Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/764

756 with Protestant Prussia, and see her successes with gladness? Sure enough; and English joy over the prodigious Prussian triumph of last summer ought to be the most natural thing in the world. But we cannot forget what was the color of English opinion down to the time when it was demonstrated by the logic of cannon that the Prussian cause was perfectly pure, and that it was to fly in the face of Providence to question its excellence. If ever a man was hated in England, Count Bismarck had the honor of being thus hated. And it was an honor; for next to the love of a great people, their hatred is the best evidence of a man's greatness. Napoleon in 1807 was not more detested by Englishmen than Bismarck in 1866. The obnoxious Prussian statesman was not even respected, for he had done nothing to command the respect of enemies. From the tone in which he was talked of, it was plain that the English considered him to be a mischievous, malicious, elfish sort of creature, who could not do anything that would deserve to be considered great, but who did his utmost to make himself and his country the nuisances of Europe. Books have been made from English journals to show how extraordinarily they berated this country during the Secession war, because Americans were so brutally perverse and so selfishly silly as not to submit their country's throat to the Southern sabre for the benefit of Britain, which condescends to think that our national existence is something not altogether compatible with her safety. But a collection made from the same journals of articles assailing Prussia in general, and Count Bismarck in particular, would be even richer than anything that has been collected to show English sympathy with gentlemen who were fighting valiantly to establish that "better kind of civilization" which is based on slavery. All is now changed toward Prussia, as most has been changed toward us for twenty months, ever since the fall of Richmond. If Prussia should not soon establish a "cordial understanding" with England, vice France discarded, it will be because she is not disposed to an English alliance, or because her fortunes shall have undergone a change, and rendered her unworthy of being courted. That ancient connection of England and Austria, dating from the time that the Bourbons became dangerous to Europe, and which was so often alluded to in the time of the Italian war, and in the days that immediately preceded the German conflict, is thought little of by Englishmen, who prefer to think of Pitt's connection with Frederick when the latter was threatened with annihilation by Austria. Prussia has not only beaten the Austrian armies; she has conquered English prejudices,—much the more difficult task of the two.

The Austrians must be amused by the change that has come over the English mind; but with their sense of the satire which that change may be said to embody, there is possibly mingled the reflection that their case, bad as it is, is not so bad as to deprive them of hope. Looking back over the history of the house of Austria, there is much in it to allow the belief that possibly it may again rise to the highest place in Europe. That house has often fallen quite as low as we have seen it fall, and yet it has not passed away, but has renewed its life and strength, and has taken high part in effecting the punishment, and even the destruction, of those who might have destroyed it. When Matthias Corvinus held Vienna,—when that city was besieged by the great Solyman, whose troops marched as far to the west as Ratisbon,—when Charles V. fled before Maurice of Saxony, "lest he might one fine morning be seized in his bed,"—when Andrew Thonradtel took Ferdinand II. by the buttons of his doublet, and said, "Nandel, give in, thou must sign" (a paper containing the articles of the union of the Austrian Estates with the Bohemians, which Ferdinand refused to sign, and never signed),—when Gustavus Adolphus was beating or baffling all the