Louis Philippe Part 20

The members, in confusion, rose from their seats. The president fled from his chair. Some ferocious wretches, upon whose countenances brutality was imprinted, clambered over the benches and leveled their muskets at the head of the princess. Her friends, terror-stricken, hurried her and her children through the door. The moment she disappeared there was a general cry for a provisional government, as the first step towards the establishment of a Republic. This call was made, not only by the mob, but by that large portion of the Deputies who thought that a Republic alone could save France from anarchy, and restore to the people their long withheld rights.

Lamartine succeeded in obtaining the tribune. For a moment he was popular, the representative of Republicanism. There was a brief lull in the tempest as the throng listened to what he had to say. The following list of names of those proposed to const.i.tute the Provisional Government was then read off: Lamartine, Marie, Ledru Rollin, Cremieux, Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, and Garnier Pages. Some of these names were received with cheers, others with hisses. It was impossible to take any formal vote. The voices of the Deputies were lost in the clamor of the mob. Still, the general a.s.sent seemed to be in their favor. These were all good men. They were deemed moderate Republicans.

But there was another portion of the Republican party, the radical, so called, who would by no means be satisfied with such an administration as these calm, deliberate men would inaugurate, with their lingering adhesion to the rights of wealth and the dignity of rank. There might have been possibly a thousand people crowded into the hall of the Chamber of Deputies, who thus, self-appointed, were forming a government for a nation numbering thirty-five millions.

The more radical party, perhaps equal in number, and no less tumultuous, composed also of those of the stoutest muscle and most determined will, who could elbow their way through the throng, gathered in the great hall of the Hotel de Ville, proclaimed an antagonistic provisional government, more in accordance with their views. Their list consisted of Marrast, Flocon, Louis Blanc, and Albert. The danger of a conflict, leading to hopeless anarchy, was imminent, as the partisans of each should rally around its own choice.

The first Provisional Government, accordingly, immediately repaired to the Hotel de Ville, followed by a tumultuous crowd which no man could number. The leaders of the two parties soon met upon the stairs of the Hotel de Ville, and a violent altercation ensued, which came near to blows. The Place de Greve, in front of the hotel, was like a storm-tossed ocean of agitated men, "a living sea, madly heaving and tossing about beneath the tempest of revolution."

Both parties were terrified by the menacing aspect of affairs. A compromise was hurriedly agreed to by adding to the six chosen at the Chamber of Deputies six more, chosen from the party at the Hotel de Ville. Lamartine, from the head of the stairs, read off the list to the ma.s.ses surging below.

In the mean time, the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans, having escaped from the Chamber of Deputies, and surrounded by friends who were ready to sacrifice their own lives in her defense, was with difficulty rescued from the crowd. Prominent among her protectors was M. de Morny. As the d.u.c.h.ess was veiled, her little party was soon lost in the heaving ma.s.ses, and unrecognized. The terrors of the hour caused fugitives to be struggling wildly through the throng in all directions. The pressure was so great and so resistless that the d.u.c.h.ess was torn from the side of her brother, the Duke de Nemours, and from both of her children. A moment after the separation, as the mother, frantic with terror, was groping around in search of her sons, a brutal wretch of gigantic stature recognized the Count de Paris, and, seizing him by the throat, endeavored to strangle him. One of the National Guard who chanced to be near rescued the child, and succeeded in placing him in the hands of his mother. But the younger child, the Duke de Chartres, could nowhere be found. In vain the distracted mother called aloud for her child. The close-packed throng swayed to and fro, and her feeble voice was unheard in the deafening clamor. She was swept along by the flow of a torrent which it was impossible to resist. With exceeding difficulty her friends succeeded in forcing her into a house. She ran to the window of one of the chambers to look down upon the scene of tumult for her lost child.

Soon, to her inexpressible joy, she saw him in the arms of a friend.

The poor child was faint, and almost lifeless. He had been thrown down and trampled under the feet of the crowd. The day was now far spent. As soon as it was dark, the royal party, all in disguise, engaged a hack, and, pa.s.sing through the Champs Elysees, escaped from the city. After a short journey of many perils and great mental suffering, they were reunited with the exiled king and court at Claremont.

The night succeeding these scenes in Paris was appalling beyond imagination. There was no recognized law in the metropolis. A population of a million and a half of people was in the streets. The timid and the virtuous were terror-stricken. The drunken, the degraded, the ferocious held the city at their mercy. Radical as was the party which had a.s.sembled at the Hotel de Ville, there was another party, composed of the dregs of the Parisian populace, more radical still. This party was ripe for plunder and for unlimited license in every outrage. About midnight, in a desperately armed and howling band, they made an attack upon the Provisional Government at the Hotel de Ville; after a severe struggle, the a.s.sailants were repelled. The next morning the _Moniteur_ announced to the citizens of Paris, and the telegraph announced to Europe, that the throne of Louis Philippe had crumbled, and that a Republic was established in France.

We must not forget, in our stern condemnation of the brutality, the ignorance, the ferocity of the mob, that it was composed of men--husbands, brothers, fathers--many of whom had been defrauded of their rights and maddened by oppression. If governments will sow the wind by trampling upon the rights of the people, they must expect to reap the whirlwind when their exasperated victims rise in the blindness of their rage.

Louis Philippe did not long survive his fall. He died at Claremont, in England, on the 26th of August, 1850. The reader, who may be interested to inform himself of the changes in France which followed this Revolution, will find them minutely detailed in the "Life of Napoleon III."