Louis-Philippe.
Philip did not think it necessary, as did the Restored Branch, to be the master in every village in order to reign; he considered that it was enough to hold sway in Paris: therefore, if ever he could turn the Capital into a warlike town, with an annual roll of sixty thousand pretorians, he would think himself safe. Europe would let him alone, because he would persuade the sovereigns that he was acting with a view to stifling the revolution in its old cradle, while leaving the liberties, independence and honour of France as a pledge in the hands of the foreigners. Philip is a policeman: Europe can spit in his face; he wipes himself, gives thanks and shows his patent as a king. Moreover, he is the only Prince whom the French would, at present, be capable of supporting. The degradation of the elected Head constitutes his strength; we momentarily find in his person enough to satisfy our monarchical habits and our democratic leanings; we obey a power which we believe ourselves to have the right to insult; that is all the liberty that we require: on our knees as a nation, we slap our master's face, re-establishing privilege at his feet, equality on his cheek. Crafty and guileful, a Louis XI. of the age of philosophy, the monarch of our choice dexterously steers his ship over a liquid mire. The Elder Branch of the Bourbons is dried up, save one bud alone; the Younger Branch is rotten. The Head inaugurated at the town-hall has never thought of any one but himself: he sacrifices Frenchmen to what he believes to be his security. When men argue about what would be fitting for the greatness of the country, they forget the nature of the Sovereign: he is persuaded that he would be undone by methods which would be the saving of France; according to him, that which would give life to the Royalty would be the death of the King. For the rest, none has the right to despise him, for every one is on the same contemptible level. But, whatever may be the prosperity that forms the object of his dreams, in the last result, either he or his children will fail to prosper, because he abandons the people, from whom he holds all. On the other hand, the legitimate kings, abandoning the legitimate kings, will fall: principles are not denied with impunity. Though the revolutions may, for a moment, have been diverted from their course, they will none the less come to swell the torrent which is under-mining the ancient edifice: none has played his part, none shall be saved.
Since no power among us is inviolable, since the hereditary sceptre has fallen four times within thirty-eight years, since the royal diadem fastened by victory has twice slipped from the head of Napoleon, since the Sovereignty of July has been incessantly attacked, we must conclude from this that it is not the Republic which is impossible, but the Monarchy.
France is under the dominion of an idea hostile to the throne: a diadem of which men at first recognised the authority, which they next trod under foot, then picked up, only to tread it under foot again, is merely a useless temptation and a symbol of disorder. A master is set over men who seem to call for him by their memories and who no longer support him by their manners; he is set over generations which, having lost the sense of moderation and social decency, know only how to insult the royal person or to replace respect by servility.
Philip has within him the wherewithal to delay the march of destiny, but not to stop it. The Democratic Party alone is progressing, because it is advancing towards the world of the future. Those who refuse to admit the general causes of destruction where monarchical principles are concerned in vain look to be delivered from the present yoke by a motion of the Chambers; the latter will never consent to reform, because reform would be their death. The Opposition, on its side, which has become an industrial Opposition, will never give the death-thrust to the King of its own making, as it gave it to Charles X.: it makes a disturbance in order to obtain places, it complains, it is peevish; but, when it finds itself face to face with Philip, it draws back; for, though it wishes to have the handling of affairs, it does not wish to overthrow that which it has created nor that by which it lives. Two fears stop it: the fear of the return of the Legitimacy, the fear of the reign of the people; it clings to Philip, whom it does not love, but whom it looks upon as a safeguard. Stuffed full of offices and money, abdicating its own will, the Opposition obeys what it knows to be fatal and goes to sleep in the mire, which is the down invented by the industry of the age: it is not so pleasant as the other, but it is cheaper.
Philip's turpitude.
All these things notwithstanding, a sovereignty of a few months, of a few years, even, if you wish, will not change the irrevocable future. There is hardly any one now but confesses the Legitimacy to have been preferable to the Usurpation, in so far as security, liberty, property were concerned, and also our relations with foreign Powers, for the principle of our present Sovereignty is hostile to that of the European sovereignties. Since he was pleased to receive the investiture of the Throne at the good pleasure and with the certain knowledge of the democracy, Philip missed his opportunity at the start: he ought to have leapt on horseback and galloped to the Rhine; or rather, he ought to have resisted a movement which was carrying him without conditions towards a crown: more durable and more suitable institutions would have arisen from that resistance.
It has been said that "M. le Duc d'Orléans could not have refused the crown without plunging us into dreadful troubles:" this is the argument of cowards, dupes and cheats. No doubt, conflicts would have ensued; but they would have been swiftly followed by a return to law and order. What has Philip done for the country after all? Would there have been more blood shed by his refusing the sceptre than flowed because of the acceptance of that same sceptre in Paris, Lyons, Antwerp, the Vendée, without reckoning those streams of blood spilt, as a consequence of our Elective Monarchy, in Poland, Italy, Portugal, Spain? Has Philip, in compensation for these misfortunes, given us liberty? Has he given us glory? He has spent his time in begging for his legitimation among the potentates, in degrading France by making her the handmaid of England, by giving her as a hostage; he has tried to make the age come to him, to make it old with his House, not wishing to become young himself with the age.
Why did he not marry his eldest son[284] to some fair commoner of his country? That would have meant wedding France: those nuptials of the people and the Royalty would have made the Kings repent; for those Kings, who have already taken advantage of Philip's submissiveness, will not be content with what they have obtained: the might of the populace which appears through our Municipal Monarchy terrifies them. The Potentate of the Barricades, to become completely agreeable to the absolute potentates, ought above all to destroy the liberty of the press and abolish our constitutional institutions. At the bottom of his soul, he detests them as much as they, but he has to keep within bounds. All this remissness offends the other sovereigns; the only way to make them have patience is to sacrifice everything to them abroad: in order to accustom us to becoming Philip's liegemen at home, we are commencing by making ourselves the vassals of Europe.
I have said a hundred times and I repeat again, the old society is dying. I am not easy-going enough, nor quack enough, nor sufficiently deceived by my hopes to take the smallest interest in that which exists. France, the ripest of the present nations, will probably be the first to go. It is likely that the Elder Bourbons, to whom I shall die attached, would not even to-day find a lasting shelter in the Old Monarchy. Never have the successors of an immolated monarch worn his torn mantle long after him: there is distrust on both sides; the prince dares not rely upon the nation, the nation refuses to believe that the reinstated family is capable of forgiving it. A scaffold raised between a people and a king prevents them from seeing each other: there are tombs that never close. Capet's head was so high that the little executioners were obliged to strike it off to take its crown, even as the Caribbees used to cut down the palm-tree in order to gather its fruit. The stem of the Bourbons had propagated itself in the different trunks which, bending down, took root and rose again as haughty shoots; that family, after being the pride of the other royal Houses, seems to have become their fatality.