Page:The Royal Family of France (Henry).djvu/78

 "The King is dead!" and this King was the King of France. Chateaubriand wrote: "If France possessed nothing but her Royal Family, whose dignity surprises us, yet might we excel in fame."

There is a Royal Family of France, reader, a Royal Family as old as the Gaelic soil, as ancient as the forests of Germany, as truly of the Royal Blood of France as Her Majesty Queen Victoria I. descends from Egbert. It took root in France, and France, to repay her debt, embodied herself in her Royal Family. The sword of Caesar had become the battle-axe of Tolbiac, and the labarum of Constantine the oriflamme of St. Denys. France not in a small degree forwarded during fourteen centuries the development of intellectual, political, social, and Christian excellences. She contributed her large, nay—we said so before—mighty, share in the impetus given to civilization, liberty and franchise; loyalty has borrowed her name. As "the Christian nation" in Europe, France was styled the "Eldest Daughter of the Church," because she created the Temporal Power of the Holy See as she created the Domain of the Franks. She drove the Saracens out of the West of Europe and evangelized Germany. Have not Princes of the Royal House of France fought with the Cross on their arm at Ptolemais and at Mansourah? Have they not decreed justice beneath an oak, and have they not died at the stake? They fought at Bouvines and at Marignan, at Crecy and at Poictiers. History knows not whether to extol their signal victories or their triumphant defeats. Thirty-two Princes of the Royal Family have been killed on the battle-field since the time of St. Louis &hellip; six a century! They formed the religion, the laws, the customs, the arts of their country, to-day carefully rejected (nor is the reason far to seek), as antiquated absurdities by political farceurs. From the Atlas to the Scheldt, from the banks of the Jordan to the shores of the St. Lawrence, from Pondicherry to Constantinople, the very frontiers of France, her colonies and missions recall the names of the Royal Princes, who ever appeared on the field from the day of the battle of Tolbiac to that of the 22nd of December, 1847, and in more recent days to that of 1870-71. History tells us of the glorious days of that country under Charlemagne, under Philip Augustus,