Trouvé Chauvel and by
Admiral Casy, two men distinguished for firmness and
courage, conjured the government to resign, and to transfer
to the Assembly an authority, thenceforth enfeebled, since it
had been broken by the Assembly itself. During several
days he urged this recommendation, and at length he con-
sented to remain in his post, only till after the time fixed for
the threatened battle of the national workshops.
A few months after the time when Lamartine had demanded
the temporary removal of Louis Napoleon from the cradle of
the republic, that prince was elected to the presidency by six
millions of votes. The republicanism of the first magistrate
fortunately proved that there had been no foundation for the
apprehensions entertained by Lamartine. The latter could
not but congratulate himself on having been deceived by his
HAWS OF TRANSITION, 551
fears. He acknowledged that the people were more con-
fiding and more wise than he was himself. t
The disturbances and outrages of anarchy continued to
increase in Paris. The government sought to check them by
remonstrance and vigilance, Seconded by the efforts of the
police and the national guards. The old laws for the main-
tenance of order had been broken through and annulled; and
the republican laws had not yet been enacted. Lamartine
was convinced that the disgraceful scenes in the clubs and
public streets, together with the scandalous articles inserted
in the journals, were the strongest arms that could be wielded
by the enemies of the republic. France is a country charac-
terized by public decorum. Any violation of that decorum
she feels as an humiliation ; and that humiliation creates dis-
affection. Lamartine was of opinion that the republic could
be legitimized only by order being promptly re-established
and inflexibly maintained. It was necessary, above all
things, to set public feeling at ease.
Impressed with these ideas, he proposed that the council
would either accept his resignation, or adopt a Series of tem-
porary decrees, to which he gave the name of republican
aws of transition. Those decrees were intended to carry
out several objects of pressing urgency; such as giving
security to the public mind, placing an armed force at the
disposal of the government, and maintaining public order
during the agitation which must ever prevail in founding
new institutions, especially those of a popular character.
“For several days past,” said Lamartine, addressing his
colleagues, “the aspect of the republic has greatly distressed
me. I will not incur the responsibility attending a weak and
defenceless position of Society which may degenerate into
anarchy. I demand two things:–first, laws of public Se-
curity against Street rioting, Sedition in the clubs, the abuse
of the freedom of the press by the anarchical journals, and
for the power of removing from Paris, and sending to their
own communes, agitators convicted of disturbing the public
peace ; secondly, I demand a force of twenty thousand men,
encamped under the walls of the capital, to afford sufficient
aid to the army of Paris and the national guards in the con-
flict in which we must inevitably engage with the national
workshops, and with the still more culpable factions that may



552 MILITARY ARRANGEMENTS.
arise and make themselves masters of that phalanx of every
sort of sedition. On no other condition will I remain in the
government.”
“Neither will we l’ unanimously exclaimed his colleagues.
M. Marie, so distinguished for indefatigable energy, was ap-
pointed to draw out the plans of the decrees; and General
Cavaignac was instructed to combine the movements of his
troops in such a way, that the auxiliary division of the army
of the Alps might be able to fall back on Paris the moment
it should be ordered so to do.
The general and Lamartine had frequent consultations to-
gether relative to the military arrangements to be entered
into for averting or overcoming the growing perils of the
republic. Few days passed over in which Lamartine did not,
on leaving the council, ascertain precisely the number and the
movements of the troops which, conformably with the orders
of government, occupied the barracks or cantonments around
the capital. He, moreover, ascertained how many hours
would be required to bring these forces to the points respec-
tively assigned to them; and he made himself acquainted with
the system of defence which General Cavaignac proposed
adopt in the event of a conflict in the capital.
Lamartine, warned by the fate of former governments,
which, in revolutionary conflicts, dispersed their battalions
over all points of Paris, and brought detachments to op-
pose masses, was convinced, that a battle in a capital
containing a population of fifteen hundred thousand, must be
fought in conformity with the rules of a battle in the open
field; the only difference being that it is fought on ground
encumbered by obstructions. He conceived, then, that the
army ought to have a base of operations, a fixed centre and
wings; that each of the operating corps should be enabled to
radiate from the base, or to fall back on the centre, without
being cut off from its reserve. On this subject he had, during
an interval of three months, frequently conversed with every
general commanding a force which might eventually be
required to act in Paris. He had consulted Négricr, Bedeau,
Oudinot, and Cavaignac, and he found that their opinions on
this point concurred with his own. He therefore supported
General Cavaignac in his design of adopting that system in
preference to the contºry one, which was defended by those
who, viewing an insurrection in the light of a riot, would


THE INSURRECTION OF JUNE. 553
have persisted in attacking it at all points at the risk of Sup-
pressing it at none.
“Do not deceive yourselves,” said he, to these persons, “it
is not a riot that we have to Suppress, we have to fight a
battle; and not one battle only, but to go through a cam-
paign against these formidable factions. If the republic
desires to save itself, and with itself to defend society, it
must stand well armed during the first years of its founda-
tion ; it must dispose its troops, not only here, but over the
whole face of the country, in the anticipation of those great
civil wars, which will not be confined to districts of a capital,
but will pervade whole provinces, as in the days of Pompey
and Caesar.”
Lamartine frequently addressed inquiries relative to the
effective force of Paris to M. Charras, under-Secretary of
state for the war department, and to General Foucher.
Their answers appeared to him perfectly Satisfactory. Ca-
lumny has accused the government of negligence at this
critical juncture; but the officers and generals might, with
greater justice, have accused Lamartine of an excessive degree
of precaution. From the time of the opening of the Assem-
bly one thought alone had engrossed his mind:—it was the
franquil dissolution of the national workshops, if possible;
but, if necessary, the suppression of the insurrection by force.
That the victory might be prompt, decisive, and consequently
the less Sanguinary, it was requisite to overawe the mass of
insurgents by the mass of bayonets.
Every symptom indicated the approaching movement. It
broke out on the 22nd of June at ten at night. The govern-
ment, warned of the rioting and clamour which attended the
first steps that had been taken for distributing a portion of
the workmen through the departments, assembled at the
Tuxembourg. In the course of the evening numerous mobs
had several times assailed the palace with furious shouts of
“A bas Marie /* “A bas Lamartime !” those two members
of the government being considered most determined on the
question of the dissolution of the national workshops. The
government had appointed General Cavaignac commander-
in-chief of the troops and the national guards, with the view
of concentrating the whole plan and the unity of its execu-
tion in a single individual. Clement Thomas, no less disin-
terested than brave, readily concurred in this unity, reserving
554 FIRST SYMPTOMS OF RIOT.
to himself only the honour of obedience, abnegation, and
danger.
The night was tranquil ; it was spent in arrangements for
the attack and defence. Neither the Socialists nor the anti-
republican party joined in the insurrection either through
the agency of their leaders or their principal partisans.
These men were at the time either actually connected with
the government, or they supported it from feelings of con-
viction and hope. Everything indicated that this undecided,
feeble movement, incoherent in its principle, had been or-
ganized and paid in the heart of the national workshops
themselves. It was a plebeian and not a popular movement,
a conspiracy of Subalterns and not of chiefs, an outbreak of
Servile and not of civil war. Tamartine, by restoring con-
cord among the republicans in the council, had withdrawn
the electricity from this anti-social cloud. The body existed,
but the Soul was wanting ; therefore it was that the move-
ment miscarried, though unfortunately at the cost of too much
bloodshed. At Seven o’clock on the 23rd of June, the govern-
ment received information that mobs, forming altogether an
assemblage of from eight to ten thousand men, had collected on
the Place du Panthéon to attack the Luxembourg. Some
battalions of the 11th legion, commanded by Colonel Quinet,
together with a few battalions of the line, were ordered to
disperse these mobs. M. Arago, who was known in that
quarter of Paris, determined to proceed personally to the
Place du Panthéon. There he harangued the seditious mul-
titude, who wavered between their respect for him and their
fury against the government. At ten o'clock the crowds
dispersed, dragging in their train the starving masses of the
12th arrondissement. Amidst shouts of “To arms!” they
retired into the districts situated on the banks of the Seine,
into the faubourg Saint Antoine, and on the boulevards.
These mobs, and their seditious shouts, spread commotion
through the faubourgs; the streets were soon thronged; the
occupants of the national workshops poured down from the
barriers, and the populace, excited by Some of their armed
leaders, threw up barricades. These leaders were, for the
most part, the men who acted as brigadiers of the national
workshops, and who were agents of the seditious clubs.
