Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866», страница 8

In this she begged him to remember how much greater his advantages, and his opportunities of making a living, were than ours, and besought him to do his best to keep and increase for us the pittance she had toiled so hard to earn, and to take nothing from it unless a time should come when he was as helpless as we.

Two copies of this letter were made, signed, sealed, and witnessed. One I sent to George, enclosed with an earnest entreaty from Fanny and myself, that he would come and let mamma see him once again, before she died, if, as we feared, she must die. We had asked him to come before. He answered our letter—not our mother's—rather kindly, but very vaguely, putting off his visit, and saying, that he could not for a moment suffer himself to believe that she would not do perfectly well, if we did not alarm her about herself, nor worry her with business when she was not in a state for it. His reply was handed me before her, unluckily. She wished to hear it read, and seemed to lose heart and grow worse from that time.

Thus then matters stood with us that July. The sale of our house was pending—over our kind host's head too! It was plain to me that George would not, and that Dr. Physick should not, bear the charge of Fanny's maintenance. So far and so long as I could, I would.

In the mean time, no further examination was made of her lungs. The Doctor's report was often "Remarkably comfortable," and never anything worse than, "Well, on the whole, taking one time with another, I don't see but she's about as comfortable as she has been." I was, of course, inexperienced. I was afraid that, if she improved no faster, I should be obliged to leave her, when I went away to work for her again at the end of the summer vacation, still very feeble, a care to others, and pining for my care. That was my nearest and clearest fear.

But what did Fanny think? I hope, the truth; and on one incident, in chief, I ground my hope. One beautiful day—the last one in July—she asked me if I should be willing to draw her to our mother's grave. There could be but one answer; though I had not seen the spot since the funeral. Fanny looked at it with more than calmness,—with the solemn irradiation of countenance which had during her illness become her most characteristic expression. She desired me to help her from her chair. She lay at her length upon the turf, still and observant, as if calculating. Then she spoke.

"Katy, dear," said she, very tenderly and softly, as if she feared to give me pain, "I have been thinking sometimes lately, that, if anything should ever happen to either of us, the other might be glad to know what would be exactly the wishes of the one that was gone—about our graves. Suppose we choose them now, while we are here together. Here, by mamma, is where I should like to lie. See, I will lay two red clovers for the head, and a white one for the foot. And there, on her other side, is just such a place for you. Should you like it?—and—shall you remember?"

I found voice to say "Yes," and said it firmly.

"And then," added she, after a short, deliberating pause, during which she, with my assistance, raised herself to sit on the side of the chair with her feet still resting on the turf, "while we are upon the subject,—one thing more. If I should be the first to go,—nobody knows whose turn may come the first,—then I should like to have you do—just what would make you happiest; but I don't like mourning. I shouldn't wish to have it worn for me. My feelings about it have all changed since we made it for mamma. It seemed as if we were only working at a great black wall, for our minds to have to break through, every time they yearned to go back into the past and sit with her. It was as if the things she chose for us, and loved to see us in, were part of her and of her life with us,—as if she would be able still to think of us in them, and know just how we looked. And it seemed so strange and unsympathizing in us, that, when we loved her so, we should go about all muffled up in darkness, because our God was clothing her in light!"

I answered,—rather slowly and tremulously this time, I fear,—that I had felt so too.

"Then, Katy," resumed she, pleadingly, as she leaned back in her usual attitude in the chair, and made a sign that I might draw her home, "we will not either of us wear it for the other,—without nor within either, will we?—any more than we can help. Don't you remember what dear mamma said once, when you had made two mistakes in your lessons at school, and lost a prize, and took it hard, and somebody was teasing you, with making very light of it, and telling you to think no more about it? You were very sorry and a little offended, and said, you always chose not to be hoodwinked, but to look at things on all sides and in the face. Mamma smiled, and said, 'It is good and brave to look all trials in the face; but among the sides, never forget the bright side, little Katy.' If I had my life to live over again, I would try to mind her more in that. She always said, there lay my greatest fault. I hope and think God has forgiven me, because he makes it so easy for me to be cheerful now."

"Fanny," said I, as we drew near the house, "things in this world are strangely jumbled. Here are you, with your character, to wit, that of a little saint, if you will have the goodness to overlook my saying so, and somebody else's conscience. I have no doubt that, while you are reproaching yourself first for this, then for that and the other, the said somebody else is sinning away merrily, somewhere among the antipodes or nearer, without so much as a single twinge."

