CLOSING SCENE IN THE CHAMBER.

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CHAPTER II.

FRANCE.

FROM THE REJECTION OF THE ORLEANS DYNASTY TO THE OPENING OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.

THE Chamber of Deputies assembled on the 24th February, to receive the King's abdication, and ratify the appointment of the Regent. About half-past one o'clock the Duchess of Orleans entered with her two sons, and the Dukes of Nemours and Montpensier. Their presence excited some threatening murmurs in the crowd that surrounded the building, but the feelings manifested within doors were generally those of respect and sympathy. When M. Dupin announced that the King had abdicated in favor of his grandson, and had appointed the Duchess of Orleans to be Regent, the intimation was received with mingled cries of approbation and displeasure, the former greatly predominating; but clear above the din was heard one sonorous voice proclaiming the fatal sentence-"It is too late!"

When some degree of quiet was restored, M. Marie was heard urging the necessity of appointing a Provisional Government, on the ground that it was not competent to the Chamber to repeal the law by which the Regency had been already conferred on the Duke of Nemours. M. Crémieux spoke to the same effect, and warned the Chamber not to follow the disastrous example of the Chamber of 1830, which had usurped

the powers of a constituent assembly. Odillon Barrot advocated the claims of the Duchess of Orleans and her son, in language that seemed in unison with the feelings of the larger portion of the Deputies. M. de la Rochejaquelin, the leader of the Legitimists, insisted that the choice of a new Government belonged of right to the nation itself, and not to the Chamber; but he had not uttered many sentences when a vast crowd of armed men rushed in tumultuously, and occupied the floor, the Deputies' benches, and the tribune, shouting out, "No King!" "Vive la République !"

The President having put on his hat, in token of the suspension of the proceedings, the uproar became still more violent. "Off with the hat!" resounded on all sides; muskets were pointed at the President's head, and for some moments a general massacre appeared inevitable. In the midst of the confusion several Deputies and National Guards threw themselves between the mob and the Duchess of Orleans, and hurried her off by a private door. The Duke de Nemours jumped out of a window into the garden, where he exchanged his lieutenant-general's uniform for that of a private in the National Guard.*

The President still retained his seat, notwithstanding the imminent peril to which he was exposed; and the debate was renewed in the wildest disorder, deputies and strangers shouting together to obtain a hearing, the mob bellowing, and flourishing their weapons. Ledru Rollin having presented himself at the tribune, there was some abatement of the clamor, and he was enabled to inveigh against the project of a Regency, and to demand a Provisional Government,-not named by the Chamber, but by the people. Lamartine was then

*The Duchess of Orleans passed the night at the Hôtel des Invalides, and did not leave Paris until the following Wednesday; when she departed for Germany, escorted to the frontier by M. Marrast, Member of the Provisional Government.

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.

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called for on all sides, and listened to with unanimous approbation whilst he insisted on a direct appeal to the decision of the nation, and deprecated, in allusion to the mistake committed in 1830, any recourse "to those subterfuges to those surprises-to those emotions of which, as you perceive, a country sooner or later repents, in order to maintain one of those fictions which have no stability, and which leave no solid traces behind them." He was proceeding in this strain when a furious knocking was heard at the door of one of the galleries. In a moment more it was battered down, and a multitude of armed men rushed in, shouting "Down with the Chamber! down with the Deputies !" and levelling their muskets at the persons in the body of the chamber. One man pointed his musket at the tribune, but was immediately checked by cries of "Do not fire! it is M. de Lamartine who is speaking." The President now declared the Chamber adjourned, and withdrew. So ended the last sitting of the Chamber of Deputies.

The miscellaneous concourse that now thronged the hall carried the veteran Radical, Dupont de l'Eure, to the chair, and the form of proposing and voting the names of the members who should constitute the Provisional Government was gone through in the midst of indescribable noise and confusion. The names proclaimed were those of Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, Lamartine, Ledru Rollin, Garnier Pagès, Marie, and Crémieux. A procession was then formed to conduct the Provisional Government, with Lamartine at its head, to the Hôtel de Ville, and the chamber was gradually evacuated. But before the crowd dispersed, Louis Philippe was shot in effigy by a workman, who sent the contents of a double-barrelled fowling-piece through a large picture representing the Citizen King in the act of swearing fidelity to the Charter.

When Lamartine and his colleagues arrived at the

Hôtel de Ville, they found it already occupied by a Provisional Government which had been nominated in the offices of the Réforme and the National newspapers, and which claimed supreme authority by the very same title as its rival, namely, the suffrages of an indefinite multitude of the armed people. Three names, those of Arago, Lamartine, and Ledru Rollin, were common to both lists. A contest between the other claimants would have been followed by consequences incalculably disastrous; it was therefore wisely resolved that the two embryo governments should coalesce, and accordingly Marrast, Flocon, Louis Blanc, and Albert, were added to the Provisional Government, first as Secretaries, and afterwards as ordinary members.

The scenes which followed the installation of the Provisional Government at the Hôtel de Ville were no less turbulent than that in which the Chamber of

Deputies had been swept away. The mob poured into every part of the building, clamorously intruding even into the council-room of their elected rulers, and leaving them scarce breathing space for their deliberations. Still the Provisional Government pursued its labors, not always judiciously, but with a prompt and comprehensive attention to the various exigencies of the moment, which was marvellous in men so harassed in body and mind. For sixty hours the members sat continually, drawing up decrees and proclamations, and issuing orders for the furtherance of every branch of the public service, whilst often in the midst of these prodigious exertions they had to hurry out and answer for their lives to the questioning of fresh hosts of passionate and suspicious inquirers. Among their earliest measures the following may be mentioned as pregnant with the most important consequences :-The abolition of the penalty of death for political offences; the readoption of the tricolor, which had been for a while supplanted by the ill-omened red flag; the creation of

National Workshops; the appointment of a Government Commission for Workmen, under the presidency of Louis Blanc and Albert; and the creation of twentyfour battalions of the Garde Mobile. The soldiers of this new force, receiving the high pay of thirty sous a day, four times as much as the soldiers of the line, all belonged to that singular class the gamins de Paris, genuine tiger-monkeys, delighting in the smell of gunpowder, foremost in every fray, and ready for every kind of mischief, from mere exuberance of animal spirits and want of better occupation. How wisely Lamartine acted in enlisting these brave lads on the side of order was proved on many trying occasions: to them chiefly did Paris and France owe their salvation on the dreadful days of June.

The Republic was at once proclaimed, and was accepted by all classes with an unanimity for which there is hardly a parallel in history. Not a voice was raised in behalf of the fallen dynasty; a week after the revolution, Louis Philippe was no more talked of than Hugh Capet. Never until the fall of the Citizen King had reversed all precedents, never could it have been believed that the worst of monarchs could be deposed without leaving behind him some party to work openly or in secret for his restoration; but the day after Louis Philippe was shuffled off the throne there was not even the nucleus of an Orleanist party in France. Was there ever a more eloquent apology than was pleaded by this fact in behalf of the Revolution of February?

Previously to February the Republican Party was but a small minority. It was not, therefore, by reason of any strong predilection felt for that form of government by the nation at large, that the Republic was accepted unanimously and without hesitation; but because it was instinctively perceived that nothing but a Republic was possible under existing circumstances.