734 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



them into the Seine. All these predictions, save the last, have been 

 fulfilled to the letter, and it would need a bolder prophet than even 

 Heine himself to say that the last will not be verified also. For 

 nothing is more remarkable in France than the success with which the 

 International is teaching the artisans that the first as well as the third 

 Napoleon was the worst enemy of their class. Although they still 

 regard his achievements with pride, they fervently believe that he was 

 the foe of their order, and the acts of the Commune showed their 

 eagerness to insult his name. And there may be another Commune. 

 Intrepid prophets would say that there certainly will be another. If 

 that should happen, it is quite possible that the fanatics of the In- 

 ternational may fling the ashes of the great soldier into the Seine to 

 mark their abhorrence of military glory. 



Prevost-Paradol was as different from Heine as a gifted voluptuary 

 can be from a polished, fastidious, and decorous gentleman. Yet the 

 refined, reserved, satirical Orleanist, who seemed to be uncomfortable 

 when his hands were not encased in kid gloves, and who was a mas- 

 ter of all the literary resources of innuendo, would be as much out of 

 place among the Hebrew prophets as Heine himself. He would find 

 a place, nevertheless, in " Secular Prophecy fulfilled," by reason of 

 the startling exactness with which he foretold the outbreak of the 

 war between his own country and Germany. In a passage which 

 promises to become classic, he said that the two nations were like 

 two trains which, starting from opposite points, and placed on the 

 same line of rails, were driven toward each other at full speed. 

 There must be a collision. The only doubt was, where it would 

 happen, and when, and with what results. De Tocqueville better 

 fulfilled the traditionary idea of a prophet, and there is a startling 

 accuracy in some of the predictions as to the future of France which 

 he flung forth in talking with his friends, and of which we find a 

 partial record in the journal of Mr. Nassau Senior. Eighteen years 

 before the fall of the empire, he predicted that it would wreck itself 

 " in some extravagant foreign enterprise." " War," he added, " would 

 assuredly be its death, but its death would perhaps cost dear." M. 

 Renan also aspires to a place among the prophets, and he has made 

 a prediction which may be a subject of some curiosity when the next 

 pope shall be elected. The Church of Rome will not, he says, be 

 split up by disputes about doctrine. But he does look for a schism, 

 and it will come, he thinks, when some papal election shall be deemed 

 invalid ; when there shall be two competing pontiffs, and Europe 

 shall see a renewal of the strife between Rome and Avignon. 



It may be said, no doubt, that the verified predictions which we 

 have cited are only stray hits ; that the oracles make still more re- 

 markable misses ; and that, since guesses about the future are shot off 

 every hour of the day, it would be a marvel if the bull's-eye were not 

 struck sometimes. Such a theory might suffice to account for the hits, 



