The five commissaries from the Deputies arrived. M. le Général Sébastiani led off with his customary phrase:
"Gentlemen, this is a serious business."
Next he sang the praises of M. le Duc de Mortemart's remarkable moderation; he spoke of the dangers of Paris, pronounced a few words in eulogy of H.R.H. Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans and concluded with the impossibility of considering the Ordinances. I and M. Hyde de Neuville were the only two who held the opposite opinion. I obtained leave to speak:
"M. le Duc de Broglie has told us, gentlemen, that he has walked about the streets and seen hostile dispositions on every hand. I, too, have just been through Paris: three thousand young men escorted me to the court-yard of this palace; you may have heard their cheers: are these thirsting for your blood, who have thus greeted one of your colleagues? They shouted:
"The Charter for ever!'
"I replied:
"'The King for ever!'
"They showed no anger, and came and brought me safe and sound into your midst. Are those such threatening symptoms of public opinion? Personally, I maintain that nothing is lost, that we can accept the Ordinances. It is not a question of considering whether there be danger or not, but of keeping the oaths which we have taken to the King, to whom we owe our dignities, and many of us our fortune. His Majesty, by withdrawing the Ordinances and changing his ministry, has done all that he should; let us, in our turn, do our duty. What! In the whole course of our lives there comes one single day in which we are obliged to enter the lists, and shall we decline the combat? Let us give France the example of honour and loyalty; let us save her from falling a prey to anarchical combinations in which her peace, her true interests and her liberties would be lost: danger vanishes when one dares to look it in the face."
They made no reply; they hastened to close the meeting. There was an impatience for perjury in that assembly, which was driven by an intrepid fear; each one wished to save his rag of life, as though Time were not waiting, on the morrow, to strip us of our old skins, for which no sensible Jew would have given a groat.