THE COLTON PAPERS. HI 



M. Debelleyme, formerly Prefect of the Police, was the first man 

 who, in his public capacity, as President of the Tribunal of Premiere 

 Instance, had the courage boldly to designate the Ordinances, which 

 authorised these proceedings, to be illegal and unconstitutional. His 

 recorded decision on the action, brought by the Nouveau Journal de 

 Paris, determining that the printer should continue to fulfil his con- 

 tract with the proprietor, will go down to future ages as the noblest 

 act of his most useful life ; this decision will transmit his name to a 

 grateful posterity, as a citizen " qui libera posset verba animi pro. 

 ferre et vitam impendere vero." After this attack upon the printing 

 establishments by the gendarmerie, exasperation, discontent, and 

 defiance, were more and more visible amongst the people; they saw 

 with indignation the bureaux of those journals devoted to the de- 

 fence of their liberties attacked and destroyed ; they were not slow 

 in perceiving, that those who ought to be the guardians of the laws 

 had now become the violators of them ; and this just feeling was 

 strengthened and confirmed by the memorable protest of the 

 patriotic journals, now pretty generally known and circulated, in 

 which the editors called upon their countrymen to resist such pro- 

 ceedings, to oppose force to force, and to make use of every means 

 which God and nature had put into their power to carry their deter- 

 mination into effect. Henceforth it was manifest that some great 

 explosion of public opinion, embodied and visible in deeds of daring 

 and of danger, was at hand. 



It was at this particular period, about four o'clock on the after- 

 noon of Tuesday, that these symptoms began to assume a more 

 serious and sanguinary character. The Palais Royal, that busv 

 centre of action and population, had been the rendezvous of the first 

 assemblages. They had been with much struggle and great difficulty 

 dispersed, by an armed force, and the multitudinous iron gates that 

 form an entrance into the gardens had been closed. But the crowd, 

 though driven out of the Palais Royal, had by no means been separated, 

 but had merely retired, to condense themselves more closely in all 

 the neighbouring streets. One concern had taken possession of the 

 hearts of all ; this was how to possess themselves of arms on the 

 morrow, to revenge the insults that were heaped upon them to-day. 

 All the streets leading to, or connected with, the Palais Royal, were 

 completely choked up, and encumbered by citizens of every grade, 

 and every class. Formidable detachments of gendarmerie, both 

 horse and foot, violently repulsed and drove in at all points the citi- 

 zens, who were simply furnished with sticks and with stones. By 

 degrees, the confluence of the people and the reinforcements of their 

 antagonists mutually increased, until at length the concourse spread 

 itself even as far as the quays and the boulevards. The charges of 

 the cavalry and armed bands became more lively and frequent, and 

 the resistance of the people more firm and organized. 



Between four and six o'clock in the afternoon the first fusillade 

 was heard in the Rue St. Honore, near the Place du Palais Royal, 

 and at the lower extremity of the Rue des Bons Enfans, where it 

 made numerous victims. Such indeed was the blind fury of the 

 myrmidons of Government, that, among others, their random shots 



