old.

M. de Polignac appears to have relied upon the army, much in the same
way that a speculative writer, theorizing upon government, rests upon
his great abstraction, the military power. He treated it as if it were a
principle, an idea, that developed itself without his aid, and not a
palpable fact of there being a certain number of armed men, then and
there, to fight for his ordonnances.

There is no virtue so much applauded in the present day as
resolution--_will_; and there are who regard a strong will as the
essence of all virtue. But the history of M. de Polignac proves, (if
this needed proof,) that the weak can have will enough. Your strong will
may be purchased at the sole expense of reason. Let there be one idea in
a brain that cannot hold two, and you have a strong will. M. de Polignac
never wavered once; he was always seen with a smiling countenance, calm,
radiant with hope and self-approval. When others around him began to
despond, when the Duke of Ragusa, commander of the forces, writing to
the king, said that it was not a riot, but a revolution, and advised him
to retreat while he could still retreat with honour, the minister had,
for all answer, but one word--"Fire!" It was still, Fire! But what if
the troops, it was asked, desert to the people? "Then fire on the
troops!"

On the publication of the ordonnances, the members of the Chamber who
were in Paris met at each others' houses to discuss measures of
resistance. But it was not from the members of the Chamber that the
movement was to emanate. Those who had any position to compromise looked
on, for the most part, with anxiety and astonishment, waiting to see
what current the disturbed waters would finally take. "On the evening of
the 27th, a man, name unknown, appeared on the Quai d'Ecole, and
paraded the banks of the river with the tri-coloured flag, which had
been folded up and hidden away for fifteen years." The symbol was
adopted by the people. The revolution had commenced.

Then followed all those strange scenes of levity and blood, buffoonery
and heroism, which the history of Parisian revolutions has familiarized
to the imagination, but which, nevertheless, have an inexhaustible
interest. The people arm themselves wheresoever and howsoever they can.
One brings into the Place de la Bourse two large hampers, full of
muskets and accoutrements. They come from the Theatre du Vaudeville,
where a piece had been played, a few days before, which requi