The king refused to let the Marechal Duc d'Isly restore order (as there is no doubt he could easily and quickly have done), on the ground that he had received the Crown from the National Guard in Paris, and that he would not allow it to be defended by the line against them. The recently published letters of his very popular son, the Duc d'Orleans, prove that, had that prince been then living, he probably would never have allowed this scruple to stand in the way of averting a social and political catastrophe. But the duc was in his untimely grave, and the control of events fell most unexpectedly into the hands of a few men who had no concerted plan of action, and, indeed, hardly knew whether they were awake or dreaming. 'They proclaimed a republic,' said Mr. Sumner, 'because they did not know what else to do;' but they were in a state of utter bewilderment at first, as to how they should get the republic accepted by the provinces. A happy thought struck M. Armand Marrast. In those days the French railway system was little developed. Most of the mails from Paris were carried through the country by malles-postes and diligences, and every evening an immense number of these coaches left the central bureau for all parts of France. M. Marrast sent into all the quarters of Paris and impounded, in one way or another, the services and the paintpots of every house and furniture painter upon whom his people could lay hands. These were all set to work upon the mail coaches. The royal arms, with the Charter and the Crown, were painted over, and the vehicles which, from Paris, carried to all parts of France the news of the proclamation of the Republic carried everywhere also an outward and visible sign of the establishment of the new government in the words 'Republique Francaise' brightly blazoned upon their panels.