One day, as boys will do, we marched through the town
in procession with our flags, when the police stopped us and
seized the young Des Cars' white banners, the display of the white
flag of the Bourbons being then strictly forbidden in France. The
Des Cars boys' abbe, or priest-tutor, pointed out to the police
the narrow edging of red and blue on either side, and insisted on
it that the flags were really tricolours, though the proportion in
which the colours were displayed might be an unusual one. The
three colours were undoubtedly there, so the police released the
flags, though I feel sure that that abbe must have been a Jesuit.
The Comte de Chambord (the Henri V. of the Legitimists) was
virtually offered the throne of France in either 1874 or 1875, but
all the negotiations failed because he obstinately refused to
recognise the Tricolour, and insisted upon retaining the white
flag of his ancestors. Any one with the smallest knowledge of the
psychology of the French nation must have known that under no
circumstances whatever would they consent to abandon their adored
Tricolour.
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