They were irritated by the proposed disbandment of their
corps, whose wages passed through their hands, and some of

CAVAIGNAC's PLAN OF OPERATIONs. 555
them, it was alleged, did not scruple to divert the money from
its destined object, for the purpose of paying sedition. From
the barriers of Charenton, Bercy, Fontainebleau, and Ménil-
montant, to the very heart of Paris, the capital was almost
totally defenceless, and in the power of a few thousand men.
The rappel might have summoned to arms two hundred
thousand national guards, a force ten times sufficient to have
Subdued these Seditious bands, and to have razed their forti-
fications to the ground; but, however mortifying the fact,
it must be avowed, since it may operate as a warning in
future emergency, the national guard did not respond with
sufficient decision to the call of the government. They looked
on passively at the erection of barricades, in the destruction
of which their own blood was afterwards profusely shed.
The government having removed from the Luxembourg,
for the purpose of being near the National Assembly and
protecting it, established itself at once as a council and a
camp, with General Cavaignac, in the apartments of the
president of the Assembly.
The general, in concurrence with the members of the
government, concerted a plan of operations. He resolved to
goncentrate his troops (as had been determined beforehand)
ăn the garden of the Tuileries, in the Champs Elysees, on
the Place de la Concorde, on the Esplanade des Invalides,
and round the palace of the representatives. In the Hôtel
de Ville he posted between fifteen and sixteen battalions
under the command of General Duvivier, maintaining free
channels of communication by the quays. To the brave
General Dumesne, whom the government had just appointed
commander of the mobile guard, he gave the command of the
vast and populous district extending from the Panthéon to
the Seine. General Lamoricière, with a few battalions, was
directed to cover all the left bank of the Seine, from the
Château d’Eau to the Madeleine, an immense superficies, which
alone would have required a whole army for its defence.
Meanwhile the conflict had commenced on the boulevards.
Two detachments of intrepid volunteers of the 1st and
2nd legions attacked two barricades erected on that point.
Most of these brave volunteers perished heroically under the
first fire of the insurgents.
I will not attempt to detail the various combats which
occurred during those few days, and in which the generals,
556 INSUIPFICIENT MIII, ITARY FORCE.
the picked national guards, the regular troops, the mobile
guards, the representatives of the people, and even the
archbishop of Paris, all shed their blood and covered their
ºnames with glory. Négrier, Duvivier, Lamoricière, Bedeau,
Brea, Bixio, Dornés, Lafontaine, Foucher, Lefrançois, and
numberless others have left the stain of their blood on the
page in which history will record their devotedness. I will
merely describe those scenes of which I was myself an eye-
witness.
Noon arrived, and the troops, so long held in readiness,
and so long ago Summoned, did not make their appearance.
The seat of government was thronged by citizens, mayors,
aides-de-camp, and members of the Assembly, all requesting
to see General Cavaignac, and all, on being introduced to
him, imploring reinforcements for defending the districts to
which they belonged. The general could not grant as-
sistance, which was not at his disposal. Lamartine and his
colleagues could not but approve the extreme prudence of the
commander in thus refusing to disperse his battalions, whilst
at the same time they observed with regret the evident insuf-
ficiency of the military forces. What had become of the
twenty thousand troops of the line in the barracks of Paris?
Where were the fifteen thousand men stationed in the garris
sons adjacent to the capital? Where were the twenty
thousand troops of the army of the Alps, which Lamartine
had applied for as a reserve, thirteen days previously? Ge.
neral Cavaignac has since Satisfactorily proved that the
number of troops of the line in Paris was conformable with
the number fixed ; but in the first moment of confusion the
exigencies of a conflict on such a field of battle absorbed and,
as it were, buried the battalions so completely, that whole
regiments vanished no one could tell whither. The troops
encamped before the walls of Paris had not begun to march.
The garrisons in the neighbourhood of the capital could not,
in the space of a few hours, reach the barriers. The circum-
stances of the preceding day had not appeared so serious in
the eyes of the commander-in-chief as to induce him to summon
the troops posted round Paris. Reliance had been placed on
the national guards, who, in spite of the incessant beating of
the rappel, did not as usual rush from their houses in a mass, or
who were imprisoned in their quarters by the insurgents. In
fine, it must be confessed that, whether owing to some
* ,
INTREPIDITY OF LAMORICIERE. 557
fatality or to reluctance, the army did not act in such away as
to meet the imminent and the universal danger—a danger
which the numerical weakness of the army tended to aggra-
vate. Duvivier commanded the central part of Paris at the
Hôtel de Wille. Tumesne and Lamoricière, who seemed, as
it were, to multiply themselves, performed prodigies of reso-
lution and activity with the mere handful of men at their
disposal. By four o'clock in the afternoon Dumesne had
cleared and made himself master of the left bank of the
Seine, and had overawed the whole mass of insurrectionary
population in the quarter of the Pantheon. His reports,
hourly transmitted to the government, afforded favourable
prospects for the night and the succeeding day.
Lamoricière, invincible, though hemmed in by two hun-
dred thousand of the insurgents, occupied the space extend-
ing from the Rue du Temple to the Madeleine, and from
Clicly to the Louvre. He was incessantly galloping from
one point to another, and always exposing himself to receive
the first shot that might be fired. He had two horses killed
under him. With his face blackened by gunpowder, the per-
spiration trickling from his brow, his voice hoarse and
broken by vociferating commands, and his eye expressive of
the calm courage of the soldier in his native element, he
inspired his troops with enthusiasm, and imparted confidence
to the dismayed national guards. His reports breathed the
intrepidity of his own heart; but he did not conceal the
insufficiency of his force, the immense numbers of the as-
sailants, the prolongation of the barricades between the
Bastille and the Château d'Eau, and from the barriers to the
boulevard. He implored those reinforcements which the
government was incessantly summoning, both by telegraphic
communications and by orderly officers. At length the
national guards of the Banlieue began to arrive by detach-
ments. By command of the generals they ranged themselves
round the Assembly, mingling with the national guards of
Paris, to whom they set a good example. On the arrival of
the national guards from the country round Paris, the go-
vernment felt the assurance of victory even amidst the
agonies of the conflict.
General Cavaignac seemed to be set at ease respecting the
final result of events, on perusing the last reports brought by
his aides-de-camp. The insurrection had been checked or
558 SUGGESTIONS OF LAMARTINE.
repressed at all points, save in the faubourg du Temple, in
the faubourg Saint Antoine, and the extensive adjacent dis-
tricts, occupied by a dense population, previously turbulent,
but now convulsed. The troops, who had been fighting since
morning, were worn out ; but night was to bring the rein-
forcements summoned by the government.
“Enough has been done to-day,” said Cavaignac, ad-
dressing the council; “we must now let the troops rest,
keeping our positions, and recruiting our strength. To-
morrow we will deliver that part of the left bank in which
resistance is still kept up.” These propositions were rea-
Sonable enough ; for the troops were few, Scattered about, and
exhausted. But though the night was to bring reinforce-
ments of defence, it might also bring reinforcements of
sedition from all the populous districts; it might mul-
tiply the barricades, convert them into fortresses, and
before they could be destroyed, the national guards and the
army might be forced to shed torrents of blood. Lamartino
pointed this out to the general and the council. -
“We have yet four hours of daylight,” said he, “and the
whole night is before us. Let us not give the insurgents the
advantage of all this time. Let us rather employ it in anti-
cipating the insurrectionary movements, defeating them, or
at least confining them within such limits as may be possible,
before night sets in. If the troops should fail us, let us
rouse the national guards, who are wavering and flagging.
Elet us, with the few troops that are grouped round the
Assembly, form a last column of attack; let us ourselves
lead it on to assault the barricades of the faubourg du
Temple, the strongest and most decisive position of the in-
surgents.”
These sentiments were emergetically seconded by General
Cavaignac. He gave some orders and left the council to
reassemble and lead on the main body of the column. La-
martine sent for his horses, which had been ready saddled
since morning, in anticipation of the events of the day.
He himself mounted one, and offered the other to Pierre.
