The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-07-14 00:00:00

Erle 3tottrbribge ebertrer.

SATURDAY, JULY 14A1, 1883.

POLITICS IN FRANCE.

THE mortal illness of the Comte de Chambord
has once more brought to the Lout recollections
of the troubled conditions of politics in France.
The childless and the la.t representative of the
long line of Legitimist Kings, the monarchs who
for centuries kept such courts of splendour at
the Palace of Versailles has to bid farewell to a
world in which, notwithstanding all the great-
ness that attaches to an illustliona name, he has
played so small a part. From the place of his
lifo-long exile at Frohadlrf. from tho haunts of
his lonely solitudes in the Hartz mountains. he
is called upon to leave a sphere which, during
his existence, has bristled with intrigue, and
where Orleanists and Bonapartists will still
contend for that shadowy throne of France
that they believi yet rea's upon a substantial
basis.

Paris, under the Republic, is always en fite on
the 14th of July. It is the anniversary of the
destruction of the Bastille, the great State prison
which for centuries stood in the very heart of
the French capital as an etnbodiaient of one of
tte very worst kinds of tyranny which could
possibly exist in a civilized country. Once
consigned to this gloomy fortress, and a living
death was the fate cf the unfortunate inmate.
He need have committed no offence against
either the State or his fellow-man. Private
spleen was quite enough to enable any one to
purchase by a lettre de cachet the power to
immure a fellow human being ; and the chances
were that once in the Bastille his existence was
forgotten, and that there he spent the remainder
of Lis days. The bright suushine which fell
upon the gay and crowded city WAS no longer
for him. Ever flowing past the frowning walls
of the grim structure was a busy multitude in
whose ranks he was never more to mingle. It
seems diflnilt to believe that this system was in
full force in France less than a century ago; but
it is not hard to understand that when the
p .eple at last rose in insurrection, their first
o!j..ct of attack was the Bastille. Voltaire had
seen the flood of revolution approaching as far
as 1762 ; but it was not until 1789 that the
gates were burst open and the deluge broke
loose. When the news of the destruction of the
Rdstille was taken to Louis XVI., he exefai tied
"Why this is a revolt!" The messenger who
brought the tidings found a better word. "Sire,"
said he, "it is a revolution !" The fearful ex-
s4es of that time, described with such graphic
force by Mr. Carlyle, can never be pal'iated ;
but a whole people may truly enough be said to
have become drunk with venganv. The state
of anarchy which followed the Revolution has
been succeeded by many forms of government in
France—First Consulate, two Empires, Legiti-
mist and Orlesnist Monarchies, and three
Beipublics, the third of which still holds posses-
sion of power.
'1 he Comte de Chambord himself seems to
have been born out of all due time. He ought
to have lived two centuries ago. Louis XIV.,
whet' upon one occassion reminded of the ex-
igeecies of the State, exclaimed: "The State ! I
antthe State l" So with the Count de Chambord
wim held to the full the views of the Capets
with respect to the Divine rights of Kings. It
is about ten years ago that there seemed a
chance, after the overthrow of M. 'niers, of a
R3storation of the Legitimitt Monarchy. France
was disappointed with the results of the policy
of the Second Empire. It had ended in a
calamitous war, the payment of an indemnity of
two hundred raillious sterling, and what was
even more bitterly galling, the loss of two fair
provinces. The people, many of them at all
events, remembered the Orleanist monarchy and
elid not show any enthusiasm for its restoration,
but the Legitimist monarchy, with all its short-
co!iiings, had been forgotten. But the Count
In Chambord, or as he always styled himself,
11. nry V., declared in favour of the old Bourbon
fltg—white with golden stars ; and this meant
the abolition of the tricolour, under whose folds
Napoleon had won all his brilliant victories.
Fr,ince declined to sacrifice the symbol of former
triu:nphs. Military glory is very dear to a
Frenchman's heart, as any visitor to Paris can
see for himself in the commanding position of
the Arc de Triomphe, and in the magnificent
surroundings of Napoleon's tomb. T? • -id ) in the
Count's affairs was not seiz Id at the dood, and
cons quently did not lead on to fortune. H
w:thdrew to the lonely solitude of his exile at,
Fr-hadorf, never again to become a conspicuous
ti;nre in European politics.