character of one who, down to the last, was always taken for more than he was worth. If any one knew him well, it was probably his cousin, the Duc de Morny, and M. St. Marc Girardin has preserved a sentence which is an illuminative commentary upon so many curious transactions during the Second Empire. “The greatest difficulty with the Emperor,” said De Morny, “is to remove from his mind a fixed idea, and to give him a steadfast will.” His fixed ideas were not always compatible one with another. He professed great devotion to the “principle of nationalities;” yet he desired to carry the French frontiers as far as the Rhine, adding further German populations and Flemish towns whose inhabitants are not French to those acquired by Louis XIV. He wished for peace, no doubt, when he said that the Empire was synonymous with that word, but he also hungered for the fruits of war; and, knowing that his internal position and his external projects required, to uphold the one and realize the other, a strong and complete army, he had neither the wit to construct a trustworthy instrument, nor the ceaseless industry needed to make the most of an inferior product, nor that absolute independence of the party whose audacity gave him his crown, which would have enabled him to select, in all cases, the best officers for the higher and highest commands. Before, and during the war of 1866, he wavered between two lines of policy, hoping to combine the advantages of both; and when it was over he demanded compensation for his “services” as an alarmed spectator, although he had made no bargain for payment, but had stood inactive because he conjectured that it would be the more profitable course. _French demands for the Rhine._