been expected from the discordant elements by which he was sur-
rounded. For six years he had been the presiding spirit of the
government. When he entered upon power he said, " I am born
for the end of revolutions." This belief had little of the spirit of
prophecy, however the prudence and sagacity of this minister
might have retarded that isolation of the ruler from the ruled
which is the beginning of new revolutions. The elections of 1827
were unfavourable to the government ; and the minister, not having
the cordial support of the whole royalist party, was compelled to
retire from office. The dauphiness said to the king, " in abandon-
ing M. de Villele, you have descended the first step of your
throne." M. de Martignac became the head of the cabinet which
replaced that of M. de Villele. His tendencies were liberal and
constitutional ; his talents had not their proper influence either
with the king or the chambers. He did what was in his power to
prevent the measures of repression which one party desired, and
to carry forward those measures of conciliation which he thought
would retard a rupture between the throne and the nation. Lafay-
ette characterized the policy of Martignac in a very significant
sentence : " Three steps forward and two backward, we have the
net product of one little step." To move forward at all, and not
have the power of carrying the chambers in a retrogressive policy,
was held at the Tuileries to be the fault of this minister. In Au-
gust, 1829, a royal ordinance appeared changing the whole of the
ministry, and finally appointing Prince Jules de Polignac president
of the council. The prince had been ambassador to England;
and many of the French, and not a few of the English, chose to
believe that he had been appointed to his post through the influ-
ence of the duke of Wellington, and that his subsequent measures
were taken in concert with our cabinet. Sir Robert Peel, on the
2nd of November, 1830, emphatically denied that the government
of this country, directly or indirectly, had interfered in this ap-

* " Letters of Sydney Smith," vol. ii. p. *6i.



44 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

pointment. * In the choice of Polignac as his prime minister,
"Charles X.," says M. Guizot, "had hoisted upon the Tuileries
the flag of the counter-revolution." On the 2nd of March, 1830,
the chambers were opened. There was a half menace in the
royal speech, which appeared to presage some exercise of arbi-
trary power. " If criminal manoeuvres were to place obstacles in
the way of my government, which I neither can, nor wish to
foresee, I should find the power of surmounting them in a reso-
lution to maintain the public peace, in the just confidence of the
French people, and in the devotion which they have always dem-
onstrated for their king." The address of the Chamber of Depu-
ties, which was carried by a majority of 221 to 181, affirmed that it
was their duty to declare to the king that the Charter supposed, in
order to its working, a concurrence between the mind of the sov-
ereign and the interests of his people ; that it was their painful
duty to declare that such concurrence existed no longer, as the
administration ordered all its acts upon the supposition of the dis-
affection of the people. The next day the chambers were pro-
rogued till the 1st of September. On the i6th of May they were
dissolved. New elections were ordered for June and July, and the
parliament so elected was to meet on the 3rd of August. Most
men saw clearly that a great struggle was at hand. The duke of
Orleans, on the 3ist of May, gave a fete in honour of his brother-
in-law, the King of Naples, at the Palais Royal, at which Charles
X. and the royal family were present. M. de Salvandy said to the
duke of Orleans, " This is truly a Neapolitan festival ; we are
dancing on a volcano." The duke agreed with him, adding that
he would not have to reproach himself with making no effort to
open the eyes of the king. " What am I to do ? Nothing is lis-
tened to. Heaven only knows where they will be in six months.
But I well know where I shall be. Under any circumstances my
family and I remain in this palace." f

On the 1 2th of July, during the progress of the French elec-
tions, the news arrived of the capture of Algiers. For two oftTiree
years the French government had been carrying on a small war
against that barbarian power. But the ministry of Polignac re-
solved to strike a great blow for the establishment of a colonial
dominion, and for the revival of that passion for military glory
vhich had so often bestowed popularity upon the rulers of France,
in their neglect of the national industry and their indifference to
the growth of the people's liberties. A formidable expedition
sailed from Toulon on the 25th of May, of which the three hundred

* Hansard, Third Series, vol. i. p. g. t Guizot, vol. ii. p. i j.



