France Herself Again

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: dread of its consequences tell them that this country lost through the unwise love of dangerous ideas. 2. Political Ideas of Napoleon III It is surprising that at least a medallion of Napoleon the Third should not be seen on the pedestal of the numberless statues erected to Cavour in almost every Italian town. Napoleon was quite as devoted to the cause of Italy as the great Piedmontese. He had started life as a carbonaro, and the dream of his ripe years was to see the Italia Una. This kind and good man, who loved his country, and for several years could entertain the delusion that he had brought it to a degree of splendour and prosperity unknown even under his uncle, was the predecessor of the shortest-sighted Republican statesmen in his devotion to ideas and complete disregard of their political consequences. It may be to his credit that he gave the world a great example of Idealism, but monarchs are not expected to be Idealists; on the contrary, their subjects look upon them as the representatives of their interests, and pray that they may never lose sight of realities. Napoleon, lost in his vision of a noble nation restored to existence hrough his efforts, did not see that he was preparing a rival for France if the new nation happened to be more practical than idealistic and grateful. And when, in fact, Italy had become a reality, he was imprudent enough to connect her interests with those of Prussia, and, after helping Italy into the world, he paved the way for the advent of Germany. His was a strange reign, all brilliance to the superficial observer, full of the seeds of catastrophes in the unseen' reality. And it seemed as if Fortune werelabouring to hide the snares under incredible pieces of luck and dazzling appearances. The French armies would leave for the Crime...