Page:The Royal Family of France (Henry).djvu/97

 Many Legitimists and Orleanists distrusted Thiers because their foresight is short and their intellect narrow. Perhaps they felt reluctant in forgiving his allowing £20,000 to the Jew Deutz who discovered to M. Thiers the place of refuge of the Duchess de Berry, when this noble-hearted Royal Princess attempted, in 1832, a popular rising for the restoration of Henry V., her son, failed, and was imprisoned in the citadel of Blaye. They would not understand that the declaration of the Head of the Executive power meant: —

That to prepare the path of Royalty it is necessary to clear away some at least of the rubbish that blocks up the way, and cart away to Charenton half the maniacs masquerading as Politicians;

That any dynasty mounting the Throne before France has been reconstituted both in administration and in military matters, will not keep it for twelve months;

That Royalty ought not to be burdened with an overwhelming responsibility not belonging to it; that the calumnies and slanders of the Revolution must be silenced, and Europe and History made to witness that the Royalty unanimously welcomed back by France is a stranger to Frenchmen's defeats and to Frenchmen's humiliations.

This masterly policy of M. Thiers could have been realized to the letter if French Monarchists and Conservative Republicans like MM. Jules Simon, Waddington, with hundreds of others, one and all, had given their support to this illustrious Statesman; if they had provoked no reaction, no act of revenge; if France had had on her side those two powerful allies, God and Time; it Frenchmen had not been precipitate; if, above all, they had been thoroughly convinced that an immediate restoration was an impossibility. To this end M. Thiers would have brought about a public reconciliation of all the Princes of the Royal Family of France; if necessary, he would have exacted it in the name of the country; and the union of Legitimists and Orleanists thus accomplished, he would have sent the people to the ballot to elect a Constituent Assembly. Most Frenchmen were at that moment aware of the obligation they would lay on their Parliamentary Representatives. Meanwhile, Frenchmen should have