*****

On the third day, the cannonading was observed to decrease; only a gun went off fitfully now and then.

*****

On the fourth day, the Parisians said to one another, “Tiens! ils sont fatigues, les cannoniers des forts!”—­and why?  Because there was no more powder?—­Ay, truly, there was no more powder.

There was no more powder, no more guns, no more gunners, no more forts, no more nothing.  The forts had blown each other up.  The battle-roar ceased.  The battle-clouds rolled off.  The silver moon, the twinkling stars, looked blandly down from the serene azure,—­and all was peace—­stillness—­the stillness of death.  Holy, holy silence!

Yes:  the battle of Paris was over.  And where were the combatants?  All gone—­not one left!—­And where was Louis Philippe?  The venerable Prince was a captive in the Tuileries; the Irish Brigade was encamped around it:  they had reached the palace a little too late; it was already occupied by the partisans of his Majesty Louis XVII.

That respectable monarch and his followers better knew the way to the Tuileries than the ignorant sons of Erin.  They burst through the feeble barriers of the guards; they rushed triumphant into the kingly halls of the palace; they seated the seventeenth Louis on the throne of his ancestors; and the Parisians read in the Journal des Debats, of the fifth of November; an important article, which proclaimed that the civil war was concluded:—­

“The troubles which distracted the greatest empire in the world are at an end.  Europe, which marked with sorrow the disturbances which agitated the bosom of the Queen of Nations, the great leader of Civilization, may now rest in peace.  That monarch whom we have long been sighing for; whose image has lain hidden, and yet oh! how passionately worshipped, in every French heart, is with us once more.  Blessings be on him; blessings—­a thousand blessings upon the happy country which is at length restored to his beneficent, his legitimate, his reasonable sway!

“His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVII. yesterday arrived at his palace of the Tulleries, accompanied by his august allies.  His Royal Highness the Duke of Orleans has resigned his post as Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, and will return speedily to take up his abode at the Palais Royal.  It is a great mercy that the children of his Royal Highness, who happened to be in the late forts round Paris, (before the bombardment which has so happily ended in their destruction,) had returned to their father before the commencement of the cannonading.  They will continue, as heretofore, to be the most loyal supporters of order and the throne.

“None can read without tears in their eyes our august monarch’s proclamation.

“’Louis, by &c.—­

“’My children!  After nine hundred and ninety-nine years of captivity, I am restored to you.  The cycle of events predicted by the ancient Magi, and the planetary convolutions mentioned in the lost Sibylline books, have fulfilled their respective idiosyncrasies, and ended (as always in the depths of my dungeons I confidently expected) in the triumph of the good Angel, and the utter discomfiture of the abominable Blue Dragon.