The Oxford intelligencer., 1860-06-20

gencies; while Napoleon, as if to destroy
the confidence of all mankind in his fitness
for any place short of an asylum for lunatics,
twice hazarded his life in revolutionary move
ments, compared with which, in point of rea-
sonable promise of success, the descent of
Lopez upon Cuba was commendable and ju-
dicious. When, therefore, Washington was
raised to the control of our embarrassed pub
lie affairs, it was felt that, if success was pos
sible at all, it was possible for him; but
when the world saw people so far deluded
by the shadow af great name as, by sort
of wild and unreasoning impulse, to commit
their destinies into the hands of a reckless
and hair-braincd adventurer, the conviction
was no less universal that ii it were possible for
a good cause to be shipwreeked by an incom-
petent pilot, the French nation had found out
the very man to do it.
Had Louis Napoleon died before the rev,
olution of 1913, he would have been remem-
bercd, if remembered at all, only as a weak
and visionary young man, possessed indeed
of talents, manifested in his writings,) which
well directed might have made him useful
citizen but ruined, for all practical purposes,
by his ceaseless remembrance Of the fact that
he was the nephew of his uncle. Had he
died after the revolution, aud before that bold
step, by which, in a single night, he swept
away every trace of the republic which had
been his stepping-stone to power, he might
have been mentioned in history az one of
those fortunate but insignificant individuals,
whom accident sometimes lifts into notice, to
disappear as silently as they rose. The
greatness, therefore, which hc has undenia-
bly, achieved, has this most remarkable guar
anty of its reality, that it has been won in
the face of inyeterate and almost universal
prejudice, and has been inyoluntarily concc-
ded by the tardy Judgment of reluctant
world. Indeed, if ever any man, by dint of
innexible perseverance, and indomitable will
in pursuit of his objects, sustained by per-
sonal ability more strikingly manifested with
every new development, could fairly claim to
have wrought out for himself II just title to
be called great, that man is Napoleon Ill.,
Whether he is as good as he is great is diff
ferent question, and one which we need not
here discuss; but he is certainly very far in
deed from being as bad as it has been the
fashion TO paint him. His greatest imputed
sin has been his trampling on constitution
which he had sworn to SUSTAIN but this dar-
ing, and as it at first sight appears, indefcn-
sible, act, loses much of its culpablity, when
ii is considered, as has since appeared, that
the blow which he struck was in selt-preser
vaton against body who, with equal disrc
gard of the legitimacy Of the means to be
employed, were bent on cflcctiug his destruc-
ton. And even in that most hazardous act,
whether we approve or disapprovc it, we dis
cover all the characteristics which distinguish
the truly great man, -unhcsitating decision
Of purpose, - bold and confident selfrel-
ance,--cnlm hooking of the crisis in tho eye
and above all that resistlcss power of ben
ding others to his viii which he displayed in
welding the vast machinery of executive au
thority, military and civil, in steady and har-
monious action throughout all the wildtumult !
of n conyulsion which shook society TO its |
foundations--a power which only accompa-
nes conscious superiority, and which other
men recognize as it were instinctively, where
ever it exists.
1t has been said that success is the true /
test of greatness. Judged by that standard,
there can be no question of the greatness of /
Napoleon III; for of all men living he has
been the most successful. We may indeed
question the justice of the standard; for there
have certainly been men whom we would
willingly call great, who have undcnably
failed; but on the other hand there was new
er yet an inferior man who in great things
was successful. Napoleon has not only been
the most successful man of his age, but he
has been successful over the greatest difficult
ties. With people torn by factions, with
the creatures of dethroned dynasty inccs
sanity laboring to undermine him, with the
thwarted and visionary votaries of wild and
Icvelling socialism pcrpctually plotting against
his life, he has gone steadily and uniutcrrup
todly on in the prosecution of all those great
measures of public policy by which nation
is rendered prosperous at home and formula
bic abroad, till faction has been silenced, OPP
position paralyzcd, and his power so firmly
that, like Louis XIV, he may
Justly claim that he himself is the France
which he rules.
But Napoleon III is not merely to-day the
ruler of France he is no less the master Of
Europe. A single word addressed by him,
eighteen months ago, to the ambassador of
Austria, filed every court with alarm, and
made every financier in England OF on the
continent turn pale. And when Austria, dis
thc'admonition, dared still to go on
in pursuit of her schemes of aggression, the