The capture of the place Vendôme meant the occupation of the rue de Rivoli, of the conquest of the place Louis XV.,—meant, in a word, that retreat on Saint-Cloud and Versailles was cut off. The Louvre was especially guarded by two battalions of Swiss. One alone would have been enough for its defence. So the marshal conceived the notion of replacing the troops on the place Vendôme (who, as we have just said, were threatening defection) by one of these two battalions of Swiss. He despatched his aide-de-camp, M. de Guise, to M. de Salis, who was in command of the two battalions. M. de Guise carried orders to bring back these two battalions. M. de Salis, on receipt of this order, saw no objection to carrying it out. He was the more ready to follow it, as one single battalion was enough to defend the Louvre, and that one had, indeed, been defending it successfully since the morning. The other battalion had been standing in the courtyard with arms at rest. M. de Salis next conceived the very natural idea of sending the Duc de Raguse, not the reserve battalion stationed in the courtyard, but the one which had been fighting since the morning from the balcony of Charles IX. and the windows of the picture galleries, on the Colonnade du Louvre side. He therefore commanded the fresh battalion to the place of the fatigued one. But he made this mistake—instead of ordering the fresh battalion to come up, he first ordered the tired battalion to go down. This manœuvre was executed just at the moment of the highest enthusiasm and the greatest efforts of the assailants. They saw the Swiss retire, the firing grow feebler and then cease altogether; they believed their enemies were beating a retreat and they sprang forward. The movement was so impetuous that, before the second battalion had taken the place of those who were being withdrawn, the people had entered by all the wicket gates and gratings, had spread over the deserted rooms on the ground floor and were firing from the windows on the court.
When the Swiss saw the flames and smoke, they thought the awful and bloody scenes of the 10th of August were about to be repeated. Uneasy, surprised and taken unprepared, not knowing if their comrades had retired by superior orders or were beating a retreat, they recoiled and tumbled hurriedly over one another, never attempting even to return the fire that was decimating their ranks; they crushed through the door leading out on the place du Carrousel, suffocating and treading one another down and flying in complete rout as soon as they were through the gateway. The Duc de Raguse vainly flung himself into their midst to try to rally them. Most did not understand French, so could not tell what was said to them; moreover, fear had turned to terror and fright to panic. You know what the angel of fear can do when he shakes his wings over the mob: the fugitives drove everything before them,—cuirassiers, lancers, police,—crossed that huge space, the place du Carrousel, without stopping, cleared the Tuileries gate and scattered themselves in every direction over the garden. Meanwhile, the assailants had reached the first landing, rushed through the picture gallery, which they found without defenders, and proceeded to break in the door at the end of the galleries that leads from the Louvre to the Tuileries. After that, resistance was no longer possible: the defenders of the château fled as best they could; the garden and both the terraces were crowded; the Duc de Raguse was among the last to withdraw and left the gate de l'Horloge just when Joubert was planting the Tricolour above his head, and when the people were raining down from the windows papers from the king's study. The marshal found a piece of cannon being taken away at the top of the jardin d'Hippomène and d'Atalante; and, at his command, it was replaced in its battery and a final volley was fired from it towards the Tuileries, which had ceased to be the dwelling-place of kings and had become the people's prize; one of its bullets, a posthumous present from Monarchy, as it were, cut one of the charming little grooved pillars on the first floor in two. This last cannon shot did no harm except to Philibert Delorme's masterpiece, but seemed as though it saluted the Tricolour which was waving over the pavilion de l'Horloge.
The Revolution of 1830 was accomplished. Accomplished (we will repeat it, print it, engrave it if necessary on iron and brass, on bronze and steel), accomplished, not alone by the cautious actors of the past fifteen years' comedy, who hid, as it were, behind the wings, whilst the people played that Three Days' bloody drama; not only by Casimir Périer, Laffitte, Benjamin Constant, Sébastiani, Guizot, Mauguin, by Choiseul, Odilon Barrot and the three Dupins. No! those actors were not even behind the wings; that would have been too near the stage for them! They kept at home, carefully guarded, hermetically sealed. With such as they, there was never any mention of resistance other than one legally organised, and, when the Louvre and Tuileries were being taken, they still went on discussing in their drawing-rooms the terms of a protest which many of them yet considered too risky a step to forward. The people who accomplished the Revolution of 1830 were those I saw at work, and who saw me there in their midst; those who entered the Louvre and the Tuileries by the broken doors and windows were, alas! (I may be pardoned this mournful exclamation, since most of them are now either dead or prisoners or exiled), Godefroy Cavaignac, Baude, Degousée, Higonnet, Grouvelle, Coste, Guinard, Charras, Étienne Arago, Lothon, Millotte, d'Hostel, Chalas, Gauja, Baduel, Bixio, Goudchaux, Bastide, the three brothers Lebon (Olympiade, Charles and Napoleon: the first was killed and the other two wounded in the attack on the Louvre), Joubert, Charles Teste, Taschereau, Béranger and others whose forgiveness I ask if I have either forgotten or not named them. I also ask pardon of some of those whom I name and who would perhaps prefer not to have been mentioned. Those who accomplished the Revolution of 1830 were the fiery youths of the heroic Proletariat which, it is true, lit the fires, but extinguished them with their own blood; those men of the people who are scattered when the work is achieved, and who die of hunger after having mounted guard by the Treasury gates, who stand on tiptoe with bare feet, in the streets, to watch the convivial parasites of power admitted to the care of offices, to the plums of good posts and to a share in all high honours, to the detriment of their less fortunate brethren.
The men who made the Revolution of 1830 were the same who, two years later, were killed at Saint-Mery for the same cause. But, this time, a change of name was given them just because they themselves had not changed their principles, and, instead of being called "heroes," they were styled "rebels." Only those renegades who change their opinions to suit the times can avoid the epithet of rebel, when different powers succeed one another.
[BOOK III]
[CHAPTER I]
I go in search of Oudard—The house at the corner of the rue de Rohan—Oudard is with Laffitte—Degousée—General Pajol and M. Dupin—The officers of the 53rd Regiment—Interior of Laffitte's salon—Panic—A deputation comes to offer La Fayette the command of Paris—He accepts—Étienne Arago and the tricoloured cockade—History of the Hôtel de Ville from eight in the morning to half-past three in the afternoon