Citizens!  An order has been given to suspend all firing.  We are charged by the king to form a ministry.  The Chamber is about to be dissolved.  General Lamoriciere has been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard.  Messieurs Odillon Barrot, Thiers, Lamoriciere, and Duvergier de Haurannes are ministers.  Our watchwords are,—­Order, Union, Reform!

(Signed) ODILLON BARROT. 
THIERS.

This proclamation may be said to have been the beginning of the end.  The soldiers were disgusted; supporters of the monarchy lost heart; the secret societies now felt that the game was in their hands.  By that time barricades without number, it was said, had been thrown up in the streets.  The suburbs of Paris were cut off from the capital.  During the previous night, arms had been everywhere demanded from private houses; but in obtaining them the insurgents endeavored to inspire no unnecessary terror.  One lady in the English quarter was found kneeling by the bedside of her dying child.  When a party of armed men entered the chamber they knelt down, joined their prayers to hers for the soul that was departing, and then quitted the room in silence, placing a guard and writing over the door in chalk:  “Respect this house, for death is here.”

By nine o’clock on Wednesday morning the troops, disgusted by the order which forbade them to defend themselves, reversed their arms and fraternized with the people, the officers sheathing their swords.

A little later, Odillon Barrot, who supposed himself to be the people’s favorite, rode along the Boulevard to proclaim to the rioters that he was now their minister, and that the cause of reform was assured.  He was met with cries of “Never mind him!  We have no time to hear him!  Too late, too late!  We know all he has to say!” About the same time the Ecole Militaire was taken; but a guard en blouse was posted to protect the apartments of the ladies of the governor.  The fight before the Palais Royal occurred about noon.  The palace, which was the private property of Louis Philippe, was sacked, and many valuable works of art were destroyed.

The royal family were sitting down to breakfast about midday when a party of gentlemen, among them M. Emile de Girardin, made their way into the Tuileries, imploring the king to abdicate at once and spare further bloodshed.  Without a word, Louis Philippe drew pen and paper towards him and wrote his abdication.  Embracing his grandson, the little Comte de Paris, he went out, saying to the gentlemen about him:  “This child is your king.”

Through the Pavillon de l’Horloge, the main entrance to the Tuileries, came a party of dragoons, leading their horses down the marble steps into the gardens.  The victorious blouses already filled the inner court, the Place du Carrousel.  The royal family, slenderly attended, followed the king.  The crowd poured into the Tuileries on the side of the Carrousel as the royal family quitted it through the gardens.