Chapter VI: Part 6

Had either of the monarchs who ruled France since the Revolution of 1791 been animated with a sincere desire for the public good, and been contented to rule as a constitutional sovereign, as they all alike swore to rule, I do not see why they might not have transmitted their thrones to their heirs. Napoleon I. certainly could have perpetuated his empire in his family had he not made such awful blunders as the invasion of Spain and Russia, which made him unable to contend with external enemies. Charles X. might have continued to reign had he not destroyed all constitutional liberty. Louis Philippe might have transmitted his power to the House of Orléans had he not sacrificed public interests to his greediness for money and to his dynastic ambition. And Napoleon III. might have reigned until he died had he fulfilled his promises to the parties who elevated him; but he could have continued to reign in the violation of his oaths only so long as his army was faithful and successful. When at last hopelessly defeated and captured, his throne instantly crumbled away; he utterly collapsed, and was nothing but a fugitive. What a lesson this is to all ambitious monarchs who sacrifice the interest of their country to personal aggrandizement! So long as a nation sees the monarch laboring for the aggrandizement and welfare of the country rather than of himself, it will rally around him and venerate him, even if he leads his subjects to war and enrolls them in his gigantic armies,--as in the case of the monarchs of Prussia since Frederic II., and even those of Austria.

Napoleon III. was unlike all these, for with transcendent cunning and duplicity he stole his throne, and then sacrificed the interests of France to support his usurpation. That he was an adventurer--as his enemies called him--is scarcely true; for he was born in the Tuileries, was the son of a king, and nephew of the greatest sovereign of modern times. So far as his usurpation can be palliated,--for it never can be excused,--it must be by his deep-seated conviction that he was the heir of his uncle, that the government of the empire belonged to him as a right, and that he would ultimately acquire it by the will of the people. Had Thiers or Guizot or Changarnier seized the reins, they would have been adventurers. All men are apt to be called adventurers by their detractors when they reach a transcendent position. Even such men as Napoleon I., Cromwell, and Canning were stigmatized as adventurers by their enemies. A poor artist who succeeds in winning a rich heiress is often regarded as an adventurer, even though his ancestors have been respectable and influential for four generations. Most successful men owe their elevation to genius or patience or persistent industry rather than to accidents or tricks. Louis Napoleon plodded and studied and wrote for years with the ultimate aim of ruling France, even though he "waded through slaughter to a throne;" and he would have deserved his throne had he continued true to the principles he professed. What a name he might have left had he been contented only to be President of a great republic; for his elevation to the Presidency was legitimate, and even after he became a despot he continued to be a high-bred gentleman in the English sense, which is more than can be said of his uncle. No one has ever denied that from first to last Louis Napoleon was courteous, affable, gentle, patient, and kind, with a control over his feelings and thoughts absolutely marvellous and unprecedented in a public man,--if we except Disraeli. Nothing disturbed his serenity; very rarely was he seen in a rage; he stooped and coaxed and flattered, even when he sent his enemies to Cayenne.

The share taken by Napoleon III. in the affairs of Italy has already been treated of, yet a look from that point of view may find place here. The interference of Austria with the Italian States--not only her own subjects there, but the independent States as well--has been called "a standing menace to Europe." It was finally brought to a crisis of conflict by the King of Sardinia, who had already provided himself with a friend and ally in the French emperor; and when, on the 29th of April, 1859, Austria crossed the river Ticino in hostile array, the combined French and Sardinian troops were ready to do battle. The campaign was short, and everywhere disastrous to the Austrians; so that on July 6 an armistice was concluded, and on July 12 the peace of Villa Franca ended the war, with Lombardy ceded to Sardinia, while Nice and Savoy were the reward of the French,--justifying by this addition to the territory and glory of France the emperor's second war of prestige.

Louis Napoleon reached the culmination of his fame and of real or supposed greatness--I mean his external power and grandeur, for I see no evidence of real greatness except such as may be won by astuteness, tact, cunning, and dissimulation--when he returned to Paris as the conqueror of the Austrian armies. He was then generally supposed to be great both as a general and as an administrator, when he was neither a general nor an administrator, as subsequent events proved. But his court was splendid; distinguished foreigners came to do him homage; even monarchs sought his friendship, and a nod of his head was ominous. He had delivered Italy as he had humiliated Russia; he had made France a great political power; he had made Paris the most magnificent city of the world (though at boundless expense), and everybody extolled the genius of Hausmann, his engineer, who had created such material glories; his fêtes were beyond all precedent; his wife gave the law to fashions and dresses, and was universally extolled for her beauty and graces; the great industrial exhibition in 1855, which surpassed in attractiveness that of London in 1851, drew strangers to his capital, and gave a stimulus to art and industry. Certainly he seemed to be a most fortunate man,--for the murmurs and intrigues of that constellation of statesmen which grew up with the restoration of the Bourbons, and the antipathies of editors and literary men, were not generally known. The army especially gloried in the deeds of a man whose successes reminded them of his immortal uncle; while the lavish expenditures of government in every direction concealed from the eyes of the people the boundless corruption by which the services of his officials were secured.

