*
The day of the 27th began badly. The King invested the Duc de Raguse with the command of Paris. This was relying on bad fortune. The marshal came to instal himself at the Staff-office of the Guard on the Place du Carrousel, at one o'clock. M. Mangin sent to seize the printing-presses of the National; M. Carrel resisted; Messieurs Mignet and Thiers, thinking the game lost, disappeared for two days: M. Thiers went to hide in the Montmorency Valley with a Madame de Courchamp[205], a relation of the two Messieurs Becquet[206], of whom one had worked on the National, the other on the Journal des Débats.
At the Temps, the matter assumed a more serious complexion: the real hero of the journalists is incontestably M. Coste[207].
In 1823, M. Coste was managing the Tablettes historiques[208]: one of his collaborators accusing him of having sold that paper, he fought a duel and received a sword-thrust M. Coste was presented to me at the Foreign Office; discussing the liberty of the press with him, I said:
"Monsieur, you know how I love and respect that liberty; but how would you have me defend it to Louis XVIII., when every day you attack royalty and religion? I beg you, in your own interest and so as to leave me full strength, to desist from undermining ramparts which are already three-parts demolished, and which really a man of courage ought to blush to attack. Let us make a bargain: do you cease falling foul of a few feeble old men whom the Throne and the sanctuary are hardly able to protect; in exchange I give you my own person. Attack me day and night; say anything about me that you please: I shall never make a complaint; I shall appreciate your legitimate and constitutional attack on the minister, so long as you leave the King out of it."
M. Coste has retained a grateful memory of his interview with me.
Parade of constitutionalism.
A parade of constitutionalism took place at the office of the Temps between M. Baude[209] and a commissary of police[210].
The Attorney-General[211] issued forty-four warrants against the signatories to the protest of the journalists.