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 Library 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028282550 
 
THE RISE OF LOUIS NAPOLEON 
 

 aJ}oLeon, ^2Jona/nartc 
 
 aft^^^ a- drawing 6y 't4ewo:rt 
 
THE RISE 
 
 OF 
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON 
 
 BY 
 
 F. A. SIMPSON 
 
 WITH UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS 
 AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 1909 
 
 
GATMAZAS BASIAETSBI. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Of the two great French historians of the Second 
 Empire, OUivier devotes one chapter to the story of 
 Louis Napoleon's life before 1848, while La Gorce 
 is content to introduce his hero in less ceremonious 
 fashion; his four-page summary would hardly be 
 an adequate, even if it were altogether an accurate, 
 account of forty years of a life singularly crowded 
 with incident and interest. Ordinarily, the his- 
 torian might well plead that it is in no way 
 incumbent on him to preface his history of any 
 reign with a biography of the monarch up to the 
 time of his accession. Indeed such a task would 
 usually appear strangely unprofitable. The record 
 of a royal upbringing must always in the telling of 
 it seem to lack the elements of emulation and com- 
 petition, the slight achievements and distinctions, 
 which redeem from utter dullness the narrative of 
 an orthodox education. Nor would there be any 
 very apparent interest in the early career of one 
 who from his position must share the limita- 
 tions of royalty, while debarred from truly regal 
 activities. For while hardly any man has a larger 
 opportunity of expressing what is in him than the 
 
 vii 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 modern king, hardly any man has less opportunity 
 for so doing than the modern prince. In fact, of 
 the ordinary modern monarch it would hardly be 
 too much to say that from his accession to the 
 throne dates not only the history of his reign, but 
 the history of his life. 
 
 But Louis Napoleon was not an ordinary 
 modern monarch; in the phrase of Elizabeth 
 Barrett Browning, he was no ' common king-born 
 king.' Before his accession to power he was 
 not merely a prince, but a pretender. And for 
 this reason his career demands exceptional treat- 
 ment. For when the king owes his crown 
 in great part to his own prolonged exertions, 
 then indeed his accession is preceded by a very 
 essential portion of his life. And when, further, the 
 exertions which have brought him to the throne 
 have so affected his character as to have a pro- 
 found and abiding influence on his conduct of 
 affairs as king, then some acquaintance with 
 these early adventm-es becomes a necessary prelim- 
 inary to the right understanding not merely of his 
 life, but of his reign. To those, then, who would 
 study the history of the Second Empire, I offer this 
 book without further apology. I venture also to 
 hope that the larger band, which is more generally 
 or more vaguely interested in Napoleonic literature, 
 may find in it an account in some ways more 
 adequate than any yet existing in this language, of 
 the process by which the gulf between the two 
 great Napoleonic experiments was bridged. 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 There remains a third class of reader — possibly 
 not the smallest of the three — to whom an account 
 of the early career of Louis Napoleon may con- 
 ceivably be of interest. To many the adventures 
 of a pretender possess a certain romantic interest 
 all their own. The bearer of a great name, fallen 
 on evil days, who dauntlessly and desperately 
 endeavours to win his way back to the throne of 
 his ancestors — such a man may not amount to much 
 in his own generation, but he is assured of a 
 certain sympathetic attention at the hands of 
 posterity. Now Louis Napoleon was almost the 
 ideal pretender. Other exiled princes have been 
 restored : foreign pressure, native enthusiasm, or 
 the intervention of some king-maker have replaced 
 or recalled the descendants of other fallen dynasties. 
 On occasion, brute force has won back for the son 
 what brute force had taken away from the father. 
 But of hardly any other pretender in history can 
 it be maintained that by the persistent parade of 
 his claims, by the incessant exploitation of his 
 name, by the sheer importunity of his suit, he 
 himself succeeded in inducing his countrymen to 
 confide to his hands the dominion of which his 
 dynasty had been deprived. And it is here, 
 perhaps, that a word of apology is due to those 
 who make a study of pretenders. Just because 
 Louis Napoleon was an ideal pretender, his career 
 was not quite typical of the ordinary pretender's 
 career; for while they all eventually failed, he 
 alone eventually succeeded. But if the connoisseur 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 will pardon this one irregularity, if he will forgive 
 Louis Napoleon for failing to fail, then we can 
 undertake that in no other feature of his profession 
 will he be found wanting. A royal birth, a princely 
 heritage, an imperial name ; a king for his father, 
 queens for his nursing mothers, a cardinal to 
 christen him, emperor and empress to stand his 
 sponsors; early exile, puerile persecution, youth- 
 ful wanderings in search of a home; headstrong 
 resolutions, reckless invasions, miraculous escapes, 
 transportation, imprisonments, flights in disguise : 
 these for circumstances, and for central figure a 
 dreamer, an adventurer, a conspirator, a suspect 
 in his teens, a rebel in arms while still a beardless 
 boy, thrice the leader of forlorn hopes whence no 
 ordinary man had once escaped with his life- — if we 
 have not here the stock-in-trade of a pretender, we 
 confess we should despair of any further quest 
 of him. 
 
