These ordinances were three. By the first, the liberty of the periodical press was suspended; no journals were to be issued but by the express authorisation of government, which must be renewed every three months, and might be withdrawn at any time; and all writings of less than twenty pages of print were to lie under the same conditions. By the second ordinance, the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved, on the ground that means had been used, in various parts of the kingdom, to deceive and mislead the electors, during the late elections. By the third ordinance, means were taken to correct such abuses by setting aside those provisions of the charter which were found inconvenient in their operation; by the power conferred on the king by the charter to consult the security of the state, he lessened the number of deputies, reduced their term of office, and altered their qualification, and the methods of election.

It is scarcely credible, even now, that any government of our day should have conceived of doing such things as these by the mere will of the sovereign; and the question arises, how the government could have gone on thus far, administered by men who now shewed themselves destitute of all idea of nationality, law, and the purposes of social organisation. These three ordinances, together with some subordinate articles, recalling to the council some men odious to the people, were countersigned by the six ministers present in council, and kept profoundly secret till half an hour before midnight of the 25th of July, when they were communicated to the responsible editor of the Moniteur newspaper, for publication in the morning. So profoundly had the secret been kept, that neither the heads of the police nor the soldiery had the least idea that any extraordinary call was likely to be made upon their energies. The ministers had not made the slightest preparation for any awkward reception of their measures. There is no evidence that, amidst all their complaints of popular disobedience and violence, they dreamed of resistance to the ordinances. As for the public, though something of the sort had been predicted and vaguely expected, from the day of Polignac's accession to office, the amazement and dismay at last were as overwhelming as if no forebodings had been entertained.

The opposition journalists were the first to act on that memorable 26th of July. They obtained an opinion from the most eminent lawyers in Paris of the illegality of the ordinances; and then assembled, to the number of forty-four, in the office of the National, to prepare the celebrated protest which first gave direction to the bewildered mind of Paris. By this protest, they proved the illegality of the ordinances, declared their own intention of resisting them, and invited the deputies to meet on the properly appointed day-the 3d of August. The government,' said the protest, 'has to-day forfeited that character of legality which makes obedience a duty. We, for our part, shall resist it. It is for the rest of the nation to determine how far its own resistance shall extend.' A legal sanction was given, in the course of the day, to such a method of proceeding as this, by the decision of a magistrate, M.

Belleyme, who authorised the printer of the Journal of Commerce to continue the issue of that paper provisionally, as long as the ordinance of the 25th had not been promulgated according to the legal forms.

At the Exchange, the excitement was tremendous. Crowds assembled in all the avenues to it, long before the gates were opened; and then the hubbub was such as might have alarmed even Prince Polignac, if he had witnessed it; but his way was to see very little, and to believe nothing but what he saw. Every one wanted to sell, and nobody to buy; manufacturers declared that they should close their establishments, and dismiss their workmen; and the Exchange had not been seen in so stormy a state since the return of the Bourbons. Presently, the stir and excitement had spread to the remotest corners of Paris; and in the theatres the usual occasions were found or made for expressing the popular opinion. The day passed over, however, without actual insurrection; and the ministers agreed that the discontent would exhaust itself in harmless murmurs; that no struggle need be apprehended till the new elections should be entered upon; and that they need not send police or soldiery into the streets, to disperse the groups which began to form there. Even the usual leave of absence, asked by some military officers, was granted as on ordinary days. Marmont, Duke of Ragusa, who commanded the troops, held a most difficult position. He had no warning whatever of what was going to be done, though the ministry were as well aware as he was, that whole divisions of the soldiery were so full of popular sympathy as to be unreliable, in case of insurrection. As the event shewed, there were only 6000 on whom he could depend; and of these nearly 2000 were needed for the supply of the regular posts in Paris, and about the king's palace at St Cloud; so that the general had but little more than 4000 men wherewith to defend Paris, and put down revolt, if the citizens should be disposed to resist the overthrow of the charter.

