inferiority of the Imperial artillery, also a surprise,--the
manifest inferiority of the Imperial generals, still a surprise.
Above these was a prevailing inefficiency and improvidence, which
very soon became conspicuous, and this was a surprise. The
strength of Germany, as now exhibited, was a surprise. And when
the German armies entered France, every step was a surprise.
Wissembourg was a surprise; so was Woerth; so was Beaumont; so was
Sedan. Every encounter was a surprise. Abel Douay, the French
general, who fell bravely fighting at Wissembourg, the first
sacrifice on the battle-field, was surprised; so was MacMahon, not
only at the beginning, but at the end. He thought that the King
and Crown Prince were marching on Paris. So they were,--but they
turned aside for a few days to surprise a whole army of more than,
a hundred thousand men, terrible with cannon and newly invented
implements of war, under a Marshal of France, and with an Emperor
besides. As this succession of surprises was crowned with what
seemed the greatest surprise of all, there remained a greater
still in the surprise of the French Empire. No Greek Nemesis with
unrelenting hand ever dealt more incessantly the unavoidable blow,
until the Empire fell as a dead body falls, while the Emperor
became a captive and the Empress a fugitive, with their only child
a fugitive also. The poet says:--

"Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping
by."[Footnote: Milton, II Penseroso, 97-98.]

It has swept before the eyes of all. Beneath that sceptred pall is
the dust of a great Empire, founded and ruled by Louis Napoleon;
if not the dust of the Emperor also, it is because he was willing
to sacrifice others rather than himself.