Shouts of protest were heard on several benches.  “It is too late!” exclaimed Lamartine, as he went to the tribune, eager to urge this difficulty, reject the regency, and demand a provisional government so that the bloodshed might be stopped.  Some others were already mentioning the word “Republic.”  The crowd were gradually pouring into the Chamber from the corriders, and Sauzet, the President, requested strangers to withdraw, and made a special appeal to the Duchess herself.  “Sir, this is a royal sitting!” she replied; and when her friends urged her, “If I leave this Chamber, my son will no more return to it.”  A few minutes before her arrival, Thiers had entered the Chamber in the greatest agitation.  “The tide is rising, rising, rising!” he said to those who crowded round him, and then disappeared.  Several voices were heard together in confusion; among the speakers were La Rochejacquelein, Ledru-Rollin, Marie, and Berryer.

The Duchess had been conducted to a gallery, on account of the threats of the insurgent battalions, who burst open the doors after General Gourgaud had in vain tried to stop them.  Armand Marrast, one of the editors of the National, after looking at the invaders, said:  “These are the sham public; I shall call the real!” A few minutes afterward shots were heard in the court of the palace; the posts in the hands of the National Guard opened before the triumphant mob, who, after sacking the Tuileries, hurried up against the expiring remnants of the monarchy.  The Duchesse d’Orleans had already twice offered to speak, but her voice was drowned in the tumult.  The newcomers, stained with blood and blackened with gunpowder, with dishevelled hair and bare arms, climbed on the benches, stairs, and galleries; and in every part were shouts of “Down with the regency!  Long live the Republic!  Turn out the ’Contents’!” Sauzet put on his hat, but a workman knocked it off, and then the President disappeared.

Several of the Deputies rushed to the gallery, where the Duchess was still exposed to the looks and threats of the insurgents.  “There is nothing more to be done here, madam,” they urged:  “we must go to the President’s house, to form a new chamber.”  She took the arm of Jules de Lasteyrie; and on her sons being separated from her in the narrow passages, she showed the greatest anxiety, crying, “My boys! my boys!” At one time the Comte de Paris was seized by a workman in a blouse; but one of the National Guard took him out of his hands, and the child was passed from one to another till he rejoined his mother.  No one knew what had become of the Duc de Chartres; but he was brought to the Invalides, where the Princess went for refuge; and in the evening, after nightfall, the mother and sons withdrew from Paris, and soon after from France.  “To-morrow, or ten years hence,” said the Duchesse d’Orleans as she left the Invalides, “a word, a sign will bring me back.”  Afterward in exile she frequently said, “When the thought crosses my mind that I may never again see France, I feel my heart breaking.”