"Deum timeto: regem honorato: virtutem colito: disciplinis bonis operum dato."
THE ROYAL FAMILY OF FRANCE.
II.
SIGNS OF TIMES.
The French at last appear to find out that contentment with one's lot is an element of happiness, and that in their changes of government since February, 1848, they have changed nothing beyond the names of their masters. Frenchmen—since King Louis Philippe's abdication—exchanged the paternal rule of their Kings with the all-beneficial influence of the Royal Family of France for the yoke of fawning parasites; for an infernal mismanagement of the State affairs under self-seeking adventurers, under inexperienced politicians and heathenish doctrinaires, under greedy sets of priggish stock-jobbers and comically ignorant red-tapists; in short, under squad after squad, or rather under batch after batch, of aboriginals of Colney Hatch, more jealous and more disunited the one than the other. To-day's history declares about our neighbours across the Channel scarcely anything better than that. It seems likely that the course of events in France will shortly lead strangers, who may desire to understand the remarkably powerful (for better or for worse) influence of that country in Europe, to study her History anew, and to test the true and just claims of the lawful Heir to the French Crown. Bossuet, when tutor to the Dauphin of France, rightly taught his Royal pupil to look upon History as the most important of all secular studies for a King. The Eagle of Meaux might have added that History is all-important for every man who will put away vulgar, common ideas, and seek after royal thoughts. This is an occasion for us to
