When Charles X. tried to secure the banishment of the families of the men who had voted for the death of Louis XVI., he may have had in mind his cousin, the son of Philippe Egalite, the wickedest and most despicable of the regicides.  Whatever his father had been, Louis Philippe was far from being a wicked man.  Whether teaching school in Switzerland, or giving French lessons in America, he was the kindest-hearted and most inoffensive of gentlemen.  The only trouble with this reign was that it was not heroic.  The most emotional and romantic people in Europe had a common-place king.  Only once was there a throb of genuine enthusiasm during the eighteen years of his occupancy of the throne, and that was when the remains of their adored Napoleon were brought from St. Helena and placed in that magnificent tomb in the Hotel des Invalides by order of the king, who sent his son, the Prince de Joinville, to bring this gift to the people.  The act was gracious, but it was also hazardous.  Perhaps the king did not know how slight was his hold upon this imaginative people, nor the possible effect of contrast.

Under the new order of things in a constitutional monarchy the king does not govern, he reigns.  He was chosen by the people as their ornamental figure-head.  But what if he ceased to be ornamental?  What was the use of a king who in eighteen years had added not a single ray of glory to the national name, but who was using his high position to increase his enormous private fortune, and incessantly begging an impoverished country for benefits and emoluments for five sons?

An excellent father, truly, though a short-sighted one.  His power had no roots.  The cutting from the Orleans tree had never taken hold upon the soil, and toppled over at the sound of Lamartine’s voice proclaiming a republic from the balcony of the Hotel de Ville.

When invited to step down from his royal throne, he did so on the instant.  Never did king succumb with such alacrity, and never did retiring royalty look less imposing than when Louis Philippe was in hiding at Havre under the name of “William Smith,” waiting for safe convoy to England, without having struck one blow in defence of his throne.

But three terrible words had floated into the open windows of the Tuileries.  With the echoes of 1792 still sounding in his ears, “Liberty,” “Equality,” and “Fraternity,” shouted in the streets of Paris, had not a pleasant sound!

Republicanism was an abiding sentiment in France, even while two dull Bourbon kings were stupidly trying to turn back the hands on the dial of time, and while an Orleans, with more supple neck, was posing as a popular sovereign.  During all this tiresome interlude the real fact was developing.  A Republican sentiment which had existed vaguely in the air was materializing, consolidating, into a more and more tangible reality in the minds of thinking men and patriots.

The ablest men in the country stood with plans matured, ready to meet this crisis.  A republic was proclaimed; M. de Lamartine, Ledru-Rollin, General Cavaignac, M. Raspail, and Louis Napoleon were rival candidates for the office of President.