[288] I give below the text of the two proclamations issued by the Duc d'Orléans and the Chamber of Deputies respectively:
"Inhabitants of Paris!
"The Deputies of France at this moment assembled in Paris have expressed to me the desire that I should repair to this capital to exercise the functions of Lieutenant-general of the Kingdom.
"I have not hesitated to come and share your dangers, to place myself in the midst of your heroic population, and to exert all my efforts to preserve you from the calamities of civil war and anarchy.
"On returning to the City of Paris, I wear with pride those glorious colours which you have resumed and which I myself long wore.
"The Chambers are going to assemble; they will consider of the means of securing the reign of the laws and the maintenance of the rights of the nation.
"The Charter will henceforward be a reality.
"Louis-Philippe d'Orléans."
"Frenchmen!
"France is free. Absolute power raised its standard: the heroic population of Paris has overthrown it. Paris, attacked, has made the sacred cause triumph, by means which had triumphed in vain in the elections. A power which usurped our rights and disturbed our repose threatened at once both liberty and order. We return to the possession of order and liberty. There is no more fear for acquired rights, no further barrier between us and the rights which we still require. A government which may, without delay, secure to us these advantages is now the first want of our country. Frenchmen, those of your Deputies who are already in Paris have assembled and, till the Chambers can regularly intervene, they have invited a Frenchman who has never fought but for France—the Duc d'Orléans—to exercise the functions of Lieutenant-general of the Kingdom. This is, in their opinion, the surest means promptly to accomplish, by peace, the success of the most legitimate defense.
"The Duc d'Orléans is devoted to the national and constitutional cause. He has always defended its interests and professed its principles. He will respect our rights, for he will derive his own from us. We shall secure to ourselves, by laws, all the guarantees necessary to strong and durable liberty:
"The re-establishment of the National Guard, with the intervention of the National Guards in the choice of their officers;
"The intervention of the citizens in the formation of the departmental and municipal administrations;
"The jury for the transgressions of the press; the legally organized responsibility of the ministers and of the secondary agents of the administration;
"The situation and rank of the military legally secured; and
"The re-election of deputies in the place of those appointed to public offices. Such guarantees will, at length, give to our institutions, in concert with the head of the state, the developments of which they have need.
"Frenchmen, the Duc d'Orléans himself has already spoken, and his language is that which is suitable to a free country:
"'The Chambers,' he says, 'are going to assemble; they will consider of means to insure the reign of the laws, and the maintenance of the rights of the nation.
"'The Charter will henceforward be a reality.'"—T.
[289] Louis Philippe, fourth Duc d'Orléans (1725-1785), married, in 1743, to the Princesse Louise de Conti, who died in 1759. In 1773, he married Madame de Montesson, secretly, as his second wife, and passed the last years of his life at Bagnolet in protecting men of letters and artists.—T.
[290] Louis, third Duc d'Orléans (1703-1752), the only quite respectable head of the House of Orléans. He led a life distinguished for its erudition and piety: so much so that he was at one time, although on insufficient grounds, suspected of Jansenism. Louis was married, in 1724, to the Princess Augusta of Baden, who died two years later.—T.
[291] Philip II., second Duc d'Orléans (1674-1723), nephew to Louis XIV. and married in 1692, to his legitimatized daughter, Mademoiselle de Blois, was Regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. ( 1715-1723). The Regent was one of the greatest statesmen that France has seen: his private life was scandalous.—T.
[292] Philip I., first Duc d'Orléans of the second creation (1640-1701), married first, in 1661, to his cousin, the Princess Henrietta of England, who died in 1670, daughter of King Charles I.; secondly, in 1671, to the Princess Charlotte Elizabeth of Bavaria, who died in 1722. It will be seen that, as the descendants of Henry IV., who was the grandfather of Philip I. of Orleans, the Orleans Princes were a younger branch of the House of Bourbon, and that the "Valois" pretensions were utter nonsense. The exact relationship of Louis-Philippe to Charles X. was that of a sixth cousin. The Orleans Princes were Princes of the Blood, but not of France, and were Serene Highnesses down to Louis-Philippe, who was created a Royal Highness by Charles X.—T.
[293] Consisting of a certain number of Republicans who met, musket in hand at a restaurant kept by one Lointier. The principal members of this gathering, including Trélat, Guinard, Charles Teste, Bastide, Poubelle, Charles Hingray, Chevalier and Hubert formed the first rank of the enemies of the Monarchy of July.—B.
[294] Alexandre Edme Baron Méchin (1772-1849), one of the bitterest speakers in the Liberal Opposition during the Restoration. The Government of July made him Prefect of the Nord and a councillor of State.—B.
[295] Jean Pons Guillaume Viennet (1777-1868), a deputy from 1820 to 1837, a peer of France from 1839 to 1848, and a member of the French Academy (1830). He was an indefatigable rhymester; he became the butt of the press, thanks to his ultra-classical and (after 1830) ultra-conservative ideas, and retorted with infinite wit, giving the papers a Roland for their Oliver throughout the duration of the Monarchy of July, from 1830 to 1848.—B.
[296] Blanc: Histoire de dix ans, Vol. I.—B.