But this splendid exterior was deceptive, and a turn came to the fortunes of Napoleon III.,--long predicted, yet unexpected. Constantly on the watch for opportunities to aggrandize his name and influence, the emperor allowed the disorders of civil war in Mexico--resulting in many acts of injustice to foreigners there--to lead him into a combination with England and Spain to interfere. This was in 1861, when the United States were entering upon the terrific struggles of their own civil war, and were not able to prevent this European interference, although regarding it as most unfriendly to republican institutions. Within a year England and Spain withdrew. France remained; sent more troops; declared war on the government of President Juarez; fought some battles; entered the City of Mexico; convened the "Assembly of Notables;" and, on their declaring for a limited hereditary monarchy, the French emperor proposed for their monarch the Archduke Maximilian,--younger brother of Francis Joseph the Austrian emperor. Maximilian accepted, and in June, 1864, arrived,--upheld, however, most feebly by the "Notables," and relying chiefly on French bayonets, which had driven Juarez to the northern part of the country.

But against the expectation of Napoleon III, the great rebellion in the United States collapsed, and this country became a military power which Europe was compelled to respect: a nation that could keep in the field over a million of soldiers was not to be despised. While the civil war was in progress the United States government was compelled to ignore the attempt to establish a French monarchy on its southern borders; but no sooner was the war ended than it refused to acknowledge any government in Mexico except that of President Juarez, which Louis Napoleon had overthrown; so that although the French emperor had bound himself with solemn treaties to maintain twenty-five thousand French troops in Mexico, he was compelled to withdraw these forces and leave Maximilian to his fate. He advised the young Austrian to save himself by abdication, and to leave Mexico with the troops; but Maximilian felt constrained by his sense of honor to remain, and refused. In March, 1867, this unfortunate prince was made prisoner by the republicans, and was unscrupulously shot. His calamities and death excited the compassion of Europe; and with it was added a profound indignation for the man who had unwittingly lured him on to his ruin. Louis Napoleon's military prestige received a serious blow, and his reputation as a statesman likewise; and although the splendor of his government and throne was as great as ever, his fall, in the eyes of the discerning, was near at hand.

By this time Louis Napoleon had become prematurely old; he suffered from acute diseases; his constitution was undermined; he was no longer capable of carrying the burdens he had assumed; his spirits began to fail; he lost interest in the pleasures which had at first amused him; he found delight in nothing, not even in his reviews and fêtes; he was completely ennuied; his failing health seemed to affect his mind; he became vacillating and irresolute; he lost his former energies. He saw the gulf opening which was to swallow him up; he knew that his situation was desperate, and that something must be done to retrieve his fortunes. His temporary popularity with his own people was breaking, too;--the Mexican _fiasco_ humiliated them. The internal affairs of the empire were more and more interfered with and controlled by the Catholic Church, through the intrigues and influence of the empress, a bigoted Spanish Catholic,--and this was another source of unpopularity, for France was not a priest-ridden country, and the emperor was blamed for the growing ecclesiastical power in civil affairs. He had invoked war to interest the people, and war had saved him for a time; but the consequences of war pursued him. As he was still an overrated man, and known to be restless and unscrupulous, Germany feared him, and quietly armed, making preparations for an attack which seemed only too probable. His negotiation with the King of Holland for the cession of the Duchy of Luxemburg, by which acquisition he hoped to offset the disgrace which his Mexican enterprise had caused, excited the jealousy of Prussia; for by the treaties of 1815 Prussia obtained the right to garrison the fortress,--the strongest in Europe next to Gibraltar,--and had no idea of permitting it to fall into the hands of France.

The irresistible current which was then setting in for the union of the German States under the rule of Prussia, and for which Bismarck had long been laboring, as had Cavour for the unity of Italy, caused a great outcry among the noisy but shallow politicians of Paris, who deluded themselves with the idea that France was again invincible; and not only they, but the French people generally, fancied that France was strong enough to conquer half of Europe, The politicians saw in a war with Prussia the aggrandizement of French interests, and did all they could to hasten it on. It was popular with the nation at large, who saw only one side; and especially so with the generals of the army, who aspired to new laurels. Napoleon III. blustered and bullied and threatened, which pleased his people; but in his heart he had his doubts, and had no desire to attack Prussia so long as the independence of the southern States of Germany was maintained. But when the designs of Bismarck became more and more apparent to cement a united Germany, and thus to raise up a most formidable military power, Louis Napoleon sought alliances in anticipation of a conflict which could not be much longer delayed.

First, the French emperor turned to Austria, whom he had humiliated at Solferino and incensed by the aid which he had given to Victor Emmanuel to break the Austrian domination in Italy, as well as outraged its sympathies by his desertion of Maximilian in Mexico. No cordial alliance could be expected from this Power, unless he calculated on its hostility to Prussia for the victories she had lately won. Count Beust, the Austrian chancellor, was a bitter enemy to Prussia, and hoped to regain the ascendency which Austria had once enjoyed under Metternich. So promises were made to the French emperor; but they were never kept, and Austria really remained neutral in the approaching contest, to the great disappointment of Napoleon III. He also sought the aid of Italy, which he had reason to expect from the service he had rendered to Piedmont; but the Garibaldians had embroiled France with the Italian people in their attempt to overthrow the Papal government, which was protected by French troops; and Louis Napoleon by the reoccupation of Rome seemed to bar the union of the Italian people, passionately striving for national unity. Thus the Italians also stood aloof from France, although Victor Emmanuel personally was disposed to aid her.

