to satisfy the objections and suspicions raised in a deferential Senate and an obliging Chamber of Deputies. For while the Opposition distrusted the Emperor, the whole body shrank from the sacrifices which Cæsar and his Minister of War considered necessary to the safety of the State from a defensive, and absolutely indispensable from an offensive point of view. The prime actors in the drama expressed a love of peace, perhaps with equal sincerity: but as Germany thirsted for unity, all the more because France, true to her traditional policy, forbad it, the love so loudly avowed could not be gratified unless Germany submitted, or France ceased to dictate. “I did not share the opinion of those politicians,” said Bismarck in July, 1870, “who advised me not to do all I could to avoid war with France because it was inevitable. Nobody,” he added, “can exactly foresee the purposes of Divine Providence in the future; and I regard even a victorious war as an evil from which statesmanship should strive to preserve nations. I could not exclude from my calculations the possibility that chances might accrue in France’s constitution and policy which might avert the necessity of war from two great neighbour races—a hope in connection with which every postponement of a rupture was so much to the good.” The language is a little obscure, but the meaning will be grasped when it is remembered that his remark on the “chances” referred to the probable grant of increased freedom to the French Parliament, which he thought would fetter the Court and thwart the politicians. That forecast was not justified by the event, since it was the partially-liberated Chamber and the Liberal Ministry which so hastily sanctioned the declaration of war. The truth is, however, that each rival nationality inherited the liabilities contracted in the past. The French had been accustomed for more than two hundred years to meddle directly in Germany and find there allies, either against Austria, Prussia, or England; and the habit of centuries had been more than confirmed by the colossal raids, victories, and annexations of Napoleon I. A Germany which should escape from French control and reverse, by its own energetic action the policy of Henri IV., Richelieu, Louis XIV., his degenerate grandson, Louis XV, and of the great Napoleon himself, was an affront to French pride, and could not be patiently endured. The opposing forces which had grown up were so strong that the wit of man was unable to keep them asunder; and all the control over the issue left to kings and statesmen was restricted to the fabrication of means wherewith to deliver or sustain the shock, and the choice of the hour, if such choice were allowed.