No one doubts that the first Napoleon was the greatest figure of his age, and the greatest general that the world has produced, with the exception alone of Alexander and Caesar.  No one questions his transcendent abilities, his unrivalled fame, and his potent influence on the affairs of Europe for a quarter of a century, leaving a name so august that its mighty prestige enabled his nephew to steal his sceptre; and his character has been so searchingly and critically sifted that there is unanimity among most historians as to his leading traits,—­a boundless ambition and unscruplous adaptation of means to an end:  that end his self-exaltation at any cost.  His enlarged and enlightened intellect was sullied by hypocrisy, dissimulation, and treachery, accompanied by minor faults with which every one is familiar, but which are often overlooked in the immense services he rendered to his country and to civilization.

Napoleon III., aspiring to imitate his uncle, also contributed important services, but was not equal to the task he assumed, and made so many mistakes that he can hardly be called a great man, although he performed a great role in the drama of European politics, and at one time occupied a superb position.  With him are associated the three great international wars which took place in the interval between the banishment of Napoleon I. to St. Helena and the establishment of the French Republic on its present basis,—­a period of more than fifty years,—­namely, the Crimean war; the war between Austria, France, and Italy; and the Franco-Prussian war, which resulted in the humiliation of France and the exaltation of Prussia.

When Louis Napoleon came into power in 1848, on the fall of Louis Philippe, it was generally supposed that European nations had sheathed the sword against one another, and that all future contests would be confined to enslaved peoples seeking independence, with which contests other nations would have nothing to do; but Louis Napoleon, as soon as he had established his throne on the ruins of French liberties, knew no other way to perpetuate his dominion than by embroiling the nations of Europe in contests with one another, in order to divert the minds of the French people from the humiliation which the loss of their liberties had caused, and to direct their energies in new channels,—­in other words, to inflate them with visions of military glory as his uncle had done, by taking advantage of the besetting and hereditary weakness of the national character.  In the meantime the usurper bestowed so many benefits on the middle and lower classes, gave such a stimulus to trade, adorned his capital with such magnificent works of art, and increased so manifestly the material prosperity of France, that his reign was regarded as benignant and fortunate by most people, until the whole edifice which he had built to dazzle the world tumbled down in a single day after his disastrous defeat at Sedan,—­the most humiliating fall which any French dynasty ever experienced.