ption alone of Alexander and Caesar. No one questions his
transcendent abilities, his unrivalled fame, and his potent influence on
the affairs of Europe for a quarter of a century, leaving a name so
august that its mighty prestige enabled his nephew to steal his sceptre;
and his character has been so searchingly and critically sifted that
there is unanimity among most historians as to his leading traits,--a
boundless ambition and unscruplous adaptation of means to an end: that
end his self-exaltation at any cost. His enlarged and enlightened
intellect was sullied by hypocrisy, dissimulation, and treachery,
accompanied by minor faults with which every one is familiar, but which
are often overlooked in the immense services he rendered to his country
and to civilization.

Napoleon III., aspiring to imitate his uncle, also contributed important
services, but was not equal to the task he assumed, and made so many
mistakes that he can hardly be called a great man, although he performed
a great _role_ in the drama of European politics, and at one time
occupied a superb position. With him are associated the three great
international wars which took place in the interval between the
banishment of Napoleon I. to St. Helena and the establishment of the
French Republic on its present basis,--a period of more than fifty
years,--namely, the Crimean war; the war between Austria, France, and
Italy; and the Franco-Prussian war, which resulted in the humiliation of
France and the exaltation of Prussia.

When Louis Napoleon came into power in 1848, on the fall of Louis
Philippe, it was generally supposed that European nations had sheathed
the sword against one another, and that all future contests would be
confined to enslaved peoples seeking independence, with which contests
other nations would have nothing to do; but Louis Napoleon, as soon as
he had established his throne on the ruins of French liberties, knew no
other way to perpetuate his dominion than by embroiling the nations of
Europe in contests with one another, in order to divert the minds of the
French people from the humiliation which the loss of their liberties had
caused, and to direct their energies in new channels,--in other words,
to inflate them with visions of military glory as his uncle had done, by
taking advantage of the besetting and hereditary weakness of the
national character. In the meantime the usurper bestowed so many
benefits on the middle and lower classes