Confidential letter from Louis-Philippe to the Emperor Nicholas--The Czar's reply--What France could do after the Revolution of July--Louis-Philippe and Ferdinand VII.--The Spanish refugees--Reaction in the Home department--Scraping of the public monuments--Protest The last sentence in my previous chapter virtually shows how far the reaction in Paris had progressed at the moment I returned there after my absence of six weeks or two months. The conversation between the lieutenant-general and the Republicans on the night of 3 July will be recollected, and how Louis-Philippe had then revealed his system of _juste milieu_, a system which had been so repugnant to our young men that Cavaignac had exclaimed-- "Oh! if that is how things are going to be, Monsieur, we need have no anxiety, for you will not hold out for four years!" Cavaignac was not mistaken in his prophecy, although he was wrong as to the date--merely a chronological error, after all. Moreover, a letter, made public by the very man to whom it had been addressed, a prince, whose aristocratic and hereditary pride took pleasure in humbling a king sprung from a Revolution, had published, far more clearly than the light words of a conversation, the programme of the new reign. Copies of this letter actually sent from St. Petersburg were in circulation: it was from the King of France to _Monsieur, his brother_, the Emperor of All the Russias. M. Athalin had brought it by special courier; but it was to be delivered separately from the official letter which announced the lieutenant-general's accession to the throne: this was the letter intended only to be read by the Emperor of Russia, but was naturally the only one of the two that was read by the whole world. It seemed inexplicable to men who for the last fifteen years had followed the policy adopted by the Duc d'Orléans towards the Elder Branch; to those who were acquainted with his conduct towards Charles X. and the young Duke of Bordeaux, during the days which preceded his nomination to the lieutenant-generalship, and those which followed; also to those who knew the part the Palais-Royal had played in that great _mise-en-scène_ of the expedition to Rambouillet, which had ended not exactly in the flight (Charles X. maintained his dignity safe and sound as far as Cherbourg), but in the departure, of the Royal Family. The staunchest of King Louis-Philippe's friends denied that the letter was written by him; they said it was apocryphal altogether.