his was the first act of the tragedy, and with it we may leave
Frederick, for we are done with the fellow though not with his work. It
is enough to add that if we call all his after actions satanic, it is
not a term of abuse, but of theology. He was a Tempter. He dragged the
other kings to "partake of the body of Poland," and learn the meaning of
the Black Mass. Poland lay prostrate before three giants in armour, and
her name passed into a synonym for failure. The Prussians, with their
fine magnanimity, gave lectures on the hereditary maladies of the man
they had murdered. They could not conceive of life in those limbs; and
the time was far off when they should be undeceived. In that day five
nations were to partake not of the body, but of the spirit of Poland;
and the trumpet of the resurrection of the peoples should be blown from
Warsaw to the western isles.
III--_The Enigma of Waterloo_
That great Englishman Charles Fox, who was as national as Nelson, went
to his death with the firm conviction that England had made Napoleon. He
did not mean, of course, that any other Italian gunner would have done
just as well; but he did mean that by forcing the French back on their
guns, as it were, we had made their chief gunner necessarily their chief
citizen. Had the French Republic been left alone, it would probably have
followed the example of most other ideal experiments; and praised peace
along with progress and equality. It would almost certainly have eyed
with the coldest suspicion any adventurer who appeared likely to
substitute his personality for the pure impersonality of the Sovereign
People; and would have considered it the very flower of republican
chastity to provide a Brutus for such a Caesar. But if it was
undesirable that equality should be threatened by a citizen, it was
intolerable that it should be simply forbidden by a foreigner. If
France could not put up with French soldiers she would very soon have to
put up with Austrian soldiers; and it would be absurd if, having decided
to rely on soldiering, she had hampered the best French soldier even on the
ground that he was not French. So that whether we regard Napoleon as a
hero rushing to the country's help, or a tyrant profiting by the
country's extremity, it is equally clear that those who made the war
made the war-lord; and those who tried to destroy the Republic were
those who created the Empire. So, at least, Fox argued against that much
less Engli
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