Bonaparte (the son of Lucien), a brave young man, who
inherited his father's republican principles. Duclerc, the
minister of finance, a man whose courage was as calm before
the cannon's mouth as it was impetuous in the council,
expressed a wish to join them. Lamartine was accompanied
ATTACK ON THE BARRICADES. 559
by several other friends, among whom may be mentioned a
national guard of the 10th legion, an old soldier named Blanc,
whom he found at his side in all perilous junctures, and the
adventurous Château-Renaud. They all ranged themselves in
the first platoons of the mobile guard, and proceeded to the
Place de la Concorde and the Rue de la Paix, their numbers
increasing as they moved along. General Cavaignac, with
the main body of the column, joined them at the entrance to
the boulevards. The Breton representative, M. de Tréveneuc,
who was on horseback and armed, requested leave to join
Lamartine and his friends. M. de Tréveneuc, then unknown
to Lamartine, was a man distinguished for patriotism and
courage. A summer storm was at that moment breaking over
Paris. General Cavaignac, surrounded by his staff, with
Lamartine, Duclerc, and Pierre Bonaparte, and followed by
about two thousand men, advanced amidst flashes of lightning
and peals of thunder, mingled with the applauding shouts of
the well-disposed citizens, as far as the Château d'Eau. Whilst
the minister of war sent for cannon, and formed his column,
which was consigned to General Foucher (the commandant of
Paris), Lamartine proceeded to review the artillery of the
national guard at the Temple. These brave citizens, merely
a handful of men, were overwhelmed amidst an excited popu-
lation, wavering between sedition and republicanism. The
name of Lamartime, his presence and his gestures, with diffi-
culty restrained the impetuosity of this multitude. He was
surrounded by crowds, who followed him raising shouts, as far
as the boulevard. At length the column was formed, and it
received orders to charge.
Lamartine and his friends rode forward with the battalions
of the mobile guard and troops of the line, amidst cries of
“Vive la République !” These young soldiers seemed to be
inspired by the spirit of Austerlitz. After repeated assaults,
Kept up for the space of three quarters of an hour, and amidst
an incessant shower of balls and bullets, decimating both
officers and men, the barricades were carried. Lamartine
felt as though he could have wished for death to release him
from the odious responsibility of bloodshed which pressed
upon him so unjustly, but yet so unavoidably. Thrice he
dismounted from his horse and stationed himself at the foot
of one of the barricades, where he might have a chance of
falling in the foremost rank of the brave combatants; and
560. LAMARTINE CONVERSING WITET THE PEOPLE.
thrice did the guards of the Assembly gather round him and
draw him back by force. The horse ridden by Pierre Bona-
parte was killed by his side, and the one he himself rode was
wounded. Guns of the largest calibre, sent by General
Cavaignac, demolished the remaining fortifications of the in-
surgents on that point. Four hundred brave men lay killed
or wounded in different parts of the faubourg. Lamartine
returned to the Château d’Eau to rejoin General Cavaignac.
Accompanied only by Duclerc, and a national guard named
Lassaut, who had been his companion the whole of that day,
Tamartine passed the line of the advanced posts, to reconnoitre
the disposition of the people on the boulevard of the Bastille.
The immense crowd, which fell back to make way for him as
he proceeded along, still continued to shout his name, with
enthusiasm and even amidst tears. He conversed long with
the people, pacing slowly and pressing his way through the
crowd by the breast of his horse. This confidence amidst the
insurgent masses preserved him from any manifestation of
popular violence. The men, who, by their pale countenances,
their excited tone, and even their tears, bore evidence of deep
emotion, told him their complaints against the National
Assembly, and expressed their regret at seeing the revolution
stained with blood. They declared their readiness to obey.
him (Lamartine), whom they had known as their counsellor
and friend, and not as their flatterer, amidst the misery they
had suffered, and the destitution of their wives and children.
“We are not bad citizens, Lamartine,” they exclaimed; “we
are not assassins; we are not factious agitators | We are
unfortunate men, honest workmen, and we only want the
government to help us in our misery, and to provide us with
work! Govern us yourself! Save us! Command us! We
love you ! We know you! We will prevail on our com-
panions to lay down their arms!”
Whilst giving utterance to these and similar exclamations,
the men, who were worn out by four months of privation and
excitement, touched the clothes and the hands of Lamartine.
A party of the crowd ran to the stalls of some flower-dealers,
and, seizing the flowers, strewed them over his horse's mane.
It was only at intervals that the sinister figure of a conspirator
was observed gliding along the pavement and uttering the
war-cry, which was, however, speedily drowned amidst
shouts of “Vive Lamartime !”
ARRIVAL OF REINFORCEMENTS, 56
Such was the disposition of the people in districts which
had that night been well nigh thrown into a state of complete
insurrection, merely through the want of a sufficient number
of troops to occupy those parts of the capital.
Lamartine, without having been either attacked or insulted,
returned to rejoin General Cavaignac on the boulevard. He
described to the general the cºndition and the feeling of the
people, and they arranged together the orders requisite to be
despatched to the troops out of Paris, to summon them to
march without delay on the different roads adjacent to the
capital. Lamartine left the general at the Porte Saint Martin,
to make arrangements for its defence, and he proceeded to
communicate to the war department and the council the
orders they had conjointly determined.
Night had now set in, and the firing had everywhere
ceased. During Lamartine's absence, his colleagues, Arago,
Garnier Pagès, Marie, and Pagnerre, had visited the Mairies,
and animated the national guards by their example and their
exhortations. Ledru Rollin remained at the presidency, to
despatch urgent orders, and to watch any danger to which
the Assembly might be exposed.
At midnight the regiments nearest to the capital, and the
national guards of the adjacent towns, entered Paris in a
ass, marching through all the barriers. Victory might
still be tardy, yet it was now certain.
But the confidence which was restored in the mind of the
government was not restored in the National Assembly. A
suspicious party resolved to profit by this crisis to overthrow
the executive commission, which still continued to be re-
garded with unfounded distrust. Next morning, at eight
o'clock, a certain number of representatives forced open the
door of the council-room, and requested the members of the
government to tender their resignation. It had long been
the unanimous wish of those individuals to retire from a
situation in which feelings of devotedness to the public wel-
fare had caused them to continue, very much to their own
'scomfort, and against their own interest. Nevertheless
they determined not to resign amidst a storm, or to retire
from the field like cowards deserting during the battle.
Lamartine, Garnier Pagès, and Pagnerre, energetically pro-
tested against such a proceeding.
2 O
562 RETIREMENT OF LAMARTINE. .
“Let the Assembly dismiss us, and appoint other men to
fill our places,” said they ; “we will obey, as good citizens
ought to do. The dismissal will be an order. But our volun-
tary retirement at such a moment as the present would be a
disgrace l’
At ten o’clock, the Assembly, in a permanent sitting, con-
ferred the whole civil authority on General Cavaignac, whom
only on the preceding day the civil authority itself had in-
vested with full military power. Lamartine, on the part
of his colleagues and himself, wrote the following letter to
the Assembly:-
“Citizen representatives,
“The commission of the executive authority would have
been wanting at once in duty and honour, had it retired in
the face of sedition and public danger. It retires only in
obedience to the vote of the Assembly. Restoring to you the
authority with which you invested it, the commission returns
into the ranks of the National Assembly, there to unite with
you in efforts to avert the common danger, and promote
the welfare of the republic.” -
Such is the narrative of the principal events in which I
took part during the two first periods of the revolution of
1848, and of the foundation of republican institutions if
France. The destinies of the republic have since then passed
into other hands. Great Services have been performed; some
faults have been committed. I pray that God, my contem-
poraries, and posterity may pardon mine. May Providence
make amends for human error and human weakness. Re-
publics seem to be more directly under the control of Provi-
dence than any other forms of government; because in a
republic there is no intermediate hand between the people
and their destiny. May the invisible hand protect France!
May it defend her at once against impatience and inertness,
those two quicksands on which the best impulses of human
nature are frequently wrecked. May the hand of Providence
also ward off two other dangers—war and demagoguism; and
in a conservative and progressive republic, the only one that
is lasting and possible, may the seed implanted in that form
of government, germinate and bloom in the morality of the
people, and the reign of God.
563
NOTE at page 46.
*
“If there had, in the constituent assembly, been more statesmen than
philosophers, it would have felt that an intermediate state, under the guar-
dianship of a half-dethroned king, was impossible. The care and adminis-
tration of conquests are not intrusted to the vanquished. In great crises
an absolute party is the only sure one. The difficulty consists in knowing
how to have recourse to these extreme measures at the right moment.
