his temporal government, and leave him a pensioner of France, in accordance with the plan of Napoleon I. With all its verbiage, and verbal respect for Catholicity and its supreme pontiff, the pamphlet must wound the sentiments of every intelligent Catholic in France or elsewhere. do not pretend that there are no abuses in the papal administration; everybody says it, and we suppose it must be so. Certainly the subjects of the pontifical government are, with or without reason, to a fearful extent dissatisfied, and clamorous for reforms; but the pope is sovereign in his own states, and holds by a title, to say the least, as high and as sacred as Louis Napoleon holds the throne-not the crown, for he has not yet been crowned-of France. We know no more right the emperor elect of the French has to interfere with the internal administration of the government of the pope than he has to interfere with that of Queen Victoria, or that of the United States. What was his pretext for going to war with Russia? Was it not to protect the independence of sovereign states, especially the weak against the strong? Will not the principle on which that war was justified apply to the pope, the first sovereign in Europe, as well as to the Grand Turk. not Catholic sovereigns as much bound by justice and civilization to respect and defend the independence of the head of the Catholic religion, in his temporal dominion, as they are to respect and defend the independence of the chief of Islamisin ?

Are

The outrages Napoleon has committed on the constitutional party, silent but not extinct, in France; the deep offence he offers to the Catholic sentiment in his evident attacks on the independence of the papal government; the impossibility of conciliating by a peace policy the red-republicans of France and Italy, and the prestige he has lost by his diplomatic defeats, his vacillating home policy, and his evident truckling to England, seem to us to render it very difficult, if not impossible for him, without the diversion of a foreign war, to retain his present position as Cæsar, even if he is able to guard his life from the poniard of an infatuated Mazzinian. To us it seems that he must become a constitutional prince, and surround his throne with real not sham parliamentary institutions, and enlist the intelligence of France in its support, fall by a Mazzinian revolution or a Mazzinian dagger, or seek to avert the danger and to consolidate his policy by a war with Austria os

tensibly for the independence of Italy and the redress of her grievances.

But whether such a war would help him may well be doubted. A war for Italian nationality and independence, while refusing to respect the independence of the papal government, and to establish a constitutional or republican Italy, while he maintains his new-fangled cæsarism in France, would place him in a false position, and prevent him from carrying with him the sympathies of those who really wish well to Italian independence and liberty. No sovereign can long hope to sustain liberty abroad while he suppresses it at home; nobody, not even the Italians themselves, could confide in him, for they would see and feel that his efforts to liberate Italy from Austria can be only to bring her under France, as incompatible with Italian nationality and independence as her present condition. Then, admirable as is his army, the success of a war with Austria is far from certain. The Austrian army is hardly inferior, if at all inferior, to his own. It is not what it was in the time of his uncle, but is undoubtedly the best organized and appointed army in Europe, well disciplined and well officered, while the French army has no longer a real Bonaparte at its head. The nephew is a first class man of the Fouché order, but he is not his uncle. The French are as likely to lose as to win the first battle fought in Lombardy, and the loss of a single battle is the loss of the French throne. Then, Austria will not be left to fight the battle alone, if it is likely to go against her. If she is attacked by France and Sardinia, all Germany will come to her aid, for Germany understands that the defeat of Austria on the Po, is war against Germany on the Rhine, and France is no match for Austria backed by all Germany. Russia, even if disposed to do so, cannot come to the aid of France, for she has no wish to break down the German barrier between her and France, and because she has or soon will have her hands full at home. Great Britian is quite willing, nay desirous to see established an independent Italy; but she has no wish to see Italy annexed to the French empire, or Austria so weakened that she can no longer be played off diplomatically against France. Alliance with France against Russia and in relation to oriental matters may suit British policy, but British statesmen must always seek the alliance of Austria to maintain. the balance of power against France. Balancing the weakness to which the national question exposes Austria by the

weakness to which the political and social question exposes France, and counting the parts likely to be taken by other. nations, we think the chances of the war are not in favor of France, and that the war would prove far more fatal to the Napoleonic dynasty than to the house of Habsburg.

We are, then, far from feeling, whether peace or war obtain, that Napoleon III. is secure, unless he changes his policy at home-unless, as he may without danger to his dynasty, he relaxes his cæsarism, returns to the principles of the old Frank empire of Charlemagne, and disarms the revolution by reviving parliamentary institutions, and giving freedom to French intelligence. It is not too late to do this, and to do it successfully. The restoration failed, because the Bourbons of the elder branch had learned nothing by the revolution-because they had been forced upon the nation by foreign bayonets, and because they were wedded to an impracticable royalty, and sought to govern through the court rather than the nation. The monarchy of July failed, because there was a flaw in its title, but chiefly because it rested on too narrow a basis, and committed the fatal error of confiding in a parliamentary majority instead of a majority of the nation. Its basis of suffrage was not broad enough. One hundred thousand or two hundred thousand electors, out of a population of thirty-six millions, was only a mockery, and a government carried on even by a parliamentary majority, with so limited a suffrage, could not be a government of a nation by itself. It relied on the army and police as much as does the present government. If it had amended its electoral law, and enlisted the majority of the nation in its support by giving them a direct voice in the choice of deputies, it would, notwithstanding the flaw in its title, have established and maintained itself against the revolution. It would gradually have become truly national, and been supported by the interests, the convictions, and the patriotism of the French people. Let the emperor take what was good in that monarchy, avoid its errors, and he may easily, with his personal popularity and the force of his character,' give to France really permanent as well as free institutions, and in very deed put an end to the "era of revolutions." Will he do it? Most likely not.

