NATIONALITY
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which Italy and Spain have had in common with France, and herein consists the natural league of the Latin nations. This national element in the movement \vas not under- stood by the revolutionary leaders. At first, their doctrine appeared entirely contrary to the idea of nationality. They taught that certain general principles of government were absolutely rig4t in all States; and they asserted in theory the unrestricted freedom of the individual, and the supremacy of the \vill over every external necessity or obligation. This is in apparent contradiction to the national theory, that certain natural forces ought to deter- mine the character, the form, and the policy of the State, by which a kind of fate is put in the place of freedom. Accordingly the national sentÏ1nent was not developed directly out of the revolution in which it was involved, but was exhibited first in resistance to it, when the attelnpt to emancipate had been absorbed in the desire to subjugate, and the republic had been succeeded by the empire. Napoleon called a new po\ver into existence by attacking nationality in Russia, by delivering it in Italy, by governing in defiance of it in Germany and Spain. The sovereigns of these countries were deposed or degraded; and a system of administration \V8.S introduced which \\'as French in its origin, its spirit, and its instru- ments. The people resisted the change. The movement against it was popular and spontaneous, because the rulers were absent or helpless; and it \vas national, because it was directed against foreign institutions. In Tyrol, in Spain, and afterwards in Prussia, the people did not receive the impulse from the government, but undertook of their own accord to cast out the armies and the ideas of revolutionised France. l\Ien were made conscious of the national element of the revolution by its conquests, not in its rise. The three things which the Empire most openly oppressed-religion, national independence, and political liberty-united in a short-lived league to animate the great uprising by \vhich apoleon fell. Under the influence of that memorable alliance a political spirit was called forth on the Continent, which clung to freedom
