ted in Paris at this critical moment
by the publication of Chateaubriand's celebrated tract, entitled "Of
Buonaparte and of the Bourbons." The first symptom of freedom in the
long enslaved press of Paris was not likely, whatever it might be, to
meet with an unfriendly reception; but this effusion of one of the most
popular writers of the time (though composed in a style not suited to
sober English tastes) was admirably adapted to produce a powerful
effect, at such a moment of doubt and hesitation, on the people to whom
it was addressed.

The agents of Buonaparte had not been idle during the 30th: they had
appealed to the passions of those wretched classes of society who had
been the willing instruments of all the horrible violence of the
revolution, and among whom the name of Bourbon was still detested; nor
without considerable effect. The crowds of filthy outcasts who emerged
from their lanes and cellars, and thronged some of the public places
during the battle, were regarded with equal alarm by all the decent part
of the population, however divided in political sentiments. But the
battle ended ere they could be brought to venture on any combined
movement; and when the defeated soldiery began to file in silence and
dejection through the streets, the mob lost courage, and retreated also
in dismay to the obscure abodes of their misery and vice.

The royalists welcomed with exultation the dawn of the 31st. Together
with the proclamation of Schwartzenberg, they circulated one of
Monsieur, and another of Louis XVIII. himself; and some of the leading
gentlemen of the party, the Montmorencys, the Noailles, the Rohans, the
Rochefoucalds, the Polignacs, the Chateaubriands, were early on
horseback in the streets; which they paraded without interruption from
any, either of the civil authorities, or of the National Guard,
decorated with the symbols of their cause, and appealing with eloquence
to the feelings of the onlookers. As yet, however, they were only
listened to. The mass of the people were altogether uncertain what the
end was to be: and, in the language of the chief orator himself, M.
Sosthenes de Rochefoucald, "the silence was most dismal." At noon the
first of the Allied troops began to pass the barrier and enter the city.
The royalist cavaliers met them; but though many officers observing the
white cockade exclaimed "la belle decoration!" the generals refused to
say anything which might commit their sovereigns. Some l