There was no doubt about the King's personal courage. He had proved it on many battle-fields—at Valmy, Jemmapes, and Nerwinde—and under the frequent attempts made on him by would-be assassins. With courage of a rarer kind, he had never hesitated to brave unpopularity, when his doing so was clearly to the country's interest. But he had striven, being honest as well as brave, to be faithful to the institutions he had sworn to maintain, although those who opposed him had long ceased to respect the fiction of the constitution, and had become a frankly revolutionist body, which no longer directed its attack against the ministry of the day, but against the King's own person, and all that edifice on the summit of which the throne was placed.
Had he chosen to take the initiative, in order to prevent what ultimately happened, he would not have failed for want of means. When the army and the administration are in a man's hands, he can do very much as he chooses. Successive revolutions have destroyed all respect among us, except respect for main force; and it is a true saying that if strength begets respect, respect in its turn begets affection. But the King, who was the most moderate of men, would not go beyond legal limits except as a last resource. And this characteristic of his was well and universally known to all, both to friends and foes. While it discouraged the former, it to some extent encouraged the latter, and so the signal for recourse to force came from below, the pretorians of the street rose in rebellion, and the defenders of the law were everywhere overcome. In a few moments the confusion became general, and the revolution was an accomplished fact.
And yet, even so late in the day, in other countries than our own indeed, generals, and others invested with the chief command of the national troops, have been known to draw their swords and save their sovereigns and their governments almost in spite of their own selves. They have been known to maintain the tutelary and inviolable principle of a traditional monarchy—a principle which is both ancient and absolute, tracing the line of duty for all men, clear and indisputable, without any possibility of hesitation or compromise—against and in the face of all comers. And this principle is one which calls forth the proudest devotion, seeing it is impersonal, for the king is not the elected leader of conquerors, oppressing the conquered, but a living flag, the national rallying-point for all the defenders of the mother country against her enemies, whether within or without her borders.
This saving process, whether the saved ones would or no, has been seen, as I say, in other countries, which thus were preserved from that discord, disorganisation, and disaster of every kind, which are the inevitable consequence of internal convulsion and revolution.
But the July Monarchy was unhappily very far from representing the traditional hereditary principle. Born of one insurrection, it was overthrown by another. Set up on the electoral principle, it fell, as though in mockery, with a full electoral majority behind it. Two-and-twenty years later the empire too fell, on the very morrow of a triumphant plebiscite. Partial and universal suffrage alike have proved their impotence to defend a government which has ceased to give satisfaction against the assaults of that army shouting "Get out of that and let me take your place!" the members of which always make themselves up as austere patriots. And I cannot help, in this place, looking sadly back at the fatal consequences which this impotence of the elective, as compared with the monarchical regime, has had for us. Why did the Emperor refuse to treat with M. de Bismarck in the name of France, when he met him, on the evening of Sedan, and asked him to do so? Why did the unfortunate prince not do the same as two sovereigns in possession of hereditary rights and duties, Victor Emmanuel after Novara, and Francis Joseph after Sadowa, who both of them safeguarded their territory and the honour of their armies? Because he was a bastard sovereign—and dared not reappear before his electors once he was beaten.
But to return to my story, to which I have but a few lines to add. The revolution might have been foreseen and the days of the government of 1830 might have been prolonged. Once it was overthrown, and the dyke which stemmed the torrent of democracy carried away, its rule, which was one of chance convenience and not of right, had no further reason for existence.
That being so, what was I to do? The re-establishment of the legitimate family on the throne was out of the question. The disasters of our first revolutionary period had not as yet been renewed in their terrible logical sequence. We had not yet had our second Waterloo at Sedan, and very few people thought at that moment of coming back to the principle the proof of whose title lies in the centuries of unity and greatness assured by it to France—the one and only principle capable of checking her on her descent into the abyss of dismemberment, depopulation, and social destruction, down which she is gliding.
It was clear that another elective regime was about to succeed the one which had just collapsed—one of those modern edifices, all, whatever may be the name with which they are decorated, tainted with the same original weakness—"What the majority has made, the majority has the right to unmake." In fact—as somebody said in a speech—a perpetually provisional arrangement Under these ephemeral forms of rule, our national inferiority in face of other stable and far-sighted governments is flagrantly evident. The sense of duty wears away, devoted service is never given without a mental reservation touching the morrow—that unknown morrow, which checkmates the boldest plans. Thus constituted, such regimes are all alike, and it was not for the princes of the House of France to draw their swords to impose one form of national humiliation rather than another on their country.
When once my father's rule had disappeared, and with it the unvarying line of duty traced by my absolute filial devotion to him, I watched the establishment of a republican form of government without annoyance, for I preferred its clear distinctness to the complicated combinations which pretended to reconcile two opposite principles by putting handcuffs on them both.
Like many others, too, I did not doubt that the shock of revolution would soon bring on a general war. Under such circumstances, it would have been crime to add the pangs of civil strife to the dangers threatening our country.