We have already expressed our opinion that the nephew carried the worship of the uncle’s memory to the verge of superstition. He was, however, aware that there was a weak no less than a strong side to old Imperialism. He announced the coming not of the Caesarean but of the Augustan age. The Second Empire brought not a sword but peace. In the mind of the French people the mere reappearance of the Eagle, the revival of the name of Napoleon, constituted a victory over allied Europe. The Deux-Decembre had avenged Waterloo. France had broken through the dynastic arrangements of 1815, and her ancient enemies had not a word to say against her achievement. This negative homage being paid to her vanity, France had no longer an interest in the disturbance of the common tranquillity. Questions about natural frontiers, about oppressed nationalities might, indeed, arise; but moral ascendency could now, perhaps, accomplish more than the edge of the sword. France would be no less true to her mission because she put off its fulfilment by violent means till she was convinced of the inefficiency of all other arguments. There was, at the outlet, perfect harmony between the views of the French people and those of their new Sovereign with respect to foreign politics. There was faith in the undisputed, though pacific, ascendency of the Empire over the council of nations – in the necessity for a revision of existing Treaties, for a remodelling of the map of Europe, for the emancipation of enslaved nations, for the protection of minor States, of those especially which had shown the greatest devotion to the cause of Imperial France and had been involved in its downfall; of States like Belgium, Denmark, and Saxony; of nations like Italy and Poland. Over and above these general French sympathies, the Emperor brought with him, as peculiar to himself, a genuine regard for England, our own estimate of the true bases of national greatness, our notions of a free commercial policy. It is not a little remarkable that the first enterprise of real magnitude in which France was engaged, after panting for so many years to avenge Waterloo, should have been planned in concert with the very country upon which vengeance for that defeat was to be mainly wreaked. Yet the Crimean War of 1854 was waged not only in obedience to what the majority of the French people were inclined to consider as English views, but also in subservience to what they regarded as English interests. It was the Emperor’s own war, and Napoleon only brought it to a sudden end when we refused to mix up with the original quarrel those French schemes about Poland and the Rhine in which he found it difficult to withstand his people’s aspirations. Against the same rock were wrecked, in later times, 1864, all hopes of a cordial co-operation of the two great Western Powers in behalf of invaded Denmark. As to the immediate relations between the two nations, there is no doubt that against the half-smothered animosities of French Chauvinisim nothing availed us so much as the Emperor’s stout determination, not only not to be driven into hostilities but to strengthen the bonds of amity with us at any price. Neither the vapouring and blustering of the Press nor the famous address of the Colonels were able to shake the Emperor’s determination to maintain the cordial understanding between the two countries; and the conclusion of the Commercial Treaty and the abolition of passports in favour of English travellers must be traced to his sole initiative.
Equally sincere and unbounded was the Emperor’s sympathy with the land which had witnessed his earliest exploits – Italy; and he never, perhaps, spoke more in earnest, never did greater justice to the generosity of his impulses, than when in 1859, calling upon the Italians to be men, he offered his help to free their country from the Alps to the Adriatic. The scheme of the Unity of the Peninsula did not, indeed, appear practicable to him any more than to some of the wisest and noblest Italian Liberals; and he, doubtless, conceived that the independence of Italy, although it might imply the complete severance of that country from Austria, need not therefore exclude some bond of alliance between the freed nation and its deliverer – a bond of alliance which might easily have been strengthened into a compact of indirect allegiance. In all this, however, the welfare of Italy, as he understood it, was the object nearest to the Emperor’s heart; and, with a self-denial of which, in trying moments, he never failed to give evidence, and with respect to which his cold and deliberate nature stands forth in strong contrast with the wilful and headlong character of his uncle, he gave up his own opinions in deference to those of the Italians; he accepted ‘accomplished facts,’ and not only never willingly opposed the spread and growth of Italian nationality, but actually screened it from the attacks to which, in its helplessness, it would repeatedly have succumbed.
True, he extinguished the Roman Republic in 1849; he exacted the cession of Savoy and Nice in 1860; he accepted from Austria the temporary gift of Venetia in 1866, and he re-occupied Rome in 1867. All these, however, were not the spontaneous acts of the Emperor’s own mind. He was influenced by what he considered due to French susceptibilities; to the claims of the Great Nation to her ‘natural frontiers;’ to her jealousy of her immediate neighbours; to her assumption of paramount authority as universal arbitrator; finally, to her half-chivalrous, half-selfish pretentions as Eldest Daughter of the Church. By most of these considerations he was also and much more forcibly moved in the policy he pursued with respect to Germany. That the instinct of Union was at work across the Rhine as well as south of the Alps the Emperor was fully aware, and he was also convinced that what the German nation firmly and unanimously willed it was not in the power of French jealousy to gain-say. He had been somewhat awed by the attitude of Germany, both in the full tide of his success after Solferino and in the furtherance of his designs in behalf of Poland and Denmark. It was not by opposing German Union, but by taking advantage of German disunion, that the Emperor hoped to secure the command. When the Germans had torn each other to pieces, when the victor lay on the battle-field as exhausted as the vanquished, to snatch from their grasp that Rhenish frontier which would free France from all uneasiness in that quarter would prove, as the Emperor conceived, no more impracticable an undertaking than it had been to rectify the border-line on the Italian side. The conditions which were peremptorily laid down at Plombières need hardly be as much as hinted at Biarritz. In Italy it was the help of France that was solicited. In Germany all that was required of her was neutrality. Mere looking on would do as much for her in the second case as stout fighting had done in the first. In all these calculations the Emperor relied on ‘the irresistible logic of events.’ But events were too quick for him. Germany achieved her unity in 1861; and France came in too late to claim her share of the spoil.
Before Sadowa and Nikolsburg the Emperor’s European policy appeared faultless in the eyes of the vast majority of the French people. But the first check naturally prompted a review of its course from the outset, and encouraged that criticism which is always extremely easy after the event. The main difficulty for the Emperor lay between conceding too much or too little to the warlike and domineering spirit of the French nation. The French had hailed with satisfaction the Bordeaux announcement of October, 1852, that ‘the Empire was Peace;’ but they were no less delighted with the subsequent assurance that ‘not a gun should be fired in Europe without the assent of the Tuileries.’ France had no objection that ‘the universe should be tranquil,’ but only on condition that ‘she herself should be contented.’ The Third Napoleon was called upon to exercise by mere moral ascendency that sway over the European councils which the First failed to establish by might of arms; and for many years there is no doubt that he acquitted himself of the task with unparalleled success. But he pressed that success beyond its due limits; he fretted himself about Congresses and Conferences, the only object or result of which was to be the enhancement of his own importance. There is no doubt that he suffered the notion that it was at all times necessary to busy and, so to say, to amuse the French people to gain too strong a hold upon his fancy. The scheme of diverting public attention