the democratic school had gradually wrested from it. It has put an end to the fatal contradiction between servitude and liberty; it has given the nation a greater confidence in herself and in the grandeur of her destinies, in the nobility of her own ideas, purified and henceforth without alloy. It has been shown that liberty is strong enough not only to arouse men against tyranny 'for a single day, but to found institutions, a nation, and a country. After so many sacrifices made by the American people for the Union, the loss of so much blood and treasure, can we doubt that this people will hesitate at the sacrifices, henceforward far lighter and far easier, which will be necessary to consolidate its work? Can we believe that it will too easily listen to the instigations of rancour and anger, that it will rashly rush into the complications of a foreign war? It has reconquered all its territory, but it has not the least desire to extend it. It knows better than any one how much the difficulties it had to contend with were increased by the very immensity of this territory. Its ambition does not dream of annexing new provinces. It is of far greater importance to the American people to obliterate in the old ones all traces of the war. Neither is it to be dreaded that in the flush of triumph it will show itself without pity for the vanquished; all will be forgiven to those who cease to be the enemies of the Union. The North will itself draw the South from the abyss of ruin and misery into which it voluntarily plunged: it offers her its capital, its labour, its machines, its schools, its municipal institutions, the aid of its intelligence and activity, and demands but one thing in return-the abdication of

that sinister and barbarous power which took for its arms, not only gun, but whips, and poniards, and which has shed human blood in torrents, and which almost accomplished the ruin of the republic. For the Union to live, slavery must perish, and with it all that still remains of its work both political and social.

CHAPTER XI.

A VISIT TO THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.

THE United States have for four years given the lie to most of the prophecies of Europe; the pessimists who announced the final rupture of the Union to-day see its triumph; if they were to be believed a pacific republic could not raise armies, and armies sprung from the earth; a people unaccustomed to taxation would never consent to give up a considerable portion of its revenue to the State, and the American Congress voted an infinite number of new taxes without being able to satisfy quickly enough the impatience of public opinion, preoccupied with placing the resources of the government on a level with the magnitude of the danger, and giving to the world a striking proof of the wealth of the nation. Liberty was to perish in the tumults and disorder of civil war, and liberty has not -even received a wound. She no longer protects a privileged race only; she covers also with her newlytempered shield the race so long oppressed and given over to the most cruel slavery. The imagination of political Cassandras has dwelt with special complacency on magnifying the dangers that would spring from the gigantic armaments of the United States for free institutions and the peace of the world. Would the Executive

have virtue enough not to use the new power placed by circumstances in its hands for its own interests? Would not some bold and lucky general be found who would march his army to the Capitol, and dictate terms of peace? Hostilities over, these thousands of men, used to a camp life and the disorder of war, these generals still intoxicated by the heat of battles and the smoke of victory, would they consent to return to the silent obscurity of private life? Feeling all her strength like a panting wrestler, would not the republic have an invincible desire to use her new weapons, and punish the nations that had doubted her courage? It was natural to ask these questions; it was imprudent to answer them beforehand. It is not easy to apply historical precedents to a nation where almost everything is new; until now, wherever a nation has been convulsed by great civil troubles, armies have outlived revolutions, and oftentimes it is their sword that has cut the bonds tightened by discord. In troublous times when everything is shaken, armies bound by discipline, gathered round a chief who represents the dominant passions of the moment, easily become the instruments of great political revolutions. Who does not know the part played in history by the armies of Cæsar, Cromwell, and Napoleon? What was not their influence on the fortunes of Rome, England, France? These disciplined masses, in which one will is incarnated, at times force all obstacles to bend before them, and plough a furrow that can never be effaced. On the other hand, what do we see in the United States? Immense armies fighting for four years, practising the great art of war by defeats as

well as by victories, and never for a moment ceasing to be the docile instrument of the executive. These armies were not even composed of professional soldiers, fighting because it was their trade, and long broken in to obedience; they were almost entirely made up of volunteers, who followed all the ins and outs of public life in the camp, who preserved beneath the flag party spirit and the rights of citizenship. Neither on the morrow of the victory nor during the struggle did the American armies throw their sword into the scale; the heroes of so many battles have quietly returned to the shade of domestic life, like those stage kings who wear a crown for a few hours. This force, which had become irresistible, which was so slowly and so laboriously gathered together, was dispersed without an effort: a spectacle as new as strange, that by good right astonishes the world, and that cannot be too closely examined.

It was in the month of January 1865, that I visited Grant's army before Richmond and Petersburg; for some time the battlefields of Virginia have slipped out of sight; also I am less desirous of speaking of military operations than of making known the composition of the American army, its habits, its spirit, and the way in which the mixture of the small regular army, in existence before the war, with so many thousands of raw soldiers, had been accomplished, the share that belongs to the two elements, at once so different and equally necessary. What I saw and what I heard left a triple impression on my mind: the United States, though they have carried on a great war, will never become a military power; they will always retain a permanent army, small but