The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-05 00:00:00

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idea that any one, even themselves, can affect for

an instant to have the slightest bearing, direct or

indirect, good, bad, or indifferent, upon the well-

being of France, or upon the more secure peace or
the greater happiness of the nations of Europe gene-
rally. Their principles somehow have evaporated.
Their cause, at one time weighing so heavily
in the balance of public opinion, has come
long since to be absolutely, as one may say,
imponderable. The device upon their ancient
escutcheon has paled out, until it is by this time
almost as much of a blank as their ancient banner.
Each is symbolical perhaps of their good intentions,
should they ever have an opportunity of seeing
before them the faintest probability of ever being
able once more to realize them—affording them, as
their flag does for example, a typical carte blanche
for just anything or everything, Bourbonism, in
fact, is sadly at a discount. As sadly, as utterly
at a discount as the kindred cause of the STUARTS
was when Prince CHARLES EDWARD, dubbed by
History the Young Pretender, was dragging out
the close of his career as a peevish and hopeless
drunkard : or, as it was when his brother was
passing onward to his grave at Rome the
grave of the Last of the STUARTS—if not clad
in the royal purple, at least in his
scarlet robes, as the Cardinal of York. Not
that HENRY V. of France has ever lost his
sense of self-respect like that beau ideal of a Hero
in his youth, that melancholy spectacle of a used-up
debauchee in his later manhood, CHARLES EDWARD
of England. Anymore than our other allusion im-
plies that FRANCIS 11. of Naples has an eye, even
in the contingency of his becoming a widower, to
aspiring to take a permanent post at Rome as mem-
ber of the College of Cardinals. Yet, with this very
obvious difference discernible in each instance, the
situation of affairs, with regard to these later Bour-
bons, may be recognised as in a manner identical,
upon the whole, with what is recorded in
history as that attained towards the end
of their career by the later STUARTS.
Alike they are powerless to keep alive
among their followers any appreciable semblance of
the old romantic enthusiasm. Nor, indeed, can
this be in any respect wondered at when their
late utterances come to be scrutinised. Listening
to them, reading what they are most recently
known to have said or written— alike we
may rely upon it (for they have plenty of
leisure), after the maturest deliberation one
cannot but marvel at princes aspiring to up-
hold their hereditary position as Leaders of Men
having so little—really but just next to nothing—
to say for themselves.
There has now very recently been brought to
light, apropos, not des bottes, but to this late assem-
bling of Legitimists at Lucerne, a document ad-
dressed more than half-a -year ago to his adherents
by his Highness, or Majesty, the Count DE CHAM-
BORD. It is a very long State paper. It was
written towards the end of 1861. It now appears
for the first time in print in the middle of 1862.
It is signed " TIENRI." It has already been published
in its entirety in our columns—simply as a curiosity.
Not by any means for any value or importance
supposed to be attached to it, but solely and exclu-
sively as a curiosity both of politics and literature.
As a party declaration, it is utterly colourless. As
a dynastic pronunciamento, it is the merest vapidity,
the merest inanity. It hardly expresses an idea
sufficiently distinct to be grasped within any one's
comprehension. In its arrangement, or rather in its
total want of all arrangement, it is utterly confused,
and consequently utterly confusing. It leads to no
definite conclusion whatever. It rings the changes
upon a few high sounding phrases—" unity," "prin-
ciples of society," " doctrines and traditions," and so
1 forth—with no recognisable meaning in them at all.
Take the few first sentences,just by the way of illustra-
tion. " I have received, gentlemen," writes the Prince,
"the memorandum [whatever that may have been]
which you have transmitted to me, and which con-
cerns the line of conduct to be followed at the elec-
tions. I have read it with that interest and atten- 1
tion which the gravity of the subject commands, and
which will always be given by me to the communi-
cation of devoted friends. At the last elections you
continued to follow my advice by abstaining from
voting; but you obeyed less, you say, a reasonable
conviction than a sentiment of deep attachment and
respectful deference, You have always, I am aware,
obeyed a great, useful, and political idea of unity.
I am grateful for this to you and to those of our
friends who have rallied, whatever might have been
their personal opinion, round a common line of
action. Defenders of the most noble cause, we,
whose first mission is to preserve the principles of
society, and to be in some measure their living
representatives, remain united that we may be
strong—any separation, any partial action would
be weakening the cause itself. This is why I deem
it of the highest importance that my friends
should follow a common line of conduct ; this is
also why I blame differences, although they may
be occasioned by conscientious appreciations, and
may result from a freedom which I should not
like to restrict, could I do so ; finally, it is
this self-same interest, it is this necessity of unity,
which determines me in grave circumstances to
make known to my friends my ideas and my
views when they have been matured by reflec-
tion, and the information and advices which
I have received." And so on, and so on—
paragraph after paragraph. Does any one catch
an idea from this ? Can a document, running on
in this way tediously through two mortal columns
of closely printed letterpress, appeal in any
way to the heart of even the most infatuated
believer in the Right Divine. It is certainly
not after this fashion that the parvenu
rulers of men appeal to their contemporaries.
It was not thus that CROMWELL addressed him-
self, even after his blundering fashion, to the Le-
gislature of the Commonwealth. It was not thus
that BONAPARTE addressed his followers, either
at the 18th Brumaire or at the Return
from Elba. CROMWELL and NAPOLEON, how-
ever, represented each a Nation, a People,
an Epoch, a Policy, a Principle. The Count
DE CHAMBORD speaks merely for a race,
a house, a family, a dynasty. The passions, the
ambition, the aspirations once embodied in the
chiefs of that dynasty, having years and years ago
become wholely obsolete—only to be thought of as
what once had been, but the memory of which
could only be handed down to us traditionally !
All is in truth lost now, hors l'honneur, to
that last representative of a great race, the
elder branch of the House of BOURBON, the
Count DE CHAMBORD. Pity it is that he cannot
himself recognise that it is so, with sufficient die-
tinetness. Instead of doing which, instead of dedi-
cating the remainder of his life to the silent and
dignified conservation of his still unsullied honour,
HENRI CINQ still persists occasionally, as well, in
advertising himself, by fits and starts, to all
Europe, as
mediocrity.
another powerless, idealess, exiled royal

Take the duty oft malt, said the hon. member for
Cambridgeshire last night, and put it on beer. Set
agriculture free,and only tax those who manufacture
from its productions. We confess we do not see
the force, nor very clearly
even the meaning of