Philip has within him the wherewithal to delay the march of destiny, but not to stop it. The Democratic Party alone is progressing, because it is advancing towards the world of the future. Those who refuse to admit the general causes of destruction where monarchical principles are concerned in vain look to be delivered from the present yoke by a motion of the Chambers; the latter will never consent to reform, because reform would be their death. The Opposition, on its side, which has become an industrial Opposition, will never give the death-thrust to the King of its own making, as it gave it to Charles X.: it makes a disturbance in order to obtain places, it complains, it is peevish; but, when it finds itself face to face with Philip, it draws back; for, though it wishes to have the handling of affairs, it does not wish to overthrow that which it has created nor that by which it lives. Two fears stop it: the fear of the return of the Legitimacy, the fear of the reign of the people; it clings to Philip, whom it does not love, but whom it looks upon as a safeguard. Stuffed full of offices and money, abdicating its own will, the Opposition obeys what it knows to be fatal and goes to sleep in the mire, which is the down invented by the industry of the age: it is not so pleasant as the other, but it is cheaper. [Sidenote: Philip's turpitude.] All these things notwithstanding, a sovereignty of a few months, of a few years, even, if you wish, will not change the irrevocable future. There is hardly any one now but confesses the Legitimacy to have been preferable to the Usurpation, in so far as security, liberty, property were concerned, and also our relations with foreign Powers, for the principle of our present Sovereignty is hostile to that of the European sovereignties. Since he was pleased to receive the investiture of the Throne at the good pleasure and with the certain knowledge of the democracy, Philip missed his opportunity at the start: he ought to have leapt on horseback and galloped to the Rhine; or rather, he ought to have resisted a movement which was carrying him without conditions towards a crown: more durable and more suitable institutions would have arisen from that resistance.