THE ROYAL ORDINANCES PROMULGATED. 45

and fifty ships carried forty thousand troops. Before the elections
began, the landing of this expedition was announced. Before they
were concluded, Algiers had been surrendered, and the Dey had
been dethroned. But this triumph produced not the slightest
effect upon the elections. In some respects, it made the electors
more determined that a military glory should not encourage the
tendencies to Absolutism at home. M. Guizot, upon hearing the
news of the capture of Algiers, wrote, " I hope this success, will not
stimulate power to the last madness." The elections being com-
pleted, it was ascertained beyond a doubt that a very large ma-
jority of the Chamber of Deputies would be opposed to the admin-
istration of the prince de Polignac. Charles X. at this juncture
was meditating some desperate act which would restore what he
believed to be his legitimate rights. " The Charter contained, for
a prudent and patient monarch, certain means of exercising the
royal authority, and of securing the Crown. But Charles X. had
lost confidence in France and in the Charter." * The historian of
his own time relates that the Russian ambassador, count Pozzo di
Borgo, a few days before the government was committed to its
fatal determination, had an audience with the King, in which his
Majesty's- conversation led the shrewd diplomatist to have little
doubt as to the measures in preparation. He had found the King
studying the fourteenth article of the Charter, " seeking with
honest inquietude the interpretation he wanted to find there : in
such cases we always discover what we are in search of." f The
fourteenth article of the French Constitution says that the King is
supreme head of the State. How Charles X. interpreted this is
disclosed in that Revolution of July for which it is affirmed France
had no desire. " The spirit of legality and sound political reason
had made remarkable progress. Even during the ferment of the
elections, public feeling loudly repudiated all idea of a new revolu-
tion." J

On the 2ist of July a Report, signed by the prince de Polignac,
was presented to the King in council, in which it was represented
that signs of disorganization and symptoms of anarchy presented
themselves in every part of the kingdom; that the periodical press
was the chief instrument of disorder and sedition. It had endea-
voured to eradicate every germ of religious sentiment from the heart
of the people; worst of all, it had dared to criticise the causes, the
means, the preparations, and the chances of success of that expe-
dition whose glory had cast such a pure and durable brilliancy over
the crown of France. The laws were insufficient to restrain the

* Guiiot, vol. i. p. 357. t Ibid,, p. 3S8 * /***, P- 355-



4*> HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

licence of the press ; it was time, it was more than time, to stop
its ravages. The report then set forth that the ordinary conditions
of representative government did not then exist in France ; that a
turbulent democracy had disposed of a majority of the elections
through the means of the journals and by affiliated societies. The
fourteenth article of the Charter was then appealed to as giving to
the King a sufficient power, not indeed for the change of institu-
tions, but for their consolidation and immutability. No govern-
ment on earth could stand if it had not the power of providing for
its own security, which is pre-existent to laws, because it is in the
nature of things. The moment was come to have recourse to
measures which were in the spirit of the Charter, but which are
beyond the limits of legal order, the resources of which have been
exhausted in vain. Such was the tenor of the document which an
infatuated ministry presented to an infatuated king, as a justifica-
tion of the decrees which they proposed for the overthrow of the
Constitution.

The three ordinances by which the liberty of the periodical press
was suspended, the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved, and the
number of deputies was lessened, and their term of office regulated,
were kept profoundly secret till nearly midnight of the 25th of July.
No communication whatever was made to the heads of the police,
nor to the commanders of the forces, that any unusual amount of
vigilance or energy might be required in the possible event of a
popular movement. The ministers had not the least idea that any
effect would be produced by their acts beyond the suspension of
obnoxious journals, and the re-election of a Chamber of Deputies
under conditions more favourable to the government. At eleven
o'clock on the evening of Sunday, the 25th of July, copies of the
memorial of the ministers to the King, and of the three ordinances
which had been signed in Council on that day, were sent to the
responsible editor of the " Moniteur," to be published in his paper
of the following morning.

