The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 5 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 5Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
History
The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 5 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 5
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de, 1768-1848
The Order of the Day published on the morning of the 29th offended the
Guards: it announced that the King, wishing to give a proof of his
satisfaction to his brave servants, awarded them six weeks' pay; an
impropriety which the French soldier resented: it was placing him on a
level with the English, who refuse to march or who mutiny, if their pay
is in arrears.
During the night of the 28th, the people took up the street-pavement,
at each twenty yards' distance, and, at day-break the next morning,
there were four thousand barricades standing in Paris.
The Palais-Bourbon was guarded by the Line, the Louvre by two Swiss
battalions, the Rue de la Paix, the Place Vendôme and the Rue
Castiglione by the 5th and 53rd Regiments of the Line. About twelve
hundred infantrymen had arrived from Saint-Denis, Versailles and Rueil.
The military position was better: the troops were more concentrated,
and big empty spaces had to be crossed to reach them. General
Exelmans[232], who thought well of the dispositions, came at eleven
o'clock to place his courage and experience at the disposal of the
Maréchal de Raguse, while on his side General Pajol[233] presented
himself before the deputies to take command of the National Guard.
The ministers had the idea of summoning the King's Court to the
Tuileries, so completely out of touch were they with the movement
surrounding them! The marshal pressed the President of the Council
to withdraw the Ordinances. During the interview, M. de Polignac was
asked for; he went out, and returned with M. Bertier[234], son of the
first victim sacrificed in 1789. M. Bertier had been through Paris,
and declared that all was going well for the royal cause: what a fatal
thing are those families which have a right to vengeance, cast into the
tomb, as they were, in our early troubles and conjured up by our later
misfortunes! Those misfortunes were novelties no longer; since 1793,
Paris was accustomed to witness the passing of events and kings.
While all was going so well according to the Royalists, the defection
was announced of the 5th and 53rd of the Line, who were fraternizing
with the people.
[Sidenote: Butchery at the Louvre.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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