“‘Chut, not a word! I will tell you that to-morrow.’
“If his secret wishes were really in favour of a new order of things, with his habitual prudence, he made it a duty to conceal them; and he spent the whole of the second day fixed at the windows of the drawing-room of the hotel, which looks into the Place Louis Quinze, sending every now and then his emissaries into the divers quarters of Paris, to bring back accounts of the progress of the revolution. MM. de Broglie, Bertin de Vaux, and Sébastiani were with him, and all, excepting the prince, were of opinion that the king would attempt, before the morning, to re-enter Paris at the head of his troops. _He_ knew the character of the man too well either to hope or to fear this decision.
“On the 29th, however, when M. de Talleyrand began to be convinced that the cause of the revolution was triumphant, that the liberal deputies, Casimir Périer, Laffitte, Lafayette, all, not only pronounced themselves in its favour, but sought to direct the insurrection, and to place themselves at its head, he felt at once the immense advantage that such a demonstration would give to the Chamber of Deputies over the Chamber of Peers; and his only thought during the whole day was to collect together at his own house the few men of intelligence among the peers of the opposition, in order to balance, in the public opinion, by some patriotic declaration, the influence already gained by the deputies, from the position in which they had placed themselves—that of ‘Defenders of the Charter.’ But all the efforts of the prince were unavailing. The great number of his friends, such as Pasquier and Molé, hesitating to declare their opinions thus openly, in dread of the return of Charles X., declined taking a part in the protest of the deputies. M. de Talleyrand was pained to the quick by this want of decision, and foretold, with an accuracy which has since become manifest, all the bad consequences which would fall upon the Chamber of Peers, from having remained passive during this eventful crisis.
“By early dawn on the 30th, the people were, however, masters of Paris—of all the military posts—of all the barricades of the Tuileries—of the Louvre, and of the hotels of the ministers. The royalist troops had withdrawn, and were encamped round St. Cloud, where still lingered, in faint hope, in inert expectation, Charles X. and his court.