for descending from the salons of a prince into the depths of the people:  some the head, others the arms, of the duke’s ambition, attended these meetings.  Perhaps they might be ignorant of the aim, but they placed themselves on the declivity, and allowed Fortune to do as she pleased.  Fortune was a revolution.  The wonderful, that marvel of the masses, which is to the imagination what calculation is to reason, was not wanting to the Orleans party.  Prophecies, those popular presentiments of destiny, domestic prodigies, admitted by the interested credulity of numerous clients of this house, announced the throne shortly to one of these princes.  These rumours were rife amongst the people, from themselves, or the skilful insinuations of the partisans of the house of Orleans.  In the convocation of States-General, the duke had not hesitated to pronounce in favour of the most popular reforms.  The instructions which he had drawn up for the electors of his dominions were the work of the abbe Sieyes.  The prince himself intrigued for the name and style of Citoyen.  Elected deputy of the noblesse of Paris at Crespy and at Villars-Cotterets, he selected Crespy, because the electors of this bailiwick were the more patriotic.  At the procession of the States-General he left his own place vacant amongst the princes, and walked in the midst of the deputies.  This abdication of his dignity near the throne to assume the dignity of a citizen, procured him the applauses of the nation.

VI.

Public favour towards him was such that had he been a Duc de Guise, and Louis XVI. a Henry III., the States-General would have finished, as did those of Blois, by an assassination or usurpation.  Uniting with the tiers etat, to obtain equality and the friendship of the nation against the nobility, he took the oath of the Tennis Court.  He took his place behind Mirabeau, to disobey the king.  Nominated president by the National Assembly, he refused this honour in order to remain a citizen.  The day on which the dismissal of Necker betrayed the hostile projects of the court, and when the people of Paris named its leaders and defenders by acclamation, the name of the Duc d’Orleans was the first uttered.  France took in the gardens of the palace the colours of his livery for a cockade.  At the voice of Camille Desmoulins, who uttered the cry of alarm in the Palais Royal, the populace gathered, Legendre and Freron led them; they placed the bust of the Duc d’Orleans beside that of Necker, covered them with black crape, and promenaded them, bareheaded themselves, in the presence of the silent citizens.  Blood flowed; the dead body of one of the citizens who carried the busts, killed by the mob, serving as a standard to the people.  The Duc d’Orleans was thus mixed up from his palace—­his name and his image—­with the first struggle and first murder of liberty.  This was enough to make it believed that his hand moved all the threads of