CHAPTER X

The Duc d'Orléans goes to the Hôtel de Ville--M. Laffitte in his sedan-chair--The king _sans culotte_--Tardy manifestation of the Provisional Government--Odilon Barrot sleeps on a milestone--Another Balthasar Gérard--The Duc d'Orléans is received by La Fayette--A superb voice--Fresh appearance of General Dubourg--The balcony of the Hôtel de Ville--The road to Joigny

We have not yet finished the account of the events that transpired during my absence. Let me therefore be permitted to recall them: every minute, unknown detail gives us the key to an uprising and helps to explain the 5th of June, the 14th of April, or the 12th of May. Then, too, it is well to know that there were men who never did accept that government, but who resisted it for eighteen years, and succeeded in the end in overthrowing it. These men ought to be paid the justice that was their due: in spite of the calumnies, insults and trials to which they were, and are still, subjected, their contemporaries ought, indeed, to learn of their valour, courage, devotion, persistence and loyalty. True, perhaps their contemporaries will not believe me. Never mind! I shall have said it; others will believe me. Truth is one of those stars which may remain buried in the depths of the heavens for months, years, or even centuries, but which in the end, are invariably discovered some day or other. And I would rather be the madman who devotes his life to the discovery of those stars, than the wise man who hails and worships one after the other all those suns that we have seen rise, which were said to be fixed and immovable, but which proved to be nothing but transitory meteors, of some brilliancy, more or less deceptive, but always fatal in their influences!

The Duc d'Orléans, as we have seen, had already advanced a good way: he had won over the Chamber of Peers--(we have not even alluded to that conquest of his: except for the presence of Chateaubriand and Fitz-James, it was not worth the trouble of registering it, and, as is known, Chateaubriand and Fitz-James resigned);--he had won over the Chamber of Deputies; at least, ninety-one signatures attested it.

It now only remained for him to conquer the Hôtel de Ville. Oh! but that was quite another matter! The Hôtel de Ville was not the palace, spoilt by the orgies of the Directory or the proscriptions of 1815; it was not a factory where ambition and cupidity were forged, under the disguise of devotion to the various powers which succeeded one another for half a century. No, indeed; the Hôtel de Ville was the stronghold of shelter for that great popular goddess termed Revolution, during each fresh insurrection. And the spirit of Revolution again held sway there. Power had come to the Duc d'Orléans; but, before that power could be established, the duke had to come to the Revolution. Her representative was an old man, true-hearted and clean-souled, but enfeebled with age. Forty years before, when in the full tide of youth, he had been found wanting at a time of Revolution: would they find what they had vainly looked for at thirty, now he was seventy years of age?

Yes, perhaps, had he stood alone and free to exercise his own convictions; for, since the former devotion to the cause of royalty, he had thought and suffered much; he had known imprisonment and exile; his name had been uttered in every Republican conspiracy, at Béfort and Saumur; and we will describe later under what singular circumstances he escaped proscription with Dermoncourt and execution with Berton. But he was no longer a free agent. One party, the Orléanists, had circumvented him; it was, in fact, quite a siege, cleverly conceived by Laffitte and carried out by Carbonnel.

From hence arose that pregnant saying of Bonnelier: "Vos diables de républicains nous ont donné bien du mal!" ("Your republican devils have done us no end of harm!")

Indeed, it was only with difficulty that republicans gained access to the good old general. They could easily be known, since their number, at the period of which I am speaking, was small, and hardly had one or other of these men come to see him before some one would come in and, under various pretexts, either cut the conversation short or act as a spy.

This was the man with whom the Duc d'Orléans had to deal, and an easy task it was to the prince, who, when he liked, could be most seductively fascinating. Still, the future king wished to be accompanied by a deputation from the Chamber. The Chamber would sooner have sent two deputations than one, and, had the duke expressed the wish, it would have brought up the rear of the procession in a body.