The most remarkable scene, on Tuesday the 27th, was the conflict between the police and the newspaper corps. The doors of the offices were closed, and the papers were thrown out of the windows as fast as they could be printed; and the eager mob handed them, by tens of thousands, to every house, or to every reader who wished to see the famous protest. The police, meantime, were standing before the doors, unable to effect an entrance, because nobody would give any aid. One blacksmith after another was brought to the spot, with his tools; but one after another folded his arms, and refused to force the locks. When half Paris had witnessed the scene, so damaging to the authority of the government, the doors were at last broken in, the manuscripts and books seized, the types thrown away, and the presses broken: a process which did not make the temper of the government more respected than its power had been. During this day, the Tribunal of Commerce declared itself. The printer of the Courrier Français had been afraid to print the paper in violation of the ordinance, and the editors sued him for breach of contract. The tribunal,

CHAP. IX.]

by the voice of its president, Ganneron-a voice which sounded firm and clear amidst the first roar of the revolutionary storm-pronounced that the ordinance, being contrary to the charter, could not be binding on any one, from his majesty the king to the remotest of his subjects; and that the printer must act, in fulfilment of his contract, within twentyfour hours.

Before two o'clock, Marmont was posting his troops, and bodies of men were arming themselves from the gunsmiths' shops. Some thirty deputies had met to consider whether or not they should assemble on the 3d of August; and the police and soldiery drew round their place of meeting. They do not appear to have thought of anything but legal resistance as yet; but in the midst of their consultation, a deputation came to them from the electors of Paris, to say that by the promulgation of the ordinances, law was at an end, and that insurrection was the method open to the citizens, and that which they were prepared to adopt. The deputation declared that assemblages were beginning in the streets; that they, the representatives of a multitude, like-minded with themselves, had cast themselves, 'body and goods,' into the enterprise; and that they now called upon the deputies to sanction and guide their proceedings. Next came a body of young men, messengers from a large association resolved on an immediate struggle, who offered a guard to the assembled deputies. These last could come to no immediate determination under these exciting visitations, with police and soldiers all about the neighbourhood, and shots multiplying in the streets, and at the very door. They appointed a place of meeting for the morrow, when some of them were to come prepared with a decisive protest, which should be immediately considered, and issued when agreed upon. The ministers met this afternoon at the foreign office; and though they knew everything that was going forward, saw with their own eyes the state of the streets and the armourers' shops, and had-Prince Polignac and M. de Montbel-been pelted with showers of stones, they could not yet perceive the seriousness of the occasion. They expected the people to become quiet, and talked of declaring Paris in a state of siege, as a threatening measure, and of bringing in troops from a distance, if matters were not right to-morrow morning. They had great faith in the power of soldiery against a mob; and thought little of the all-important circumstance that various bodies of the troops had shewn disinclination to act against the citizens.

On Wednesday morning, the 28th, barricades were seen rising in all directions; paving-stones, powder, and lead, were carried into houses favourably placed for attacking troops in the streets; the court tradesmen, seeing that they were in danger of insult from their display of the royal arms, took them down; and this became the signal for pulling down the royal insignia everywhere, and dragging them through the mud. The arsenal, the artillery depôt, and the powder-mills, were all emptied with extraordinary dispatch, and every soldier or government servant who carried arms was disarmed, as soon as met. The prefect of the Seine went, at seven in the

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morning, to inform the minister, that if the Hotel de Ville were not properly guarded, he feared it would be entered, and a provisional council of the people be established therein; but the minister still did not consider the matter serious, thought the people would be scared back to their homes when Paris should be declared in a state of siege, and drove off to attend a council at St Cloud, where the king and royal family now were. When the magistrate returned from this interview, the Hotel de Ville was in the hands of the people, who had turned out the guard of sixteen men, and were running up to the belfry, where they rang the tocsin, and hung out the tricolored flag, with crape for mourning; and the eloquent flag streamed to the wind, in the sight of all Paris. Presently there was another, streaming from the steeple of Notre Dame, whose great bell was kept tolling, to call the people to arms. Soon after this was accomplished, bodies of soldiery appeared, to guard the edifices which were already in the possession of the citizens. In the course of the morning, there were various encampments of troops in different parts of the city; but no one seems to have remembered that they would want food, for none was provided. Marshal Marmont now sent a letter and report to St Cloud, to alarm the king, and assure him that it was necessary to yield immediately; that if measures of pacification were instantly offered, there might yet be time to save the royal dignity; but that to-morrow it would be too late. This letter is declared to have been missent or suppressed.

