Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/116

 Stockmar never believed that bad morals could be good politics. It was his creed that wrong-doing brings with it its own inevitable retribution. Immediately after the Coup d'état in December, 1851, he said that out of the elements with which its success had been secured, the devil only could form a stable Government, and that he did not believe in the possibility of a permanent rule for his black majesty. His biographer, writing early in 1870, remarks that it yet remained to be seen whether Stockmar's prediction would be fulfilled. Within a few months all doubt on the subject was ended by the cannon of Sedan and the downfall of the Second Empire.

A character like Stockmar's, with a fixed political and wholly impersonal end in view, is never lacking in self-confidence; he never for a moment swerved from his aim, though after 1848 he realized that he would never probably live to see it accomplished. The fact that practical statesmen thought his dream of German unity under the leadership of Prussia a "bee in his bonnet," did not in the least disturb him. He went on diligently "laying the seed corn," as he himself described it, in other minds, quietly, almost secretly, knowing that once planted it would grow. After the downfall of the hopes of German unity in 1848, Stockmar was not discouraged, nor would he allow discouragement in others. He used to say, "The Germans are a good people, easy to govern; and the German Princes who do not understand this, do not deserve to rule over such a people. Do not be frightened, for younger ones are quite unable to estimate how great is the progress which the Germans have made towards political unity. I have lived through it, and I know this people. You are marching towards a great future. You will live to see it, not I; but then think of the old man."