“Let us say it boldly, history will, on some future day, say the same
that we do. There was a moment when the constituent assembly had the
right to choose between the monarchy and the republic, and should have
chosen a republic. In that consisted the safety and legitimacy of the revo-
lution. Failing in resolution, it failed in prudence.
“But, say they, with Barnave, France is monarchical by geographical
position as well as character, and a contest of mind was raised between
monarchy and republics. Let us understand one another.
“Geography is of no party. Rome and Carthage did not possess from-
tiers. Genoa and Venice possessed no territories. It is not the soil
which determines the natures of the constitutions of people, it is the age.
The geographical objection of Barnave fell to the ground the next year,
before the prodigies achieved by France in 1792. She has shown whether
a republic had unity and centralization enough to defend a continental
nationality. Waves and mountains are the defences of the weak. Men
are the frontiers of nations. Let us speak no more, them, of geography.
It is not by geometricians, but by statesmen, that social constitutions are
designed.
“Now, nations have two great instincts, which reveal to them the form
which they have to take, according to the hour in their national existence
to which they have arrived : the instinct of their preservation, and the
instinct of their growth. To act or to repose, to walk or to sit, are two
entirely different things, which require men to assume entirely different
attitudes. With nations it is the same. The monarchy or the republic with
a people correspond exactly to the necessities of those two opposite
conditions—repose or action. We here understand these two words in
their most absolute acceptation. For there is repose in republics, as there
is action in monarchies. >}: Sk >}: :: >k
“When a people has arrived at one of those epochs when it is necessary
for them to act with their utmost force, to operate within or without, one
of those organic transformations which are as necessary to people as are
currents to rivers, or an explosion to compressed powers, the republic is
the indispensable and fated form of a nation at such a moment. To a
sudden, irresistible, convulsive action of the body social, the arms and
will of all are requisite. {
. “The people unite in throngs, and press forward, without order, to the
danger. They alone are equal to such a crisis. What other arm than that
2 O 2
564 NOTE.
of the entire people can remove what they have to remove, displace what
they wish to destroy ; instal what they wish to found 2 Monarchy, in
such an effort, would a thousand times break its sceptre. A lever capable
of raising thirty thousand wills is needed. . That lever the nation only
possesses. She herself is the motive force, the fulcrum and the lever.
“The constituent assembly was feeble and blind in not giving a re-
public as a national instrument to the revolution. Mirabeau, Bailly, Lafa-
yette, Sieyes, Barnave, Talleyrand, Lameth, acted in that respect like phi-
losophers, and not like great politicians. The event has proved it. They
believed the revolution completed as soon as recorded; the monarchy they
believed converted as soon as it had sworn to the constitution. The re-
volution had only commenced, and the oath of royalty to the revolution
was futile as the oath of the revolution to royalty. These two elements
could not assimilate until after an interval of an age. This interval was
the republic. A people does not pass in a day, or even in fifty years, from
revolutionary action to monarchical repose. It is from having forgotten."
this fact at the time when it was most necessary to remember it, that the
crisis has been so terrible and continues to agitate us. If the revolution,
which is still pursuing its course, had obtained its natural and proper
government, namely, the republic, that republic would have been less
tumultuous, and less disturbed, than our five-fold attempts at monarchy.
The nature of the times in which we have lived protests against the
traditional form of power. t
“An epoch of movement should have a government of movement.
Such is the law Sk 2k >}: Sk >k Sk *
The republic, had it been legally established by the assembly in its rights.
and in its force, would have been very different to the one perfidiously
and atrociously extorted, nine months after, by the insurrection of the
10th of August. It would, doubtless, have had the agitations inseparable
from the birth of a new order of things; it would not have escaped the
disorders inevitable in a country at its first movement, and stimulated by
the very greatness of its dangers. But it would have originated in law
instead of sedition; in right instead of violence ; in deliberation instead of
insurrection. That alone would be sufficient to change the sinister aspects
of its future. But it would be restless when it might have remained purel
Behold how the sole fact of its legal and premeditated proclamation would
have changed everything. The 10th of August would not have taken place;
the perfidy and tyranny of the commune of Paris, the massacre of the
guards, the attack upon the palace, the flight of the king to the assembly,
the outrages with which he was there loaded, and his imprisonment at
the Temple, would have been avoided. The republic would not have slain
a king, a queen, an innocent child, a virtuous princess. The massacres
of September, those St. Bartholomews of the people that have left ever-
lasting stains upon the swaddling-clothes of liberty, would not have taken
place. It would not have been baptized in the blood of three hundred
thousand victims. The republic would not have placed in the hands of
the revolutionary tribunal the axe of the people, with which a whole nation
was immolated to make room for an idea. It would not have had its 31st
of May. The Girondists, arriving with pure consciences at power, would
have had much more force for their contest with demagoguism. The re-
NOTE, 565
public, instituted upon reflection, would have intimidated Europe in a far
different manner than as a seditious movement, legitimated by murder and
assassinations. War could have been avoided, or if inevitable, would have
been more unanimous and more triumphant. Our generals would not have
been massacred by their soldiers at the cry of treason. The spirit of the
people would have combated with us, and the horrors of our days of August,
September, and January, would not have repelled from our banners the
hearts which had been attracted by our doctrines. Behold how a single
change, at the origin of the republic, would have changed the lot of the
revolution. >k >}; >< >}: >k >k ><
Finally, the constituent assembly, whose ideas enlightened the globe,
whose boldness in two years transformed an empire, had, at the close of
its work, but one error to account for—that of inaction. Instead of
perpetuating itself, it abdicated. A nation which abdicates after two years
of reign, upon a heap of ruins, bequeaths the sceptre to anarchy. The
king could no longer reign, the nation would not, therefore the factions
reigned. The revolution perished, not from having desired too much, but
from not having dared enough. So true is it that timidity in nations is
not less fatal than weakness in kings, and that a people which does not
know how to take and keep all which belongs to it, tempts both tyranny
and anarchy! The assembly dared all, excepting to reign. The
reign of the revolution could only be called the republic. The as-
sembly left this name to factions and this form to terror. This was its
fault. It expiated it, and the expiation of this fault is not yet finished
for France.”
T N T E X.
Abdication of Louis Philippe, 73, 77; Op-
posed by Marshal Bugeaud, 82; urged by
the duke of Montpensier, 83; proclaimed
at the Tuileries and in the Chamber of
Deputies, 111. See Louis PHILIPPE.
Africa, army of, 288; recall of the troops
from, 289.
Agricultural labour, scheme for, 335.
Albert, M., qualities of, 168; conduct of,
180; supports the Socialist doctrines, 345;
one of the leaders of the insurgents against
the National Assembly, 523.
Algeria, Gen. Cavaignac appointed governor-
general, 317.
Alps, army of the, 289.
Ambassadors sent to the various courts of
Europe, 361—373.
Arago, M. E., conduct of, 98; named a
member of the provisional government,
127; his qualities, ibid.; appointed minis-
ter of naval affairs, 138; measures of 179;
qualities of, 204; his exertions, 237; his
reception by the people, 257; his official
activity, 292; appointed minister at War,
333; increases the army, 334; his ener-
getic administration, 443; appointed mem-
ber of the executive commission, 516.
Army, the officers send in their adhesions to
the provisional government, 145; dispo-
sition of the, 287, 327; great increase of,
290, 334; Lamartine's defence of the, 398;
organization of, 442.
Aupick, Gen., sent ambassador to Constan-
tinople, 362.
Austria, policy of 267; state of, 369; revo-
lution in, 430, 431.
Autun, Communist banquet of, 25.
Bank of France, measures for the Salvation
of, 322.
Bankruptcy, national, danger of, 294,
Banquets, political, revolutionary tendency
of the, 16, 17, 25 ; one in honour of La-
martime at Mâcon, 18; at Dijon and
Châlons, 24; at Autum, 25; opinion of
the government on, 26; one proposed on
a grand scale at Paris, 30; determination
of the government to suppress it, ibid.;
military preparations for its suppression,
36; abandoned by the opposition, ibid.
Barbès, liberated from prison through the
intercession of his sister, 351; Lamartine’s
advice to, 352; made colonel, 353; cha-
racter of, 410; hoads a popular conspiracy
against the government, 529,
Barricades, raising of the, 39, 58; erected by
the members of the national workshops,
554.
