On the 31st, at daybreak, at the very hour when the Duc d'Orléans, after arriving in Paris, was preparing to accept the Lieutenant-generalship, the servants at Saint-Cloud came to the bivouac on the Sèvres Bridge, saying that they were discharged and that the King had left at half-past three in the morning. The soldiers became excited, but grew calm again when the Dauphin appeared: he rode up on horse-back, as though to carry them with him by one of those phrases which lead the French to death or victory; he stopped in front of the ranks, stammered a few sentences, turned short, and went back to the Palace. It was not courage that failed him, but speech. The miserable education of our Princes of the Elder Branch, since Louis XIV., rendered them incapable of supporting a contradiction, of expressing themselves like everybody else, and of mixing with the rest of mankind.
Meanwhile, the heights of Sèvres and the terraces of Bellevue were crowned with men of the people: a few musket-shots were exchanged. The captain commanding the advance-guard on the Sèvres Bridge went over to the enemy; he took a piece of cannon and a part of his soldiers to the bands that had gathered on the Point-du-Jour Road. Then the Parisians and the Guards agreed that no hostilities should take place until the evacuation of Saint-Cloud and of Sèvres was effected. The retiring movement began; the Swiss were hemmed in by the inhabitants of Sèvres and flung away their arms, although they were almost at once extricated by the Lancers, whose lieutenant-colonel was wounded. The troops passed through Versailles, where the National Guard had been on duty since the preceding day, with La Rochejacquelein's Grenadiers, the first under the tricolour, the second with the white cockade. Madame la Dauphine arrived from Vichy and joined the Royal Family at Trianon, the favourite residence of Marie-Antoinette. At Trianon, M. de Polignac took leave of his master.
It has been said that Madame la Dauphine was opposed to the Ordinances. The only way to judge kings correctly is to consider them in their essence: the plebeian will always be on the side of liberty; the prince will always lean towards power. We must ascribe this to them as neither a crime nor a merit: it is their nature. Madame la Dauphine would probably have wished that the Ordinances had appeared at a more opportune moment, after better precautions had been taken to ensure their success; but in reality they pleased her and were bound to please her. Madame la Duchesse de Berry was delighted with them. Those two Princesses believed that the Royalty, once its own master, would be free from the shackles which representative government fastens to the sovereign's feet.
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One is astonished, in the events of July, not to meet with the Diplomatic Body, which was only too much consulted by the Court and which interfered too much in our business.
There was twice a question of the foreign ambassadors in our last troubles. A man was arrested at the barriers and the packet of which he was the bearer sent to the Hôtel de Ville: it was a dispatch from M. de Lœwenhielm[301] to the King of Sweden. M. Baude sent back the dispatch unopened to the Swedish Legation. Lord Stuart's[302] correspondence fell into the hands of the popular leaders and was similarly returned without being opened, which did wonders in London. Lord Stuart, like all his fellow-countrymen, adored disorder in foreign countries: with him, diplomacy was police-duty, dispatches reports. He liked me well enough when I was Foreign Minister, because I treated him without ceremony and because my door was always open to him; he used to come to me at all hours, in boots, dirty, with disordered dress, after visiting the boulevards and the ladies, whom he paid badly and who called him "Stuart."
I had conceived diplomacy on a new plan: having nothing to conceal, I spoke aloud; I would have shown my dispatches to the first-comer, because I had no project for the glory of France which I was not determined to accomplish in spite of all opposition.
I have said a hundred times to Sir Charles Stuart, laughing, and I meant what I said:
"Do not pick a quarrel with me: if you throw down the gauntlet to me, I shall pick it up. France has never made war on you with a proper understanding of your position; that is why you have beaten us: but don't rely on this[303]."
Lord Stuart de Rothesay.