On Monday morning, the 26th of July, whilst the population of
Paris were quietly proceeding to their various duties or pleasures,
Paris was shaken to its centre as by a political earthquake. Be-
fore the doors of the Bourse were opened, the holders of stock
were crowding thither to sell. More important than the operations
of commerce were the proceedings of the journalists. The pro-
prietors and editors of the chief opposition papers took a wise and
prudent course in the first instance. They consulted the most
eminent lawyers, who gave their opinion that the ordinances were
illegal, and ought not to be submitted to. One of the judges of



THE THREE DAYS OF JULY. 47

the Tribunal of First Instance authorized the "Journal of Com-
merce " to continue its publication provisionally, because the
ordinances had not been promulgated in legal forms. Forty-four
conductors of newspapers assembled at the office of the " Na-
tional," signed a protest in which they declared their intention
to resist the ordinances as regarded their own interests, and
invited the deputies to meet on the 3rd of August as if no
decree had gone forth for new elections. The Government, said
this protest, has this day lost that character of legality which
commands obedience ; we resist it as far as we a r e concerned ;
it remains for France to judge how far it should carry its own
resistance. On that Monday there was no appearance of pop-
ular insurrection. There was occasionally a cry in the streets
of " Long live the Charter ! Down with the ministers ! "

The next day a more ominous cry went forth " Up with Lib-
erty Down with the Bourbons." The provisions of the decrees
respecting the Press were to be carried through by naked force.
Four of the most popular journals, had been printed without the li-
cence which was required by the ordinance. Sentinels were placed
around the offices to prevent their sale ; but copies of the journals,
which, not only contained the ordinances, but the protest of the
journalists, were thrown out of the windows, and were quickly
circulated throughout Paris. The old scenes of the Revolution
of 1789 were rapidly developed. In the Palais Royal, and other
public places, men mounted upon chairs read the ordinances
and the bitter comments upon them to assembled crowds. The
steps taken by the police to prevent the farther issue of these
papers were calculated to stimulate the excitement of the peo-
ple into absolute fury. The doors of the offices where they
were printed were broken open, and the presses rendered un-
serviceable. The printers thrown out of their employ joined
the crowds in the streets ; and they are not a class to be in-
jured without lifting up their voices against the wrong. In the
course of that Tuesday the resistance to the acts of the govern-
ment began to be transferred to men who might have been able to
guide its course more safely than the declamation of the journal-
ists or the passions of the populace. The Deputies were begin-
ning to arrive in Paris. M. Guizot describes how, on reaching the
city on the morning of the 27th, he found a note from M. Casimir
Perier, inviting him to a meeting of some of their colleagues. " A
few hours before," he says, " and within a short distance of Paris,
the decrees were unknown to me ; and, by the side of legal opposi-
tion, I saw on my arrival revolutionary and unchained insurrec-



48 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

tion." * He went to the meeting at the house of M. Casimir Perier
and was selected, in conjunction with MM. Villemain and Dupin,
to draw up in the name of the deputies present a protest against
the decrees. This protest was adopted on the 28th. It was signed
by sixty-three deputies. Its tone was moderate, and did not close
the door against conciliation. It left to the king and his advisers
a locus penitentice.

The solution of the great question was very soon to be taken
out of the hands of deputies who entertained a diversity of opinion ;
some wishing to carry resistance to the utmost limit of legal order
and not beyond, some desiring a change of dynasty, and a few
sighing for a republic. The people in the streets were not dis-
tracted by contending opinions ; they were not inclined to look for-
ward to " the fashion of uncertain evils." They saw that the gov-
ernment had forfeited its claim to their obedience, and they little
cared what form of government might succeed to the one that had
betrayed its trust. There were ten thousand soldiers in Paris un-
der the command of Marmont. The immediate business which
presented itself to the minds of the people was to fight, if neces-
sary. Guizot relates that, whilst he and a few other deputies were
consulting on the evening of the 28th of July, in a drawing-room
of the ground-floor of a private residence, whose windows were
open, a crowd of labouring people, youths, children, and combat-
ants of every kind, filled the court-yard, and addressing the dep-
uties, said, they were ready to defend them, if soldiers and police,
as was stated, were coming to arrest them. At the same time they
demanded an instant adhesion to their revolutionary proceedings.
M. Guizot says, that the revolutionists at any price, the dreamers
of an imaginary future, had rapidly thrown themselves into the
movement, and became hourly more influential and exacting.
" Some firm well-regulated minds ventured to resist and show them-
selves resolved not to become revolutionists even while promoting
a revolution." This was a subtle distinction, which certainly did
not enter into the views of the great body of the bourgeoisie, who
entered almost with one accord into the contest with unconstitu-
tional power, although they had everything to lose by the spread
of anarchy. The manufacturers had closed their workshops, and
sent their men into the streets to contend for their common liber-
ties. The members of the National Guard, which had been, dis-
banded in 1827, had again put on their uniforms and taken their
arms, which the greater part of them had retained. The crowd,
which on the evening of the 28th surrounded the drawing-room
* Guizot, " My Own Time," vol. u. p. 3.



