That was my last political temptation; I might have thought myself a just man according to St. Hilary[314], who declares that men are exposed to the attempts of the devil in proportion to their godliness: _Victoria ei est magis, exacta de sanctis._ My refusals were those of a dupe: where is the public that shall judge them? Could I not have taken my place among the men, virtuous sons of the land, who serve the "country" before all things? Unfortunately, I am not a creature of the present and I am not willing to capitulate with fortune. I have nothing in common with Cicero; but his frailty is no excuse: posterity has declined to forgive one great man his moment of weakness for another great man; what would my poor life have been, losing its only possession, its integrity, for Louis-Philippe d'Orléans? On the evening of the day on which I had this last conversation at the Palais-Royal, I met M. de Sainte-Aulaire[315] at Madame Récamier's. I did not amuse myself by asking him his secret, but he asked me mine. He had just arrived from the country full of the events of which he had read: "Ah," he cried, "how glad I am to see you! Here's a fine business! I hope that all of us, at the Luxembourg, will do our duty. It would be a curious thing for the Peers to dispose of the crown of Henry IV.! I am quite sure that you will not leave me alone in the tribune." As my mind was made up, I was very calm; my reply appeared cold to M. de Sainte-Aulaire's ardour. He went away, saw his friends and left me alone in the tribune: long live your light-hearted and frivolous men of intelligence! The Republican Party was still struggling under the feet of the friends who had betrayed it. On the 6th of August, a deputation of twenty members appointed by the central committee of the twelve wards of Paris appeared in the Chamber of Deputies to present an address of which General Thiard[316] and M. Duris-Dufresne[317] eased the well-meaning deputation. It was said in this address that "the nation could not recognise as a constitutional power either an elective Chamber appointed during the existence and under the influence of the royalty which it has overthrown or an aristocratic Chamber, the institution of which is in direct opposition to the principles that have caused it, the nation, to take up arms; that the central committee of the twelve wards, having granted, as a revolutionary necessity, only a _de facto_ and very provisional power to the present Chamber of Deputies to discuss any measure of urgency, now calls with all its wishes for the free and popular election of mandatories who shall really represent the needs of the people; that the primary assemblies alone can bring about that result. If it were otherwise, the nation would render null and void all that might tend to impede it in the exercise of its rights."