affairs was threatening in the
extreme. Orders were transmitted for all the royal troops within
thirty miles of Paris to hasten to the capital. The night passed in
tumult and terror. Armed bands were surging through the streets. The
solemn boom of the tocsin floated mournfully through the air. The
shoutings of the populace, and the frequent explosions of artillery
and musketry, added to the general dismay and gloom. There was no
sleep in Paris that night. Fifty thousand troops of the line and
fifty thousand of the National Guard were marching to their appointed
places of rendezvous in preparation for the deadly strife which the
morrow would certainly usher in. The populace were no less busy,
organizing in military bands, collecting arms, throwing up
barricades, and seizing important posts. Both parties were alike
aware that the Government could place but little reliance upon the
National Guard, as many of them were known to be in sympathy with the
people.

A provisional government had in reality, as it were, organized
itself. While Louis Philippe and his ministers were in session at the
Tuileries, Lafayette, M. Lafitte, and other distinguished men, who
but a few months before had placed Louis Philippe upon the throne,
were in secret assembly at the mansion of M. Lafitte, issuing orders
for the overthrow of that throne. Their orders were received by the
leaders of the populace, and thus there was unity and efficiency of
action.[AD]

[Footnote AD: Alison, vol. vii., p. 77.]

During the night there were several bloody conflicts, in which the
populace were generally successful. With their head-quarters at the
Porte St. Martin, and pushing out their intrenchments on both sides
of the river, before the dawn a large part of the city was under
their control. The Government forces were mainly concentrated at the
Tuileries, the Louvre, and the Hotel de Ville.

Marshal Soult was in command of the royal troops. Wherever his
sympathies might be in the peculiar emergency which had risen, he
felt bound to be true to his oath and his colors. By ten o'clock in
the morning he had eighty thousand men under his command, including
six thousand cavalry, with one hundred and twenty pieces of
artillery. Strong as this force was, it was none too strong for the
occasion. There was great consternation at the Tuileries. To prevent
the soldiers of the National Guard from passing over to the people,
they were intermingled with the troops of t