Prussia, after checking him at the Mincio in 1859, cut short in his hands the thread of the web woven in 1863 to regenerate Poland on the plan of Italy. God did not permit a good and noble cause like that of Poland to be contaminated by the influence of the Napoleonic idea; and this seems to us an indication that he reserves to her a restoration worthy of herself and of her faith. Prussia also held him at bay during the Danish war, into which he threw himself with closed eyes, in the mad hope of conquering Mexico, and making it an empire after his own idea. This whim cost France a lake of blood, many millions of francs, and an indelible stain; it cost the unfortunate Maximilian of Austria his life, and his gifted wife her reason. Prussia solemnly mocked at him in the other war of 1866, when, leagued with Italy by his consent, she attacked the Austrian Empire. It was the beginning of that political and military unity of Germany which was destined to make him pay dear for the work of unity accomplished beyond the Alps by so many crimes.[26] Lastly, Prussia, choosing the occasion of the vacancy of the Spanish throne, and seconded by him in the promotion of an Iberian unity like that of Italy, and prepared by a subalpine marriage, drew him into the toils where he left his crown and his honor. Step by step with the barriers opposed by Prussia to the foolish policy of Napoleon III. in Europe went the anxieties caused in the empire by revolution. Losing gradually the support of the honest Catholic plurality of the French, he thought to reinforce himself by flattering his enemy, demagogism, and by unchaining gradually passions irreligious, anarchical, destructive to civilization. Taking all restraint from the press, he removed every bar to theatrical license, gave unchecked liberty to villany, free course to nefarious impiety and a Babylonish libertinism, and finished by opening the doors to public schools of socialism. But as outside France his duplicity and cowardly frauds had drawn upon him the hatred and contempt of accomplices and beneficiaries, so at home they excited discontent and distrust among all parties. On the 2d and 4th of September, 1870, he reaped at Sedan and in Paris the crop sowed by him in 1859. Germany broke his sword, and the Revolution his sceptre. The Napoleonic idea touched the apex of its triumphs. VII.