One of the generals at the head of a
column sent to tell Bugeaud that he was face to face with an enormous
body of men, badly armed, who made no attack upon him, but only shouted,
"Long live reform! Long live the army! Down with Guizot!" "Order them to
disperse," replied the Marshal; "if they do not obey, use force, and act
with resolution."
There was no fighting on either side. The staff were besieged by the
entreaties of a crowd of respectable men, who in terror and
consternation conjured Bugeaud to withdraw the troops because they
excited the anger of the populace, and leave to the National Guard the
duty of appeasing the insurrection. The danger of such counsel was
obvious, and the Marshal paid no attention to it, till Thiers and Odilon
Barrot, who had just accepted office, came to the staff with the same
advice, and it therefore became an order. The Marshal at first refused
the ministers as he had done the citizens, and then the same order was
sent by the King. "I must have a government," the Marshal had recently
said; and, as he was now without the government, which thus relaxed the
resistance agreed upon, he in his turn gave way.
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