time found favour, that it had a deeper cause: that the King's
intriguing ambition had involved him in many difficulties, and he had
devised this plan for eluding them.

Charles has become his father's heir through the death of an older and
better loved son. He has been thrust into the shade by the favourite,
now Victor's wife, and by the Minister d'Ormea; his sensitive nature
crushed into weakness, his loftiness of purpose never called into play.
He seems precisely the person of whom to make at once a screen and a
tool. But he has scarcely been crowned when it is evident that he will
be neither. He assumes the character of king at the same time as the
function; and by his honesty, courage, and humanity, restores the
prosperity of his country, and the honour of his house. He secures even
the devotion, interested though it be, of the unscrupulous d'Ormea
himself.

Victor, however, is restless in his obscurity; and by the end of the
year is scheming for the recovery of his crown. He presents himself
before his son, and demands that it be restored to him; denouncing what
he considers the weakness of King Charles' rule. Charles refuses, gently
but firmly, to abandon what has become for him the post of duty; and
King Victor departs, to conspire openly against him. D'Ormea is active
in detecting the conspiracy and unveiling it; and Victor is brought back
to the palace, this time a prisoner.

But Charles does not receive him as such. His filial piety is outraged
by the unnatural conflict; and his wife Polixena has vainly tried to
convince him that there is a higher because less obvious virtue in
resisting than in giving way. He once more acknowledges his father as
King. And both he and his wife are soon aware that in doing so, he is