of the crime imperatively demanded that the sentence should be carried out. "The greatest consternation has been caused among all the holders of billets de banque," he said, "and a terrible example must be made of the offenders, to reassure them. Unless the Comte de Horn and his associate are executed, there will no longer be any security for moneyed men in Paris. I pray your highness, therefore, to be inflexible."

"I feel with you," said the Regent. "Such a crime as this must not pass unpunished. I will turn a deaf ear to all the supplications addressed to me-no matter by whom."

Law had not been gone long, when, as had been foreseen, the Prince de Montmorency, the Ducs de Chatillon and D'Aremberg, with the Maréchal d'Isinghien, besought an interview with the Regent, and were at once admitted.

The Regent received them with great consideration, evincing by his manner the sympathy he felt for them.

"We have come," said the Prince de Montmorency, "as supplicants to your highness in behalf of our unhappy kinsman, the Comte de Horn. We do not for a moment attempt to extenuate the crime he has committed. It is of the darkest dye, and deserves the severest punishment. If the consequences fell only upon his own head, we would not interpose between him and justice. Nay, if he were doomed to die by the axe, no word of remonstrance should be heard from us. Two of his ancestors died so. Philippe, Comte de Horn, was beheaded by the Duke of Alva in 1568, and two years later, Comte Floris de Horn was put to death in like manner by Philip II. of Spain. Their deaths brought no dishonour to the house. But if Comte Antoine de Horn should die the felon's death to which he has been adjudged, an ineffaceable stain will be cast on every branch of his illustrious house. There is scarcely a noble family in the Pays Bas but the house of Horn is allied with it. Shall dishonour be brought upon all these houses? Shall it be told to the Comte Maximilien, the proudest and most chivalrous of men, that his brother has been broken on the wheel? Shall it be told to the Emperor of Germany that a member of his royal house has died this shameful death? Even the Princess Palatine and your highness yourself will be touched by it."

"Eh bien!" cried the Regent, "I will share the opprobrium with you all. That ought to be a consolation to the other relatives."

"I cannot believe, monseigneur, that you will inflict this indelible disgrace upon a house so illustrious and so proudly allied," said the Maréchal d'Isinghien. "Your highness may not be aware that if Comte Antoine de Horn should be broken on the wheel, his family will be rendered infamous for three generations. Besides the shame they will have to endure, no male can become an abbé

or bishop, no female a canoness. At this very moment the sister of the unhappy Antoine is about to enter a convent, but she cannot do so if her brother dies this infamous death. For her sake-for the sake of her brother Prince Maximilienfor the sake of us all-commute this miserable young man's sentence to decapitation. I ask no further grace, but I beseech you to save a noble house from dishonour."

"It is not the mode of death that degrades, but the offence," replied the Regent.

"La crime fait la honte, et non pas l'échafaud.

The Comte de Horn has committed a felon's act, and must die a felon's death. I cannot-will not commute his punishment."

"I grieve to hear your highness say so," said the Duc d'Aremberg, sternly. "By this severity you will make enemies of all the nobles of the Pays Bas and Germany, who will feel themselves outraged. The Emperor would have passed no such sen

tence."

"I will go further than that," said Montmorency, boldly. "The Emperor will be justly indignant that one of his house should be executed like a felon."

"I cannot help his anger," said the Regent, impatiently. "If I make all the nobles of the Pays Bas, and all those of Germany, my mortal foes, I will not pervert justice."

"Your nobility look to you as the guardian of their privileges, monseigneur," said the Duc de Chatillon. "In your hands their honour ought to remain unsullied. You are yielding to the people, who clamour that the high birth of the Comte de Horn will shield him from the consequences of his crime; and the concession you are making will react upon the throne. We know the pressure that has been brought to bear upon your highness. We know that the comptroller-general has stated that an example must be made. But we beseech you to listen to our supplications, not to him. If this ignominious sentence is carried out, be assured we shall never forgive M. Law for the injury inflicted upon us."

"Have you done, messieurs?" demanded the Regent, coldly. "We have," replied Montmorency, sternly. "And we only regret that we should have troubled your highness at all. We are persuaded you will rue this step."

"I do not think so," returned the Regent. "But I shall not shrink from the consequences, be they what they may. I am sorry I cannot listen to your prayers-that is impossible. But is there any other grace I can show you? Perhaps you may desire to visit

your unhappy kinsman in his prison? If so, you shall have permission to do so.”

There was a certain significance in the tone in which this proposition was made, that conveyed more than the words implied, and after the supplicants had conferred a moment together, the Prince de Montmorency said:

"The Maréchal d'Isinghien and myself will avail ourselves of your highness's permission to visit the prisoner." "You will do well," rejoined the Regent.

"Perhaps you may

be able to reconcile him to his doom."

"We will try," said Montmorency.

And bowing profoundly, the whole party took their departure. As soon as they were gone, Nocé, who had been standing at the back of the cabinet, came forward.

"Your highness has displayed more firmness than I expected,” he remarked.

"I cannot commute De Horn's sentence," replied the Regent. "I would rather displease the nobles than the people. I gave Montmorency a hint, and I hope he will act upon it."

