When we arrive, M. Moreau and I, at the Place Royale we find it filled with an anxious crowd. We are immediately surrounded and questioned, and it is not without some difficulty that we reach the Mairie. The mass of people is too compact to admit of our addressing them in the Place. I ascend, with the Mayor, a few officers of the National Guard and two students of the Ecole Polytechnique, to the balcony of the Mairie. I raise my hand, the crowd becomes silent as though by magic, and I say:
“My friends, you are waiting for news. This is what we know: M. Thiers is no longer Minister and Marshal Bugeaud is no longer in command (applause). They have been replaced by Marshal Gerard and M. Odilon Barrot (applause, but less general). The Chamber has been dissolved. The King has abdicated (general cheering). The Duchess d’Orleans is Regent.” (A few isolated bravos, mingled with low murmurs.)
I continue:
“The name of Odilon Barrot is a guarantee that the widest and most open appeal will be made to the nation; and that you will have in all sincerity a representative government.”
My declaration is responded to with applause from several points, but it appears evident that the great bulk of the crowd is uncertain as to what view of the situation they ought to take, and are not satisfied.
We re-enter the hall of the Mairie.
“Now,” I say to M. Ernest Moreau, “I must go and proclaim the news in the Place de la Bastille.”
But the Mayor is discouraged.
“You can very well see that it is useless,” he says sadly. “The Regency is not accepted. And you have spoken here in a quarter where you are known and loved. At the Bastille your audience will be the revolutionary people of the faubourg, who will perhaps harm you.”
“I will go,” I say, “I promised Odilon Barrot that I would.”