The inheritance of wisdom with a throne is always rare: I find in history but two striking examples of it,--in India, the succession of the three Mongol emperors, Bâber, Hoomâyoon, and Akbar; at Rome, at the head of the greatest empire that ever existed, the two admirable reigns of Antonine the Pious and Marcus Aurelius. Of the last two, I consider Antonine the greatest. His goodness did not lead him into faults: he was not tormented with that internal trouble which disturbed without ceasing the heart of his adopted son. This strange malady, this restless study of himself, this demon of scrupulousness, this fever of perfection, are signs of a less strong and distinguished nature. As the finest thoughts are those which are not written, Antonine had in this respect also a superiority over Marcus Aurelius. But let us add that we should be ignorant of Antonine, if Marcus Aurelius had not transmitted to us that exquisite portrait of his adopted father, in which he seems to have applied himself, through humility, to painting the picture of a better man than himself. It is he who has sketched in the first book of his "Thoughts,"--that admirable background where the noble and pure forms of his father, mother, grandfather, and tutors, move in a celestial light. Thanks to Marcus Aurelius, we are able to understand how these old Roman families, who had seen the reign of the wicked emperors, still retained honesty, dignity, justice, the civil, and, if I may dare to say it, the republican spirit. They lived there in admiration of Cato, of Brutus, of Thrasea, and of the great stoics whose souls had never bowed under tyranny. The reign of Domitian was abhorred by them. The sages who had endured it without submission were honored as heroes. The accession of the Antonines was only the coming to power of the society of sages, of whose just anger Tacitus has informed us,--a society of wise men formed by the league of all those who had revolted against the despotism of the first Cæsars. The salutary principle of adoption made the imperial court of the second century a true cradle of virtue. The noble and learned Nerva, in establishing this principle, assured the happiness of the human race during almost a hundred years, and gave to the world the best century of progress of which any knowledge has been preserved. The sovereignty thus possessed in common by a group of choice men who delegated it or shared it, according to the needs of the moment, lost a part of that attraction which renders it so dangerous. Men came to the throne without seeking it, but also without the right of birth, or in any sense the divine right: men came there understanding themselves, experienced, having been long prepared. The empire was a civil burden which each accepted in his turn, without dreaming of hastening the hour. Marcus Aurelius was made emperor so young, that the idea of ruling had scarcely occurred to him, and had not for a moment exercised its charm upon his mind.