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that imprudence; fertile in expedients; in countenances; in masks; making France fear Europe and Europe France! Incontestably fond of his country; but preferring his family; assuming more domination than authority and more authority than dignity; a disposition which has this unfortunate property; that as it turns everything to success; it admits of ruse and does not absolutely repudiate baseness; but which has this valuable side; that it preserves politics from violent shocks; the state from fractures; and society from catastrophes; minute; correct; vigilant; attentive; sagacious; indefatigable; contradicting himself at times and giving himself the lie; bold against Austria at Ancona; obstinate against England in Spain; bombarding Antwerp; and paying off Pritchard; singing the Marseillaise with conviction; inaccessible to despondency; to lassitude; to the taste for the beautiful and the ideal; to daring generosity; to Utopia; to chimeras; to wrath; to vanity; to fear; possessing all the forms of personal intrepidity; a general at Valmy; a soldier at Jemappes; attacked eight times by regicides and always smiling。
brave as a grenadier; courageous as a thinker; uneasy only in the face of the chances of a European shaking up; and unfitted for great political adventures; always ready to risk his life; never his work; disguising his will in influence; in order that he might be obeyed as an intelligence rather than as a king; endowed with observation and not with divination; not very attentive to minds; but knowing men; that is to say requiring to see in order to judge; prompt and penetrating good sense; practical wisdom; easy speech; prodigious memory; drawing incessantly on this memory; his only point of resemblance with Caesar; Alexander; and Napoleon; knowing deeds; facts; details; dates; proper names; ignorant of tendencies; passions; the diverse geniuses of the crowd; the interior aspirations; the hidden and obscure uprisings of souls; in a word; all that can be designated as the invisible currents of consciences; accepted by the surface; but little in accord with France lower down; extricating himself by dint of tact; governing too much and not enough; his own first minister; excellent at creating out of the pettiness of realities an obstacle to the immensity of ideas; mingling a genuine creative faculty of civilization; of order and organization; an indescribable spirit of proceedings and chicanery; the founder and lawyer of a dynasty; having something of Charlemagne and something of an attorney; in short; a lofty and original figure; a prince who understood how to create authority in spite of the uneasiness of France; and power in spite of the jealousy of Europe。
Louis Philippe will be classed among the eminent men of his century; and would be ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved glory but a little; and if he had had the sentiment of what is great to the same degree as the feeling for what is useful。
Louis Philippe had been handsome; and in his old age he remained graceful; not always approved by the nation; he always was so by the masses; he pleased。
He had that gift of charming。
He lacked majesty; he wore no crown; although a king; and no white hair; although an old man; his manners belonged to the old regime and his habits to the new; a mixture of the noble and the bourgeois which suited 1830; Louis Philippe was transition reigning; he had preserved the ancient pronunciation and the ancient orthography which he placed at the service of opinions modern; he loved Poland and Hungary; but he wrote les Polonois; and he pronounced les Hongrais。
He wore the uniform of the national guard; like Charles X。; and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor; like Napoleon。
He went a little to chapel; not at all to the chase; never to the opera。 Incorruptible by sacristans; by whippers…in; by ballet…dancers; this made a part of his bourgeois popularity。
He had no heart。 He went out with his umbrella under his arm; and this umbrella long formed a part of his aureole。
He was a bit of a mason; a bit of a gardener; something of a doctor; he bled a postilion who had tumbled from his horse; Louis Philippe no more went about without his lancet; than did Henri IV。
without his poniard。
The Royalists jeered at this ridiculous king; the first who had ever shed blood with the object of healing。
For the grievances against Louis Philippe; there is one deduction to be made; there is that which accuses royalty; that which accuses the reign; that which accuses the King; three columns which all give different totals。
Democratic right confiscated; progress bees a matter of secondary interest; the protests of the street violently repressed; military execution of insurrections; the rising passed over by arms; the Rue Transnonain; the counsels of war; the absorption of the real country by the legal country; on half shares with three hundred thousand privileged persons; these are the deeds of royalty; Belgium refused; Algeria too harshly conquered; and; as in the case of India by the English; with more barbarism than civilization; the breach of faith; to Abd…el…Kader; Blaye; Deutz bought; Pritchard paid;these are the doings of the reign; the policy which was more domestic than national was the doing of the King。
As will be seen; the proper deduction having been made; the King's charge is decreased。
This is his great fault; he was modest in the name of France。
Whence arises this fault?
We will state it。
Louis Philippe was rather too much of a paternal king; that incubation of a family with the object of founding a dynasty is afraid of everything and does not like to be disturbed; hence excessive timidity; which is displeasing to the people; who have the 14th of July in their civil and Austerlitz in their military tradition。
Moreover; if we deduct the public duties which require to be fulfilled first of all; that deep tenderness of Louis Philippe towards his family was deserved by the family。
That domestic group was worthy of admiration。
Virtues there dwelt side by side with talents。 One of Louis Philippe's daughters; Marie d'Orleans; placed the name of her race among artists; as Charles d'Orleans had placed it among poets。
She made of her soul a marble which she named Jeanne d'Arc。 Two of Louis Philippe's daughters elicited from Metternich this eulogium:
〃They are young people such as are rarely seen; and princes such as are never seen。〃
This; without any dissimulation; and also without any exaggeration; is the truth about Louis Philippe。
To be Prince Equality; to bear in his own person the contradiction of the Restoration and the Revolution; to have that disquieting side of the revolutionary which bees reassuring in governing power; therein lay the fortune of Louis Philippe in 1830; never was there a more plete adaptation of a man to an event; the one entered into the other; and the incarnation took place。 Louis Philippe is 1830 made man。
Moreover; he had in his favor that great remendation to the throne; exile。
He had been proscribed; a wanderer; poor。
He had lived by his own labor。
In Switzerland