ABSTRACT
During the period that followed 1870 Europe beheld no more revivals of old absolute monarchies or explosions of new Caesarisms. There were not many attempts at such things and not even many who dreamed of them, and a few threatening clouds that appeared were scattered, leaving the skies clearer than before. The country that, in common opinion and judged by the facts of its last eighty years of history, was held to be that of extreme happenings and incapable of the orderly life of liberty, France, established and confirmed her republic, born from military disasters, with firm resolution and supreme shrewdness. In rival Germany, the abolition or restriction of liberty was borne in mind by the very creator of the empire, Bismarck, who did not regard as definitive the constitution that he had given her with a national parliament and universal suffrage.
