It may be well understood now why the republican government of France attaches so much importance to the fact of the propagation of this prophecy, which formally predicts the return of the last bud of the white flower, or lily of the Bourbons. Its publication was looked upon as a manœuvre of the Legitimist faction, to prepare the minds of men for the advent of Henri V., and, by exciting men's imaginations, to tend towards the accomplishment of the prediction--with the foreknowledge that hazarded predictions will often help to accomplish themselves by the very natural course of events which they, in themselves, produce. At all events, the promulgators of such a prophecy, which definitively predicted the overthrow of the republic, were to be considered as being among its enemies, and were carefully watched in their movements as such. The writer of the present paper, however, who was in Paris during the period when the "Previsions of Orval" first began to create a sensation, can confidently assert that copies were handed about, even among the silenced Legitimists, as curious and interesting documents only, and without the least pretence of that _arrière pensée_, which the government of the republic chose to ascribe to its circulation. The allusion to the "lion," is peculiarly obscure. Belgium and England are the only countries that bear a lion on their arms. A union with a daughter of the dynasty reigning in the former, can scarcely be contemplated, since the young prince alluded to is already married. A strict alliance with one or the other country--or perhaps more especially with England, as more generally typically represented by the lion--might be supposed to bear out the fulfilment of the prediction. The Orval prophecy then goes on to predict the firm establishment of the child of the "white flower" on his throne. "What is foreseen, that God wills. The ancient blood of centuries will again terminate long struggles. A sole pastor will be seen in Celtic Gaul. The man made powerful by God will be firmly seated. Peace will be established by many wise laws. So sage and prudent will be the offspring of the Cap, that God will be thought to be with him. Thanks to the Father of Mercies, the Holy Sion chants again in her temples to the glory of one Lord Almighty." The future previsions of the prophecy become necessarily more and more obscure; although those, which more immediately follow, are sufficiently distinct, much as their accomplishment may be a matter of very necessary doubt.