These proceedings were not exactly re-assuring. Odilon Barrot could be relied upon; he it was who had uttered those famous words at the municipal commission the day before that are attributed to La Fayette, as Harel's and Montrond's were attributed to M. de Talleyrand: "The Duc d'Orléans is the finest Republic." Odilon Barrot was deputed to go to the Palais-Royal to give the contrary order. Odilon Barrot, in common with most people, had had little sleep for three days and he was worn out with fatigue; he went down and found such a dense crowd and the heat so intolerable that he called for a horse. Some one hastened to fetch him one. While waiting, he leant against a milestone and fell asleep. They were an hour before they could find him again, and, just when they had succeeded and he had mounted the horse, the head of the procession appeared in the Place de Grève.
Now I saw a great deal of Odilon Barrot at the Hôtel de Ville and watched him very attentively, and I declare that no one could possibly be more coolly courageous than he.
So the Duc d'Orléans had arrived; he had reached the Place de Grève, and was, therefore, entering into the very centre of the Revolutionary party. His horse's breast separated the crowd in front of it as a ship's prow separates the waves. A frigid silence was maintained all round him as he passed on. He was deadly pale. A young man, who was even paler still, awaited him on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville with arms crossed, hiding a pistol in his breast. He had conceived the terrible resolution of firing at the prince point-blank.
"Ah! so you are playing the part of William the Silent," he said; "you shall end as he did!"
One of his friends was standing by his side.
Just when the Duc d'Orléans stepped down from his horse and began to ascend the Hôtel de Ville steps, this would-be Balthasar Gérard took a step forward, but his companion stopped him.
"Do not compromise yourself uselessly," he said to him, "your pistol is unloaded."
"Who unloaded it?"
"I did."
He led his friend away.