When the ministers returned from St Cloud, they assembled and remained at the Tuileries, believing that they should no longer be safe in their own houses, and that they ought to be on the spot, ready to hold council with Marshal Marmont, who was now-Paris being in a state of siege-the head of the government. Almost as soon as they had arrived, a remarkable deputation was shewn into the presence of Marshal Marmont. Five deputies came, sent by the liberal members of their body, to propose a truce, for the saving of life, till communication could be had with the king. The marshal appeared disposed for peace, on his own part, but declared that his orders were positive to enforce the decrees of the government. He offered to send a message to St Cloud; and did so. He inquired if the deputies had any objection to see Prince Polignac; they expressed themselves willing, and he went into an adjoining room. Returning almost immediately, he intimated that, as nothing could be done till an answer arrived from St Cloud, there would be no use in their seeing Prince Polignac. It was afterwards made known, that orders had been issued for the arrest of five or six of the leading liberal deputies, some of whom were of this negotiating party; that the intended victims passed through the presence of the officers charged to arrest them; and that, on their departure, Marshal Marmont countermanded the orders, which could not now be executed without too much hazard.

The marshal sent one of his aides-de-camp, Colonel Komierowski, to St Cloud with a letter which related the mission of the deputies, and referred the

king to the bearer for an account of what was passing in Paris. It was four o'clock when the messenger left Paris. When he arrived at St Cloud, the king was at cards, and some of the ladies were in the orangery, silently listening to the distant firing. They had all been informed by an officer of the royal suite of what was going on; but the king comforted himself with the thought that everybody always exaggerates dangers. The messenger did his

duty well. He delivered the letter into the king's own hand, observing that an answer could not be given too speedily; that it was not the populace, but the whole people that had risen. 'It is a formidable revolt, is it?' inquired the king. 'Sire,' replied the soldier, it is not a revolt; it is a revolution.' The king desired him to retire, and return to his presence to receive his answer, when the letter should have been read; and at the end of twenty minutes of

anxious waiting, he was called in. The dauphin and the Duchess de Berri were present; and it was unchecked by them that the king gave the message which he chose to send to Marshal Marmont-a message so cold and cruel, as well as foolish, as to extinguish any lingering feelings of compassion for his loss of the sovereignty of France. His verbal message was that Marshal Marmont must hold on'concentrate his forces, and act with the masses'that is, he was to put down the people by military force, at all events. It also signified the king's displeasure at the dispersion of the forces over Paris. The method prescribed was already impossible. The greater number of the soldiers had gone over to the people; those that remained were too few for the work, and they were hungry, weary, and distressed. At night, orders were sent in the quietest way possible, to such of them as were at the Hotel de Ville, where fighting had been going on, without result, for many hours, to return to the Tuileries in the best way they could. Since the morning of the

preceding day, there had been no issue of provisions to the soldiers; and now, when in a famished condition they reached the Tuileries at midnight, after fighting all day in a burning sun, there was neither food nor drink for them. They were promised some at daybreak, but it was not to be got. The officers bought up from the bakers whatever bread they had; but it went a very little way. It was no wonder that it was found next morning that a large proportion of the troops of the line were not to be depended on.

There was little rest for anybody that night. The soldiers were murmuring; and their commander was in great anguish of mind, which caused a miserable irresolution in his purposes. He disapproved the ordinances as much as any man in Paris, and had said so to M. Arago the Monday before; but his professional duty constrained him-or he thought it did-to fire upon the citizens who had his sympathies in their enterprise. He was required to fulfil his professional duty under every kind of disadvantage.

CHAP. IX.]

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the royal family insisted upon it that all their

under the displeasure of the king, and was not on good terms with the ministers. Marshal Marmont was a wretched man that night. All night the tocsin rang, banishing sleep from the city. All night the people were cutting down the trees of the Boulevards, and building up new barricades. On the 29th, however, these were no longer wanted. The soldiers no longer came out against the people. They were posted 'in masses,' as the king desired, and the people must come up and attack them.

There was a good deal of fighting, in a desultory kind of way; but regiment after regiment unscrewed their bayonets, and joined the people, or at least withdrew from the struggle. Meantime, from early in the morning, a remarkable scene was going forward in the palace of the Tuileries.

