Meanwhile, the Royalist party assumed courage, and showed themselves in arms in several of the departments, directed the public opinion in many others, and gained great accessions from the Constitutionalists. Indeed, if any of the latter still continued to dread the restoration of the Bourbons, it was partly from the fear of reaction and retaliation on the side of the successful Royalists, and partly because it was apprehended that the late events might have made on the mind of Louis an impression unfavourable to constitutional limitations, a disgust to those by whom they were recommended and supported, and a propensity to resume the arbitrary measures by which his ancestors had governed their kingdom. Those who nourished those apprehensions could not but allow, that they were founded on the fickleness and ingratitude of the people, who had shown themselves unworthy of, and easily induced to conspire against, the mild and easy rule of a limited monarchy. But they involved, nevertheless, tremendous consequences, if the King should be disposed to act upon rigorous and vindictive principles; and it was such an apprehension on the part of some, joined to the fears of others for personal consequences, the sullen shame of a third party, and the hatred of the army to the princes whom they had betrayed, which procured for the Provisional Government a show of obedience. It was thus that the Chambers continued their resistance to receiving their legitimate monarch, though unable to excite any enthusiasm save that expressed in the momentary explosions discharged within their own place of meeting, which gratified no ears, and heated no brains but their own. In the meanwhile, the armies of Soult and Grouchy were driven under the walls of Paris, where they were speedily followed by the English and the Prussians. The natural gallantry of the French then dictated a resistance, which was honourable to their arms, though totally unsuccessful. The allies, instead of renewing the doubtful attack on Montmartre, crossed the Seine, and attacked Paris on the undefended side. There was not, as in 1814, a hostile army to endanger the communications on their rear. The French, however, showed great bravery, both by an attempt to defend Versailles, and in a _coup-de-main_ of General Excelmans, by which he attempted to recover that town. But at length, in consequence of the result of a council of war held in Paris, on the night betwixt the 2d and 3d of July, an armistice was concluded, by which the capital was surrendered to the allies, and the French army was drawn off behind the Loire.