published would represent the loss of the troops as being greater than the whole number of troops engaged in the contest. But it is not so. In fact it has been pretty satisfactorily ascertained that the loss on both sides did not exceed three thousand men in killed and wounded. Deduct ing, however, whatever is exaggerated in the popular statements concerning the Revolution, enough of glory remains to the Parisian population, and enough of consequence in the victory achieved, to render it one of the most interesting events in modern history. 1 CHAPTER XVII. FRANCE, CONTINUED. Provisional Government of Thursday. - La Fayette. — Proposal of the King. The Duc d'Orleans made Lieutenant General. State of Paris.-Expulsion of the Bourbons. Remarks. WE gave in the preceding of the Government and of the chapter, a sufficiently minute his- Moniteur. But on Friday it retory of the military events of the appeared under the dates of July Three Days, which in so brief a 29th and 30th, with the following period completely destroyed the official article:power of Charles Tenth. But in the emergency of a popular Revo 6 PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. lution, it is often easier to destroy is have found it necessary to asThe Deputies present at Parthan to renew, easier to overthrow existing institutions than to estab- semble to remedy the serious lish new ones in their place. dangers, which threatened the Fortunately on the present occa- security of security of persons and property. sion the People, who for the time A Commission has been appointed being had resumed their natural to watch over the interests of all, authority, were temperate and ju- in the entire absence of a regular dicious in their views, and after organization. they had fought for and won their Messrs Audry de Puyraveau, liberty, returned peaceably to Comte Gérard, Jacques Lafitte, their ordinary pursuits, leaving to Comte de Lobau, Mauguin, Odier, the chosen and respected public Casimir Perrier, and de Schonen, men of the Nation to reorganize compose the Commission. the forms of Government. The 'General La Fayette is ComMoniteur, that expressive chron- mander in Chief of the National Guard. icle of political changes, did not appear on the 29th. Being the organ of the rulers de facto, who may happen to have the control of affairs, how could it speak on that day when there were no rulers? It was an interregnum alike "The National Guard are masters of Paris at all points.' These few sentences proclaimed to France and to Europe, the triumph of the Charter and the downfal of its assailants. The individuals composing the Louis Minister of Finance. VaCommission were universally rious proclamations were issued known as the uncompromising on that day by General La Fayadvocates of the popular cause on occasions without number, and their names were a sufficient guarantee to the People at large of the character of the measures they would pursue, even had not La Fayette been announced as commander of the National Guards. ette, by General Dubourg, whom the citizens themselves had at first installed in temporary command and who subsequently acted under La Fayette, and by the Deputies. The latter, in the midst of an ardent appeal to the citizens to arm, apprises them of the appointment of La Fayette to In fact, to the population of the command of the National Paris these appointments were Guard, and also announces the not a novelty. No longer re- establishment of a Provisional strained by considerations of del- Government. Three most honicacy, or any fear of compromis- orable citizens,' say they, 'have ing themselves, the Deputies had undertaken its important funcassembled at the house of M. La- tions: These are Messrs La fitte on Thursday, and made Fayette, Choiseul, and Gérard.' various arrangements of great im- It does not appear that the Duc portance. In placing La Fay- de Choiseul ever acted under this ette at the head of the National authority; but his associates enGuard, they had appealed to the tered immediately upon the zealold sensibilities and historical re- ous discharge of the duties ascollections of the People, in the signed to them. The Hôtel de same way the popular leaders of Ville became the seat of public Wednesday had done in raising affairs once more, as it had been the tricolored flag. La Fayette in former times of revolution. and the tricolor were equally, In fact, in everything the days of under the Bourbons, proscribed popular rule seemed to be restormemorials of the Revolution. ed. But it was by the lavish use Immediately on receiving his of the name, influence, and exerappointment, he announced his tions of La Fayette that order acceptance in a proclamation, in- was in reality maintained. He viting the Mayor and Municipal was replaced in the command of Committees of each arrondisse- the citizen soldiery which he had ment of the city to send officers to led in 1789. His name was the Hôtel de Ville to receive his invoked by the Deputies in their orders. In this paper the Com- proclamation as the talisman of mission, of which we have spoken, public safety. And he again was are styled the Constitutional Mu- put forward as first in the Pronicipal Committee of the city of visional Government, which the Paris. It was soon after announc- exigencies of the time called into ed that the Comte Alexander de being. Never was more honoraLaborde was appointed provision- ble tribute paid to the popularity, al Prefect of the Seine, and Baron integrity, patriotism, and self-de votion of any man, in ancient or modern times, than in the spontaneous resort of the casual depositaries of power to La Fayette, as the only individual in France, whose personal influence