The peers had made no demonstration as a chamber; but some of them had fought as private men on the side of the people. Early in the morning of the 29th, the Marquis de Semonville, who held a high office in the Chamber of Peers, went to the Tuileries, saw Marmont, who carried despair in his countenance, and requested from him an interview with Prince Polignac. The Marquis was accompanied by M. d'Argout; and their account of the interview has never been disputed. The marquis peremptorily requested Prince Polignac to withdraw the ordinances, in order to stop the effusion of blood, and preserve Paris; or, at least, to resign. Prince Polignac replied, with cold politeness, that he had no power of his own to take either step, without consultation with the king. The other ministers said the same thing; but their whole manner conveyed to the two peers the impression that they were 'under the influence of a power greater than their own will;' that as they had tempted and urged on the king to this pass, he would not now let them draw back. At length, Prince Polignac, with the same calm politeness, yielded so far as to propose to retire, to deliberate with his colleagues. While he was out of the room, the marquis urged Marmont to arrest the ministers, as the shortest way of putting an end to the slaughter in the streets; the governor of the Tuileries offering to do the deed, and the marquis himself proposing to go to St Cloud, to work upon the king. Marmont was convulsed with agitation; he shed tears of indignation and passion, in the conflict between the convictions of his judgment and his professional duty; but he had yielded, and was about to sign the requisite orders, when Peyronnet came in, and said in a voice of great emotion, as he stood behind the marquis: 'What! not gone yet?' The intention to yield was clear from the tone and manner of these few words. The marshal wrote something different from what he had intended; he wrote a pressing entreaty to the king to give way. The governor put the two peers instantly into a carriage for St Cloud; Prince Polignac and some of his colleagues entered another, and the two carriages reached St Cloud at the same time. Their arrival, and the disorder and agitation of their appearance created no little astonishment there; for even yet

taunted the marquis with this in the interview which ensued.

During that interview, the king was as obstinate as ever about the ordinances and his 'system' of government. It was only by presenting plainly to him his personal danger from the hands of the populace, and his responsibility for the lives and fortunes of his family, that the marquis could make any impression upon him whatever. It was not a moment for scruples; and the marquis therefore laid upon the king the sole responsibility for anything that might happen to his family through his refusal to yield. This at length brought tears to the old man's eyes; he drooped his head upon his breast, and said in a low and agitated voice: 'I will request my son to write, and assemble the council.'

After a short deliberation, it was resolved that the ordinances should be revoked, and a new ministry appointed; but, either from some difficulty about the new appointments, or from some lingering hope of better news, the decision was kept secret till the evening; and then it was too late.

The ministers fairly gone, Marmont ordered the soldiers to act only on the defensive, and proclaimed a truce at various points; but he was not much attended to, and, in fact, not understood. In some places, the conflict raged more than ever; and elsewhere, more and more soldiers went over to the people. In the afternoon, the citizens had penetrated everywhere; and Marmont found himself suddenly compelled to leave the city, if he wished to preserve his force at all. He could not even give notice of his intention to several scattered companies, which he was obliged to leave to their fate. Most of them, however, made their way out, and joined him on the road to St Cloud. His only hope now was to guard the person of the king, and the safety of the royal family. On the road, the soldiers met the dauphin, with two aides-de-camp. They formed in battalions to receive him. They supposed that he would address the troops, and invite them to follow him to Paris; but he only rode rapidly, and in dismal silence, along their front, and turned back towards St Cloud, whither they followed him with heavy hearts. Their case was a hard one. Their good

will towards the people and their cause was such, that they spared life to the utmost that was consistent with their military duty, while they were pelted with stones, and treated as enemies by the populace; and, at the same time, they had no encouragement on the side of their professional duty; their wants were not cared for; they were not supported by an efficient command; nor were their spirits cheered by a single demonstration in favour of the royal cause. Throughout the whole struggle, not one solitary cry of 'Long live the king!' was heard. And now, when all was over, and they were going to the presence of the king, the king's heir had not one word of thanks or sympathy to address to them; but, on the contrary, he seemed to doubt whether they had done their duty. Some of them must have wished themselves with those of their comrades who had fallen

with the old grenadier, one of the heroes of Austerlitz, who fell mortally wounded this day by a ball from the musket of a citizen, exclaiming: 'I was a good Frenchman, however.'

The troops, on their arrival at St Cloud, were encamped in the avenues of the park; but still, no provision of food or comfort was made for them. Those who had their pay in their pockets bought of the bakers; the others were at last fed by requisitions on the nearest inhabitants. In the evening, Marmont delivered a sort of proclamation, in which he declared the revocation of the ordinances, and the change of ministry. The soldiers cried: 'Long live the king !' and set about eating and reposing themselves. The dauphin was indignant with the marshal-called him traitor, ordered his arrest, and took his sword from him with his own hand; but the king checked these proceedings, made some kind of apology for them, and ordered the troops to be informed that he was satisfied with their conduct.

