Page:The Ifs of History (1907).pdf/176

 to repeat the words, "God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform."

The evil deed to which I have here referred, which would have saved the lives of five hundred thousand people and left the river Rhine still washing the confines of France, was the aiming of Orsini's bomb on the evening of the 14th of January, 1858. This bomb was designed to take the life of the emperor of the French. If the attempt had succeeded, and Napoleon had died as Alexander II of Russia and King Humbert of Italy afterward died, there would have been no Franco-German war. The throne of the baby Napoleon IV, who was then less than two years old, very likely would not have endured long; but whether the third republic had immediately arisen, or whether the Orleans Bourbons had been restored to the throne, it would have been found easy to preserve the peace with Prussia and Germany.