do the Legitimists really believe that they best serve their cause by
declining any mode of competing with its opponents? Would there not be a
fairer chance of the ultimate victory of their principles if they made
their talents and energies individually prominent; if they were known as
skilful generals, practical statesmen, eminent diplomatists, brilliant
writers? Could they combine,--not to sulk and exclude themselves from
the great battle-field of the world, but in their several ways to render
themselves of such use to their country that some day or other, in one of
those revolutionary crises to which France, alas! must long be subjected,
they would find themselves able to turn the scale of undecided councils
and conflicting jealousies."

"Monsieur, we hope for the day when the Divine Disposer of events will
strike into the hearts of our fickle and erring countrymen the conviction
that there will be no settled repose for France save under the sceptre of
her rightful kings. But meanwhile we are,--I see it more clearly since I
have quitted Bretagne,--we are a hopeless minority."

"Does not history tell us that the great changes of the world have been
wrought by minorities,--but on the one condition that the minorities
shall not be hopeless? It is almost the other day that the Bonapartists
were in a minority that their adversaries called hopeless, and the
majority for the Emperor is now so preponderant that I tremble for his
safety. When a majority becomes so vast that intellect disappears in the
crowd, the date of its destruction commences; for by the law of reaction
the minority is installed against it. It is the nature of things that
minorities are always more intellectual than multitudes, and intellect is
ever at work in sapping numerical force. What your party want is hope;
because without hope there is no energy. I remember hearing my father
say that when he met the Count de Chambord at Ems, that illustrious