"He would wish for it," Lafitte replied, "if he were not afraid of too searching a convulsion."
"Well, then," said the baron, "let a council of regency be established. You would take part in it with Lafayette."
M. Lafitte replied, "Yesterday that might have been possible; and, had the Duchess de Berri—separating her cause from that of the old king—presented herself, with her young son, holding a tri-color in her hand—"
"A tri-color!" exclaimed the baron, in astonishment, interrupting him—"A tri-color! Why, it is, in their eyes, the symbol of every crime. Rather than adopt it, they would suffer themselves to be brayed in a mortar."
"Under these circumstances," inquired Lafitte, "what is it you have to propose to me?"
The prompt reply was, "Respect the divine right of the Duke of Bordeaux—proclaim him sovereign, as Henry V.—intrust the regency, during his minority, to the Duke of Orleans."
Plan of the Legitimists.
This was the plan of the Legitimists. Talleyrand also cherished the same view. The Republicans were by no means inclined to enthrone another Bourbon in the place of Charles X. When M. Thiers and M. Mignet, with others from the office of the Nationale, appeared among the crowd distributing printed slips of paper eulogizing the Duke of Orleans, they were received with hisses. When it was announced to the combatants of the Passage Dauphin that there was a plot concocting to raise the Duke of Orleans to the throne, there was one unanimous burst of rage, with the simultaneous exclamation, "If that be the case, the battle is to be begun again, and we will go and cast fresh balls. No more Bourbons: we will have none of them." M. Leroux, who had witnessed this scene, hurried to the Hôtel de Ville to warn Lafayette of the danger. He assured Lafayette that the Republican spirit which Lafayette had evoked now menaced Paris and France with anarchy, and that the attempt to place another Bourbon on the throne would be the signal of a new and terrible conflict.
Anxiety of Lafayette.
Lafayette—who was seated in a large armchair—seemed, for a moment, stunned and speechless. A messenger came in to inform him that the Duke of Chartres—the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans—had been taken captive, and that a riotous band was surging through the streets shouting, "A prince is taken! Let us go and shoot him!" Almost by miracle the young duke escaped death.