moral responsibility; he had no sympathy with misfortune, no conscience, no fear of God.  He was cold, hard, ironical, and scornful.  He was insolent in his treatment of women, brusque in manners, severe on all who thwarted or opposed him.  He committed great crimes in his ascent to supreme dominion, and mocked the reason, the conscience, and the rights of mankind.  He broke the most solemn treaties; he was faithless to his cause; he centred in himself the interests he was intrusted to guard; he recklessly insulted all the governments of Europe; he put himself above Providence; he disgracefully elevated his brothers; he sought to aggrandize himself at any cost, and ruthlessly grasped the sceptre of universal dominion as if he were an irresistible destiny whom it was folly to oppose, In all this he aimed to be greater than conscience.

Such was the character of a despot who arose upon the ruins of the old monarchy,—­the product of a revolution, whose ideas he proposed to defend.  Most historians, and all moralists, are on the whole unanimous in this verdict.  As for his deeds, they rise up before our minds, compelling admiration and awe.  He was the incarnation of force; he performed the most brilliant exploits of our modern times.

The question then arises, whether his marvellous gifts and transcendent opportunities were directed to the good of his country and the cause of civilization.  In other words, did he render great services to France, which make us forget his faults?  How will he be judged by enlightened posterity?  May he be ranked among great benefactors, like Constantine.  Charlemagne, Theodosius, Peter the Great, and Oliver Cromwell?  It is the privilege of great sovereigns to be judged for their services rather than by their defects.

Let us summon, then, this great Emperor before the bar of universal reason.  Let him make his own defence.  Let us first hear what he has to say for himself, for he is the most distinguished culprit of modern times, and it may yet take three generations to place him in his true historical niche; and more, his fame, though immortal, may forever be in doubt, like that of Julius Caesar, whom we still discuss.

This great man may quietly yet haughtily say to us who seek to take his measure:  “It is for my services to France that I claim to be judged.  I do not claim perfection.  I admit I made grand mistakes; I even committed acts which the world stigmatizes as crimes.  I seized powers which did not belong to me; I overthrew constitutions; I made myself supreme; I mocked the old powers of earth; I repudiated the ideas in the name of which I climbed to a throne; I was harsh, insolent, and tyrannical; I divorced the wife who was the maker of my fortune; I caused the assassination of the Duc d’Enghien; I invaded Spain and Russia; and I wafted the names of my conquering generals to the ends of the earth in imprecations and curses.  These were my mistakes,—­crimes, if you please to call them; but it is not for these