"The superiority of the Federal armies enabled them to prevail in the actual conflict. Their progress in discipline enabled them to take advantage of victory. Their cavalry, which at the beginning of the war was the laughing-stock of the Confederates, is now excellent, and they know how to use it with effect.

"The civil war need only live in national memory as a grand struggle in which the heroism and endurance of all classes of Americans astonished the world. Neither belligerent need be ashamed of the retrospect. Federals and Confederates alike had maintained larger armies, and fought more desperate battles, than any other people."

NAPOLEON III. AND HIS LIFE OF CÆSAR.

THE author of this curious work,* a man better known than trusted, in his address to the Electors of the French Republic, in 1848, thus expressed himself: "I am not so ambitious as to dream sometimes of the Empire, sometimes of war, sometimes of the application of subversive theories. Educated in free countries, in the school of misfortune, I shall always remain faithful to the duties which your suffrages may impose upon me. If I become President I will recoil from no danger, no sacrifice, to defend society, so audaciously attacked; I will devote myself, body and soul, without mental reservation (arrière pensée), to the consolidation of a Republic wise by its laws, honorable by its intentions, great and powerful by its actions. I shall consider my honor pledged, at the expiration of four years, to leave to my successor power confirmed, liberty intact, real progress accomplished."

The French people took Louis Napoleon at his word. They elected him President of the Republic, and on the 20th December, 1848, he was inaugurated, in the presence of the National Assembly.

The scene was a striking one. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. It was growing dark, and the immense hall of the Assembly having become involved in gloom, the chandeliers were lowered from the ceiling, and candles were placed upon the tribune. The President made a sign: a door on the right hand opened, and there was seen to enter the hall, and rapidly ascend the tribune, a man still young, attired in black, and having on his breast the badge of the Legion of Honor. All eyes were turned towards this man. His face wan and pallid; its long, emaciated angles developed in prominent relief by the shaded lamps; his nose large and long; his upper lip covered by mustachios; a lock of hair waving over a narrow forehead;

"History of Julius Cæsar." Vol. I. New York, 1865.

his eyes small and dull; his attitude timid and anxious, bearing in no respect a resemblance to the Emperor ;-this man was the citizen Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the author of the work which now claims our attention.

During the buzz which arose upon his entrance, he remained for some moments standing, his right hand in his buttoned coat, erect and motionless on the tribune, the front of which bore the dates, 22d, 23d, 24th of February; while above were inscribed the words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

At length, silence having been restored, the President of the Assembly struck the table several times with his wooden knife, and then, the last murmurs of the Assembly having subsided, said: "I will now read the form of the oath. Thus it runs: In presence of God, and before the French people, represented by the National Assembly, I swear to remain faithful to the democratic Republic, one and indivisible, and to fulfil all the duties imposed upon me by the Constitution.'" The President. of the Assembly, standing, read this solemn formula; then, before the whole Assembly, breathlessly silent, intensely expectant, the author of the "History of Julius Caesar" raised his right hand, and said with a firm, full voice, "I swear."

The President of the Assembly, still standing, proceeded: "We take God and man to witness the oath which has now been sworn. The National Assembly adopts that oath, orders it to be recorded with the votes, printed in the Moniteur, and published in the same form and manner as the acts of the LegisÎature."

The matter seemed now complete, and it was imagined that Bonaparte, thenceforth until the second Sunday in May, 1852, President of the Republic, would descend from the tribune. But he did not; he felt a magnanimous need to bind himself still more closely, if possible; to add something to the oath which the Constitution had demanded from him, in order to show how largely this oath was in him free and spontaneous. He asked permission to address the Assembly. "Speak," said the President of the Assembly; "you are in possession of the tribune." There was, if possible, deeper silence and more intense attention than before. The new President unfolded a paper, and read a speech. Thus it began: "The suffrages of the nation, and the oath I have just taken, command my future conduct. My duty is clearly traced out; I will fulfil it as a man of honor. I shall regard as the enemies of the country all who seek to change by illegal means that which entire France has established."