Smiling, she shook her head at me; and that was all that passed. She was as cheerful as I tried to be. With regard to the other world, she seemed to have attained unto the perfect love that casteth out fear; and I believe her only regret in leaving this lower one for it was that she could not take me with her. In fact, throughout her illness, her freedom from anxiety about its symptoms—not absolute, but still in strong contrast with her previous tendencies—appeared to her physician, as he acknowledged to me afterwards, even when he considered the frequent flattering illusions of the disease, a most discouraging indication as to the case. But to her it was an infinite mercy; and to me, to have such glimpses to remember of her already in possession of so much of that peace which remaineth unto the people of God.

As the dog-days drew on, a change came, though at first a very gentle one to her, if not to me. She slept more, ate less, grew so thin that she could no more bear the motion of her little wagon, and begged that it might be returned, because it tired her so to think of it.

Then word came that our house was advertised to be sold, unconditionally, at an early day. To move her in that state,—how dreadful it would be! I did not mean to let her know anything about it until I must; but Miss Mehitable, always less remarkable for tact than for good-will, blurted it out before her.

Her brows contracted with a moment's look of pain. "O Katy," she whispered, "I am sorry! That must make you very anxious";—and then she went to sleep.

Evidently it did not make her very anxious, as I knew that it would have done as lately even as two or three months before. What was the remedy? Approaching death. Well, death was approaching me also, as steadily, if not so nearly; and, after her example, my thoughts took such a foretaste of that anodyne that, as I sat and gazed on her unconscious, placid face, all terrors left me, and I was strengthened to pray, and to determine to look to the morrow with only so much thought as should enable me to bring up all my resources of body and mind to meet it as I ought, and to leave the result, unquestioned, quite in God's hand.

The result was an entire relief to her last earthly care. The appointed day came. The matter took wind. None of our townspeople appeared, to bid against my guardian; but enough of them were on the spot "to see fair play," or, in other words, to advance for him whatever sum he might stand in need of; and the house was knocked down to him at a price even below its market value. He paid the mortgagee and George their due by the next mail, but left my title and Fanny's as it was, not to be settled till I came of age.

These details would only have worried and wearied her; but the auctioneer's loud voice had hardly died away, or the gathered footsteps scattered from the door, when the Doctor came to her chamber, flushed with triumph, to tell us that "Nobody now could turn us out; and everything was arranged for us to stay." Fanny looked brightly up to him, and answered: "Now I shall scarcely know what more to pray for, but God's reward for you." And most of all I thank Him for that news, because her last day on this earth was such a happy one.

The next morning, just at dawn, she waked me, saying, "O Katy, tell the Doctor I can't breathe!"

I sprang up, raised her on her pillows, and called him instantly.

She stretched out her hand to him, and gasped, "O Doctor, I can't breathe! Can't you do anything to help me?"

He felt her pulse quickly, looking at her, and said, very tenderly, "Have some ether, Fanny. I will run and bring it." Throwing wider open every window that he passed, he hurried down to the office and back with the ether.

Eagerly, though with difficulty, she inhaled it; and it relieved her. I sat and watched her, silent, with her hand in mine.

Presently the door behind me opened softly, as if somebody was looking in. "My dear," said the Doctor, turning his head, and speaking very earnestly, though in a low voice, "I wouldn't come here. You can do no good." But presently his wife came in, in her dressing-gown, very pale, and sat by me and held the hand that was not holding Fanny's.

And next I knew they thought she would not wake; and then the short breath stopped. And now it was my turn to stretch out my hands to him for help; but, looking at me, he burst into tears, as he had not when he looked at Fanny; and I knew there was no breath more for her, nor any ether for me. I did not want to go to sleep, because I should have to wake again; but his wife was sobbing aloud. I knew how dreadful such excitement was for her; and so I had to do just as they wished me to, and let them lead me out and lock the door, and lay down on a bed and shut my eyes.

PROTONEIRON

DECEMBER 9, 1864

"And in that sleep of death what dreams may come."

 
The unresting lines, where oceans end,
Are traced by shifting surf and sand;
As pallid, moonlit fingers blend
The dreamlight of the ghostly land.
 
