at any instant be given, and there was no possibility
of protection.

The friends who endeavored to surround the princess and the children
with the shield of their bodies gradually crowded them along to a
higher portion of the house near the door, through which they could
more easily effect their escape in case of necessity. The confusion
and clamor which now filled the hall can scarcely be imagined.
Scarcely the semblance of a deliberative assembly was maintained. The
triumphant mob was holding there its wildest orgies. In vain
Lamartine, Ledru Rollin, and others endeavored to make themselves
heard, calling for a provisional government. The howling of the mob
drowned every voice.

The members, in confusion, rose from their seats. The president fled
from his chair. Some ferocious wretches, upon whose countenances
brutality was imprinted, clambered over the benches and leveled their
muskets at the head of the princess. Her friends, terror-stricken,
hurried her and her children through the door. The moment she
disappeared there was a general cry for a provisional government, as
the first step towards the establishment of a Republic. This call was
made, not only by the mob, but by that large portion of the Deputies
who thought that a Republic alone could save France from anarchy, and
restore to the people their long withheld rights.

Lamartine succeeded in obtaining the tribune. For a moment he was
popular, the representative of Republicanism. There was a brief lull
in the tempest as the throng listened to what he had to say. The
following list of names of those proposed to constitute the
Provisional Government was then read off: Lamartine, Marie, Ledru
Rollin, Cremieux, Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, and Garnier Pages. Some
of these names were received with cheers, others with hisses. It was
impossible to take any formal vote. The voices of the Deputies were
lost in the clamor of the mob. Still, the general assent seemed to be
in their favor. These were all good men. They were deemed moderate
Republicans.

But there was another portion of the Republican party, the radical,
so called, who would by no means be satisfied with such an
administration as these calm, deliberate men would inaugurate, with
their lingering adhesion to the rights of wealth and the dignity of
rank. There might have been possibly a thousand people crowded into
the hall of the Chamber of Deputies, who thus, self-appointed, were
forming a government for