beautiful, inviting all the population of Paris into the streets. The
balmy summer night kept them there. Innumerable rumors increased the
excitement, and it was evident that a few words from influential lips
would create an insurrection, which might amount to a revolution.

The gentlemen who had met in conference--forty-four in number--after
careful deliberation, and having obtained the opinion of the most
celebrated lawyers that the ordinances were illegal, gallantly
resolved to resist them at the hazard of their lives. They
accordingly issued a protest, to which each one affixed his
signature. The boldness of the act commanded the admiration even of
the advocates of arbitrary power. In their protest they said:

"The Government has lost the character of legality which
commands obedience. We _resist_ it in so far as we are
concerned. It is for France to determine how far resistance
should extend."

The liberal journals refused to take out the license the ordinances
required. This act of defiance the Government met by sending the
police to seize the journals and close their printing-offices. A
commissary of police, with two gendarmes, repaired to the office of
the _Temps_, edited by M. Guizot, in the Boulevard des Italiens. They
found the doors barred against them. A blacksmith was sent for to
force the entrance. This collected a crowd, and he refused to act in
obedience to the police. A second blacksmith was sent for. As he
commenced operations the crowd took his tools from him. At length,
however, an entrance was effected, and a seal was put upon the
printing-presses. This scene, occurring in one of the most populous
thoroughfares of Paris, created intense agitation. Still, thus far,
there had been so little commotion that the king and his ministers
were quite sanguine that their measures would prove triumphant.
Charles X. was so infatuated that on that morning--the 26th--he went
to Rambouillet, and spent the day in hunting.

During the night of the 26th there was another very important meeting
of the leaders of the liberal party at the mansion of M. Casimir
Perier. About thirty were present. Nearly all were members of the
Chamber of Deputies, and in intellectual strength were among the
most illustrious men in France. Anxiously, yet firmly, they
discussed the course to be pursued. It was a fearful question to
decide. Submission placed France, bound helplessly hand and foot,
under the heel of Bourb