 It is this aspect of the incidents here narrated 
 which must be the author's excuse for thus present- 
 ing them in separate and independent form. For 
 though it is to the momentous consequences which 
 flowed from them that the events recounted in this 
 volume owe their importance to the historian, 
 yet it is not to these, or to anything outside 
 themselves, that they are indebted for their great 
 intrinsic interest. Nor do they lack a suffi- 
 cient artistic completeness as they stand; for 
 they form not the first act in a tragedy, but 
 the first drama of a trilogy. Or, more properly 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 — since the early portion, at any rate, of Louis 
 Napoleon's career was epic rather than dramatic — 
 they compose the Odyssey of a man who on his 
 home-coming had still an Achilleid in front of him. 
 Louis Napoleon was not the only man who had 
 laid on him that double task ; nor was he the only 
 man who emerged triumphantly from the first, only 
 to perish miserably in the second. But it may 
 safely be said that no man in the first half of his 
 career attained so striking a triumph by the road of 
 such dismal failure, and in the latter portion of his 
 life prefaced such overwhelming disaster by so 
 brilliant a promise of success. 
 
 A word is necessary in conclusion with' regard 
 to the sources drawn upon for this volume, and the 
 method adopted in employing them. Although I 
 have generally attempted to trace every question- 
 able fact back to its first printed source, and though 
 in case of conflicting evidence I have always 
 endeavoured to give the better attested statement 
 its due, yet I have purposely refrained as far as 
 possible from footnote reference to published 
 authorities. Such references, to be used consis- 
 tently, must often have been half a dozen deep to 
 the page — a parade of industry which might have 
 been more distracting to the reader than helpful to 
 the student. The latter will, I hope, find in the 
 fairly full bibliographical appendix a suflBcient 
 indication of the printed sources of information. 
 Since no bibliography of the subject treated in this 
 volume is yet in existence, I have endeavoured to 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 give some indication of the relative value and 
 importance of the authorities enumerated. By this 
 disposition of it, such information will at least be 
 inoffensive to those to whom it is useless : easily 
 accessible to the explorer, it yet will not obtrude 
 itself on the wayfarer. Doubtless no appendix of 
 this kind can ever quite take the place of 
 systematic marginal reference; but I trust that 
 an arrangement, which certainly does not lack 
 some compensation of convenience, may in this 
 case have entailed no very appreciable sacrifice 
 of scholarship. 
 
 Marginal reference has, however, been consis- 
 tently employed in the citation of impublished 
 authorities. For here, if nowhere else, reference to 
 chapter and verse is indispensable. The writer 
 who claims for his work that it is based on research, 
 claims in effect that he has made some contribution 
 to the available information on a certain period- — 
 either by bringing to light facts or details not yet 
 known at all, or at least by confirming what was 
 before conjectural, by disproving what hitherto 
 could only be denied. But unless he inform his 
 readers what are the exact points on which his 
 labours have shed light, and what is the exact 
 source from which that light is derived, he makes 
 it impossible for his successors either to identify 
 or to verify his results. 
 
