the station and this time announced the grand news that Nature had accomplished one of her mysteries. By some unaccountable freak the child had turned the critical point, and there was nothing now to do but to feed her up and keep her amused.

Imagine how she was fed, and how remorselessly amused! She might have emptied the single confectioner's shop daily, and daily have consumed the entire contents of the glass jars at Mrs. Reilly's gratis. Toys poured in upon her in the oddest confusion, and the town throve and sparkled and glowed upon the news that the "drawingest" child on earth was getting well.

As for the Marquis of Grandby, he was regarded in the light of a public benefactor. Had he not been the means of restoring their sovereign to them, and was he not one of her devoted servants? Who could dare challenge his perfections now? Bother the rents! He might raise them any day if he liked, and be sure he wouldn't be shot. Bless you, there he goes along the street, the best-hearted gentleman in Ireland. Three cheers, boys, for the Marquis of Grandby!

From The Contemporary Review. THE ORLEANS PRETENDERS.

Half a century, all but a few months, ago, Louis Philippe fled from Paris, never to enter it again (February 24, 1848). A little less than a decade before that, a grandson had been born to him (August 24, 1838), whose father was the most popular prince that ever saw the light in France since the founder of the Bourbon dynasty lay in his cradle at Pau. Four years after the birth of this son, the father broke his spine in a carriage accident at Neuilly (July 13, 1842), "shattered a diadem on a curb-stone, because the postilion had not his cattle well in hand," as Alfred de Musset put it. From that moment, the future of constitutional monarchy and the hopes of the constitutional monarchists in France became practically centred in this orphan boy, for his

grandsire was close upon seventy, and, though hale and hearty, could not be expected to live much longer. He lived, however, long enough to see his throne overthrown, to taste the bitterness of exile as an epilogue to his reign, just as he had tasted it as a prologue to it. He lived long enough to witness from afar the first act of a drama of usurpation— a drama which was to differ from his own by a greater degree of lawlessness, daring, and also grandeur.

"Shattered a diadem on a curb-stone." There is no reason to suppose that Musset intended to be prophetic. Truly, he must have felt that the Crown of France would have rested more-securely on the head of the son than ou that of the father, who had now and again remarked that it was not so comfortable for utilitarian purposes as a nice beaver hat; but the poet could not foresee that the shattered diadem would not be picked up and pieced together by the uncles of the orphan lad, of whom there were four, on the day Louis Philippe converted what might have been a dignified fall into a flight

not to use the word "flitting"-which, to say the least, was not consistent with the dignity of a king. I have no fear of being contradicted on this point; but, in order to show that I am not judging harshly, I may be permitted to give one incident connected with this "too hurried departure." When, on September 4, 1870, Empress Eugènie made her way surreptitiously out of the Tuileries, she, at any rate, took the precaution to provide herself with some money; she sent for change for a 100-franc note. Louis Philippe was so anxious to go, that he left without a penny upon him, he who knew the value of money so well. His wife was equally unprovided, and it was only when they were on their road that the awkward position was discovered by Madame de Dolomieu, one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting. She herself was in the same predicament; she subsequently confided to a friend that the "hurry-scurry" was so great as to prevent her thinking about anything. She managed, however, to borrow sixty francs from M. Savalette, an erstwhile mud and dust contractor, one of the mounted troopers of the National

Guard, a detachment of which was escorting the royal carriages.

Was it physical fear that caused the stampede of the aged sovereign and his consort? We doubt it. A man who begins his life by performing deeds of valor such as Louis Philippe performed at Valmy and Jemappes is not likely to turn coward in his latter days. Was it want of courage which prevented all but one of Louis Philippe's sons from attempting to strike a blow for the preservation of their father's and their nephew's throne? Doubt, which would be a gratuitous insult to the memory of the dead in the one case, would be a contemptible blunder in the other, for history, whether ancient or modern, has recorded no more conspicuous instances of bravery than those that stand to the credit respectively of the Ducs de Nemours and d'Aumale and the Prince de Joinville. If their youngest brother, the Duc de Montpensier, shone less brilliantly in that respect, it was simply because fewer chances of distinguishing himself fell to his lot. It will not do to attach too much importance to compliments conveyed in after-dinner speeches, but it may safely be asserted that no truer sentence ever fell from an after-dinner speaker's lips than that of Sir Robert Peel when he toasted Louis Philippe as "that privileged Frenchman, all whose sons are brave, and all whose daughters chaste."

