ward the overthrow of Austrian
domination in Italy but for the action of French armies in that country.
That the Emperor meant what he wrought is very unlikely; but after the
events of 1859 it was impossible to prevent the construction of the
kingdom of Italy; and the Frenchman had to consent to the completion of
his own work, though he did so on some occasions with extreme
reluctance,--not so much from the dictation of his own feelings, as from
the aversion which the French feel for the Italian cause, and which is
so strong, and so deeply shared by the military, that it was with
difficulty the soldiers in the camp of Chalons were prevented getting up
an illumination when news reached them of the battle of Custozza, the
event of which was so disastrous to Italy, and would have been fatal to
her cause, had not that been vindicated and established by Prussian
genius and valor on the remote fields of Germany and Bohemia. The
descendants of men who fought under Arminius saved the descendants of
the countrymen of Varus. Those persons who have condemned the
Frenchman's apparently singular course toward Italy on some occasions,
have not made sufficient allowance for the dislike of almost all classes
of his subjects for the Italians. The Italian war was unpopular, and the
Russian war was not popular. While the French have been pleased by the
military occurrences that make up the histories of those wars, they were
by no means pleased by the wars themselves, and they do not approve them
even at this day; and the extraordinary events of the current year are
not at all calculated to make them popular in France: for it is not
difficult to see that there is a close connection between the
establishment of the Kingdom of Italy and the elevation of Prussia to
the first place in Europe; and Prussia is the power most abhorred by the
French. So intense is French hatred of Prussia, that it is not too much
to say that, last summer, the French would almost as lief have seen the
Russians in Paris as the Prussians in Vienna.

At the middle of last June the leadership of Europe--Frenchmen said of
the world--was in the hands of France; and that such was France's place
was the work of Napoleon III. The Emperor had been successful in all his
undertakings, with one exception. His Mexican business had proved a
total failure; but this had not injured him. Americans thought
differently, some of us going so far as to suppose the fall of
Maximilian's sha