In a life like Garibaldi’s we see what a disinterested genius can do by appealing to men’s noble motives: the career of Louis Napoleon illustrates not less clearly what a man with talents and without scruples can accomplish by appealing to the instincts of vainglory and selfishness and terror; to the instinct which bullies weak nations and hoists the flag where it does not belong; to the instinct which has not the courage to acknowledge an error, but is quick to impute injuries, and declares that there shall be one conscience for politicians and another for citizens. Let us not flatter ourselves that only the French have cherished these stupendous delusions; let us rather take warning by the retribution exacted from them. “Forgetful is green earth: the Gods alone Remember everlastingly; they strike Remorselessly, and ever like for like. By their great memories the Gods are known.” KOSSUTH The history of Hungary is in this respect unique: it records the career of an alien tribe which, cutting its way from Eastern Asia to the heart of Europe, founded there a nation, and this nation, after the friction of a thousand years, still preserves its racial characteristics. In 894 Duke Arpád led his horde of Magyars--whose earlier kinsmen were Huns and Avars--up the valley of the Danube. Long were they a terror to Europe; then, gradually, they had to content themselves with Hungary as their home. They became Christians; they adopted a monarchical government; alongside of their Aryan neighbors, they took on mediæval civilization. Europe, unable to expel or to destroy, acknowledged them as citizens. The time came when the Magyars, in a conflict lasting fivescore years, defended Europe against the invasion of another horde of Asiatic barbarians; till, unsupported by their neighbors, the Magyars succumbed to the Turks in the battle of Mohács in 1526. Afterwards, for one hundred and fifty years, Hungary herself writhed in the hands of the Mussulman; when that bondage ceased, she had a different oppressor,--Austria. The Hungarian monarchy was elective, and after the battle of Mohács the Magyars chose for their king the sovereign of the Austrian states. The succession continued in the House of Hapsburg, becoming in fact hereditary; but, before the Magyars accepted him as king, each Hapsburg candidate must be ratified by the Hungarian Diet, and must swear to uphold the Hungarian Constitution. When, however, the expulsion of the Turks, at the end of the seventeenth century, left the Austrian sovereigns free to exercise their authority, they set about curtailing the ancient liberties of Hungary. Throughout the eighteenth century that process went on: the Magyars protested; the Emperor-King encroached, or, when the protests threatened to pass into insurrection, he paused for a while and gave fair promises.