France in the Nineteenth Century

by Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer

During the first half hour after the invasion of the palace a great deal of money and many other valuables disappeared; but after that time it was death to appropriate anything, even if it were of little value.

Soon the gardens of the Tuileries were white with papers flung from the windows of the palace, many of them of great historical value. A piece of pink gauze, the property, probably, of some maid-of-honor, streamed from one of the windows in the roof and fluttered across the whole building. The crowd, in high good humor, tossed forth livery coats, fragments of state furniture, and papers. The beds still stood unmade, and all the apparatus of the ladies' toilet-tables remained in disorder. In one royal bed-chamber a man was rubbing pomade with both hands into his hair, another was drenching himself with perfume, a third was scrubbing his teeth furiously with a brush that had that morning parted the lips of royalty. In another room a man en blouse was seated at a piano playing the "Marseillaise" to an admiring audience (the "Marseillaise" had been forbidden in Paris for many years). Elsewhere a party of gamins were turning over a magnificent scrapbook. In the next room was a grand piano, on which four men were thumping at once. In another, a party of working-men were dancing a quadrille, while a gentleman played for them upon a piano. At every chimney-piece and before every work of art stood a guard, generally ragged and powder-stained, bearing a placard, "Death to Robbers!" while at the head of the Grand Staircase others stood, crying, "Enter, messieurs! Enter! We don't have cards of admission to this house every day!" While the cry that passed through the crowd was: "Look as much as you like, but take nothing!" "Are not we magnificent in our own house, Monsieur?" said a gamin to an Englishman; while another was to be seen walking about in one of poor Queen Amélie's state head-dresses, surmounted by a bird-of-paradise with a long tail.

At first the crowd injured nothing, even the king's portraits being respected; but after a while the destruction of state furniture began. Three men were seen smoking in the state bed; some ate up the royal breakfast; and the cigars of the princes were freely handed to rough men in the crowd.

Meantime in the Chamber of Deputies the scene was terrible. M. Dupin, its president, lost his head. Had he, when he knew of the king's abdication, declared the sitting closed, and directed the Deputies to disperse, he might possibly have saved the monarchy. But the mob got possession of the tribune (the pulpit from which alone speeches can be made in the Chamber); they pointed their guns at the Deputies, who cowered under their benches, and the last chance for Louis Philippe's dynasty was over. Odillon Barrot, who had come down to the house full of self-importance, notwithstanding his reception on the Boulevards, found that his hour was over and his power gone.

M. de Lamartine was the idol of the mob, though he was very nearly shot in the confusion. Armed insurgents crowded round him, clinging to his skirts, his hands, his knees. Throughout the tumult the reporters for the "Moniteur" kept their seats, taking notes of what was passing.

The Duchess of Orleans found the Chamber occupied by armed men. She was jostled and pressed upon. A feeble effort was made to proclaim her son king, and to appoint her regent during his minority. She endeavored several times to speak, and behaved with an intrepidity which did her honor. But when Lamartine, mounting the tribune, cast aside her claims, and announced that the moment had arrived for proclaiming a provisional government and a republic, she was hustled and pushed aside by the crowd.

She was dressed in deep mourning. Her long black veil, partly raised, showed her fair face marred with sorrow and anxiety. Her children were dressed in little black velvet skirts and jackets, with large white turned-down collars. Soon the crowd around the tribune, beneath which the duchess had her seat, grew so furious that her attendants, fearing for her life, hurried her away.

In the press and the confusion the Duc de Nemours and her two children were parted from her. The Comte de Paris was seized by a gigantic man en blouse, who said afterwards that he had been only anxious to protect the child; but a National Guard forced the boy from his grasp, and restored him to his mother. The Duc de Chartres was for some time lost, and was in great danger, having been knocked down on the staircase by an ascending crowd.

At last, however, the little party, under the escort of the Duc de Nemours, who had disguised himself, escaped on foot into the streets, then growing dark; and finding a hackney-coach, persuaded the coachman to drive them to a place of safety. The Duc de Chartres was not to be found, and his mother passed many hours of terrible anxiety before he was restored to her arms.

Very strange that night was the scene in the Champs Elysées. They were filled with a joyous and triumphant crowd in every variety of military costume, and armed with every sort of weapon. Soldiers alone were unarmed. They marched arm-in-arm with their new friends, singing, like them, the "Marseillaise" and "Mourir pour la Patrie." In the quarter of the Champs Elysées, where well-to-do foreigners formed a considerable part of the population, there was no ferocity exhibited by the mob. The insurgents were like children at play,—children on their good behavior. They had achieved a wonderful and unexpected victory. The throne had fallen, as if built on sand. Those who had overturned it were in high good-humor.