The Duchess had been conducted to a gallery, on account of the threats
of the insurgent battalions, who burst open the doors after General
Gourgaud had in vain tried to stop them. Armand Marrast, one of the
editors of the _National_, after looking at the invaders, said: "These
are the sham public; I shall call the real!" A few minutes afterward
shots were heard in the court of the palace; the posts in the hands of
the National Guard opened before the triumphant mob, who, after sacking
the Tuileries, hurried up against the expiring remnants of the monarchy.
The Duchesse d'Orléans had already twice offered to speak, but her voice
was drowned in the tumult. The newcomers, stained with blood and
blackened with gunpowder, with dishevelled hair and bare arms, climbed
on the benches, stairs, and galleries; and in every part were shouts of
"Down with the regency! Long live the Republic! Turn out the
'Contents'!" Sauzet put on his hat, but a workman knocked it off, and
then the President disappeared.
Several of the Deputies rushed to the gallery, where the Duchess was
still exposed to the looks and threats of the insurgents. "There is
nothing more to be done here, madam," they urged: "we must go to the
President's house, to form a new chamber." She took the arm of Jules de
Lasteyrie; and on her sons being separated from her in the narrow
passages, she showed the greatest anxiety, crying, "My boys! my boys!"
At one time the Comte de Paris was seized by a workman in a blouse; but
one of the National Guard took him out of his hands, and the child was
passed from one to another till he rejoined his mother. No one knew what
had become of the Duc de Chartres; but he was brought to the Invalides,
where the Princess went for refuge; and in the evening, after nightfall,
the mother and sons withdrew from Paris, and soon after from France.
"To-morrow, or ten years hence," said the Duchesse d'Orléans as she left
the Invalides, "a word, a sign will bring me back." Afterward in exile
she frequently said, "When the thought crosses my mind that I may never
again see France, I feel my heart breaking."
Wanderers and fugitives across their kingdom, after kneeling for the
last time beside the tomb of their children at Dreux, and asking the
hospitality of some friends who were still faithful, and without a
single attempt to recover the crown they had lost, King Louis Philippe
and Queen Marie-Amélie at last reached the seacoast, and set sail toward
England, that safe and well-known refuge of unfortunate princes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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