ing citizen, and that without any violation of
liberty, it is equally entitled to judge and punish an offending press.

(M99) Not satisfied with the blow which so greatly weakened Austria in the
Italian campaign, Napoleon III. plotted with Prussia for a further
humbling of the great Catholic Power. To this end he held dark
consultations with Count Bismark, at Biarritz, as he had formerly done
with Count de Cavour at Plombieres. The former, however, proved to be more
than a match for him. Hence the great victory of Sadowa which paved the
way for Sedan. Prussia, without a rival in Germany, could freely pursue
her ambitious schemes. Napoleon, apparently suspecting nothing, left the
Rhine frontier comparatively unprotected; and Prussia, victorious in the
struggle with Austria, refused to France all compensation for her
complicity and encouragement. This hindered not Napoleon from taking part
in the treaty of Prague, as president, and sanctioning by his signature
the expulsion of Austria from Germany, and the confiscation of Hanover,
Nassau, the two Hesses and other small independent sovereignties, in the
interest of Prussia. This Power, besides, assumed the military direction
of Southern Germany, and so was, literally, doubled in extent and
population. Thus was swept away in the course of seven years, through the
agency of Napoleon III., the barrier of small states which the wisdom of
ages had placed along the continental frontier of France, from the
Mediterranean to the ocean, and which moderated the shocks of the greater
Powers. France, accordingly, by her own act, was confined between unified
Italy on the one hand, and on the other, the formidable German Empire.

In exchange for combinations which proved so disastrous, Venice was ceded
to Napoleon, and immediately made over by him to Italy. Defeated both by
sea and land in his struggle with Austria, Victor Emmanuel, nevertheless,
accepted the present, as if it had come to him by conquest, and Italy was
free to the Adriatic, and the celebrated Milan programme of 1859
completely carried out. This result, whilst it flattered the vanity of
Napoleon III., crowned the wishes of the secret societies. Protestants,
Jews, Freemasons, and people of all shades of unbelief, deputies of the
French left, and the revolutionary journals, all zealous in the service of
Prussia, enthusiastically applauded. The French Emperor's ministers, even,
M. Rouher, in the Legislative Chamber, and M. de