ABRAHAM LINCOLN. , 161 



France. The career of the latter may be more pictur- 

 esque, as that of a daring captain always is ; but in all 

 its vicissitudes there is nothing more romantic than that 

 sudden change, as by a rub of Aladdin's lamp, fi-om the 

 attorney's office in a country town of Illinois to the helm 

 of a great nation in times like these. The analogy 

 between the characters and circumstances of the two 

 men is in many respects singularly close. Succeeding to 

 a rebellion rather than a crown, Henry's chief material 

 dependence was the Huguenot party, whose doctrines 

 sat upon him with a looseness distasteful certainly, if 

 not suspicious, to the more fanatical among them. King 

 only in name over the greater part of France, and with 

 his capital barred against him, it yet gradually became 

 clear to the more far-seeing even of the Catholic party 

 that he was the only centre of order and legitimate 

 authority round which France could reorgtuiize itself. 

 While preachers who held the divine right of kings made 

 the churches of Paris ring with declamations in favor of 

 democracy rather than submit to the heretic dog of a 

 Bearnois, — much as our soi-disant Democrats have 

 lately been preaching the divine right of slaveiy, and 

 denouncing the heresies of the Declai'ation of Indepen- 

 dence, — Henry bore both parties in hand till he was 

 convinced that only one course of action coidd possibly 

 combine his own interests and those of France. Mean- 

 while the Protestants believed somewhat doubtfully that 

 he was theirs, the Catholics hoped somewhat doubtfully 

 that he would be theirs, and Henry himself turned aside 

 remonstrance, advice, and curiosity alike with a jest 

 or a proverb (if a little Mrfh, he liked them none the 

 worse), joking continually as his manner was. We have 

 seen IMr. Lincoln contemptuously compared to Sancho 

 Panza by pei*sons incapable of appreciating one of the 

 deepest pieces of wisdom in the profoundest romance 