Yet this bravery accomplished nothing, and what, from our point of view, is more curious, did not attempt. except in the case of the Duc de Nemours, to accomplish anything. He was the only one of Louis Philippe's sons to counsel resistance to the last. When the Duchesse d'Orléans, accompanied by her two children. the late Comte de Paris and the present Duc de Chartres, appeared in the courtyard of the Tuileries. after the king. at the instance of Emile de Girardin, had written, not merely signed, his abdication, she found her eldest brother-in-law surrounded by a numerous group of officers. She asked him to accompany her to the Chamber of Deputies, where she intended to make a personal appeal in favor of her son, whom the king in the document just penned by him had designated as

his successor. The duc, who was the least popular of Louis Philippe's children with the Parisians, although in reality, or because, he understood their temper better than any of his brothers or his surviving sisters, foresaw the futility of such a step. He suggested that she and the lad should get on a gun-carriage, pledging himself to drive them to St. Cloud in that way, escorted by a regiment, which would constitute the nucleus of an army of resistance. This was a means which would unquestionably have commended itself to the Duchesse de Berri, the mother of the late Comte de Chambord. Tae Duchesse d'Orléans, though not less courageous than the Legitimist princess, was of a different temperament; she did not think fit to adopt the plan, but proceeded to the Palais Bourbon, whither the Duc de Nemours, considering that, under all circumstances, his right place was by her side, followed her in a few minutes on what proved to be a fruitless journey. No further proposal was made by him either to stem the tide of the revolution or to ride back upon its crest to the tottering throne which in less than an hour afterwards was both figuratively and literally overthrown and carried off to the Place de la Bastille to be burned there. The Duc de Nemours simply confined himself to protecting his sister-in-law and his nephew from the violence of the mob, in which task he barely succeeded. In less than twenty-four hours he was on his way to England; and, odd to relate, the same train that conveyed him to the French coast took back the future Napoléon III. to within a certain distance of Paris, where Prince Louis had his first and unsuccessful interview with Lamartine.

This was absolutely the whole of the resistance offered by Louis Phillippe's eldest living son to a revolution, the origin of which, if carefully analyzed, would be found to belong to the domain of burlesque, rather than to that of history proper, seeing that neither the leaders nor the rabble that really led them, knew what they were fighting for, or displayed a single act of ordinary, let alone of extraordinary, daring.

When we come to the Duc de Mont

pensier's share in the proceedings of the day, the whole affair grows more inexplicable. The filial love which caused Æneas to carry Anchises away on his shoulders from burning Troy is, no doubt, worthy of praise; but the Tuileries was not in flames; there is, moreover, not the faintest proof that Louis Philippe ran the slightest risk of personal danger. Half an hour before he signed his abdication, not contemplated at that moment, he had shown himself amid the four thousand troops -infantry, cavalry, and the National Guard-with which the Place du Carrousel was lined. There had not been a single directly hostile cry, only a few isolated ones of "Vive la Réforme," from the National Guard; the regulars, on the contrary, shouted "Vive le Roi." Had there been the least apprehension of risk, the Duc de Nemours, who, we cannot insist on it too much, was common sense and courage personified, would not have allowed his father to expose himself to it; to say nothing of the objections that would have been raised by the queen, Louis Philippe's sons-in-law, two of whom were at the Tuileries, his daughter, and his three daughters-in-law, and by the Duc de Montpensier himself. They all concurred in advising the step, and appeared on the balcony to encourage the septuagenarian monarch by their presence. These four thousand troops never budged until a considerable time after the king had left the Tuileries, and although, according to one of their captains, they were more or less demoralized, we may take it that they would not have allowed the mob to invade the Tuileries, even if the latter had been sufficiently numerous to make the attempt, which was not the case; for we must bear in mind that in all such street encounters the populace, unless they are at least four times as many as the soldiery, do not stand much chance, especially if they are unarmed, and consequently unable to check from a distance the wheeling of serried cavalry.

