The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1875-05-02
Tho Triumph Of oppressors.
FRINGE BISMARCK ANDK KING VICTOR EMMAN
UEL.
tLoudon Register, April 100

present age il, to orr thinking, the quiet
acceptance, by the rest of the world. OF the
most lawless spoliations. Might has long
since come to be Right in the general esti-
nation. Let the oppressor only be strong
enough, and the oppressed powerless to re-
sist him. aud "whatever is 10 right" with u
vengeance! Thackeray has said, with his
delightfully."- humorous affectation of cynic-
ism-if man stands in Your way, and you
know he has corns, tread on them The
Europeans, as a rule, seem to have ac-
copied some such comic axiom quite ser
iously, and to have been carrying it out
for o long while past TO utter extrava-
gance. They not only appear to take es-
pecial pleasure in themselves, hurrying,
rough -shod, along that broad highroad
chat modern society so exults in traversing,
called Progress, but apparently rejoice,
above all things, in watching the triumph
ant advance of those rulers who, sword In
hand, with horse, foot, and artillery, have
dung every generous dictate of conscience
to the four winds of heaven, and have ridden
right on, no matter what might have in
eerposed, to the realization, at any cost, of
their own selfish ambition.
There is wonderfully curious section
1.-THE 42nd) in the seventy eighth chapter of
Alison's History of Europe, in which the
aunalist describes the reckless passage of
the Great Napoleon's travelling carriage
during a campaign, even through the midst
of one of the slumbering divisions of his own
troops, when the Emperor was much driven
for time in his movements. Whenever he
passed through u division of the Guards,
Sir Archibald tells us that GALL the bands
of the regiments came to the front. the
troops fell back, and formed line on either
side, and pomp was observed the eortege
passing through slowly and salutipg the Off
GERS" Usually, however, when the march,
OF, as it should more correctly be termed,
the rush, of the imperial headquarters
had been delayed anywhere for a while, 80
that the Emperor might dictate to his sec
Eetaries or glance through his dispatches
at the last word read or dictated he
would suddenly call out, "The carriage-to
horsei" The utterance of these words was
like an electric shock to the attendants,
who instantly mounted, whirled the car
risge round to the door or the tent opening,
and started off at a gallop, when traversing,
not the Guards, but the ordinary corps of
the Army, the passage through them, says
tho Historian, was often forced under cir
cumstances almost amounting to violence.
"Ths imperial suite, like q whirlwind,
swept through the columns too fast for
tho men either to fall into rank or to
present arms and before the astonished
crowd could find time to gaze on their be-
loved chief, the cOrtege was disappearing in
the distance. Room, however, was always
cleared the outriders loudly called out to
make way and at the magic words The
Emperor" infantry, cavalry, and artillery,
we're pell-mell hurried to the side, often in
frightful confusion and with fractures of
legs and arms. Loud huzzas,' adds Sir
Archibald Alison, ''never failed to the very
last TO greet Napoleon's passage through
the divisions of Guards, by whom he was
enthusiastically beloved"
The astounding glimpse thus caught of
the last and greatest of the worlds Con-
querors az he passed to and fro across
Europe from one field of victory to another
is, in lite way, very symbol or antique of
the meaner Victors of to-day, not certainly
in any love they inspire even among their
own Guards, but in the ruthless and reck-
less dazzling down OF all obstacles in their
gath, so that they may reach the more
readily any goal which they may, at any
time, be striving to attain. Aud it is the
heaEtless throng of the outer world looking
ON by whom they are cheered to the echo
in their desperate defiance of all right, of
all Justice, and OF the very cOmmonest die
Gates of humanity.
At Berlin and at Venice pCeans have
been raised in this way to the honour and
glory of two of these representative Victors
OF the nineteenth century, of this age of
Blood and Iron, of stewers of Paris in it's
own juice, and of batterers down of the
ancient walls of ROme-Prince Bismarck
and King Victor Emmanuel. A more afro
cious phrase by brutal man of the world
was never uttered than the one by which
the then Cunnt, now Prince Bismarck,
prepared himself to enjoy the spectacle
of Moltke girdling with iron and drowning
io blood the fairest city in Christendom
A more lawless act was never ventured
upon by any man calling himself q Christ.
ian King than that by which the guns of
che so-called Sovereign Of United Italy,
without any prOvocstion, without any pre-
Gminary declaration of war, blew breach
in the venerable ramparts of the Eternal
City, for that the soldiers of the Re Galan-
tUomo (forsooth y should ride booted and
epurred through that breach and down the
Corso, for the purpose of taking forcible
possession of the capital of Christendom,
ia the name of that very faithful son OF
She Church, Victor Emmanuel. Five years
elapse after these two events-Bismarck g
diabolical sneer at beleagured Paris, and
CRdorDa's lawless entrance into Rome-a
whole lustrum is completed, and the Ger.
man swashbuckler who has changed Will
iam I. from King into an Emperor, and
the Italian swashhuckler who has gathered
Op into faggot in his grasp the sceptres
of all his baother princes of the Roman
Peninsula, in the name of United Italy,
each is feted, each is complimented, each
- IL h., l.,