For many months has the world been kept in anxious expectation of a book which, it was presumed, must create an unparalleled interest. The rumour was abroad that the Emperor of the French was writing the Life of Julius Cæsar. The interest lay but little in the fact that we were going to be favoured with a complete and elaborate history of the great Roman Dictator. Long before this, the famous deeds of this personage have been recorded by several both ancient and modern writers, and, after the lapse of nineteen centuries, it could not be expected that any important discovery would be brought to light. Indeed, though penned by an imperial hand, the work could only be at best but a clever compilation of ancient records. But there was much more than this, something of infinitely greater moment to the present nations of Europe than the mere recital of Julius Cæsar's career, extraordinary as it was. It was naturally supposed that Napoleon the Third had for an object, not so much to write the history of the great Roman prototype of his uncle, as to establish a parallel between the two characters, and expound to the world his personal opinion of their respective achievements. In short, Europe expected from Napoleon the Third, not only an explanation of his own past career, but also a sort of programme of his future policy. No wonder therefore that there existed a universal interest in the production of the imperial pen. No book has ever been awaited with so great an anxiety; no oracle of old was expected in more awful suspense. Nor has the public anticipation been disappointed. The oracle has spoken at last; the Sphinx that dwells at the Tuileries has condescended to unravel to the nations of Europe the riddle of their future; Napoleon has exposed to their eyes the book of fate, and announced the destinies which they have to expect at his hands.

In fact, the imperial book is a complete apology of such characters as Julius Cæsar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon the Great. To this trio the author might have added Napoleon the Third, had his modesty allowed; but we will do it for him. Having ascended the throne by the same steps as Cæsar and Bonaparte, and presenting himself before the world as the continuator of his uncle's policy, he may justly be ranged among the political Messiahs whom a benevolent Providence sends now and then to the nations of the earth to teach them manners, and, if refractory, to thrash them into submission.

If we speak thus knowingly, it is not that we have perused the "Life of Julius Cæsar," by Louis Napoleon. Indeed, of the four volumes which are to compose the work, but one has been published as yet, and this one we have not even had the good fortune to read. But the imperial author has had the extreme kindness to present a preface to the public at large, and

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in the preface a very few lines which contain, as it were, the concentrated extract, the very essence of the whole production. Here it is :—

"What precedes shows the object I have in view in writing this history. That object is to show that when Providence raises up such men as Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, it is to trace for peoples the path they are to follow, to mark a new era with the stamp of their genius, and to accomplish the work of several centuries in a few years. Happy the peoples that understand and follow them, woe to those who ignore and oppose them. Like the Jews, they crucify their Messiah; they are blind, and they are guilty-blind, because they see not the futility of their efforts to suspend the definite triumph of what is good and right; guilty, because they only retard progress by hindering its prompt and useful application. In fact, neither the murder of Cæsar, nor the captivity of St. Helena, have been able to destroy radically two popular causes, overthrown by a league concealed beneath the mask of liberty. Brutus, by killing Cæsar, plunged Rome into the horrors of civil war; he did not prevent the reign of Augustus, but he rendered possible those of Nero and Caligula. The ostracism of Napoleon by coalesced Europe has not prevented the Empire from resuscitating; and yet, how far we are from the settlement of great questions; from the appeasement of passions, from the legitimate satisfaction given to peoples by the first Empire!

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Thus, every day since 1815, has this prophecy of the captive of St. Helena been verified:" How many struggles, how much blood, how many years will it not require to realize the good which I intended to do for mankind!"

