New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-06-02
THE ORLEANS PATTY.

tlcmen in France than the Princes of Orleans,
if they were not princes. There would be no
more valuable and useful party in France than
the Orleanists, if they were not Orleanists.
The descendants of Louis Philippe, with
scarcely single exception, are persons OF the
most exemplary character and OF highly
respectable abilities. There is not a living
prince of that family who would not make a
better king than any her-apparent we know
anything about. Compare for a moment the
Comte de Paris with the Prince of Wales the
Due dAumale with Prince Humbert of Italy,
and any other son or grandson Of Louis
Philippe with any living sovereign or his
heir, and you see at once the advantages OF the
education which these gentlemen have had.
They saw enough of courts and camps in
their youth to enable them to look on both
undazzled. They lost their rank and pros
poets while they were yet young enough to
profit by the lessons of adversely. They have
lived, ever since, lives of integrity and virtue,
devoted to literature, science, and the the
Oretic discussion of public affairs in which
they were not allowed to mingle. They are
all brave and honest men. Four of them have
worn the blue uniform of our own service.
In the darkest hour of the agony of France,
one of Them the Due de Charities, entered
France in disguise and fought under an as
sumed name, in the campaign of the Touraine,
for flag under which he was not permitted
to enlist
When peace returned, the leading members
of the family were elected to the Assembly.
They might at once have assumed the posi-
ton which was due to them among the first
citizens of the Commonwealth. Nothing pre-
vented this but their rank and the will-o'-the-
wisp hope Of a restoration which was
never out of their minds. Instead of frankly
and resolutey renOuncing these seditious
dreams, and taking part in the definite es
adjustment of the Republic, they have been
silent partners in an undgniiied and furtive
conspiracy to overthrow the existing state of
things, and bring back to France the re-
dictionary and obsolete rule of the BourbOns
They are intelligent, liberal, and prOgrcssive
abreast of their time in most of the important
public questions which interest thinking men.
But for two years they have been exhausting
every expedient of persuasion and compromise
to find some point where the Comte de
Chambord, a stray ghost of the Middle Ages
will allow them to stand by his side Their
like themselves, who would be the best sup
port of reasonable Republic and the best
guarantee of its perpetuity if they were not
msled by the halucinatiOn of possible
restoration of the family which in their eyes
symbolizes the cause of order and the prospect
of national prosperity.
They have been always out of place in this
coalition with the extreme Right. 1t is per-
haps too much to ask of the average princely
nature that it should oppose a movement
which will result in a crown. The COmte de
Chambord resembles the COmte de Paris in
nothing except in the desire to be King Yet
if the former should gain the throne the
latter would be heir presumptive, and this
consideration has thus far paralyzed the lib
eral sympathies of the whole Orleans family.
AS men of intelligence, however, they ought
to be able TO see that the throne itself has
become an anachrOnism In France and that
the pursuit of it will bring nothing but dis
comfort and finally ridicule. If the dispatches
received yesterday are to be fully trusted it
would seem that the 0rleanist party is already
dissatisfied with the attitude In which the recent
overthrow of the Theirs government left
them. In that fatal division they voted with the
reactionists, and gave them the victory by
only slender majority. They now see them
selves occupying an isolated position in the
Right Center, with all their sympathies and
ideas far more strongly in harmony with their
neighbors of the Left Center than with their
fellow-yoters of the Right. There can be no
honest alliance between the old, bitter, and
ignorant Legitimist party of France. the
ofice-seeking parvenus Of Comparison, aud
the intelligent and moderate men who form
the Orleanist faction. 1t may or may not be
true, as stated that they have made overtures
to join the Left and have been repulsed. But
in any case they are drawn in that direction