 The French Government does not yet permit 
 the examination of any judicial documents in its 
 possession relating to the Strasburg and Boulogne 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 affairs. However, the surviving documents are 
 probably of no great value. Not that the grapes 
 are sour, but the best of them have almost certainly 
 been plucked long ago. Within a week of his 
 election to the Presidency, Louis Napoleon wrote 
 to M. de Malleville, his Minister of the Interior, 
 demanding the dossiers of both the Strasburg and 
 the Boulogne affairs. The fact that, in order to obtain 
 them, the President was ready to face a ministerial 
 crisis at the very outset of his term of ofiice, suggests 
 that those dossiers contained, or might be expected 
 to contain, important information which the Orlean- 
 ist Government had not allowed to come to light ; 
 but as Louis Napoleon's anxiety to obtain the 
 papers was doubtless due to a desire to destroy 
 all portions of them which might compromise his 
 friends, this is a testimony to the past rather than 
 to the present value of the documents. 
 
 The English Government, however, does under 
 certain restrictions allow the examination of the 
 diplomatic correspondence of its agents dm-ing this 
 period. I am indebted to Lord Fitzmaurice, recent 
 Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, for permission 
 to examine the English Foreign Office correspond- 
 ence for the entire period covered in this volume, 
 and also for the privilege of access to despatches 
 sent to and from the British Embassy in Paris, 
 during a considerable portion of Louis Napoleon's 
 actual rule. The documents utilised for this volume 
 consist of correspondence between the Foreign Office 
 and the British Embassy in Paris, reports from 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 English Consuls in France, and despatches from the 
 British legations in Switzeriand, Tuscany, and the 
 other states through which Louis Napoleon 
 wandered during his long exile. In this connexion 
 I have to thank Mr Hubert Hall, of the Record 
 Office, for much courtesy and kindness. 
 
 The few unpublished letters of Louis Napoleon 
 quoted in this volume are contained in various 
 collections in the Additional MSS. department of 
 the British Museum : by permission of the curators, 
 one of these letters has been reproduced in facsimile. 
 For a similar permission, in the case of docu- 
 ments preserved among the Municipal Archives of 
 Geneva, I am indebted to the Conseil Administratif 
 of that city. 
 
 Several friends have helped me by their revision 
 of my proof-sheets : I would thank especially the 
 Rev. R. B. Rackham and Dr Neville Figgis. 
 
 In conclusion, I wish to express my gratitude to 
 the Fellows of Queen's College, Oxford, to whom 
 I owe a post-graduate year spent in collecting 
 material for this work; in particular, I have to 
 thank Mr E. Armstrong, for reading part of the 
 MS. of this volume. 
 
 London, 1909. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BIRTH OF THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND 
 
 Europe in 1814. Apparent prostration of tHe Napoleonic cause. 
 Weakness of Napoleon's hold in France. Surprise caused 
 by his raid in 1815. True character of his triumph in that 
 year. Importance of 'The Hundred Days.' How the 
 return from Elba deceived France and Europe. Altered 
 attitude of the allies towards France, and of France 
 towards Napoleon. How the Napoleonic Legend benefited 
 (a) by Napoleon's initial success, (b) by his ultimate failure 
 in 1815. Constructive work of Napoleon at St Helena. 
 Reasons for the extraordinary success of his appeal 
 for his dynasty. (1) St Helena an ideal stage for 
 Napoleon. (2) His audience a curiously credulous one. 
 Character of the age which followed Napoleon's fall. A 
 period of bathos. Generous illusions of the European 
 Liberals. Triumph of Metternich and of the Reaction. 
 The Liberals seek solace in the past, and eagerly accept 
 Napoleon as an ally. (3) Napoleon a consummate actor. 
 His skill in recognising his r61e. Example of his method 
 at St Helena. He rewrites his own history. His achieve- 
 ment illustrated by a comparison of the successful legend 
 of the Prisoner of St Helena and the failure of the legend 
 attempted by the Prisoner of the Vatican. The heritage left 
 by Napoleon, Its transcendental character. Requisites 
 in claimant. Enormous difficulty of the task before him . 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BIRTH OF LOUIS NAPOLEON 
 