In 1870 France found herself isolated, and compelled, in case of war with Prussia, to fight single-handed. If Napoleon III. had exercised the abilities he had shown at the beginning of his career, he would have found means to delay a conflict for which he was not prepared, or avoid it altogether; but in 1870 his intellect was shattered, and he felt himself powerless to resist the current which was bearing him away to his destruction. He showed the most singular incapacity as an administrator. He did not really know the condition of his army; he supposed he had four hundred and fifty thousand effective troops, but really possessed a little over three hundred thousand, while Prussia had over one-third more than this, completely equipped and disciplined, and with improved weapons. He was deceived by the reports of his own generals, to whom he had delegated everything, instead of looking into the actual state of affairs himself, as his uncle would have done, and as Thiers did under Louis Philippe. More than a third of his regiments were on paper alone, or dwindled in size; the monstrous corruptions of his reign had permeated every part of the country; the necessary arms, ammunition, and material of war in general were deplorably deficient; no official reports could be relied upon, and few of his generals could be implicitly trusted. If ever infatuation blinded a nation to its fate, it most signally marked France in 1870.

Nothing was now wanting but the spark to kindle the conflagration; and this was supplied by the interference of the French government with the nomination of a German prince to the vacant throne of Spain. The Prussian king gave way in the matter of Prince Leopold, but refused further concessions. Leopold was sufficiently magnanimous to withdraw his claims, and here French interference should have ended. But France demanded guarantees that no future candidate should be proposed without her consent. Of course the Prussian king,--seeing with the keen eyes of Bismarck, and armed to the teeth under the supervision of Moltke, the greatest general of the age, who could direct, with the precision of a steam-engine on a track, the movements of the Prussian army, itself a mechanism,--treated with disdain this imperious demand from a power which he knew to be inferior to his own. Count Bismarck craftily lured on his prey, who was already goaded forward by his home war-party, with the empress at their head; negotiations ceased, and Napoleon III. made his fatal declaration of hostilities, to the grief of the few statesmen who foresaw the end.

Even then the condition of France was not desperate if the government had shown capacity; but conceit, vanity, and ignorance blinded the nation. Louis Napoleon should have known, and probably did know, that the contending forces were uneven; that he had no generals equal to Moltke; that his enemies could crush him in the open field; that his only hope was in a well-organized defence. But his generals rushed madly on to destruction against irresistible forces, incapable of forming a combination, while the armies they led were smaller than anybody supposed. Napoleon III. hoped that by rapidity of movement he could enter southern Germany before the Prussian armies could be massed against him; but here he dreamed, for his forces were not ready at the time appointed, and the Prussians crossed the Rhine without obstruction. Then followed the battle of Worth, on the 6th of August, when Marshal McMahon, with only forty-five thousand men, ventured to resist the Prussian crown-prince with a hundred thousand, and lost consequently a large part of his army, and opened a passage through the northern Vosges to the German troops. On the same day Frossard's corps was defeated by Prince Frederic Charles near Saarbrücken, while the French emperor remained at Metz irresolute, infatuated, and helpless. On the 12th of August he threw up the direction of his armies altogether, and appointed Marshal Bazaine commander-in-chief,--thus proclaiming his own incapacity as a general. Bazaine still had more than two hundred thousand men under his command, and might have taken up a strong position on the Moselle, or retreated in safety to Chalons; but he fell back on Gravelotte, when, being defeated on the 18th, he withdrew within the defences of Metz. He was now surrounded by two hundred and fifty thousand men, and he made no effort to escape. McMahon attempted to relieve him, but was ordered by the government at Paris to march to the defence of that city. On this line, however, he got no farther than Sedan, where all was lost on September 1,--the entire army and the emperor himself surrendering as prisoners of war. The French had fought gallantly, but were outnumbered at every point.

Nothing now remained to the conquerors but to advance to the siege of Paris. The throne of Napoleon III. was overturned, and few felt sympathy for his misfortunes, since he was responsible for the overwhelming calamities which overtook his country, and which his country never forgave. In less than a month he fell from what seemed to be the proudest position in Europe, and stood out to the eye of the world in all the hateful deformity of a defeated despot who deserved to fall. The suddenness and completeness of his destruction has been paralleled only by the defeat of the armies of Darius by Alexander the Great. All delusions as to Louis Napoleon's abilities vanished forever. All his former grandeur, even his services, were at once forgotten. He paid even a sadder penalty than his uncle, who never lost the affections of his subjects, while the nephew destroyed all rational hopes of the future restoration of his family, and became accursed.