Barrot, Odilon, political character of, 9,49;
effect of his orations, 25; the government
opinion of him, 26; his political senti-
ments, 27; his preparations for the Paris
banquet, 30; brings an act of accusation
against the ministry, 38; his efforts to
allay the insurrection abortive, 65; ap-
pointed prime minister, 71; his conduct
after the abdication, 99; his speech on
the regency question, 107.
Barthélemy St. Hilaire, appointed secre-
tary of the council, 140 ; energies of, 163.
Bastide, his conduct, 137, 163; appointed
under-secretary of state for foreign affairs,
262; his character, 263.
Bedeau, Gen., character of, 79; military
conduct of, 80; insulted by the mob, 81;
sends in his adhesion to the provisional
government, 145; appointed to the com-
mand of Paris, 534; death of, 556.
Belgium; revolutionary designs of, 364;
scheme for invading, 419. •- -
Bellocq, M., ambassador to Belgium, 364.
Berlin, revolution in, 373.
Berryer, M., political sentiments of,9. ,
Bethmont, M., appointed minister of come,
merce, 138; of worship, 517.
Bixio, M., energies of, 163; Sent as chargé-
d'affaires at Turin, 365; qualities of, 366;
his death, 556.
Blanqui, liberated from prison, 351; an ob-
ject of suspicion, 354 ; eccentric habits
of, 355; his propositions to the go-
vernment as delegate of the clubs, 393;
dangerous principles of, 414; political
plots assigned to, 415; his visit to Lamar-
time, 416; acts in concert with the insur-
gents, 455.
Bois-le-Comte, M. de, sent ambassador o
Naples, 370.
Boissy, M. de, qualities of, 366.
Bonaparte, Louis, proposal for his tem-
porary exile, 549
, Napoleon, genius of, 3.
Bonapartists, numerous faction of the,
546; arrests of, ibid.; Lamartine's speech
against, 547.
Boulevards, the crowded resort of the insur-
gents, 54, 55.
Brea, Gen., death of, 556.
Brougham, Lord, character of, 435.
Buchez, M., appointed to office under the
provisional government, 140; energies of
I63.
Bugeaud, Gen., appointed to the military
command of Paris, 61; biographical notices
of, ibid.; displaced from command, 68;
his bravery, 73; conduct of, 78; his dis-
tribution of the forces, 79; opposes the
abdication of the king, 82,
INDEX,
Bulletin de la Républiqwe, Supporters of the
Communists, 347.
Butcher boy, audacity of a, in the Chamber
of Deputies, 114.
Cabet, the poet of Communism, 356; bio-
Hºphical notices of, ibid.; character of,
4
09.
Cabriolet driver, anecdote of a, 258.
Cambolle, M., editor of La Siècle, 12.
Capital punishment, Louis Blanc's speech
against, 246; decree for abolishing, 248.
Carmot, appointed minister of public in-
struction, 139, 517; character of, ibid.;
educational measures of, 340; his object
misinterpreted, 341.
Caussidière, conduct of, 180, 181, 520; qua-
lities of, 345; opinions of, 346; prefect of
police, 517; resigns the command of the
Montagnards, 539.
Cavaignac, Gen., appointed governor-general
of Algeria, 317; biographical notices of,
445; the mother of, 446; nominated mi-
nister of war, 540; his preparatious for
the defence of Paris, 552, 555, 558; the
whole civil authority conferred on, 562.
Châlons, banquet at, 24.
Chamber of Deputies, transactions in the,
38; council of republicans assemble in
the, 93; despondency of the members,
99; entrance of the duchess of Orleans,
101; irruption of the insurgents, 103,
110; yumultuous proceedings in the, 113,
freshirruption into the, 122; retirement
of the president, 124; Dupont de l'Eure
egºcted president, 126; a provisional go-
fernment formed, who retire to the Hôtel
_/de Ville, 128; popular tumultin, 129.
;Chamberry, disturbances at, 420.
{Champy, M. Beroit, appointed envoy to
the grand duke of Tuscany, 367.
/ Changarnier, Gen., his arrangements for
defending the government, 459.
Charles X., strictures on the character of 4.
Chartres, duke de, dangerous situation of
the, 124.
Château d’Eu, firing of the, 65.
Château-Renaud, courageous conduct of,
160; his volunteers, 461. sº
Circourt, M. de, sent ambassador to Berlin,
371; qualities of, 372.
Clubs, revolutionary, influence of the, 52,
349; those of Paris, 357; procession of
the, 390; alarm created thereby, 301;
delegates from, received by the govern-
ment, 392; Lamartine's reply to, 396;
dissensions among the delegates, 400;
views entertained by the members of the,
403; leaders of the, 407–415; the “Club
of Clubs” the centre of democratic agi-
tation, 437; revolutionary conspiracy of
the, 529, 536. *
Commissioners, government, choice of, 342.
Communism, characteristics of, , 52; the
supporters of, 354; Lamartine's horror
of, 357. gº w
Communists, hopes of the, 164; their union
with the Terrorists, 203; conspiracy of,
put down by the national guards, 404.
Constitution proposed by Dupont de l'Eure
and Lamartine, 472.
567
Constitutionnel, politics and influence of
€, tº
Coste, M., courageous conduct of, 174.
Council-chamber, assailed by the mob, 218.
Cowrrier Français, politics and influence of
the, 11.
Courtais, M. de, appointed general of the
national guard, 140; character of, ibid.;
his preparations for defending the govern-
ment, 458; arrested, 530.
Crémieux, M., his speech on the regency
question, 106; named a member of the
provisional government, 127; appointed
minister of justice, 138; qualities of, 204.
D'Aumale, duke de, his address to the in-
habitants of Algeria, 317.
Danton, character of, 196,
Dead bodies paraded about Paris, 57; great
accumulation of, 214.
De Flotte, M., character of, 414.
Delegates appointed by the people, 206.
Departments, agents to the, 442; formation
of a garde Emobile for, 444.
Deputies. See CHAMBER of.
Dijon, banquet at, 24.
Dormès, General, death of, 556.
Drevot, the popular delegate, 206.
Duchant, General, notices of, 77.
Duclerc, M., qualities of, 162.
Dumoulin, Colonel, his conduct in the
Chamber, 113.
Dunoyer, Captain, leads the republicans in
the sacking of the Tuileries, 89; irruption
of his column into the Chamber of Depu-
ties, 110, 122.
Dupin, M., notices of, 87; his character and
genius, 88; interview with the duchess of
Orleans, ibid.; his address to the Chamber
of Deputies on the visit of the duchess, 102.
Dupont de l’Eure, elected president of the
Chamber, 126; named the head of the
provisional government, 127; his qualities,
138; dangers and difficulties of his posi-
tion, 150; protected by a woman, 151; his
reception by the people, 257. -
Duvergier de Hauranne, writings and in-
fluence of, 15; character of, 63; his visit
to the king, 69.
Duvivier, General, sends in his adhesion to
the provisional government, 145 ; his
energetic conduct, 291; qualities of, 458;
his death, 556.


Education, National, republican scheme of,
338, 339; Carnot's measures on, 340.
Elections for the National Assembly, fixed
for the 24th April, 348; Ledru Rollin's
circular respecting, 376; Lamartine's
opinions on, 379, 399; proclamation on
the, 383; its effect, 387; approach of the,
436; difficulty of fixing the period of,
440; Easter-day appointed for, 474; en-
thusiasm and religious deportment exhi-
bited by the people at the, 474, 475;
satisfactory result of the, 476; list of the
members returned to the National As-
sembly, 477.
£ngland, continental policy of, 268; alliance
with France, 269; European influence of,
270 favourable to the French revolu-
568
tion, 270; overtures made by France, 277;
acknowledges the republic, 363.
Europe, situation of, on the establishment
of the republic, 266; Lamartine's mani-
festo to, 278.
Executive commission appointed by the
National Assembly, 516.
Favre, M., appointed under-secretary of
state, 217.
Finances, state of the, 293; panic respecting,
319; difficulties of, created by the king's
government, 320; plan for restoring, 325.
Flocom, M., editor of La Réforme, , 14;
politics and influence of, 15; his conduct,
137, 167, 180; severely wounded, 226; he
proposes the formation of a garde mobile
for the departments, 445; appointed to
the direction of agriculture and commerce,
517.
