feudal rights, religious intolerance, persecution against our dispersed brothers; what more shall I say? Of war madly undertaken under impossible conditions, of the government of priests, of the predominance of the privileged classes! You will admit that one cannot reply seriously to such trivialities. Are there any lies to which bad faith fails to have recourse, where there is a chance of exploiting public credulity? I know very well that it is not always easy to preserve one's coolness in the presence of such manœuvres; but count on the common sense of our intelligent populations to do justice to such follies. Above all, apply yourself to appealing to the devotion of all honest folk on the ground of social conciliation. You know that I am not a party, and that I do not want to come back to reign through a party; I need the help of all, and all need me.

The letter ended with a somewhat vague allusion to "the reconciliation" accomplished in the House of France and to those who sought to disfigure the nature of that great act.

On weighing everything well, it was thought that a further step could be taken.

Meeting of

manent

25th

On September 25th, at three o'clock, the Per about sixty deputies of the Right, among Committee, whom were the members of the Permanent September Committee, met in the Budget room at Versailles under the presidence of the Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier. The latter spoke: he said that the hour had come for a declaration of opinions he rapidly set forth the position in which things were, so far as the chances of an immediate restoration of the monarchy were concerned. He asked the members of the Right to make their intentions known. As for himself, speaking in the name of the Right Centre, his view was that the only monarchy to which he could give his support was "the "the tricolor monarchy." Addressing the friends of the Comte de Chambord, he concluded:

"You must make the Prince accept this, because France would accept no other."

The Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier was known being closely connected with the Orleans Princes, and especially with the Duc d'Aumale. He is a man of ardent, open mind, warm heart, vehement speech. By family tradition, by personal tendencies, by a spontaneous inclination of his nature, he leans towards liberal solutions. He loved light, wordy battles, the sharp clash of ideas and phrases. He flings himself forward, and sometimes allows himself to be carried away by his imagination, which is lively, and his eloquence, which is great. His energetic attitude with reference to Bonapartism had kept him out of the Ministry, where a place had been marked for him. But his position was so much the higher because it was independent. In parliament his influence was great. Alone, perhaps, he would have carried hearts and minds at a decisive moment. The confidence which he enjoyed with the Princes of Orleans assured a special authority and emphasis to his interventions, in themselves so delightful.

His words had their usual effect upon his colleagues of the Right. The most faithful friends of the Comte de Chambord, the Comte de Maillé, the Baron de Jouvenel, warmly approved.

M. de Carayon-Latour rose with tears in his eyes, and he, too, asserted the necessity of union. "His life," said he, "had hitherto been devoted to the service of the Comte de Chambord; he was now ready to give it also for the Comte de Paris and his son, the young Duke of Orleans, the hope of the monarchy."

When emotion had subsided, the Duc de la

Rochefoucauld-Bisaccia asked the Duc d'AudiffretPasquier to substitute for the expression " tricolor monarchy" that of " monarchy of the tricolor flag." Resuming the debate, another Duke, no less Orleanist than Pasquier, and perhaps more politic, the Duc Decazes, expressed the view that the meeting was not qualified to pass a final resolution; it was necessary to convoke, at no long interval, a conference of the executive of the four groups of the majority, who would pass the resolutions demanded by circumstances. This proposal was unanimously adopted. It was decided to summon this new meeting for the 4th of October.

The optimistic impression grew stronger. The Comte de Paris, while preserving a trace of uneasiness, allowed himself to be carried along with the movement of confidence which was in process of formation. He wrote some days later, October 3rd: 'Every day develops the excellent results of your meeting of the 25th, and the language of the Legitimists strengthens them. They are anxious because they fear that some unhappy inspiration may come and spoil everything; but they are emboldened every day to speak louder, as reason and policy counsel them. They seek for a procedure to remove the great obstacle. Doubtless the game is a big one and full of risk; but the dangers would be no less in playing it less frankly than does the Right Centre, and I am convinced that it will gather the fruits of this frankness, even in the case of a failure, in which I prefer no longer to believe.

"The Comte de Chambord's letter is excellent, not only in substance but in tone, and we can only applaud the manner in which he characterises the reconciliation of August 5th. That word, of such

grave import in his mouth, is the very one which it was proper to address, not only to us, but to the constitutional monarchists who have ideas in common with us."

Meanwhile, the most prudent had their doubts. They would have wished that the Comte de Chambord should be brought to declare himself on the question of the flag. In deference to the advice of M. de Falloux, there was a desire to "break the vicious circle." The Duc de Broglie had felt inclined to occasion the intervention, either of the President of the Republic or of the National Assembly: "I communicated my idea," he says, "to M. Buffet, who seemed to me not disinclined to share it, of course after a discussion of the means of execution."

This reservation was simply a refusal. We know the real sentiments of M. Buffet as to the Comte de Chambord and the political campaign then in progress. In August, 1873, at a dinner with M. Aubry, deputy for the Vosges, the latter was telling the President of the National Assembly the story of his recent visit to Frohsdorf and incidentally protested against protested against "those venomous epigrams, by which disappointed ambitions in academic drawing-rooms sought to blacken the Frohsdorf Prince, his mother, his wife, and his private life," then concluded by saying that the National Assembly was about to restore the monarchy, as it had received the mandate to do so. "President Buffet replied, substantially, that it was not sufficient for the representatives of the people to decide on the restoration of a government, but that it was necessary that the government should be accept

able and lasting; this was not the case," he said, "with a political system represented by a prince who had been an exile for forty years, and had become a stranger to modern needs, and unknown to the masses.'

1

The Marshal also held aloof. His opinion on the flag, in harmony with that of the heads of the Army chiefs, was well known; he made no difficulties about expressing it loudly enough, in terms of familiar energy. He agreed that the Prince should be informed of the situation; but these were affairs for the parliament to settle he was not called upon to interfere.2

However, in order to leave no doubt as to his intentions, the Marshal thought it his duty towards the end of September to send his aide-de-camp, the Marquis d'Abzac, to the Comte de Blacas, with orders" to tell the latter that if the tricolor flag, to which the army clung, were maintained, he would raise no difficulty as to the re-establishment of the monarchy; but that if there were a question of the white flag, he should consider it his duty to act otherwise, all the information received from the officers giving him the conviction that the suppression of the tricolor flag would constitute a great danger, and might bring about the disunion of the Army, which alone maintained order and the peace of society." "

3

At heart the President and the Duc de Broglie were of the same opinion-these are the words of the Duc de Broglie himself-that the Marshal, the Head of the army, being responsible for the

1 Souvenirs inédits, de Maurice d' Aubray, p. 10.

2 Vicomte de Meaux, Correspondant of June 10, 1899, p. 839. 3 Marquis de Dampierre, p. 234.