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of a monarchic restoration, and that restoration in favour of the elder branch of the Bourbons. The feeling is universal in this class: the name of "Henri V.," scarce mentioned at all, and never under this title, during the reign of Louis Philippe, except in the exclusive circles of the Faubourg St Germain, is now in every shopkeeper's mouth. Louis Philippe, the Regency, all the members of the Orleans family, the Empire, a Bonapartist rule – all are set aside in the minds of these classes for the now-desired idol of their fickle choice, the Duke of Bordeaux. In these classes a restoration in favour of Henri V. is no longer a question of possibility; it is a mere question of time: it is not "
L'aurons-nous?" that they ask; it is "
Quand l'aurons-nous?" In this respect the real and true republicans, in the "honest" designation of the term, have certainly every reason to raise an angry clamour; if sedition to the existing
régime of the country is not openly practised, it is, at all events, openly and generally expressed. Nor are their accusations brought against the government entirely without justice; for while, on the one hand, a measure of a nature altogether arbitrary, under the freedom of a republican rule, is exercised against a well-known artist, by seizing in his
atelier the portraits of the Duke of Bordeaux, or, as he is called, the Count of Chambord, and of the Countess, as seditiously exhibited, lithographed likenesses of the Bourbon heir are to be seen on all sides at print-shop windows, and in popular temporary print-stalls; in galleries, arcades, and upon street walls; in
vignettes, upon ballads, with such titles, as "
Dieu le veut," or "
La France le veut," or in busts of all dimensions. Again, the
Henri-quinquiste feeling, as it is called, is universal among the fickle
bourgeoisie of Paris – the rock upon which Louis Philippe founded his throne, and which sank under him in his hour of need: and the
bourgeois, eager and confident in their hopes, wilfully shut their eyes to the fact that, were their detested republic overthrown, there might arise future convulsions, and future civil strife, between a Bonapartist faction – which necessarily grows, and increases, and flourishes more and more under the rule, however temporary, of a chief of the name – and the legitimist party: for the Orleanists, whether fused by a compromise of their hopes with the Legitimists, as has been said, or fallen into the obscurity of forgetfulness or indifference in the majority of the nation, hold forth no decided banner at the present moment. In regarding, then, the public spirit among the majority of all classes in Paris, without consulting the still more reactionary feeling of the departments, the figures to be added to the sum-total of the year's republican account will be again found similar to those already enumerated, in the shape of disaffection, abhorrence of the republican government, want of confidence in its stability, expectation and hope of a change, however it may come, and although it may be brought about by a convulsion.
