Napoleon the Third--that crow in the eagle's nest--was cordially with Great Britain in all efforts to injure the American Union. He had long cherished the design to establish a vassal empire in Mexico, and in our Civil War he saw his opportunity. A Southern Confederacy would form a grand barrier between a Franco-Mexican dominion and the United States, and while the French emperor treated the government at Washington with diplomatic courtesy, he never ceased to exert his influence in favor of the South, so far as he could, without an actual rupture. Napoleon was ready and anxious to recognize the Confederacy, and he only waited for the South to win victories that would give him an excuse for action. "His course toward us," says Bigelow, "from the beginning to the end of the plot was deliberately and systematically treacherous, and his ministers allowed themselves to be made his pliant instruments."[1] General Grant declared at City Point, in 1864, that as soon as we had disposed of the Confederates we must begin with the Imperialists, and after Appomattox he expressed the opinion that the French intervention in Mexico was so closely allied to the rebellion as to be a part of it. [1] France and the Confederate Navy. Neither England nor France interfered directly in behalf of the South. Louis Napoleon waited for England to act, and the British Cabinet felt that the British masses would not justify a war in defence of slavery. The American Government, while it met with firm and dignified protest Great Britain's disregard of international obligations, was careful to abstain from giving any excuse for British hostility. "One war at a time," said Abraham Lincoln, in deciding to surrender Mason and Slidell. But Americans kept careful account of every item of outrage on the part of England, and in due time the bill was presented--and paid. And in due time also Napoleon was told to go out of Mexico--and he went. CHAPTER XXXIV. The Confederate Government Organized--Fort Sumter--President Lincoln Calls for 75000 Men--Command of the Union Forces offered to Robert E. Lee--Lee Joins the Confederacy--Missouri Saved to the Union--Battle of Bull Run--Union Successes in the West--General Grant Captures Fort Donelson--"I Have No Terms but Unconditional Surrender"--The Monitor and Merrimac Fight--Its World-Wide Effect--Grant Victorious at Shiloh--Union Naval Victory Near Memphis--That City Captured--General McClellan's Tactics--He Retreats from Victory at Malvern Hill--Second Bull Run Defeat--Great Battle of Antietam--Lee Repulsed, but Not Pursued-- McClellan Superseded by Burnside--Union Defeat at Frederickburg-- Union Victories in the West--Bragg Defeated by Rosecrans at Stone River --The Emancipation Proclamation.