The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-13

Ohatnamt whose feagie race" and trumpet
voice Reid tne House OF lords spell-bouhd.
and who to al the rest Of the world wa q
model Of imperiousness, always lxnelt In trans
acting business with George M and re-
stirred to the depths Of his soul by A loolr ~,
word Of royal appreciation. Sciona of tb1
proudest houses in Europe All menial posit,ons
IN Kings households to this day with in6pite
sausiaction-stand behind their chairs. piok
up their pocket handkerchief. helm tbem ~
dress, and make amusement for them VIII, "
profound sense of the Importance and dignity
Of the work. W., - - -. o-''J
Now, as long as the tradition of the ,di,s...
right Of kings was unbroken, and thew -.
believed to reign by ''the grace of God ,, a,,d
not by charter Of the national will, court forma
were reaIties; they We're acts of worsLip. a
kind OF dutiG, in which the monarch oocapied
the place Of saint But this tradition bas
been almost completely broken, and the ever
eepce which it sheltered is passing awsy. Ia
bhgland II IS perhaps stronger still than in any
country In Europe, owing partly to the l6.lg
association of the sovereign In the ooptilar
mind with order and good government, and TO
the smallness of the number of points az which
the public comes in contact with him and
partly to the respect of the Anglo -Saxons' for
rank-a respect so deep and so dificnt of
eradication that it seems inbred. But ON the
Continent, owing to the numerous political
changes which have been occurring ever since
the French Revolution, as well as to the growth
OF democratic feeling from other causes. IL has
been steadily decaying for half century, and
whether monarchy can exist after its complete
extinction is problem of which the solution
cannot be very far distant.
Perhaps nothing has struck severer blows
at 1T than the great number of sovereigns who
nave been made to order and put on the
thrones since l790-the raw material being in
many cases, ordinary men, with whom the
public had been perfectly familiar before their
elevation, and about whom il was therefore
impossible to raise any effectual illusion; and
1or TINS the old s0vereigns by "divine right, "
strange to say, have been mainly responsible.
The plan which they have adopted OF setting
up constitutional monarchies, as mode Of
staving of democracy, has been, we venture
10 assert, temporary preventive only, and
has rendered the ultimate triumph of their
great enemy all the more certain. In other
words, the royal houses, such as those of
Hapsburg and Romanof and Brunswick and
Savoy and Bourbon, have fancied that when
they succeeded in inducing a discontented or
rebeihOus people to accept a new king of their
making, who was to reign under a charter.
they made their own position all the surer.
In reality, they weakened it; the force of
monarchy lies not as they foelishly
imagine, in the form of royalty, but in the
feeling of loyalty, and for king newly made
there can be no loyalty. Letting the people
see dynasty" founded by convention of
plenipotentiaries sitting in carpsted room,
with tOolscap and steel pens, and publishing
their protocols in the daily papers. is like
admitting the faithful to see the priests max
ing preparations for a miracle. Within the
present century the world has seen Tom Dick.
ana Harry-persons whom it had known in
the streets in shabby clothes, or short of
money, or struggling in crowds-crowned and
enthroned in Sweden, Belgium, France, Naples,
SPAN, Holland, Greece, and, last of ALL in
Mexico, and has seen most of them turned out
again and replaced by others.
Inc etlect OF this on the popular imagina-
tion would perhaps not have been so unfortu-
nate, II some means could have been devised
OF Withholding from the newly made kings the
honors usually paid to the old ones, SO as to
make distinction between sovereigns by the
grace OF God and sovereigns by the popular
will; but this was impossible, and would have
been opposed violently by the legitimists if
the republicans had suggested it. Each new
conner was therefore. received with the same
ceremonial, and treated with the same outward
difference, as if he had come down from the
dark ages But in these days people cannot
be successfully imposed on in this way.
When you take young man out of the cafes
ana pllhard-rooms, as Louis Napoleon was
taken, or out of the ranks of the army, as
Bernadotte was taken, and put him in
palace, you cannot, by bewing very low
before him, listening to all he saws as if it was
Solomon who was talking, getting down on
one knee to hiss his hands, affecting to look
on note from him as a possession
worthy OF being bequeathed to your children.
or telling the world that he had that morning
'deigned" to eat an egg or been ''graciously |
pleased to put on his coat, or recording as an |
event OF the day his having taken a walk in |
his own garden, difuse round him the tradi-
tional haze of the old royalty; and what is
still more serious, you lessen the strength of
the forms for the older monarchs. No legiti-
MIST we may be sure, ever laughs over the
etiquette of the Tuileries, without finding his
respect for the etiquette of st. James or Sohon-
brunn diminish, and without Fastening the
day when the old machinery by which the
world has so many ages been held in awe will
lose all value for everybody.
There is, in fact no class of persons against
whom the realistic tendencies of the modern
world tell with more terrible force than against
kings. The great soldier of the present day is
no longer the dashing warrior like Henry
~ or Cromwell, Gustavus, Montrose, or
Rupert, who brought broken squadrons back
20 the charge, and whose waving plume car
red fresh life and courage to every quarter of
l stricken field. He is not even "the man of
lestiny," with ''cold grey eyes, - or Hstar -
'r famous oVercoat, like Napoleon, who used
% ride along the ranks before and after battIe
and discharge speeches of burning eloouenoe
IN his enthusiastic grenadiers. He is a silent
nan, like Moltke, who knows halfa-dozen
languages, seldom speaks in any, is rarely
een, and never recognized on the battle-feld
md does most of his work in business coat
II a writing table at bis ofica with ,,oors H.