Page:The Royal Family of France (Henry).djvu/67

 a thousand perils in recreating for the benefit of the future that which can be preserved and adapted to the present.

Firmly convinced that the legitimacy of Thrones is an excellent institution, and that to be an institution such legitimacy must be of ancient date—otherwise it is not one—I ask myself: " What disastrous blindness can lead the Revolution to ignore or refuse such a benefit?"

Pasquier said: "Liberty has no surer, no holier, no more inviolable guarantee in France than the Royal Family. Legitimacy is the natural order of things; it accepts no other forms than such as are true; once accepted, it respects them." "There is something more worthy of respect than crowd, genius, glory of war; and this is Right" (Thiers).

Yes. Legitimacy is undying, and this is the reason why the Royal Family of France has reigned for centuries; that it has been restored six times; that it has survived terrific crises; and that the friends of France together with Europe are convinced that a fusion between the two branches of the Royal Family would assure the political and social future of that country and give more rest to other nations.

In a certain section of the political world—and more so than anywhere else among the new nobility created by Napoleon—it is usual to speak of a Monarchical Restoration as a chimerical idea, and to proclaim that the best chances have long been shipwrecked on the rocks of Frohsdorf; in fact, the younger generation of Englishmen, whether in their Public Schools or without, only hear of Imperial and Republican families in France, and are told that no French Royal Family exists. Men hope by this to widen the breach between parties, to deepen the trench that divides them. Such an event, they also say, as a Monarchical Restoration never happens twice. It has already happened six times! Revolutions are not novelties in the world, still less are family discords. Let us look at home and turn over the pages of our own History of England! As early as the time of Saint Louis, the powerful subjects of his kingdom, in open rebellion, wished to overthrow the government of Blanche de Castille and hand over the French Crown to the Sire de Coucy. A nobility whose duty it was to defend the Throne, now turned