The question of Italy is undoubtedly a difficult question, and we pretend not to be able to suggest a practical solution. Louis Napoleon's proposed solution is, if we understand his pamphlet, the expulsion of the Austrians from upper Italy,

and the union of all Italy in a federative state, under the 'king of Sardinia. This solution is impracticable, for even if the Austrians were driven beyond the Rhætian Alps, the several Italian states would never consent to yield the presidency to Sardinia, hardly allowed by the rest of Italy to be Italian, any more than Macedonia was allowed to be Greek by the polished Athenians in the time of Demosthenes. The headship of the Italian confederacy could be obtained and preserved by Sardinia only through the conquest, and forcible subjection of the rest of Italy. The Tuscans, the Venetians, the Lombards, the duchies, the subjects of the pope, the Neapolitans and Sicilians, however disaffected they may be with their present rulers, native or foreign, or however much they may talk about Unità Italiana, will never peaceably submit to the supremacy of the Subalpine kingdom. The project could be effected only by a French conquest of Italy, and maintained only by by French arms. The project, after all, is not a solution of the Italian question, but a pretext for substituting French domination in Italy, for that of Austria, or of governing Italy by French princes, who are to hold as vassals of the French empire. There is no native Italian prince to whom the presidency can be given, except the pope, and to that the Italian states themselves would not now consent, and it would not be permitted by France herself, if able to prevent it. To create a new federal government, as we did at the formation of our federal government, able at once to sustain itself, and to defend Italy from foreign aggression, is wholly impracticable. You have no materials from which to construct it, and the mutual jealousies and animosities of the several states and cities are so numerous, so inveterate, and so strong, and the sentiment of unity is so weak-has so feeble a hold on the mass of the population, that it could not stand, even if constructed. If you give it power enough to render it efficient, it will be constantly exciting discontent, revolt, and rebellion; and if you leave it so weak that it excites no opposition, and imposes no restraint on the separate action of the states confederated, it will be simply as good as no government at all. The federation will be merely a rope of sand, falling to pieces by its own weight.

The powers have, by the treaty of Paris, in 1856, rendered the Italian difficulty far greater than it was before. Great Britain and France committed a most serious blunder when they went to war against Russia for the indepen

dence and integrity of the Ottoman empire, and to place that empire, evidently falling to pieces, under the protection of European international law. They have stayed the southern progress of Russia for a dozen years or so, but they have not reinvigorated or saved Turkey. The fate of " the sick man" is sealed, and all the learned doctors of Europe cannot prevent him from going the way of all the earth. But the recognition and guaranty of the sovereignty and independence of the padisdah, even in regard to the Christian provinces of the empire, has placed a grave obstacle in the way of Italian autonomy and independence. The powers signing the treaty of Paris have laid down, have solemnly recognized a principle as applicable to Austria as to Turkey, and which precludes them from dismembering the Austrian empire against her consent, and makes it as obligatory on them to maintain to Austria the kingdom of Hungary, or the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, as it does to maintain to Turkey the suzerainty of Roumania or Servia; another proof that the treaty of Paris was primarily a treaty in the interest of Austria. As both France and Sardinia were parties to that treaty, neither of them can attempt to wrest the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom from Austria without a direct violation of what they have declared to be the public law of Europe. France and Sardinia have also by the same treaty deprived themselves of the means of making a compromise with Austria, by offering her an indemnification for her Italian possessions, in case she should be persuaded to relinquish them. But for the treaty they might have offered her Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia, which she might have been induced to regard as a fair equivalent for her Italian provinces. Such an exchange would have liberated Italy from foreign dominion, and permitted the organization of a national government or governments. But this is now out of the question, and Italian nationality and independence is practicable only by violently and illegally dismembering the Austrian empire, by the manifest violation of public treaties, and of the public law of Europe as proclaimed by the treaty of Paris. We suspect Austrian diplomacy in that treaty overreached the French and Sardinian, if those two powers hold themselves bound by treaties. France and Sardinia are estopped in their Italian policy, not only by the treaties of 1815, but by the treaty of 1856. Here is a grave difficulty, which no diplomacy, and which only war in violation of treaties, can