Then began the appropriate religious ceremonies, and during the following week the public were admitted to view the coffin as it lay in state in the Chapelle Ardente. The crowd was very great. Women fainted daily, and many were almost pressed to death against the gilded rails.

After all, there was little to see. The coffin was enclosed in a sort of immense cage to keep it from intrusion, the air was heavy with incense, and the light was too dimly religious to show anything with distinctness.

A splendid tomb has since been erected to Napoleon in the Chapel of the Invalides, where he rests under the care of the war-worn soldiers of France. Few now can be living who fought under him. Not a Bonaparte was at his funeral; the only one then upon French soil was in a prison.

Napoleon sleeps where in his will he prayed that his remains might rest,—on the banks of the Seine.



CHAPTER V.

SOME CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.

After the signing of the treaty of 1841, which restored the entente cordiale between France and England, and satisfied the other European Powers, Louis Philippe and his family were probably in the plenitude of their prosperity. The Duke of Orleans had been happily married; and although his wife was a Protestant,—which was not wholly satisfactory to Queen Marie Amelie,—the character of the Duchesse Helene was so lovely that she won all hearts, both in her husband's family and among the people.

On the occasion of the fetes given in Paris at the nuptials of the Duke of Orleans, in 1837, the sad presage of misfortune that had accompanied the marriage festivities of Marie Antoinette was repeated. One of the spectacles given to the Parisians was a sham attack on a sham citadel of Antwerp in the Champ de Mars. The crowd was immense, but all went well so long as the spectacle lasted. When the crowd began to move away, a panic took place. The old and the feeble were thrown down and trampled on. Twenty-four persons were killed, the fetes were broken up, and all hearts were saddened both by the disaster and the omen.

One part of the festivities on that occasion consisted in the opening of the galleries of historical paintings at Versailles,—a magnificent gift made by the Citizen King to his people.

I have spoken already of the storming of Constantine. No French success since the wars of the Great Napoleon had been so brilliant; yet the Chamber of Deputies, in a fit of parsimony, reduced from two thousand to eleven hundred dollars the pension proposed by the ministers to be settled on the widow of General Damremont, the commander-in-chief, who had been killed by a round shot while giving orders to scale the walls. At the same time they voted two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the year's subsidy to the theatres of Paris for the amusement of themselves and their constituents.

Algeria proved a valuable school for soldiers; there Lamoriciere, Changarnier, Cavaignac, Saint-Arnaud, Pelissier, and Bugeaud had their military education. Louis Philippe's three sons were also with the troops, sharing all the duties, dangers, and hardships of the campaign.

By the end of 1847 Abdul Kader had retired to a stronghold in the mountains, where, seeing that his cause was lost, he tendered his submission to the Duc d'Aumale, then governor of Algeria. The offer was accepted. Abdul Kader surrendered on an understanding that he should be conducted to some Mohammedan place of refuge,—Alexandria or St. Jean d'Acre. But this stipulation was disregarded by the French Government, whose breach of faith has always been considered a stain on the honor of Louis Philippe and his ministers. The Duc d'Aumale vehemently remonstrated, believing his own word pledged to the Arab chieftain. Abdul Kader, his wives, children, servants, and principal officers were taken to France, and for five years lived at Amboise, where some of the subordinate attendants, overcome by homesickness, committed suicide. In 1852 Louis Napoleon, who possibly had a fellow-feeling for captives, restored Abdul Kader to liberty, who thereupon took up his residence at Damascus. There he subsequently protected a large number of Christians from massacre, sheltering them in his house, and giving them food and clothing. He afterwards removed to the island of Ceylon, where, as everywhere else, he won "golden opinions" by his generous behavior.

Meantime, while France was in some respects in the full tide of prosperity, great discontent was growing up among the working-classes, reinforced by the worthless class, always ready for disturbances. In May, 1839, Barbes led an emeute in Paris which might have proved formidable. His attempt opened with a deliberate murder, and there was considerable fighting in the streets for about twenty-four hours. Barbes was condemned to death. The king was desirous to spare him, and yielded readily to the prayers of his sister, for whom an opportunity of interceding for him was obtained by the good offices of Lamartine.

The emeute of Barbes was regarded with disfavor by more experienced conspirators, but secret societies had introduced organization among the workmen. Moreover, they were led by the bourgeoisie with a cry for parliamentary reform, which at that period was the supposed panacea for every kind of evil.

The king was not popular. He was not the ideal Frenchman. He was a Frenchman of the epicier, or small grocer, type. As a bon pere de famille he was anxious to settle his sons well in life. They were admirable young men, they deserved good wives, and as far as grace, beauty, and amiability went, they all obtained them; but up to 1846 not one of them had made a brilliant marriage. This good fortune Louis Philippe hoped was reserved for his two younger sons,—D'Aumale and Montpensier.

The Duke of Orleans was the most popular of the king's sons. Handsome, elegant, accomplished, and always careful in his toilet, he was a thorough Frenchman,—the approved type of an aristocrat with liberal sympathies and ideas. He was born at Palermo in 1810, and did not come to France till he was four years old. He had an excellent tutor, who prepared him for his college. There he took his place entirely on a par with other boys, and gained several prizes. All Louis Philippe's sons were sent to public schools.

The duke afterwards prepared for and entered the Polytechnic, which is said to demand more hard study than any other school in the world. He made his first campaign in Africa in 1835, and afterwards served with distinction in the early part of that one which resulted in the retreat from Constantine; but before Constantine was reached, a severe illness invalided him. He was a liberal in politics, the sincere friend of the working-classes, and was on intimate terms with men of letters, even with Victor Hugo, in spite of his advanced opinions. He was a patron of art and artists. Some beautiful table-pieces that he had ordered, by Barye, are now in the gallery of Mr. W. S. Walters, of Baltimore, they not having been completed when he died. His wife charmed every one by her good sense, grace, and goodness. They had had four years of happy married life, and had two little sons, when, in July, 1842, the duchess went for her health to the baths of Plombieres, in the mountains of the Vosges. Her husband escorted her thither, and then returned to Paris, on his way to attend some military manoeuvres near Boulogne.

As he was driving out to Neuilly to make his adieux to his family, the horses of his carriage were startled by an organ-grinder on the Avenue de Neuilly. The duke, who was alone, tried apparently to jump out of the carriage. Had he remained seated, all would have been well. He fell on his head on the pave of the broad avenue, breaking the vertebral column.

He was carried into a small grocer's shop by the way-side, where afterwards a little chapel was erected by his family. Messengers were sent to the Chateau de Neuilly, and his father, mother, and sisters, without bonnets or hats, came rushing to the spot. He lived, unconscious, for four hours. A messenger was despatched at once to bring his wife from Plombieres. She had just finished dressing for dinner, in full toilet, when the news reached her. Without changing her dress, she started instantly for Paris, but when she reached it, her husband was in his coffin.

When his will was opened, it was found to contain an earnest exhortation to his son that, whether he proved "one of those tools that Heaven fits for work, but does not use," or ascended the French throne, he "should always hold in his heart, above all things, love to France, and fidelity to the principles of the French Revolution."

Here is the poor Queen Amelie's account of the death of her son, written to a dear friend four days after:—

"My Chartres,[1] my beloved son, he whose birth made all my happiness, whose infancy and growing years were all my occupation, whose youth was my pride and consolation, and who would, as I hoped, be the prop of my old age, no longer lives. He has been taken from us in the midst of completed happiness, and of the happiest prospects of the future, whilst each day he gained in virtue, in understanding, in wisdom, following the footsteps of his noble and excellent father. He was more than a son to me,—he was my best friend. And God has taken him from me!... On the 2d of July he and Helene left for Plombieres, where the latter was to take the baths. He was, after establishing her there, to come back and spend a few days at the camp of St.-Omer, there to take command of an army corps, which was intended to execute great military manoeuvres on the Marne, and which had been the object of his thoughts and employments for a year past. Accordingly, on the 9th he returned from Plombieres, and came to dine with us at Neuilly, full of the subject of the elections, and talking of them with that warmth of heart and intellect which was apparent in all he did. Next day—my fete day—he came, contrary to his usual custom, with an enormous bouquet, telling me it was given in the name of the whole family. He heard mass, and breakfasted with us. He was so cheerful. He sat beside me at dinner. He got up, drank my health with much vivacity, and made the band play a particular tune,—in my honor, as he said. Who would have thought that this was the last time this dear child was to show me so much affection! On the 11th he again returned to dinner with us, much occupied all the time with the camp and the elections....

