ABSTRACT
Thus succinctly did Thiers and his friend, Mignet, put the case for a French 1688 and such was the proclamation that the belated envoys of Charles X found placarded in Paris on 30 July 1830. That same day, after much hesitation, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who was above all animated by the desire not to be obliged to go into exile once more, entered Paris and accepted the post of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom offered to him by a group of deputies. But the Chamber dissolved by Charles X’s ordinances was not the only power in the insurgent capital, and the problem of government could only be solved with the consent or acquiescence of a municipal commission of Republican tendencies which had installed itself in the Hotel de Ville and of the veteran Lafayette, whom the reemergent National Guard had invited to command them and who now appeared the hero of the hour. Accordingly, on the 31st, the Duke, who had never lacked personal courage, proceeded through the crowded streets to the Hôtel de Ville. Lafayette, ‘a Republican at heart who never had the strength or daring to proclaim the Republic’, preferred a constitutional monarchy to a Jacobin dictatorship, and was prepared to welcome him. The crowd, at first hostile, cheered when Louis Philippe appeared on the balcony holding the tricolour flag and publicly embraced the venerable Commander of the National Guard. This was the kiss that helped to make the July monarchy. Republican opposition was stifled by a gesture which momentarily made the Duke of Orléans appear the best of Republicans.
