The Municipal Commission issued a proclamation in which it declared that "the crimes of his [Charles X.'s] power were ended," and that "the people would have a government which should owe its origin to them [the people]:" an ambiguous phrase which you were free to interpret as you pleased. Messieurs Laffitte and Périer did not sign this document M. de La Fayette, alarmed, a little late in the day, at the idea of the Orleanist Royalty, sent M. Odilon Barrot to the Chamber of Deputies to announce that the people, the authors of the Revolution of July, did not mean to end it by a simple change of persons, and that the blood that had been shed was well worth a few liberties. There was talk of a proclamation of the Deputies to invite H.R.H. the Duc d'Orléans to come to the Capital: after some communications with the Hôtel de Ville, this plan of a proclamation was demolished. Nevertheless it led to the formation of a sort of deputation of twelve members who were to go to the Lord of Neuilly[275] to offer him that Lieutenant-generalship for which they had not been able to make way in a proclamation. In the evening, the Grand Refendary assembled the Peers in his apartments[276]: his letter, through negligence or policy, reached me too late. I hurried to hasten to the meeting; they opened the gate of the Allée de l'Observatoire for me; I crossed the Luxembourg garden: when I reached the palace, I found no one there. I made my way back past the flower-beds, my eyes fixed on the moon. I regretted the seas and the mountains above which she had appeared to me, the forests in whose tops, herself vanishing in silence, she had seemed to repeat to me the maxim of Epicurus[277]: "Conceal thy life." [Sidenote: Troops retire to Saint-Cloud.] I have left the troops falling back upon Saint-Cloud, on the evening of the 29th. The citizens of Chaillot and Passy attacked them, killing a captain of Carabineers and two officers, and wounding some ten soldiers. Captain Le Motha[278] of the Guards was struck by a bullet fired by a child whom he had been pleased to spare. This captain had given in his resignation at the time of the Ordinances; but, seeing that they were fighting on the 27th, he returned to his regiment to share the dangers of his comrades. Never, to the glory of France, was there a finer battle waged in the parties opposed between liberty and honour.