Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-04-02
HENRI CHAMBORD.


French situation, we must not lOse sight
of this well preserved gentleman of the
old school, He is the hcesl descendant
of Hugh Capet, being grandson OF
Charles Y, who had occasion to leave
France rather unceremOniously in 1880.
Through exile and adversely he hiss
reached the mature age of fifty, but be-
longs to family that Lave habit of
seeing eighty. Rare for prince or
Bourbon, his morals are said TO be spot
less, and we may reasonably infer that
he has profited by the lessons of adver
sity. What are his chances for the va
cant throne?
Napoleon's apportionment of church
tithcs indicates about IS, 500, 900 Catholics
to 1900, 600 nom Catholics, making no
allowance for the fact that the stipend of
the Protestant minister wac, on account
of his family, larger than that of the
celebate priest. In State which pre-
tends to support the churches, we natu-
rally look for some religious consonance
between rulers and people. But when we
glance at the constantly shifting minis
tries of Egdlite Philippe and Louis Ma
poleon, we find Huguenots, Jews, Free
Thinkers and unbelievers-Catholics be-
ing the exception. These ministries
represent cosmopolitan Paris; France
has been ignored. Hence the passiveness
of the Provinces. All these revolutions
have been Partisan squabbles. The
60urgeOiSie seem content with any tol
cradle government, while it is evident
that Paris needs stronger hand than
officials depending on the suffrages Of its
mob can WELD. These Paris govern
ments have been weak, because the coun
try at large had no interest in them.
Louis Napoleon rose from the Carbonari.
Louis Philippe was Free Mason and
leaned on that Order, which seems TO
have on the continent political and anti
religious character unknown in this coun-
try. And both these dynasties are the
offspring of revolution. The old nobility
of France and the country gentry, the
bone and sinew of the land, have always
distIusted them, and the distrust has been
mutual.
Would it be strange if Christian France,
sick of revolution and ribaldry, should
assert itself and rally to the standard of
Henri V? Perhaps Paris may have to
exhaust itself much further by insane
strife, before it will reliuquish the reins
of power that it has held for nearly
century. And Prussia, with her peculiar
passiveness, may work against united
France, preferring to perpetuate the
weakness of a revolutionary dynasty like
that of Napoleon. Meanwhile we may
note that the returned Papal soldiers who
fought SO bravely at Lcmans, and who
arc representatives Of the old French
families, arc for Henry V to q man. And
tue only recorded response of the Prov
inces to Theirs call on the friends oforder
-Charcltc's 5000 Bret0ne-are probably
all Legitimists So, if the provinces
should resume their natural connec-
ton with the government, which was
destroyed by the prescription of the old
nobility, and has never been restOred-if
thirty-eight million Citholics should
choose to select an eminently Catholic
sovereign-we may expect the Garibal-
DIM to howl about priest-ridden France.
1t will all be the work of that poor old
prisoner Pore in the Vatican, and of the
JcsuiLs. These last, by the way, must
be race of supernatural giants, judging
from their paucity of numbers, and the
immense amount of mischief credited TO
them. Our readers may be surprised to
learn that they number less than 400,
scattered all over the globe, Europe, Asia,
Africa, North and South America, and
the isles of the sea, even to Japan. The
nineteenth century has lost its self-cOni-
dence, if it fears them.