crown of French democracy. The very powerful official who makes the
choice of that great people for peace or war, might very well be called,
not the President of the United States, but the President of the
Americans. In Italy we have seen the King and the mob prevail over the
conservatism of the Parliament, and in Russia the new popular policy
sacramentally symbolised by the Czar riding at the head of the new
armies. But in one place, at least, the actual form of words exists; and
the actual form of words has been splendidly justified. One man among
the sons of men has been permitted to fulfil a courtly formula with
awful and disastrous fidelity. Political and geographical ruin have
written one last royal title across the sky; the loss of palace and
capital and territory have but isolated and made evident the people that
has not been lost; not laws but the love of exiles, not soil but the
souls of men, still make certain that five true words shall yet be
written in the corrupt and fanciful chronicles of mankind: "The King of
the Belgians."

It is a common phrase, recurring constantly in the real if rabid
eloquence of Victor Hugo, that Napoleon III. was a mere ape of Napoleon
I. That is, that he had, as the politician says, in "L'Aiglon," "le
petit chapeau, mais pas la tête"; that he was merely a bad imitation.
This is extravagantly exaggerative; and those who say it, moreover,
often miss the two or three points of resemblance which really exist in
the exaggeration. One resemblance there certainly was. In both Napoleons
it has been suggested that the glory was not so great as it seemed; but
in both it can be emphatically added that the eclipse was not so great
as it seemed either. Both succeeded at first and failed at last. But
both succeeded at last, even after the failure. If at this moment we owe
thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte for the armies of united France, we also
owe some thanks to Louis Bonaparte for the armies of united Italy. That