During the early hours of Wednesday, the 23d, reports of these disaffections succeeded each other rapidly at the Tuileries, and a council was held in the king’s cabinet, to which the queen and the princes were invited.  The king spoke of resigning his crown, adding that he was “fortunate in being able to resign it.”  “But you cannot abdicate, mon ami,” said the queen.  “You owe yourself to France.  The demand made is for the resignation of the Ministry.  M. Guizot should resign, and I feel sure that being the man of honor that he is, he will do so in this emergency.”

M. Guizot and his colleagues at once gave in their resignations.  The king wept as he embraced them, bidding them farewell.  Count Mole was then called in and requested to form a ministry.  Before he could do so, however, things had grown worse, and M. Thiers, instead of Count Mole, was made head of the Cabinet.  He insisted that Odillon Barrot, the day before very popular with the insurgents, must be his colleague.  The king declined to assent to this.  To put Odillon Barrot into power, he said, was virtually to abandon the policy of his reign.

But before this matter was decided, there had occurred a lamentable massacre at the gates of the residence of M. Guizot, the Minister for Foreign Affairs.  The building had been surrounded by a fierce crowd, composed mainly of working-men from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.  Some confusion was occasioned by the restlessness of a horse belonging to an officer in command of a squad of cavalry detailed to defend the building.  The leader of the mob fired a pistol.  The soldiers responded with a volley from their carbines.  Fifty of the crowd were killed.  The bodies were piled by the mob upon a cart and paraded through Paris, the corpse of a half-naked woman lying conspicuously among them.  The sight everywhere woke threats of vengeance.

The king, when he heard of this, yielded.  Odillon Barrot was associated with M. Thiers, and Marshal Bugeaud was placed in command of the military.

M. Thiers’ foible was omniscience; and to Bugeaud’s amazement, amusement, and indignation he insisted on inspecting his military plans and giving his advice concerning them.  Happily the marshal’s plans met with the approval of the minister, and the commander-in-chief went to his post; while Odillon Barrot, accompanied by Horace Vernet, the painter, went forth into the streets to inform the insurgents that their demand for reform had been granted, that the obnoxious ministers had been dismissed, and that all power was made over to himself and to his colleagues.

Marshal Bugeaud found everything in wild confusion at the War Office; but was restoring order, and had marched four columns of troops through Paris without serious opposition, when he received orders from M. Thiers that not another shot was to be fired by the soldiers.  The marshal replied that he would not obey such orders unless he received them from the king.  The Duc de Nemours therefore signed the paper in the name of his father, and soon afterwards a new proclamation was posted on the walls:—­