Marmont commanded, we may fairly conclude he lost his head. To the middle of the 28th, all the corps de garde were occupied by troops of the line, and every one knows that these stations are seldom commanded by officers. In general, they are corporals who command small bodies of six, ten, and fifteen men at each post. In this manner above a thousand men were frittered away; and one body after the other was disarmed, seduced, terrified, dispersed, by masses of the populace. What, indeed, could a party of ten or fifteen men do before bodies of five hundred or a thousand persons? I was present at several of these désarmements, and it was invariably by a falsehood that the head of the mob commenced his harangue to the soldiers; assuring them that the rest of the regiment had already grounded their arms, and that the Line had fraternised with the people. "Vive la ligne!" shouted the mob at the end of the address. Besides the fatal example of this desertion, the troops, by giving up their arms, furnished fresh means of hostility to the mob. It is impossible, therefore, sufficiently to blame the military conduct of the Duke of Ragusa. Nor were the Ministers either more prudent or more active. It was only when it was notified to M. de Polignac, that a party of the

line had abandoned their colours, that he, at the instance of his colleagues, transmitted orders to the troops at a distance from Paris, to arrive by forced marches, an arrival which could not take place from five to eight days.

During the whole of this day, intriguers of every description, traitors, speculators in the funds, some of them high functionaries, who did not dare to avow their infamous traffic, and the success of whose operations depended on the ruin of France, were continually repairing to the Marshal, and even offering him bribes to arrest the Ministers; or journeying to and from St. Cloud, under the pretext of giving advice and counsel, but all against the interest of the crown, whose success would have exposed their defalcations and dishonour. A time will come when these personages may be named; in the mean time their political career is very closely observed, and they may find hereafter, the notice that is taken of them, very inconvenient.

In the middle of the day it was circulated among the populace that the Court was already flying from St. Cloud, and that Charles and his family were on the road to Belgium. On one side, they encouraged the people by exaggerating their own strength, and promising the speedy

arrival of forty thousand men of Rouen, already only a few leagues from Paris; on the other hand, they diminished the number of the troops, an useless fiction, it must be confessed.

The whole night was passed in completing barricades and attending to the wounded.

On the morning of the 29th, the troops were attacked in their lines; and already many of the deserters, though in plain clothes, might be distinguished among the people.

MM. de Semonville and D'Argout now waited on the Marshal and Prince Polignac. They urged the Ministers and the Duke to propose to the King to concede; but every one sees what would have been the result of this concession at this moment, and under such auspices. This same furious M. de Semonville, who inveighed against the Ministers on their trial, with so little generosity, and with a malignancy peculiar to himself, this same M. de Semon

ville, was one of the prime encouragers of the Ministers in their fatal measures. M. de Semonville was most anxious for the Ordonnances, as the only measures that could save the monarchy. One of these unfortunate gentlemen happened to make a note of a private conversation with the Grand Referendary, held a few days previously.

I have been favoured with it from the highest authority: but, in justice to M. de Semonville, I should observe, that, while it immortalises his utter want of principle, he should not be considered as any exception to the majority of the public men of France.

On the 15th of July, at the end of a visit, which one of the late Ministers of Charles had the pleasure of making to this gentleman, M. de Semonville accompanied him at his departure to the antechamber; and then, after having looked round in every corner of the room, to be certain that no one was within hearing, he said, "Well, what are you going to do?"

"Our position is known to every body," answered the Minister; "nor is there any one who can better decide upon it than M. de Semonville."

"I consider it then a position of attack; but as for the defensive, have nothing to do with it. You do nothing. Your inaction will destroy the monarchy, France, Europe. Called upon to act, you remain stationary. You do not understand your part. You allow Time, Opportunity, every thing, to escape."

"But the Deputies; but the Peers; but the Press

"With buts you will do nothing. The Deputies, the Peers! I cannot tell you what course they will adopt; that depends upon the course you adopt yourselves: arrange every thing for the strongest measures; knock up the Press, and laugh at every thing else. In politics, when the play is over, it is only the bad actors who are hissed. Yes, yes," repeated M. de Semonville, pressing, very significantly, the hand of the Minister, "in politics, when the play is over, it is they only, the bad actors, who are hissed."

On the 29th, the same Minister met M. de Semonville at St. Cloud. The Grand Referendary -such is M. de Semonville's title indulged in certain observations on the recent conduct of the Government, which, however, terminated rather abruptly, when he was reminded of the above conversation.

I have been assured by those who are well informed of what has taken place in France during the last forty years, that it is in the power of M. de Semonville, as he has a taste for restoring, to give up something rather more valuable than a parcel of old flags* that have escaped the rats of

* This alludes to this mean creature's making a merit of restoring to the new government some old Napoleonist colors, which he had concealed in the Luxembourg,