great country.

The Republic of 1848 was already a house divided against itself.

Its President, Louis Bonaparte, had been elected for four years. He
was, as the law then stood, not eligible again until after the lapse of
another four years. His party tried to abrogate this law, and failed.
"No matter," they said, "we shall elect him again, and President he
shall be, despite the law."

This was only one of a hundred such clouds, no bigger than a man's hand,
arising at this time on the political horizon. For France was beginning
to wander down that primrose path where a law is only a law so long as
it is convenient.

There was one man, Louis Bonaparte, who kept his head when others lost
that invaluable adjunct; who pushed on doggedly to a set purpose; whose
task was hard even in France, and would have been impossible in any
other country. For it is only in France that ridicule does not kill.
And twice within the last fifteen years--once at Strasbourg, once at
Boulogne--he had made the world hold its sides at the mention of his
name, greeting with the laughter which is imbittered by scorn, a failure
damned by ridicule.

It has been said that Louis Bonaparte never gave serious thought to
the Legitimist party. He had inherited, it would seem, that invaluable
knowledge of men by which his uncle had risen to the greatest throne of
modern times. He knew that a party is never for a moment equal to a Man.
And the Legitimists had no man. They had only the Comte de Chambord.

At Frohsdorff they still clung to their hopes, with that old-world
belief in the ultimate revival of a dead regime which was eminently
characteristic. And at Frohsdorff there died, in the October of this
year, the Duchess of Angouleme, Marie Therese Charlotte, daughter of
Marie Antoinette, who had despised her two uncles, Louis XVIII. and
Charles X., for the concessions they had made--who was more Royalist
than the King. She was the last of her generation, the last of her
family, and with her died a part of the greatness of France, almost all
the dignity of royalty, and the last master-mind of the Bourbon race.

If, as Albert de Chantonnay stated, the failure of Turner's bank was
nothing but a ruse to gain time, it had the desired effect. For a space,
nothing could be undertaken, and the Marquis de Gemosac and his friends
were hindered from continuing the work they had so successfully begun.

All through the summer Loo Barebone remained in France, a