ccept this great opposition chief as
minister of the interior, but there was no alternative between him and
war. The command of the army was taken from Generals Sebastiani and
Jacqueminot, and given to Marshal Bugeaud, while General Lamoriciere
took the command of the National Guard.

The insurgents were not intimidated. They seized the churches, rang the
bells, sacked the gunsmith shops, and erected barricades. The old
marshal was now hampered by the Executive. He should have been made
dictator; but subordinate to the civil power, which was timid and
vacillating, he could not act with proper energy. Indeed, he had orders
not to fire, and his troops were too few and scattered to oppose the
surging mass. The Palais Royal was the first important place to be
abandoned, and its pictures and statues were scattered by the triumphant
mob. Then followed the attack on the Louvre and the Tuileries; then the
abdication of the king; and then his inglorious flight. The monarchy
had fallen.

Had Louis Philippe shown the courage and decision of his earlier years,
he might have preserved his throne. But he was now a timid old man, and
perhaps did not care to prolong his reign by massacre of his people. He
preferred dethronement and exile rather than see his capital deluged in
blood. Nor did he know whom to trust. Treachery and treason finished
what selfishness and hypocrisy had begun. Still, it is wonderful that he
preserved his power for eighteen years. He must have had great tact and
ability to have reigned so long amid the factions which divided France,
and which made a throne surrounded with republican institutions at that
time absurd and impossible.

AUTHORITIES.

Louis Blanc's Six Ans de Louis Philippe; Lamartine; Capefigue's
L'Histoire de Louis Philippe; Lives of Thiers and Guizot; Fyffe's Modern
Europe; Life of Lafayette; Annual Register; Mackenzie's Nineteenth
Century; Conversations with Thiers and Guizot.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME
IX***

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