Only once was there a throb of genuine enthusiasm during the eighteen years of his occupancy of the throne, and that was when the remains of their adored Napoleon were brought from St.Helena and placed in that magnificent tomb in the Hotel des Invalides by order of the king, who sent his son, the Prince de Joinville, to bring this gift to the people.

The act was gracious, but it was also hazardous.

Perhaps the king did not know how slight was his hold upon this imaginative people, nor the possible effect of contrast.
Under the new order of things in a constitutional monarchy the king does not govern, he reigns.

He was chosen by the people as their ornamental figure-head.

But what if he ceased to be ornamental?
What was the use of a king who in eighteen years had added not a single ray of glory to the national name, but who was using his high position to increase his enormous private fortune, and incessantly begging an impoverished country for benefits and emoluments for five sons?
An excellent father, truly, though a short-sighted one.