bodied in itself everything that was anti-republican. The duchesse made up her mind at once. "It is evident to me," she said, "that France will have nothing to do with a Republic; that, in fact, she does not want it, and that the events of four days ago were nothing less than a surprise to all parties concerned. It is my duty, as the prince royal's mother, to save the country from a handful of agitators, and at the same time to preserve the crown to my son. General Négrier is in command of the troops quartered here. I will trust to his honor as a soldier, and proceed to the citadel at once with my two sons. From there I will appeal to the country, which I feel absolutely certain will listen to the widow of the Duc d'Orléans."

Thereupon her followers flung themselves at her feet, imploring her to abandon her plan. They reminded her of Louis XVI.'s flight to Varennes; they conjured up pictures of the Reign of Terror; they pointed to her son, whose life had to be safeguarded at all costs, and not exposed to the risk of imprisonment and torture by a Simon, like that of the ill-fated son of Marie-Antoinette, and when, in spite of all this, the Duchesse d'Orléans persisted in her design, they point-blank refused to follow her. Two hours later, the duchesse with her two children was on her way to Belgium without having seen General Négrier.

Here virtually ends the prologue to the Comte de Paris's pretendership, for the Prince de Joinville's subsequent pseudo-candidateship for the presidency of the Second Republic was in reality the opening scene of the play itself, and that opening scene pretty plainly foreshadowed the nature of the whole of the farce. No, it was not a farce; at any rate, not in intent; it was more like one of those pre-Scribean comedies which are all talk and no action. The prince was literally dragged into it against his will by the Orleanist party, which knew very well. though, that however successful the election might prove from a numerical point of view, it would not be ratified by the Chamber, which could not stultify the "laws of exile" voted by the Constituent

Assembly. Louis Philippe and his sons had two courses open to them. They could have repudiated all participation in the manœuvre of the Orleanist party, or supported it energetically by means of a costly propaganda which, if it had accomplished nothing else, would have freed them to a certain extent from the charge of "meanness" preferred throughout the duration of the "July Monarchy." and even afterwards against all the members but one of the Orléans family, of which charge no one was more cognizant than the old king himself. The Orléans, however, would neither wade through a river of blood of their own countrymen to the overtoppled throne, nor build a bridge of gold to it. The weight of their money bags chained them to the shore in sight of it. They issued manifestoes; for their stay in England, although it had taught them many things, had not taught them the wisdom of the homely proverb to the effect that "fair words butter no parsnips."

Under the circumstances,

As a consequence, the history of the late Comte de Paris presents that strange anomaly of a pretender who at several moments of his life seemed positively reluctant to be taken at his word, and who at one period deliberately neglecteu to use the means apparently within his grasp to enforce his claim in the only way a pretender can hope to succeed. I am alluding to the period when the Duc de Chartres commanded a cavalry regiment at Rouen and the Duc d'Aumale was at the head of the 7th Army Corps. I repeat, it is a strange anomaly; not SO strange, though, as to defy explanation altogether, provided one applies to it the common sense one would apply to ordinary affairs which only influence a small section of humanity and are therefore not recorded in so-called books of history.

In the ordinary affairs of mankind poverty is accounted as nothing less than a curse, especially by men who have seen better days; in the extraordinary affairs of mankind, termed "history," it is rarely brought forward as a factor by the historians, although they ought to be the last to forget Victor Hugo's epi

gram, which almost seems to have been coined for their special guidance; "Poverty is a crucible into which fate flings a man whenever society needs a terrible scoundrel or a sublime hero." Louis Philippe had known grinding poverty in his early manhood, it had neither converted him into a magnificent hero nor into anything like a terrible scoundrel, but the dread of its recurrence had crushed out of him all craving for magnificent scoundrelism, which is perhaps heroism gone wrong, as well as for magnificent heroism. A workman who drops sixpence and does not stoop to pick it up is a spendthrift; a prince who stoops to pick up a sovereign incurs the suspicion of being a curmudgeon, and Louis Philippe spent a good deal of his time in picking up, not sovereigns, but sixpences. I have a collection of notes bearing on the subject, absolutely unique in the case of a monarch; and, what was worse for the monarch's reputation, every instance of "tightfistedness" there recorded was known to the French nation at large. "The French only see a skinflint king in me, and nothing else," he said to Halévy, the composer, a few months before his death; and his estimate of French opinion concerning himself was mainly correct. All but one of Louis Philippe's sons suffered from the same defect, not perhaps to as great a degree as their father, but they suffered from it. The exception shall be dealt with directly. The others could be generous at times and when it suited them; but they were determined that the means of being generous should not be taken from them if they could help it; in one word, they worshipped money. So intense was this worship that it beguiled them into the grave error of tacitly entrusting the guidance of their nephew's dynastic chances to the brother who possessed by far the largest fortune of all, and who therefore, it is no libel to say, had most to lose by an unsuccessful attempt to recover the throne and very little to gain by a successful one. On no other theory can the preponderant position of the late Duc d'Aumale in the Orléans family councils be accounted for; and there is not the least doubt that he occupied this position, both with regard to

