It was this fear that made the National Guard the heroes of the hour. It was impossible but that such a body of men--Parisian shopkeepers put into uniform (those of them who would condescend to wear it; for many used to be seen, who contented themselves with girding on a sabre and assuming a firelock, while others would go to the extent of surmounting the ordinary black coat with the regulation military shako)--should afford a target for many shafts of ridicule. The capon-lined paunches of a considerable contingent of these well-to-do warriors were an inexhaustible source of not very pungent jokes. But Paris would have been frightened out of its wits at the bare suggestion of suppressing these citizen saviours of society. Of course they were petted at the Tuileries. No reception or _fête_ of any kind was complete without a large sprinkling of these shopkeeping guardsmen, and their presence on such occasions was the subject of an unfailing series of _historiettes_. I remember an anecdote excellently illustrative of the time, which was current in the salons of the “_Parceque_ Bourbon” society of the day. A certain elderly duchess of the _vieille roche_, a dainty little woman, very _mignonne_, whose exquisite _parure_ and still more exquisite manners scented the air at a league’s distance, to use the common French phrase, with the odour of the most aristocratic salons of the Quartier St. Germain, was, at one of Louis Philippe’s Tuileries receptions, about to take from the tray handed round by a servant the last of the ices which it had contained, when a huge outstretched hand, with its five wide-spread fingers, was protruded from behind over her shoulder, and the refreshment of which she was about to avail herself was seized by a big National Guard with the exclamation, “_Enfoncèe la petite mère!_” Nevertheless, it may be safely asserted that the little duchess, and all the world she moved in, would have been infinitely more dismayed had they gone to the Tuileries and seen no National Guards there. Among the many persons of note with whom I became more or less well acquainted during that month, no one perhaps stands out more vividly in my recollection than Chateaubriand. He also, though standing much aloof from the noise and movement of the political passions of the time, was an aristocrat _jusqu’au bout des ongles_, in appearance, in manners, in opinions, and general tone of mind. The impression to this effect immediately produced on one’s first presentation was in no degree due to any personal advantages. He was not, when I knew him, nor do I think he ever could have been, a good looking man. He stooped a good deal, and his head and shoulders gave me the impression of being somewhat too large for the rest of his person. The lower part of his face too, was, I thought, rather heavy.