THE THREE DAYS OF JULY. 49

with open windows had been fighting themselves throughout the
day, or knew that there had been fighting in almost every quarter
of Paris. From daybreak, multitudes had begun to assemble, armed
with sticks and pikes, old guns and sabres. They unpaved the
streets ; they threw up barricades of timber and of carts filled with
the paving-stones ; they seized the Hotel de Ville ; they hoisted the
tri-coloured flag on its roof, and on the towers of Notre-Dame.
The bells of the municipal palace and of the metropolitan church
again called the citizens to arms as in the days of the first Revolution.
Terror was in every family now as then ; but there were no frightful
excesses, no sanguinary scenes of popular vengeance, to make even
the name of Liberty hateful. The people stood prepared for the
struggle with the regular troops that was coming upon them for
Paris, on that morning of the 28th, had been declared by the gov-
ernment to be in a state of siege. Marmont had not begun to act
after receiving the ordinance, which thus declared that the military
power was the sole arbiter, before the insurgents were in posses-
sion of the chief part of the capital. He finally formed his troops
in four columns, which were directed upon different points. It
was not long before the sanguinary conflict began. It would be
beyond the object of this history, even if it were in the power of
the writer, to furnish a clear detail in a small compass of the strug-
gles of this memorable day. Those who witnessed some of the
many occurrences which were proceeding simultaneously in distant
parts of Paris felt this difficulty in the subsequent discharge of
their official duty. " The events," said M. Martignac, in the de-
fence of Polignac, " so press upon, jostle, and confound each
other, that the imagination can scarcely follow them, or the under-
standing range them in order." The first serious fighting appears
to have taken place in the narrow street of St. Antoine, which was
closed by barricades. From the houses approaching this street,
paving-stones, broken bottles, and even articles of furniture, were
showered upon the heads of the unfortunate soldiery. The column
which was ordered to force this street returned to the Tuileries
where Marmont had his head-quarters. Another column had to
sustain an obstinate fight about the H6tel de Ville. The general
who commanded the troops obtained possession of the place, but
he was compelled to confine his resistance to the populace to de-
fensive operations. Another column lost many men at the Marche"
des Innocens. The fourth column sustained less loss. Night
came on. The firing was still continued ; the tocsin was rung
from every church ; the lamps were extinguished in the streets.
Neither mail nor diligence left Paris. The communication with
VOL. VIII. 4



10 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

the provinces by telegraph was cut off. During the afternoon five
deputies headed by M. Lafitte had waited upon Marshal Marmont
at the Tuileries to ask for a suspension of hostilities, that in the
interval they might send a deputation to the King. The marshal
said he could only despatch a messenger to the King to inform him
of the proceedings of the assembled deputies and of the state of
affairs in Paris. His aide-de-camp received at St. Cloud a verbal
answer directing Marmont to hold out, to collect his forces, and to
act in masses. In conformity with these orders, the column which
had held the Hotel de Ville returned at midnight to the Tuileries,
having left in the streets several hundred men killed or wounded.
The King in his suburban palace had no conception of the magni-
tude of the danger ; but was passing his evening at cards, whilst
the court routine went forward as if the distant boom of the cannon
was a sound which should inspire no fear and awaken little sym-
pathy.