, Madame, her interview with La-
martine, 226.
Flottard, M., conduct and character of, 136;
energies of, 163.
Foreign affairs, aspect of, 261 ; speech of
Lamartine on, 459,
agitators in Paris, 358.
—— policy, Lamartine's view of, 266;
of the provisional government, 434.
states acknowledge the republic,
361, 363.
Foucher, death of, 556.
Fourrier, political school of, 192.
France, her revolutions the renovation of
her youth, 1 ; character of her revolutions,
2; causes of, 3; unsettled state of previous
to the revolution of 1830, 10; journals of,
ibid.; political writers, 11; state of public
feeling at the close of 1847, 15, 26; foreign
policy of, 226; alliance with England, 269;
warlike preparations, 271; overtures to
England, 277; her manifesto to Europe,
278; financial condition of 298; exhaus-
tion of the treasury, 295; financial panic,
319; Bank of, 322; increase of the army,
334.
Garde mobile, establishment of the, 184; its
great services, 212; state of the, 418; for-
mation of, for the departments, 444; en-
thusiasm of for Lamartime, 460; protect
Hamartime from popular outrage, 531 ; his
address to the, 532.
Garnier, M., named a member of the govern-
ment, 127; his qualities, ibid.
Gazette de France, politics of the, 12.
Genoude, M. de; editor of La Gazette de
France, 12'; influence of his writings, 13.
Gerard, Marshal, character of, 63, 77
Girardin, M. de, his sudden visit to the king,
72; character of, ibid.; advises abdication,
73; announces the king's abdication, 78.
Girondists, Lamartine's History of the, 18.
Goudchaux, M., appointed minister of fi-
nance, 139; his retirement, 296.
Gourgaud, Gen., address to the mob, 112.
Government, various systems of proposed,
191–203. See PRoy ISIONAL Gover N-
MENT.
Guizot, M., genius and character of, 10;
his self-assurance, 26; his sentiments on
INDEXe
the public banquets, 29; popular dislike
to, 41; escapes from the Tuileries, 68;
his flight, ibid.
Harcourt, M. d’, sent ambassador to Rome,
Hebert, M., his opposition to the public
banquets, 29.
Hetzel, M., emergies of, 163.
Hôtel de Ville, provisional government es-
tablished at the, 128, 130, 136; tumul-
tuous scene at, 135; immense assemblages
near the, 207; entrance of the mob, 209;
selected for defence against the insurgents,
454; occupied by the insurgents, 529; re-
taken by the government forces, 536,
of Foreign Affairs, first collision at,
56; slaughter of the people, ibid.
Huber, the conspirator, proclaims the dis-
solution of the National Assembly, 529.
Hungary, revolution in, 431.
Insurgents of Paris, description of the, 51;
different classes of, 52; assemble at the
office of the National, 53; organization of
the, 64; burn the guardhouses and murder
the municipal guard, 81 ; break into the
Chamber of Deputies, 103; tumultuous
crowds of, 146; dissatisfied with the new
provisional government, 165, 166; menace
the government, 171, 172; rush into the
Hôtel de Ville, 269; violent language and
demands of, 210, 217, 219: effor?s of the
republicans to appease, 211; their views,
212; they assail the council-chamber, 218;
description of their leader, 219; gon-
fronted by Lamartine, 221; and \ha-
rangued by him, 224; renewed violence of,
225; formidable preparations of, for over.
turning the government, 451, 455; they
march upon the Hôtel de Ville, 463; kept
in check by the national guard, 464; led
by Louis Blanc and Albert against the
National Assembly, 523; they proclaim
the dissolution of the National Assembly,
529; their formidable resistance, 556;
suppressed by the national troops, ibid.
Invalides, Hôtel des, discontent in the, 328,
329; attack on the governor, 329,
Irish delegates, reply of the government to
the, 427.
Italy, popular excitation in, 286.
Jacqueminot, Gen., commander of the na-
tional guard, 40.
Joinville, prince de, in command of the
fleet, 179.
Journal des Débats, politics of, 11.
Journals of France, influence and politics of
the, 10; Journal des Débats, 11 : Le Con-
stitutionnel, ibid.; Le Courrier Français,
ibid.; La Presse, ibid.; La Siècle, 13;
La Gazette de France, ibid.: Le National,
13; La Réforme, 14; Le Courrier Français,
La Démocratie Pacifique, Le Commerce,
15; plan of general agitation among the
leading editors, 15, 16.
Labour, organization of, 252.
Lafontaine, death of, 556. -
Lagrange, Col., revolutionary Clithusiasm
INDEX,
of, 55; proclaims the abdication of the
king in the Chamber, Ill; conduct of
during the first might of the republic, 169;
his efforts to restrain the mob, 227,
Lamartine, M., political banquet in honour
of, 18; his speech on the revolution, 19;
... remarks on, 23; his sentiments on the
king's speech, 27; his opinions on the
Paris banquet, 30; his reply to M. Ber-
ryer, 31; powerful effect of, 35; biogra-
phical notices of, 43; appointed minister
plenipotentiary in Greece, in 1830, ibid.;
political principles of, 44–48; his horror
of Communism, 45; his popularity, 66;
family of, 67; his position previous to the
insurrection, 89; repairs to the Chamber,
90; is called to a council of republicans,
93; his character as given by the National
and the Réforme, ibid.; he declares for a
republic, 94; his speeches, 95, 104; his
speech on the proposal for a provisional
government, 116; his life attempted at the
tribune, 125; his efforts to establish a
provisional government, 126; elected a
member thereof, 127; the difficulties of
his progress to the Hôtel de Ville, 131–
137; appointed minister for foreign affairs,
138; his remarks on the dangers of the
revolutionary storm, 150; the efforts and
fatigues of, 160; the courageous defenders
of, ibid.; his courage and address, 169,
170; decisive harangue at the Hôtel de
Ville, 175; his altercations with the mob,
176; establishes the garde mobile, 184;
obtains temporary rest, 188; popular
opinion respecting him, 205; confronts the
violent demands of the mob leaders, 221 ;
arguments employed by, 222; their effect
on the multitude, 223, 235; repeated
harangues to the infuriated mob, 224–
226, 228; his extreme danger, 231; propo-
sition of to his colleagues, 240; his
speech on universal suffrage, 245; his
visit to M. de Montalivet, 249; his address
to the Socialists, 254; reception of by
the people, 257; takes possession of the
foreign office, 263; his views on the
policy of the republic, 265; his opinions
on foreign affairs, 266, 276; his sentiments
on the policy of war, 272; his diplomatic
instructions, 274; his manifesto to Europe,
278; his interview with Madame Sand,
347; his opinion of the elections, 379; pro-
clamation drawn up by, 380 ; his speech
to the delegates of the clubs, 396; his
defence of the army, 398; is opposed
to the views of the clubs, 403; his inter-
view and conversation with Blanqui, 416,
417; popularity of, 449; his private con-
versation with his family, 450; his ex-
hortations to Louis Blanc and Albert, 452;
his speech to the volunteers of Châ-
teau-Renaud, 461; enthusiasm in fa-
vour of, 463; immense military assem-
blages in defence of, 464; his tri-
umph, 465; his speech to the National
Assembly on resigning his powers, 485;
his report, 493; appointed member of the
executive commission, 516; resists the
advance of the insurgents on the National
Assembly, 523; danger of, from popular
569
violence, 539; saved by the garde mobile,
531; his address to them, ibid.; marches
at their head to the Hôtel de Ville, 533;
his speech against the Bonapartists, 547;
heads the troops against the insurgents of
the barricades, 559; his interview with:
the insurgents, 560; his letter to the Na-
tional Assembly on resigning his office,
2
562.
Lamennais, M. de, character of, 408.
Lamieussens, M., character of, 410.
Lamoricière, Gen., character of, 63; conduct
of, 80; sends in his adhesion to the pro-
visional government, 145; his death, 556;
his military energies, 567.
Iºtas, supplementary, determined on,
32
Larochejaquelein, M. de, his speech on the
regency question, 110.
Lasteyrie, "M. de, aids the flight of the
duchess of Montpensier, 311.
La Vendée, civil war in, 429.
