Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/562

 the Orleans branch deeply affects all French politics; and the untimely death of the Prince Imperial is a still more important factor in them.

Mr. Huxley, criticising these speculations of Hume in his recent volume, expresses the opinion that monarchies in our day are less likely to fall into discredit through inherent drawbacks or through the competition of republics than through their "tendency to become slightly absurd." The maintenance of kingship is undoubtedly dependent in great part on the majesty of kings; but this majesty is preserved with increasing difficulty. The purple robe has not only become frayed, but the wearer is sometimes under a strong temptation to exchange it for a dressing-gown. It is hard to say what is the safest general behavior for a royal personage. If monarchy retires into seclusion, people nowadays ask what is the good of it, and grumble at its costliness. If it associates itself with the tastes which are conventionally regarded as most respectable, by cultivating art, science, or letters, it incurs the repugnance of the multitude to whom these tastes are a symbol of pedantry or effeminacy. If, on the other hand, it simply enjoys itself, it becomes the prey of that overdone morality which is always affected by the dealers in malignant gossip. No doubt the Prince who died the other day in Paris was a good example of the class of idiosyncrasy which endangers monarchy. There was nothing remarkable about him save his exceptional rank and the historical dignity of his name. The type is perfectly well known—that of the foreign prodigal who wastes his substance in the city in which pleasure has become a business; and not simply a business, but a business conducted on the strictest commercial principles. But, if the heirs-apparent of thrones were often seen in the circles frequented by the last Prince of Orange, there would be a rapid decline of that kingly majesty which when it wholly disappears leaves (as Mr. Huxley justly says) little but absurdity behind it. The question between monarchies and republics would then be reduced to a simple question of their respective convenience; and, in countries governed as ours is, the question of convenience is very likely to end in turning on a mere calculation of cheapness or cost.

It is plain from Hume's language that the commonplaces of his day were all in favor of republics. There is in fact hardly a single writer of the time who does not praise them, though they all assume that a superhuman amount of diffused public virtue is necessary for their conduct. As we before said, the only known republics were petty or anomalous oligarchies; and the eulogies in fashion were in reality taken from classical panegyrics on Greek and Roman republics, profoundly misunderstood. There are countries which have severely suffered from this enthusiasm founded on ignorance. France owes to it the most fearful as well as the most absurd of her experiences during the first Revolution, and she is hardly free even now from some of