Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 07.djvu/160

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140
FRENCH AFFAIRS.

practical application. They understand only acts and facts or needs and deeds, and by these they speak. Such a deed was the Revolution of July, and this consists not merely in the fact that Charles X. was driven from the Tuileries to Holyrood, and that Louis Philippe took his place; such a personal change was of no consequence to any one except the porter of the palace. The people in banishing Charles X. saw in him only the representative of the aristocracy, such as he had shown himself all his life since 1788, when in his quality as prince of the blood-royal he declared in a presentation to Louis XVI. that a prince was before all things a nobleman,[1] that as such he nationally belonged to the corps de la noblesse, and must consequently defend its rights before all other interests. But in Louis Philippe the people saw a man whose father had recognised citizenly equality even in his name,[2] a man who had himself fought for freedom at Valmy and Jemappes, who from his earliest youth had ever had the words liberté, égalité, freedom and equality, in his mouth, and who, in opposition to his own kin, had put himself forward as a representative of democracy.


  1. "Dass ein Fürst vor Allem Edelmann sei." In the French version "Qu'un prince était gentilhomme avant tout." The latter is correct and gives the point to what follows.—Translator.
  2. Philippe d'Egalité.