, moreover, think that if he had
consented to remain in Paris or at St. Cloud, the disaster would have
happened all the same. He had no illusions about the efficiency of his
armies, though he may not have been cognizant of the thorough rottenness
of the whole. But to have said so at any time, especially during the
last four years, would have been simply to sign the death-warrant of his
dynasty. He endeavoured to remedy the defects in a roundabout way as
early as October, '66, by appointing a commission to draw up a plan for
the reorganization of the army. Apparently, Napoleon wanted larger
contingents; in reality, he hoped that the inquiry would lay bare such
evidence of corruption as would justify him in dismissing several of
the men surrounding him from their high commands. But both those who
only saw the apparent drift as well as those who guessed at the real one
were equally determined in their opposition. It was the majority in the
Legislature which first uttered the cry, immediately taken up by the
adversaries of the regime, "If this bill becomes law there will be an
end of favourable numbers." In fact, the bill meant compulsory service
for every one, and the consent of the deputies to it would at once have
forfeited their position with their electors, especially with the
peasantry, to whom to apply the word "patriotism" at any time is
tantamount to the vilest prostitution of it.

Of the makeshift for that law I need say little or nothing. Without a
single spy in France, without a single attache in the Rue de Lille,
Bismarck was enabled by that only to determine beforehand the effects of
one serious military defeat on the dynasty of the Emperor; he was
enabled to calculate the exact strength of the chain of defence which
would be offered subsequently. The French army was like the Scotch lad's
porridge, "sour, burnt, gritty, cold, and, ---- it, there was not enough
of it." It is not underrating Bismarck's genius to say that a man of far
inferior abilities than he would have plainly seen the course to pursue.

Was Napoleon III. steeped in such crass ignorance as not to have had an
inkling of all this? Certainly not; but he was weary, body and soul,
and, but for his wife and son, he would, perhaps willingly, have
abdicated. He had been suffering for years from one of the most
excruciating diseases, and a fortnight before the declaration of war the
symptoms had become so alarming that a great consultation was held
be