Page:The Royal Family of France (Henry).djvu/81

 Wretched Governments! What have they done with the splendour of the Monarchical inheritance of their country? In any case History has the right of questioning the conspirators of 1793 and of 1812, the rebels famed for their barricades of February, 1848, and the bandits of December, 1851, the demagogues of September, 1870, and March, 1871, dictators who decreed victory and immortality to anarchy. Have not their administrations ever been, and are they not at this hour, a source of danger to all Europe? Have they been and are they the government that Europe likes? All of them put together, let them throw their claims into the scales and let truth and justice weigh them!

The diseases of the human mind are sometimes so intense that the most skilful physician has to compound with them; and when it is clearly evident that the impulse is irresistible, the only thing that can be done is to become its leader; because it has been truly said that nations do not reason, but they feel. The French more than any other nation is governed by a spirit of contradiction; and no other nation could in truth outlive so contradictory notions as those advocated in contemporary France about national patriotism, law, conscience and international decorum. To a stranger they look comical; to Frenchmen they incite them to nought but madness and spite against each other to gratify their native vanity. The yoke of the French must be bitter yet brilliant, it must be oppressive yet dazzling; else will they despise their rulers and thwart and resist every impetus lent it. We have declared that the task of governing them has become difficult and next to impossible; and all loyal attempts to benefit contemporary Frenchmen will meet with only saddening causes of irritation and despondency, as long as anti-Christian with Republican policies are not abandoned and new socialist and revolutionary ideas mercilessly nipped in the bud. France must give herself the government that Europe likes—a government like that of all the European States—and Frenchmen must bear that in mind for the third time.