“People ask what he does with his money.  To satisfy them it would be necessary to publish the names of honorable friends of liberty who, in consequence of misfortunes, have solicited and obtained from him sums of twenty, thirty, forty, and even three hundred thousand francs.  They forget all the extraordinary expenses my brother has had to meet, all the demands he has to comply with.  Out of his income he has furnished the Palais Royal, improved the apanages of the House of Orleans; and yet sooner or later all this property will revert to the nation.  When we returned to France our inheritance was so encumbered that my brother was advised to decline administering on the estate; but to that neither he nor I would consent.  For all these things people make no allowances.  Truly, we know not how to act to inspire the confidence which our opinions and our consciences tell us we fully deserve.”

[Footnote 1:  M. Appert, chaplain to Queen Marie Amelie.]

[Illustration:  LOUIS PHILLIPPE. (Duke of Orleans.)]

It is not necessary in a sketch so brief to go minutely into politics.  Prince Polignac and the king dissolved the Chambers, having found the deputies unwilling to approve their acts, and a few days afterwards the king published his own will and pleasure in what were called Les Ordonnances du Roi.  One of these restricted the liberty of the Press, and was directed against journalism; another provider new rules, by which the ministry might secure a more subservient Chamber.

As we have seen, these ordonnances even in foreign countries spread dismay.  The revolution that ensued was the revolution of the great bankers and the business men,—­the haute bourgeoisie.  In general, revolutions are opposed by the moneyed classes; but this was a revolution effected by them to save themselves and their property from such an outbreak as came forty years later, which we call the Commune.  The working-classes had little to do with the Revolution of 1830, except, indeed, to fight for it, nor had they much to do with the Revolution of 1848.  It was the moneyed men of France who saw that the resuscitated principles of the old regime had been stretched to their very uttermost all over Europe, and that if they did not check them by a well-conducted revolution, worse would be sure to come.

On July 26, 1830, the ordonnances appeared.  The working-classes seemed to hear of them without emotion; but their effect on all those who had any stake in the prosperity of the country was very great.  By nightfall the agitation had spread in Paris to all classes.  King Charles X. was at Saint-Cloud, apparently apprehending no popular outbreak.  No military preparations in case of disturbances had been made, though on the morning of the 26th the Duc d’Angouleme sent word to Marshal Marmont to take command of the troops in Paris, “as there might be some windows broken during the day.”