Let us take breath after these big phrases,--grand round figures of speech,--which, when put together, amount, like certain other combinations of round figures, to exactly 0. We shall not stop to argue the merits and demerits of Prince Louis’s notable comparison between the Christian religion and the Imperial-revolutionary system. There are many blunders in the above extract as we read it; blundering metaphors, blundering arguments, and blundering assertions; but this is surely the grandest blunder of all; and one wonders at the blindness of the legislator and historian who can advance such a parallel. And what are we to say of the legacy of the dying Revolution to Napoleon? Revolutions do not die, and, on their deathbeds, making fine speeches, hand over their property to young officers of artillery. We have all read the history of his rise. The constitution of the year III. was carried. Old men of the Montagne, disguised royalists, Paris sections, _Pittetcobourg_, above all, with his money-bags, thought that here was a fine opportunity for a revolt, and opposed the new constitution in arms: the new constitution had knowledge of a young officer, who would not hesitate to defend its cause, and who effectually beat the majority. The tale may be found in every account of the Revolution, and the rest of his story need not be told. We know every step that he took: we know how, by doses of cannon-balls promptly administered, he cured the fever of the sections--that fever which another camp-physician (Menou) declined to prescribe for; we know how he abolished the Directory; and how the Consulship came; and then the Empire; and then the disgrace, exile, and lonely death. Has not all this been written by historians in all tongues?--by memoir-writing pages, chamberlains, marshals, lackeys, secretaries, contemporaries, and ladies-of-honour? Not a word of miracle is there in all this narration; not a word of celestial missions, or political Messiahs. From Napoleon’s rise to his fall, the bayonet marches alongside of him: now he points it at the tails of the ‘five hundred,’--now he charges with it across the bloody Arcola--now he flies before it over the fatal plain of Waterloo. Unwilling, however, as he may be to grant that there are any spots in the character of his hero’s government, the Prince is, nevertheless, obliged to allow that such existed; that the Emperor’s manner of rule was a little more abrupt and dictatorial than might possibly be agreeable. For this the Prince has always an answer ready--it is the same poor one that Napoleon uttered a million of times to his companions in exile--the excuse of necessity. He _would_ have been very liberal, but that the people were not fit for it; or that the cursed war prevented him--or any other reason why. His first duty, however, says his apologist, was to form a general union of Frenchmen, and he set about his plan in this wise:--