M. Laffitte took the deputation to the Palais-Royal at the appointed hour. They started; but the situation was more serious even than was apparent; it was true that, under pretext of various missions, they had sent the most zealous republicans away from Paris; but there were still a good number left, and these proclaimed loudly that the newly-elected monarch should not reach the Hôtel de Ville. The Duc d'Orléans was on horseback, feeling, no doubt, uneasy at the bottom of his heart, but looking calm outwardly. It was one of the prince's finest qualities: fearful and irresolute while he could not fathom or see the danger; when he was face to face with it, he met it bravely. He could not have said with Cæsar: "Danger and I are two lions born at the same time, I being the elder!" but he could have said he was the younger. M. Laffitte followed in a sedan-chair carried by Savoyards; his foot caused him horrible suffering; he was shod in slippers. Except for the bandages which swathed it, one leg was bare. So, after he had offered the crown to the prince, as president of the Chamber, he leant to him and whispered low in his ear--

"Two slippers and only one stocking. This time, at any rate, if _la Quotidienne_ saw us it would say we were creating a king _sans culotte._"

All went well from the Palais-Royal to the quay. They were still in the bourgeoisie quarter, and they had come to make a king in their own image, as God made man after His own image. The bourgeoisie saw in the king its own reflection, and gazed with complacency at its own image, up to the moment when it discovered how ugly it was, and then it broke the glass. So the bourgeoisie hailed his election. But, when on the quay, and across the Pont Neuf, and the Place du Châtelet reached, not only did the cheers cease altogether, but the faces of the crowd looked dark, and tremors of anger could be felt in the air. Surely the spirits of the dead were protesting against this new type of Bourbon. At the Hôtel de Ville itself there was a great agitation going on. At last the famous Provisional Government, hitherto invisible, materialised itself: Mauguin, de Schonen, Audry de Puyraveau, Lobau, were all anti-Orléanists: Lobau especially, who had refused to put his signature to an order the previous day, was furious.

"I don't want this one any more than the rest!" he exclaimed; "he is still a Bourbon!"

M. Barthe, the former Carbonaro, was present. The question of drawing up a Republican proclamation arose, and he offered to undertake it, picked up a pen and began to write. While he wrote, General Lobau grew more and more exasperated and went up to M. de Schonen.

"We are risking our heads," he said to him; "but, what matters! Here are two pistols, one for you, one for me ... it is all that is left to two men who have no fear of death!"

These proceedings were not exactly re-assuring. Odilon Barrot could be relied upon; he it was who had uttered those famous words at the municipal commission the day before that are attributed to La Fayette, as Harel's and Montrond's were attributed to M. de Talleyrand: "The Duc d'Orléans is the finest Republic." Odilon Barrot was deputed to go to the Palais-Royal to give the contrary order. Odilon Barrot, in common with most people, had had little sleep for three days and he was worn out with fatigue; he went down and found such a dense crowd and the heat so intolerable that he called for a horse. Some one hastened to fetch him one. While waiting, he leant against a milestone and fell asleep. They were an hour before they could find him again, and, just when they had succeeded and he had mounted the horse, the head of the procession appeared in the Place de Grève.

Now I saw a great deal of Odilon Barrot at the Hôtel de Ville and watched him very attentively, and I declare that no one could possibly be more coolly courageous than he.

So the Duc d'Orléans had arrived; he had reached the Place de Grève, and was, therefore, entering into the very centre of the Revolutionary party. His horse's breast separated the crowd in front of it as a ship's prow separates the waves. A frigid silence was maintained all round him as he passed on. He was deadly pale. A young man, who was even paler still, awaited him on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville with arms crossed, hiding a pistol in his breast. He had conceived the terrible resolution of firing at the prince point-blank.

"Ah! so you are playing the part of William the Silent," he said; "you shall end as he did!"

One of his friends was standing by his side.

Just when the Duc d'Orléans stepped down from his horse and began to ascend the Hôtel de Ville steps, this would-be Balthasar Gérard took a step forward, but his companion stopped him.

"Do not compromise yourself uselessly," he said to him, "your pistol is unloaded."

"Who unloaded it?"

"I did."

He led his friend away.

This was not the truth: the pistol was really loaded, but the lie probably prevented the Duc d'Orléans from being shot down on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville.

What reward did the man receive who saved the life of the future king of the French? I will tell you: he was killed at Saint-Mery and died cursing himself!

The Duc d'Orléans mounted the Hôtel de Ville steps with a firm tread; he passed close to Death, unwitting that Death, who so nearly touched him, had folded up his wings again. The gloomy vault of the old municipal palace, like the huge throat of a stone gargoyle, swallowed up the prince and his cortège. General La Fayette awaited him at the head of the staircase of the Hôtel de Ville. The situation was so great that men themselves appeared dwarfed. And, indeed, what did it mean: that the prince of the Younger Branch of the Bourbons was paying a visit to the hero of 1789? It meant that a democratic monarchy was to break off for ever from an aristocratic monarchy; it was the fulfilment of fifteen years of conspiracy; and the consecration of revolt by the pope of liberty.

