In the evening, the Grand Refendary assembled the Peers in his apartments[276]: his letter, through negligence or policy, reached me too late. I hurried to hasten to the meeting; they opened the gate of the Allée de l'Observatoire for me; I crossed the Luxembourg garden: when I reached the palace, I found no one there. I made my way back past the flower-beds, my eyes fixed on the moon. I regretted the seas and the mountains above which she had appeared to me, the forests in whose tops, herself vanishing in silence, she had seemed to repeat to me the maxim of Epicurus[277]:
"Conceal thy life."
*
Troops retire to Saint-Cloud.
I have left the troops falling back upon Saint-Cloud, on the evening of the 29th. The citizens of Chaillot and Passy attacked them, killing a captain of Carabineers and two officers, and wounding some ten soldiers. Captain Le Motha[278] of the Guards was struck by a bullet fired by a child whom he had been pleased to spare. This captain had given in his resignation at the time of the Ordinances; but, seeing that they were fighting on the 27th, he returned to his regiment to share the dangers of his comrades. Never, to the glory of France, was there a finer battle waged in the parties opposed between liberty and honour.
Children, always fearless because they know nothing of danger, played a sad part in the work of the Three Days: sheltered behind their weakness, they fired point-blank at officers who would have thought themselves dishonoured in beating them back. Modern arms place death at the disposal of the feeblest hand. Ugly, wizened little monkeys, libertines before they have the power of being so, cruel and perverse, these little heroes of the three days gave themselves up to assassination with all the abandonment of innocence. Let us beware lest, by imprudent praises, we give birth to the emulation of evil: the children of Sparta used to go helot-hunting.
Monsieur le Dauphin received the soldiers at the gate of the village of Boulogne, in the wood, and then returned to Saint-Cloud.
Saint-Cloud was guarded by the four companies of the Body-guards. The battalion of the pupils of Saint-Cyr had arrived: in rivalry and in contrast with the Polytechnic School, they had embraced the royal cause. The attenuated troops, returning from a three days' battle, by their wounds and dilapidated appearance caused only amazement to the titled, gilded and well-fed flunkeys who dined at the royal table. No one thought of cutting the telegraphic lines; couriers, travellers, mail-coaches, diligences passed freely along the road, with the tricolour flag, which urged the villages to revolt as it passed through them. Seduction by means of money and women was commencing. The proclamations of the Commune of Paris were hawked to and fro. The King and Court still refused to be persuaded that they were in danger. In order to prove that they despised the doings of a few mutinous burgesses and that there was no revolution, they let everything go: God's finger is seen in all this.
At nightfall, on the 30th of July, at nearly the same hour when the commission of the Deputies left for Neuilly, an adjutant announced to the troops that the Ordinances were repealed. The soldiers shouted, "Long live the King!" and resumed their gaiety at the bivouac; but this announcement made by the adjutant sent by the Duc de Raguse had not been communicated to the Dauphin, who was a great lover of discipline and flew into a rage. The King said to the marshal:
"The Dauphin is displeased; go and have your explanation with him."