The Fusion is getting confused again, probably because John Lemoinne,
the able publicist, who, though often on the right, is never on the winning side, has predicted its, success. The Comte de Chambord, it is said, adheres to his White Flag, which France, seeing in it the emblem of despotism and clericalism, will not have. The Orleanists, moreover, though ready to bear an ad interim monarch, have not lost their patriotism entirely, and think Henri Cinq should at least promulgate a Charter, which of course Henri Cinq, who does not care to reign except as Sovereign, will not do. The influence of the Pope is to be brought to bear upon him, the Papacy denying all divine right except its own, but even that may fail. That is the good of these Bourbons, as of our own Stuarts, in the role of Pretenders. They have such a splendid capacity for ruining their own cause. A Hapsburg would have been King of France or Spain by this time, but the stars in their courses fight against a race which seems doomed to be always a bad alternative. Even Maximilian, though he was shot, was crowned in Mexico first, and the stupid little Guelph get to London and kept there, Providence providing for him a Duke of Somerset capable of rushing into a Cabinet uninvited, ands compelling the majority in it to surrender their own convictions.
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