[Footnote 1: It was his first title before his father came to the throne. His mother always continued to use it.]

"On the 12th he arrived about four o'clock in his country suit. We conversed together about the health of Helene, which was a subject of anxiety, about Clementine's marriage, which he earnestly desired; about the elections and many other subjects, the discussion of which he always ended with the refrain: 'In short, dear Majesty, we finish as usual by agreeing in all important particulars.' And it was very true.

"After dinner we took a turn in the park, he and Victoire, Clementine, D'Aumale, and I. Never had he been so gay, so brilliant, so affectionate. He spoke to me of his arrangements for the troops, of the time when the king was to go with us to Ste.-Menehoulde, of the time that he would spend there, and of his own daily occupations. He looked forward to giving his father a representation of the battle of Valmy. I gave him my arm, saying: 'Come, dear prop of my old age!' And the next day he was to be alive no longer!

"We returned to the drawing-room a little late. A great many people had arrived. He remained with us talking until ten o'clock, when on going away he came to bid me good-night. I gave him my hand, and said: 'You will come and see us tomorrow before going away?' He replied: 'Perhaps so.'

"On the next day, July 13, about eleven o'clock, we were about to get into the carriage to go to the Tuileries. As I followed the king to the red drawing-room, I saw Troussart, the commissary of police, with a terrified countenance whispering something to General Gourgaud, who made a gesture of horror, and went to speak in a low voice to the king. The king cried out: 'Oh, my God!' Then I cried: 'Something has happened to one of my children! Let nothing be kept from me!' The king replied: 'Yes, my dear; Chartres has had a fall on his way here, and has been carried into a house at Sablonville.' Hearing this, I began to run like a madwoman, in spite of the cries of the king and the remonstrances of M. de Chabannes, who followed me. But my strength was not equal to my impulses, and on getting as far as the farm, I was exhausted. Happily the king came up in the carriage with my sister, and I got in with them. Our carriage stopped. We got out in haste, and went into the cabaret, where in a small room, stretched upon a mattress on the floor, we found Chartres, who was at that moment being bled.... The death-rattle had begun. 'What is that?' said the king to me. I replied: 'Mon ami, this is death. For pity's sake let some one fetch a priest, that my poor child may not die like a dog!' and I went for a moment into a little side room, where I fell on my knees and implored God from my inmost soul, if He needed a victim, to take me and spare so dear a child....

"Dr. Pasquier arrived soon after. I said to him: 'Sir, you are a man of honor; if you think the danger imminent, I beseech you tell me so, that my child may receive extreme unction.' He hung his head, and said: 'Madame, it is true.'

"The cure of Neuilly came and administered the sacrament while we were all on our knees around the pallet, weeping and praying. I unloosed from my neck a small cross containing a fragment of the True Cross, and I put it into the hand of my poor child, that God the Saviour might have pity on him in his passage into eternity. Dr. Pasquier got up and whispered to the king. Then that venerable and unhappy father, his face bathed in tears, knelt by the side of his eldest son, and tenderly embracing him, cried; 'Oh that it were I instead of thee!' I also drew near and kissed him three times,—once for myself, once for Helene, and once for his children. I laid upon his lips the little cross, the symbol of our redemption, and then placed it on his heart and left it there. The whole family kissed him by turns, and then each returned to his place.... His breathing now became irregular. Twice it stopped, and then went on. I asked that the priest might come back and say the prayers for the dying. He had scarcely knelt down and made the sign of the cross, when my dear child drew a last deep breath, and his beautiful, good, generous, and noble soul left his body.... The priest at my request said a De profundis. The king wanted to lead me away, but I begged him to allow me to embrace for the last time my beloved son, the object of my deepest tenderness. I took his dear head in my hands; I kissed his cold and discolored lips; I placed the little cross again upon them, and then carried it away, bidding a last farewell to him whom I loved so well,—perhaps too well!

"The king led me into the next room. I fell on his neck. We were unhappy together. Our irreparable loss was common to us both, and I suffered as much for him as for myself. There was a crowd in that little room. I wept and talked wildly, and I was beside myself. I recognized no one but the unhappy Marshal Gerard, the extent of whose misfortune I then understood.[1] After a few minutes they said that all was ready. The body had been placed on a stretcher covered with a white cloth. It was borne by four men of the house, attended by two gendarmes. They went out through the stable-yard; there was an immense crowd outside.... We all followed on foot the inanimate body of this dear son, who a few hours before had passed over the same road full of life, strength, and happiness.... Thus we carried him, and laid him down in our dear little chapel, where four days before he had heard mass with the whole family."

[Footnote 1: Marshal Gerard was then mourning for his son.]

The death of the Duke of Orleans was the severest blow that could have fallen on Louis Philippe, not only as a father, but as head of a dynasty. The duke left two infant sons,—the Comte de Paris and the Duc de Chartres. The former is now both the Orleanist and Legitimist pretender, to the French throne.

In the early part of 1845 Louis Philippe, who had already visited Windsor and been cordially received there, was visited in return at his Chateau d'Eu by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, accompanied by Lord Aberdeen, then English Minister for Foreign Affairs. The king's reception of the young queen was most paternal. He kissed her like a father, and did everything in his power to make her visit pleasant. Among the subjects discussed during the visit was the question of "the Spanish marriages."

The unfortunate Queen of Spain, Isabella II., was just sixteen years old; her sister, the Infanta Luisa, was a year younger. Isabella was the daughter of a vicious race, and with such a mother as she had in Queen Christina, she had grown up to early womanhood utterly ignorant and untrained. One of her ministers said of her that "no one could be astonished that she had vices, but the wonder was that she had by nature so many good qualities." Jolly, kindly, generous, a rebel against etiquette, and an habitual breaker of promises, she was long popular in Spain, in spite of a career of dissoluteness only equalled by that of Catherine of Russia.

In 1846, however, she had not shown this tendency, and in the hands of a good husband might have made as good a wife and as respectable a woman as her sister Luisa has since proved.

There were many candidates for the honor of Queen Isabella's hand. Louis Philippe sent his sons D'Aumale and Montpensier to Madrid to try their fortunes; but England objected strongly to an alliance which might make Spain practically a part of France. The candidature of the French princes was therefore withdrawn.

A prince of the Catholic branch of the Coburgs was then proposed,—Prince Ferdinand, who made subsequently an excellent king-consort in Portugal; but to him France objected, as too nearly allied to the English Crown. Finally the suitors were reduced to three,—the queen's cousin Enrique (Henry), a rough sailor of rather radical opinions and turbulent ways; the Comte de Trepani, a Neapolitan prince, a man of small understanding; and another cousin, Don Francisco d'Assis, a creature weak alike in mind and body, whom it was an outrage to think of as fit mate for a young queen. England was willing to consent to the queen's marrying anyone of these princes, and also that the Duc de Montpensier should marry the Infanta Luisa, provided that the queen was first married and had had a child. All this was fully agreed upon in the conference at Eu. But Christina, the queen-mother, who had been plundering the Spanish treasury till she had accumulated an enormous fortune, offered, if Louis Philippe would use his influence to prevent any inquiry into the state of her affairs, to further his views as to the Duc de Montpensier.

It seems more like a scene in the Middle Ages than an actual transaction in our own century, that at midnight, in a Spanish palace, a dissolute Italian dowager and a French ambassador should have been engaged in coercing a sovereign of sixteen into a detested marriage. As morning dawned, the sobbing girl had given her consent to marry Don Francisco, and the ambassador of Louis Philippe, pale from the excitement of his vigil, left the palace to send word of his disgraceful victory to his master. The Duc de Montpensier, who was in waiting on the frontier, soon arrived in Madrid, and Isabella and Luisa were married on the same day; while M. Guizot, who was head of the French Government, and Louis Philippe excused their breach of faith to the queen of England by saying that Queen Isabella was married before her sister, though on the same morning.

Isabella at once banished her unwelcome husband to a country seat, and flung herself headlong into disgraceful excesses.

Queen Victoria was greatly hurt by the treachery displayed by Louis Philippe and his minister, and doubtless, as a woman she was deeply sorry for the young queen. Louis Philippe not only lost credit, popularity, and the support he derived from the personal friendship of the Queen and the Prince Consort of England, but he obtained no chance of the throne of Spain for his son by his wicked devices; for Queen Isabella, far from being childless, had three daughters and a son. The latter, subsequently Alfonso XII., married, in spite of much opposition, his lovely cousin Mercedes, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Montpensier. She died a few months after her marriage, so that no son or grandson of Louis Philippe will be permitted by Providence to mount the Spanish throne.

