Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/504

474 of Henry IV., when besieging Paris. There, surrounded by trees and flowers which he tended himself, he passed many quiet years, complaining sometimes of the ingratitude of men, deploring the sad state of the peoples for whom he had done so much, but never despairing of their destiny. Once only did his old enthusiasm blaze out. He thought the independence and honour of his country were threatened by France and England in the questions of 1845— 1849, and came from his seclusion to show that America could not be conquered by Europe. Subsequently, in his will, he left his sword to the Argentine Dictator:—

"As a proof of the satisfaction with which I, as an Argentine, have seen the firmness of General Rozas in defending the honour of the Republic against the unjust pretensions of the foreigners who sought her humiliation."

As the end approached, his eyes were obscured by cataract. Reading, which was with him a passion, was forbidden him. He went to Boulogne to breathe the sea air, as Bolivar had done. On the 13th August, 1850, as he was standing on the beach, gazing with dim eyes over the Channel, he felt the first mortal symptom. He pressed his hand to his heart, and with a feeble smile said to his faithful daughter:—"C'est l'orage qui mene au port." On the 17th of the same month he died in her arms, at the age of seventy-two years and six months.

Chile and the Argentine Republic have raised statues to him. Peru owes him one, which she has decreed. The Argentine people, now united and consolidated as he desired, brought back his mortal remains to his own country, and in May, 1 880, laid them to rest in the Cathedral of Buenos Ayres, as those of the greatest man among them.

In San Martin and Bolivar were combined, in unequal proportions, the two elements which make history: the active element which produces immediate effect in deeds, and the passive element from which springs the future. The effect of their combination marks the present and influences posterity. The political work of Bolivar died with him; that of San Martin lives after him; South America has