ave to carry on their machinations. What theme can they find of
sufficient power to persuade the people of France to leave the port
in which they now find themselves safe and happy, and to commit
themselves again to those seas of whose dangers they have heretofore
had such dreadful experience.
Will it be sympathy for the fallen house of Bourbon? There is no nerve
in France that will respond to such an appeal. That house has no place
in the affections of the people. It was forced upon them, at the point
of the bayonet, in 1814. It has been tried a second time: found to be
incurably despotic, and every indication attests that the revolution
which has again ejected them from the throne, is, in this respect,
popular throughout France. The influence of that family is
extinguished for ever, in the kingdom.
Nor do we learn that there is any other competitor for the crown that
has a party of sufficient strength to unfurl a banner in his cause
with any hope of success. It is not a small faction that can disturb
the peace of such a kingdom as that of France, instructed as they must
necessarily be by their past experience.
It has been suggested that the limited monarchy which has been
established is distasteful to the republicans: and that the match of
discord may be applied with success to this party. But Gen. Lafayette
is at the head of _the republicans_, and a letter from him which has
been recently published is well fitted to quiet our apprehensions on
this score. _He_ would have preferred a republic on our model. But
the question was not what was best in the abstract, but what was best
for France in the situation in which she was placed. What was that
situation? The tastes and prejudices of foreign princes were to be
consulted to avoid all pretext for interference on their part, and
such a government was to be established as the more liberal among
them, (England for example,) would promptly recognize. On the other
hand, with a view to immediate repose in France, herself, it was
indispensably necessary that there should be at once a firm and
efficient government, to avoid those factions which are always
hatched by protracted revolutions, and fluctuating counsels; witness
the afflicting scenes in South America. Hence the necessity of that
compromise which he, Gen. Lafayette, says was so promptly made. The
wisdom of it, both in its foreign and domestic aspect, is so striking,
that the people of France, with the lights of t
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