The oracles of olden times used to be dubious, obscure, intricate in the extreme, and it required no little skill and penetration to interpret them, and unravel their mysterious announcements; but we must admit that this is a decided improvement on them; it is as clear and transparent as the crystalline waters of a limpid stream. Know ye therefore, all peoples of Europe, and be thankful, Napoleon the Third, the man of destiny, following the footsteps of Cæsar, Charlemagne, Napoleon the Great, is to trace for you the path you are to follow, mark a new era with the stamp of his genius, and accomplish the work of several centuries in a few years. Happy those among you that understand and follow him, but (vo victis!) woe to those who ignore and oppose his benevolent designs. Like the Jews, they would crucify their Messiah; they would be blind in seeing not the futility of their efforts to suspend the definitive triumph of what is good and right, they would be guilty in retarding progress by hindering its prompt and fruitful application; it must come to pass, it is written in the book of fate; if Napoleon the Third does it not, some other Napoleon will. But it is fondly hoped that, taught at the school of historical experience, you will be wiser than your fathers, that you will receive your imperial benefactor with open arms, and submissively bend your necks to his paternal yoke. And then what a sublime spectacle will be offered to the admiring gaze of the world! Behold, in all his majesty, Napoleon the Third, reins and whip in hand, driving the chariot of state, drawn by all the European nations, guiding it safely to the goal of ineffable bliss, to that political millennium, when all great questions shall be settled, all passions appeased, and the legitimate satisfaction promised by the uncle given at last to every people by the nephew! If the sight of such a glorious performance, looming in no distant future, makes not your hearts beat with rapture, and secures not your cordial co-operation, then indeed, you must be radically perverse, and past redemption.

Such is the language, in the illustrious writer's opinion, which should be held by all clear-sighted and right-minded people. But, so obdurate is the perversity of the human heart, that, we apprehend, many a nation will again prove refractory, and doggedly reject the boon so kindly proferred to Europe. And, painful to say, the very men who, by their talents and genius, exercise a powerful influence on the minds of people, are always foremost in casting

obloquy upon the great benefactors of mankind, and thereby contribute largely to lead the world astray from the path of salvation. We will not here quote the ancient writers, Cicero, Plutarch, Suetonius, &c.; it will be sufficient for our purpose to present an extract from Voltaire, who, though great among great writers, is nevertheless pleased, as Napoleon would say, to give a mean interpretation to the most noble actions of the great Roman Dictator. Says the impertinent writer :

"It is not our present purpose to speak of Cæsar as the husband of a great many wives, the robber of the public treasury, who used the Romans' money to enslave the Romans; it is only in my quality of descendant from the poor barbarians subjugated by him that I shall consider this unparalleled man.

"You cannot pass through a single town in France or Spain, or on the banks of the Rhine, or on the English coast opposite Calais, without meeting with lots of people who boast that Caesar was once in their neighbourhood. Dover burgesses are persuaded that the country houses in which they live were built by Cæsar, and many burgeois of Paris look upon the Grand Chatelet as one of his finest works. More than one lord of the manor in France points to the old tower which serves for a dovecot, and proudly tells you that it was Julius Caesar who provided a lodging for his pigeons. Every province disputes with its neighbour the honour of having been the first to smart under Cæsar's cat of nine tails: it was by this road, not by that, insist the local antiquaries, that he came here to cut our throats, to saddle us with laws that we could only understand through interpreters, and to take from us the very little money that we had. The Indians are wiser than we; they know in a vague way that a certain brigand, greater than other brigands, his predecessors, named Alexander, once overran their country; but they scarcely ever talk about him.

"An Italian antiquary, passing some few years ago through Vannes, in Brittany, was astonished to hear the savans of the town boasting that Cæsar had been there. Doubt. less,' said he, 'you have some monuments of that great man?' 'Oh, yes,' was the reply, we can show you the spot where this hero hanged the whole senate of our province, numbering 600.' Ignorant writers have stated in the journals that a hundred stakes, dug up in 1755, were the remains of a bridge built by Cæsar; but I have conclusively proved in my Essay of 1756, that these beams served for the hanging of our parliament. What other town can produce such relics? For this we have the testimony of the great Cæsar himself, who tells us in his Commentaries that we are an inconsistent people, and prefer liberty to servitude.' He accuses us (De Bello Gallico, lib. III.) of having been so insolent as to take hostages from the Romans, and then to refuse to give them up. He taught us manners.