the members of it, the leaders of the Orleanist party in France, and the outside world in general. The death of the Duc de Montpensier left the journalists outside Spain practically indifferent; the demise of the Duc de Nemours was, except in one or two instances, commented upon in longer or shorter paragraphs; the passing away of the Duc d'Aumale was marked by extensive biographical notices. I, myself, wrote two of a column each in one night for two London dailies. Yet, in reality, the fourth son of Louis Philippe was in no way distinguished from his two brothers who had recently preceded him to the grave, or from the one who survives. Nemours was as brilliant, though perhaps not as lucky, a soldier as he, and probably a better strategist. Joinville was as brilliant a sailor as the others were soldiers, and Montpensier was a better statesman than either. Had his part been cast on a larger political scene than that of Spain, his capacities would have commanded more general recognition. The Duc d'Aumale's vast wealth enabled him to become a munificent patron of art, and, it is but fair to say, a discerning one, too; he had unquestionably the artistic instinct, like all the children of Queen Marie-Amélie, who had been a conspicuously brilliant pupil of Angelica Kauffmann; but his was, after all, the passive love of art. Two of his brothers and one sister were superior to him in that respect; they produced works which have been pronounced by unbiased judges to be worthy of comparison with the achievements of professionals. The Duc d'Aumale's "Histoire des Princes de Condé" was a very respectable piece of literary workmanship; the Prince de Joinville's "Recollections" was more than that, and his "Four Months with the Army of the Potomac" might have been signed by Edmond About, or any of our very best war correspondents.

We again ask why the Duc d'Aumale was allowed-nay, probably invited— to assume the leadership of the family, to the exclusion of the Duc de Nemours, whom his elder brother, the deceased Duc d'Orléans, had unmistakably pointed out in his will as the “Councillor in time of need." What had occurred

between the making of the will and the time of need foreshadowed therein to cause the recommendation to be disregarded? On the face of it, nothing had occurred to justify this disregard; in fact, something had occurred to prove the soundness of the recommendationnamely, the readiness shown by the Duc de Nemours to strike a blow for the preservation of his nephew's throne, and the "unreadiness" of the Duc d'Aumale to do the same, which "unreadiness" entailed the inactivity of the Prince de Joinville.

Only on the face of it; in reality, the door that gave egress to the Duc d'Orléan's coffin let out at the same time the element of chivalry that, in the course of time, would have lifted the stigma from Louis Philippe's unheroic usurpation. It also readmitted the emissaries of Mammon, whom, during his position as heir to the crown, the duc had begun to expel, though not much farther than the outer courts. Had his life been spared he would have fought for his crown, undeterred by the dread that failure might involve the confiscation of the Orléans property, untouched by the thought that "submission to the will of the people" would avert confiscation. Had it been suggested to him that his brother's enormous estates would go at the same time, he would have bidden his brother and his estates "go hang," for money was the least of his concerns. We must not overlook the fact that he, and he only, would have had the right to speak like that, for he would have been fighting for his own; the others would have only fought for their nephew's succession. And the nephew's succession never seemed sufficiently precious to the uncles to risk their wealth in pursuit, especially after they had the greater part of it, confiscated as it had been by Napoléon III., restored at the latter's fall by the Third Republic. and at the instigation of Thiers. The joy produced by the restitution made them blind to the trap it concealed. The idea of this restitution would have never suggested itself to the Favres and the Gambettas; but Thiers, who was their master in statecraft, as he was in everything else, hit upon it almost as a matter of course. It was

Louis Philippe's boast that he knew Thiers thoroughly; but he never knew his minister so well as the minister knew the king's sons subsequently; and in this particular instance Thiers had not even to draw upon his imagination to foresee what would happen; he had only to consult his own sensations. Conspiring though he had been for years for the establishment of a Republic of which he should be the president, he, wealthy as he was, would have abandoned the prospect at the offer of a million and three-quarters sterling, and he was perfectly aware that as worshippers of money the Orléans princes had nothing to learn from him. Had there been the slightest doubt in his mind of their acceptance of the indemnity the offer would not have been made, but there was not, and so their hands became tied once more with golden bonds.

