as restless as Garibaldi, he was in
practice as cautious as Cobden. England had the most prudent
aristocracy, but the most reckless democracy in the world. It was, and
is, the English contradiction, which has so much misrepresented us,
especially to the Irish. Our national captains were carpet knights; our
knights errant were among the dismounted rabble. When an Austrian
general who had flogged women in the conquered provinces appeared in
the London streets, some common draymen off a cart behaved with the
direct quixotry of Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad. He had beaten women and
they beat him. They regarded themselves simply as avengers of ladies in
distress, breaking the bloody whip of a German bully; just as Cobbett
had sought to break it when it was wielded over the men of England. The
boorishness was in the Germanic or half-Germanic rulers who wore crosses
and spurs: the gallantry was in the gutter. English draymen had more
chivalry than Teuton aristocrats--or English ones.

I have dwelt a little on this Italian experiment because it lights up
Louis Napoleon as what he really was before the eclipse, a
politician--perhaps an unscrupulous politician--but certainly a
democratic politician. A power seldom falls being wholly faultless; and
it is true that the Second Empire became contaminated with cosmopolitan
spies and swindlers, justly reviled by such democrats as Rochefort as
well as Hugo. But there was no French inefficiency that weighed a hair
in the balance compared with the huge and hostile efficiency of
Prussia; the tall machine that had struck down Denmark and Austria, and
now stood ready to strike again, extinguishing the lamp of the world.
There was a hitch before the hammer stroke, and Bismarck adjusted it, as
with his finger, by a forgery--for he had many minor accomplishments.
France fell: and what fell with her was freedom, and what reigned in her
stead only tyrants and the ancient terror. The crowning of the first
modern Kaiser in the very palace of the old French kings was an
allegory; like an allegory on those Versailles walls. For it was at once
the lifting of the old despotic diadem and its descent on the low brow
of a barbarian. Louis XI. had returned, and not Louis IX.; and Europe
was to know that sceptre on which there is no dove.

The instant evidence that Europe was in the grip of the savage was as
simple as it was sinister. The invaders behaved with an innocent impiety
and bestiality that had nev