hey disappeared also from Hanover and
Hesse-Cassel, where the Guelf sovereigns and Electors had generally
repressed popular movements.

Greatest of all the results of the war of 1866, however, was the gain to
the national cause in Germany and Italy. Peoples that had long been
divided were now in the brief space of three months brought within sight
of the long-wished-for unity. The rush of these events blinded men to
their enduring import and produced an impression that the Prussian
triumph was like that of Napoleon I., too sudden and brilliant to last.
Those who hazarded this verdict forgot that his political arrangements
for Europe violated every instinct of national solidarity; while those
of 1866 served to group the hitherto divided peoples of North Germany
and Italy around the monarchies that had proved to be the only possible
rallying points in their respective countries. It was this harmonising
of the claims and aspirations of monarchy, nationality, and democracy
that gave to the settlement of 1866 its abiding importance, and fitted
the two peoples for the crowning triumph of 1870.

CHAPTER I

THE CAUSES OF THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR

"After the fatal year 1866, the Empire was in a state of
decadence."--L. GREGOIRE, _Histoire de France_.

The irony of history is nowhere more manifest than in the curious
destiny which called a Napoleon III. to the place once occupied by
Napoleon I., and at the very time when the national movements,
unwittingly called to vigorous life by the great warrior, were attaining
to the full strength of manhood. Napoleon III. was in many ways a
well-meaning dreamer, who, unluckily for himself, allowed his dreams to
encroach on his waking moments. In truth, his sluggish but very
persistent mind never saw quite clearly where dreams must give way to
realities; or, as M. de Falloux phrased it, "He does not know the
difference between dreaming and thinking[7]." Thus his policy showed an
odd mixture of generous haziness and belated practicality.

[7] _Notes from a Diary, 1851-1872_, by Sir M.E. Grant Duff, vol. i. p.
120.

Long study of his uncle's policy showed him, rightly enough, that it
erred in trampling down the feeling of nationality in Germany and
elsewhere. The nephew resolved to avoid this mistake and to pose as the
champion of the oppressed and divided peoples of Italy, Germany, Poland,
and the Balkan Peninsula--a programme that promised to appeal to the
ideal aspi