502

LIFE OF COBDEN. [oma®:

1858. His words about Lonis Napoleon contained an admirable
&r 49. illustration of the same ever wholesome lesson :—" It 1°
hardly necessary to declare that, were Louis Napoleon 3%
Englishman, or I a Frenchman, however small a minority of
opponents he might have, I should be one of them ;—that 1¥
all T have to say in the matter; for anything more would 12
my opinion be mere impertinence towards the French peoples
who for reasons best known to themselves acquiesce in his
rule.” And as to the first and stronger Napoleon, the French
feeling for his memory which had Just been so strikingly
manifested in the immense and spontaneous vote for 2
Empire of his nephew, became an intelligible sentiment in
Cobden’s pages, instead of remaining the wicked mania that
it appeared to the majority of his countrymen. We, be said,
who have just paid almost pagan honours to the remains of
a general who fought the battles of the Coalition,— Wha?
should we have done in honour of those soldiers who beat
back from our frontiers confederate armies of literally every
nation in Christian Europe, except Sweden, Denmark, and
Switzerland?! Should we not, if we were Frenchmen, be
greater worshippers of the name of Napoleon, if possible;
than we are of Wellington and Nelson, and with greater
reason? Should we not forgive him his ambition, Bis
selfishness, his despotic rule? Wonld not every fault be
forgotten in the recollection that he humbled Prussia, who
bad without provocation assailed us in the throes of #
domestic revolution, and that he dictated terms at Vienn®
to Austria, who had actually begun the dismemberment of
our own territory? . . .. Shonld we not indulge a feelitg
of proud defiance in electing for the chief of the State the
next heir to that great military hero, the child and champion
of the Revolution, whose family had been especially proscribed
 by the coalesced powers before whom he finally fell
Yes, however wise men might moralize, and good men