Why, then, did the Duc de Montpensier allow his father to abdicate at the bidding of virtually one man-an honorable and honest man, it is true, for I am not alluding to Thiers, who was in the

room at the same time, but to Emile de Girardin? Why did he not give his father a few moments for reflection, instead of telling him, as he did, to write quickly, which recommendation drew from Louis Philippe the reply, “I never wrote more quickly in my life"? Did he feel that the shortest delay would not only ruin the monarch, but also the prospects of the monarchy in France? Was his faith in Girardin's words, which are embodied in the previous sentence, so absolute as all that?

It is difficult to say; but if the hope to save the dynasty for his nephew at the expense of his father weighed with the Duc de Montpensier at that juncture, how, then, shall we explain the conduct of his two elder brothers, the Duc d'Aumale and the Prince de Joinville? They, though not on the spot, were practically more powerful than those who were, for they had a whole army to do their bidding, and the week or ten days that would have elapsed before they could have reached Paris with it would have made little or no difference in the situation. At any rate, the experiment was worth trying.

The reader need not take my word for it. My principal, but by no means sole authority for what I state is the late General Fleury, whose "Memoirs" have recently appeared. I have not yet read them; I quote from a different source, equally unimpeachable. The conversation from which I extract this note took place between the Comte Henri d'Ideville and the former Master of the Horse of Napoléon III. about the middle of 1881. I can give the exact date if necessary. There is no occasion for me to insist upon the devotion of the late General Fleury to the Second Empire and to the memory of the emperor. This devotion, however, did not prevent him from sincerely admiring the great military capacities of the Duc d'Aumale, who is also gone to his last account, and but for whose death, as I shall endeavor to show directly, these pages would not have been written. Fleury also failed to understand the want of action of the Duc d'Aumale and his brother Joinville in this crisis. "I cannot help remembering," he said, "that in 1847 I was within an ace of

being appointed aide-de-camp to Mgr. le Duc d'Aumale when he became governor-general of Algeria. I repeat, the appointment was as good as settled. What a tangled skein is fate! I may be mistaken and too self-confident; nevertheless, I fancy that had I been by the side of the Duc d'Aumale in February, 1848, the prince would not have relinquished his command. In 1act, up to this day I fail to explain to myself his departure. Just try to grasp the situation. An army, which was enthusiastically devoted to him body and soul, and only too eager to obey and to follow him, implored him to act. The fleet of his brother, the Prince de Joinville, fully as enthusiastic as the land forces, was there.

The only thing these two princes had to do was to ship ten thousand men (the army numbered eighty thousand), and to set sail with them for Marseilles. In three days they would have brought back their father to the Tuileries in triumph. That attitude of the Duc d'Aumale, that untimely resignation, has always remained an unfathomable mystery to me. That man is indeed an enigma, for to one who has seen him, as I have at La Smalah, where I was close to him, and where he displayed the most extraordinary qualities of daring, determination, and coolness of judgment face to face with danger and death, that flight from Algeria, so 'needlessly constitutional,' must ever appear a senseless and incomprehensible act."

Exactly a third of a century had passed between the event and General Fleury's comments upon it. We are not doing the staunchest and most disinterested friend of Napoléon III. an injustice in suspecting him to have been less moderate both in thought and in speech at the time of the occurrence. Thousands of officers and privates were simply disgusted with this tame submission of a soldier, and a valiant soldier to boot, to the will of the mob, and the civil element was scarcely less dissatisfied. Both the military and the bourgeoisie practically said to the Orléans princes collectively what Rivarol said to Louis XVI. individually, the former using the plural instead of the singular: "Vous n'avez pas voulu être nos rois.

nous ne voulons plus être vos sujets;" and the subsequent rallying of the army to Louis Napoléon's cause, as well as the instantaneous favor with which he was received by the nation which elected him ten months later as their president, needs no other explanatiou than this, though, of course, the magic influence of the name of Napoléon must not be overlooked. "Fleury," said General Tallandier, when alluding to Fleury's share in the coup d'état, "well, Fleury felt what most of us did, that it was no use fighting for those who would not fight for themselves. That most of us were of that opinion, I could prove to you by a dozen instances. One, however, will do. During the month of February, 1848, I commanded the 4th Brigade, which was quartered at the Ecole Militaire. When I learnt the news of Louis Philippe's departure, I sent for the seven colonels under my orders-for there were three regiments of the line. three of cavalry, and a battery of artillery-I proposed to gather up our little army, to take up our position at Passy, and to bring back the king if possible. All but one colonel refused."