 Birth of Louis Napoleon. Reception of the news by Napoleon, 
 and by Josephine. Character of King Louis of Holland. 
 His career. Character of Queen Hortense. Causes of the 
 
xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 separation of Louis and Hortense. Josephine's divorce. 
 State christening of Louis Napoleon. Birth of the King 
 of Eome, and of the future Due de Morny. Parentage of 
 Louis Napoleon. Fall of the Empire. Death of Josephine. 
 Hortense and the allies. The return of Napoleon. The 
 Hundred Days. Story of Napoleon's farewell to his 
 nephew ......•■ 
 
 20 
 
 OHAPTEE III 
 
 EXILE AND EDUCATION 
 
 Banishment of Hortense and her children. Incidents of their 
 flight. Dijon. Savoy. Parting of Louis and his brother. 
 Persecution of the exiles by the allies. Hortense seeks 
 refuge in Baden, and in Bavaria. Purchase of Arenenberg. 
 Anxiety of the Great Powers. Hortense finally settles in 
 Switzerland. Louis Napoleon's tutors. The Abbe 
 Bertrand. Philip Lebas. Lebas' scheme of education. 
 Louis' first communion. Death of Napoleon. Inter- 
 rupted studies. Lebas dismissed. Faults of Louis 
 Napoleon's education. Anecdotes of his boyhood. Gain 
 in physical strength ; military and athletic accomplish- 
 ments. Camp at Thun. King Louis' refusal to allow 
 Louis to serve in the Russo-Turkish war. Wisdom of his 
 refusal shown by the fate of the Prince Imperial. The 
 July Revolution. Contrast between Louis XVIII and 
 Charles X. Aggressive foreign policy of the latter : pro- 
 posed redivision of Europe in September 1829. Unex- 
 pected result of the July days. Attempt to justify the 
 election of Louis Philippe by the precedent of the Whig 
 Revolution of 1688. A consideration of this parallel — its 
 apparent cogency ; its real weakness. Nothing in England 
 corresponding to the Napoleonic Legend. Manifestation 
 of Bonaparte feeling in Paris in 1830. Inaction of the 
 Bonaparte family. Louis Napoleon sets out for Italy . 34 
 
 CHAPTEE IV 
 
 THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO DELIVER ITALY 
 
 Arrival in Rome. Italy in 1830. Death of Pius "VTH. To the 
 Italian Nationalists Napoleon a sympathetic figure. Italian 
 unrest and Bonaparte ambition. Family conclave. Was 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS ivii 
 
 Louis Napoleon a Carbonaro ! His expulsion from Eome. 
 Revolt of Bologna. Hortense fails to dissuade her sons 
 from joining the rebels. Enthusiastic reception of the 
 princes. Initial successes. Intervention of Austria. The 
 princes deprived of their commands. Danger of their 
 position. Hortense to the rescue. Death of Prince 
 Napoleon. Illness of Louis. Escape in disguise from 
 Ancona. The Tuscan frontier crossed. Camoscia. Danger 
 of discovery. Siena. The refugees reach the French 
 frontier. Character of this Italian episode. Two import- 
 ant consequences — (1) Louis Napoleon becomes the head of 
 his house ; (2) Napoleon Ill's intervention on behalf of 
 Italy in 1859 ....... 62 
 
 CHAPTEE V 
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON A POLITICAL APPRENTICE 
 
 Arrival in Paris. Louis Philippe and Hortense. Convenient 
 illness of Prince Louis. Suspicions of the king. The 
 Vend6me Column celebrations. Departure to England. 
 Talleyrand's inquiries. Eetum to Arenenberg. The Polish 
 deputation • reasons for Louis' refusal. First literary 
 activities of the prince ; the appeal already a personal one. 
 Reveries Politigites, 1832. Death of the Due de Reichstadt. 
 Considerations sur la Suisse, 1833. Mamtel d'Artillerie, 
 1834. Character of these writings. Method and object of 
 their distribution. True estimate by the prince of his own 
 position. Denial of reported engagement to the Queen of 
 Portugal. Qualifications of the Pretender. Alleged matri- 
 monial designs. Engagement to the Princess Mathilde. 
 Louis Napoleon determines to attempt an invasion of 
 France. Contrast between his attitude and that of the 
 other Bonapartes. Meeting with Persigny. The pre- 
 liminaries of Strasburg . . . . .79 
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 THE FIRST CLAIM TO THE INHERITANCE 
 
