Of familiar texts in Scripture, there is one which, since the
murderous outbreak, has been of constant applicability and force.
You know it: "All they that take the sword shall perish with the
sword"; [Footnote: Matthew, xxvi. 52.] and these words are
addressed to nations as to individuals. France took the sword
against Germany, and now lies bleeding at every pore. Louis
Napoleon took the sword, and is nought. Already in that _coup
d'etat_ by which he overthrew the Republic he took the sword,
and now the Empire, which was the work of his hands, expires. In
Mexico again he took the sword, and again paid the fearful
penalty,--while the Austrian Archduke, who, yielding to his
pressure, made himself Emperor there, was shot by order of the
Mexican President, an Indian of unmixed blood. And here there was
retribution, not only for the French Emperor, but far beyond. I
know not if there be invisible threads by which the Present is
attached to the distant Past, making the descendant suffer even
for a distant ancestor, but I cannot forget that Maximilian was
derived from that very family of Charles the Fifth, whose
conquering general, Cortes, stretched the Indian Guatemozin upon a
bed of fire, and afterwards executed him on a tree. The death of
Maximilian was tardy retribution for the death of Guatemozin. And
thus in this world is wrong avenged, sometimes after many
generations. The fall of the French Emperor is an illustration of
that same retribution which is so constant. While he yet lives,
judgment has begun.
If I accumulate instances, it is because the certainty of
retribution for wrong, and especially for the great wrong of War,
is a lesson of the present duel to be impressed. Take notice, all
who would appeal to war, that the way of the transgressor is hard,
and sooner or later he is overtaken. The ban may fall tardily, but
it is sure to fall.
Retribution in another form has already visited France; nor is its
terrible vengeance yet spent. Not only are populous cities, all
throbbing with life and filled with innocent households, subjected
to siege, but to bombardment also,--being that most ruthless trial
of war, where non-combatants, including women and children, sick
and aged, share with the soldier his peculiar perils, and suffer
alike with him. All are equal before the hideous shell, crashing,
bursting, destroying, killing, and changing the fairest scene into
blood-spattered wreck. Against its vengeful, slaughterous descent
there is no protection for the people,--nothing but an uncertain
shelter in cellars, or, it may be, in the common sewers. Already
Strasbourg, Toul, and Metz have been called to endure this
indiscriminate massacre, where there is no distinction of persons;
and now the same fate is threatened to Paris the Beautiful, with
its thronging population counted by the million. Thus is the
ancient chalice which France handed to others now commended to her
own lips. It was France that first in history adopted this method
of war. Long ago, under Louis the Fourteenth, it became a
favorite; but it has not escaped the judgment of history.
Voltaire, with elegant pen, records that "this art, carried soon
among other nations, served only to multiply human calamities, and
more than once was dreadful to France, where it was invented."
[Footnote: Siecle de Louis XIV., Ch. XIV.: (Euvres, (edit. 1784-
89,) Tom. XX. p. 406.)
The bombardment of Luxembourg in 1683 drew from Sismondi, always
humane and refined, words applicable to recent events. "Louis the
Fourteenth," he says, "had been the first to put in practice this
atrocious and newly invented method of bombarding towns,....of
attacking, not fortifications, but private houses, not soldiers,
but peaceable inhabitants, women and children, and of confounding
thousands of private crimes, each one of which would cause horror,
in one great public crime, one great disaster, which he regarded
as nothing more than one of the catastrophes of war." [Footnote:
Histoire des Francis, Tom. XXV. pp. 452-53.] Again is the saying
fulfilled, "All they that take the sword shall perish with the
sword." No lapse of time can avert the inexorable law. Macbeth saw
it in his terrible imaginings, when he said,--
"But in those cases
We still have judgment here,--that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor."
And what instruction more bloody than the bombardment of a city,
which now returns to plague the French people?
Thus is history something more even than philosophy teaching by
example; it is sermon with argument and exhortation. The simple
record of nations preaches; and whether you regard reason or the
affections, it is the same. If nations were wise or humane, they
would not fight.