One may, therefore, infer that the Duc de Nemours, in suggesting to his sister-in-law that she should place herself on a gun-carriage, had a clearer perception of the possibilities of the situation than his brothers; or, if not a clearer perception, was, at any rate, prepared to risk a throw for the recovery of his father's throne. Like his ancestor, Henri IV., whom he so curiously resembled in face and figure, he would not have hesitated to lay siege to Paris, and, if necessary, to plunge France into civil war.

The latter part of this sentence sounds very ominous to the majority of Englishmen, and most ominous to those whose worship of Cromwell amounts to idolatry, and whose toleration for the memory of Charles I. is only kept alive by the fact of his not having allowed Cromwell to have it "all his own way" without a struggle. It is no exaggeration to say that the good-will and respect shown to Louis Philippe and his family during their subsequent stay in England was largely due to our identity of views with theirs as to the heinous

ness of shedding the blood of one's own countrymen in civil war. Frenchmen, whether educated or not, do not understand these views, and whenever and wherever they advocate them toere is a mental reservation in favor of some exceptional cause, said cause being the one to which they happen to adhere.

The instances are numerous; I need only quote one or two. At the sitting of the Chamber of Deputies on July 3, 1870, M. Estancelin exclaimed, "Yes, I grant you that the Duc d'Aumale commanded an army of eighty thousand troops; that he was young, brave, and beloved by his army; that he could have appealed to it and have made the attempt to raise his father's throne"- (de relever le trône de son père), M. Estancelin spoke metaphorically, for he knew that the throne had been carried off to the Place de la Bastille "but all of a sudden there uprose a figure before him, it was that of France, his country, his mother. It was perhaps a mistake; but I dare not blame him because of it, for it sprang from a lofty heart, and was inspired by the love of country."

Yet, two months and four days later that is, September 4, 1870, this same M. Estancelin, than whom there is no more charming, upright, and honorable man throughout the length and breadth of France this same M. Estancelin appeals to General Trochu to quell the revolution, and on General Trochu's dec..ning to do so, takes the matter in hand himself-alas, too late. This same M. Estancelin subsequently, during the Republic, suggests to the Duc d'Aumale to draw the sword on benalf of his, the duc's, nephew; and consequently incurs a rebuke, the particulars of which he himself related during the week following the duc's recent ueath.

I am practically certain that long before the episodes just narrated M. Estancelin had become convinced that force, and only armed force, avails in the case of a pretender to the French throne, no matter whether his pretensions are based upon the so-called divine, constitutional, or alleged popular right. He was, however, also aware that during the twenty-two years that had gone by since the Orléans princes had failed to seize their opportunity.

there had not been a single chance of retrieving their error. Louis Napoléon himself was too great an adept in the art of conspiracy to leave his own tools lying about unprotected. On that July 30, however, M. Estancelin began to have vague forebodings that this opportunity might present itself again shortly, and, while ostensibly taking the Duc d'Aumale's defence for not having plunged France into civil war, he made it pretty plain that he would not counsel similar abstention a second time. He took care, though, not to assign the date of his conversion, and so, in spite of our opinions on the subject, we are constrained to imitate his discretion.

There is no need for such reserve in the case of the Duchesse d'Orléans. she, within a hundred hours of her refusal to adopt the plan of the Duc de Nemours, felt the error of her decision. She would have attempted to retrieve that error there and then but for the vacillation of her followers, the majority of whom seemed to have secured the reversion of Macbeth's "letting "I dare not' wait upon ‘I would,' '" and even up to the present day appear to cling with all their might to the inheritance. The story is scarcely known in France, outside France it is virtually unknown. Owing to the rain which fell outside Paris, the duchesse had managed to elude the notice of the inhabitants of Versailles, and on the evening of February 27 she reached Amiens unmolested, whence, on the following morning, she took train for Lille, en route to Belgium. She did not travel in an ordinary railway carriage, but in her own, which was fixed on to a truck. At Lille she had to wait four hours; as a matter of course, she did not think it advisable to show herself, so they brought her the papers to beguile the time. From these she gathered at a glance the real situation in Paris. The National Guard was stupefied at what they had done, and dissatisfied with the proclaiming of the Republic; the bourgeoisie, as well as the genuine working classes, were astounded at the ridiculous spectacle already there presented by a Republican government, which was to be so soon blown down by the mere sound of a name, the history of whose rise em