ent that she were eclipsed, at an end, the sympathetic
bond of the world would be loosened, dissolved, and probably destroyed.
Love, that constitutes the life of the world, would be wounded in its
most vital part. _The earth would enter into the frozen age, where other
worlds close at hand have already landed._"

We have never wittingly done injustice either to France or her people;
but we confess we had no notion of the claims of both upon our regard
and applause, until they were prominently put before us by her somewhat
Quixotic historian.

In the first place, if you would heap up all the blood, the gold, the
efforts of every kind, that each nation has expended for disinterested
matters that were to be profitable only to the world, France would have
a pyramid that would reach to heaven; "and yours, oh nations! all of you
put together--oh yours! the pile of your sacrifices would reach up to
the knee of an infant!"

And then God enlightens it more than any other nation, for she sees in
the darkest night, when others can no longer distinguish. "During that
dreadful darkness which often prevailed in the middle ages, and since,
nobody perceived the sky. France alone saw it."

Rome is nowhere but in France. Rome held the pontificate of the dark
ages--the royalty of the obscure; and France has been the pontiff of the
ages of light.

Every other history is mutilated. France's is alone complete. Take the
history of Italy, the last centuries are wanting; take the history of
Germany or of England, the first are missing; take that of France, _with
it you know the world_. Christianity has promised, France has performed.
"The Christian had the faith that a God-made man would make a people of
brothers, and would, sooner or later, unite the world in one and the
same heart. This has not yet been verified, but it will be verified in
us." The great and universal legend of France is the only complete one;
other nations have only special legends which the world has not
accepted. The natural legend of France, on the contrary, "is an immense,
uninterrupted stream of light, a true milky way, upon which the world
has ever its eyes fixed." An American once said, that for every man the
first country is his native land, and the second is France. This surely
was praise sufficient. But M. Michelet is very greedy of praise. "How
many," says he, "_like better_ to live here than in their own country!
As soon as ever they can break for a moment t