The courtiers were the most at a loss what to do. It was long before they could admit the idea of the popular victory; but when they did, they took their part with a primary view to their own security. Up to the night of the 29th, all had been brilliant, gay, and confident. Next day, there was an eager looking-out for news; but when, all day long, nobody entered the park, no deputations, no messengers, no news-bearers, the silence of consternation settled down on the palace of St Cloud. Then, one by one, the carriages rolled away-attendance slackenedmanners became cold and careless; and, in a few hours, the great house appeared nearly empty. Only a few general officers and gentlemen-in-waiting remained-except, indeed, the disgraced ministers. The king could not bear this, and he did not know whether he was safe at St Cloud; so, at three in the morning of the last day of July, he set off for Trianon, another country palace, with his whole family and establishment, except the dauphin and his attendants, who remained with the troops. The soldiers were naturally discouraged at this; and some returned to Paris without asking leave.

The unhappy king could not rest. He went from place to place, seeing the hated tricolor everywhere along the road, and forsaken by more and more of his guard of soldiers, who could not endure being thus dragged about before the eyes of the victorious people. His displaced ministers dropped off, except Polignac, who remained some days in the suite of his sovereign, but concealing himself from observation. That night-the night of the 1st of August the king believed that all was lost for himself; for he heard that the Duke of Orleans had accepted the office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom; but there might be a hope that the crown might be preserved for his grandson, the posthumous child of the Duke de Berri; and in his favour, the king that night abdicated; and the dauphin resigned his pretensions to the throne. Again they had to learn that it was too late. The only notice taken was by sending commissioners from Paris to advise the departure of the whole royal family for Cherbourg, whence they were to leave the kingdom; and to require

the delivery of the crown jewels. It was impossible to resist. The jewels were delivered up; the last orders to the troops were issued while the chambers met in Paris, according to the king's first appointment, and in defiance of his subsequent decree of dissolution. The last orders to the troops were to repair to Paris, after having seen the royal family depart; and to submit themselves to whatever authority they might find supreme in the capital. On the morning of the 4th, the poor king affected to give the order for departure, though the commissioners remained to accompany him to the coast, and were, in fact, the masters. As he passed between the ranks of his soldiers, and among the flags under which they were to fight no more, tears were in his eyes, and in theirs; and these tears seem to have been the only mark of regret that he met with during the whole process of his dethronement. The royal party moved as slowly as possible towards the coast. They lingered-they courted sympathythey looked in every face they met for comfort; but there was no comfort for them, for they had not deserved it. They had done nothing to secure either the respect or affection of the nation; and they now met with nothing but indifference or mere compassion. No one injured them; no one insulted them; no one withheld the observances of ordinary civility; but it was impossible for them not to see that no one cared for them. For the children, indeed, some emotion was shewn-banished as they were from their birthright before they were old enough to know what they had lost.

When the train arrived on the heights above Cherbourg, the spectacle that met the eyes of the travellers was very affecting. The vessels in the harbour carried the tricolor, all but two; two ships in the distance, whose sails were hung out, and all evidently ready for immediate departure. These were American vessels engaged to carry the royal family into exile. royal family into exile. The travelling-party drove through the town without stopping, and immediately went on board the Great Britain, the soldiers on the quay presenting arms, and their officers saluting in grave silence, as the exiles passed. Captain Dumont d'Urville-who afterwards perished by fire in the dreadful railway accident near Versailleswaited on the king, to inquire whither he should have the honour of escorting him. 'To Spithead,' was the reply.

The pilot who took them out of port related, on his return, that as the unhappy family saw the shores of France grow dim and dimmer in the distance, their sobs and lamentations became more and more irrepressible. The king alone preserved his calmness. In twenty-four hours from their sailing-that is, before three o'clock in the afternoon of the 17th of August-the vessels anchored at Spithead. Two of the king's suite were put on shore, in order to proceed to London, to learn the pleasure of the king and ministry of England. As it was reported to the exiles that the people of Portsmouth, in their joy at the emancipation of France, meant to hang out the tricolor all over the harbour, the vessels were removed from their first station, and moored off Cowes, in the Isle of Wight.