It is possible that the popular verdict in reference to Louis Napoleon, on his fall, may be too severe. This world sees only success or failure as the test of greatness. With the support of the army and the police--the heads of which were simply his creatures, whom he had bought, or who from selfish purposes had pushed him on in his hours of irresolution and guided him--the _coup d'état_ was not a difficult thing, any more than any bold robbery; and with the control of the vast machinery of government,--that machinery which is one of the triumphs of civilization,--an irresistible power, it is not marvellous that he retained his position in spite of the sneers or hostilities of statesmen out of place, or of editors whose journals were muzzled or suppressed; especially when the people saw great public improvements going on, had both bread and occupation, read false accounts of military successes, and were bewildered by fêtes and outward grandeur. But when the army was a sham, and corruption had pervaded every office under government; when the expenses of living had nearly doubled from taxation, extravagance, bad example, and wrong ideas of life; when trusted servants were turned into secret enemies, incapable and false; when such absurd mistakes were made as the expedition to Mexico, and the crowning folly of the war with Prussia, proving the incapacity and folly of the master-hand,--the machinery which directed the armies and the bureaus and all affairs of State itself, broke down, and the catastrophe was inevitable.

Louis Napoleon certainly was not the same man in 1870 that he was in 1850. His burdens had proved too great for his intellect. He fell, and disappeared from history in a storm of wrath and shame, which also hid from the eyes of the people the undoubted services he had rendered to the cause of order and law, and to that of a material prosperity which was at one time the pride of his country and the admiration of the whole world.

But a nation is greater than any individual, even if he be a miracle of genius. When the imperial cause was lost, and the armies of France were dispersed or shut up in citadels, and the hosts of Germany were converging upon the capital, Paris resolved on sustaining a siege--apparently hopeless--rather than yield to a conqueror before the last necessity should open its gates. The self-sacrifices which its whole population, supposed to be frivolous and enervated, made to preserve their homes and their works of art; their unparalleled sufferings; their patience and self-reliance under the most humiliating circumstances; their fertility of resources; their cheerfulness under hunger and privation; and, above everything else, their submission to law with every temptation to break it,--proved that the spirit of the nation was unbroken; that their passive virtues rivalled their most glorious deeds of heroism; that, if light-headed in prosperity, they knew how to meet adversity; and that they had not lost faith in the greatness of their future.

Perhaps they would not have made so stubborn a resistance to destiny if they had realized their true situation, but would have opened their gates at once to overwhelming foes, as they did on the fall of the first Napoleon. They probably calculated that Bazaine would make his escape from Metz with his two hundred thousand men, find his way to the banks of the Loire, rally all the military forces of the south of France, and then march with his additional soldiers to relieve Paris, and drive back the Germans to the Rhine.

But this was not to be, and it is idle to speculate on what might have been done either to raise the siege of Paris--one of the most memorable in the whole history of the world--or to prevent the advance of the Germans upon the capital itself. It is remarkable that the Parisians were able to hold out so long,--thanks to the genius and precaution of Thiers, who had erected the formidable forts outside the walls of Paris in the reign of Louis Philippe; and still more remarkable was the rapid recovery of the French nation after such immense losses of men and treasure, after one of the most signal and humiliating overthrows which history records. Probably France was never stronger than she is to-day in her national resources, in her readiness for war, and in the apparent stability of her republican government,--which ensued after the collapse of the Second Empire. She has been steady, persevering, and even patient for a hundred years in her struggles for political freedom, whatever mistakes she has made and crimes she has committed to secure this highest boon which modern civilization confers. A great hero may fall, a great nation may be enslaved; but the cause of human freedom will in time triumph over all despots, over all national inertness, and all national mistakes.

AUTHORITIES.

Abbott, M. Baxter, S.P. Day, Victor Hugo, Macrae, S.M. Smucker, F.M. Whitehurst, have written more or less on Louis Napoleon. See Justin McCarthy's Modern Leaders; Kinglake's Crimean War; History of the Franco-German War; Lives of Bismarck, Moltke, Cavour; Life of Lord Palmerston; Life of Nicholas; Life of Thiers; Harriet Martineau's Biographical Sketches; W.R. Greg's Life of Todleben.

PRINCE BISMARCK.

1815-1898.

THE GERMAN EMPIRE.

Before presenting Bismarck, it will be necessary to glance at the work of those great men who prepared the way not only for him, but also for the soldier Moltke,--men who raised Prussia from the humiliation resulting from her conquest by Napoleon.

That humiliation was as complete as it was unexpected. It was even greater than that of France after the later Franco-Prussian war. Prussia was dismembered; its provinces were seized by the conqueror; its population was reduced to less than four millions; its territory was occupied by one hundred and fifty thousand French soldiers; the king himself was an exile and a fugitive from his own capital; every sort of indignity was heaped on his prostrate subjects, who were compelled to pay a war indemnity beyond their power; trade and commerce were cut off by Napoleon's Continental system; and universal poverty overspread the country, always poor, and now poorer than ever. Prussia had no allies to rally to her sinking fortunes; she was completely isolated. Most of her fortresses were in the hands of her enemies, and the magnificent army of which she had been so proud since the days of Frederic the Great was dispersed. At the peace of Tilsit, in 1807, it looked as if the whole kingdom was about to be absorbed in the empire of Napoleon, like Bavaria and the Rhine provinces, and wiped out of the map of Europe like unfortunate Poland.

But even this did not complete the humiliation. Napoleon compelled the King of Prussia--Frederic William III.--to furnish him soldiers to fight against Russia, as if Prussia were already incorporated with his own empire and had lost her nationality. At that time France and Russia were in alliance, and Prussia had no course to adopt but submission or complete destruction; and yet Prussia refused in these evil days to join the Confederation of the Rhine, which embraced all the German States at the south and west of Austria and Prussia. Napoleon, however, was too much engrossed in his scheme of conquering Spain, to swallow up Prussia entirely, as he intended, after he should have subdued Spain. So, after all, Prussia had before her only the fortune of Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus,--to be devoured the last.