 
No eye can tell where Love's last ray
Fades to the sky of colder light;
No ear, when sounds that vexed the day
Cease mingling with the holier night.
 
 
As bells, which long have failed to swing
In lonely towers of crumbling stone,
Through far eternal spaces ring,
With semblance of their ancient tone.
 
 
The lightning, quivering through the cloud,
Weaves warp and woof from sky to earth,
In mist that seems a mortal's shroud,
In light that hails an angel's birth.
 
 
Thought vainly strives, with life's dull load,
To mount through ether rare and thin;
Fond eyes pursue the spirit's road
To heaven, and dimly gaze therein.
 
 
In battle's travail-hour, a host
Writhes in the throes of deadly strife.
One flash! One groan! A startled ghost
Is born into the eternal life.
 
 
Dear wife and children! Now I fly
Forth from my soldier camp to you!
Blue ridge and river hurry by
My weary eyes, in quick review.
 
 
Long have I waited. How and when
My furlough came is mystery.
I dreamed of charging with my men,—
A dream of glorious history!
 
 
To you I fly on Love's strong wing;
My courser needs no armed heel:
And yet anew the bugles ring,
And wake me to the crash of steel.
 
 
In fiercer rush of hosts again
My dripping sabre seeks the front.
Spur your mad horses! Forward, men!
Meet with your hearts the battle's brunt.
 
 
Tricolor, flaunt! And trumpet-blare,
Scream louder than the bursting shell,
And thundering hoofs, that shake the air,
Trembling above that surging hell!
 
 
In carbine smoke and cannon flash,
Like avalanches twain, we meet;
One gasp! we spur; one stab! we crash
And trample with the iron feet.
 
 
I dream! My tiercepoint smote them through,
My sabre buried to my hand!
And yet unchecked those horsemen flew,
And still I grasp my phantom brand!
 
 
Our chargers, which like whirlwinds bore
Us onward, lie all stiff and stark!
Black Midnight's feet wait on the shore,
To bear me—where? Where all is dark.
 
 
And still I hear the faint recall!
My senses,—have they dropped asleep?
I see a soldier's funeral pall,
And there my wife and children weep!
 
 
Sobs break the air, below the cloud;
And one pure soul, of love and truth,
Is folding in a mortal shroud
Her quivering wings of Hope and Youth.
 
 
Ye of the sacred red right hand,
Who count, around our camp-fire light,
Dear names within the shadowy land,
Why do ye whisper mine to-night?
 
 
Where am I? Am I? Trumpet notes
Still mingle with a dreamy doubt
Of Where? and Whither? Music floats,
As when camp-lights are going out.
 
 
Like saintly eyes resigned to Death,
Like spirit whispers from afar,
The sighing bugle yields its breath,
As if it wooed a dying star.
 
 
Draped in dark shadows, widowed Night
Weeps, on new graves, with chilly tears;
Beyond strange mountain-tops, the light
Is breaking from the immortal years.
 
 
A rhythm, from the unfathomed deep
Of God's eternal stillness, sings
My wondering, trembling soul to sleep,
While angels lift it on their wings.
 

