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removed the dead to courts and covered places, where they lay in heaps, begrimed and beclotted, the human form scarcely recognisable from dust and gore. On the following day pits were opened to receive many of those who had fallen, whilst the rest were conveyed and packed in boats to be floated down the Seine to the Champ de Mars.

The exultant joy of the people was indescribable. It was too full for them even to think of the future. On one thing alone they were determined-to be rid of the Bourbons. What or who was to be put in their place, the people had as yet scarcely asked themselves the question. And as to authority, any one might have it who assumed it. A half insane officer named Dubourg bought a general's uniform in an old clothes shop, and went to the Hôtel de Ville, of which he took possession by the sole right of his garment. His fancy was to hoist the black flag. M. Baude, of the Temps, came also to the Hôtel de Ville, and assumed authority by right of his energy and loud voice. But Baude gave way to the municipal commission named by the Deputies, whilst General Dubourg bowed before the superior authority of Lafayette.

Tidings of these thick coming events soon reached the unfortunate King at St. Cloud. Polignac had

arrived there at the same time with Messrs. Semonville and D'Argout. The latter, instantly received, told his tale, but found Charles at first inflexible. The Louvre had not then been taken. But when the certitude of defeat was made apparent by the presence of Marmont, Charles the Tenth called a council of his ministers to decide the question, which had been already decided elsewhere, of yielding or not yielding. The ministers were still for holding out, for retreating to the provinces, and in fact commencing civil war. The Duc d'Angoulême inclined to the same opinion, incapable as he was of acting upon it. But the old King, who had

now full proof of the incapacity of his ministers as well as of his son, declared he would recall the Ordonnances, and appoint the Duc de Mortemart Prime Minister, with the power of nominating liberal colleagues.

Messrs. de Semonville, D'Argout, and Vitrolles were commissioned to go to Paris and make these concessions known. They were given no credentials, no documents. The King was too agitated to sign them at once. They set off nevertheless full of zeal, and managed late in the evening to reach the Hôtel de Ville. The Municipal Council and Lafayette received them immediately. Semonville announced the recall of the Ordonnances and the new ministry. Feeling themselves incompetent to reply, the Commission, or rather Casimir Périer, asked for the Royal signature and decrees confirming these changes. Vitrolles said they had come away in too great a hurry, not being aware that there existed a Provisional Government. The Commission declared its incompetence, and referred the three negotiators to the Deputies assembled at Laffitte's. D'Argout instantly repaired thither. Semonville was too wearied: Vitrolles, aware that his known ultra-Royalism would form an obstacle. D'Argout found M. Laffitte himself by no means willing to listen to the accommodation he proposed. Many of those present, however, would have jumped at it, notwithstanding the cries of the crowd in the courts of the mansion denouncing any pact with the Bourbons. But D'Argout had brought no Ordonnances, no credentials; and it was resolved to await M. de Mortemart, who was expected as the bearer of these.

That personage had remained at St. Cloud, expecting as well as the King the tidings of how M. de Semonville had speeded. Charles sat down to a rubber of whist, and then went to bed. In the night D'Argout and Vitrolles returned. Had they had full powers and clear credentials, they might have done something. M. de Mortemart was to be instantly despatched with these.

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But Charles the Tenth was asleep, and etiquette forbade his being awakened. Vitrolles insisted, but was met by the Monarch with reproaches for coming to intercede for his rebellious subjects. "Will your Majesty then go to La Vendée, and recommence civil war?" Charles liked this less than signing the counter-Ordonnances; and he did sign them, as well as that appointing the Duc de Mortemart Prime Minister. It was understood that Casimir Périer and Gérard were to be his colleagues. The Duke set off in the middle of the night; but the Duc d'Angoulême would sign no pass for him, so he was obliged to skulk along the roads south of the Seine, and get into Paris by a breach in the wall.