We ought, perhaps, to stop here at this great moment, since all other details will seem paltry beside it.

The Duc d'Orléans, La Fayette and several of his friends formed the central point of interest of a vast crowd of men holding very different opinions. Some cheered, others protested. Four or five students from the École Polytechnique were there bareheaded, but with swords bare also. Some working men passed by, through the clearer spaces, shouting with sunburnt, lowering faces, some of them bloodstained, and they were gently pushed back so that the prince should not be offended by such a sight. It was, indeed, remorse that was being driven back, with the respect which is its due.

The matter in hand was the reading of the proclamation of the Chamber. M. Laffitte had spoken at such great length, as had everybody else, that he could not talk any longer. He held his proclamation in his hand, and goodness alone knows what effect a proclamation read in the grotesque tones of hoarseness would have produced!

"Give it me, give it me, my dear friend," shrieked M. Viennet, seizing the proclamation out of the hands of the famous banker, "I have a splendid voice!"

And it was, indeed, in superb tones that he read the proclamation of the Chamber. When the reader reached the words, "The Committee for judging delinquencies of the Press," the man who was to make the Laws of September, leant over to La Fayette and, shrugging his shoulders, asked--

"Will there be any more Press misdemeanours, now?"

When the reading was done he put his hand on his heart, a gesture much affected by all newly crowned kings, which, however, always produces the same successful effect.

"As a Frenchman," he said, "I deplore the harm done to the country and the blood that has been shed; as a prince I am happy to contribute to the welfare of the nation."

Suddenly a man advanced to the middle of the circle. It was General Dubourg, the man of the black flag, the phantom of 29 July. He had disappeared, and now reappeared only to disappear again once more.

"Take heed, monsieur," he said to the Duc d'Orléans; "you are aware of our rights, the sacred rights of the people; if you forget them, we will remind you of them!"

The duke stepped back, not because of this threat, but to take hold of La Fayette by the arm, and leaning upon it, he replied--

"Monsieur, what you have just said proves that you do not know me. I am an honest man, and when I have a duty to perform I do not let myself be won over by entreaties, nor intimidated by threats."

Nevertheless the scene had made a vivid impression, an impression that required to be combated.

La Fayette led the Duc d'Orléans out upon the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville. And for the second time he staked his popularity on a throw of the dice. The first time was on 6 October 1789, when he kissed the hand of the queen upon the balcony of the Palais de Versailles. The second time was on 31 July 1830, when he appeared upon the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, holding the Duc d'Orléans by the arm.

For a moment one might have supposed that this dramatic effect had fallen flat; the square was lined with heads, with flashing eyes, with gaping mouths,--all dumb. Georges La Fayette handed a tricolour flag to his father. The folds floated round the general and the duke, and brushed against their faces; both seemed to the people not resplendent with self-emanating light, but illuminated by some celestial glory, and the people burst into applause.

The game was won.

Oh! political players, how strong you are when a new man is to be raised! How weak when it comes to the supporting of a power grown old!

The return of the Duc d'Orléans to the Palais-Royal was a triumph. He had nothing left to desire: he had the triple recognition of the Chamber of Peers, of the Chamber of Deputies and of the Hôtel de Ville. He was the chosen-elect of M. de Lémonville, of M. Laffitte and La Fayette.

That very same night one of the carriages called _Carolines_ fetched the wife, sister and children of the Lieutenant-General of the realm from Neuilly to the Palais-Royal. The Duc de Chartres was alone missing from that reunion. He had, as we know, been sent away to Joigny. On the road to Joigny his carriage had passed another carriage. It contained Madame la Duchesse d'Angoulême, returning from her watering-place, where she had been informed by telegraph of the grave troubles that were agitating Paris. The two carriages pulled up, as the prince and princess had recognised one another.

"What is the latest news, Monsieur de Chartres?" asked the Duchesse d'Angoulême.

"Bad! madame, very bad!" replied the prince; "the Louvre is taken!"

Indeed, it was bad news for you, for your brothers, for your father and for the whole family. And it is you, poor prince, who in the eyes of posterity will be right!