The escape of Prussia was owing, on the one hand, to the necessity for Napoleon to withdraw his main army from Prussia in order to fight in Spain; and secondly, to the transcendent talents of a few patriots to whom the king in his distress was forced to listen. The chief of these were Stein, Hardenberg, and Scharnhorst. It was the work of Stein to reorganize the internal administration of Prussia, including the financial department; that of Hardenberg to conduct the ministry of foreign affairs; and that of Scharnhorst to reorganize the military power. The two former were nobles; the latter sprung from the people,--a peasant's son; but they worked together in tolerable harmony, considering the rival jealousies that at one time existed among all the high officials, with their innumerable prejudices.

Baron von Stein, born in 1757, of an old imperial knightly family from the country near Nassau, was as a youth well-educated, and at the age of twenty-three entered the Prussian service under Frederic the Great, in the mining department, where he gained rapid promotion. In 1786 he visited England and made a careful study of her institutions, which he profoundly admired. In 1787 he became a sort of provincial governor, being director of the war and Domaine Chambers at Cleves and Hamm.

In 1804 Stein became Minister of Trade, having charge of excise, customs, manufactures, and trade. The whole financial administration at this time under King Frederick William III was in a state of great confusion, from an unnecessary number of officials who did not work harmoniously. There was too much "red tape." Stein brought order out of confusion, simplified the administration, punished corruption, increased the national credit, then at a very low ebb, and re-established the bank of Prussia on a basis that enabled it to assist the government.

But a larger field than that of finance was opened to Stein in the war of 1806. The king intrusted to him the portfolio of foreign affairs,--not willingly, but because he regarded him as the ablest man in the kingdom. Stein declined to be foreign minister unless he was entirely unshackled, and the king was obliged to yield, for the misfortunes of the country had now culminated in the disastrous defeat at Friedland. The king, however, soon quarrelled with his minister, being jealous of his commanding abilities, and unused to dictation from any source. After a brief exile at Nassau, the peace of Tilsit having proved the sagacity of his views, Stein returned to power as virtual dictator of the kingdom, with the approbation of Napoleon; but his dictatorship lasted only about a year, when he was again discharged.

During that year, 1807, Stein made his mark in Prussian history. Without dwelling on details, he effected the abolition of serfdom in Prussia, the trade in land, and municipal reforms, giving citizens self-government in place of the despotism of military bureaus. He made it his business to pay off the French war indemnity,--one hundred and fifty million francs, a great sum for Prussia to raise when dismembered and trodden in the dust under one hundred and fifty thousand French soldiers,--and to establish a new and improved administrative system. But, more than all, he attempted to rouse a moral, religious, and patriotic spirit in the nation, and to inspire it anew with courage, self-confidence, and self-sacrifice. In 1808 the ministry became warlike in spite of its despair, the first glimpse of hope being the popular rising in Spain. It was during the ministry of Stein, and through his efforts, that the anti-Napoleonic revolution began.

The intense hostility of Stein to Napoleon, and his commanding abilities, led Napoleon in 1808 imperatively to demand from the King of Prussia the dismissal of his minister; and Frederick William dared not resist. Stein did not retire, however, until after the royal edict had emancipated the serfs of Prussia, and until that other great reform was made by which the nobles lost the monopoly of office and exemption from taxation, while the citizen class gained admission to all posts, trades, and occupations. These great reforms were chiefly to be traced to Stein, although Hardenberg and others, like Schön and Niebuhr, had a hand in them.

Stein also opened the military profession to the citizen class, which before was closed, only nobles being intrusted with command in the army. It is true that nobles still continued to form a large majority of officers, even as peasants formed the bulk of the army. But the removal of restrictions and the abolition of serfdom tended to create patriotic sentiments among all classes, on which the strength of armies in no small degree rests. In the time of Frederic the Great the army was a mere machine. It was something more when the nation in 1811 rallied to achieve its independence. Then was born the idea of nationality,--that, whatever obligations a Prussian owed to the state, Germany was greater than Prussia itself. This idea was the central principle of Stein's political system, leading ultimately to the unity of Germany as finally effected by Bismarck and Moltke. It became almost synonymous with that patriotism which sustains governments and thrones, the absence of which was the great defect of the German States before the times of Napoleon, when both princes and people lost sight of the unity of the nation in the interests of petty sovereignties.

Stein was a man of prodigious energy, practical good sense, and lofty character, but irascible, haughty, and contemptuous, and was far from being a favorite with the king and court. His great idea was the unity and independence of Germany. He thought more of German nationality than of Prussian aggrandizement. It was his aim to make his countrymen feel that they were Germans rather than Prussians, and that it was only by a union of the various German States that they could hope to shake off the French yoke, galling and humiliating beyond description.

When Stein was driven into exile at the dictation of Napoleon, with the loss of his private fortune, he was invited by the Emperor of Russia to aid him with his counsels,--and it can be scarcely doubted that in the employ of Russia he rendered immense services to Germany, and had no little influence in shaping the movements of the allies in effecting the ruin of the common despot. On this point, however, I cannot dwell.