"I am sure he will," said Nocé. "But I doubt whether De Horn has the courage to save himself from this ignominious death. Your highness must admit I am a good physiognomist. I foretold that this young man would come to a violent end."

"I begin to think your prediction will be fulfilled,” replied the Regent.

THE PROJECTED FUSION OF LEGITIMACY AND
IMPERIALISM.*

THE great boast of the existing government in France is that it has restored tranquillity to a country disturbed by revolutions, and its great ambition is to permanently establish the dynasty which has been enabled to bring about so happy a state of things. Thoughtful minds have, however, been often asking themselves if it is necessary to attain that object, or, indeed, if the prospects of such an eventuality will not be seriously jeopardised by incessant hostility against an opinion whose pride it is to represent in the same country the respect for the memory of all that is great in the history of France, up to the advent of the first Napoleon, and a faithful regard for the secular laws of the country.

There is no doubt that there has been much in the attitude assumed by the Legitimists which has been calculated to engender hostile feelings. A reserve, tinged at times with contempt, in which many who are worthy of holding high offices in the State have held themselves, refusals to take the oath of allegiance, and abstention from electoral contests, have all contributed to hurt the vanity of an authority which looks upon itself as one of the permanent institutions of the country.

But, on the other hand, it has been pertinently asked whether in the light of the general interests of society, nay, even of the interests of the government itself, these inconveniences are not more than compensated for by the moral force which the simple fact of the existence of a Legitimist party imparts to the cause of order? A country in which the monarchy has realised so many great things would surely be pitied had it left neither reminiscences or adherents. It would, indeed, be a most afflicting spectacle if the proscribed inheritors of the sovereignty of olden times had not still some devoted and faithful hearts in the country created by their fathers. What hopes could the founder of a new dynasty, even if animated by the most generous intentions, base upon a people among whom the most brilliant services should be so easily forgotten? The ingratitude insisted upon towards all the traditions of the past might be extended in a similar manner to the present, the more so, indeed, as the present has not the traditions of the past to fall back

upon.

The Legitimist party represents a great element of social Conservatism, the basis of which is that an hereditary authority and the inviolability of the law of succession is an essential condition of government. The moment that a new dynasty wishes to confirm itself in power by hereditary succession, it is attempting to establish its rights upon the principles of legitimacy. Yet there cannot be two parties legitimateeither the old or the new must be an imposture, and public opinion will of itself always decide clearly and distinctly which is in the right. A government may be accepted for the time being as the representative of order, and the uncertainties that envelop the future may necessitate that that condition of order should not be imprudently disturbed; and yet the

* L'Empire et les Légitimistes. Par Charles Muller.

VOL. LVI.

I

principle upon which all durable and real government should be founded may not be lost sight of, not only by the adherents to a traditional state of things, but by the masses themselves. When this is the case, all the probabilities are that this dormant sense of justice and right must inevitably some day or other surge to the surface.

We see the Church in the present day obtaining possession of a vast proportion of the landed property of France. This, in the day of trial, will superadd another influence to the moral and religious means always at its disposal. A long period of quiet is gradually placing the majority of civil employments in the hands of Legitimists-for the time being simple supporters of order. The greater number of men in arms may be Imperialist or Republican, or anything, but there are many names in the service, especially among its chiefs, that are historical in France, and history points to only one conclusion. Attempts may be made to counterbalance such a party by raising up soldiers of fortune, or by resuscitating historical titles among those in whom the blood of the Montmorencys, or other antique families, does not flow; but with a nation essentially chivalrous, such alternatives can have no influence beyond the uneducated populations of cities. In the country, or among the educated classes of towns and cities, they cannot be objected to, but they are not accepted

for a moment.

Here is a new dynasty founded by the national will. Is it, it has been asked, everything for that dynasty to have been proclaimed once, or even twice or thrice, by millions of voices? Called upon in our revolutionary times to pronounce upon the question of the form of government, the French people have never hesitated to condemn the republican theory or to repudiate the sovereign right which has been attributed to it of periodically electing its chief. Nor, it has been said, would the guarantee of security, which it sought to obtain by re-establishing the Imperial dynasty, have found itself realised if it were admitted that the order of succession regulated by the Imperial constitution could be put to the question by a new scrutiny. Yet by what possible logic can a dynasty elected by the Sovereignty of the people claim to perpetuate itself by usurping the privileges of legitimacy, and disregarding those principles by which it was elected? The people The people are taught that, for a certain purpose, they have sovereign rights. They exercise these to ensure an election, but having once exercised them, like the insect that loves and dies, they must abrogate them for those very fundamental laws which they trampled upon when exercising their short-lived sovereignty. An emperor, it may be said, is a being of a different order to a president, and, having been elected, he can establish a principle of legitimacy. At all events, he surrounds himself with ministerial, legislative, and military adherents to strengthen himself in such a line of proceeding, while the people are not blind to the fact that they have gained nothing by their quondam sovereignty but the power to elect a ruler, who adopts, for the benefit of his dynasty, those very principles of hereditary succession which they were called upon to ignore on the occasion of his election.

Hence arise the attempts made in recent times to prove that the interests of Legitimacy and of Imperialism are identical. M. Muller, who is one of the advanced guard of this impracticable order of ideas, says: "Heaven refused the joy of posterity to the grandson of Charles X., and