Page:The Royal Family of France (Henry).djvu/82

 VIII.

ORLEANISTS.

The Duke d'Aumale one day said: "If a great crime (the vote of King Louis XVI.'s death by the infamous Philippe é galité, the Duke d'Orléans) has been committed, it has been atoned for." The nobleness of this avowal needs no praise of ours. We speak of the present Orleans Family with all sincerity and affectionate reverence. When the lacqueys and the hirelings of King Louis Philippe's household renounced the service and the livery of their master for another's pay, when they raised their voices to decree the perpetual banishment of Louis Philippe and his family from France, they simultaneously opened the gates of the kingdom full wide before the man who, studying himself alone, capitulated before Sedan on terms so shameful and degrading that Prince von Bismarck could not help remarking: "Cet homme-là a enterré jusqu'à son oncle!" But we promised to abstain from all rancour and recrimination, the most worthless of arguments.

The mistaken idea conceived by the Orleans Family was, to think that the destinies of a great country like France could start afresh under new conditions, and that without risking utter and irretrievable ruin. The history of the whole world does not offer a single instance of the social re-establishment of a State which by its own fault has lost its name and forsaken its traditions. Greece, Assyria, Rome, Venice, Florence, Genoa, Poland, prove this. The Revolution of 1688 in England misled King Louis Philippe and later on Louis Bonaparte. Nevertheless there is not the slightest analogy between the Constitutions of the two countries, and still less between the temper of the two people. Would to God that the Political Economy of England was that of France! For no one wishes more than we do, to see in France that fusion of Princes and principle; to see the two