Bruno hung up the phone after speaking with Claire and leaned back in his seat. At the end of the day, he was a pragmatist above all others. He viewed the world through what one might refer to as a hard realist lense.
The House of Orleans had been chosen to replace the failing republic as a means of stabilizing France and binding it to Germany for generations.
There were other pretenders, like the House of Bourbon and the Napoleonic line. But each of them presented certain difficulties at a symbolic level.
The Bourbons would be considered a restoration of France to its pre-republican state, and in many of its own citizens' eyes could be considered a reassertion of national destiny. One Bruno would deny them.
The Napoleonic line would be interpreted as a reclamation of imperial glory, and France was never going to be given that chance now that it had challenged Germany three times in less than a century.
