ancient monarchy does not stand higher in political ethics than the republic, and it is only from the habits and sympathies of a society accustomed to monarchy that we judge more leniently the partition of Poland, the suppression of the Jesuits, the lettres de cachet, and the royal police — which enforced, like the master in the fable, a perpetual tribute of the daughters of the defenceless class of Frenchmen — than we judge the horrors of the period of vengeance. There is not much to rejoice at that the same wrong should be committed by a constitutional Minister instead of a republican, for the sake of monarchy instead of democracy. Monarchy is not essentially connected with order, nor democracy with disorder, nor constitutionalism with liberty. Blinded by our superstitious belief in forms, we forget that the destruction of the faith of treaties, the obliteration of the landmarks of States, the spoliation and oppression of the Church, the corruption of religion, the proclamation of unjust wars, the seizure of foreign possessions, the subversion of foreign rights, — all these are greater crimes and greater calamities than the establishment of republican institutions, — and all this has been done by a constitutional Minister ; and Mazzini, who has seen the best part of his purpose accomplished for him by those who denounce him as a criminal and a fanatic, has no instrument of agitation remaining to him but the Republic. Cavour made him powerless, simply by making him superfluous, and allowed him to do nothing, by doing his work for him. He triumphed while he lived, because the governments are as corrupt as the demagogues, and because the revolution was his weapon instead of his foe. But he saved Italy from no evil except the Republic, and the highest praise that men can give him is, that he died like Mirabeau, when he alone could yet preserve the monarchy. He had destroyed things more precious than monarchy, and he had trampled on rights more sacred than the crowns of kings.
The crime of Orsini was skilfully turned to account by the Italian refugees, who surrounded the Emperor.
