"On what conditions?" then inquired the deputies, who bore in mind the sentences that we have underlined in the proclamation issued by the Colleges.
"NONE ... NO CONDITIONS WERE MADE AT ALL," M. Laffitte replied. "If there were a few individuals who had proposals to make or conditions to offer, such never came to the knowledge of the Government."
The next day a protest, signed by eighty-nine students of the Polytechnique, replied to the thanks of the Chamber and to M. Laffitte's denial in the following terms:—
"A portion of the Chamber of Deputies has condescended to pass a vote of thanks to the École polytechnique with reference to certain facts that were very accurately reported.
"We, students of the Polytechnique, the undersigned, deny in part these facts and we decline to receive the thanks of the Chamber.
"The students have been traduced, said the protest issued by the School of Law; we have been accused of wishing to place ourselves at the head of malcontent artizans, and of obtaining by brute force the consequences of principles for which we have sacrificed our very blood.
"We have solemnly protested, we who paid cash for the liberty they are now haggling over; we preached public order, without which liberty is impossible; but we did not do so in order to procure the thanks and applause of the Chamber of Deputies. No, indeed! we only fulfilled our duty. Doubtless, we ought to be proud and elated at the gratitude of France, but we look in vain for France in the Chamber of Deputies, and we repudiate the praises offered us, the condition of which is the assumed disavowal of a proclamation, the terms and meaning whereof we unhesitatingly declare that we adopt in the most formal manner."
Of course, the Minister for War at once arrested these eighty-nine students, but their protest had been issued, and the conditions under which they had consented to support the Government were kept to themselves. It will, therefore, be seen that the harmony between His Majesty Louis-Philippe and the students of the three Colleges was not of long duration. It was not to last much longer either between His Majesty and poor General La Fayette, for whom he now had no further use. He had staked his popularity during the troubles in December and had lost. From that time, he was of no more use to the king, and what was the good of being kind to a useless person? Two days after that on which La Fayette received the letter from the king, thanking him for his past services and expressing the hope for the continuance of those services, the Chamber proposed this amendment to Article 64 of the law concerning the National Guard, which the deputies had under discussion—
"As the office of commander-general of the National Guard of the kingdom will cease with the circumstances that rendered the office necessary, that office can never be renewed without the passing of a fresh law, and no one shall be appointed to hold the position without such a special law."
This simply meant the deposition of General La Fayette. The blow was the more perfidious as he was not present at the sitting. His absence is recorded by this passage from the speech which M. Dupin made in support of the amendment—
"I regret that our illustrious colleague is not present at the sitting; he would himself have investigated this question; he would, I have no doubt, have declared, as he did at the Constituent Assembly, that the general command of the regiments of the National Guard throughout the kingdom is an impossible function which he would describe as dangerous."
M. Dupin forgot that the Constituent Assembly, at any rate, had had the modesty to wait until the general sent in his resignation. Now, perhaps it will be said that it was the Chamber which took the initiative, and that the Government had nothing to do with this untoward blow given on the cheek of the living programme going on at the Hôtel de Ville. This would be a mistake. Here is an article of the bill which virtually implied the resignation of La Fayette—