When he had done speaking, the Constituent Assembly_rose and sent forth, as with a single voice, the grand cry, "Long live the Republic!"*

*The above graphic details are furnished by Victor Hugo, himself an eye-wit ness of the memorable scene.

Louis Napoleon was now the first magistrate of a great nation, and stood at the head of a government, the principles of which he had all his life professed to reverence. No position could be more prond. The undying fame of Washington was within his reach. It only needed ordinary integrity to have linked his name forever to the cause of freedom, and to entitle him to the respect of all future times. But posterity had done nothing for him, and he was determined to do nothing for posterity. To be within reach of a sceptre and not to grasp at it was a pitch of virtue of which he could not conceive.

Accordingly, he straightway set to work, after the example of Cæsar, to bribe the leading men of France, and to corrupt the army, already dreaming of the rapine of the first Empire. He tells us himself, speaking of Rome, that "in a State where legal forms had been respected for four hundred years, it was necessary either to observe them faithfully, or to have an army at command." He got the command of the French army by trading, as usual, with his uncle's name, and by downright bribes to the officers, and even the soldiers. To furnish the means for this corruption, he conceived the grand idea of invading the Bank of France, and making himself master of its treasures. Liberty rests alone upon the hearts and affections of men; despotism must everywhere be based on gold. Here, also, he was a consistent disciple of Julius Cæsar, who, when meditating the ruin of his country's liberties, broke into the Temple of Saturn, the bank of Republican Rome; and, having possessed himself of the gold he found there, went on triumphantly in the career of despotism. Two things, Cæsar used afterwards to say, were needful for getting and keeping power-soldiers and money; and each of these was to be gained by means of the other. The maxim has been proved equally true in our day, and Louis Napoleon's plot, after three years of secret conspiracy, culminated on the 2d December, 1851, in the overthrow of the Republic which it was his especial duty to defend. The number of innocent persons murdered by the troops on the Boulevards of Paris, on the 4th of December, will, perhaps, never be known; but it was probably not less than five hundred. In the reign of terror which followed, there are authentic documents to prove that, in the eighty-six departments of France, at least one hundred thousand Republicans were imprisoned, and of these twenty-eight thousand were transported or condemned to exile. Among them were David the sculptor; Buchez, the ex-mayor of Paris; Dr. Deville, the celebrated anatomist; Colonel Charras, the Bayard of his order; Generals Bedau, Leflô, Cavaignac, and Lamoricière; Madame Roland, Madame Huet, Madame Javreau, and a host of others less known, but equally worthy, who were exiled or consigned to dungeons.

Such are the antecedents of the historian of Cæsar. They

do not much commend themselves to plain men. They stand badly in need of palliation; justification they can never have. And such is doubtless the feeling of the imperial author himself. For under the guise of a history of Julius Cæsar, the book before us is almost confessedly put forth to defend the usurpations of his uncle and himself, and to bespeak the favor of thinking men throughout the world for the dynasty which he is endeavoring to found. It is no less than an act of homage to the power of the press in our day, and to the supremacy of ideas in the modern world. It is an apology which is a virtual confession of guilt. Qui s'excuse, s'accuse.

To the French people, whom the author has betrayed, this book adds insult to injury. How keenly the Republicans feel its sting is shown in M. Rogeard's pamphlet, entitled "Les propos de Labienus," which has naturally been suppressed in France (where it is ill arguing with the master of thirty legions), but which is circulating there in manuscript to the extent of some twenty thousand copies, while it has been reprinted in New York. The author, an ex-professor, who had resigned his situation rather than take the oath of allegiance to the French Emperor, was obliged, after publishing his pamphlet, to shave his beard, and borrow the cassock and shovel hat of a priest, in order to escape to Brussels, where he now is. He would not have got off so cheaply had the attempt of Napoleon I. to transform Europe into a vast barracoon, after the example of the Roman Empire, succeeded as well as did Cæsar's. The time has not yet come, as General Grant shrewdly remarked the other day, to decide definitely whether the pen is indeed nightier than the sword. M. Rogeard remarks, that the issue of such a work as this History of Cæsar, is as if the wretch who is assassinating you should preach you a sermon on murder as one of the fine arts, and, before making an end of you, should ask your opinion of his little composition. That opinion he declines to give, because people of Napoleon's sort would like nothing better than to get back into the company of honest men by such a roundabout road!

