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 Swiss battalion which had been left on the Marché des Innocents was
released by another Swiss battalion: together they came out at the Quai
de l'École and stood in the Louvre.
For the rest, barricades are entrenchments in keeping with the Parisian
character; they are found in all our troubles, from Charles IX. to our
own times:
"The people," says L'Éstoile, "seeing those forces disposed over
the streets, began to be agitated and made barricades in the manner
that all know: many Swiss were slain, who were buried in a ditch
dug in the enclosure of Notre-Dame; the Duke of Guyse passing
through the streets, all vied in crying loudly, 'Long live Guyse!'
and quoth he, doffing his large hat:
"'My friends, it is enough; gentlemen, it is too much; shout, "Long
live the King!"'"
Why do our barricades, which led to such mighty results, gain so
little in the telling, while the barricades of 1588, which produced
nothing, are so interesting to read of? This is due to the difference
in centuries and persons: the sixteenth century carried all before it;
the nineteenth century has left all behind it: M. de Puyravault is not
quite the Balafré.
While this fighting was continuing, the civil and political revolution
followed the military revolution on parallel lines. The soldiers locked
up in the Abbaye were set at liberty; the debtors at Sainte-Pélagie
escaped and the political prisoners were released: a revolution is a
jubilee; it absolves from every crime, permitting greater crimes.
The Ministers sat in council at the Staff Office: they resolved to
arrest Messieurs Laffitte[224], La Fayette, Gérard, Marchais[225],
Salverte[226] and Audry de Puyravault as leaders of the movement;
the marshal gave the order for their arrest; but, when, later, they
appeared before him as delegates, he did not think it consistent with
his honour to put his order into execution.
[Sidenote: Meetings of peers and deputies.]
A gathering of the Monarchical Party, consisting of peers and deputies,
met at M. Guizot's: the Duc de Broglie was there, as were Messieurs
Thiers and Mignet, who had made their reappearance, and M. Carrel,
although he held different ideas. It was there that the name of the Duc
d'Orléans was first pronounced by the Usurpation Party. M. Thiers and
M. Mignet went to General Sébastiani to talk to him of the Prince. The
general replied in an evasive manner; the Duc d'Orléans, he asserted,
had never entertained such designs and had not authorized him to do
anything.
About mid-day, on the same day, the 28th, the general meeting of the
deputies took place at M. Audry de Puyravault's[227]. M. de La Fayette,
the leader of the Republican Party, had reached Paris on the 27th; M.
Laffitte, the leader of the Orleanist Party, had arrived on the 27th,
at night; he went to the Palais-Royal, where he found no one; he sent
to Neuilly: the King in embryo was not there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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