a long line of glories in France, but for a hundred years the Tricolor had been the flag under which French soldiers had marched to victory.  It was this matter of the flag that prevented the success of the plan of restoration in 1873, two months after the Comte de Paris had so patriotically sacrificed some of his own most cherished feelings by his reconciliation (for his country’s sake) with his cousin at Froehsdorf.  The party could do nothing without its head.  The Orleanist princes would not act without their chief, and the opportunity passed, perhaps never to return.”

“Henri V. never hesitated about the matter of the flag,” says another writer.  “He regarded its color as above everything important.  The question of white or tricolor was to him a vital thing.  He said:  ’Kings have their private points of personal honor like mere citizens.  I should feel myself to be sacrificing my honor, since I was born a king, if I made any concessions on the subject of the White Flag of my family.  With respect to other things I may concede; but as to that, never, never! The only thing for which I have ever reproached Louis XVI. was for having for one moment suffered the bonnet rouge to be placed upon his head to save his royalty.  Now you are proposing to me to do the same thing.  No!’ The count had drawn up a constitution for France after his own ideas, but he would show it to no man.  No human being had any power to influence him.  But he was heard to say more than once:  ’I will never diminish the power of the sovereign.  I desire liberty and progress to emanate from the king.  Royalty should progress with the age, but never cease to be itself in all things.’  He deemed the authority he claimed to be his by right divine; but one may be permitted to think,” concludes this writer, “that this authority, if it came from Heaven, has been recalled there.”

Four months before his death he had a touching interview with his heir, the Comte de Paris, at Froehsdorf.  The count little expected then that he would be prevented from taking the part of chief mourner at the funeral which took place Sept. 1, 1883, at Goeritz, when the king, who had never reigned, was laid beside Charles X., his grandfather.

We may best conclude this account of the Comte de Chambord with some touching words which he addressed to his disappointed supporters in 1875:—­

“Sometimes I am reproached for not having chosen to reign when the opportunity was offered me, and for having perhaps lost that opportunity forever.  This is a misconception.  Tell it abroad boldly.  I am the depositary of Legitimate Monarchy.  I will guard my birthright till my last sigh.  I desire royalty as my heritage, as my duty, but never by chance or by intrigue.  In other times I might have been willing (as some of my ancestors have been) to recover my birthright by force of arms.  What would have been possible and reasonable formerly, is not so now.  After forty years of revolution,