Kingdom of France

“ The question is this: that there shall be a great kingdom, old France, a well-regulated country, where men consider first the sacred person of the monarchs, absolute rulers of the State, then the princes, then the officers of the crown, naval and military, as well as the controllers of finance. ”

“ I love it, and would wish to maintain it with all my power, for our Christian Faith; it is not I who should be prevented from going to Church and hearing Mass! As to the good deeds I have done and my coming to the King, I must wait on the King of Heaven, who sent me to Charles, King of France, son of Charles, who was King of France. You will see that the French will soon gain a great victory, that God will send such great doings that nearly all the Kingdom of France will be shaken by them. ”

“ In former times, the territory which now constitutes France was divided into a great number of separate provinces, each of which formed almost a distinct state or kingdom. These several provinces were the possessions of lords, dukes, and barons, who ruled over them, respectively, like so many petty kings, with almost absolute sway, though they all acknowledged a general allegiance to the kings of France or of England. The more northern provinces pertained to England. Those in the interior and southern portions of the country were under the dominion of France. ”

“ LOUIS, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre,
To all those to whom these presents come, greeting.
Divine Providence, in recalling us to our estates after a long absence, has laid upon us great obligations. Peace was the first need of our subjects: we have employed ourselves thereto without relaxation; and that peace, so necessary for France, as well as for the remainder of Europe, is signed. A constitutional charter was called for by the actual condition of the kingdom ”

“ They brought brilliant and barren triumphs to England, and, like most wars, were a wasteful and terrible mistake, which, if crowned with ultimate success, might, by removing the centre of the kingdom into France, have marred the future welfare of England, for the happy constitutional development of the country could never have taken place with a sovereign living at Paris, and French interests becoming ever more powerful. ”

“ But France, even with her southwestern corner in English hands, was still a very warlike power, far richer and more populous than her rival. Single Provinces were so great that they were stronger than many a kingdom. ”

“ England in conscious superiority smiles at a nation which has had seven political revolutions in a hundred years. Republic, then Empire, then a return to the Bourbons, then a limited Monarchy under Louis Philippe, then Republic, followed by Empire again, and now for the third time a Republic!
But France, complex, mobile, changeful as the sea, in riotous enjoyment of her newfound liberties, casts off a form of government as she would an ill-fitting garment. She knows the value of tranquillity — she had it for one thousand years! ”

“ Considering what France was under her Kings, what she now is, and how many troubles she has had to endure at the hands of intriguers, the conclusion in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, accepted by all men able to read French History, is surely that France always was, is at heart, and should remain what Great Britain is, and rightly wishes to remain, i.e., a Constitutional Monarchy. ”

“ The principle of Royalty is so powerful in France that during the space of fourteen centuries the French nation has had but three Races of Kings. France should have remained and should again be "the Christian Monarchy." ”

“ Such is the brilliant Royal House of France, so called because it is the living personification of France, and because, having in the course of ages founded, with the nation's help, the unity of France, it now appears the last and only hope of Frenchmen, in the midst of their sorrows and their disasters. Let us bring it home to ourselves, although strangers only reading of the life of others; and may it go home to the mind of Frenchmen, that the safety of France is in the Monarchy, and that elsewhere people can find nought but ruin and calamity. ”

“ I do not believe that the Revolution has produced any thing more comprehensive and energetic on the governments of the last twenty-five years in France, namely, the Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire. ”

“ Are France or England for that less the good result of Monarchy? To-day France is the France of French Monarchy, the only difference being that under the First Napoleon the Allies entered Paris on the 6th of July, 1815, and that the fallen Emperor saddled France with the Treaty of Paris (1815) ; the Third Napoleon lost Alsace less Belfort; and that the Third Republic lost a large slice of Lorraine through not coming to terms with Prussia before the capitulation of Metz, French History begins not either from 1870 or 1792; and if men, strangers to History, cannot educate, let them be educated! ”

“ But, Sir, there are some gentlemen in the House who seem to consider it already certain that the ultimate success to which I am looking is unattainable: they suppose us contending only for the restoration of the French monarchy, which they believe to be impracticable, and deny to be desirable for this country. We have been asked in the course of this debate, do you think you can impose monarchy upon France, against the will of the nation? ”

“ The successful establishment of the French Republic would very probably have driven every King in Europe from his throne. England was agitated through all her countries. From the mud cabins of Ireland, from the dark and miry mines, from the thronged streets of the city, and the crowded workshops all over the kingdom, there was a clamorous cry ascending for liberty and equality. The spirit of democracy, radiating from its soul in Paris, was assailing every throne in Europe. ”

“ The Revolution of 1688 in England misled King Louis Philippe and later on Louis Bonaparte. Nevertheless there is not the slightest analogy between the Constitutions of the two countries, and still less between the temper of the two people. Would to God that the Political Economy of England was that of France! For no one wishes more than we do, to see in France that fusion of Princes and principle; to see the two Houses of Peers and Commoners striving only for the prosperity of France ”

“ France recovered her pristine vigor, and let all Europe see that power concentrated in the person of the sovereign is the source of the glory and greatness of monarchies, and the foundation upon which their preservation rests. ”

“ In all matters of diplomacy, power must be regarded as well as right, and in none more than in the case before us. If what has occurred between Russia and Poland, had occurred between Holland and Belgium, had Belgium been defeated by Holland after her rebellion and resistance, and Holland had attempted to annihilate the nationality of Belgium, and transmute it into a Dutch province, is it conceivable that France and England would have permitted this infraction of the treaty of Vienna? ”

