ts! Down with Villele!" The guards
brandish their arms; the officers themselves make menacing gestures;
the tumult is at its height. M. de Villele, on the inside, follows from
window to window the march of the legion, and so traverses the salons
to the apartments occupied by his old mother and her family, whom he
wishes to reassure by his own calm. Opposite the ministry, a great
crowd fills the Terrasse des Feuillants, without taking part in the
manifestation. But the clamors of the National Guards increase. They
continue their march, enter the Rue Castiglione, reach the Place
Vendome, where the Ministry of Justice is situated, and recommence
their cries: "Down with the ministers! Down with the Jesuits! Down with
Peyronnet!"

Invited to dine by Count Opponyi, ambassador of Austria, with all the
ministers, M. de Villele waits to the last moment before going to the
Embassy, still believing that he will be summoned by the King. As his
waiting is in vain, he goes to the house of Count Opponyi and takes
part in the dinner. At dessert, a messenger of Charles X. glides behind
his chair, and says to him in a low voice: "The King charges me to tell
you to come to him immediately." M. de Villele takes leave of the
ambassadress, and sets out for the Tuileries. He finds Charles X.
there, very calm, quite reassured, and having called him only to give
expression to his confidence and sympathy. The minister exerts himself
to make the sovereign see the situation in a very different light. He
represents the incident of the Minister of Finance as secondary, but
insists on the facts occurring at the Champ-de-Mars, notably the shouts
around the carriage of the princesses. "It is a fact," replies the
King. "I did hear them complain. Well, what do you advise me to do?"
The minister responds: "This very evening, before the bureaux are
closed, dissolve the National Guard of Paris; order the marshal on duty
near your person, to have the posts held by the National Guard occupied
at four o'clock in the morning by the troops of the line; to resort to
this measure of force and justice to forestall the consequences of the
most audacious attempt at revolution since the commencement of your
reign. To-morrow, there are to arrive at Paris fifteen thousand men to
replace the fifteen thousand of the actual garrison. It suffices to
retain these latter, and thirty thousand men will be enough to hold the
factions in check if they have the least intention of