On the 28th the working classes had almost exclusively borne
the brunt of the battle. On the morning of the 29th, hostilities
had again commenced by seven o'clock. National Guards, young
students, and even deputies, were now at the barricades. The
stately Faubourg St. Germain was now as ready for battle as the
dingy Faubough St. Antoine. The posts of the Luxembourg were
disarmed. At a very early hour several royalists of high rank went
to the Tuileries and had an interview with Marmont and Polignac.
They urged the minister to recall the ordinances. He was calm
and polite, but would promise nothing. He would consult his
colleagues. They then suggested to Marmont that he should
arrest the ministers. He seemed somewhat inclined to take their
advice, when Peyronnet, one of the most obnoxious of the cabinet,
came in, and exclaimed, " What ! are you not gone yet ? " They
had stated their intention to go to St. Cloud. They set out, but
Polignac got there before them. According to M. Guizot, the duke
de Mortemart, Messrs, de Semonville, d'Argout, de Vitrolles, and
de Sussy, were "the enlightened royalists who attempted to give
legal satisfaction to the country, and to bring about an arrangement
between the inert royalty at St. Cloud and the boiling revolution
at Paris. But when they demanded an audience of the king they
were met by the unseasonable hour, by etiquette, the countersign,
and repose." From Charles X., whose inconsistency in this trying
hour of his destiny was as remarkable as in all his previous actions,
they at last extorted a promise for the dismissal of the Polignac
ministry, the appointment of the duke de Mortemart as President
of the Council, and for other appointments which would be a guar-



THE THREE DAYS OF JULY. c 1

antee for constitutional government. Still the king lingered and
delayed the proper signatures till late in the day to the necessary
ordinances. The duke de Mortemart, who set out on his return to
Paris without a proper passport, met with a succession of interrup-
tions from the royal guards. He had equal difficulty with the people
in passing the barricades. The battle was raging all round Marmont
at the Tuileries. The detachment at the Palais Bourbon was
attacked, and the commander retired with his troops into the gar-
den, and promised to be neutral. The Louvre was surrounded by
masses of the populace, of whom a great number fell by the fire of
the Swiss from the windows. At the Place Vendome two regi-
ments of the line were stationed, and a remnant of the gendarmerie.
They were surrounded by the people, who, manifesting no inclina-
tion to regard the soldiers as enemies, the whole body of the troops
with their officers went over to the side of the insurgents. On a
second attack the Swiss were driven from the Louvre. The de-
fection of the army, which was beginning to spread, proclaimed to
Marmont that it was impossible to continue this contest. The in-
surrection had become a revolution. He hastily quitted the Tuil-
eries with his troops to repair to St. Cloud. The populace as
quickly broke into the palace. The tri-colour was hoisted on the
staff where the white flag of the Bourbons had floated for fifteen
years. The deputies who had met in the morning had determined
to establish a provisional government. Lafayette, who had re-
ceived from them the command of the forces in Paris, had, in the
uniform of a National Guard, gone to take possession of the Hotel
de Ville. Upon the news of the defection of the two regiments,
and the capture of the Louvre and the Tuileries, a municipal com-
mission that had been formed by ballot, with authority to take all
measures that the public safety might require, installed themselves
at the Hotel de Ville, surrounded by dead bodies heaped up on
the Place. In a few hours the National Guard was organized ; the
administration of finance was provided for; the Post-office was
again set in action ; the mails and the diligences left Paris bearing
the tri-colour flag. Three of the Royalists who had been at St.
Cloud arrived at ten o'clock at night with the ordinances already
mentioned, and with a further ordinance, repealing those of the 2th
July, and appointing the Chamber of Deputies to meet on the 3rd
of August. The three Royalists from St. Cloud came to negoti-
ate for the preservation of the Crown to Charles X. They were in-
terrupted by cries of "It is too late ! " The sovereignty of France
had vanished from the grasp of the elder branch of the Bourbons.
On the 30th of July the deputies who had held their previous



52 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

meetings at private houses, met more formally in the Hall of the
Chamber of Deputies, inviting their absent colleagues to join them
there. They came to a resolution of soliciting the duke of Orleans,
who was at his country seat at Neuilly, to repair to the capital to