sh prig who would have called him unpatriotic; and he threw
the blame upon Pitt's Government for having joined the anti-French
alliance, and so tipped up the scale in favour of a military France. But
whether he was right or no, he would have been the readiest to admit
that England was not the first to fly at the throat of the young
Republic. Something in Europe much vaster and vaguer had from the first
stirred against it. What was it then that first made war--and made
Napoleon? There is only one possible answer: the Germans. This is the
second act of our drama of the degradation of England to the level of
Germany. And it has this very important development; that Germany means
by this time _all_ the Germans, just as it does to-day. The savagery of
Prussia and the stupidity of Austria are now combined. Mercilessness and
muddleheadedness are met together; unrighteousness and unreasonableness
have kissed each other; and the tempter and the tempted are agreed. The
great and good Maria Theresa was already old. She had a son who was a
philosopher of the school of Frederick; also a daughter who was more
fortunate, for she was guillotined. It was natural, no doubt, that her
brother and relatives should disapprove of the incident; but it occurred
long after the whole Germanic power had been hurled against the new
Republic. Louis XVI. himself was still alive and nominally ruling when
the first pressure came from Prussia and Austria, demanding that the
trend of the French emancipation should be reversed. It is impossible to
deny, therefore, that what the united Germanics were resolved to destroy
was the reform and not even the Revolution. The part which Joseph of
Austria played in the matter is symbolic. For he was what is called an
enlightened despot, which is the worst kind of despot. He was as
irreligious as Frederick the Great, but not so disgusting or amusing.
The old and kindly Austrian family, of which Maria Theresa was the
affectionate mother, and Marie Antoinette the rather uneducated
daughter, was already superseded and summed up by a rather dried-up
young man self-schooled to a Prussian efficiency. The needle is already
veering northward. Prussia is already beginning to be the captain of the
Germanics "in shining armour." Austria is already becoming a loyal
_sekundant_.

But there still remains one great difference between Austria and Prussia
which developed more and more as the energy of the young Napoleon was
driven li