the trader, the student, the whole of the pacific multitude of life
turned into the materials of war; the ten thousand rills that silently
water the plain of society suddenly united into one inundation; the eyes
of every man looking only for the enemy; the feet of every man pursuing
him; the hands of every man slaying him. The insolence of the Frenchman
has contrived to convey a sting of the bitterness of conquest into every
heart of our millions, and our millions will return it with resistless
retribution."

"You have cheered and convinced me," said I, as I rose to take my leave.
"It certainly is rather strange, that France, always mad with the love
of seizure, has been able to acquire nothing during the last hundred
years."

"You will find my theory true," said Gentz. "The individual insolence of
her people has been the real impediment to the increase of her
dominions. She is not the only ambitious power on the face of the earth.
Russia has doubled her empire within those hundred years, yet she has
kept possession of every league. Prussia has doubled her territory
within the same time, yet she has added the new solidly to the old. I am
not an advocate for the principle or the means by which those conquests
have been accomplished; but they have been retained. Austria has been
for the same time nearly mistress of Italy, and though the French arms
have partially shaken her authority, it was never shaken by popular
revolt. And why is all this contradistinction to the flighty conquest
and ephemeral possession of France? The obvious reason is, that however
the governments might be disliked, neither the Austrian soldier, nor the
Prussian, nor even the Russian, made himself abhorred, employed his
study in vexing the feelings of the people, had a perpetual sneer on his
visage, or exhibited in his habits a perpetual affectation of that