The affair of the Spanish marriages, the quarrel it involved with Queen Victoria, and the loss to Louis Philippe of personal honor, had a great effect upon him; he became irritable and obstinate, and at the same time weak of will.

Troubles multiplied around him. Things with which he had nothing whatever to do increased his unpopularity, and the secret societies kept discontents alive. Everything that went wrong in France was charged upon the king and the royal family.

One of the great families in France was that of Choiseul-Praslin. The head of it in Louis Philippe's time was a duke who had married Fanny, daughter of Marshal Sebastiani, an old officer of Napoleon and a great favorite with Louis Philippe. The Duc de Praslin had given in his adhesion to the Orleans dynasty, while so many old families stood aloof, and was in consequence made an officer in the Duchess of Orleans' household. The Duc and Duchesse de Praslin had ten children. The duchess was a stout, matronly little woman, rather pretty, with strong affections and a good deal of sentiment. Several times she had had cause to complain of her husband, and did complain somewhat vehemently to her own family; but their matrimonial differences had always been made up by Marshal Sebastiani. The world considered them a happy married pair.

After seventeen years of married life a governess was engaged for the nine daughters, a Mademoiselle Henriette de Luzy. She was a Parisian by birth, but had been educated in England, had English connections, and spoke English fluently. She was one of those women who make a favorable impression upon everyone brought into personal contact with them. Soon the children adored her, and it was not long before the duke had come under the same spell. The duchess found herself completely isolated in her own household; husband and children had alike gone over to this stranger. The duchess wrote pathetic letters to her husband, pleading her own affection for him, and her claims as a wife and a mother. These letters no doubt exasperated the duke, but we read them with deep pity for her whose heart they lay bare.

It is to be understood that there was apparently no scandal—that is, scandal in the usual sense—in the relations between the duke and Mademoiselle de Luzy. She had simply bewitched a weak man who had grown tired of his wife, and had cast the same spell over his children; and she had not the superiority of character which would have led her to throw up a lucrative situation because she was making a wife and mother (whom doubtless she considered very unreasonable) extremely unhappy.

At last things came to such a pass that Madame de Praslin appealed to her father, insisting on a legal separation from her husband. The marshal intervened, and the affair was compromised. Mademoiselle de Luzy was to be honorably discharged, and the duchess was to renounce her project of separation. Mademoiselle de Luzy therefore gave up her situation, and went to board in a pension in Paris with her old schoolmistress. Madame de Praslin went to her country house, the magnificent Chateau de Vaux, where she herself undertook the education of her children; but in their estimation she by no means replaced Mademoiselle de Luzy, whom from time to time they visited in company with their father.

In the middle of the summer of 1847 it was arranged that the whole family should go to the seaside, and they came up to Paris to pass one night in the Faubourg Saint-Honore at the Hotel Sebastiani. Like most French establishments, the Hotel Sebastiani was divided between the marshal and his daughter, the old marshal occupying one floor during the winter, the duke and duchess, with their family, the one above it, while the servants of both establishments had their sleeping-rooms under the roof. The house was of gray stone, standing back in a yard; the French call such a situation entre cour et jardin. The duke had been in Paris several times during the previous week, and had occupied his own rooms, where the concierge and his wife—the only servants left in the house—had remarked that he seemed very busy.

It was afterwards reported in the neighborhood, but I do not think the circumstance was ever officially brought out, that the police found subsequently that all the screws but one that held up the heavy tester over the bed of the duchess, had been removed, and the holes filled with wax; it is certain that the duke partly unscrewed the bolt that fastened the door of her dressing-room.

On the evening of the family's arrival in Paris, the father and children went in a carriage to see Mademoiselle de Luzy. She told the duke that she could get a good situation, provided the duchess would give her a certificate of good conduct; and the duke at parting promised to obtain it for her.

The whole family went to bed early, that they might be ready to start for the seaside betimes upon the morrow. The children's rooms were in a wing of the building, at some distance from the chambers of their father and mother. The concierge and his wife slept in their lodge. Towards one o'clock in the morning they were awakened by screams; but they lay still, imagining that the noise came from the Champs Elysees. Then they heard the loud ringing of a bell, and starting from their bed, rushed into the main building. The noise had proceeded from the duchess's chamber. They knocked at the door, but there was no answer, only low moans. They consulted together, and then roused the maid and valet, who were sleeping in the attic chambers. Again they knocked, and there was no answer. The valet then went to the duke's room, which looked upon the garden and communicated with the dressing-room of the duchess by a balcony and window as well as by the door. The duke opened the door of his chamber. He was in his dressing-gown. When he heard what was the matter, he went at once through the window into the duchess's chamber. There a scene of carnage unparalleled, I think, in the history of murder met their eyes. The duchess was lying across her bed, not yet quite dead, but beyond the power of speech. There were more than forty wounds on her body. She must have struggled desperately. The walls were bloody, the bell-rope was bloody, and the floor was bloody. The nightdress of the duchess was saturated with blood. Her hands were cut almost to pieces, as if she had grasped the blade of the knife that killed her. The furniture was overturned in all parts of the room.[1]

[Footnote 1: We were then living near the Hotel Sebastini. The excitement in the neighborhood the next morning is indescribable.]

At once the valet and the concierge ran for the police, for members of the family, and for a doctor. The duke retired to his dressing-room. One of the gentlemen who first arrived was so sickened by the sight of the bloody room that he begged for a glass of water. The valet ran for the nearest water at hand, and abruptly entered the duke's dressing-room. He had a glass with him, and was going to fill it from a pail standing near, when the duke cried out: "Don't touch it; it is dirty;" and at once emptied the contents out of the window, but not before the valet had seen that the water was red with blood. This roused his suspicions, and when all the servants in the house were put under arrest, he said quietly to the police: "You had better search the duke's dressing-room."

When this was done there could be no more doubt. Three fancy daggers were found, one of which had always hung in the chamber of the duchess. All of them were stained with blood. The duke had changed his clothes, and had tried to wash those he took off in the pail whose bloody water he had thrown away. Subsequently it was conjectured that his purpose had been to stab his wife in her sleep, and then by a strong pull to bring down upon her the heavy canopy. The bolt he had unscrewed permitted him at dead of night quietly to enter her chamber.

The police were puzzled as to how they ought to treat the murderer. As he was a peer of France, they could not legally arrest him without authority from the Chamber of peers, or from the king. The royal family was at Dreux. The king was appealed to at once, and immediately gave orders to arrest the duke and to summon the peers for his trial. But meantime the duke, who had been guarded by the police in his own chamber, had contrived to take poison. He took such a quantity of arsenic that his stomach rejected it. He did not die at once, but lingered several days, and was carried to prison at the Luxembourg, where the poison killed him by inches. He died untried, having made no confession.

His son, who was very young at the time of his parents' death, married an American lady when he grew to manhood. It was a long courtship, for the young duke's income went largely to keep in repair his famous Chateau de Vaux, where Fouquet had entertained Louis XIV. with regal magnificence. Finally a purchaser was found for the ancestral seat; and relieved of the obligations it involved, the duke married, and retired to his estates in Corsica.

As to Mademoiselle de Luzy, she was tried for complicity in the murder of the duchess, and acquitted. There was no evidence whatever against her. But popular feeling concerning her as the inciting cause of the poor duchess's death was so strong that by the advice of her pastor—the Protestant M. Coquerel—she changed her name and came to America. She brought letters of introduction to a family in Boston, who procured her a situation as governess in Connecticut. There she soon after married a Congregational minister.

It seems hard to imagine how such a tragedy could have borne its part among the causes of Louis Philippe's downfall; but those who look into Alison or Lamartine will see it set down as one of the events which greatly assisted in bringing about the revolution of February. Mobs, like women, are often swayed by persons rather than by principles.

It was believed by the populace that court favor had prevented the duke from going to prison like any common criminal, and that the same influence had procured him the poison by which he escaped a public execution.



CHAPTER VI.

THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.

