to encounter. Two of the
gentlemen, M. Remusat and M. de Hauranne, stepped out into the
court-yard of the Tuileries to ascertain the posture of affairs.
Speedily they returned, pale, and with features expressive of intense
anxiety.

"Sire," said M. Remusat to the king, "it is necessary that your
majesty should know the truth! To conceal it at this moment would be
to render ourselves implicated in all that may follow. Your feelings
of security prove that you are deceived! Three hundred feet from here
the dragoons are exchanging their sabres, and the soldiers their
muskets with the people!"

"It is impossible!" exclaimed the king, recoiling with astonishment.

"Sire," added an officer, M. de l'Aubospere, who was present, "it is
true. I have seen it."

The queen, re-enacting the heroism of Maria Antoinette on a similar
occasion, said to her faint-hearted husband, "Go, show yourself to
the discouraged troops, to the wavering National Guard. I will come
out on the balcony with my grandchildren and the princesses, and I
will see you die worthy of yourself, of your throne, and of your
misfortunes."

The king descended the stairs, while the queen and the princesses
went upon the balcony. He passed through the court-yard of the
Tuileries into the Carrousel. If any shouts were uttered of "_Vive le
Roi_," they were drowned in the cry which seemed to burst from all
lips, "_Vive la Reforme! a bas les Ministres!_"

All hope was now gone! The king, in despair, returned to the royal
family. The panic was heart-rending--the ladies weeping aloud. The
shouts which filled the air announced that the mob was approaching,
triumphant, from all directions, while a rattling fire of musketry
was heard, ever drawing nearer. Marshal Bugeaud did what he could to
arrest the advance of the insurgents, but his troops were sullen, and
but feebly responded to any of his orders.

In the midst of this terrible scene, the king took his pen to appoint
another ministry, still more radically democratic than Barrot and
Hauranne. As he was writing out the list, M. de Girardin entered the
apartment. He was editor of the _Times_ newspaper, and one of the
most uncompromising Republicans in the city. Approaching the king, he
said to him firmly, yet respectfully,

"Sire, it is now too late to attempt to form a new ministry. The
public mind can not be tranquilized by such a measure. The flood of
insurrection, now resistless, threatens to sweep away the thro