writings, his words, his promises, his thoughts, have more force since his death, than if he were still alive.”[6] For ages it was enough to tell the world that such was the will of Cæsar, for the world to obey it.

The preceding remarks sufficiently explain the aim I have in view in writing this history. This aim is to prove that, when Providence raises up such men as Cæsar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, it is to trace out to peoples the path they ought to follow; to stamp with the seal of their genius a new era; and to accomplish in a few years the labour of many centuries. Happy the peoples who comprehend and follow them! woe to those who misunderstand and combat them! They do as the Jews did, they crucify their Messiah; they are blind and culpable: blind, for they do not see the impotence of their efforts to suspend the definitive triumph of good; culpable, for they only retard progress, by impeding its prompt and fruitful application.

In fact, neither the murder of Cæsar, nor the captivity of St. Helena, have been able to destroy irrevocably two popular causes overthrown by a league which disguised itself under the mask of liberty. Brutus, by slaying Cæsar, plunged Rome into the horrors of civil war; he did not prevent the reign of Augustus, but he rendered possible those of Nero and Caligula. The ostracism of Napoleon by confederated Europe has been no more successful in preventing the Empire from being resuscitated; and, nevertheless, how far are we from the great questions solved, the passions calmed, and the legitimate satisfactions given to peoples by the first Empire!

Thus every day since 1815 has verified the prophecy of the captive of St. Helena:

“How many struggles, how much blood, how many years will it not require to realise the good which I intended to do for mankind!”[7]

Palace of the Tuileries, March 20th, 1862.

Napoleon.

I

JULIUS CÆSAR.

BOOK I.

ROMAN HISTORY BEFORE CÆSAR.

CHAPTER I.

ROME UNDER THE KINGS.

I. “In the birth of societies,” says Montesquieu, “it is the chiefs of the republics who form the institution, and in the sequel it is the institution which forms the chiefs of the republics.” And he adds, “One of the causes of the prosperity of Rome was the fact that its kings were all great men. We find nowhere else in history an uninterrupted series of such statesmen and such military commanders.”[8]

The story, more or less fabulous, of the foundation of Rome does not come within the limits of our design; and with no intention of clearing up whatever degree of fiction these earliest ages of history may contain, we purpose only to remind our readers that the kings laid the foundations of those institutions to which Rome owed her greatness, and so many extraordinary men who astonished the world by their virtues and exploits.

The kingly power lasted a hundred and forty-four years, and at its fall Rome had become the most powerful state in Latium. The town was of vast extent, for, even at that epoch, the seven hills were nearly all inclosed within a wall protected internally and externally by a consecrated space called the Pomœrium.[9]

This line of inclosure remained long the same, although the increase of the population had led to the establishment of immense suburbs, which finally inclosed the Pomœrium itself.[10]

The Roman territory properly so called was circumscribed, but that of the subjects and allies of Rome was already rather considerable. Some colonies had been founded. The kings, by a skilful policy, had succeeded in drawing into their dependence a great number of neighbouring states, and, when Tarquinius Superbus assembled the Hernici, the Latins, and the Volsci, for a ceremony destined to seal his alliance with them, forty-seven different petty states took part in the inauguration of the temple of Jupiter Latialis.[11]

The foundation of Ostia, by Ancus Martius, at the mouth of the Tiber, shows that already the political and commercial importance of facilitating communication with the sea was understood; while the treaty of commerce concluded with Carthage at the time of the fall of the kingly power, the details of which are preserved by Polybius, indicates more extensive foreign relations than we might have supposed.[12]