and their absurd and fatal, measures. Whatever personal regard he might feel for the king, it would have argued a degree of magnanimity which few men possess, and least of all Louis Philippe, to have spontaneously allied himself to a cabinet who had proved that they had neither discretion and ability to avoid a conflict, nor foresight and firmness to prepare for one. M. Lafitte, the prime instigator, as it seems to us, of the whole sedition, and whose object was to have the Duke in his own sleeve, ready for any emergency, suggested to him suspicions of the intentions of the court, and by a witty enigma, worthy the days of oracular mythology, sent him word to beware the nets of St. Cloud.'* About this time, however, a report was spread in the chateau that a deputation with offers of peace from the Parisians had arrived, and the inhabitants passed suddenly and inconsiderately to a state of confidence and comfort; they looked on all as settled, and began, says M. Mazas, to gossip as usual. Then it was that a storm of reproaches against M. de Polignac was heard on all sides. 'I was petrified,' says the good-natured tutor. He adds, All who had seen the court for these three days must have been disgusted with it for ever.' We believe it. Imbecility in the great, and ingratitude in their followers, are indeed disgusting. But while we concur in the general sentiment, we do not know that we should have applied it on this particular occasion. Surely the most honest-the most loyal-the most devoted-the most disinterested, might, without any reproach upon either his honour or his sagacity, have censured the policy, at once so rash and so timid-so daring and so weak, by which M. de Polignac had brought his sovereign and his country into such a crisis. Even the most ardent royalists, who might have approved the Ordonnances as right in themselves—or the most sagacious statesman who might have seen that they were the inevitable result of the necessities of the times, might and must have cursed the fatal temerity and insouciance which had neglected to provide for their execution and success. During this short fool's paradise Mazas happened to enter the apartment of General Trogof, 'one of the few men,' he says, 'who in all these difficult trials know how to preserve the manners and countenance which were suitable to his character and the occasioncalm and firm, but without bombast, and, above all, without com *To understand this, the reader must know that St. Cloud is lower down the stream of the Seine than Paris, and that nets are stretched there across the river to intercept any evidences of robbery or murder which the perpetrators of such crimes in Paris might throw into the river. Hence the phrase les filets de St. Cloud-so significantly used on this occasion.-We find, as this sheet is passing through the press, the hero of the last translated of De Koch's novels (those inimitable pictures of the Cockney life of Paris) ending his career among the nets of St. Cloud.See Andrew the Savoyard, vol. ii. p. 325. plaints plaints or recrimination.' He observed in a corner of the general's room a pile of a very strange and curious libel, which had been lately published against the Duke of Orleans, called Maria Stella. 'What in the world,' says Mazas, brings such a quantity of this libel into your room?' The king,' answered Trogof, 'having heard that such a work was in circulation, had commanded me to look after and seize all that I could find—he would not suffer such an outrage on the Duke of Orleans to circulate in his palace.' 'I have often recollected this,' says Mazas, when, since the 30th of July, I have seen the most infamous and atrocious libels against Charles X. and his immediate family ostentatiously exhibited in the Palais Royal; and I have thought of the pain that Louis Philippe must have felt at not being able to be as generous towards Charles, as Charles, up to the last moment, had been to him.' The guards were now in full retreat; Mazas saw them pass the bridge of St. Cloud; the men were worn down with fatigue and exhaustion, but they maintained a soldier-like air, proud, and somewhat passionate. The 15th light infantry was peculiarly striking from the inflammation visible on the countenance of the men. It had done its duty during the earlier part of the contest, but had latterly refused to act; and now, with a romantic mixture of devotion and disobedience, came to return into the king's own hands the colours which he had given them. Their colonel, M. de Perregaux, an old soldier, whose heroic figure set off the chivalrous part he was acting, carried the colour himself, at the head of the regiment, and ascended alone the great staircase to deliver the defeated and abandoned but unsullied standard, into the hands of the defeated and abandoned but not unhonoured sovereign. How much more picturesque and touching