THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD.
been, in a strangely typical way, the representative of lost causes generally. Causes become lost because they are embodied in men like the Comte de Chambord • yet even in becoming lost they derive from the men in whom they are embodied a certain dignity, which redeems them from the con- tempt with which the world commonly visits failure. In itself, what can be more foolish than the theory of a
genuine French Legitimist To begin with, he believes in a doctrine which goes against all history, which is proscribed by his own infallible Church, and is utterly incapable of any philosophical justification. The Divine Right of Kings is open to every one of these objections ; yet a French Legitimist swallows them without so much as a change of countenance. Not only does he swallow them himself, but he gravely offers the dose to others. In a sceptical age, and in the most sceptical of countries, he expects that men will ignore reason, experience, and common-sense, and accept the lineal descendant of the Bourbons as the divinely appointed instrument, whether of blessing or chastise- ment. The more facts seem to make against his view, the more firmly he clings to it. The French people go on supply- ing him with conclusive evidence that they prefer any Govern- ment that can be named to a Government of the only type that he holds to be endurable, but from each fresh proof he seems to derive additional strength to resist conviction. It is no easy matter to make such a party as this respectable, but the Comte de Chambord has succeeded in doing it.
In the first place, he has been entirely free from that political fussiness which is often the characteristic of pretenders, and oftener still of those over whom pretenders exercise authority. There is nothing to show that the Count has ever been mixed up in any Legitimist conspiracy, that he has ever meditated any attack upon the powers that be, or regarded the Republic as an adversary, except in that general sense in which a good man views with disapproval the success of what he esteems wickedness. He has accepted without question the logic of facts. Other men rule where his ancestors once ruled ; other ideas prevail where a Monarchical sentiment scarcely inferior to that which animated the subjects of the Pharaohs once held sway. The Comte de Chambord has never pretended to question the decrees of Providence ; he has seen his country accept in turn a Constitu- tional Monarchy, a Democratic Empire, and a Republic which is Conservative one day and Radical the next, and he has bowed his head as meekly as though he were witnessing an earthquake or a cyclone. You may call it fatalism, if you like but it is impossible not to recognise that it is a fatalism which is not without a majesty of its own. He whom it in- fluences does not question the designs of the Almighty, nor fancy himself wiser than Omniscience. It may be in the pur- pose of God that evil shall be permitted to triumph, and, if so, he will not be found fighting against God. But, on the other hand, he does not persuade himself that he is in any way necessary to the accomplishment of the Divine ends. He has none of that feeling that he is in some way necessary
• to Providence which so often tempts men to do things which they think wholly wrong or only half right, because they can- not bear to see them done without them. The man who is on • the side of good must often be content to be defeated, and to find himself sent to the rear as a prisoner, unable to help him- self or others. But if that is his lot, he must bear it patiently, and not offer to change sides and fight in the ranks of those who were till yesterday his enemies, lest he should be con- demned to inaction, and see the world go on without his having any land in its movements. The Comte de Chambord under- stood all this to perfection. He saw that his credit, if not his strength, was to sit still ; and he accepted the part with- out a murmur.
No doubt, the qualities which thus make a lost cause respectable go far, at the same time, to make it a lost cause. Men who are to bend events to their will must know how to be bent in their turn. They must be free from that majestic indifference which regards poverty as preferable to riches, unless those riches be gained and spent in one particular way.
If they are fatalists, it must only be in the sense of believing that Heaven helps those who help themselves, and of re- solving that they, at least, will not show themselves undeserving of Heaven's aid. The Comte Chambord had no such fancies as this. If France had come to his feet, he would not have spurned her from him, but he would give no sign that could be construed into an indication that he wished or expected to see her there. If she stayed away, the loss would be hers, not his ; and if she came, the gain would be divided on the same principle. A cause which is thus officered very soon drops out of the race. At least once since the fall of the Empire the French nation might have been persuaded, without much difficulty, to give Royalty another trial. That they did not do so, was wholly due to the peculiar qualities of Royalty's representative. Even the French Royalists wanted a King who would move with the times, and they naturally asked for some evidence that he had moved with them up till then. No such evidence was forthcoming,—rather evidence of the most convincing kind in the other direction. What the Comte de Chambord had been, that he still was, and he scorned to leave this fact in any uncertainty. The acceptance by the French people of the White Flag, and of all that the White Flag symbolised, was the only condition on which ho would mount the throne. Many pretenders would have surrendered the form, and trusted to fortune to preserve them the substance. The Comte de Chambord had more regard for his own char- acter. Unless he could be sure of the form, he preferred to forego the substance.
Now that he is dead, who is there in Europe of whom such things can be said ? Legitimacy has no longer any field left to it in which to move with propriety. Those who have hitherto called themselves Legitimists will still be an element in French politics ; they may even be an element of more practical weight than they have yet been. But it will not be as Legitimists. They will now be merged under the general head of " Royalists," and Royalists who look to the Comte de Paris as their chief will have little in common with the party which saw its highest ideal of Kingship realised in the Comte de Chambord. The cause disappears from this moment, what- ever may be the destiny of those who have hitherto defended it. It disappears, too, in precisely the manner in which all who have a tenderness for lost causes would have liked to see it disappear. The death-scene at Frohsdorf suggests no sense of failure, because failure presupposes effort. It suggests the passing of an idea, not any inability on the part of niaa to give that idea expression. But for the Comte de Chambord, Legitimacy might have faded away into Con- stitutional Kingship. He has taken care that it shall vanish like the setting sun of the tropics, with no interlude of twilight to mark the transition from the past to the present.
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