that she was "deux fois
Catholique," as a Spaniard and as French Empress. (Sir M.K. Grant Duff,
_Notes from a Diary, 1851-1872_, vol. i. p. 125.)]

Even this brief survey of international relations shows that Napoleon
III. was a source of weakness to France. Having seized on power by
perfidious means, he throughout his whole reign strove to dazzle the
French by a series of adventures, which indeed pleased the Parisians for
the time, but at the cost of lasting distrust among the Powers. Generous
in his aims, he at first befriended the German and Italian national
movements, but forfeited all the fruits of those actions by his
pettifogging conduct about Savoy and Nice, the Rhineland and Belgium;
while his final efforts to please French clericals and Chauvinists[20]
by supporting the Pope at Rome, lost him the support of States that
might have retrieved the earlier blunders. In brief, by helping on the
nationalists of North Germany and Italy he offended French public
opinion; and his belated and spasmodic efforts to regain popularity at
home aroused against him the distrust of all the Powers. Their feelings
about him may be summarised in the _mot_ of a diplomatist, "Scratch the
Emperor and you will find the political refugee."

[Footnote 20: Chauvinist is a term corresponding to our "Jingo." It is
derived from a man named Chauvin, who lauded Napoleon I. and French
glory to the skies.]

How different were the careers of Napoleon III. and of Bismarck! By
resolutely keeping before him the national aim, and that only, the
Prussian statesman had reduced the tangle of German affairs to
simplicity and now made ready for the crowning work of all. In his
_Reminiscences_ he avows his belief, as early as 1866, "that a war with
France would succeed the war with Austria lay in the logic of history";
and again, "I did not doubt that a Franco-German War must take place
before the construction of a United Germany could take place[21]." War
would doubtless have broken out in 1867 over the Luxemburg question, had
he not seen the need of delay for strengthening the bonds of union with
South Germany and assuring the increase of the armies of the Fatherland
by the adoption of Prussian methods; or, as he phrased it, "each year's
postponement of the war would add 100,000 trained soldiers to our
army[22]." In 1870 little was to be gained by delay. In fact, the
unionist movement in Germany then showed ominous signs of slackening. In
the South th