was this unexpected incident than the premeditated theatrical displays to which the Revolution has trained the French people and army! And it was felt accordingly. The army came back, as M. Bermond had already informed us, extenuated with toil and inanition-for neither Marmont nor any one else have ever remembered that soldiers must eat—and, above all, drink—after fighting in close streets for the three hottest days ever known-and he tells us that the kitchens of chateaus were emptied to afford them a scanty and unsuitable refreshment; but M. Mazas illustrates it by a fact:-he was seated at the Duke of Bordeaux's table; some officers, black with dust and gunpowder, were invited to share the dinner, but some one said that there was at the foot of the Orangerie a company of grenadiers who were absolutely starving. The whole of the prince's dinner was immediately sent down to the soldiers; the royal boy himself helping to lift off the massive silver dishes; and when he and his guests some some of whom were as exhausted as the grenadiers-looked for something to eat, there was absolutely nothing left upon the table. In the midst of their anxiety, this little incident occasioned a moment of mirth. After this singular dinner, which turned out to be none at all, the prince and his suite adjourned to the Trocadero-' their cus tom always in the afternoon,'-' even still the ordinary forms and etiquettes of the court prevailed-a thunderbolt only,' says Mazas, 'could interrupt them.' He had better have said that even a thunderbolt-(and surely a more fearful one had never fallen) -could not disturb them.-So to the Trocadero they went. The prospect of peace had restored a certain degree of tranquillity-the little princess and her train joined her brother, and they and their young companions began their usual round of play-but that evening they had invented a new game. While the older, and apparently not much wiser, heads were discussing the prospects of the country, they were startled at finding the children rather livelier and more noisy than usual. They watched what they were about, and saw that they were divided into two opposite parties they were playing the insurrection of the preceding days: the Duke of Bordeaux, in the uniform of the Royal Guard, commanded the royalists, and his sister, with a kind of Polonese cap on her delicious little head,' led the insurgents, and, with shouts and screams, and all the activity and thoughtlessness of childhood, were playing at civil war-at the very civil war which condemned them to suffer, on the very next day, expulsion from the country of their birth-the kingdom of their hopes, and what they would best understand and most regret-the scenes of their pastime! We shall be perhaps thought childish too, when we confess that this little incident, so natural, and yet so unexpected, has struck us much more than some of the graver scenes of this eventful history. There are many other small anecdotes which give an insight into the personal feelings of the royal family and their friends during this crisis, which we wish we had space to extract; but we must hasten to graver, though perhaps not really more important matters. The first step in the negociation which had been begun was the dismissal of the ministers; and the deputies who had assembled at M. Lafitte's exacted, as the first condition, that M. de Mortemart should be named Prime Minister. This is a remarkable fact. M. Lafitte was, as we have seen by the confession of M. Sarrans, the leader of the Orleanist party; and he had, immediately on the appearance of the Ordonnances, formed the project *See Quarterly Review, No. xcvi., p. 530. of of overthrowing the elder branch for the advantage of the younger;' and when we find, four days after the publication of the Ordonnances, this same Lafitte urging Charles X. to exercise his royal authority by the nomination of M. de Mortemart-and when we consider all that followed this appointment-we cannot but suspect that M. de Mortemart was a mere puppet put forward to serve the ulterior objects of M. Lafitte, and to occupy the scene till he should be ready to produce the real hero of his drama-the Duke of Orleans! It is very possible-nay, we believe that neither M. de Mortemart nor the Duke of Orleans were parties to this intrigue, but they were its tools. The not-unsuspicious result has been, that Louis Philippe became King of France; and that almost his first act was to name as his minister to the (at the moment) most important court of Europe, Russia, this very M. de Mortemart, whom Charles X. had been so lately persuaded to appoint PresiIdent of his council. We will extract, in his own words, the account the Duke of Mortemart gave to his new secretary of his share in the first part of this transaction : - I was setting out for a watering-place. I had been yesterday (Wednesday, 28th) two