Ledru Rollin, his speech in the Chamber of
Deputies, 114; proposes a provisional
government, 115; named a member
thereof, 127; his qualities, ibid.; ap-
pointed minister of the interior, 138;
principles of, 166; his qualities, 204; his
exertions, 237; his reception by the peo-
ple, 257; measures of, 342; circular to his
agents, 343; ill-timed provocation of, 346;
differences with his colleagues, 375; his
ministerial circular, 376; its dangerous
tendency, 377; and dissatisfaction caused
by, 378; his defence, 394; concerts defen-
sive measures with Lamartine, .457; ap-
pointed member of the executive com-
mission, 516.
Lefrançois, death of, 556.
Lesseps, M. de, ambassador to Spain, 368.
Liberty, trees of planted, 438.
Lombardy, revolution in, 431.
Louis Blanc, his conduct, 137, 168, 180; po-
litical school of, 191 ; after haranguing the
mob, faints away from exhaustion, 235;
his speech against capital punishment,
246; his system for organizing labour,
252; supports the Socialist doctrines,
345; his address to the mob, 401; one of
the leaders of the insurgents against the
National Assembly, 523.
Louis Philippe, king of the French, character
of, 4, 5, 6, 59; mistaken policy of, 8;
impolitic marriage of his son with the
Infanta of Spain, ibid.; ministry of, 9;
his self-assurance, 26, 41; his speech:
against the political banquets, 27 :, un-
popularity of, 41; mominates M. Thiers
the prime minister, 62; his conster-
nation at the progress of the revo-
lution, 70; appoints M. Barrot prime
minister, 71; M. Girardin warns him of
the coming crisis, 72; his abdication, 73,
77; his flight, 86; his portrait destroyed,
129; the government concert measures
for his escape, 249; uncertainty of his
fate, 298; course of his flight, 299; his
arrival at Dreux, ibid.; relates the events
of Paris, 300; his sojourn at Dreux, 301;.
receives the proclamation of the republic,
ibid.; secret departure from Dreux, 302;
570
arrives at Anet and St. André, ibid.; at
Evreux, 303; meets the queen at Ca
d’Honfleur, 304; Capt. Paul aids his
escape, 305; embarks at Havre for Eng-
land, 307.
Houis XVIII., notices of, 4.
Houvre, palace of the, sacked, 147,
Lurde, M. de, ambassador to Holland, 365.
Luxembourg, assemblages at the, 318; vio-
lent attack upon, 522.
Mâcon, political banquet at, in honour of
Lamartine, 19
Marat, character of, 196.
Marie, M., his speech on the proposed
regency, 105; his address to the mob,
113; named a member of the provisional
government, 127; his qualities, 127, 204,
335; appointed uminister of public works,
133; noble conduct of, 161; temporizes
with the public works, 335,
Marrast, M., editor of Le National, 13;
influence of his writings, 14; his speech
to the mob, 54; his conduct, 137; quali-
ties of, 162,459; his exertions, 238; mayor
of Paris, 517,
Meetings, public, debate on the right of, 28.
Metternich, M. de, character of, 369.
Military, their sympathy with the people,
30; fraternise with the provisional govern-
ment, 132; send in their adhesion, 145;
reviews of the, 257, 468, 542; strength of,
in Paris, 540, 542; disposition of to resist
the insurgents, 555; deficiency of to put
down the insurrection, 556.
Ministry of France, policy of the, 27.
Mob of Paris. See INSURGENTS.
Modena, revolution in, 431.
Molé, M., character of, 49.
Montagnards, armed resistance of the, 538;
their commander Caussidière resigns, 539;
dissolution of the, 540.
Montalivet, benevolence of, 357.
Montpensier, duke de, impolitic marriage
of, 8; urges the abdication of the king,
83; his flight, 311.
—, duchess de, flight of, 311 : re-
pairs to Eu, 312; and proceeds to Abbe-
ville, 313; romantic adventures of, 314.
Municipal guards, massacre of the, 81.
Narvaez, General, character of, 367.
National, The, politics and influence of, 13;
the insurgents assemble at the office of,
. 53; Marrast, the editor, 54,
National Assembly, list of the newly-elected
members, 477; opening of, 484; the pro-
visional government resigns its powers to
the, 485; Lamartine's address to, ibid.;
pass a vote of thanks to the provisional
government, 509; nominate an executive
commission, 516; attack of the insur-
gents upon the, 523,527; insurrectionary
conspiracy to overthrow, 524–529; im-
minent danger of, 533; increased confi-
dence of, after their defeat of the con-
spirators, 540, 560; confer the civil dic-
tatorship on Cavaignac, 562.
guard, neutrality of, at the com-
mencement of the revolution, 39; their
sentiments respecting the revolutionary
INDEX.
|
struggle, 42; new enlistment of a, 183;
reviews of the, 256,468; deputation of tol
Lamartine, 378; assembling of the gre-
nadiers, 381; immense assemblage to put
down the insurgents, 464; protect La-
martime, and defend the Hôtel de Wille,
531; M. Clement. Thomas appointed
commander-in-chief, 538.
National workshops, vast numbers em-
ployed in the, 336; alarming state of,
337; brigades of workmen, ibid.; bad
arrangements of, ibid.; a mere temporary
expedient, 338; the various classes en-
gaged in, 543; dangers attendant on their
dissolution, 544, 550; formidable insur-
rection of the workmen of, 552, 554; San-
guinary conflicts with, and their final
defeat, 556.
Nations, on the revolutions of, 1, 2; on the
foundation of, 564.
Navy, measures for the regulation of the,
179; rapid organization of the, 292.
Negrier, Gen., notices of, 405; qualities of,
406; death of, 556.
Nemours, duke de, conduct of, on the ab-
dication of the king, 87; his flight, 311.
—, duchess de, her grief and flight,
86.
Neuilly, palace of, burnt, 147.
Opposition party, coalition of the, 16;
schisms of, 17; their meetings and discus-
sions on the Paris banquet, 31; the ban-
quet abandoned by, 36.
Order, resturation of, 259.
Orleans, duchess of, notices of, 75; council
of the, 87; interview with Dupin, 83";
goes to the Chamber of Deputies, 89;
her entry into the chamber, 101; charac-
ter of, IIG ; escape from the chamber,
§ flight of, 310; popular respect for,
Hi}} Cl, - -
—— dynasty, foreign policy of, 267.
Oudinot, Gen., conduct of, in the Chamber
of Deputies, 103; speech of, 104.
Pagès, Garnier, named a member of the
provisional government, 127; his quali-
ties, 127, 129; courageous conduct of,
161, 321 ; his exertions, 237; accepts the
ministry of finance, 297; appointed mem-
ber of the executive commission, 516.
Pagnerre, appointed secretary of the coun-
cil, 140, 517; difficulties and perils of his
position, 148; energies of 163.
Pålais Royal, attacked and burnt by the
mob, 147.
Palmerston, Wiset., his liberal conduct to
the French republic, 435.
Paris, political banquet proposed by the
opponents of the government, 16, 30; mi-
litäry preparations to suppress it, 37;
agitated state of, 38; proceedings of the
mob, 39; revolutionary state of, 50, 131;
confusion and tumult in the streets, 146;
state of, during the first night of the re-
public, 164; the artisans of, 251 ; clubs
of, 357; foreign agitators in, 358.
, archbishop of, death of, 556. -
—, duke de, dangerous situation of,
123,
revolution in, 431.
ſes, political, state of, 191–203.
yer, M., his courageous conduct, 160;
appointed to office under Lamartine, 263.
errot, Gen., notice of, 91. *
Petit, Gen., attack on, 329; punishment of
his assailants, 331. º
Piedmont, popular excitement in, 286.
Firè, Gen., sends in his adhesion to the pro-
visional government, 145.
Police, secret, of Lamartine, 449.
Polish refugees in Paris, 359; restless spirit
of, 421; their seditious language, 422;
Lamartine's address to the, 423; policy of
the government towards, 424,
Political parties, state of, 191—203,
Polytechnic School, pupils of, 142,
Pope favourable to the republic, 362.
Prebois, M. de, courageous act of, 66.
Presse, La, politics and influence of, 11.
