“And yet he has his mortifications,” said a sensible man. “He wants a wife, and the princesses of the world will not furnish him with one.”
“What authority have you for saying so?” exclaimed the fiery Waldershare. “The princesses of the world would be great fools if they refused such a man, but I know of no authentic instance of such denial.”
“Well, it is the common rumour.”
“And, therefore, probably a common falsehood.”
“Were he wise,” said Mr. Bertie Tremaine, “King Florestan would not marry. Dynasties are unpopular; especially new ones. The present age is monarchical, but not dynastic. The king, who is a man of reach, and who has been pondering such circumstances all his life, is probably well aware of this, and will not be such a fool as to marry.”
“How is the monarchy to go on, if there is to be no successor?” inquired Trenchard. “You would not renew the Polish constitution?”
“The Polish constitution, by the by, was not so bad a thing,” said Mr. Bertie Tremaine. “Under it a distinguished Englishman might have mixed with the crowned heads of Europe, as Sir Philip Sidney nearly did. But I was looking to something superior to the Polish constitution, or perhaps any other; I was contemplating a monarchy with the principle of adoption. That would give you all the excellence of the Polish constitution, and the order and constancy in which it failed. It would realise the want of the age; monarchical, not dynastical, institutions, and it would act independent of the passions and intrigues of the multitude. The principle of adoption was the secret of the strength and endurance of Rome. It gave Rome alike the Scipios and the Antonines.”
“A court would be rather dull without a woman at its head.”
“On the contrary,” said Mr. Bertie Tremaine. “It was Louis Quatorze who made the court; not his queen.”
“Well,” said Waldershare, “all the same, I fear King Florestan will adopt no one in this room, though he has several friends here, and I am one; and I believe that he will marry, and I cannot help fancying that the partner of this throne will not be as insignificant as Louis the Fourteenth’s wife, or Catherine of Braganza.”