As I said in the last chapter, everything in the year 1847 and during the opening weeks of 1848 seemed unfavorable to Louis Philippe. Besides the causes of dissatisfaction I have mentioned, there was a scarcity of grain, there were drains on the finances, there was disaffection among the National Guard, and hostility among the peers to the measures of the Ministry. Then came the conviction of M. Teste, a member of the Cabinet, for misappropriating public funds. Even private affairs seemed turned against the royal family. Madame Lafarge murdered her husband, and it was said that the court had attempted to procure her acquittal because she was connected with the house of Orleans by a bar-sinister. A quarrel about an actress led to a duel. The man wounded was a journalist who was actively opposed to the king's Government. It was hinted that the duel was a device of the court to get him put out of the way. But the greatest of the king's misfortunes was the death of his admirable sister, Madame Adelaide, in January, 1848. She had been all his life his bosom friend and his chief counsellor. She died of a severe attack of influenza.

In a letter from the Prince de Joinville to the Duc de Nemours, found in the garden of the Tuileries in February, 1848, among many valuable documents that had been flung from the windows of the palace by the mob, the situation of things at the close of 1847 and the beginning of 1848 is thus summed up by one brother writing in confidence to another:—

"The king will listen to no advice. His own will must be paramount over everything. It seems to me impossible that in the Chamber of Deputies at the next session the anomalous state of the government should fail to attract attention. It has effaced all traces of constitutional government, and has put forward the king as the primary, and indeed sole, mover upon all occasions. There is no longer any respect for ministers; their responsibility is null, everything rests with the king. He has arrived at an age when he declines to listen to suggestions. He is accustomed to govern, and he loves to show that he does so. His immense experience, his courage, and his great qualities lead him to face danger; but it is not on that account the less real or imminent."

Then, after further summing up the state of France,—the finances embarrassed, the entente cordiale with England at an end, and the provinces in confusion,—the prince adds: "Those unhappy Spanish marriages!—we have not yet drained the cup of bitterness they have mixed for us to drink."

In this state of things the opposition party was divided into liberals who wished for reform, and liberals who aimed at revolution. For a while the two parties worked together, and their war-cry was Reform! There was little or no parliamentary opposition, for the Chamber of Peers and the Chamber of Deputies were alike virtually chosen by the Crown. The population of France in 1848 was thirty-five millions; but those entitled to vote were only two hundred and forty thousand, or one to every one hundred and forty-six of the population, and of these a large part were in Government employ. It was said that the number of places in the gift of the Ministry was sixty-three thousand, every place, from that of a guard upon a railroad to that of a judge upon the bench, being disposed of by ministerial favor.

The plan adopted to give expression to the public discontent was the inauguration of reform banquets. To these large crowds were attracted, both from political motives and from a desire in the rural districts to hear the great speakers, Lamartine and others, who had a national renown. Many of the speeches were inflammatory. The health of the king was never drunk on these occasions, but the "Marseillaise" was invariably played.

Seventy-four of these banquets had been given in the provinces, when it was decided to give one in Paris; and a large inclosed piece of ground on the Rue Chaillot, not far from the Arch of Triumph, was fixed upon for the purpose. This banquet was to take place on Tuesday, Feb. 22, 1848. Until Monday afternoon opinions seemed divided as to whether it would be suffered to go on. But meantime the city had been crammed with troops, and the sleep of its inhabitants had been broken night after night by the tramp of regiments and the rumble of artillery. Monday, February 21, was a beautiful day, the air was soft and genial, the streets and the Champs Elysees were very gay. Scarcely any one was aware at that time that it was the intention of the Government to forbid the banquet; but that night the preparations made for it were carted away by order of the liberal leaders, who had been warned of the decision of the authorities, while at the same time every loose paving-stone that might help to erect a barricade was, by orders from the police, removed out of the way.

When morning dawned, a proclamation, forbidding the banquet, was posted on every street-corner. The soldiers were everywhere confined to their quarters, the windows of which were stuffed with mattresses; but to residents in Paris the day seemed to pass quietly, though about noon the Place de la Madeleine was full of men surrounding the house of Odillon Barrot, the chief leader of the opposition, demanding what, under the circumstances, they had better do. In the Place de la Concorde, troops were endeavoring to prevent the crowd from crossing the Seine and assembling in front of the Chamber of Deputies. In order to break up the throng upon the bridge, a heavy wagon was driven over it at a rapid pace, escorted by soldiers, who slashed about them with their sheathed swords. At the residence of M. Guizot, then both Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, a large crowd had assembled and had broken his windows; but the rioters were dispersed the Municipal Guard and the Police.

In the afternoon, on the Place de la Concorde, a party of men and boys, apparently without leaders, contrived to break through the troops guarding the bridge, and began to ascend the steps of the Chamber of Deputies. Being refused admission to the hall, they proceeded to break windows and do other damage. Then a party of dragoons began to clear the bridge, but good-humoredly, and the people were retiring as fast as they might, when a detachment of the Municipal Guard arrived. The Municipal Guard was a handsome corps of mounted police, the men being all stalwart and fine-looking. They wore brazen helmets and horse-tails and glittering breastplates, but they were very unpopular, while the National Guards were looked on by the rioters as their supporters. The Municipal Guards, when they came upon the bridge, began treating the crowd roughly, a good many persons were hurt, and an old woman was trodden down. At this the crowd grew furious, stones were thrown, and the soldiers drew their swords. Before nightfall there was riot and disorder all over Paris. Towards dusk the rappel—the signal for the National Guard to muster—had been beaten in the streets, and soon many soldiers of that body might be seen, escorted by men in blouses carrying their guns, while the National Guards, unarmed, were shouting and singing.

All Tuesday, February 22, the affair was a mere riot. But during the night the secret societies met, and decided on more formidable action.

The next morning was chilly and rainy, very dispiriting to the troops, who had bivouacked all night in the public squares, where they had been ill-provided with food and forage. The coats and swords of the students at the Polytechnic had been removed during the night, to prevent their joining the bands who were singing the "Marseillaise" and the "Dernier Chant des Girondins" under their windows.

Meantime barricades had been raised in the thickly populated parts of Paris, and successful efforts had been made to enlist the sympathies of the soldiers and the National Guard.

During the early hours of Wednesday, the 23d, reports of these disaffections succeeded each other rapidly at the Tuileries, and a council was held in the king's cabinet, to which the queen and the princes were invited. The king spoke of resigning his crown, adding that he was "fortunate in being able to resign it." "But you cannot abdicate, mon ami," said the queen. "You owe yourself to France. The demand made is for the resignation of the Ministry. M. Guizot should resign, and I feel sure that being the man of honor that he is, he will do so in this emergency."

M. Guizot and his colleagues at once gave in their resignations. The king wept as he embraced them, bidding them farewell. Count Mole was then called in and requested to form a ministry. Before he could do so, however, things had grown worse, and M. Thiers, instead of Count Mole, was made head of the Cabinet. He insisted that Odillon Barrot, the day before very popular with the insurgents, must be his colleague. The king declined to assent to this. To put Odillon Barrot into power, he said, was virtually to abandon the policy of his reign.

But before this matter was decided, there had occurred a lamentable massacre at the gates of the residence of M. Guizot, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The building had been surrounded by a fierce crowd, composed mainly of working-men from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Some confusion was occasioned by the restlessness of a horse belonging to an officer in command of a squad of cavalry detailed to defend the building. The leader of the mob fired a pistol. The soldiers responded with a volley from their carbines. Fifty of the crowd were killed. The bodies were piled by the mob upon a cart and paraded through Paris, the corpse of a half-naked woman lying conspicuously among them. The sight everywhere woke threats of vengeance.

The king, when he heard of this, yielded. Odillon Barrot was associated with M. Thiers, and Marshal Bugeaud was placed in command of the military.

M. Thiers' foible was omniscience; and to Bugeaud's amazement, amusement, and indignation he insisted on inspecting his military plans and giving his advice concerning them. Happily the marshal's plans met with the approval of the minister, and the commander-in-chief went to his post; while Odillon Barrot, accompanied by Horace Vernet, the painter, went forth into the streets to inform the insurgents that their demand for reform had been granted, that the obnoxious ministers had been dismissed, and that all power was made over to himself and to his colleagues.

Marshal Bugeaud found everything in wild confusion at the War Office; but was restoring order, and had marched four columns of troops through Paris without serious opposition, when he received orders from M. Thiers that not another shot was to be fired by the soldiers. The marshal replied that he would not obey such orders unless he received them from the king. The Duc de Nemours therefore signed the paper in the name of his father, and soon afterwards a new proclamation was posted on the walls:—

Citizens! An order has been given to suspend all firing. We are charged by the king to form a ministry. The Chamber is about to be dissolved. General Lamoriciere has been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard. Messieurs Odillon Barrot, Thiers, Lamoriciere, and Duvergier de Haurannes are ministers. Our watchwords are,—Order, Union, Reform!