 Report of the Strasburg insurrection reaches Paris. Alarm at 
 the Tuileries. Relief at the news of its failure. Affected 
 contempt of the rising. This contempt neither genuine nor 
 justified. Preparations for the revolt. Louis Napoleon at 
 
 b 
 
xviii TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Baden-Baden. Adhesion of Lieutenant Laity an^ °^ 
 Colonel Vaudrey. Attitude of General Voirol and of tne 
 body of officers at Strasburg. Louis' farewell to ins 
 mother. Arrival at Strasburg. Meeting of the con- 
 spirators on October 29. Change of date and plan- 
 Eeasons for these changes. How far they affected tn^ 
 result of the rising. Disposition of the regiments ot tne 
 garrison. An anxious night. October 30th. The prince 
 at the Austerlitz Barracks. His speech ; the 4tb ^rtilW 
 join him to a man. Various measures of the reoe . 
 Interview with General Voirol; his ineffectual arrest^ 
 Enthusiasm of the populace. Apparent Probability or 
 success. The fatal error. Mistaken route to the 4t)tn 
 Infantry. The Finkmatt Barracks. Crisis of the day. 
 Cleverness of Colonel Tallandier disarms the prmce. 
 Collapse of the rising. Arrest of Louis Napoleon. 
 Surrender of Vaudrey, and end of the revolt. The 
 Government decide not to try the prince. Eeason of 
 their clemency. Alleged promise of the prince to remam 
 in America. This story disproved. The prince at Pans. 
 On the Andromede. Journey to the United States vid 
 Brazil. A consideration of Louis Napoleon's conduct in 
 connexion with the rising of Strasburg. His character. 
 Kesults of the failure. Loss and gain. The engagement 
 to Mathilde broken off. Beginning of Louis Napoleon's 
 career as a pretender. Triumphant acquittal of his 
 accomplices at Strasburg. Landing in the New World . 101 
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON A POLITICAL PEETENDEB 
 
 Arrival in America. Louis Napoleon disowned by his relatives, 
 but warmly welcomed in New York. The prince's impres- 
 sions of America. Proposed tour of the States abandoned. 
 News of his mother's illness. Eeturn to Europe. Journey 
 to Arenenberg. Death of Hortense. Her character ; 
 influence of her training on her son. Annoyance of the 
 French Government at the prince's return to Europe. 
 Informal attempts to procure his expulsion from Switzer- 
 land. The Laity pamphlet. Drastic action by French 
 Government. Imprisonment of Laity. Demand for 
 prince's expulsion. Switzerland's unwillingness to comply. 
 Advantages and difficulties of Louis Napoleon's position. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS xix 
 
 ^ PAGE 
 
 His understanding with the Swiss war party. ' Voluntary ' 
 withdrawal to England. Complete discomfiture of the 
 French Government. Cordial reception by English society. 
 Life in London. Disraeli's description. Social activities. 
 Political propaganda. Publication of the Idies NapoUoni- 
 ennes and of the Lett/res de Londres. An invitation to 
 dinner ........ 132 
 
 GHAPTEE VIII 
 
 THE SECOND CLAIM TO THE INHEKITANCE 
 
 Eeasons which induced Louis Napoleon to repeat his appeal. 
 His own convictions. The return of the Emperor's body. 
 Isolation of France, and discredit of Louis Philippe, in the 
 Eastern Question. Preparations for the descent. Attitude 
 of General Magnan. Adhesion of Lieutenant Aladenize. 
 Choice of landing place. Hire of Mdinburgh Castle, 
 August 4. The departure of the expedition. The crossing. 
 Character of the ezpeditionaries. Landing at Wimereux. 
 The Customs officials. Preliminary checks. Arrival at 
 barracks of the 42nd. The appeal. The fatal omission. 
 Arrival of Captain Puygelier. The retreat to the upper 
 town. Final rally and flight. Scene on the beach. 
 Arrest of fugitives. Louis Napoleon sent to Ham, thence 
 to Paris. Hi a ceU. at the Conciergerie. Protest of his 
 father. Louis Philippe visits Boulogne. He decides to 
 try the prisoners before the Court of Peers. Utter collapse 
 of all Louis Napoleon's prospects at the time. His 
 preparations for the trial. The trial. The prince's speech. 
 Behaviour of the prisoners, and of General Magnan. 
 Berryer's oration. The verdict. Louis Napoleon sentenced 
 to perpetual imprisonment ..... 167 
 
