“Deus patiens,” says St Augustin, “quia æternus.”[13]—What an awful commentary on this magnificent text have recent events afforded! Eighteen years ago Louis Philippe forgot his loyalty and broke his oath; the first prince of the blood elevated himself to power by successful treason; he adopted, if he did not make, a revolution. He sent his lawful monarch into exile; he prevented the placing the crown on the head of his grandson; he for ever severed France from its lawful sovereigns. What has been the result of his usurpation? Where are now his enduring projects, his family alliances, his vast army, his consolidated power? During seventeen years he laboured with indefatigable industry and great ability to establish his newly acquired authority, and secure, by the confirmation of his own power, the perpetual exile of the lawful sovereign of France. Loud and long was the applause at first bestowed by the liberal party in Europe on the usurpation; great was the triumph of the bourgeoisie in every state at seeing a lawful monarch overturned by a well-concerted urban revolt, and the National converted into a Prætorian Guard, which could dispose of crowns at pleasure. But meanwhile the justice of Heaven neither slumbered nor slept. The means taken by Louis Philippe to consolidate his power, and which were in truth the only ones that remained at his disposal, consummated his ruin. His steady adherence to peace dissatisfied the ardent spirits which sought for war; his firm internal government disconcerted the republicans; his vast internal expenditure drew after it a serious embarrassment of finance. He could not appeal to the loyal feelings of the generous, for he was a usurper; he could not rest on the support of the multitude, for they would have driven the state to ruin; he could not rally the army round his throne, for they would have impelled him into war. Thus he could rest only on the selfish interests; and great was the skill with which he worked on that powerful principle in human affairs. But a government which stands on selfish feelings alone is a castle built on sand; the first wind of adversity levels it with the dust. Napoleon’s throne was founded on this principle, for he sacrificed to warlike selfishness; Louis Philippe on the same, for he sacrificed to pacific selfishness. Both have undergone the stern but just law of retribution. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, has been meted out to both. To Napoleon, who had sent so many foreign princes into banishment, and subverted so many gallant states, a defeat in the field, a melancholy exile, and unbefriended death, in a foreign land; to Louis Philippe, who had dethroned his lawful sovereign, and carried the standard of treason into the halls of the Tuilleries, the fate which he allotted to Charles X., that of being expelled with still greater ignominy from the _same halls_, being compelled to eat the bread of the stranger, and see his dynasty driven from their usurped