Count, afterward Prince, Hardenberg, held to substantially the same views, and was more acceptable to the king as minister than was the austere and haughty Stein, although his morals were loose, and his abilities far inferior to those of the former. But his diplomatic talents were considerable, and his manners were agreeable, like those of Metternich, while Stein treated kings and princes as ordinary men, and dictated to them the course which was necessary to pursue. It was the work of Hardenberg to create the peasant-proprietorship of modern Prussia; but it was the previous work of Stein to establish free trade in land,--which means the removal of hindrances to the sale and purchase of land, which still remains one of the abuses of England,--the ultimate effect of which was to remove caste in land as well as caste in persons.

The great educational movement, in the deepest depression of Prussian affairs, was headed by William, Baron von Humboldt. When Prussia lay disarmed, dismembered, and impoverished, the University of Berlin was founded, the government contributing one hundred and fifty thousand thalers a year; and Humboldt--the first minister of public instruction--succeeded in inducing the most eminent and learned men in Germany to become professors in this new university. I look upon this educational movement in the most gloomy period of German history as one of the noblest achievements which any nation ever made in the cause of science and literature. It took away the sting of military ascendency, and raised men of genius to an equality with nobles; and as the universities were the centres of liberal sentiments and all liberalizing ideas, they must have exerted no small influence on the war of liberation itself, as well as on the cause of patriotism, which was the foundation of the future greatness of Prussia. Students flocked from all parts of Germany to hear lectures from accomplished and patriotic professors, who inculcated the love of fatherland. Germany, though fallen into the hands of a military hero from defects in the administration of governments and armies, was not disgraced when her professors in the university were the greatest scholars of the world. They created a new empire, not of the air, as some one sneeringly remarked, but of mind, which has gone on from conquering to conquer. For more than fifty years German universities have been the centre of European thought and scholastic culture,--pedantic, perhaps, but original and profound.

Before proceeding to the main subject, I have to speak of one more great reform, which was the work of Scharnhorst. This was that series of measures which determined the result of the greatest military struggles of the nineteenth century, and raised Prussia to the front rank of military monarchies. It was the _levee en masse_, composed of the youth of the nation, without distinction of rank, instead of an army made up of peasants and serfs and commanded by their feudal masters. Scharnhorst introduced a compulsory system, indeed, but it was not unequal. Every man was made to feel that he had a personal interest in defending his country, and there were no exemptions made. True, the old system of Frederic the Great was that of conscription; but from this conscription large classes and whole districts were exempted, while the soldiers who fought in the war of liberation were drawn from all classes alike: hence, there was no unjust compulsion, which weakens patriotism, and entails innumerable miseries. It was impossible in the utter exhaustion of the national finances to raise a sufficient number of volunteers to meet the emergencies of the times; therefore, if Napoleon was to be overthrown, it was absolutely necessary to compel everybody to serve in the army for a limited period, The nation saw the necessity, and made no resistance. Thus patriotism lent her aid, and became an overwhelming power. The citizen soldier was no great burden on the government, since it was bound to his support only for a limited period,--long or short as the exigency of the country demanded. Hence, large armies were maintained at comparatively trifling expense.

I need not go into the details of a system which made Prussia a nation of patriots as well as of soldiers, and which made Scharnhorst a great national benefactor, sharing with Stein the glory of a great deliverance. He did not live to see the complete triumph of his system, matured by genius and patient study; but his work remained to future generations, and made Prussia invincible except to a coalition of powerful enemies. All this was done under the eye of Napoleon, and a dreamy middle class became an effective soldiery. So, too, did the peasants, no longer subjected to corporal punishment and other humiliations. What a great thing it was to restore dignity to a whole nation, and kindle the fires of patriotic ardor among poor and rich alike! To the credit of the king, he saw the excellence of the new system, at once adopted it, and generously rewarded its authors. Scharnhorst, the peasant's son, was made a noble, and was retained in office until he died. Stein, however, whose overshadowing greatness created jealousy, remained simply a baron, and spent his last days in retirement,--though not unhonored, or without influence, even when not occupying the great offices of state, to which no man ever had a higher claim. The king did not like him, and the king was still an absolute monarch.

Frederick William III. was by no means a great man, being jealous, timid, and vacillating; but it was in his reign that Prussia laid the foundation of her greatness as a military monarchy. It was not the king who laid this foundation, but the great men whom Providence raised up in the darkest hours of Prussia's humiliation. He did one prudent thing, however, out of timidity, when his ministers waged vigorous and offensive measures. He refused to arm against Napoleon when Prussia lay at his mercy. This turned out to be the salvation of Prussia, A weak man's instincts proved to be wiser than the wisdom of the wise. When Napoleon's doom was sealed by his disasters in Russia, then, and not till then, did the Prussian king unite with Russia and Austria to crush the unscrupulous despot.

The condition of Prussia, then, briefly stated, when Napoleon was sent to St. Helena to meditate and die, was this: a conquering army, of which Blücher was one of its greatest generals, had been raised by the _levee en masse_,--a conscription, indeed, not of peasants alone, obliged to serve for twenty years, but of the whole nation, for three years of active service; and a series of administrative reforms had been introduced and extended to every department of the State, by which greater economy and a more complete system were inaugurated, favoritism abolished, and the finances improved so as to support the government and furnish the sinews of war; while alliances were made with great Powers who hitherto had been enemies or doubtful friends.

