"Well--do it then!" was the reply. A committee was named, on the spur of the moment, composed of Thiers, Chatelain, and Cauchois-Lemaire. Thiers drew up the protest: he inserted the leading idea--"The writers of journals, called upon the first to obey, ought to give the first example of resistance." This was the signal of revolution! Some said, "Good! We shall insert the protest as a leading article in our journals." "Not only that," said Thiers, "we must put our names under it, and our heads under it." The protest was agreed to, after considerable discussion; it was published; and the people of Paris indorsed the protest in the streets of Paris the very next day. Thus Thiers performed the initial act, which led to the expulsion from France of the elder branch of the Bourbon family. But it ought to be added that, after having signed the protest, which was published next morning, Thiers returned to muse in the shades of Montmorency, and did not return to Paris until the 29th, after the decisive battle of the barricades had been fought. Of course, Thiers was now a man of greater mark than ever. The new government of the Citizen King at once secured him; and the son of the Marseilles locksmith, the poor law student of Aix, the newspaper writer of the garret, was now appointed Counselor of State and Secretary-General of Finance. It is said that the Citizen King even offered him the Portfolio of Finance, which he declined on the ground of inexperience; but he afterward accepted the office of Under-Secretary of State, and mainly directed that important part of the administration through a crisis of great financial difficulty. He was sent into the Chamber of Deputies as member for Aix, at whose college he had studied. Thiers was no favorite when he entered the Chamber; he was very generally disliked, and he did much to alarm the timid by his style of dressing a-la-Danton, as well as by his high-flown phrases in favor of democratizing Europe, saving Poland, delivering Belgium, and passing the Rhine. His eloquence was then bluster, but as he grew older, he became more polished, more cautious, and more politic. When the Lafitte ministry fell, of which he had been a member, Thiers at once deserted that party, and attached himself to the Casimir-Perier administration. He fell foul of his old comrades, who proclaimed him a renegade. Never mind! Thiers was a clever fellow, who knew what cards he was playing. He who was for passing the Rhine, was now all for repose and peace; he would have no more innovations, nor propagandism; before, the advocate of equality and democracy, he now became the defender of conservatism, the peerage, and the old institutions of France. He stood almost alone in defending the peerage, but it fell nevertheless, and the revolution went on.