hours on my way, when I met the paymaster of my company, (of the king's body-guard,) who stopped my carriage, told me of the events that had occurred, and that the body-guards were assembled at St. Cloud. I immediately changed my route, took the paymaster into my carriage, and hired post-horses at Versailles, in order to get to St. Cloud. The populace, finding that we belonged to the king's household, attacked and pelted us. My servant was wounded-my carriage broken-the officer was struck on the thigh and myself on the back-but a detachment of the national guard rescued us, and I proceeded, and arrived at St. Cloud about ten at night. I endeavoured immediately to see the king to report the state of Versailles, but his majesty sent me word that he was going to bed and would see me in the morning! Very early this morning several persons came to urge me to wait on the king to explain to him the danger of our position; for his majesty, probably ill-informed, could not be persuaded of the serious nature of the case. I accordingly saw him at six o'clock this morning-(Thursday, 29th).-I told him what I had seen at Versailles, and what I had heard of Paris, and entreated him to take some new steps, for that I thought the throne itself was in danger. The king, patting me with his hand, replied, "You are an honest and loyal servant, and I appreciate your worth; but you are young; born in the Revolution, you see things after the modern fashion, and the least tumult alarms you; but I, I have not forgotten the events of forty years ago. I will not, like my poor brother, ascend the cart-I will get on horseback." I answered that I feared the moment was at hand when he would be obliged to mount. "We shall see-we shall see," said the king, and dismissed me.' Here Mazas interrupts M. de Mortemart's narrative to state that this fatal security on the part of the king arose from a despatch he had received still earlier that morning, from M. de Polignac, reporting that the night had gone off quietly; that the Parisians were in want of gunpowder-(which was true); that he had every reason to hope that he should suppress the tumult; and that, moreover, the liberal leaders had made several attempts at an arrangement. M. de Polignac was, we now know, fatally over-sanguine as to his power; but we are confident that if the king had followed his first impression, mounted his horse, and, at the head of his troops in the Tuileries, made any attempt towards conciliation, all might yet have been arranged. Alas! his majesty, and what is still more surprising and lamentable, the Dauphin, did not mount their horses,' but seem to have dawdled away the most precious hours that occur, perhaps, in the history of modern Europe, in newsmongering at St. Cloud, till they were forced to mount-neither their horses, nor the cart, but-their travelling carriages, fugitives and exiles! M. de Mortemart proceeds "I joined my men, and remained with them on duty at one of the out-posts, sending off detachments occasionally, as required. About three o'clock in the afternoon the Prince of Polignac sent for me. I was very much surprised to find him at St. Cloud. He told me the deputation from Paris had proposed, as the best chance of an arrangement, the formation of a new ministry, of which the Duke of Mortmart should be the head, and accordingly, added the prince, the king means to appoint you first minister of a new cabinet. I begged the prince to acquaint his majesty that I would defend his person at the head of my troops to the last drop of my blood, but that I would take no part in politics, and above all, not the part he had alluded to. With these words I left him, and hastened to rejoin my company at the Yellow-gate of the Trocadero, which it was rumoured the insurgents were about to attack, and I was equally anxious to share the danger of my men and to escape from the solicitations of M. de Polignac. I had not, however, yet reached the Yellow-gate when I heard myself called after by several of the king's footmen and an officer of the household, who had been pursuing me for some time, and who signified to me the king's express command to attend his person forthwith. I obeyed reluctantly. I found his majesty very much changed -not in countenance, for he never lost his calmness-but in spirit and opinion. "You were right," he said; "matters are more serious than I thought this morning."-[The morning of the third day!]—" It is now thought that a ministry, of which you should be the head, might make an arrangement, and I have appointed you." I declined. The king refused to accept my negative. I persisted for a quarter of an hour; at last the king produced a paper. "Here," he said, "is your nomination, countersigned by M. de Chantelauze; you are now Minister for Foreign Affairs and President of the Council." I still re VOL. XLIX. NO. XCVIII, 2 K fused |