These alliances resulted in what is called the German Confederation, or Bund,--a strict union of all the various States for defensive purposes, and also to maintain a general system to suppress revolutionary and internal dissensions. Most of the German States entered into this Confederacy, at the head of which was Austria. It was determined in June, 1815, at Vienna, that the Confederacy should be managed by a general assembly, called a Diet, the seat of which was located at Frankfort. In this Diet the various independent States, thirty-nine in number, had votes in proportion to their population, and were bound to contribute troops of one soldier to every hundred inhabitants, amounting to three hundred thousand in all, of which Austria and Prussia and Bavaria furnished more than half. This arrangement virtually gave to Austria and Prussia a preponderance in the Diet; and as the States were impoverished by the late war, and the people generally detested war, a long peace of forty years (with a short interval of a year) was secured to Germany, during which prosperity returned and the population nearly doubled. The Germans turned their swords into pruning-hooks, and all kinds of industry were developed, especially manufactures. The cities were adorned with magnificent works of art, and libraries, schools, and universities covered the land. No nation ever made a more signal progress in material prosperity than did the German States during this period of forty years,--especially Prussia, which became in addition intellectually the most cultivated country in Europe, with twenty-one thousand primary schools, and one thousand academies, or gymnasia, in which mathematics and the learned languages were taught by accomplished scholars; to say nothing of the universities, which drew students from all Christian and civilized countries in both hemispheres.

The rapid advance in learning, however, especially in the universities and the gymnasia, led to the discussion of innumerable subjects, including endless theories of government and the rights of man, by which discontent was engendered and virtue was not advanced. Strange to say, even crime increased. The universities became hot-beds of political excitement, duels, beer-drinking, private quarrels, and infidel discussion, causing great alarm to conservative governments and to peaceful citizens generally. At last the Diet began to interfere, for it claimed the general oversight of all internal affairs in the various States. An army of three hundred thousand men which obeyed the dictation of the Diet was not to be resisted; and as this Diet was controlled by Austria and Prussia, it became every year more despotic and anti-democratic. In consequence, the Press was gradually fettered, the universities were closely watched, and all revolutionary movements in cities were suppressed. Discontent and popular agitations, as usual, went hand in hand.

As early as 1818 the great reaction against all liberal sentiments in political matters had fairly set in. The king of Prussia neglected, and finally refused, to grant the constitutional government which he had promised in the day of his adversity before the battle of Waterloo; while Austria, guided by Metternich, stamped her iron heel on everything which looked like intellectual or national independence.

This memorable reaction against all progress in government, not confined to the German States but extending to Europe generally, has already been considered in previous chapters. It was the great political feature in the history of Europe for ten years after the fall of Napoleon, particularly in Austria, where hatred of all popular movements raged with exceeding bitterness, intensified by the revolutions in Spain, Italy, and Greece. The assassination of Kotzebue, the dramatic author, by a political fanatic, for his supposed complicity with the despotic schemes of the Czar, kindled popular excitement into a blazing flame, but still more fiercely incited the sovereigns of Germany to make every effort to suppress even liberty of thought.

During the period, then, when ultra-conservative principles animated the united despots of the various German States, and the Diet controlled by Metternich repressed all liberal movements, little advance was made in Prussia in the way of reforms. But a great advance was made in all questions of political economy and industrial matters. Free-trade was established in the most unlimited sense between all the states and provinces of the Confederation. All restraints were removed from the navigation of rivers; new markets were opened in every direction for the productions of industry. In 1839 the Zollverein, or Customs-Union, was established, by which a uniform scale of duties was imposed in Northern Germany on all imports and exports. But no political reforms which the king had promised were effected during the life of Frederick William III. Hardenberg, who with Stein had inaugurated liberal movements, had lost his influence, although he was retained in power until he died.

For the twenty years succeeding the confederation of the German States in 1820, constitutional freedom made little or no progress in Germany. The only advance made in Prussia was in 1823, when the Provincial Estates, or Diets, were established. These, however, were the mere shadow of representative government, since the Estates were convoked at irregular intervals, and had neither the power to initiate laws nor grant supplies. They could only express their opinions concerning changes in the laws pertaining to persons and property.

