"The sham Legitimacy wants all that the Legitimacy wants, with the exception of the Royal Person: it wants order; it can obtain that through 'arbitrariness' more easily than the Legitimacy. To perpetrate acts of despotism with words of liberty and pretended royalist institutions, that is all that it wants; each accomplished fact brings forth a recent right which combats an ancient right, each hour commences a legality. Time has two powers: with one hand it overthrows, with the other it builds up. Lastly, time acts upon men's minds by the mere fact that it progresses; they sever violently from those in power, attack them, sulk with them; then lassitude supervenes; success reconciles people to its cause: soon none remains outside, save a few lofty souls, whose perseverance confounds those who have failed. "Madame, this long statement obliges me to make a few explanations to Your Royal Highness. "If I had not raised a free voice in the day of fortune, I should not have felt the courage to speak the truth in the time of misfortune. I did not go to Prague of my own accord; I would not have ventured to trouble you with my presence; the dangers of devotion do not lie about your august person, they lie in France: that is where I have sought them. Since the Days of July, I have never ceased to fight for the legitimist cause. I was the first to proclaim the kingship of Henry V. A jury of Frenchmen, which acquitted me, left my proclamation in force. I long for nothing but rest, the need of my years; yet I did not hesitate to sacrifice it when the decrees extended and renewed the proscription of the Royal Family. Offers were made to me to attach me to the Government of Louis-Philippe: I had not earned that proof of good-will; I showed how incompatible it was with my nature by claiming my share in my old King's adversity. Alas, I had not brought about that adversity and I had tried to prevent it! I am not recalling these circumstances to give myself an importance or create for myself a merit which I do not possess; I have done no more than my duty; I am only explaining my position, in order to excuse the independence of my language. Madame will pardon the frankness of a man who would joyfully accept a scaffold to restore to her a throne. "When I appeared before Your Majesty at Carlsbad, I may say that I had not the happiness to be known to you. You had scarcely done me the honour to address a few words to me in my life. You were able to see, in our solitary conversations, that I was not the man that had perhaps been described to you, that the independence of my mind did not take away from the moderation of my character and, above all, did not break the chains of my admiration and respect for the illustrious daughter of my Kings. [Sidenote: Of the Legitimate Monarchy.]