“ It was, in reality, a plot, under cover of Catholicism, to introduce absolute monarchy, and to make England a dependency of France, not only by the acceptance of French money, but by submission to a French army. ”

“ You may call this faction, which has eradicated the monarchy,—expelled the proprietary, persecuted religion, and trampled upon law,—you may call this France if you please: but of the ancient France nothing remains but its central geography; its iron frontier; its spirit of ambition; its audacity of enterprise; its perplexing intrigue. These, and these alone, remain: and they remain heightened in their principle and augmented in their means. All the former correctives, whether of virtue or of weakness, which existed in the old monarchy, are gone. ”

“ He may discern the true limits of his own power, and abandon an attempt which he believes to be impious because he sees that it is impossible. And then the untiring protest which England and France have made against this wrong, and their continued assertion of this right will have their full efficacy in encouraging this benevolent wisdom, in proving to that sovereign, that in best consulting the interests of his own empire, he will be confirming the ties of amity and peace with the most powerful nations of the world. ”

“ This new triumph of the populace occasioned another change in the constitution by the national assembly: the king being compelled to accede to every thing which they chose to establish. But France was not yet tranquil. The king and the people—except the factionists—became again, in appearance, if not in reality, reconciled; but there was still an under-current of mischief at work, which finally involved the monarch in ruin, Paris in bloodshed, and all Europe in war! ”

“ The king's courts and the king's officers pushed their jurisdiction into a widening realm, until the king's authority had become supreme, in fact as well as in name. Even the measureless misery of a hundred years of war with English kings brought power, in the end, to the crown, by weakening the greater lords, and by bringing into existence a fixed military force. A. D. 1337-1453. Hundred Years War. Happy accidents, shrewd marriages, and cunning intrigues gathered the great dukedoms, one by one, into the royal domain, and the solidarity of modern France was attained. 16th-17th centuries. ”

“ SURROUNDING REPUBLICS CHANGED INTO KINGDOMS.—Thus was the First French Republic metamorphosed into an unveiled empire. We may be sure that the cluster of republics which during the Revolution sprang up around the great original, will speedily undergo a like transformation; for Napoleon was right when he said that a revolution in France is sure to be followed by a revolution throughout Europe. As France, a republic, would make all states republics, so France, a monarchy, would make all nations monarchies. ”

“ Pity and righteousness shall be restored. There shall be a treaty of peace, and all men shall of their own accord return to the King, which King shall weigh justice and administer it unto all men and preserve his subjects in beautiful peace. Henceforth no English foe with the sign of the leopard shall dare to call himself King of France [added by the translator] and adopt the arms of France, which arms are borne by the holy Maid. ”

“ The House will recollect the first professions of the French Republic, which are enumerated, and enumerated truly, in that note. They are tests of every thing which would best recommend a government to the esteem and confidence of foreign powers, and the reverse of every thing which has been the system and practice of France now for near ten years. It is there stated that their first principles were love of peace, aversion to conquest, and respect for the independence of other countries. ”

“ The French people want to be fooled, and these kings couldn’t fool anybody. So there was another republic, and then Napoleon the Third came to the front on the reputation of his uncle, the great Napoleon. He worked the French people to a finish, built palaces, boulevards and playgrounds until he had everybody for him, and then got captured by the Germans, lost his reputation and throne, and France became a republic for the third time. ”

“ It might seem probable that the possessor of so great power would absorb the little monarchy of France. But this was prevented by long-continued discord in England,—discord in the royal family, between the king and the clergy, and, later, between the king and the barons. On the Continent, the king of England required a great and united force to break the feudal bonds which grew stronger between the king of France and the French provinces of England. We shall soon see how France enlarged her territory, and how the English dominion on the Continent was greatly reduced. ”

“ Surrounded as she was by a chosen society, having in her service the proudest names of the French, the Belgian, the Italian nobility; flattered by the attention of a court in which elegance, wit, politeness, followed all the most brilliant traditions of the old régime, the daughter of the German Cæsars could not imagine that France, with its tranquillity, its profound respect, its affection for the monarchy, in which she was treated more like a goddess than a sovereign, had, a few years earlier, been governed by the Jacobins. ”

“ It is France herself. Not the France of to-day—banker and bourgeois-ridden; nor the France of the Second Empire—vulgar and painted; nor the Napoleonic France—half a brothel, half a barrack. Across all these and the fumes of the Revolution, Versailles calls to us: “I am France. Before I was built I was born in the dreams of the Gallic people. ”

“ It was the special peculiarity of France that an extraordinary diversity of laws continued without sensible alteration while the central authority of the monarchy was constantly strengthening itself, while rapid approaches were being made to complete administrative unity, and while a fervid national spirit had been developed among the people. ”

“ During the year there was a recrudescence of the friction between this country and France, due partly to questions as to the right of search of foreign ships, partly to a brochure issued by the Prince de Joinville, a son of Louis Philippe, partly to the assumption of French sovereignty over Tahiti and the seizure of the English consul there by the French authorities. Reparation however was made, and the ill-feeling sufficiently subsided to enable the King of the French to visit Queen Victoria,—the first friendly visit ever paid by a French king to the Sovereign of England. ”