On May 21, 1848, the Assembly attended a Feast of Concord.
There were carts filled with allegorical figures, there were processions, there were embraces; the whole town, soldiers, national guards, gardes mobiles, armed workmen, a million of men or more, passed in array before the deputies.

The feast was a feast of concord, but every deputy had provided himself with pistols or some weapon of defence.

This was the occasion when we are told by the reporter of the scene, 'Carnot said to me with a touch of that silliness (_niaiserie_) which is always to be found mixed up with the virtues of honest democrats, "Believe me, my dear colleague, you must always trust the people." I remember I answered him rather rudely, "Ah! why didn't you remind me of that on the day before May 15 ?"' The anecdote is told by the greatest political thinker whom France has produced since the days of Montesquieu.

'Trust in the people' did not appear the last word of political wisdom to Alexis de Tocqueville.[133] The Gladstonian pleas to which answer has been made are, it will be said, arguments not in favour of our new constitution, but in support of Home Rule.

The remark is just; it points to a curious weakness in the reasoning of Gladstonians.