less depredations
of the First Republic and the Empire upon American commerce were finally
recognised and settled by France, and Mr. Bancroft pays him a high and
well-deserved tribute for the courage with which he insisted on keeping
faith with the United States 'at the risk of his popularity and of his
place.' Are we to think it a mere effect of chance, or only a
coincidence, that the flag of the Constitutional Monarchy, as the sole
alternative of anarchy in France, is supported by the descendants of
Montesquieu, by the heirs of Guizot, and by the son of this Duc de
Broglie to whose courage and integrity France and America were indebted
for the equitable settlement of an international dispute originally
provoked by the vulgar folly and impertinence of the first French
Republic and of the disreputable envoys, Genet and Fauchet, whom it sent
one after the other to the United States with orders to appeal from the
Government of President Washington to the American people?

It was by the 'Military Council' made up of officers trained in the
school of the great Marechal de Broglie, and not by the vapouring and
venal demagogues of the Convention, that France was successfully
organised to resist the Austro-Prussian invasion of 1792; and it was by
the government of which the present Duc de Broglie was a leading member
under the Marechal Duc de Magenta, not by M. Gambetta and M. Jules
Ferry, that the Third Republic was so administered when the fortunes of
France were at their lowest ebb as to re-establish the finances, restore
the credit, and renew the military strength of the French nation.

For now more than two centuries the name of De Broglie has been made
historical in France, not by the favour of princes--for neither in the
camp nor in the cabinet have the De Broglies ever been courtiers--nor
yet by the applause of the populace, but by the personal ability, the
personal character, and the public services of the men who have borne
it. If ever a man died for his loyalty to liberty and the law, it was
Victor Charles de Broglie in 1794. His son, the earliest and most
faithful ally in France of Clarkson and Wilberforce in their long
crusade against negro slavery, never sought, but accepted his place
among the peers of France after the Restoration. Such was his absolute
independence that his first act in the Upper Chamber under Louis XVIII.
was to record his solitary but emphatic protest against the
condemnation of Marshal Ney.