your young pupil; at the expiration of that time, repose will be a blessing to us all. You will earn the glory, unique in history, of having had the power to ascend the throne, and of having left it to the lawful heir. At the same time, you will have enjoyed the means of educating that heir abreast of the ideas of his age: you will have rendered him capable of reigning over France. One of your daughters may aid him to bear the weight of the crown.' "Louis Philippe looked around with a wandering eye and an absent air. 'I beg your pardon, M. de Chateaubriand,' said he; 'I left a deputation to converse with you, and I must return to it.' With these words, he bowed and withdrew. The advice thus given at the decisive moment by Chateaubriand was that of honour and loyalty; it dictated by the spirit of the chevalier _sans peur et sans reproche_. But it was not that of immediate or apparent interest; and therefore it was not adopted. The event has now proved, however, that in this, as in so many other instances in this world, the path of honour and duty would have been that of expedience. What Chateaubriand recommended to Louis Philippe was substantially what Louis Napoleon _did_; and the result proved that the great majority of the nation, differing widely from the revolutionary rabble of Paris, was not only Conservative, but Royalist in its dispositions. Had Louis Philippe followed this course, and taken only the regency till the majority of the Duke of Bordeaux, the two branches of the house of Bourbon would have been cordially united: no discord or jealousies would have weakened the Royalist party; the national will would have been decidedly pronounced for the monarchy before it had been rendered an object of contempt; the Revolution of 1848, with all its disastrous consequences, would probably have been prevented; and as the Duke de Bordeaux has no family, the Orleans dynasty, as the next heirs, would have ascended the throne in the natural order of succession--and not only without the bar sinister of treason on their escutcheon, but with a deed of unexampled magnanimity and honour to illustrate their accession! Louis Philippe, bent on the immediate possession of the throne, made another attempt to gain M. de Chateaubriand; and for this purpose the Duchess of Orleans and Madame Adelaide again sent for him.