have believed, had I not seen, that the writer who supplied Nilus with his originals was a careless and shameless plagiarist.
The Geneva book is a very thinly-veiled attack on the despotism of Napoleon III. in the form of a series of 25 dialogues divided into four parts. The speakers are Montesquieu and Machiavelli. In the brief preface to his book the anonymous author points out that it contains passages which are applicable to all Governments, "but it particularly personifies a political system which has not varied in its application for a single day since the fatal and alas! too distant date when it was enthroned." Its references to the "Haussmannisation" of Paris, to the repressive measures and policy of the French Emperor, to his wasteful financial system, to his foreign wars, to his use of secret societies in his foreign policy (cf., his notorious relations with the Carbonari) and his suppression of them in France, to his relations with the Vatican, and to his control of the Press are unmistakable.
The Geneva book, or as it will henceforth be called the Geneva Dialogues, opens with the meeting of the spirits of Montesquieu and Machiavelli on a desolate beach in the world of shades. After a lengthy exchange of civilities Montesquieu asks Machiavelli to explain why from an ardent Republican he had become the author of "The Prince" and "the founder of that sombre school of thought which has made all crowned heads your disciples, but which is well fitted to justify the worst crimes of tyranny." Machiavelli replies that he is a realist and proceeds to justify the teaching of "The Prince," and to explain its applicability to the Western European States of 1864.
In the first six "Geneva Dialogues" Montesquieu is given a chance of argument of which he avails himself. In the seventh dialogue,
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