hop of Orleans, Mgr. Dupanloup, on
reading one of the letters by which the Comte de Chambord nailed the
white flag to the mast, was driven to exclaim, "There! That makes the
Republic! Poor France! All is lost."

Thus the attempts at fusion of the two monarchical parties had only
served to expose the weaknesses of their position and to warn France of
the probable results of a monarchical restoration. That the country had
well learnt the lesson appeared in the bye-elections, which in nearly
every case went in favour of Republican candidates. Another event that
happened early in 1873 further served to justify Thiers' contention that
the Republic was the only possible form of government. On January 9,
Napoleon III. died of the internal disease which for seven years past
had been undermining his strength. His son, the Prince Imperial, was at
present far too young to figure as a claimant to the throne.

It is also an open secret that Bismarck worked hard to prevent all
possibility of a royalist Restoration; and when the German ambassador at
Paris, Count Arnim, opposed his wishes in this matter, he procured his
recall and subjected him to a State prosecution. In fact, Bismarck
believed that under a Republic France would be powerless in war, and,
further, that she could never form that alliance with Russia which was
the bugbear of his later days. A Russian diplomatist once told the Duc
de Broglie that the kind of Republic which Bismarck wanted to see in
France was "_une Republique dissolvante_."

Everything therefore concurred to postpone the monarchical question, and
to prolong the informal truce which Thiers had been the first to bring
about. Accordingly, in the month of November, the Assembly extended the
Presidency of Marshal MacMahon to seven years--a period therefore known
as the Septennate.

Having now briefly shown the causes of the helplessness of the
monarchical majority in the matter that it had most nearly at heart, we
must pass over subsequent events save as they refer to that crowning
paradox--the establishment of a Republican Constitution. This was due to
the despair felt by many of the Orleanists of seeing a restoration
during the lifetime of the Comte de Chambord, and to the alarm felt by
all sections of the monarchists at the activity and partial success of
the Bonapartists, who in the latter part of 1874 captured a few seats.
Seeking above all things to keep out a Bonaparte, they did little to
hinder the