Louis Philippe, who came next, might have been expected to please everybody: Royalists, because he was himself royal; Republicans, because he was Philippe Egalité’s son; constitutionalists, because he hated autocratic methods; shopkeepers of all kinds, because he was ‘practical.’ And in truth his administration may be called the Golden Age of the _bourgeoisie_,--the great middle class which, in France and elsewhere, was superseding the old aristocracy. Napoleon had organized a nobility of the sword; after him came the nobility of the purse. Louis Philippe could say that under his rule France prospered: her merchants grew rich; her factories, her railroads, all the organs of commerce, were healthily active. And yet she was discontented. The spectacle of her Citizen King walking unattended in the streets of Paris, his plump thighs encased in democratic trousers, his plump and ruddy face wearing a complacent smile, his whole air that of the senior partner in some old, respectable, and rich firm,--even this failed to satisfy Frenchmen. “He inspires no more enthusiasm than a fat grocer,” was said of him. Frenchmen did not despise money-making, but they wanted something more: they wanted _gloire_. Let us use the French word, because the English _glory_ has another meaning. _Glory_ implies something essentially noble,--nay, in the Lord’s Prayer it is a quality attributed to God himself: but _gloire_ suggests vanity; it is the food braggarts famish after. The minute-men at Concord earned true glory; but when the United States, listening to the seductions of evil politicians, attacked and blasted a decrepit power,--fivefold smaller in population, twenty-fold weaker in resources,--they might find _gloire_ among their booty, but glory, never. As prosperity increased, the Gallic appetite for _gloire_ increased. Louis Philippe made several attempts to allay it, but he dared not risk a foreign war, and the failure of his attempts made him less and less respected.