He is the most prosperous of men, but he is determined not to be prosperity's spoiled child. If the truth were known, it would probably be found that he has not a single personal enemy among the monarchs, all of whom would, as politicians, be glad to witness his fall. In their secret hearts they say that "Monsieur Bonaparte is a well-behaved man, to whom they could wish well in any other part than that which he prefers to hold." Their predecessors hated Napoleon I. personally, and with intense bitterness, which accounts for the readiness with which they took parts in the hunting of the eagle, and for the rancor with which they treated him when his turn came to drain the cup of humiliation to the very dregs. The dislike felt for Napoleon III. is simply political, and such dislike is not incompatible with liberality in judgment and generosity of action. Should it be his fortune to fall, there would be no St. Helena provided for him. The domestic rule of the Emperor of the French will bear comparison with that of any monarch which that people have ever had. It is not faultless, but it is as little open to criticism of a just nature as that of any European sovereign, and with reference to the changed position of sovereigns. We are not to compare Napoleon III. with Louis XIV., that sublime and ridiculous egotist, who seems never to have had a human feeling, except those feelings which humanity would be the better without. The French Revolution banished that breed of kings from Christendom, if not from the world. He must be compared with monarchs who have felt the responsibilities of their trust very differently from the man who called himself the State, who thought that twenty millions of people had been made to minister to his vanity, and who gently reproached God with ingratitude because of the victories of Eugène and Marlborough. "God, it appears, is forgetting us," he said, "notwithstanding all that we have done for Him." A monarch of this class is now as extinct as the mammoth, and traces of his footsteps excite the wonder of the disciples of political science. In these days, a monarch must rule mostly for the people, and largely by the people. He is only the popular chief in a country which has not a well-defined constitution over which time has thrown the mantle of reverence. The course of Napoleon III. has been in accordance with this view of his position. He is not the State, but he is the first man in the State. Under his lead and direction the French have known much material prosperity, and have added not a little to that wealth which, when judiciously used as a means, and not worshipped as the end of human exertion, is the source of so much happiness. The readiness with which the people, the masses of his subjects, subscribed to the great war-loans, contending for subscriptions as for valuable privileges, establishes both their prosperity under his government, and their confidence in that government's strength and permanence.