could supply the total absence of an established or admitted government derived from the laws. In the unpretending form of Commander of the National Guard, he in fact exercised the functions, which, in ancient Rome and in the Republics of South America, would have belonged to the name and authority of Dictator. When Polignac and his colleagues arrived at Saint Cloud, and laid down that power, which they had used so disastriously for their King, they could persuade the infatuated prince to listen to arguments of accommodation only by awakening his apprehensions for the safety of the Duchesse d'Angoulême, who was then on her return from a journey, and knew nothing of what had transpired. His fears that a single member of his family might suffer, outweighed, in his selfish mind, all consideration of the lives of his subjects and the miseries of a protracted civil war; and to these fears, not to any principle of public good, he yielded himself up, in consenting to recal the fatal Ordinances and appoint a liberal Cabinet. The Duc de Mortemart, who was in service at Saint Cloud as Captain of the Guards, was made Prime Minister, and empowered to select his colleagues. He began by naming Comte Gérard Minister of War, and M. Casimir Perrier Minister of Finance; and these nominations appear in the Bulletin des Lois, although they never found their way into the Moniteur. A deputation from the King repaired to the Hôtel de Ville towards evening to propose an accommodation, but discovered that it was too late, and that there was no longer any hope for Charles or his dynasty; and with these consolatory tidings they returned to Saint Cloud. Among those who had the control of public affairs at this time, the general sentiment already pointed towards one individual, who alone could give consistency to the Revolution, by embracing the popular cause as his own. The Duc d'Orleans united in his person a multitude of considerations, all marking him out as the personage whom France now needed at the head of her Government to give consolidation and respectability to the new order of things, and assure to it the confidence of Europe. It was a consummation to which, as we have before explained, all eyes had long been looking, as a possible if not a probable event. Perhaps in this case, as in many other great changes which history records, the anticipation of this result had a decided influence in leading to its accomplishment. It is true that many of the victorious party desired pure republican forms, in place of a monarchy of whatsoever degree of liberality. Others there were, who still proudly cherished the name of Napoleon, and urged that the dynasty of victory and the Revolution should be restored to power in the person of the Duke of Reichstadt. But the great current of opinion, and in such a crisis opinion is everything, ran in favor of the family of Orleans. As the wealthiest subject of France, the Duc d'Orleans possessed that hold on the public regard, which great riches, worthily and liberally employed, are calculated to impart. His rank placed him next to the reigning family, and of course drew attention to him, whenever the subject of a substitute for the elder branch of the Bourbons came to be discussed. The Duc d'Orleans, it will be remembered, was lineally descended from Philippe, only brother of Louis XIV. from whom Charles X. derived his descent, the common ancestor of the two families being Louis XIII. son of Henry Quartre, the splendor of whose qualities had perpetuated his memory in the hearts of the French, in spite of all the odium attached to the misrule of his posterity. At the same time, as the Duc d'Orleans had no claims to the succession, so long as the Dauphin, or his nephew, the Duc de Bordeaux, or any legitimate posterity of theirs, survived, the elevation of the former would be a revolutionary act, a violation of the jus divinum principle, a departure from the line of hereditary succession; and therefore the Duc d'Orleans would owe his crown to the choice and free will of the French Nation, just as much as if he were a mere soldier of fortune elevated by his bare personal merits from the subaltern duties of the camp, and the indiscriminate ranks of the People, If he ascended the throne, it must therefore be by compact, and on such conditions as the public voice should see fit to impose. And whatever recommendation the Duc d'Orleans gained by his proximity to the royal family, he derived a still greater one from his immediate parentage, his education, his own personal character, and the qualities of his family. The son of the Montagnard Philippe Egalité, who contributed more than any other single individual to heave Louis XVI. from his throne, inherited a revolutionary taint in his blood, from which no elements of royal relationship in its composition could purify it, and was thus driven from the affections of the restored royal family into unavoidable sympathy with the Nation. At an early age, the then Duc de Chartres, with his two younger brothers, was intrusted to the tuition of Madame de Genlis, who conducted his education entirely upon the plan of Rousseau's Emilius, thus giving a hardihood to his body and a masculine freedom to his mind, which seldom fall to the lot of modern princes. Having completed his education, he joined the famous Jacobin Club in 1791, and during the same year entered into active service as colonel of a regiment in the army of the North. In that age of hard fighting and rapid promotions the Duc de Chartres did not languish for the want of employment or honors. Through a quick succession of engagements in the spring and summer of 1792 under Biron and Luckner he rose to the rank of lieu |