nverted, in
Napoleonic fashion, into the so-called principality of Wagram. By the
Princess of Wagram, the marshal's widow, it was, after the Restoration,
sold to the trustees of a national subscription which had been
established for the purpose of presenting it to the infant Duke of
Bordeaux, then prospective King of France. The presentation was duly
made; but the Comte de Chambord, who had changed his title in
recognition of the gift, was despoiled of his property by the government
of Louis Philippe. He appealed for redress to the tribunals of his
country; and the consequence of his appeal was an interminable
litigation, by which, however, finally, after the lapse of twenty-five
years, he was established in his rights. In 1871 he paid his first visit
to the domain which had been offered him half a century before, a term
of which he had spent forty years in exile. It was from Chambord that
he dated his famous letter of the 5th of July of that year--the letter,
directed to his so-called subjects, in which he waves aloft the white
flag of the Bourbons. This rare miscalculation--virtually an invitation
to the French people to repudiate, as their national ensign, that
immortal tricolour, the flag of the Revolution and the Empire, under
which they have won the glory which of all glories has hitherto been
dearest to them and which is associated with the most romantic, the most
heroic, the epic, the consolatory, period of their history--this
luckless manifesto, I say, appears to give the measure of the political
wisdom of the excellent Henry V. The proposal should have had less
simplicity or the people less irony.

On the whole Chambord makes a great impression; and the hour I was
there, while the yellow afternoon light slanted upon the September
woods, there was a dignity in its desolation. It spoke, with a muffled
but audible voice, of the vanished monarchy, which had been so strong,
so splendid, but to-day had become a vision almost as fantastic as the
cupolas and chimneys that rose before me. I thought, while I lingered
there, of all the fine things it takes to make up such a monarchy; and
how one of them is a superfluity of mouldering, empty palaces. Chambord
is touching--that is the best word for it; and if the hopes of another
restoration are in the follies of the Republic, a little reflection on
that eloquence of ruin ought to put the Republic on its guard. A
sentimental tourist may venture to remark that in presence o