Some historians, more or less imbued with that policy which believes itself to be superior, because it is not suspected of any philosophy, have naturally sought to prove that so accomplished a man was a bad administrator and a mediocre sovereign. It appears, in fact, that Marcus Aurelius sinned more than once by too much lenity. But never was there a reign more fruitful in reforms and progress. The public charity founded by Nerva and Trajan was admirably developed by him. New schools were established for poor children; the superintendents of provisions became functionaries of the first rank, and were chosen with extreme care; while the wants of poor young girls were cared for by the Institute of _Jeunes Faustiniennes_. The principle that the state has duties in some degree paternal towards its members (a principle which should be remembered with gratitude, even when it has been dispensed with),--this principle, I say, was proclaimed for the first time in the world by Trajan and his successors. Neither the puerile pomp of Oriental kingdoms, founded on the baseness and stupidity of men, nor the pedantic pride of the kingdoms of the middle ages, founded on an exaggerated sentiment for hereditary succession, and on a simple faith in the rights of blood, could give an idea of the utterly republican sovereignty of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonine, and Marcus Aurelius. Nothing of the prince by hereditary or divine right, nothing of the military chieftain: it was a sort of grand civil magistracy, without resembling a court in any way, or depriving the emperor of his private character. Marcus Aurelius, in particular, was neither much nor little a king in the true sense of the word. His fortune was immense, but all employed for good: his aversion for "the Cæsars," whom he considered as a species of Sardanapali, magnificent, debauched, and cruel, burst out at each instant. The civility of his manners was extreme. He gave to the Senate all its ancient importance: when he was at Rome, he never missed a session, and left his place only when the Consul had pronounced the formula, "_Nihil vos moramar, patres conscripti_." Almost every year of his reign he made war, and he made it well, although he found in it only _ennui_. His listless campaigns against the Quadi and Marcomanni were very well conducted: the disgust which he felt for them did not prevent his most conscientious attention to them. It was in the course of one of these expeditions, that, encamped on the banks of the Granicus, in the midst of the monotonous plains of Hungary, he wrote the most beautiful pages of the exquisite book which has revealed his whole soul to us. It is probable, that, when very young, he kept a journal of his secret thoughts. He inscribed there the maxims to which he had recourse in order to fortify himself, the reminiscences of his favorite authors, the passages of the moralists which appealed most to him, the principles