378 PRINCIPLE AND NO PRINCIPLE. 



the most active instruments in overthrowing the restoration and its 

 despotism. 



In the afternoon of the 29th July, when the popular party had 

 obtained a complete triumph over the satellites of Charles X., and 

 while Carrel was at the head of the people bivouacking in the 

 Champs Elysees, Thiers unexpectedly made again his appearance 

 in the office of the National, and there composed, and caused to be 

 printed, and afterwards to be posted on the walls of Paris, hundreds 

 of small placards, in which the duke of Orleans was represented as the 

 natural enemy of the Bourbons, as the republican general of Ge- 

 mappe and Valmy, and as the friend of the people and the advo- 

 cate of national freedom and national independence. To this was 

 annexed a copy of the hypocritical letter which the present citizen 

 king wrote to Marshal Mortier, when in 1815 he abandoned the 

 standard of the division which he had sworn to lead against Napo- 

 leon. In the mean while Thiers through his agents disseminated 

 100,000 five-franc pieces, and obtained from the lowest of the heroes 

 of July the cry of vive le due d? Orleans, and thus Louis Philippe, 

 who had been execrated during the three glorious days as much as 

 the elder Bourbons, began to be in favour with the mob, and then 

 his creatures succeeded in humbugging La Fay ette and the republicans. 

 Armand Carrel, informed of this treachery of Thiers, protested 

 against it; but as the evil had already been done, and as he was as- 

 sured that Louis Philippe was to be a monarch surrounded with re- 

 publican institutions, he remained neutral, and by his example and 

 words, engaged the other republicans to adopt the same course. 



Thiers however became very soon a great favourite of the citizen 

 king, and, his Meecenas Laffitte having been raised to the high post 

 of prime minister of France, he was of course chosen as his private 

 secretary. Soon after, the then all-powerful Laffitte first obtained 

 for Thiers a seat in the chamber of deputies, and then had him 

 nominated under-secretary of state for the finance department. 

 Thus, a few weeks after the revolution of July, Thiers had already 

 become a courtier and a statesman, and, to apply all his faculties 

 to political and courtly intrigues, bade adieu to the National, and 

 Armand Carrel, who now remained the only editor of that periodical, 

 through its columns often called to 'order his former colleague, 

 and reminded him of his origin and of his principles. 



But when Laffitte, disgusted with the selfishness and arbitrary con- 

 duct of Louis Philippe, who during three days had intercepted and 

 concealed some important despatches, resigned his high situation, the 

 ungrateful Thiers, instead of following the example of the man 

 who had been the main cause of his elevation, abandoned his bene- 

 factor, sold himself and his former principles to the highest bidder, 

 and became the chief supporter of Louis Philippe, and, both at the 

 tribune of the house and in the council of the Cabinet, showed him- 

 self the champion of the juste milieu, and the sneering opponent of 

 his former liberal patrons. 



It was at this time that Armand Carrel broke off all connexion with 

 Thiers, and through his journal waged a political and personal war- 

 fare with his former editorial colleague a id political friend, and not 