(Signed) ODILLON BARROT. THIERS.

This proclamation may be said to have been the beginning of the end. The soldiers were disgusted; supporters of the monarchy lost heart; the secret societies now felt that the game was in their hands. By that time barricades without number, it was said, had been thrown up in the streets. The suburbs of Paris were cut off from the capital. During the previous night, arms had been everywhere demanded from private houses; but in obtaining them the insurgents endeavored to inspire no unnecessary terror. One lady in the English quarter was found kneeling by the bedside of her dying child. When a party of armed men entered the chamber they knelt down, joined their prayers to hers for the soul that was departing, and then quitted the room in silence, placing a guard and writing over the door in chalk: "Respect this house, for death is here."

By nine o'clock on Wednesday morning the troops, disgusted by the order which forbade them to defend themselves, reversed their arms and fraternized with the people, the officers sheathing their swords.

A little later, Odillon Barrot, who supposed himself to be the people's favorite, rode along the Boulevard to proclaim to the rioters that he was now their minister, and that the cause of reform was assured. He was met with cries of "Never mind him! We have no time to hear him! Too late, too late! We know all he has to say!" About the same time the Ecole Militaire was taken; but a guard en blouse was posted to protect the apartments of the ladies of the governor. The fight before the Palais Royal occurred about noon. The palace, which was the private property of Louis Philippe, was sacked, and many valuable works of art were destroyed.

The royal family were sitting down to breakfast about midday when a party of gentlemen, among them M. Emile de Girardin, made their way into the Tuileries, imploring the king to abdicate at once and spare further bloodshed. Without a word, Louis Philippe drew pen and paper towards him and wrote his abdication. Embracing his grandson, the little Comte de Paris, he went out, saying to the gentlemen about him: "This child is your king."

Through the Pavillon de l'Horloge, the main entrance to the Tuileries, came a party of dragoons, leading their horses down the marble steps into the gardens. The victorious blouses already filled the inner court, the Place du Carrousel. The royal family, slenderly attended, followed the king. The crowd poured into the Tuileries on the side of the Carrousel as the royal family quitted it through the gardens.

In the Place de la Concorde, beneath the old Egyptian obelisk which had witnessed so many changes in this troubled world, they found two cabs in waiting. The king and queen entered one, with several of the children. Into the second stepped the Duchesse de Nemours, the Princess Clementine, and an attendant. Some persons in the crowd who recognized them, cried out: "Respect old age! Respect misfortune!" And when an officer in attendance called out to the crowd not to hurt the king, he was answered: "Do you take us for assassins? Let him get away!"

This, indeed, was the general feeling. Only a few persons ventured to insult the royal family. The coachmen, however, drove off in such haste that the Spanish princess, Luisa, Duchesse de Montpensier, was left alone upon the sidewalk, weeping bitterly. A Portuguese gentleman gave her his arm, and took her in search of her husband's aide-de-camp, General Thierry. With several other gentlemen, who formed a guard about her, they passed back into the garden of the Tuileries, where M. Jules de Lasteyrie, the grandson of Lafayette, took possession of the duchess and escorted her to his own house. From thence, a few days later, he forwarded her to the coast, where she rejoined her husband.

When the king quitted the Tuileries he was urged to leave behind him a paper conferring the regency on the Duchess of Orleans. He refused positively. "It would be contrary to law," he said; "and I have never yet done anything, thank God! contrary to law." "But what must I do," asked the duchess, "without friends, without relations, without counsel?" "Ma chere Helene," the king replied, "the dynasty and the crown of your son are intrusted to you. Remain here and protect them."

As the mob began to pour into the palace after the king's departure, the duchess, by the advice of M. Dupin, the President (or Speaker) of the Chamber, set out on foot to cross the bridge nearest to the palace, and to reach the Palais Bourbon. She held her eldest son, the Comte de Paris, by the hand; her youngest, who was too small to walk, was carried by an aide-de-camp. Beside them walked M. Dupin, the Duc de Nemours, and a faithful servant. They left the Tuileries in such haste that they failed to give orders to the faithful Garde Municipale, who would have suffered the fate of the Swiss Guard in 1792, had not National Guards in the crowd assisted them to change their conspicuous uniforms and to escape out of the windows.

During the first half hour after the invasion of the palace a great deal of money and many other valuables disappeared; but after that time it was death to appropriate anything, even if it were of little value.

Soon the gardens of the Tuileries were white with papers flung from the windows of the palace, many of them of great historical value. A piece of pink gauze, the property, probably, of some maid-of-honor, streamed from one of the windows in the roof and fluttered across the whole building. The crowd, in high good humor, tossed forth livery coats, fragments of state furniture, and papers. The beds still stood unmade, and all the apparatus of the ladies' toilet-tables remained in disorder. In one royal bed-chamber a man was rubbing pomade with both hands into his hair, another was drenching himself with perfume, a third was scrubbing his teeth furiously with a brush that had that morning parted the lips of royalty. In another room a man en blouse was seated at a piano playing the "Marseillaise" to an admiring audience (the "Marseillaise" had been forbidden in Paris for many years). Elsewhere a party of gamins were turning over a magnificent scrapbook. In the next room was a grand piano, on which four men were thumping at once. In another, a party of working-men were dancing a quadrille, while a gentleman played for them upon a piano. At every chimney-piece and before every work of art stood a guard, generally ragged and powder-stained, bearing a placard, "Death to Robbers!" while at the head of the Grand Staircase others stood, crying, "Enter, messieurs! Enter! We don't have cards of admission to this house every day!" While the cry that passed through the crowd was: "Look as much as you like, but take nothing!" "Are not we magnificent in our own house, Monsieur?" said a gamin to an Englishman; while another was to be seen walking about in one of poor Queen Amelie's state head-dresses, surmounted by a bird-of-paradise with a long tail.

At first the crowd injured nothing, even the king's portraits being respected; but after a while the destruction of state furniture began. Three men were seen smoking in the state bed; some ate up the royal breakfast; and the cigars of the princes were freely handed to rough men in the crowd.

Meantime in the Chamber of Deputies the scene was terrible. M. Dupin, its president, lost his head. Had he, when he knew of the king's abdication, declared the sitting closed, and directed the Deputies to disperse, he might possibly have saved the monarchy. But the mob got possession of the tribune (the pulpit from which alone speeches can be made in the Chamber); they pointed their guns at the Deputies, who cowered under their benches, and the last chance for Louis Philippe's dynasty was over. Odillon Barrot, who had come down to the house full of self-importance, notwithstanding his reception on the Boulevards, found that his hour was over and his power gone.

M. de Lamartine was the idol of the mob, though he was very nearly shot in the confusion. Armed insurgents crowded round him, clinging to his skirts, his hands, his knees. Throughout the tumult the reporters for the "Moniteur" kept their seats, taking notes of what was passing.

The Duchess of Orleans found the Chamber occupied by armed men. She was jostled and pressed upon. A feeble effort was made to proclaim her son king, and to appoint her regent during his minority. She endeavored several times to speak, and behaved with an intrepidity which did her honor. But when Lamartine, mounting the tribune, cast aside her claims, and announced that the moment had arrived for proclaiming a provisional government and a republic, she was hustled and pushed aside by the crowd.

She was dressed in deep mourning. Her long black veil, partly raised, showed her fair face marred with sorrow and anxiety. Her children were dressed in little black velvet skirts and jackets, with large white turned-down collars. Soon the crowd around the tribune, beneath which the duchess had her seat, grew so furious that her attendants, fearing for her life, hurried her away.

In the press and the confusion the Duc de Nemours and her two children were parted from her. The Comte de Paris was seized by a gigantic man en blouse, who said afterwards that he had been only anxious to protect the child; but a National Guard forced the boy from his grasp, and restored him to his mother. The Duc de Chartres was for some time lost, and was in great danger, having been knocked down on the staircase by an ascending crowd.

At last, however, the little party, under the escort of the Duc de Nemours, who had disguised himself, escaped on foot into the streets, then growing dark; and finding a hackney-coach, persuaded the coachman to drive them to a place of safety. The Duc de Chartres was not to be found, and his mother passed many hours of terrible anxiety before he was restored to her arms.

Very strange that night was the scene in the Champs Elysees. They were filled with a joyous and triumphant crowd in every variety of military costume, and armed with every sort of weapon. Soldiers alone were unarmed. They marched arm-in-arm with their new friends, singing, like them, the "Marseillaise" and "Mourir pour la Patrie." In the quarter of the Champs Elysees, where well-to-do foreigners formed a considerable part of the population, there was no ferocity exhibited by the mob. The insurgents were like children at play,—children on their good behavior. They had achieved a wonderful and unexpected victory. The throne had fallen, as if built on sand. Those who had overturned it were in high good-humor.

