d. But
to show how little such abnegation of self is understood by even the
most educated Frenchmen, I must relate a story which was told to me many
years afterwards by a French officer who, at that time, had just
returned from the Pontifical States, where he had helped to defeat the
small army of Garibaldi. He was describing the battle-field of Mentana
to Napoleon III., and mentioned a prisoner he had made who turned out to
be an old acquaintance from the Boulevards. "He was furious against
Garibaldi, sire," said the officer, "because the latter had placed him
in the necessity, as it were, of firing upon his own countrymen in a
strange land. Said the prisoner, 'I am not an emigre; I would not have
gone to Coblenz; I am a Frenchman from the crown of my head to the sole
of my foot. If it came to fighting my countrymen in the streets of
Paris, that would be a different thing. I should not have the slightest
scruple of firing upon the Imperial Guards or upon the rabble, as the
case might be, for that would be civil war.' That's what he said, sire."

Napoleon nodded his head, and with his wonderful, sphinxlike smile,
replied, "Your prisoner was right; it makes all the difference." The
Orleans princes, save perhaps one, never knew these distinctions; if
they had known them, the Comte de Paris might be King of France to-day.

To return for a moment to Louis-Philippe as I saw him at the last
moments of his reign. He felt evidently disappointed at the lukewarm
reception he received, for though there was a faint cry among the
regulars of "Vive le Roi!" it was immediately drowned by the stentorian
one of the rabble of "Vive la Reforme!" in which a good many of the
National Guards joined. He was evidently in a hurry to get back to the
Tuileries, and, when he disappeared in the doorway, I had looked upon
him for the last time in my life. An hour and a half later, he had left
Paris for ever.

* * * * *

Personally I saw nothing of the flight of the King, nor of the inside of
the Tuileries, until the royal family were gone. The story of that
flight was told to me several years later by the Duc de Montpensier.
What is worse, in those days it never entered my mind that a time would
come when I should feel desirous of committing my reminiscences to
paper, consequently I kept no count of the hours that went by, and
cannot, therefore, give the exact sequence of events. I do not know how
long I stood amon