Amid the babel there rang out not a few voices for the younger branch of the Royal line--the Orleans. Louis Philippe--king for eighteen years--was still alive, living in exile at Claremont. Two years earlier, in the rush of the revolution of 1848, he had effected his escape to Newhaven. The Orleans always seek a refuge in England, and always turn and abuse that country when they can go elsewhere in safety. And England is not one penny the worse for their abuse, and no man or country was ever yet one penny the better for their friendship. Louis Philippe had been called to the throne by the people of France. His reign of eighteen years was marked by one great deed. He threw open the Palace of Versailles--which was not his--to the public. And then the people who called him in, hooted him out. His life had been attempted many times. All the other kings hated him and refused to let their daughters marry his sons. He and his sons were waiting at Claremont while the talkers in Paris talked their loudest. There was a third bone of contention--the Imperial line. At this time the champions of this morsel were at the summit; for a Bonaparte was riding on the top of the revolutionary scrimmage. By the death of the great Napoleon's only child, the second son of his third brother became the recognised claimant to the Imperial crown. For France has long ceased to look to the eldest son as the rightful heir. There is, in fact, a curse on the first-born of France. Napoleon's son, the King of Rome, died in exile, an Austrian. The Duc de Bordeaux, born eight years after him, never wore the crown, and died in exile, childless. The Comte de Paris, born also at the Tuileries, was exiled when he was ten years old, and died in England. All these, of one generation. And of the next, the Prince Imperial, hurried out of France in 1870, perished on the Veldt. The King of Rome lies in his tomb at Vienna, the Duc de Bordeaux at Göritz, the Comte de Paris at Weybridge, the Prince Imperial at Farnborough. These are the heirs of France, born in the palace of the Tuileries. How are they cast upon the waters of the world! And where the palace of the Tuileries once stood the pigeons now call to each other beneath the trees, while, near at hand, lolls on the public seat he whom France has always with her, the _vaurien_--the worth-nothing. So passes the glory of the world. It is not a good thing to be born in a palace, nor to live in one. It was in the Rue Lafayette that John Turner had his office, and when he emerged from it into that long street on the evening of the 25th of August, 1850, he ran against, or he was rather run against by, the newsboy who shrieked as he pattered along in lamentable boots and waved a sheet in the face of the passer: "The King is dead! The King is dead!" And Paris--the city that soon forgets--smiled and asked what King?