One day we drove him into a corner, and he promised that, on the first opportunity, he would make his views known both to the court and to us. This opportunity was the procession which, as I have mentioned, marched through Paris, and proceeded to the Palais-Royal, and to the château de Vincennes, shouting, "Death to the ministers!" It will be recollected that the king and Odilon Barrot had appeared upon the terrace, and that the men who led the procession had thereupon shouted, "Vive Odilon Barrot!" forgetting to shout "Vive le roi!" Whereat Louis-Philippe, as we know, had replied: "These are the sons of the men whom, in 1792, I heard shouting: 'Vive Pétion!'"
The allusion had annoyed Odilon Barrot considerably, and he decided to issue a proclamation of his own. He promised to give us this explicit proclamation.
It is a mania with every man who wants to be looked upon as a statesman to produce a proclamation, in fact he does not consider himself entitled to the name of statesman until he has. His proclamation is issued and received by the people, who read it and see in it the sanction of some power or other, which they either obey or disobey according to their individual views of politics. Unfortunately, this proclamation, upon which Odilon was counting greatly, demonstrated the fact that the Préfet of the Seine took a middle course, which offended at the same time both the Court party and the Republicans. We will reproduce it here in its entirety. Be it understood that our readers are free to read only the sentences in italics, or to pass it over altogether unread—
"Citizens, your magistrates are deeply distressed at the disorders which have recently been disturbing the public peace, at a time when commerce and industry, which are in much need of protection, are beginning to rise above a long crisis of depression.
"It is not vengeance that this people of Paris, who are the bravest and most generous in the world, are demanding, but justice! Justice, in fact, is a right, a necessity, to strong men; vengeance is but the delight of the weak and cowardly. The proposition of the Chamber is an INOPPORTUNE STEP calculated to make the people imagine that there is a concerted design to interfere with the ordinary course of justice with respect to the ex-ministers. Delays have arisen, which are merely the carrying out of those forms which surround justice with greater solemnity of character; and these delays but sanction and strengthen the opinion of which our ungovernable enemies, ever lying in wait to disunite us, persistently take advantage. Hence has arisen that popular agitation, which men of rectitude and good citizens regard as an actual mistake. I swear to you in all good faith, fellow-citizens, that the course of justice has neither been suspended, nor interrupted, nor will it be. The preparation of the accusation brought against the ex-ministers still continues: they have come under the law and the law alone shall decide their fate.
"No good citizen could wish or demand anything else; and yet cries of "death" are uttered in the streets and public places; but what are such instigations, such placards, but violent measures against justice? We merely desire to do as we would ourselves be done by, namely, be judged dispassionately and impartially. Well, there are certain misguided or malevolent persons who threaten the judges before the trial has begun. People of Paris, you will not stand by such violent conduct; the accused should be sacred in your eyes; they are placed under the protection of the law; to insult them, to hinder their defence, to anticipate the decrees of justice, is to violate the laws of every civilised society; it is to be wanting in the first principles of liberty; it is worse than a crime; it is cowardly! There is not a single citizen among this great and glorious people who cannot but feel that it is his honoured duty to prevent an outrage that will be a blot upon our Revolution. Let justice be done! But violence is not justice. And this is the cry of all well-meaning people, and will be the principle guiding the conduct of our magistrates. Under these grave circumstances they will count upon the concurrence and the assistance of all true patriots to uphold the measures that are taken to bring about public order."
This proclamation is, perhaps, a little too lengthy and diffuse and tedious; but we should remember that Odilon Barrot was a barrister before he became Préfet of the Seine. However, in the midst of this ocean of words, a flood of language by which the préfet had, perhaps, hoped that the king would be mystified, His Majesty noted this sentence—"The proposal of the Chamber was an inopportune step leading people to suppose it was a concerted thing...." And the Republicans caught hold of this one—"Our ungovernable enemies, ever on the watch to disunite us," etc.
The step that the Préfet of the Seine blamed was the king's own secret wish, interpreted by the address of the Chamber; so that, by finding fault with the address of the Chamber, the Préfet of the Seine allowed himself to blame the secret wish of the king.
From that moment, the fall of the Préfet of the Seine was decided upon. How could Louis-Philippe, with his plans for reigning and governing at the same time, keep a man in his service who dared to find fault with his own secret wishes? It was useless for M. Odilon Barrot to try to deceive himself; from that hour dates the king's dislike to him: it was that proclamation of 1830, which postponed his three hours' ministry to 1848. Then, on the other hand, he broke with the Republican party because he spoke of them as his ungovernable enemies.
The same night, or the day after the appearance of this proclamation, Godefroy Cavaignac cast Odilon Barrot's horoscope in these pregnant words—
"My dear friend, you are played out!"
This is what really passed at the Palais-Royal. The king was furious with the audacity of the pettifogging little lawyer. The little lawyer, however, was to take his revenge for this epithet two years later, by annulling the sentence on the young artist Geoffroy, who had been illegally condemned to death by the court-martial that had been instituted on account of the state of siege at the time. It was a splendid and noble method of being revenged, which won back for Odilon ten years popularity! So his fall was decided at the Palais-Royal. But it was not a matter that was very painful to the ministry which was in power in November 1830; this was composed only of M. Molé, a deserter from the Napoléonic camp; of M. de Broglie, a deserter from the Royalist camp; of M. Guizot, the man of the Moniteur de Gand; M. Casimir Périer, the banker whose bank closed at four o'clock, and who, up to the last, had struggled against the Revolution; M. Sébastiani, who, on the 30th, had announced that the white flag was his standard; and finally, General Gérard, the last minister of Charles X., who, to keep in power, had only had to get the Ordinance, which the flight of the Elder Branch left blank, signed by the Younger Branch. It will be understood that none of these men had the least personal attachment to Odilon Barrot. So, when the king proposed the dismissal of the Préfet of the Seine, they all unanimously exclaimed, "Just as you wish, seigneur!" Only one voice cried, "Veto!" that of Dupont (de l'Eure). Now, Dupont had this one grand fault in the eyes of politicians (and the king was the foremost politician of his day), he persisted in sticking both to his own opinions and to his friends.