One table...... 6 50 Total, 33 50 And it was by these actions that the Government was alienating itself from the people by the scandalous trials of Carbonneau, Pleignies and Tolleron successively; from the army by the executions of Bories, Raoul, Goubin and Pommier; from the high military aristocracy by the assassination of Brune, Ramel, Ney and Mouton-Duverney; from the middle classes by the dissolution of the National Guard; and was alienating a race far more dangerous still, namely poets, journalists and men of letters, by the sentences which struck successively such men as Paul-Louis Courier, Cauchois-Lemaire, Magallon, Béranger, Fontan and Barthélemy. Now, a Government which has the people, the army, the middle classes and literature opposed to it is in a very bad way, and this Government was therefore in a very bad way on 31 July 1829, on which day it pronounced its sentence on Barthélemy; exactly a year later, to the day, it was defunct. Finally, an anecdote I am just about to relate will prove that I partially foresaw the trend of coming events. My new position in the library of the Duc d'Orléans (a post which, as I have already pointed out to my readers, was more honorary than lucrative) possessed the great advantage to me of affording me an immense office, where I could carry on my literary and historical researches nearly as well as, and far more comfortably than, in the Bibliothèque royale. So I was more regular in my attendance than either of my two confrères, Vatout and Casimir Delavigne. Accordingly, one day, when the Duc d'Orléans came in, humming a tune from one of the masses--a habit of his when he was in a good temper, which, I must say, he nearly always was--he remarked: "So! are you by yourself, M. Dumas?" "Yes, monseigneur." The Duc d'Orléans took two or three turns round the library, still continuing his singing. Then he went on, a moment later-- "Neither Vatout, nor Casimir, nor Tallencourt?..." "MM. Vatout and Casimir have not come, monseigneur, and Tallencourt has gone out." Twice again he perambulated round the library, still humming to himself. He evidently wished to enter into conversation, so I ventured to ask him-- "Does monseigneur want anything I can do in the absence of the other gentlemen?" "No; I wanted to show Vatout an historic portrait and to ask his opinion." "Unhappily, as monseigneur needs advice, I am afraid I am no substitute for M. Vatout." "Come with me, nevertheless," said the duke. I bowed and followed the prince from the library to the picture gallery.