The duchess had but just entered when the doors were burst open by the pressure of the crowd, and the mob rushed in. They were coarse, brutal men, armed with every conceivable weapon, and immediately they inundated the hall. Clamorously they demanded the rejection of the throne, which had, thus far, ever trampled upon their rights, and for the establishment of a republic, from which alone they hoped for redress. A scene of indescribable confusion ensued, cries rising upon all sides. The duchess endeavored to speak. Her tremulous feminine voice was heard exclaiming, "I have come with all I hold dear in the world," but the remainder of her words were drowned in the universal clamor.
The sympathies of Lamartine, notwithstanding his republican speech, were deeply moved by the presence of the princess. Taking advantage of a slight lull in the storm, when his voice could be heard, he said, "Mr. President, I demand that the sitting should be suspended, from the double motive, on the one hand, of respect for the national representation; on the other, for the august princess whom we see before us."
But Marshal Oudinot, the Duke de Nemours, and other friends who surrounded the duchess, deemed it essential to the success of her cause that she should not withdraw from the Chamber. The human heart is often swayed by influences stronger than argument. A young and beautiful woman, heroically facing the most terrible dangers in advocacy of the claims of her child to the throne, appealed more persuasively to many chivalric hearts than the most cogent logic. Every one in the room trembled for the life of the princess and her children. They were surrounded by a mob of scowling, ferocious men, who held possession of the hall. The blow of a club, the thrust of a dagger, might at any instant be given, and there was no possibility of protection.
Escape of the duchess and her children.
The friends who endeavored to surround the princess and the children with the shield of their bodies gradually crowded them along to a higher portion of the house near the door, through which they could more easily effect their escape in case of necessity. The confusion and clamor which now filled the hall can scarcely be imagined. Scarcely the semblance of a deliberative assembly was maintained. The triumphant mob was holding there its wildest orgies. In vain Lamartine, Ledru Rollin, and others endeavored to make themselves heard, calling for a provisional government. The howling of the mob drowned every voice.
The members, in confusion, rose from their seats. The president fled from his chair. Some ferocious wretches, upon whose countenances brutality was imprinted, clambered over the benches and leveled their muskets at the head of the princess. Her friends, terror-stricken, hurried her and her children through the door. The moment she disappeared there was a general cry for a provisional government, as the first step towards the establishment of a Republic. This call was made, not only by the mob, but by that large portion of the Deputies who thought that a Republic alone could save France from anarchy, and restore to the people their long withheld rights.
The Provisional Government.
Lamartine succeeded in obtaining the tribune. For a moment he was popular, the representative of Republicanism. There was a brief lull in the tempest as the throng listened to what he had to say. The following list of names of those proposed to constitute the Provisional Government was then read off: Lamartine, Marie, Ledru Rollin, Cremieux, Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, and Garnier Pagés. Some of these names were received with cheers, others with hisses. It was impossible to take any formal vote. The voices of the Deputies were lost in the clamor of the mob. Still, the general assent seemed to be in their favor. These were all good men. They were deemed moderate Republicans.
The moderate and the radical Republicans.
But there was another portion of the Republican party, the radical, so called, who would by no means be satisfied with such an administration as these calm, deliberate men would inaugurate, with their lingering adhesion to the rights of wealth and the dignity of rank. There might have been possibly a thousand people crowded into the hall of the Chamber of Deputies, who thus, self-appointed, were forming a government for a nation numbering thirty-five millions.