it is so vast. War will last as
long as he reigns; it is in vain to reduce him, to confine him at home,
to drive him back within the ancient frontiers of France; no barrier
will restrain him; no treaty will bind him; peace with him will never
be other than a truce; he will use it simply to recover himself, and, as
soon as he has done this, he will begin again;[12123] he is in his
very essence anti-social. The mind of Europe in this respect is made up
definitely and unshakably. One petty detail alone shows how unanimous
and profound this conviction was. On the 7th of March the news reached
Vienna that he had escaped from the island of Elba, without its being
yet known where he would land. M. de Metternich[12124] brings the news
to the Emperor of Austria before eight o'clock in the morning, who says
to him, "Lose no time in finding the King of Prussia and the Emperor of
Russia, and tell them that I am ready to order my army to march at once
for France." At a quarter past eight M. de Metternich is with the Czar,
and at half-past eight, with the King of Prussia; both of them reply
instantly in the same manner. "At nine o'clock," says M. de Metternich,
"I was back. At ten o'clock aids flew in every direction countermanding
army orders.... Thus was war declared in less than an hour."

VI. Fundamental Defaults of his System.

Inward principle of his outward deportment.--He subordinates
the State to him instead of subordinating himself to the
State.--Effect of this.--His work merely a life-interest.
--It is ephemeral.--Injurious.--The number of lives it cost.
--The mutilation of France.--Vice of construction in his
European edifice.--Analogous vice in his French edifice.

Other heads of states have similarly passed their lives in doing
violence to mankind; but it was for something that was likely to last,
and for a national interest. What they deemed the public good was not
a phantom of the brain, a chimerical poem due to a caprice of the
imagination, to personal passions, to their own peculiar ambition and
pride. Outside of themselves and the coinage of their brain a real and
substantial object of prime importance existed, namely, the State,
the great body of society, the vast organism which lasts indefinitely
through the long series of interlinked and responsible generations. If
they drew blood from the passing generation it was for the benefit of
coming generations, to preserve them fro