d the ideas and
bequests of the greatest movement in modern times.

Prussia and Austria, therefore, were obliged to yield to Russia and
England, supported by the will of the French nation itself. Russia had
no jealousy of French ideas; and England certainly could not,
consistently with her struggles and her traditions, oppose what the
English nation resolutely clung to, and of which it was so proud.
Prussia and Austria, undisturbed by revolutions, wished simply the
restoration of the _status quo_, which with them meant absolute
monarchy; but which in France was not really the _status quo_, since the
Revolution had effected great and permanent changes even under the
regime of Bonaparte. Russia and England, in conceding something to
liberty, were yet as earnest and sincere advocates of legitimacy as
Prussia and Austria; for constitutional rights may exist under a
monarchy as well as under a republic. Moreover, it was felt by
enlightened statesmen of all parties that no government could be stable
and permanent in France which ignored the bequests of the Revolution,
which even Napoleon professed to respect.

Accordingly it was settled that Louis XVIII.,--the younger brother of
Louis XVI., who had fled from France in 1792,--should be recalled from
exile, and restored to the throne of his ancestors, since he agreed to
accept checks to his authority, and swore to defend the new
constitution, although he insisted upon reigning "by the grace of
God,"--not as a monarch who received his crown from the people, or as a
gift from other monarchs, but by divine right. To this all parties
consented. He maintained the dignity of the royal prerogative at the
same time that he recognized the essential liberties of the nation. They
were not so full and complete as those in England; but the king
guaranteed to secure the rights both of public and private property, to
respect the freedom of the Press, to grant liberty of worship, to
maintain the national obligations, to make the judicial power
independent and irremovable, and to admit all Frenchmen to civil and
military employment, without restrictions in matters of religion. These
in substance constituted the charter which he granted on condition of
reigning,--an immense gain to France and the cause of civilization, if
honestly maintained.

Louis XVIII. was neither a great king nor a great man; but his long
exile of twenty years, his travels and residences in various countries
in Europe,