addressed by Napoleon when he made his hurried visit to the Congress of Rastatt, the phantom Congress with tragic sequel; and Martens is one of the earliest of the publicists who could disentangle truth from exaggerations and phantasies in the claims of might and conquerors, as far as truth is seen in the working of its way through the accomplished fact, if it give not the lie to reason in a manner too point-blank for rational beings.
The character and scope of Martens' book are very well shown in the general plan of the work as it was stated by him in the Preface to the first edition. It was necessary to take a view of the different nations of which Europe is composed. He examines the question how far and in what light they may be regarded as parts of a whole, and this question could not be determined without considering the effect of a diversity of dignity, power, constitution, and religion. This inquiry he looked upon as the natural starting-point for an understanding of the laws (droits) which custom and treaties have established in Europe, and it forms the subject-matter of the first book of his treatise. Any student of constitutions and politics could to-day append his notes of acquired knowledge and his mental reservations to these preliminary, yet essential, disquisitions. But they are usually practical, terse, and pointed, like these few words on democracies"
'Dans les États purement démocratiques, le peuple, en réunissant en ses mains les trois pouvoirs,[1] est despote; il peut plus que le monarque le plus absolu; il peut annuler sa constitution; et le pouvoir le plus arbitraire exercé sur ses membres se couvre du voile de la volonté de tous.'[2]
His special subject is the positive law of nations—the whole of the rights and obligations actually established between nations. What has become a law in the intercourse of two or three or even the majority of the Powers of Europe, whether