But, though a defence of imperialism as a system is clearly the object which the writer sets before him, it is difficult to make out exactly upon what he rests his case. His arguments are rather insinuated throughout the book, than expressed in a lucid and logical form. When a man has a bad cause, it is always impolitic to be perspicuous. It is easier to commit a crime than to justify it.

The following, however, are the passages in which Napoleon III. seems to express his meaning most clearly:

The aim I have in view in writing this history is to prove that when Providence raises up such men as Cæsar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, it is to trace out to peoples the path they ought to follow; to stamp with the seal of their genius a new

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era; and to accomplish in a few years the labor of many centuries. Happy the peoples who comprehend and follow them! woe to those who misunderstand and combat them! They do as the Jews did-they crucify their Messiah; they are blind and culpable: blind, for they do not see the impotence of their efforts to suspend the definitive triumph of good; culpable, for they only retard progress, by impeding its prompt and fruitful application.

"In fact, neither the murder of Cæsar nor the captivity of St. Helena have been able to destroy irrevocably two popular causes, overthrown by a league which disguised itself under the mask of liberty. Brutus, by slaying Cæsar, plunged Rome into the horrors of civil war; he did not prevent the reign of Augustus, but he made possible those of Nero and Caligula. The ostracism of Napoleon by confederated Europe has been no more successful in preventing the Empire from being resuscitated; and, nevertheless, how far are we from the great questions solved, the passions calmed, and the legitimate satisfactions given to peoples by the First Empire!

"Thus every day, since 1815, has verified the prophecy of the captive of St. Helena:

"How many struggles, how much blood, how many years will it not require to realize the good which I intended to do for mankind!'"

Again, speaking of Cæsar:-

"About the time when Marius, by his victories over the Cimbri and the Teutones, saved Italy from a formidable invasion, was born at Rome the man who would one day, by again subduing the Gauls and Germans, retard for several centuries the irruption of the barbarians, give the knowledge of their rights to oppressed peoples, assure continuance to Roman civilization, and bequeath his name to the future chiefs of nations as a concentrated emblem of power."

No comment is now made upon these passages, full of fallacies as they are, because, after another extract, it is proposed to answer the whole argument by presenting a simple statement of facts. In the following passage the author gives the specious reasons by which Cæsar may (or may not) have excused his personal ambition, by promising to himself to wield power for the benefit of mankind. The author has the benefit of it without abridgment:

“The condition of the Republic must have appeared thus to his comprehensive grasp of thought:-The Roman dominion, stretched, like some vast figure, across the world, clasps it in her sinewy arms, and whilst her limbs are full of life and strength, the heart is wasting by decay. Unless some heroic remedy be applied, the contagion will soon spread from the centre to the extremities, and the mission of Rome will remain unfinished1-Compare with the present the prosperous days of the Republic. Recollect the time when envoys from foreign nations, doing homage to the policy of the Senate, declared openly that they preferred the protecting sovereignty of Rome to independence itself. Since that period, what a change has taken place! All nations execrate the power of Rome, and yet that power preserves them from still greater evils. Cicero is right: 'Let Asia think well of it: there is not one of the woes that are brod of war and civil strife, that she would not experience did she cease to live under our laws.' And this advice may be applied to all the countries whither the legions have penetrated. If, then, fate has willed that the nations are to be subject to the sway of a single people, it is the duty of that people, as charged with the execution of the eternal decrees, to be, towards the vanquished, as just and equitable as the Divinity, since he is as inexorable as destiny. How are we to fix a limit to the arbitrary conduct of proconsuls and proprætors, which all the laws promulgated for so many years have been powerless to check? How put a stop to the exactions committed at all points of the empire, if a firmer and stronger direction do not emanate from the central power?-The Republic pursues an irregular system of encroachment, which will exhaust its resources; it is impossible for her to fight against all nations at once, and at the same time to maintain her allies in their allegiance, if, by unjust treat