er. Besides, I have no right
whatever to proclaim the Regency; I merely announce it."

"No! no! No Regency!"

A man in a blouse shouted: "Let the peer of France be silent. Down with
the peer of France!" And he levelled his rifle at me. I gazed at him
steadily, and raised my voice so loudly that the crowd became silent:
"Yes, I am a peer of France, and I speak as a peer of France. I swore
fidelity, not to a royal personage, but to the Constitutional Monarchy.
As long as no other government is established it is my duty to be
faithful to this one. And I have always thought that the people approved
of a man who did his duty, whatever that duty might be."

There was a murmur of approbation and here and there a few bravos.
But when I endeavoured to continue: "If the Regency--" the protests
redoubled. I was permitted to take up only one of these protests. A
workman had shouted: "We will not be governed by a woman." I retorted
quickly:

"Well, neither will I be governed by a woman, nor even by a man. It was
because Louis Philippe wanted to govern that his abdication is to-day
necessary and just. But a woman who reigns in the name of a child! Is
that not a guarantee against all thought of personal government? Look at
Queen Victoria in England--"

"We are French, we are!" shouted several voices. "No Regency!"

"No Regency? Then, what? Nothing is ready, nothing! It means a total
upheaval, ruin, distress, civil war, perhaps; in any case, it is the
unknown."

One voice, a single voice, cried: "Long live the Republic!"

No other voice echoed it. Poor, great people, irresponsible and blind!
They know what they do not want, but they do not know what they do want.

From this moment the noise, the shouts, the menaces became such that
I gave up the attempt to get myself heard. My brave Launaye said: "You
have done what you wanted to, what you promised to do; the only thing
that remains for us to do is to withdraw."

The crowd opened before us, curious and inoffensive. But twenty paces
from the column the man who had threatened me with his rifle came up
with us and again levelled his weapon at me, shouting: "Down with the
peer of France!" "No, respect the great man!" cried a young workman,
who, with a quick movement, pushed the rifle downward. I thanked this
unknown friend with a wave of the hand and passed on.

At the Mairie, M. Ernest Moreau, who it appears had been very anxious
about us, received us with joy and cordially c