I care very little what may be the personal qualifications of Henry of Bordeaux; it seems to me that he is destined to reign upon the throne of his ancestors--and God grant he may do it in such wise as shall make amends for all that France has suffered, by reason of his ancestors, since France had a Henry for her king before! The prestige of sovereignty is his; and while he lives, no republic can be lasting; no government, save his, can insure the peace which the state of Europe so imperatively demands. If "experience has taught England that in no other course or method than that of an hereditary crown her liberties can be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred,"[12]--why should not an experience, a thousandfold severer, teach France the same lesson? It has already been taught them by a genius which France cannot despise, and to whose oracular voice she is now forced to listen, because it issues from his fresh grave! "Legitimacy is the very life of France. Invent, calculate, combine all sorts of illegitimate governments, you will find nothing else possible as the result, nothing which gives any promise of duration, of tolerable existence during a course of years, or even through several months. Legitimacy is, in Europe, the sanctuary in which alone reposes that sovereignty by which states subsist." So I endeavour to render the eloquent sentence of Chateaubriand;[13] and though, since he wrote it, a score of years have passed, it is stronger now than ever--for what was then his prophecy is already the deplorable history of his country. Had ever a country such a history, without learning more in a year than France has gained from a miserable half-century? [12] BURKE. [13] _Memoires sur le Duc de Berry._