It was from the nadir to which she had thus fallen, that the rulers of France, acting as the agents of its people, have been laboring to raise her ever since 1815. They have had a twofold object in view. They have sought territory, in order that France might not be driven into the list of second-class nations,--and military glory, to make men forget Vittoria, and Leipzig, and Waterloo. All the governments of France have been alike in this respect, no matter how much they have differed in other respects. The legitimate Bourbons,--of whom an American is bound to speak well, for they were our friends, and often evinced a feeling towards us that exceeded largely anything that is required by the terms or the spirit of a political alliance,--the solitary Orléans King, the shadowy Republic of '48, and the imperial government, all have endeavored to do something to elevate France, to win for her new glories, and to regain for her her old position. The expedition into Spain, in 1823, ostensibly made in the interest of Absolutism, was really undertaken for the purpose of rebaptizing the white flag in fire. Charles X. and M. de Polignac were engaged in a great scheme of foreign policy when they fell, the chief object of which, on their side, was the restoration to France of the provinces of the Rhine,--and which Russia favored, because she knew, that, unless the Bourbons could do something to satisfy their people, they must remain powerless, and it did not answer her purpose that they should be otherwise than powerful. The conquest of Algiers was made for the purpose of gratifying the French people, and with the intention of spreading French dominion over Northern Africa. It was a step towards the acquisition of Egypt, for which land France has exhibited a strange longing. In this way the loss of French India and French America, things of the old monarchy, were to be compensated. The government of Louis Philippe expended mines of gold and seas of blood in Africa, much to the astonishment of prudent men, who had no idea of the end upon which its eyes were fixed. When the Republic of 1848 was improvised, even Lamartine, not an unjust man, could talk of the rights of France in Italy, and of her proper influence there; and the wicked attack on the Romans, in 1849, was prompted by a desire to make French influence felt in that country in a manner that should be clear to the sense of mankind.