Did the late Comte de Paris ever try to fling off the shackles? Apparently not, at any rate not during the first eight years of the existence of the Third Republic. If he had made the faintest attempt in that direction, the Duc de Broglie would not have had the right to say what he did say when the news of the death of Napoléon III.'s son in Zululand reached Paris: "The Republic is lucky in every way; the prince imperial is dead, and the Comte de Paris lives." And let it be remembered that the Duc de Broglie is a staunch friend of the Orléans princes.

The Comte de Paris was not cast in the mould pretenders are cast in. Estimable, worthy, nay, praiseworthy, in every relation of private life, and cultured to a degree, his wooing of France reminded one of a bit of would-be courtship in that admirable story of Vicomte Joseph de Ségur, entitled "l'Histoire d'une Epingle." The suitor is a very paragon of virtue, endowed with every sterling quality; the object of his affection is the very reverse. "I have not the time to learn to respect you," she says in answer to his pleading; "it would simplify matters if you could manage to please and to captivate me. We should get along more quickly." In vain does the swain point out his manifold good moral points.

"Yes, yes; this is all very well," replies the coquette, "and I am sorry for you, but honesty without grace and unaccompanied by a 'spice of the devil' is only fit for home consumption, for use in the family circle." ere was no "spice of the devil" in the Comte de Paris; nevertheless, we have evidence of a series of mild attempts on his part to emancipate himself from the tutelage of his most arbitrary uncle-viz., the Duc d'Aumale. In 1884, the Château d'Eu became, if not the centre of a conspiracy, at any rate the rendezvous of the big-wigs of the Orleanist party. Result: The making of a holograph will by the Duc d'Aumale, bequeathing Chantilly to the nation. The threat of disinheritance is suspended over the nephew, although no one except the family is aware of the fact. As a matter of course, the will can be revoked if the nephew consents to amend his ways. And the nephew becomes amenable once more, though not for long. During the month of May, 1886, he breaks loose afresh. The marriage of his eldest daughter with the Duke of Braganza (the present king of Portugal) tempts him to gather around him, this time in large numbers, the most notable of his partisans; but before the uncle can strike, the Third Republic strikes with a decree of expulsion. For a moment pride of race gets the upper hand of the uncle, and especially when it becomes clear that his nephew's sins are going to be visited upon him in the shape he fears most-banishment and confiscation of property. He protests, but the nephew is despoiled nevertheless, for in a couple of months the most magnificent of all his domains is irrevocably alienated and made over to the French nation, with a proviso, however, which shows that he is willing to let bygones be bygones, as far as the Third Republic is concerned, if it will only allow him to return to France. He reserves the use of Chantilly to himself during his lifetime, and verily he has his reward, for shortly after that he is allowed to return to France. The blow has the desired effect upon the Comte de Paris, who henceforth contents himself with manifestoes, forgetting that France is a woman, and that some

women are like the Brunhild of the Nibelungen, and must be roughly handled before they will yield their love and, above all, their respect, or if not roughly handled, prefer at any rate "propinquity," not to say juxtaposition To any number of sonnets." History, aiter all, repeats itself. "This scapegrace has spoilt everything," said Joseph Bonaparte of his nephew, after the latter's attempt at Strasburg, "this scapegrace has spoilt everything, for now all chance is lost of being re-admitted into France as French citizens." When one bears the name of Bonaparte one does not ask a Bourbon or an Orléans to be admitted as a citizen of France; when one bears the name of Orléans one asks still less of Grévy or his successors; one goes to France and risks what happens.

