In the march of generations two distinct periods are observable: the one of ardent and vigorous activity, when quiet and lukewarmness are vexatious and annoying; the other of fatigue and exhaustion; and, when this reaction has taken place, it is necessary there should be at the head of affairs, wise and moderate ministers, perhaps even men who are themselves weary of too active and busy a life. The great European monarchies enjoy an incontestable advantage over freer but more stormy governments, in the perpetuity of their system and the lengthened career of their statesmen. Look at Austria and Russia during the last thirty-three years; they have been under the unvarying direction of two ministers, who have alone had the direction of affairs,--Prince Metternich and Count Nesselrode; and only the death of Prince Hardenberg has deprived Prussia of his services. This perpetuity of statesmen is attended with many advantages: it creates a constant succession of precedents in the cabinet; it permits the conception of a long series of measures, and allows one idea to be followed and worked out with perseverance. A young man is selected immediately he has finished his studies, and placed in the second or third rank among the _attachés_ of an embassy; he next becomes a minister plenipotentiary; and, if he rises and distinguishes himself, he obtains a post in the _chancellerie_; and when, owing to the confidence of his sovereign, or the force of circumstances, he has once been placed in a superior rank, he remains there to the end of his life. And what is the result?--a most serious attention to all transactions, and a most profound knowledge of business: the political situation, which was originally the great object of his ambition, now becomes the subject of his careful study, and, indeed, his whole existence is bound up in it.