and his successor directed against the
Dutch: the latter were the champions of liberty; but the opponents of
the Spanish Hapsburgs even in that war can hardly be called the people.
They were--at least the animating and inspiriting portion of them--the
old Dutch municipal aristocracy, who on most occasions were well
supported by the people. Down to a time within living memory, the German
Hapsburgs contended only against their equals in blood and birth, if not
always in power. In 1792 a new age began. The armies of Revolutionary
France were even more democratic than our own in the Secession war, and
not even Napoleon's imperializing and demoralizing course could entirely
change their character. Democracy and aristocracy, each all armed, were
fairly pitted against each other, in that long list of actions which
began at Jemappes and terminated at Solferino. The Austrian army, like
the Austrian government, is the most aristocratic institution of the
kind in the world, and as such it was well ranged against the French
army, the only great armed democratic force Europe had ever seen till
the present year. Democracy had the better in most of the engagements
that took place, though it had ever to fight hard for it, the Austrians
rarely behaving otherwise than well in war.
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