Yet all three sections began more and more to urge their claims.

Thiers met them with consummate skill.

Occasionally they had reason to resent his tactics as showing unworthy finesse; but oftener they quailed before the startling boldness of his reminders that, as they constituted the majority of the deputies of France, they might at once undertake to restore the monarchy--if they could.

"You do not, and you cannot, do so.
There is only one throne and it cannot have three occupants[68]." Or, again, he cowed them by the sheer force of his personality: "If I were a weak man, I would flatter you," he once exclaimed.

In the last resort he replied to their hints of his ambition and self-seeking by offering his resignation.