On the 7th of June, 1840, Frederick William III. of Prussia died, and was succeeded by his son Frederick William IV., a religious and patriotic king, who was compelled to make promises for some sort of constitutional liberty, and to grant certain concessions, which although they did not mean much gave general satisfaction. Among other things the freedom of the Press was partially guaranteed, with certain restrictions, and the Zollverein was extended to Brunswick and Hesse-Homburg. Meantime the government entered with zeal upon the construction of railways and the completion of the Cathedral of Cologne, which tended to a more permanent union of the North German States. "We are not engaged here," said the new monarch, on the inauguration of the completion of that proudest work of mediaeval art, "with the construction of an ordinary edifice; it is a work bespeaking the spirit of union and concord which animates the whole of Germany and all its persuasions, that we are now constructing." This inauguration, amid immense popular enthusiasm, was soon followed by the meeting of the Estates of the whole kingdom at Berlin, which for the first time united the various Provincial Estates in a general Diet; but its functions were limited to questions involving a diminution of taxation. No member was allowed to speak more than once on any question, and the representatives of the commons were only a third part of the whole assembly. This naturally did not satisfy the nation, and petitions flowed in for the abolition of the censorship of the Press and for the publicity of debate. The king was not prepared to make these concessions in full, but he abolished the censorship of the Press as to works extending to above twenty pages, and enjoined the censors of lesser pamphlets and journals to exercise gentleness and discretion, and not erase anything which did not strike at the monarchy. At length, in 1847, the desire was so universal for some form of representative government that a royal edict convoked a General Assembly of the Estates of Prussia, arranged in four classes,--the nobles, the equestrian order, the towns, and the rural districts. The Diet consisted of six hundred and seventy members, of which only eighty were nobles, and was empowered to discuss all questions pertaining to legislation; but the initiative of all measures was reserved to the crown. This National Diet assembled on the 24th of July, and was opened by the king in person, with a noble speech, remarkable for its elevation of tone. He convoked the Diet, the king said, to make himself acquainted with the wishes and wants of his people, but not to change the constitution, which guaranteed an absolute monarchy. The province of the Diet was consultative rather than legislative. Political and military power, as before, remained with the king. Still, an important step had been taken toward representative institutions.

It was about this time, as a member of the National Diet, that Otto Edward Leopold von Bismarck appeared upon the political stage. It was a period of great political excitement, not only in Prussia, but throughout Europe, and also of great material prosperity. Railways had been built, the Zollverein had extended through North Germany, the universities were in their glory, and into everything fearless thinkers were casting their thoughtful eyes. Thirty-four years of peace had enriched and united the German States. The great idea of the day was political franchise. Everybody aspired to solve political problems, and wished to have a voice in deliberative assemblies. There was also an unusual agitation of religious ideas. Rouge had attempted the complete emancipation of Germany from Papal influences, and university professors threw their influence on the side of rationalism and popular liberty. On the whole, there was a general tendency towards democratic ideas, which was opposed with great bitterness by the conservative parties, made up of nobles and government officials.

Bismarck arose, slowly but steadily, with the whole force of his genius, among the defenders of the conservative interests of his order and of the throne. He was then simply Herr von Bismarck, belonging to an ancient and noble but not wealthy family, whose seat was Schönhausen, where the future prince was born, April 1, 1815. The youth was sent to a gymnasium in Berlin in 1830, and in 1832 to the university of Göttingen in Hanover, where he was more distinguished for duels, drinking-parties, and general lawlessness than for scholarship. Here he formed a memorable friendship with a brother student, a young American,--John Lothrop Motley, later the historian of the Dutch Republic. Much has been written of Bismarck's reckless and dissipated life at the university, which differed not essentially from that of other nobles. He had a grand figure, superb health, extraordinary animal spirits, and could ride like a centaur. He spent but three semestres at Göttingen, and then repaired to Berlin in order to study jurisprudence under the celebrated Savigny; but he was rarely seen in the lecture-room. He gave no promise of the great abilities which afterward distinguished him. Yet he honorably passed his State examination; and as he had chosen the law for his profession, he first served on leaving the university as a sort of clerk in the city police, and in 1834 was transferred to Aix-la-Chapelle, in the administrative department of the district. In 1837 he served in the crown office at Potsdam. He then entered for a year as a sharpshooter of the Guards, to absolve his obligation to military service.

The next eight years, from the age of twenty-four, he devoted to farming, hunting, carousing, and reading, on one of his father's estates in Pomerania. He was a sort of country squire, attending fairs, selling wool, inspecting timber, handling grain, gathering rents, and sitting as a deputy in the local Diet,--the talk and scandal of the neighborhood for his demon-like rides and drinking-bouts, yet now studying all the while, especially history and even philosophy, managing the impoverished paternal estates with prudence and success, and making short visits to France and England, the languages of which countries he could speak with fluency and accuracy. In 1847 he married Johanna von Putkammer, nine years younger than himself, who proved a model wife, domestic and wise, of whom he was both proud and fond. The same year, his father having died and left him Schönhausen, he was elected a member of the Landtag, a quasi-parliament of the eight united Diets of the monarchy; and his great career began.

Up to this period Bismarck was not a publicly marked man, except in an avidity for country sports and skill in horsemanship. He ever retained his love of the country and of country life. If proud and overbearing, he was not ostentatious. He had but few friends, but to these he was faithful. He never was popular until he had made Prussia the most powerful military State in Europe. He never sought to be loved so much as to be feared; he never allowed himself to be approached without politeness and deference. He seemed to care more for dogs than men. Nor was he endowed with those graces of manner which marked Metternich. He remained harsh, severe, grave, proud through his whole career, from first to last, except in congenial company. What is called society he despised, with all his aristocratic tendencies and high social rank. He was born for untrammelled freedom, and was always impatient under contradiction or opposition. When he reached the summit of his power he resembled Wallenstein, the hero of the Thirty Years War,--superstitious, self-sustained, unapproachable, inspiring awe, rarely kindling love, overshadowing by his vast abilities the monarch whom he served and ruled.