The Duc de Guiche set off for St.-Cloud yesterday morning, the moment he had read the ordonnances.  Had his counsel been listened to, they would never have been promulgated; for he is one of the few who, with a freedom from prejudice that enables him to judge dispassionately of the actual state of public opinion, has the moral courage to declare the truth to his sovereign, however unpalatable that truth might be, or however prejudicial to his own interests.

I have this moment returned from a drive through the streets, and, though far from being an alarmist, I begin to think that affairs wear a more serious aspect than I dreaded.  Already has a collision taken place between the populace and the soldiers, who attempted to disperse them near the Palais-Royal; and it required the assistance of a charge of cavalry to secure the dangerous victory to themselves.

Crowds were hurrying through the streets, many of the shops were closed, and not above three or four carriages were to be seen.  Never did so great a change take place in the aspect of a city in so few hours!  Yesterday the business of life flowed on in its usual current.  The bees and the drones of this vast hive were buzzing about, and the butterflies of fashion were expanding their gay wings in the sunshine.  To-day the industrious and orderly seem frightened from their usual occupations, and scarcely a person of those termed fashionable is to be seen.  Where are all the household of Charles the Tenth, that vast and well-paid crowd who were wont to fill the anterooms of the Tuileries on gala days, obsequiously watching to catch a nod from the monarch, whose slightest wish was to them as the laws of the Modes and Persians?  Can it be that they have disappeared at the first cloud that has darkened the horizon of their sovereign, and increased the danger that menaces him by shewing that they have not courage to meet it?  Heaven send, for the honour of France, that the noblesse of the court of Charles the Tenth may not follow the disgraceful example furnished by that of his unfortunate brother, Louis the Sixteenth!  In England how different would it be if danger menaced the sovereign!

——­ has just been here, and, in answer to my question of where are the men on whose fidelity the king could count, and in whose military experience he might confide in such a crisis as the present, he told me that for the purposes of election interests all the general officers who could be trusted had unfortunately been sent from the court.

The sound of firing has announced that order, far from being restored, seems less likely than ever to be so.  People are rushing wildly through the streets proclaiming that several persons have been killed by the military.  All is confusion and alarm, and every one appears to dread what the coming night may produce.

Intelligence has just reached us that the mob are demolishing the lanterns, and that they have broken into the shops of the gunsmiths, and seized all the arms they could find.  The Duc de Raguse commands the troops, and already several charges have taken place.  This selection, under present circumstances, is not considered to be a good one.