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"This conversation gave rise to a warm discussion between the Vannes savans and the Italian antiquary. Many Bretons could not see what virtue it was in the Romans to have deceived, one after the other, all the nations of Gaul, to have one by one made them tools to destroy themselves, to have massacred one-fourth of the whole of them, and to have reduced the remaining three-fourths to servitude. For my part, I don't know of anything finer,' returned the antiquary, I have a medal in my pocket-and such a medal!-representing the triumph of Cæsar at the Capitol. I never saw in all my days a medal in such a good state of preservation.' He thereupon produced the medal. A rather rough Breton laid hold of it, and flung it into the river. 'Why am I not,' he exclaimed, 'able thus to drown all those who make use of their address and power to oppress others!'"

We confess that the above extract reads somewhat like the expression of common sense and justice, and even at the risk of being placed in the category of the blind and guilty peoples who, like the Jews, crucify their Messiah, we feel prompted to say that the Gauls were right in not hailing this great cut-throat Cæsar as their saviour, and we heartily endorse the protest of the rough Breton who laid hold of the medal, and flung it into the river.

Hitherto we have commented solely upon that part of the Emperor's preface which contains the programme of the Napoleonic policy, the gist, as it were, of the whole work. Every word of the precious document being worth its weight in gold, we should like to do full justice to it, but our space being

limited, we must content ourselves with a cursory review of its most salient points. Beforehand, however, it is proper humbly to apologize, if in some respects our conclusions are found at variance with the imperial logic and sense of justice. Not having the invaluable fortune of being born in the purple, we can but be guided by the light of common sense and common equity, of which both, we trust, we have received an average share.

"Historical truth," says Napoleon, "ought to be not less sacred than religion." A great and most salutary principle! But what a pity that Louis Napoleon is, in practice, so regardless of it, and every day tramples it underfoot! How strangely such solemn words must sound falling, as they do, from the lips of a sovereign who holds the Press so tightly gagged, and allows no transaction of his reign to be published unless it suits his dynastic interests. Verily, it would be a singular history of the present period that were compiled exclusively from the columns of the French newspapers.

"What can be more erroneous than not to acknowledge the pre-eminence of those privileged beings which appear from time to time like shining lights in history, dispelling the darkness of their own period, and illuminating the future."

They shine forsooth, but it is the sinister and lurid glare of a mighty conflagration that causes ruin and desolation wherever it extends; as to the pure and beneficent light that could dispel the darkness of their own period and illuminate the future, the privileged beings are exceedingly careful to keep it, as it were, under the bushel, by gagging the Press, and sealing up people's mouths with the fear of dire punishment.

"To deny that pre-eminence is to insult mankind by supposing it capable of submitting for a long period and voluntarily to a dominion not founded on real grandeur and unquestionable utility."

Here we must protest. On the one hand, there is no real grandeur in enslaving one's fellow-men. If, instead of availing himself of the corrupt state of Rome for the furtherance of his ambitious designs, Cæsar had employed his influence and the power of a mighty genius to lead the Romans back to the path of liberty and national honour, then he would have been a real benefactor to his country, and, as such, would be entitled to the unmitigated admiration of posterity. Mankind is not calculated for the evil ambition of men of genius, but rather men of genius are calculated for the welfare of mankind. On the other hand, as regards peoples; let them know that there is no genuine glory without freedom; it is ever shameful to submit to servitude, even when they are men such as Cæsar and Napoleon who hold the whip; and, we ask, is it not the last stage of degradation, when the slavedriver is a Nero, a disgusting and ferocious brute clothed in imperial purple ? "Since Suetonius and Plutarch such are the mean interpretations which it has pleased historians to give to the most noble actions."

We can easily tell Louis Napoleon why there exists so wide a difference between his own interpretations and those of all other historians; why his are so generous, and theirs so mean They had no personal motive to justify Cæsar's passage of the Rubicon, whilst he had to palliate the 2nd of December, a modern Rubicon, red with the blood of inoffensive men, women and children; they, not being born in the purple, defend the noble cause of humanity, whilst he, Napoleon the Third, has entered the lists as the selfish champion of his dynasty.

As to his invitation to accomplish the work of several centuries in a few years, we have always thought that progress, in order to be genuine and con