The Duc d'Orléans has, at any rate, done this once. We may laugh at the attempt; our fathers laughed at Louis Napoléon's "tame eagle" and at his fiasco at Strasburg. There was, nevertheless, a "spice of the devil" in both affairs. One day a princess came to see Machiavelli, and complained that whatever her son did was done badly. "It is better to do badly than not to do at all," was the reply. "Men bear a greater resemblance to their time than to their fathers," a German poet has said. Men more often bear a greater resemblance to their grandfathers than even to their time, and I for one shall not be surprised if this turns out to be the case in this young pretender. He has the "spice of the devil" of the eldest son of Louis Philippe in him. There is, from all I can hear, the indifference to money that distinguished his paternal grandfather, though, like him, he objects to be fleeced, whether by men or women. One day, while travelling in Lorraine, the grandfather, then a young man, stopped at the posting-house to have his breakfast. It consisted of a couple of eggs, a few slices of bread, and a cup of coffee. Just before proceeding on his journey, his valet came to tell him that the inn-keeper wanted to charge him two hundred francs for the meal. The duc merely sent for the mayor, handed him a note of one thousand francs, gave him the particulars of his bill of fare,

and told him to pay Boniface according to the tariff, and to distribute the remainder of the money among the poor. The grandson, while willing to settle generously for a different kind of entertainment, also refused to be fleeced; but I must not insist upon this, for there is a salutary law of libel in this land. The grandfather hated poring over books and was a very indifferent scholar, which did not prevent his being one of the most charming of men, for he frankly acknowledged his very modest educational attainments, and his inability to remember the epigrams of others. Nor could he condense his thoughts to make epigrams of his own. "I should not like to admit as much to my father, who it appears is a very fine Greek and Latin scholar," he remarked on one occasion. "Yes, he is a fine Greek and Latin scholar, at any rate my brothers Nemours and Aumale say so, and they ought to know, for, notwithstanding the prizes they took, they are also very clever." His interlocutor did not quite understand the paradox contained in the last sentence, so the duc explained. "I say, 'notwithstanding the prizes they took,' for I took a great many too, and yet for the life of me I could not construe a Greek sentence, and should fare scarcely better with a Latin one. I have had to pay handsomely for my ignorance. I had to invent a secretaryship to the duchesse for an old schoolfellow. He came upon me all of a sudden with a slip of paper which wrote while at college, asking him to explain a Greek passage to me. There was no denying it, I had signed it. What is worse, he is supposed to translate, and reply to, the duchesse's German correspondence, and as he did not know a single word of Schiller's tongue, when I gave him the appointment, I had to pay him and a German tutor to teach him." M. Minpiot, the schoolmaster at Eu, who is probably alive, could tell and, in fact, did tell similar tales of the grandson's dislike of learning. Just as his grandfather brought up Decamps' trousers and boots to save the old concierge the stairs, so Philippe d'Orléans, when an urchin, ran errands for his schoolfellows, the sons of his father's grooms and cooks, played at marbles 792

LIVING AGE.

VOL. XV.

with them, and rolled in the dust, and was considerably more happy than when placed under the care of M. Fochier and of his successor, M. Laure t. They both concurred, though, that he was a jolly little trump, a “pickle” in one way, but thoroughly good-natured and good-hearted. Philippe d'Orléans did not even pass his matriculation—not an important point, seeing that Louis XIV., according to the Abbé Legendre, could scarcely read or write. Michelet affirms that the handwriting of "Le Roi-Soleil" was simply the writing of Rose, his amanuensis, who managed to imitate the scrawl to perfection.

Enough. The young pretender is delivered from the yoke that weighed so heavily upon his father. He has no longer the fear of being disinherited; his share of the property of the Duc d'Aumale amounts to forty thousand pounds per annum. Was it left because the duc knew that his grandnephew would not waste it in vain pretendership, and was this the reason why his other grandnephew, the son of the Duc de Chartres was cut off without a shilling? Time will show. Prince Henri d'Orléans evidently thinks that il vaut mieux mourir que pourir, and I fancy his cousin will not be behindhand. But he must move quickly. The republic itself may produce a great man, for once more history repeats itself. There is, moreover, that young prince, his cousin, whom I have just mentioned. The younger branch of the Bourbons was sometimes dangerous to the elder; Philippe Egalité had designs upon Louis XVI.'s throne; Philippe Egalité's son took his cousin's throne. The younger branch of the Orléans may prove as dangerous to the elder as the Orléans branch proved to the Bourbons. Qui sait?

ALBERT D. VANDAM.

From Blackwood's Magazine.

A REMINISCENCE OF TENNYSON. In the beginning of May, 1890, I spent two days at Farringford. In the short walk from where I left the coach to Freshwater, I felt-quite as much