The Napoleonidae have almost dropped out of sight in France.
A furious quarrel has, however, broken out among the relics of the Bonapartist party, of whom a few cling to Prince Napoleon Jerome, as obvious head of the dynasty, while the majority de- dare his son their chief, under the will of the late Prince Imperial. The quarrel is really one about the Church. M. de Cassagnac, as spokesman of the Conservative section, declares, in the Petit Caporal, that Prince Victor is a pions Catholic, abhors the Revolution, and will accept the crown without reference to his father; while the organ of Prince Jerome asserts that the young man is devotedly filial, and will always detest and despise his father's traducers. The quarrel has a trace of that brutality about it which has always marked the family disputes of the Bonapartes, and neither side produces the smallest scrap of evidence for the truth of its opinions. The young Prince is a student at Heidelberg, and considering that he is nearly twenty, and the only pretender in France with any chance of a popular vote, the skill with which his real character and opinions have been concealed from the world is remarkable. It is pos- sible that he has none ; but his father is one of the ablest men alive, and with'a character might have been a great one; while his mother is of the House of Savoy, and personally respected by the most incurable Legitimists and fanatical Republicans.
Previous page
