"Let them make my brother a president, a commander of the National Guard, any thing, so that they do not make him a proscribed."
"Madame," responded M. Thiers, "it is a throne which we come to offer him."
"But what," rejoined the princess, "will Europe think? Shall he seat himself on the throne from which Louis XVI. descended to mount the scaffold? What a panic will it strike in all royal houses! The peace of the world will be endangered."
"These apprehensions, madame," M. Thiers replied, "are natural, but they are not well-founded. England, full of the recollection of the banished Stuarts, will applaud an event of which her history furnishes an example and a model. As to the absolute monarchies, far from reproaching the Duke of Orleans for fixing on his head a crown floating on the storm, they will approve a step which will render his elevation a barrier against the unchained passions of the multitude. There is something great and worth saving in France. And if it be too late for legitimacy, it is not for a constitutional throne. After all, there remains to the Duke of Orleans only a choice of danger. In the present posture of affairs, to fly from the possible dangers of royalty is to face a Republic and its inevitable tempests."
Agitation of the ducal family.
These forcible words of the sagacious statesman produced a deep impression upon the strong and well-balanced mind of Madame Adelaide. She was fully capable of appreciating all their import. She gave virtual assent to them by saying, "I am a child of Paris: I am willing to intrust myself to the Parisians." It was decided to send immediately for the duke. A messenger soon reached him, and he set out on horseback, accompanied by M. Montesquiou, for Paris. Still his irresolution, timidity, and bewilderment were so great that, before reaching the city, his heart misgave him, and, turning his horse, he galloped with the utmost speed back to Rancy. Alison, in depicting these scenes, says, with a severity which our readers will probably think that the recorded facts scarcely warrant,
"He had neither courage enough to seize the crown which was offered to him, nor virtue enough to refuse it. He would gladly have declined the crown if he had been sure of retaining his estates. The most powerful argument for accepting it was, that by so doing he could save his property."
Strange crisis of affairs.
The strange crisis of affairs was such that, while the population of France was over thirty millions, a few bankers in Paris, without consulting the voice of the people, were about to impose upon them a government and a king; and it must be admitted that the peril of the nation was such that many of the purest and noblest men approved of these measures. The majority of the members of the Chamber of Deputies were gained over to this cause; and even the members of the House of Peers were so overawed by the menacing aspect of the excited populace, that they were disposed to fall in with the movement.