He accused his opponents, in general terms, of distorting his words, and of misrepresenting his acts.  The celebrated saying of “voici la meilleure des republiques” in particular, had been falsely rendered, while the circumstances under which he spoke and acted at all, had been studiously kept out of view.  It was apropos of this saying, that he entered into the explanations of the causes of the change of dynasty.

The crisis which drove the cabinet of Charles X. to the extreme measures that overturned the throne, had been produced by a legislative combination.  To effect their end, nearly every opinion, and all the shades of opposition, had united; many, even of those who were personally attached to the Bourbons, resisting their project of re-establishing the ancien regime.  Most of the capitalists, in particular, and more especially those who were engaged in pursuits that were likely to be deranged by political convulsions, were secretly disposed to support the dynasty, while they were the most zealously endeavouring to reduce its power.  The object of these men was to maintain peace, to protect commerce and industry, more especially their own, and, at the same time, to secure to property the control, of affairs.  In short, England and her liberty were their models, though some among them had too much good sense to wish to retrograde, as is the case with a party in America, in order to make the imitation more perfect.  Those who were for swallowing the English system whole, were called the doctrinaires, from their faith in a theory, while the different shades of dissenting opinions were distributed among all those who looked more to facts, and less to reasoning, than their credulous coadjutors.  But all were zealous in opposing government under its present system, and with its palpable views.

You know that the result was the celebrated ordinances, and a rising of the people.  So little was either of these events foreseen, that the first probably astonished and alarmed the friends of the Bourbons, quite as much as it did their enemies.  The second was owing chiefly to the courage and zeal of the young men connected with the press, sustained by the pride and daring of the working classes of Paris.  The emergency was exactly suited to the elan of the French character, which produced the sympathy necessary to the occasion among the different degrees of actors.  With the movements that followed, those who had brought about the state of things which existed, by their parliamentary opposition, had little or nothing to do.  Lafayette, himself, was at La Grange, nor did he reach Paris until the morning of the second day.  So far from participating in the course of events, most of the deputies were seriously alarmed, and their first efforts were directed to an accommodation.  But events were stronger than calculations, and the Bourbons were virtually dethroned, before any event or plan could be brought to bear upon the issue, in either the offensive or defensive.