A French mob at the present day is very different. It has the modern grudge of laborer against employer, it has memories of the license of the Commune, and above all it has learned the use of absinthe. There is a hatred and a contempt for all things that should command men's reverence, which did not display itself in 1848.

May I here be permitted to relate a little story connected with this day's events? I was with my family in Paris during those days of revolution. Our nurse,—an Englishwoman who had then been with us twenty-five years, and who died recently, at the age of ninety-eight, still a member of our family,—when we returned home from viewing the devastation at the Tuileries, expressed strongly her regret at not having accompanied us. She was consoled, however, by an offer from our man-servant to escort her down the Champs Elysees. They made their way to the Place du Carrousel, at the back of the palace, where a dense crowd was assembled, and the good lady became separated from her protector. The National Guard and the servants in the palace had just succeeded in getting the crowd out of the rooms and in closing the doors. This greatly disappointed our good nurse. She had counted on seeing the interior of the king's abode, and above all, the king's throne. She could speak very little French, but she must in some way have communicated her regrets to the crowd around her. "Does Madame desire so much to pass in?" said a big man in a blouse, girt with a red sash, and carrying a naked sword; "then Madame shall pass in!" Thereupon he and his followers in the front rank of the crowd so bepummelled the door with the hilts of their swords and the stocks of their muskets that those within were forced to throw it open. In marched our dear nurse beside her protector. They passed through room after room until they reached the throne-room; there she indicated her wish to obtain a relic of departed royalty. Instantly her friend with the bare sword sliced off from the throne a piece of red velvet with gold embroidery. She kept it ever after, together with a delicate china cup marked L. P.; but the cup was much broken. "You see, dears," she would say to us, "there was lots of things like these lying about, but there were men standing round with naked swords ready to cut your head off if you stole anything. So I took this cup and broke it. It was not stealing to carry off a broken cup, you know." And she would add, when winding up her narrative: "Those Frenchmen was so polite to me that they did n't even tread on my corns."

That night there was a brilliant conflagration in the Carrousel. It was a bonfire of those very carriages which eighteen years before the mob had brought in triumph to Louis Philippe from the stables of Charles X. at Rambouillet.

All the next day not a newspaper was to be had. The "Presse," indeed, brought out a half sheet, mainly taken up in returning thanks to two compositors "who, between two fires," had been "so considerate" as to set up the type. But their consideration could not have lasted long, for the news broke off abruptly in the middle of a sentence on the first page. Events worked faster than compositors.

By noon on Friday, February 25, the entire population of Paris was in the streets. From the flags on public offices, the blue and white strips had been tom away. On that day—but on that day only—every man wore a red ribbon in his button-hole. Many did so very unwillingly, for red was understood to be the badge of Red Republicanism.

On the Boulevards the iron railings had been tom up, and most of the trees had been cut down. They were replanted, however, not long after, to the singing of the "Marseillaise" and the firing of cannon. For more than a week there was a strange quiet in Paris: no vehicles were in the streets, for the paving-stones had been torn up for barricades; no shops were open; on the closed shutters of most of them appeared the words "Armes donnees," Everywhere a paintbrush had been passed over the royal arms. Even the words "roi," "reine," "royal," were effaced. The patriots were very zealous in exacting these removals. Two gamins with swords hacked patiently for two hours at a cast-iron double-headed Austrian eagle.

Change (small money, I mean) was hardly to be had in Paris. For a month it was necessary, in order to obtain it, to apply at the Mairie of the Arrondissement, and to stand for hours in a queue. Other money could be had only from the bankers in thousand-franc notes. Shopping was of course at an end, and half Paris was thrown out of employment. Gold and silver were hidden away.

Louis Philippe and his family drove in their two cabriolets to Versailles. There they found great difficulty in getting post-horses. Indeed, they would have procured none, had there not been some cavalry horses in the place, which were harnessed to one of the royal carriages. About midnight of their second day's journey they reached Dreux. There Louis Philippe found himself without money, and had to borrow from one of his tenants. He had left behind him in his haste three hundred and fifty thousand francs on a table in the Tuileries.

The Provisional Government, which was kept well informed as to his movements, forwarded to him a supply of money. At Dreux the king's party was joined by the Duke of Montpensier with news that the king's attempt to save the monarchy by abdication had failed.

The old man seemed stupefied by his sudden fall. Over and over again he was heard to repeat: "Comme Charles X.! Comme Charles X.!" The next day, travelling under feigned names, the royal party pushed on to Evreux, where they were hospitably received by a farmer in the forest, who harnessed his work-horses to their carriage. Thence they went on to their own Chateau d'Eu. The danger to which during this journey they were exposed arose, not from the new Government at Paris, but from the excited state of the peasantry.

After many perils and adventures, sometimes indeed travelling on foot to avoid dangerous places, they reached Harfleur on March 3. An English steamer, the "Express," lay at the wharf, on which the king and queen embarked as Mr. and Mrs. William Smith. The following morning they were off the English coast, at Newbern. They landed, and proceeded at once to Claremont, the palace given to their son-in-law, Leopold of Belgium, for his lifetime by the English Parliament.

The government set up in Paris was a provisional one. The members of the Provisional Government were many of them well known to the public, and of approved character. No men ever had a more difficult task before them, and none ever tried with more self-sacrifice to do their duty.

The measures they proposed were eighteen in number:

1. The retention of the tricolor. 2. The retention of the Gallic cock. 3. The sovereignty of the people. 4. The dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies. 5. The suppression of the Chamber of Peers. 6. The convocation of a National Assembly. 7. Work to be guaranteed to all working-men. 8. The unity of the army and the populace. 9. The formation of a Garde Mobile. 10. The arrest and punishment of all deserters. 11. The release of all political prisoners. 12. The trial of M. Guizot and his colleagues. 13. The reduction of Vincennes and Fort Valerien, still held by the troops for the king. 14. All officials under Louis Philippe to be released from their oaths. 15. All objects at the Mont de Piete (the Government pawn-broking establishment) valued under ten francs, to be restored. 16. All National Guards dismissed under preceding Governments to be reinstated. 17. The million of francs expended on the court to be given to disabled workmen. 18. A paternal commission to be nominated, to look after the interests of the working-classes.

The institution of the Garde Mobile was a device for finding employment for those boys and young men who formed one of the most dangerous of the dangerous classes.

It is easy to see how tempting these promises were to working-men; and yet the better class among them mourned their loss of steady employment. The Revolution of 1848, though it was not originated by the working-classes, was made to appear as if it were intended for their profit; and that indeed was its ruin, for it was found impossible to keep the promises of work, support, parental protection, etc., made to the Parisian masses. The bourgeoisie, when they recovered from their astonishment and found that the stone they had set rolling under the name of reform had dislodged their own Revolution of 1830, and the peasants of the provinces, when they found that all the praise and all the profits were solely for the working-men of the capital, were very far from satisfied.

As to the upper classes, their terror and dismay were overwhelming. Everything seemed sliding away under their feet. Many women of rank and fashion, distrusting the stability of the king's government, had for some time past been yearly adding diamonds to their necklaces, because, as one of them exclaimed to us during this month of February: "We knew not what might happen to stocks or to securities, but diamonds we can put into our pockets. No other property in France can be called secure!"

And yet Paris soon resumed its wonted appearance. Commerce and shopping might be impossible in a city where nobody could make change for two hundred dollars, yet the Champs Elysees were again gay with pedestrians and carriages. All favorite amusements were resumed, but almost all men being idle, their great resource was to assemble round the Hotel-de-Ville and force Lamartine to make a speech to them.

On Saturday, March 4, all Paris crowded to the Boulevards to witness the funeral cortege of the victims. There were neither military nor police to keep order; yet the crowd was on its good behavior, and strict decorum was maintained. There were about three hundred thousand persons in the procession, and as many more on the sidewalks. As they marched, mourners and spectators all sang the Chant of the Girondins ("Mourir pour la Patrie") and the "Marseillaise."

