The situation is a most curious one, and though the
issues are so tremendous and fraught with such dire importance to so large a portion of the human race, it is not without its comic side. Unfortunately, however, there is not the atmo- sphere of good humour which prevailed when in 1848 Louis Philippe abdicated the throne of France. It will be remem- bered that Louis Philippe also hesitated till the last moment, and tried to put off the evil hour. Contemporary accounts describe him as sitting at his bureau in the Tuileries writing out his abdication at one end of a great room, while the other end was filled with a mob shouting at the top of their voices: "Viva l'abdication !"—a delightful example of the French. man's love of incarnating an abstraction. Meantime at a aide door of the Palace was a string of back cabs ready to convey the King and his immediate entourage in melodrama.tie secrecy into exile.
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