The rich prey once seized, plenty of hounds were there for the distribution of the quarry: then came all those old corruptions of the preceding systems, those receivers of stolen goods, filthy, half-crushed toads that have been walked upon a hundred times and that live, all flattened out as they are. And yet those are the men of whom one boasts, whose ability one exalts! Milton thought otherwise when he wrote this passage in a sublime letter: "If ever God poured a strong love for moral beauty in a man's breast, he did so in mine. Wherever I meet a man despising the false esteem of the vulgar, daring to aspire, by his opinions, his language and his conduct, to the greatest excellence which the lofty wisdom of the ages has taught us, I become united to that man by a sort of necessary attachment. There is no power in Heaven or upon earth which can prevent me from contemplating with respect and fondness those who have attained the summit of dignity and virtue." The blind Court of Charles X. never knew where it stood or with whom it had to do: it might have ordered M. le Duc d'Orléans to Saint-Cloud, and it is probable that, at the first moment, he would have obeyed; it might have had him kidnapped at Neuilly, on the very day of the Ordinances: it took neither course. On receipt of advices which Madame de Bondy brought him, at Neuilly, in the night of Tuesday the 27th, Louis-Philippe rose at three o'clock in the morning and withdrew to a place known only to his family. He had the double fear of being touched by the insurrection in Paris and of being arrested by a captain of the Guards. He therefore went to the Rainey, there in solitude to listen to the distant gun-shots of the Battle of the Louvre, as I had listened under a tree to those of the Battle of Waterloo. The feelings which doubtless stirred the Prince must have had very little in common with those which oppressed me in the plains of Ghent. I have told you how, on the morning of the 30th of July, M. Thiers failed to find the Duc d'Orléans at Neuilly; but Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans[285] sent to fetch H.R.H.: the Comte Anatole de Montesquiou[286] was charged with the message. On arriving at the Rainey, M. de Montesquiou had all the difficulty in the world to decide Louis-Philippe to return to Neuilly, there to await the deputation from the Chamber of Deputies. At last, persuaded by the Duchesse d'Orléans' lord-in-waiting, Louis-Philippe stepped into his carriage. M. de Montesquiou started in advance; at first he went pretty fast; but, when he looked back, he saw H.R.H.'s calash stop and drive back again towards the Rainey. M. de Montesquiou returned at full speed and entreated the future majesty, who was hastening to conceal himself in the desert, like the illustrious Christians who used to flee from the burdensome dignity of the episcopate: the faithful servant obtained a last unhappy victory.