Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 07.djvu/66

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46
FRENCH AFFAIRS.

owed his throne to the people and to the paving-stones of July, is an ungrateful man, whose apostasy is the more distressing as we perceive day by day that we are grossly deceived.[1] Yes, there are certainly every day most evident retrogressions; and just as they are now quietly replacing the paving-stones which were used in the days of July for warfare (and which in some places are still to be seen heaped up), so that no external trace of the Revolution may be visible, so the people are again being stamped into their previous place like paving-stones, and trodden as before under foot.

I forgot to mention that among the motives which are said to have induced the King to leave the Palais Royal for the Tuileries is attributed the rumour that he had only accepted the crown for appearance' sake, that he remained at heart devoted to his legitimate lord, Charles X., for whose return he was preparing, and that for this reason he would not return to the Tuileries. The Carlists had manufactured this report, and it was absurd enough to obtain credence among the people. Now it is contra-


  1. In the French version this is very ingeniously modified and mollified by the change of a single word as follows: "Louis Philippe serait un ingrat dont la défection serait d'autant plus deplorable," &c.—Translator.