THE PROGRESS OF PRUSSIA

The changes that have taken place in Europe in the last twenty years are of a most comprehensive character, and as strange as comprehensive; and their consequences are likely to be as remarkable as the changes themselves. In 1846 Russia was the first power of Europe, and at a great distance ahead of all other members of the Pentarchy. She retained the hegemony which she had acquired by the events of 1812-1814, and by the great display of military force she had made in 1815, when 160,000 of her troops were reviewed near Paris by the sovereigns and other leaders of the Grand Alliance there assembled after the second and final fall of the first Napoleon. Had Alexander I. reigned long, it is probable that his eccentricities—to call them by no harder name—would have operated to deprive Russia of her supremacy; but Nicholas, though he might never have raised his country so high as it was carried by his brother, was exactly the man to keep the power he had inherited,—and to keep it in the only way in which it was to be kept, namely, by increasing it. This he had done, and great success had waited on most of his undertakings, while in none had he encountered failure calculated to attract the world's attention. England had in some sense shared men's notice with Russia immediately after the settlement of Europe. The "crowning carnage, Waterloo," was considered her work; and, as the most decisive battle since Philippi, it gave to the victor in it an amount of consideration that was equal to that which Napoleon himself had possessed in 1812. But this consideration rapidly passed away, as England did nothing to maintain her influence on the Continent, while Russia was constantly busy there, and really governed it down to the French Revolution of 1830; and her power was not much weakened even by the fall of the elder Bourbons, with whom the Czar had entered into a treaty that had for one of its ends the cession to France of those very Rhenish provinces of which so much has been said in the course of the present year. Russia was victorious in her conflicts with the Persians and the Turks, and the battle of Navarino really had been fought in her interest,—blindly by the English, but intelligently by the French, who were willing that she should plant the double-headed eagle on the Bosporus, provided the lilies should be planted on the Rhine. If the fall of the Bourbons in France, and the fall of the Tories in England, weakened Russia's influence in Western Europe, those events had the effect of drawing Austria and Prussia nearer to her, and of reviving something of the spirit of the Holy Alliance, which had lost much of its strength from the early death of Alexander. Russia had her own way in almost every respect; and in 1846 Nicholas was almost as powerful a ruler as Napoleon had been a generation earlier, with the additional advantage of being a legitimate sovereign, who could not be destroyed through the efforts of any coalition. Three years later he saved Austria from destruction by his invasion of Hungary,—an act of hard insolence, which quite reconciles one to the humiliation that overtook him five years later. He was then so powerful that the reactionists of the West cried for Russian cannon, to be used against the Reds. There was no nation to dispute the palm with Russia. England was supposed to be devoted to the conversion of cotton into calico, and to be ruled in the spirit of the Manchester school. She had retired into her shell, and could not be got out of it. Austria was thinking chiefly of Italy, and of becoming a naval power by incorporating that Peninsula into her empire. Prussia was looked upon as nothing but a Russian outpost to the west, and waiting only to be used by her master. France had not recovered from her humiliation of 1814-15, and never would recover from it so long as she warred only at barricades or in Barbary. Russia was supreme, and most men thought that supreme she would remain.

Thus stood matters down to 1853. Early in that year the Czar entered on his last quarrel with the Turks, whose cause was espoused by England, partly for the reason that Russian aggrandizement in the East would be dangerous to her interests, but more on the ground that she had become weary of submission to that arrogant sovereign who was in the habit of giving law to the Old World. Russia's ascendency, though chiefly the work of England, was more distasteful to the English than it was to any other European people,—more than it was to the French, at whose expense it had been founded; and had Nicholas made overtures to the latter, instead of making them to England, it is very probable he would have accomplished his purpose. But he detested Napoleon III., and he was at no pains to conceal his sentiments. This was the one great error of his life. The French Emperor had two great ends in view: first, to get into respectable company; and, secondly, to make himself powerful at home, by obtaining power and influence for France abroad. Unaided, he could accomplish neither end; and Nicholas and Victoria were the only two sovereigns who could be of much use to him in accomplishing one or both. Had Nicholas been gracious to him, had he, in particular, made overtures to him, he might have had the Emperor almost on his own terms; for the French disliked the English, and they did not dislike the Russians. Everything pointed to renewal of that "cordial understanding" between Russia and France which had existed twenty-five years earlier, when Charles X. was king of France, and which, had there been no Revolution of July, would have given to Russia possession of Constantinople, and to the French that roc's egg of theirs, the left bank of the Rhine. But prosperity had been fatal to the Czar. He could not see what was palpable to everybody else. He allowed his feelings to get the better of his judgment. He treated Napoleon III. with less consideration than he treated the Turkish Sultan; and Napoleon actually was forced to teach him that a French ruler was a powerful personage, and that the days of Louis Philippe were over forever. If not good enough to help Russia spoil Turkey, the Czar must be taught he was good enough to help England prevent the spoliating scheme. France and England united their forces to those of Turkey, and were joined by Sardinia. Russia was beaten in the war, on almost all its scenes. The world ascribed the result to Napoleon III. France carried off the honors of the war, and of spoil there was none. The Peace of Paris, which terminated the contest, was the work of Napoleon. He dictated its terms, forcing them less on his enemy than on his allies.

