against a united Germany. He accomplished also the slaughter of five hundred thousand men, and the impoverishment of millions. He sounded the death knell of monarchical adventuring in France, which was indeed one good result of the Napoleonic débâcle, but he also fastened militarism, in the form of excessive and progressively increasing peace armaments, upon Europe, and magnified public debts and taxation to the limit of endurance.
Every event here mentioned was a direct development, not of Napoleon III's original seizure of the French throne, but of the final years, and the eventual overthrow of his power—the overthrow itself due to the Franco-Prussian war. A single event, criminal in its character, might have prevented these results. That great benefits sometimes eventuate from men's crimes is no news, and no longer a marvel, to the philosopher, who, when good comes of evil, is apt
