drum-major, while the little minister clung to his back like a monkey in a circus.  It was a comical sight!  But far from laughable under this same ministry of M. Thiers were the perpetual attempts upon my father’s life.  The speculators in revolution, who had been encouraged by their easy success in 1830, grew discouraged after several like essays at risings had been severely put down.  They then fell back on assassination.  The most serious attempt was Fieschi’s, on July 28, 1835.  Together with my two eldest brothers I was to accompany the King to a review of the National Guard and the regular army, drawn up on the Boulevards.  All of us who were to take part in the procession, princes, marshals, generals, and aides-de-camp, were assembled in the drawing-room at the Tuileries, next to the Throne Room, when the Minister of the Interior, M. Thiers, burst in like a whirlwind, and, beckoning to my two brothers and me, led us into the embrasure of a window.  “My dear princes,” said he, looking at us over his spectacles, “it is more than likely there will be an attempt on the life of the King, your father, to-day.  We have been warned from several quarters.  They say there will be an infernal machine somewhere near the Ambigu Theatre.  It is very vague, but there must be something at the bottom of it all.  We have had all the houses near the Ambigu searched this morning to no purpose.  Should the King be warned?  Should the review be put off?”

We answered unanimously that the King must be warned but that, brave as he was well known to be, he would never consent to having the review put off.  So it turned out.

“Look well after your father,” repeated M. Thiers, and we mounted our horses.  The review went on well enough, except that we all remarked the presence of a large number of insolent-looking individuals, with red carnations in their button-holes—­the members, evidently, of the secret societies, who had not been warned of what was going to happen, but to be ready for anything that might happen We had not been able to take any precautions, beyond dividing the care of watching over the King’s person between my brothers and myself and the aides-de-camp on duty One of us with an aide-de-camp, was to take it in turn to keep just behind his horse, with our eye on the troops and the crowd, so as to interpose if we noticed any suspicious gesture.  My turn had come to take the post of watcher, with General Heymes, aide-de-camp in waiting, on my right.  On my left I had Lieutenant-Colonel Rieussec, commanding the legion of the National Guard before which we were passing.  Close to the Ambigu, not the present theatre—­the neighbourhood of which had been searched—­but a former Ambigu, which had been shut up, opposite the Jardin Turc cafe, we heard a sort of platoon firing like the discharge of a mitrailleuse, and raising my eyes at the noise I saw smoke coming from a window which was half closed by an outside shutter.