he is a very illiterate man, and does not even pretend to know anything about war, but no one is better advised than he about the number of buttons on a soldier's coat and the way he should carry his knapsack. As a measure of his mind and resources he mentioned this fact, which he says deserved to be preserved for history, that King William went 150 times to hear Flick and Flock. Abel thought that ten times would have driven any other man crazy. What an instance of the goodness of Providence that all this power and worldly distinction should have descended upon a man whom they cannot harm. Most men capable of appreciating the eminence of his position would be ruined by it. It does not harm him any more than the gilding of his oats pleased Caligula's horse. He does not comprehend what he has become. Prince Charles, Abel says, is a dreadful creature, worse even than Richard III. He is the King's younger brother and married the Queen's elder sister. I remarked that the address looked a little like cultivating Austria, so little fuss was made about the New Empire and things calculated to touch Austrian sensibility. "You must not trust what Mr. Bismarck says as a criterion of what he means," says Abel. It is one of his tricks to mislead people in that way. When he returned from the campaign in 1866 he was very taciturn, no one could get anything out of him. At last, at the station and in the presence of some person whom it suited his purpose to have hear him, he said in reply to congratulations upon the peace, "I don't know. We have still a nut to crack with those Southern German States, I suppose," or something to that effect. This was dropped carelessly and casually to all appearance, that it might go to Napoleon and keep him quiet, which it did. But his treaty with those Southern States had then already been signed a fortnight. When the King arrived at the station the other day, after kissing his family he kissed old Wrangel and Bismarck who had gone there to receive him. Before I was out of bed this morning I received a note from Bancroft asking me to accompany him to-day to hear Curtius discourse about the birthday of King Wilhelm before the University. Hammel, the Swiss minister, rode with us. Curtius developed the idea I presented in my Thanksgiving discourse, that the defeat at Sedan was the logical result of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Bancroft remarked it also. My dear Bigelow. Your letter of sini Fetailer the Income Tax to M. Bryan that I did give him the messag The same evening I reeves your ener and it was the same day that S Pen I E sioner of Internal Reveme te gress that the cost of colente Line amounted to. Mt. Bryan st Post cannot advocate & suure of evene tie exceed the amount colenes time: 1 the cost, there can be in argen pose I could give you ang I VALJ did not write. But the sa o trg interview I had with Gemu denunciation of Summer talkative, and a few mer o 13 Sumner enjoys the notoney the bras our is seems to bear himself wel the irons. reflecting men of the party-e him, the Republica par vi sv. Not that Sumber is p popular-and the men van 228 N are low, coarse men Gra know nothing of point to extr is led by Banot be ad would have gone, imat d and now the BHEL LYZA England, when to pn. Ce be attorney for the Norton res This I think it sulenk Sanford was over wewe n did not get of the Treasury Levi P. Mono *E. D. Murgat My dear Friend: HARGREAVES TO BIGELOW SEND-HOLME, WOKING STATION, You are mistaken in supposing that we are friends of Thiers & his policy. So far from that he has ever been to Paulton & myself "the most unfortunate minister France has ever had," to use the words Gladstone once uttered in private with reference to Palmerston & England. He has always pandered to and fed the national passion for glory and is a thorough protectionist. My own sympathy is much more in harmony with the principles at least of the communists whose greatest error has been that of so many in like circumstances - viz., descending to the use of the antagonist's weapons; in which he is so much more skilled than they. Unhappy France! & how blind, when she first attempted to found a Republic, leaving the masses uneducated & ready to the hands of the reviving priesthood. So long as this state of things lasts there can be no permanent freedom in any part of Europe. The priest is now in power & denying freedom of thought & intellectual independence, renders political freedom impossible. I recollect that Cobden told the Spaniards that religious freedom must always precede political. And in one of the last conversations I had with him, he dropped the remark that he thought the next great revolution in Europe would be a religious one. In England the priest has his grasp even upon the most educated Roman Catholics. A friend of mine, passionately devoted to natural history, dare not read Darwin's book-it is in the condemned index. I never knew a Roman Catholic, however educated, who had any real freedom of mind outside his creed. He is ever a most timid politician & waits to know the opinion of his priest. He is only on the liberal side in England for the sake of his religion - and having obtained nearly all he wants he will gradually drift to the Tories, his natural allies. Turning from France to our own politics-you will have observed, if you did not know already, how completely we are |