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96 the Bernadottes and Obrenoviches, but as it applies to the Belgian Saxe-Coburg, the Grecian Glücksburg, the Roumanian Hohenzollern, and the Bulgarian Hesse, I will accept it and let it pass. Consequently, it is understood and admitted that a legitimate sovereignty is a natural, hereditary quality in certain families; when f royal prince is born he has an innate authority to rule not over any special people, but to rule in general, t vague right to govern, which awaits patiently the appearance of the object, the people or peoples to be governed. A Coburg, a Hohenzollern brings his authority to reign by the grace of God, into the world with him; if the Belgians or Roumanians choose him for their king, they are merely affording him an opportunity to exercise his pre-existing legitimate sovereignty. He is given the grace of God as a medical graduate gets his diploma. With his diploma in his pocket the newly-fledged doctor has the legal right to carry on a practice, but the faculty do not undertake the task of supplying him with patients. And so when a prince is born to some legitimate reigning family, his grace-of-Godness gives him the theoretical authority to govern, but does not supply him necessarily with the country upon which he can exorcise this right.

This idea is imposing and satisfactory. It explains many things that might otherwise have perplexed us. We can understand now how a legitimate king "by the grace of God," can deprive another legitimate king "by the grace of God," of throne and country. Enlightened by this idea we see that the annexation of Hanover, Hesse and Nassau by Prussia, and of Naples, Tuscany, Modena and Parma by Sardinia, are no denials of the principles upon which the monarchies of the Hohenzollern and Savoy families are based. The conqueror does not deprive the conquered monarch of his right to govern, his