ately carried away, and to carry away with it all that the
mere popular outburst would have spared.--The massiveness of the obstacle
increased the spread of the ruin. Few Asiatic kingdoms would be overthrown
with less effort, and perish with less public injury, than the monarchy of
the Bourbons, if it is to fall. Yet, your monarchy is firmer. It is less a
vast building than a mighty tree, not fixed on foundations which can never
widen, but growing from roots which continually extend. But, if that tree
perish, it will not be thrown down, but torn up; it will not leave a space
clear to receive a new work of man, but a pit, which no successor can fill
for a thousand years."

"But the insurrection; I fear the attack on the palace."

"It will not take place. Your information shall be forwarded to the court;
where, however, I doubt whether it will be received with much credence.
The Austrian declaration of war has put the flatterers of royalty into
such spirits, that if the tocsin were sounding at this instant, they would
not believe in the danger. We have been unfortunately forced to send the
chief part of the garrison of Paris towards the frontier. But we have
three battalions of the Swiss guard within call at Courbevoie, and they
can be ready on the first emergency. Rely upon it, all will go well."

With this assurance I was forced to be content; but I relied much more
upon Mordecai and his Jewish intelligence. A despatch to London gave a
minute of this conversation before I laid my head on my pillow; and I
flung myself down, not without a glance at the tall roofs of the Tuileries,
and a reflection on how much the man escapes whose forehead has no wrinkle
from the diadem.

Within twenty four hours of this interview the ministry was dissolved!
Dumourier was gone posthaste to the command of one of the armies on the
frontier, merely to save his life from the mob, and I went to bed, in the
Place Vendome, by the light of Lafayette burned in effigy in the centre of
the square. So much for popularity.

At dusk, on the memorable ninth of August, as I was sitting in a cafe of
the Palais Royal, listening to the mountain songs of a party of Swiss
minstrels in front of the door, Mendoza, passing through the crowd, made
me a signal; I immediately followed him to an obscure corner of one of the
galleries.

"The insurrection is fixed for to-night," was his startling announcement.
"At twelve by the clock of Notre-Dame, all the sectio