ABSTRACT
So the July Monarchy had fallen, fallen without a struggle, not under the victors' blows, but before they were struck; and the victors were as astonished at their success as the losers at their defeat. After the February Revolution I often heard M. Guizot and even M. Mole and M. Thiers say that it was all due to surprise and should be considered pure accident, a lucky stroke and nothing more. I have always felt tempted to answer them as Molière's Misanthrope answers Oronte: “Pour en juger ainsi, vous avez vos raisons,” 1 for for eighteen years those three men had directed the affairs of France under Louis-Philippe, and it was hard for them to admit that that prince's bad government had prepared the way for the catastrophe that threw him from the throne.