As Russia's leadership of Europe had come from success in war, and had been maintained by subsequent successes of the Russian armies,—in Persia, in Turkey, in Poland, and elsewhere,—it followed that that leadership was lost when the fortune of war changed, and those armies were beaten on every occasion where they met the Allies. No military country could stand up erect under such crushing blows as had been delivered at the Alma, at Inkermann, at the Tchernaya, and at Sebastopol, not to name lesser Allied successes, or to count the victories of the Turks. Nicholas died in the course of the war, falling only before the universal conqueror. His successor submitted to the decision of the sword, and in fact performed an act of abdication inferior only to that executed by Napoleon. France stepped into the vacant leadership, and held it for ten years. Subsequent events confirmed and strengthened the French hegemony. The Italian war, waged by the Emperor in person, had lasted only about as many months as the Russian war did years, and yet it had proved far more damaging to Austria than the other had proved to Russia. The mere loss of territory experienced by Austria, though not small, was the least of the adverse results to her. Her whole Italian scheme was cut through and utterly ruined; and it was well understood that the days of her rule over Venetia were destined to be as few as they were evil. For what she then did, France received Savoy and Nice, which formed by no means a great price for her all but inestimable services,—services by no means to be ascertained, if we would know their true value, by what was done in 1859. France created the Kingdom of Italy. After making the amplest allowance for what was effected by Cavour, by Garibaldi, by Victor Emanuel, and by the Italian people, it must be clear to every one that nothing could have been effected toward 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 Châlons 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 shaky throne would involve that of the solid throne of Napoleon. No such thing. The great majority of Frenchmen know little and care less about the Mexican business. Intelligent Frenchmen regret the Emperor's having taken it up; but they do so because of the expenditure it has involved, and because they have learnt from their country's history that it is best for her to keep out of that colonizing pursuit which has so many charms for the Emperor,—perhaps because of his Dutch origin. There is something eminently ridiculous about French colonization, which contrasts strangely with the robust action of the English. The Emperor seems to believe in it,—an instance of weakness that places him, on one point at least, below common men, most of whom laugh at his doings in regard to Mexico. If report does him no injustice, he thinks his Mexican undertaking the greatest thing of his reign. What, then, is the smallest thing of that reign? It is somewhat strange that this immense undertaking should not have been practicable till some time after the United States had become involved in civil war, that tasked all American energies, and did not permit any attention to be paid to Napoleon's action in Mexico.

Whether wise or foolish, Napoleon's interference in Mexican affairs had not weakened his power or lessened his influence in the estimation of Europe. Five months ago he was at the head of the European world. His position was quite equal to that which Nicholas held thirteen years earlier. If any change in his condition was looked for, it was sought in the advance of his greatness, not in the chance of his fall. The general, the all but universal sentiment was, that during Napoleon III.'s life France's lead must be accepted; and that, if that life should be much extended, France's power would be greatly increased, and that Belgium and the Rhine country might become hers at no distant day. It is true that, long before the middle of June, the course of events indicated the near approach of war; but it was commonly supposed that the chief result of such war would be to add to the greatness and glory of France. That was about the only point on which men were agreed with respect to the threatened conflict. Prussia and Italy might overthrow the Austrian empire; but most probably Austria, aided by most of Germany, would defeat them both, her armies rendezvousing at Berlin and Milan; and then would Napoleon III., bearing "the sword of Brennus," come in, and save the Allies from destruction, who would gratefully reward him,—the one by ceding the Rhenish provinces, and the other the island of Sardinia, to France. Such was the programme laid out by most persons in Europe and America, and probably not one person in a hundred thought it possible for Prussia to succeed. Even most of those persons who were not overcrowed by Austria's partisans and admirers did not dream that she would be conquered in a week, but thought it would be a more difficult matter for General Benedek to march from Prague to Berlin than was generally supposed, and that such march would not exactly be of the nature of a military promenade. That the French Emperor shared the popular belief, is evident from his conduct. He never would have allowed war to break out, if he had supposed it would lead to the elevation of Prussia to the first place in Europe,—a position held by himself, and which he had no desire to vacate. It was in his power to prevent the occurrence of war down almost to the very hour when the Diet of the Germanic Confederation afforded to Prussia so plausible a ground for setting her armies in motion, by adopting a course that bore some resemblance to the old process of putting a disobedient member under the ban of the Empire. Prussia would not have gone to war with Austria, had she not been assured of the Italian alliance,—an alliance that would not only be useful in keeping a large portion of Austria's force in the south, but would prevent that power from purchasing Italian aid by the cession of Venetia; for so angry were the Austrians with Prussia, that it was quite on the cards that they might become the friends of Italy, if she would but help them against that nation whose exertions in 1859 had prevented Venetia from following the fate of Lombardy.

