The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-29
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
Editorial Opinions OF the Leading Journals
upon Current Topics-CompiIed Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
FRANCE AND THE oRLEANIsTs.

From the N. Y. Times.
A good many people who ought to know
better seem to imagine that in the event of
the overthrow of the Second Empire, the
dynasty Of Orleans has special claims on the
suffrages of the French nation. 1t may
readily be admitted that the present repre-
sentative Of this family, the Count of Paris,
grandson of Louis Philippe, is a man of re-
spectacle talents and liberal sentiments.
However desirable these may be in ruler OF
France, it is, however, obvious that an aspi-
rant to royal power must be able to show
son ething more definite to entitle him to the
unanimous support of the people. He must
either be able to appeal to the principle of
legitimacy, which underlies monarchical in
stitutions, or he must be able to show that
the family to which he belongs has estab-
lshed prior right to the throne by its past
services in the cause of liberty or national
progress Any other arguments might be
heard in support of his claims to become the
President Of republic, but are in no sense
relevant to the foundation of a hereditary
monarchy.
1t is scarcely necessary to remark that, on
the score of legitimacy, the Count of Paris
has no claim whatever to inherit the French
crown. The Count of Chambord, grandson
of Charles Y, is still alive, and is known
among the legitimists as Henry V, title he
would unquestionably merit were the claims
OF the House of Bourbon to be again recog-
nized in France. AS the younger, or cadet
branch of the family, the House of Orleans
can have no rights on the hereditary princi-
pie till the elder branch becomes extinct,
and any exclusion which the name of Bour-
bon has justly merited must apply equally
to both sections of the family. When, in
1880, NJ Theirs and his allies paraded the
announcement in Paris, 'the Duke of Or
leans is not Bourbon, he is Valois, they
only excited among people of education a
feeling of contempt for the shallow false
hood and feeling of wonder that body of
men. among whom were two eminent histo-
rians, should have put their names to so
gross a misstatement of fact.
On the score of past services to the nation,
the record of the House of Orleans is equally
defective The Philippe Egalite of the first
revolution was the very impersonation
of heartless and reckless lber-
tinism. He shocked even the
bloodthirsty chiefs of the revolutionary tri-
bunal by voting for the death of his royal
kinsman, Louis XVI, only to be contemp-
tuously hurled to the same fate. 1t may be
truly said of him that nothing in life became
him like leaving it, and posterity would
probably by this time have forgotten him,
did he not lie embalmed in the sublime scorn
of the pages of Carlyle. His son, Louis
Philippe, was ffty-seven years of age when
the revolution of July, 1880, overthrow the
throne of Charles X, and brought France
once more to, the brink of
cial aristocracy of Paris had heavy stake
in the maintenance of social order, and
in Louis Philippe, the heir of one who was
reputed to be the wealthiest man in Europe
they found their ideal of ruler. "What
prestige surrounds the Duke of Orleans 2"
said the Governor of the Tuileries, on being
asked to support him. "Who knows his
history? How few are there who have even
heard his name?" The sentiment was an
echo of the wonder with which the French
people saw the maj ority of the two Chambers
dispose of the crown to an unknown stranger,
without deeming it necessary to consult them
either with regard to the form of govern
ment they desired, or to the ruler who was to
succeed the one whom Paris had Just de-
throned. During reign of over seventeen
years Louis Philippe failed to achieve any
thing which has endeared his memory to
France. He professed to Lafayette that
he regarded the Constitution of the United
States as the most perfect that ever existed,
ard yet he resisted every attempt to wdenIthe
basis Of the electoral suffrage, and waged q
systematic warfare against the liberty of the
press. He hattered the popular idolatry of
Napoleon by bringing his remains from St.
Helena, and receiving them with magnif-
cent obsequies in the Church of the Invalides,
while he prescribed his family and banished
their adherents. He tried every avenue to
gain popularity, yet his reign numbered more
instructions than any before or since, and in
his latter years he gained the s0ub1aguet of
the Target King, from the impossibility he
found of stirring abroad without being shot
at He talked republicanism, and, as much
as he dared, practised absolutism; and thus
he came to be distrusted and despised by his
people, and found the alliances with the
courts OF Europe, which he was so eager tC
cultivate, evaded and declined
France during his reign was not less slug
gish in material progress than in her advanc,
on the path of freedom. While England anC
Belgium were becoming a network of rail
roads, and developing their mineral resource
with vast rapidity, the close of the reign o
Louis Philippe found Paris in possession o
but two main lines into the provinces, an,
the national industries still in the rude un
improved state of the first quarter of tn
century. A few wealthy bankers had beel
the royal sponsors of Louis Philippe; kno
of politicians and men of letters had been hi
only faithful adberents. His government
had been one of compromise, and had excite
neither affection nor esteem in any sectio
of the nation. Hence it happened that tn
convulsion which unseated him from th
throne was one of the gentlest {
the many Instructions of Paris, as the in
mediate cause was one of the most trivial ths
had ever led to a revolution. The chief
of the legitimist and liberal party were unite
in their opposition to the existing Cover
ment and had arranged to hold one of til
political banquets which were then til
fashion, at which the single toast of ''Reforl
and the right of meeting" was to have bee
proposed. The Government interposed
forbid the banquet and found it necessary