Two things distinguished this revolution of February from all other French revolutions before or after it,—the high character and self-devotion of the men placed at the head of affairs, and the absence of prejudice against religion. The revolution, so far from putting itself in antagonism with religious feeling, everywhere appealed to it. The men who invaded the Tuileries bowed before the crucifix in the queen's chamber. Priests who were known to be zealous workers among the poor were treated as fathers. Cures blessed the trees of liberty planted in their parishes. Prayers for the Republic were offered at the altars, and in country villages priests headed the men of their congregations who marched up to the polls.



CHAPTER VII.

LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC.[1]

[Footnote 1: For the subject-matter of this chapter I am largely indebted to Mrs. Oliphant's article on Lamartine in "Blackwood's Magazine."]

The Provisional Government hastily set up in France on Feb. 24, 1848, consisted at first of five members; but that number was afterwards enlarged. M. Dupin, who had been President of the Chamber of Deputies, was made President of the Council (or prime minister); but the real head of the Government and Minister for Foreign Affairs was Alphonse de Lamartine. He was a Christian believer, a high-minded man, by birth an aristocrat, yet by sympathy a man of the masses. "He was full of sentimentalities of vainglory and of personal vanity; but no pilot ever guided a ship of state so skilfully and with such absolute self-devotion through an angry sea. For a brief while, just long enough to effect this purpose, he was the idol of the populace." With him were associated Cremieux, a Jew; Ledru-Rollin, the historian, a Red Republican; Arago, the astronomer; Hypolite Carnot, son of Lazare Carnot, Member of the Directory, father of the future president; General Casaignac, who was made governor of Algeria; Garnier-Pages, who a second time became, in 1870, member of a Provisional Government for the defence of Paris; and several others.

The downfall of Louis Philippe startled and astonished even those who had brought it about. They had intended reform, and they drew down revolution. They hoped to effect a change of ministry: they were disconcerted when they had dethroned a king. There were about thirty thousand regular troops in Paris, besides the National Guard and the mounted police, or Garde Municipale. No one had imagined that the Throne of the Barricades would fall at the first assault. There were no leaders anywhere in this revolution. The king's party had no leaders; the young princes seemed paralyzed. The army had no leader; the commander-in-chief had been changed three times in twenty-four hours. The insurgents had no leaders. On February 22 Odillon Barrot was their hero, and on February 23 they hooted him.

The republicans, to their own amazement, were left masters of the field of battle, and Lamartine was pushed to the front as their chief man.

I may here pause in the historical narrative to say a few words about the personal history of Lamartine, which, indeed, will include all that history has to say concerning the Second Republic.

The love stories of the uncle and father of Alphonse de Lamartine are so pathetic, and give us so vivid a picture of family life before the First Revolution, that I will go back a generation, and tell them as much as possible in Lamartine's own words.

His grandfather had had six children,—three daughters and three sons. According to French custom, under the old regime, the eldest son only was to marry, and the other members of the Lamartine family proceeded as they grew up to fulfil their appointed destinies. The second son went into the Church, and rose to be a bishop. The third son, M. le Chevalier, went into the army. The sisters adopted the religious life, and thus all were provided for. But strange to say, the eldest son, to whose happiness and prosperity the rest were to be sacrificed, was the first rebel in the family. He fell in love with a Mademoiselle de Saint-Huruge; but her dot was not considered by the elder members of the family sufficient to justify the alliance. The young man gave up his bride, and to the consternation of his relatives announced that he would marry no other woman. M. le Chevalier must marry and perpetuate the ancestral line.

Lamartine says,—

"M. le Chevalier was the youngest in that generation of our family. At sixteen he had entered the regiment in which his father had served before him. His career was to grow old in the modest position of a captain in the army (which position he attained at an early age), to pass his few months of leave, from time to time, in his father's house, to gain the Cross of St. Louis (which was the end of all ambitions to provincial gentlemen), and then, when he grew old, being endowed with a small provision from the State, or a still smaller revenue of his own, he expected to vegetate in one of his brothers' old chateaux, having his rooms in the upper story, to superintend the garden, to shoot with the cure, to look after the horses, to play with the children, to make up a game of whist or tric-trac,—the born servant of everyone, a domestic slave, happy in his lot, beloved, and yet neglected by all. But in the end his fate was very different. His elder brother, having refused to marry, said to his father: 'You must marry the Chevalier.' All the feelings of the family and the prejudices of habit rose up in the heart of the old nobleman against this suggestion. Chevaliers, according to his notions, were not intended to marry. My father was sent back to his regiment, and his marrying was put off from year to year."

Meantime, the idea of marriage having been put into the Chevalier's head, he chose for himself, and happily his choice fell on a lady acceptable to his family. His sister was canoness in an aristocratic order, whose members were permitted to receive visits from their brothers. It was there that he wooed and won the lovely, saint-like mother of Alphonse de Lamartine.

The elder brother, as he advanced in life, kept up a truly affecting intercourse with Mademoiselle de Saint-Huruge. She was beautiful even in old age, though her beauty was dimmed by an expression of sadness. They met every evening in Macon, at the house of a member of the family, and each entertained till death a pure and constant friendship for the other.

No wonder that when the Revolution decreed the abolition of all rights of primogeniture, and ordered each father's fortune to be equally divided among his children, that M. le Chevalier refused to take advantage of this new arrangement, and left his share to the elder brother, to whom he owed his domestic happiness. In the end, all the property of the family came to the poet; the aunts and uncles—the former of whom had been driven from their convents—having made him their heir.

Madame de Lamartine had received part of her education from Madame de Genlis, and had associated in her childhood with Louis Philippe and Madame Adelaide. But though the influence of Madame de Genlis was probably not in favor of piety, Madame de Lamartine was sincerely pious. In her son's early education she seems to have been influenced by Madame de Genlis' admiration of Rousseau. Alphonse ran barefoot on the hills, with the little peasant boys for company; but at home he was swayed by the discipline of love. He published nothing till he was thirty years of age, though he wrote poetry from early youth. His study was in the open air, under some grand old oaks on the edge of a deep ravine. In his hands French poetry became for the first time musical and descriptive of nature. There was deep religious feeling, too, in Lamartine's verse, rather vague as to doctrine, but full of genuine religious sentiment. As a Christian poet he struck a chord which vibrated in many hearts, for the early part of our century was characterized by faith and by enthusiasm. Scepticism was latent, but was soon to assert itself in weary indifference. "As yet, doubt sorrowed that it doubted, and could feel the beauty of faith, even when it disbelieved."

From 1820 to 1824 Lamartine was a good deal in Italy; after the death of an innocent Italian girl, which he has celebrated in touching verse, he married an English lady, and had one child, his beloved Julia. He was made a member of the French Academy, and Charles X. had appointed him ambassador to Greece, when the Revolution of 1830 occurred, and he refused to serve under King Charles's successor.

In 1832, partly for Julia's health, he visited the Holy Land and Eastern Europe. Poor little Julia died at Beyrout. On the father's return he published his "Souvenirs of his Journey." Books descriptive of Eastern countries were then rare, and Lamartine's was received with enthusiasm.

In 1833 Lamartine began his political career by entering the Chamber of Deputies. Some one said of him that he formed a party by himself,—a party of one. He pleaded for the abolition of capital punishment, for the amelioration of the poorer classes, for the emancipation of slaves in the colonies, and for various other social reforms; but he was never known as a republican.

In 1847 he published his "Histoire des Girondins," which was received by the public with deep interest and applause. It is not always accurate in small particulars, but it is one of the most fascinating books of history ever written, and has had the good fortune to be singularly well translated. Alexandre Dumas is said to have told its author: "You have elevated romance to the dignity of history."

When the revolution of February, 1848, broke out, Lamartine, being unwell, did not make his way on the first day through the crowds to the Chamber of Deputies, nor did he go thither on the second, looking on the affair as an emeute likely to be followed only by a change of ministry. But when news was brought to him which made him feel it was a very serious affair, he went at once to the Chamber. On entering, he was seized upon by men of all parties, but especially by republicans, who drew him into a side-room and told him that the king had abdicated. He had always advocated the regency of the Duchess of Orleans in the event of Louis Philippe's death, in place of that of the Duc de Nemours. The men who addressed him implored him, as the most popular man in France, to put himself at the head of a movement to make the Duchess of Orleans regent during her son's minority, adding that France under a woman and a child would soon drift into a republic. Lamartine sat for some minutes at a table with his face bowed on his hands. He was praying, he says, for light. Then he arose, and after saying that he had never been a republican, added that now he was for a republic, without any intermediate regency, either of the duchess or of Nemours. With acclamations, the party went back into the Chamber to await events.