As Prussia would not have made war in 1866 without having secured the assistance of Italy, so was it impossible for Italy to form an alliance with Prussia without the consent of France being first had and obtained. Napoleon III. possessed an absolute veto on the action of the Italian government, and had he signified to that government that an alliance with Prussia could not meet with his countenance and approval, no such alliance ever would have been formed, or even the proposition to form it have been taken into serious consideration by the Cabinet of Florence. Victor Emanuel II. would have dared no more to attack Francis Joseph, without the consent of Napoleon III., than Carthage durst have attacked Masinissa without the consent of Rome. Prussia was not under the supervision of France, and was and is the only great European nation which had not then, as she has not since, been made to feel the weight of his power; but it may be doubted, without the slightest intention to impeach her courage, if she would have resolved upon war had she been convinced that France was utterly opposed to such resolution, and was prepared to show that the Empire was for peace by making war to preserve it. The opinion was quite common, as matters became more and more warlike with each succeeding day, that the course of Prussia had been fixed upon and mapped out by Count Bismark and Napoleon III., and that the former had received positive assurances that his country should not undergo any reduction of territory should the fortune of war go against her; in return for which he had agreed to such a "rectification of the French frontier" as should be highly pleasing to the pride of Frenchmen, and add greatly to the glory and the dignity of their Emperor. When news came that Napoleon III., after peace had been resolved upon, had asked for the cession of certain Rhenish territory,⁴⁵ the demand was supposed to have been made in consequence of an understanding entered into before the war by the courts of Paris and Berlin. There was nothing unreasonable in this supposition; for Napoleon III. was so bent upon extending the boundaries of France, and was so entirely master of the situation, and his friendship was so necessary to Prussia, that it was reasonable to suppose he had made a good bargain with that power. Probably, when the secret history of the war shall be published, it will be seen that an understanding did exist between Prussia and France, and that Napoleon III., in August, asked for no more than it had been agreed he should have, in June, or May, or even earlier. Why, then, did Prussia give so firm but civil a negative in answer to his demand? and how was it that he submitted with so much of meekness to her refusal, even attributing his demand to the pressure of French public opinion, which is no more strongly expressed in 1866 in favor of the acquisition of the Rhine country, than it has been in almost any year since that country was lost, more than half a century since? The answer is easy. Prussia, no matter what her arrangement with France before the war, durst not pass over to the latter a solitary league of German territory. Her victories had so exalted German sentiment that she could not have her own way in all things. She was, on one side, paralyzed by the unexpected completeness of her military successes, which had brought very near all Germany under her eagles; for all Germans saw at once that she had obtained that commanding position from which the dictation of the unity of their country was not only a possibility, but something that could be accomplished without much difficulty. What Victor Emanuel II. and Count Cavour had been to Italy, William I. and Count Bismark could be to Austria, with this vast difference in favor of the Prussian sovereign and statesman,—that their policy could not be dictated, nor their action hampered, by a great foreign sovereign, who ruled a people hostile to the unity of every European race but themselves. It was impossible even to take into consideration any project that looked to the dismemberment of Germany, at a time when even Southern Germans were ready to unite with Prussia, because she was the champion of German unity, and was in condition to make her championship effectual. Napoleon III. saw how matters were, and, being a statesman, he did not hesitate, at the risk of much loss of influence, to admit a fact the existence of which could not be denied, and which operated with overwhelming force against his interests both as an emperor and as a man. That he may have only deferred a rupture with Prussia is probable enough, for it is not to be assumed that he is ready to cede the first place in Europe to the country most disliked by his subjects, and which refuses to cede anything to him. But he must have time in which to rearm his infantry, and to place in their hands a weapon that shall be to the needle-gun what the needle-gun⁴⁶ is to the Austrian muzzle-loader. He has postponed action; but that he has definitely abandoned the French claim to the left bank of the Rhine it would be hazardous to assert. There are reports that a conference of the chief European powers will be held soon, and that by that body something will be done with respect to the French claim that will prove satisfactory to all parties. It would be a marvellous body, should it accomplish so miraculous a piece of business. The matter is in fair way to disturb the peace of Europe before Sadowa shall have become as old a battle as we now rate Solferino.