Here was material enough for discord in a troubled reign which lasted nine years.  Louis XVIII. died September 16, 1824; and the Count of Artois, the brother of two kings, was proclaimed Charles X. of France.

If there had been any doubt about the real sentiments of Louis XVIII., it must have been dispelled by the last act of his reign, when, at the bidding of the Holy Alliance, he sent French soldiers to put down the Spanish liberals in their fight for a constitution.

But Charles X. did not intend to assume the thin mask worn by his brother.  He had marked out a different course.  All disguise was to be thrown aside in a Bourbon reign of the ante-revolutionary sort.  The press was strictly censored, the charter altered, the law of primogeniture restored; and when saluted on the streets of Paris by cries of “Give us back our charter!” the answer made to his people by this infatuated man was, “I am here to receive homage, not counsel.”

One wonders that a brother of Louis XVI., one who had been a fugitive from a Paris mob in 1789—­if he had a memory—­dared to exasperate the people of France.

On the 29th of July a revolt had become a Revolution, and once more the Marquis de Lafayette was in charge of the municipal troops, which assembled at St. Cloud and other defensive points.

[Illustration:  The Revolution of July 28, 1830.  From the painting by Delacroix.]

In vain did Charles protest that he would revoke every offensive ordinance, and restore the charter.  It was too late.

Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, was appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom.  When he appeared at the Hotel de Ville wearing the tricolor, his future was already assured.

There was only one thing left now for Charles to do:  he formally abdicated, and signed the paper authorizing the appointment of his cousin to the position of lieutenant-general; and ten days later, Louis Philippe, son of Philippe Egalite, occupied the throne he left.

The note struck by this new king was the absolute surrender of the principle of divine right.  He was a “citizen king”; his title being bestowed not by a divine hand, but by the people, whose voice was the voice of God!  The title itself bore witness to a new order of things.  Louis Philippe was not King of France, but “King of the French.”  King of France carried with it the old feudal idea of proprietorship and sovereignty; while a King of the French was merely a leader of the people, not the owner of their soil.  The charter and all existing conditions were modified to conform to this ideal, and on the 9th of August the reign of the constitutional king began.

It was the middle class in France which supported this reign; the class below that would never forget that he was, after all, a Bourbon and a king; while the two classes above, both royalists and imperialists, were unfriendly, one regarding him as a usurper on the throne of the legitimate king, and the other as a weakling unfit to occupy the throne of Napoleon.