surprising. It implies a total inability to comprehend and
foresee created by a blind confidence in their own strength.

The facility with which governments fall is not however a new
phenomenon. It has been proved more than once, not only in
autocratic systems, which are always overturned by palace
conspiracies, but also in governments perfectly instructed in the
state of public opinion by the press and their own agents.

Among these instantaneous downfalls one of the most striking was
that which followed the Ordinances of Charles X. This monarch
was, as we know, overthrown in four days. His minister
Polignac had taken no measures of defence, and the king was so
confident of the tranquillity of Paris that he had gone hunting.
The army was not in the least hostile, as in the reign of Louis
XVI., but the troops, badly officered, disbanded before the
attacks of a few insurgents.

The overthrow of Louis-Philippe was still more typical, since it
did not result from any arbitrary action on the part of the
sovereign. This monarch was not surrounded by the hatred which
finally surrounded Charles X., and his fall was the result of an
insignificant riot which could easily have been repressed.

Historians, who can hardly comprehend how a solidly constituted
government, supported by an imposing army, can be overthrown by a
few rioters, naturally attributed the fall of Louis-Philippe to
deep-seated causes. In reality the incapacity of the generals
entrusted with his defence was the real cause of his fall.