The Duc d'Orléans, having made up his mind to go to have his title confirmed by the tribunes of the Hôtel de Ville, went down into the court-yard of the Palais-Royal, surrounded by eighty-nine deputies in caps, in round hats, in dress-coats, in frock-coats. The royal candidate mounted a white horse; he was followed by Benjamin Constant, tossed about in a chair by two Savoyards. Messieurs Méchin[294] and Viennet[295], covered with dust and perspiration, walked between the white horse of the future monarch and the barrow of the gouty deputy, quarrelling with the two porters to make them keep the required distance. A half-drunken drummer beat the drum at the head of the procession. Four ushers served as lictors. The more zealous deputies bellowed:
"Long live the Duc d'Orléans!"
Philip at the Palais-Royal.
Around the Palais-Royal these cries met with some response; but, as the troop approached the Hôtel de Ville, the spectators became derisive or silent. Philip threw himself about on his triumphal steed and constantly took shelter beneath the buckler of M. Laffitte, from whom he received a few patronizing words on the way. He smiled to General Gérard, made signs of intelligence to M. Viennet and M. Méchin, and begged the crown of the people with his hat adorned with a yard of tricolour ribbon, putting out his hand to whosoever on his way was willing to drop an alms into it. The strolling monarchy reached the Place de Grève, where it was greeted with cries of "The Republic for ever!"
When the royal electoral matter made its way inside the Hôtel de Ville, the postulant was received with more threatening murmurs: a few zealous servants who shouted his name were punched for their pains. He entered the Throne Room; here were crowded the wounded and fighters of the Three Days: a general shout of "No more Bourbons! Long live La Fayette!" shook the rafters of the hall. The Prince appeared embarrassed. M. Viennet, on behalf of M. Laffitte, read the declaration of the Deputies; it was heard in profound silence. The Duc d'Orléans spoke a few words of adhesion. Then M. Dubourg said roughly to Philip:
"You have taken serious engagements. If ever you fail to keep them, we are the people to remind you of them." Whereupon the future King replied, with great emotion:
"Sir, I am an honest man."
M. de La Fayette, seeing the growing uncertainty of the assembly, suddenly took it in his head to abdicate the Presidency: he handed the Duc d'Orléans a tricolour flag, stepped out on the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, and embraced the Prince before the eyes of the gaping crowd, while the Duke waved the national flag. La Fayette's republican kiss made a king: a curious outcome of the whole career of the "hero of the Two Worlds!"
And then, rub-a-dub! the litter of Benjamin Constant and the white horse of Louis-Philippe went home again, half hooted, half blessed, from the political factory on the Grève to the Palais-Marchand.
"That same day," says M. Louis Blanc, "and not far from the Hôtel de Ville, a wherry moored at the foot of the Morgue and surmounted by a black flag, received corpses which were lowered in barrows. These corpses were piled up in heaps and covered with straw; and the crowd, which had gathered along the parapets of the Seine, looked on in silence[296]."