dignant by any comparison of Bismarck and Cavour, as I
am rendered equally indignant by a comparison of Washington and
Bonaparte. The father of the Saxon fatherland of America, and the
father of the Italian fatherland in Europe, alike rendered worship to
goodness, and never deviated from right in any degree; whereas the
founders of French imperialism and of Germanic imperialism, much
addicted to violence and very vain of their conquests, relinquished
something as great and as fragile and sinister as the works produced
by the genius of evil and outer darkness in all theogony. In the last
years of the reign of Napoleon III., during the discussion of a
message in the French Legislative Corps, Rouher extolled the public
and private virtues of the emperor. My late lamented friend, Jules
Favre, replied to him in a speech worthy of Demosthenes: "You may be
content to be the minister of such a Marcus Aurelius; to such paltry
dignities, I prefer the higher privilege of calling myself a citizen
of a free country." Bismarck preferred to maintain himself in power by
the help of his kings--quite the contrary of what Gladstone does, who
maintains his sovereign. Whom can he blame but himself? Emperors are
accustomed to be ferocious with their favorites when they are weary of
them. Just as Tiberius expelled Sejanus, just as Nero killed Seneca,
just as John II. hanged D. Alvaro de Luna, just as Philip II.
persecuted Antonio Perez till he died, just as Philip III. beheaded D.
Rodrigo Calderon, William II. has morally beheaded Bismarck, without
any other motive than his imperial caprice. _Sic volo, sic jubeo._ So
now will the Chancellor venture to present himself in parliament
because he has been dismissed from the royal palace like a lackey?
_Quae te dementia caepit?_ When, after Waterloo, Napoleon, adopting the
theatrical style of an Italian _artiste_, suitable to his tragical
disposition, and repeating a few badly learned Plutarchesque phrases,
suitable to the classical education of his age, asked the English, his
enemies, to accord him hospitality, as in ancient times Themistocles
might have petitioned his enemies the Persians, the English replied by
sending him to St. Helena. Bismarck in disfavor and disgrace solicits
an asylum from his enemies, the commons, whom he has never defeated,
yet whom he has always disdained. And as the English condemned their
troublesome guest to live on a gloomy little island, the electors
condemn their re