We know already how the duchess was received, and how a mob broke into the Chamber. A provisional government was demanded, in the midst of indescribable tumult; and by the suffrages of a crowd of roughs quite as much as by the action of the deputies, a provisional government of five members (afterwards increased to seven) was voted in, the names being written down with a pencil by Lamartine on the spur of the moment. The five men thus nominated and chosen to be rulers of France were Lamartine, Cremieux, Ledru-Rollin, Garnier-Pages, and Arago.

Meantime in the Hotel-de-Ville the mob had set up another provisional government under Socialistic leaders, and the first thing the more genuine provisional government had to do was to get rid of the others.

Lamartine says of himself that he felt his mission was to preserve society, and very nobly he set himself to his task. When he and his colleagues reached the Hotel-de-Ville, where the mob was clamoring for Socialism and a republic, a compromise had to be effected; and thus Louis Blanc, the Socialistic reformer, came into the Provisional Government. It was growing night, and the announcement of this new arrangement somewhat calmed the crowd; but at midnight an attack was made on the Hotel-de-Ville, and the new rulers had to defend themselves by personal strength, setting their backs against the doors of the Council Chamber, and repelling their assailants with their own hands. But the Press and the telegraph were at their command, and by morning the news of the Provisional Government was spread all over the provinces. "The mob," says Lamartine, "was in part composed of galley slaves who had no political ideas in their heads, nor social principles in their hearts, and partly of that scum which rises to the surface in popular commotions, and floats between the fumes of intoxication and the thirst for blood."

Lamartine was not a great man, but it was lucky for France, and for all Europe, that at this crisis he succeeded in establishing a provisional government, and that he was placed at its head. But for him, Paris might have had the Commune in 1848, as she had it in 1871, but with no great army collected at Versailles to bring it to subjection.

From such a fate France was saved by the energy and enthusiastic patriotism of one man, to whom, it seems to me, justice in history has hardly yet been done. "Lamartine was not republican enough for republicans; he lost at last his prestige among the people, and from personal causes the full sympathy of his friends; and his star sank before the rising sun of Louis Napoleon." Mrs. Oliphant also says of him,—

"In the midst of his manifold literary labors there happened to Lamartine such a chance as befalls few poets. He had it in his power, once in his life, to do something greater than the greatest lyric, more noble than any verse. At the crisis of the Revolution of 1848, chance (to use the word without irreverence) thrust him, and no other, into the place of master, and held him for one supreme moment alone between France and anarchy,—between, we might almost say, the world and another terrible revolution. And then the sentimentalist proved himself a man. He confronted raving Paris, and subdued it. The old noble French blood in his veins rose to the greatness of the crisis. With a pardonable thrill of pride in a position so strange to a writer and a man of thought, into which, without any action of his own, he found himself forced, he describes how he faced the tumultuous mob of Paris for seventy hours almost without repose, without sleep, without food, when there was no other man in France bold enough or wise enough to take that supreme part, and guide that most aimless of revolutions to a peaceful conclusion,—for the moment, at least. It was not Lamartine's fault that the Empire came after him. Long before the Empire came, he had fallen from his momentary elevation, and lost all influence with his country. But his downfall cannot efface the fact that he did actually reign, and reign beneficently, subduing and controlling the excited nation, saving men's lives and the balance of society."

The seventy hours at the Hotel-de-Ville to which Mrs. Oliphant alludes were passed by Lamartine in making orations, in sending off proclamations to the departments, in endeavoring to calm the excited multitude and to secure the triumph of the Republic without the effusion of blood. The revolution he conducted was, if I may say so, the only respectable revolution France has ever known. Nobody expected it, nobody was prepared for it, nobody worked for it; but the whole country acquiesced in it, and men of all parties, seeing that it was an accomplished fact, gave in their adhesion to the Second Republic.

There were five great questions that came up before the Provisional Government for immediate solution,—

The relation of France to foreign powers.

The enlargement of the army.

The subsistence of working-men out of employment.

The property and safety of the exiled royal family.

And, above all, how to meet these expenses and the payment of interest on national bonds, due the middle of March, with assets in the treasury of about twenty-five cents in the dollar.

These questions were all met by the wonderful energy of Lamartine and his colleagues, seconded by genuine patriotic efforts throughout France.

Lamartine had taken the foreign relations of the new Republic into his own hands; and so well did he manage them that not one potentate of Europe attempted to interfere with the internal affairs of France, or to dispute the right of the French to establish a republic if they thought proper. But although Lamartine's policy was peace, he thought France needed a large army both to keep down communism and anarchy at home, and to show itself strong in the face of all foreign powers. The army of France in January, 1848, had been about three hundred thousand men, of whom one hundred thousand were in Algeria; by May it was five hundred thousand, not including the Garde Mobile, which was of Lamartine's raising. It is well known how fiercely boys and very young men fought when any occasion for fighting was presented in the streets and at the barricades; all business being stopped in Paris, thousands of these were out of employment. Lamartine had them enrolled into his new corps, the Garde Mobile. Their uniform at first was a red sash and a workman's blouse. They were proud of themselves and of their new position, and in May, by dint of discipline, they were transformed into a fine soldierly body of very young men, who several times rendered important help to the Government in maintaining the cause of order. The National Guard was broken up until it could be reorganized, and so was the Garde Municipale.

But how to feed the multitude? Two hundred thousand mechanics alone were out of employment in Paris, besides laborers, servants, clerks, etc. It was proposed to establish national workshops in Louis Philippe's pretty private pleasure-grounds, the Parc des Monceaux. The men applying for work were enrolled in squads; each squad had its banner and its officers, and each man was paid on Saturday night his week's wages, at the rate of two francs a day,—the highest wages in Paris at that time for an artisan. There was no particular work for them to do, but the arrangement kept them disciplined and out of mischief, though at an enormous cost to the country. At the Palace of the Luxembourg Louis Blanc was permitted to hold a series of great labor meetings,—a sort of Socialist convention,—and to inveigh against "capitalists" and "bloated bondholders" in a style that was much more novel then than it is now. Lamartine greatly disapproved of these Luxembourg proceedings; but he argued that it was better to countenance them than to throw Louis Blanc and his friends into open opposition to the Government. Louis Blanc was a charming writer, whose views on social questions have made great progress since his day. His brother Charles wrote a valuable book on art. He himself wrote a "History of the Revolution" and the "History of Ten Years,"—that is, from 1830 to 1840. He bitterly hated Louis Philippe and the bourgeoisie, and yet his book is fair and honest, and the work of a gentleman. He was almost a dwarf, but his face was very handsome, clean-shaved, with bright eyes and brown hair. I may remark en passant that not one of the members of the Provisional Government wore either a beard or a moustache.

One of the first things the Provisional Government did was to decree that the personal property of the Orleans family should not be confiscated, but placed in the hands of a receiver, who should pay the king and princes liberal allowances till it became certain that their wealth would not be spent in raising an army for the invasion of France.

Louis Philippe lived only two years after reaching England. They were apparently not unhappy years to him. He sat at the foot of his own table, and carved the joint daily for his guests, children, and grandchildren. He dictated his Memoirs, and talked with the greatest openness to those who wished to converse with him.

The Duc d'Aumale was head of the army in Algeria, and governor-general of the colony, when the Revolution broke out. Here is the address which he at once published to his soldiers and the people, and with which the whole of his after life has been consistent:—

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 my presence would be useful in the service of my country. It can no longer be so. General Cavaignac is appointed governor-general of Algeria, and until his arrival here, the functions of governor-general 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 serve.

H. D'ORLEANS.

The greatest problem which demanded solution from the Provisional Government was how to make twenty-five cents do the work of a dollar. The first Minister of Finance appointed, threw up his portfolio in despair. Lamartine refused to sanction any arbitrary means of raising money. At last, by giving some especial privileges and protection to the Bank of France, and by mortgaging the national forests, a sufficient sum was provided for immediate needs. The people, too, throughout the provinces, made it a point of honor to come forward and pay their taxes before they were due. The priests preached this as a duty, for the priests were well disposed towards the Revolution of 1848. Lamartine had put forth a proclamation assuring priests and people that his Government was in sympathy with religion.

In the Provisional Government itself there were two, if not three, parties,—the party of order, headed by Lamartine; the Socialists, or labor party, headed by Louis Blanc; and the Red Republicans, or Anarchists, headed by Ledru-Rollin. The latter was for adopting the policy of putting out of office all men who had not been always republicans. Lamartine, on the contrary, said that any man who loved France and desired to serve her was not incapacitated from doing so by previous political opinions.