Provisional government proposed in the
Chamber of Deputies, i.15; Lamartine's
speech on, 118; named and appointed,
127; proceeds to the Hôtel de Ville, 128;
its progress and struggle to reach it, 133;
installed at the Hôtel de Ville, 135; orga-
nization of the, 138; distribution of offices,
140; first official steps, 141; proclamation
of, 143, 144; adhesions to, 145; they is-
sue various decrees amidst the surround-
ing confusion, 148; perils and difficulties
of their position, 148, 149, 160; alleged
illegitimaçºſ ºf the, 152; their courage,
153; exact position of, 154, 157; proclaim
a republic, 156, 158; effects of, 159; the
insurgents dissatisfied with, 165,166; their
cortentions with the mob, 176; measures
of, 179; temporary cessation from la-
~ bour, 187; public opinion of its respective
members, 204; delegates appointed to
attend the, 206; irruption of the mob
upon, 209; demands of the insur-
gents from, 215; attack on renewed, 223;
proceedings of different members of go-
vernment, 237; secret council held, 238;
grandeur of the measures contemplated
by, 239; proposition of Lamartine, 240;
secret debates of, 242; enthusiasm in
support of, ibid.; magnanimity of the,
: 242; present themselves to the people,
247; public reception of by the people,
257; proclamation of, on the elections,
383; plot against the, 389; audience with
the delegates of the clubs, 392; Blanqui's
violent propositions to the, 393; seditious
address to, 395; difficulties of, 404;
threatened catastrophe, 405; foreign po-
licy of, 434; dissensions in, 437; confi-
dence restored among the members, 441;
alarmed by nocturnal meetings,448; defen-
sive measures adopted, 453—460; march of
the insurgents against, 463; protected by
the national guards, 464; deputation to
the, 466; constitution proposed by, 472;
they resign their powers to the National
Assembly, 485; bring up the special re-
ports of the acts of each department,
493; receive a vote of thanks in the
National Assembly, 509; re-elected under
the name of the executive commis-
Sion, 516; insurrectionary demonstrations
INDEX, 57.1
against the government, 519; conspiracy to
overthrow, 529; unanimity of the, 541;
its authority superseded by the appoint-
ment of General Cavaignac to the civil
dictatorship, 562; their letter of resigna-
tion, ibid.
Prussia, policy of, 268; influence of, 371 ;
insurrection in, 430.
Queen of the French, spirit of the, 69; her
grief and flight, 86; uncertainty of her
fate, 298; arrives at Dreux, 299 ; and
travels incognita, 302; meets the king at
Cap d'Honfleur, 304.
Railways, proposed purchase of, 326.
Rambuteau, count de, prefect of Paris, his
opinion on the public feeling, 41.
Raspail, Socialist school of, 195; influence
of, 353; character of, 408, 409.
Recurt, M., appointed to office under the
provisional government, 140,217; emergies
of, 163.
Red flag, the standard of the Terrorists,
198; contest of the, with the tricoloured
flag, 208; contentions about retaining it,
229; threats of its partisans, 236.
Reform, coalition for effecting, 16.
Réforme, La, politics and influence of, 14;
its opinions of Lamartime, 92.
Regency, question of the, 75; discussion on
the, 85, 105–110; Lamartine's speech
against the establishment of the, 96.
Remusat, M., his visit to the king, 69.
Republic declared by the council at the
Chamber of Deputies, 94; ories for the
establishment of the, 151; proclaimed by
the provisional government, 156, 157;
effects of, 159; state of Paris during the
first might of the, 163–168; universally
received, 258; Lamartime's views on the
policy of, 265; manifesto of the, to Eu-
rope, 278; its reception, 235; military
forces of the, 334; its recognition by for
reign states, 361-363; peaceful organ-
ization of the, 374; dangers to which it is
exposed, 551, 552; review of its destinies,
562; general remarks on, 565.
Republicans, efforts of, to appease the in-
surgents, 211, 213.
Review of the troops, 257, 463, 542,
Revolution, elements and character of the,
2; that of 1789, 3; of 1830, 4; of 1848, 15;
political banquets preparatory to the, 16;
Lamartime's speech on the state of public
feeling, 19; incipient progress of the, 50 ;
description of the insurgents, 51; different
classes of, 52; the insurgents assemble at
the office of the National, 53; first colli-
sion at the hotel of Foreign Affairs, 56;
general slaughter, ibid.; the dead bodies
paraded, 57; sounding of the tocsin and
the erection of barricades, 58; apprehen-
sions of the king, 59; Thiers appointed
prime minister, 62 ; proclamation of, 63;
increased organization of the insurgents,
64; its progress alarms the king, who
appoints M. Barrot prime minister, 70,71;
the king abdicates, 73; the municipal
guards murdered, 81; flight of the royal
family, 86 ; sacking of the Tuileries,






572
89; insurgents break into the Chamber of
Deputies, 103; tumultuous scenes in,
129; provisional #." elected by
the 1nsurgents, and installed at the Hôtel
de Ville, 131; adhesions to the pro-
visional government, 145; tumultuous
confusion in the streets of Paris, 146, 147;
a republic proclaimed, 156, 158; and uni-
versally received, 257; restoration of
order, 259; revival of trade and com-
merce, 260 ; England favourable to £he,
270; the republic recognized by foreign
states, 361, 363; consequences of the,
430; spirit of, exhibited in Austria, Prus-
sia, Hungary, Lombardy, and Italy, 430,
431 ; list of the members elected to the
TNational Assembly, 477; general review
of the, 565.
Revolutionists. See INSURGENTS.
Revolutions of the human mind, l ; of
nations, ibid.
Rhine, army of the, 288.
Rights of Man, Society of the, 51.
Royal family, distress of the, 71; flight of,
84; uncertainty of their flight, 298;
arrival at Dreux, 299 ; they separate and
travel in disguise, 302; pecuniary affairs
of, 316.
Russia, policy of, 267; diplomatic relations
with, 370.
Sabastiano, Gen., character of, 79
St. Cyr School, pupils of, 142.
St. Hilaire, emergies of, 163,
St. Just, character of, 196.
Sand, Madame, notices of, 347; the Sup-
porter of Communism, ibid.
Sanson, Dr., conduct of, 160.
Sardinia, conduct of the king of, 432.
Sarraris, Gen., energies of, 163, 174.
Servien, M., character of, 413.
Shee, M. Alton, character of, 410.
Siècle, La., politics and influence of, 12.
Sobrier, M., character of,411.
Socialism, supported by Louis Blanc and
Albert, 345.
Socialists, hopes of the, 164; their doc-
trines, 191, 252; character of the different
Schools, 194; vast assemblages of, 253;
deputation of, to the government, 254,
Society of the Rights .#Man, 51.
TEIE
INDEX,
Societies, the revolution promoted"
See CLUBS.
Sorbonne, club of the, 413.
Spain, doubtful conduct of, 286, 367.
Subervie, Gen., appointed minister of war,
139; character of, ibid.; his exertions,
237; president of the committee of na-
tional defence, 290; complaints against,
332; his dismissal, ibid.; interview with
Lamartine, 333; succeeded by Arago, ibid.
Switzerland, policy and indecision of, wº
Taxes, territorial, 323, 325. -
Terrorists, history and description of the,
196; their standard the red flag, 198;
their temporary discomfiture, ibid.; their
future projects, 199; inducements held
out by them to the people, 200; unfa-
vourably regarded by artisans, 201; re-
cruited only from the dregs of the people,
202; union with the Communists, 203.
Thiard, M. de, appointed ambassador to
Switzerland, 365.
Thiers, M., his genius and character, 9, 49;
prudent policy of, 15; politics of, 60;
summoned by the king, ibid.; appointed
prime minister, 62; fruitless proclamation
of, 63; conduct after the abdication of
the king, 99; his misrepresentations, 436.
Thomas, editor of the National, emergies
of, 163.
Tocsin, sounding of the, 58.
Trade and commerce, revival.q., 260.
Treasury of France, exhaustion of the,
295; Garnier Pagès accepts the office of
minister, 297; embarrassment of the, 324.
Tricoloured flag, Lamartine's defence of
the, 234; contests with the red flag, 208.
Tuileries sacked and burnt, 89, 147. !.
Tullenay, M., ambassador to London, 363.
Tuscany, popular excitation in, 286; revo-
lution in, 431,
Vienna, revolution at, 430, 431.
War, preparations for, 271 ; Lamartine's
opinions on the policy of, 272; its pro-
bable result, 273, 287; increase of the
army in anticipation of, 290.
Wurtemburg, duke of, his flight from
Paris, 315.
ENED.

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