It was then the morning of the 31st, and by that time another combination had made progress, which left no chance or opening for the emissary of Charles the Tenth. The idea of transferring the crown from the elder branch of the Bourbons, as soon as it was evident that they were one and all inimical to the Charter and to Constitutional government, and placing it on the head of the Duke of Orleans, was too obvious not to have been mooted by all who employed their minds upon politics. The Prince had been often sounded, nay tempted, but had declined to give any encouragement to those who sought to raise him to the throne. A short time previous to the Ordonnances, at a fête given by the Duke to the King of Naples-a fête which the people had hailed by making a fire of the chairs in the gardens of thePalais Royal-M. Salvandy observed to the Duke that the fête was quite Neapolitan, taking place on the crater of a volcano. "It may indeed be so," rejoined the Duke, "but eruption or earthquake will at least leave me here. I shall not budge from this palace." This was to say that if Charles the Tenth managed to get himself and his family expelled from France, he, the Duke of Orleans, would neither join nor accompany him.

That the Duke did not expect the Ordonnances is

evident from his letter of the 25th to his Aide-de-camp Rumigny.* Laffitte sent to warn him on the 29th to beware of St. Cloud. The Duke did so by sleeping, not in the palace of Neuilly, but in a kiosk of the Parc. On the morning of the 30th, equally alarmed at what either Charles the Tenth or the Parisians might attempt, he hurried off to Raincy. On the previous evening Messrs. Thiers and Mignet, neither of them in the confidence of the Duke, published and placarded a Proclamation, printed in the bureau of the National, stating that the Duke of Orleans was preferable at the head of a government to either Charles the Tenth or a republic. It was issued with the cognizance of M. Laffitte.

When the Deputies met at the Hôtel of the latter, at mid-day of the 30th, they came struck with the effect of this proclamation. Some certainly of the successful insurgents were opposed to it, but the greater number were acquiescent. An attempt had been made in the morning to get Laffitte to espouse the succession of the Duc de Bordeaux, with the Duke of Orleans for Regent. He had rejected it as impossible, and was confirmed in his opinion by Béranger and his other intimate friends. When therefore at the midday meeting, and after the capture of the Louvre was announced, M. Delessert† proposed to confer the Lieutenant-Generalship of the Kingdom on the Duke, the idea seemed to almost all the only solution.

M. Dupin hastened off to Neuilly to inform the inmates of that palace of the intentions of the Deputies. The Duke himself had returned to Raincy, but M. Dupin was received by the Duchess and Madame Adelaide, the first of whom was shocked at the idea of her husband superseding the authority of Charles the Tenth,

Published by Nouvion in the Appendix to his Histoire de LouisPhilippe.

† M. Dupin, in his Memoirs, says positively it was Delessert who first made the proposal.

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CHAP. whilst Madame Adelaide, the Duke's sister, was by no means so firm or so outspoken in that opinion.

XLV.

In the mean time the placards putting forward the Duke of Orleans had disgusted and aroused the rising Republican party. They lost no time in issuing counter placards to the cry of "No Bourbons! "-" Lafayette Provisional President." That personage at the Hôtel de Ville was assailed with importunities. A republic meant himself for its President. This caused him to hesitate. Would such a proposal be accepted by the country? It certainly would not be accepted by the majority of his colleagues; and his first step must be war with them. He therefore rejected the idea, and strove to pacify the young republicans by promising they should have every thing short of a republic. Word was brought that the Duke de Chartres had been arrested at Montrouge. Whilst some of the republicans took steps for his further detention or for slaying him, Lafayette ordered his liberation.

This movement of the republicans greatly accelerated the appointment of the Duke of Orleans; for the Deputies were made to feel that the alternative was between him and a Republic. Such was the conviction with which both the Municipal Commission and Laffitte received D'Argout on the evening of the 30th; and a perfect knowledge that this was the general sentiment kept the Duc de Mortemart inactive and paralysed during the forenoon of the 31st. He merely sent M. de Sussy to signify that he had counter-Ordonnances, and that he had also his own nomination as minister.

The Deputies met at Laffitte's first, and then adjourned to their own Chamber on the 31st. The majority were already prepared to confer the LieutenantGeneralship of the kingdom upon the Duke of Orleans. But they had not his assent. M. Thiers, accompanied by M. Scheffer, set out for Neuilly on the morning of the 31st to procure it. He merely saw the Princesses,