Ary Scheffer, Louis Philippe, koning der Fransen (1835)
“Thiers [editor of “Le National”] was never the bravest of men during a Revolution. When the July [1830] Revolution broke out … he took refuge at Bessancourt, only returning to Paris on the 29th [of July]. In the early morning of the 30th he succeeded in persuading the Liberal deputies at Lafitte’s house … that he was the ideal man to send to Neuilly to exercise the necessary powers of persuasion on Louis Philippe [de Bourbon, duke of Orléans]. He chose as his companion Ary Scheffer [the painter and as his steed a pony called Cob. … Scheffer found no difficulty in jumping the barricades, but Thiers frequently had to be lifted over them, pony and all. … By one o’clock in the afternoon Thiers was back in Paris to learn that his colleagues had been persuaded by the cautious Liberal grandee, the Duc de Broglie and by Talleyrand to offer Louis-Philippe for the moment not the crown but the Lieutenant-Generalcy of France. … The hour of decision had struck for Louis-Philippe. At fifty-six it was not an easy decision. On the one hand, here was the apparent culmination of the ancient ambitions of his family; and to refuse would in all probability mean exile, of which he had already experienced close on a quarter of a century [1793-1814/1815], as well as disinheritance, not only for himself but for his heir …; and, perhaps the strongest consideration of all, how could he resist the messages pouring in from Paris, including one from Talleyrand, all of which indicated that he alone stood between France and a renewal of the horrors of ’93, which had left such an indelible mark on him during those miserable months at Reichenau? On the other hand, he had sworn oaths of allegiance to Charles X, who always treated him well according to his lights. And in any case would a crown of this sort, picked up in the gutter, be worth wearing … ? In the end he made up his mind that he would have to go … On August 9th the curtain was rung down ont he Revolution of 1830 when the Duc d’Orléans appeared before the chambers and accepted the crown as Louis-Philippe I, King of the French.” (T.E.B. Howarth,Citizen-King. The life of Louis-Philippe, King of the French [London 1961], p. 147 et seq. and p. 155)