genuine enthusiasm during the eighteen years of his
occupancy of the throne, and that was when the remains of their adored
Napoleon were brought from St. Helena and placed in that magnificent
tomb in the Hotel des Invalides by order of the king, who sent his son,
the Prince de Joinville, to bring this gift to the people. The act was
gracious, but it was also hazardous. Perhaps the king did not know how
slight was his hold upon this imaginative people, nor the possible
effect of contrast.

Under the new order of things in a constitutional monarchy the king
does not govern, he reigns. He was chosen by the people as their
ornamental figure-head. But what if he ceased to be ornamental? What
was the use of a king who in eighteen years had added not a single ray
of glory to the national name, but who was using his high position to
increase his enormous private fortune, and incessantly begging an
impoverished country for benefits and emoluments for five sons?

An excellent father, truly, though a short-sighted one. His power had
no roots. The cutting from the Orleans tree had never taken hold upon
the soil, and toppled over at the sound of Lamartine's voice
proclaiming a republic from the balcony of the Hotel de Ville.

When invited to step down from his royal throne, he did so on the
instant. Never did king succumb with such alacrity, and never did
retiring royalty look less imposing than when Louis Philippe was in
hiding at Havre under the name of "William Smith," waiting for safe
convoy to England, without having struck one blow in defence of his
throne.

But three terrible words had floated into the open windows of the
Tuileries. With the echoes of 1792 still sounding in his ears,
"Liberty," "Equality," and "Fraternity," shouted in the streets of
Paris, had not a pleasant sound!

Republicanism was an abiding sentiment in France, even while two dull
Bourbon kings were stupidly trying to turn back the hands on the dial
of time, and while an Orleans, with more supple neck, was posing as a
popular sovereign. During all this tiresome interlude the real fact
was developing. A Republican sentiment which had existed vaguely in
the air was materializing, consolidating, into a more and more tangible
reality in the minds of thinking men and patriots.

The ablest men in the country stood with plans matured, ready to meet
this crisis. A republic was proclaimed; M. de Lamartine, Ledru-Rollin,
General Cavaignac, M. Ras