Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/115

 talk," he said, "of very young people;" and he went on to express his firm confidence that the rule of the French in Germany was in its very nature evanescent, and must come to an end. His counsel was: "Trust in the natural course of events," and be ready to take advantage of them. Things that are rotten and hollow decay; those that are sound and healthy flourish and grow. Stockmar saw the crumbling to dust within a few years of what then appeared the overwhelming strength of Napoleon, and never forgot the lesson he had learned. All through his life he really believed what most people profess to believe, that the wages of sin is death.

From this standpoint of a belief in moral causes as governing the standing and falling of States, he sought to understand the source of the political humiliation of Germany, and he found it in the petty jealousies and childish narrow-mindedness of the little German States. Once convinced of this, long before the unity of Germany came within the sphere of practical politics he labored earnestly to bring it about. He was not slow to perceive that the arrogance of Napoleon and the shame and despair of Germany brought with them the germ of a better state of things. In the first place, Napoleon reduced the number of small German States from something like three hundred to thirty. This in itself was no small step towards national unity. In the second place, the anguish and humiliation endured in common by the German populations animated them with a common purpose to throw off the yoke of their oppressor. This was a beginning of a new national life. As Stockmar expressed it, "The people had come to know that hitherto they had had no Fatherland; and from that hour they cherished the resolve to have one."