Chapter 18 - Page 2

Duke de Nemours merely asked
for some linen and in particular his heavy-soled shoes.

The Prince de Joinville, meeting the Duke de Montpensier,
greeted him thus: "Ah! here you are, Monsieur;
you were not killed, you have not had good luck!"

Gudin, the marine painter, who went to England, saw
Louis Philippe. The King is greatly depressed. He said
to Gudin: "I don't understand it. What happened in
Paris? What did the Parisians get into their heads? I
haven't any idea. One of these days they will recognise
that I did not do one thing wrong." He did not, indeed,
do one thing wrong; he did all things wrong!

He had in fact reached an incredible degree of optimism;
he believed himself to be more of a king than Louis XIV.
and more of an emperor than Napoleon. On Tuesday the
22nd he was exuberantly gay, and was still occupied
solely with his own affairs, and these of the pettiest
character. At 2 o'clock when the first shots were being
fired, he was conferring with his lawyers and business
agents, MM. de Gérante, Scribe and Denormandie, as to
what could best be done about Madame Adelaide's will. On
Wednesday, at 1 o'clock, when the National Guard was
declaring against the government, which meant revolution,
the King sent for M. Hersent to order of him a picture of
some kind.

Charles X. was a lynx.

Louis Philippe in England, however, bears his misfortune
worthily. The English aristocracy acted nobly; eight
or ten of the wealthiest peers wrote to Louis Philippe
to offer him their châteaux and their purses. The King
replied: "I accept and keep only your letters."

The Duchess d'Orleans is also in straitened circumstances.
She is on bad terms with the d'Orleans family
and the Mecklenburg family is on bad terms with her. On
the one hand she will accept nothing, and on the other she
can expect nothing.

At this time of writing (May, 1848) the Tuileries have
already been repaired, and M. Empis remarked to me this
morning: "They are going to clean up and nothing of the
damage done will be apparent." Neuilly and the Palais-Royal,
however, have been devastated. The picture gallery of the
Palais-Royal, a pretty poor one by the by, has
practically been destroyed. Only a single picture remains
perfectly intact, and that is the Portrait of Philippe Egalité.
Was it purposely respected by the riot or is its preservation
an irony of chance? The National Guards amused, and
still amuse, themselves by cutting out of the canvases that
were not entirely destroyed by fire faces to which they take
a