ef day of
the second reign passed, without a twilight, into midnight.

We are not yet far enough from Buonaparte to estimate the effects of his
career. He recast the art of war; and was conquered in the end by men
who had caught wisdom and inspiration from his own campaigns. He gave
both permanency and breadth to the influence of the French Revolution.
His reign, short as it was, was sufficient to make it impossible that
the offensive privileges of _caste_ should ever be revived in France;
and, this iniquity being once removed, there could be little doubt that
such a nation would gradually acquire possession of a body of
institutions worthy of its intelligence. Napoleon was as essentially,
and irreclaimably, a despot, as a warrior; but his successor, whether a
Bourbon or a Buonaparte, was likely to be a constitutional sovereign.
The tyranny of a meaner hand would not have been endured after that
precedent.

On Europe at large he has left traces of his empire, not less marked or
important. He broke down the barriers everywhere of custom and
prejudice; and revolutionised the spirit of the Continent. His successes
and his double downfall taught absolute princes their weakness and
injured nations their strength. Such hurricanes of passion as the French
Revolution--such sweeping scourges of mankind as Napoleon Buonaparte,
are not permitted but as the avengers of great evils, and the harbingers
of great good. Of the influence of both, as regards the continent, it
may be safely said--that even now we have seen only "the beginning of
the end." The reigning sovereigns of Europe are, with rare exceptions,
benevolent and humane men; and their subjects, no less than they, ought
to remember the lesson of all history--that violent and sudden changes,
in the structure of social and political order, have never yet occurred,
without inflicting utter misery upon at least one generation.

It was England that fought the great battle throughout on the same
principle, without flinching; and, but for her perseverance, all the
rest would have struggled in vain. It is to be hoped that the British
nation will continue to see, and to reverence, in the contest and in its
result, the immeasurable advantages which the sober strength of a free
but fixed constitution possesses over the mad energies of anarchy on the
one hand, and, on the other, over all that despotic selfishness can
effect, even under the guidance of the most consummate genius.

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