t empire from
barbarism. The imperial power must contend against all the ancient
prejudices of our old Europe: it must centralize, as far as possible,
all the powers of the state in the hands of one person, in order to
destroy the abuses which the feudal and communal franchises have
served to perpetuate. The last alone can hope to receive from it the
improvements which it expects.

"But thou, France of Henry IV., of Louis XIV., of Carnot, of
Napoleon--thou, who wert always for the west of Europe the source of
progress, who possessest in thyself the two great pillars of empire, the
genius for the arts of peace and the genius of war--hast thou no further
mission to fulfil? Wilt thou never cease to waste thy force and energies
in intestine struggles? No; such cannot be thy destiny: the day will
soon come, when, to govern thee, it will be necessary to understand that
thy part is to place in all treaties thy sword of Brennus on the side of
civilization."

These are the conclusions of the Prince's remarks upon governments in
general; and it must be supposed that the reader is very little wiser at
the end than at the beginning. But two governments in the world fulfil
their mission: the one government, which is no government; the other,
which is a despotism. The duty of France is IN ALL TREATIES to place her
sword of Brennus in the scale of civilization. Without quarrelling with
the somewhat confused language of the latter proposition, may we ask
what, in heaven's name, is the meaning of all the three? What is this
epee de Brennus? and how is France to use it? Where is the great
source of political truth, from which, flowing pure, we trace American
republicanism in one stream, Russian despotism in another? Vastly
prosperous is the great republic, if you will: if dollars and cents
constitute happiness, there is plenty for all: but can any one, who has
read of the American doings in the late frontier troubles, and the daily
disputes on the slave question, praise the GOVERNMENT of the States?--a
Government which dares not punish homicide or arson performed before its
very eyes, and which the pirates of Texas and the pirates of Canada can
brave at their will? There is no government, but a prosperous anarchy;
as the Prince's other favorite government is a prosperous slavery. What,
then, is to be the epee de Brennus government? Is it to be a mixture
of the two? "Society," writes the Prince, axiomatically, "contains in
itself two pr