 CHAPTEK IX 
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 The fortress of Ham. The prisoner's rooms. Precautions 
 against escape. Louis Napoleon's behaviour. His varied 
 activities. Fragments historiques. Complaint to Govern- 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ment. Its result. Projected life of Charlemagne. The 
 'Beet Sugar Question.' Articles in Republican press. 
 Relations with Republican Opposition. The extinction of 
 pauperism. Divers advertisements. Reply to Lamartine. 
 Memoir of King Joseph. Electrical experiments. The 
 prince's visitors. M. Acar. ' La Belle Saboti^re.' Louis 
 Blanc. Henry Wikoff. Effects of imprisonment on the 
 prisoner's spirits and health. His correspondence. Work 
 on the History of Artillery. Arrangements for its 
 publication. First negotiations for release. Lord Malmes- 
 bury's visit. Intervention of King Louis. Was it spon- 
 taneous? Its effects. Difficulty of the position for Louis 
 Philippe. Skill of Louis Napoleon in handling the 
 negotiations. Their failure. Sympathy expressed for the 
 prince in consequence. Good and ill effects of this imprison- 
 ment on his future career . . . • .196 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON KEGAINS HIS LIBEBTT 
 
 Extraordinary character of Louis Napoleon's adventures. 
 Preparations for departure from Ham. The financial 
 question. State of Louis' resources at this time. Orsi's 
 interview with the Duke of Brunswick. The loan and the 
 alliance. Louis' treatment of the Duke. Preparations 
 for flight. The disguise. The escape. Safe journey to 
 England. Dr Conneau's deception of the governor. 
 Detection and punishment. Friendly reception of the 
 prince in England. Letter to French ambassador. Efforts 
 to obtain passports. Failure of Louis to visit his 
 father. Death of King Louis. PubUcation of Le Passd 
 et I'Avenir de VArtillerie. Its comparative failure. The 
 prince's health. His visit to Bath. Meets Prince Napoleon. 
 His impressions of his cousin. Letter to M. Capefigue. 
 Lodging in King Street. Financial affairs. Apparent 
 indifference to politics in 1847. His amusements. Matri- 
 monial designs. The Nicaraguan Canal. Origin, progress, 
 and failure of the scheme. Was it intended seriously? 
 Its consequences in Louis Napoleon's later life. Louis 
 Napoleon and the Times ; sign of his real regard for his 
 political future. Burial of King Louis at St Leu. Louis 
 Napoleon's letter ; a typical pronouncement . . 235 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS xxi 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON BEGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Apparent strengtli of the July Monarchy in 1847. A retro- 
 spect. The crisis of 1840. Guizot's administration. 
 Strength and weakness of his rule. Cause of his fall. 
 The Reform banquets. The February days. Weakness 
 of the tking's action ; his abdication. How the Second 
 Republic came into existence. Formation of Provisional 
 Government ; its first actions. Louis Napoleon hastens to 
 Paris, but retires to London. Refuses to stand for the 
 National Convention. Letter to Times. Apparent reserve. 
 His last act as an exUe ; Louis Napoleon a special constable. 
 Wisdom of this act. Disappointment of Socialists at 
 elections. Rising on May 18th. Feebleness of Government. 
 The national workshops. Progress of the evU. Proposed 
 repeal of law of exUe. Supplementary elections of June 
 4th ; four departments elect Louis. Panic of the Govern- 
 ment. Bonapartist activities. Alarmist rumours. Pro- 
 posals to arrest Louis on landing. Critical debates in the 
 Assembly, June 12-16. Louis resigns his seat — ^victorious 
 in his first encounter with the Assembly. The June war. 
 Weakness of Government. Cavaignac's dictatorship. The 
 reaction. Cavaignac fails to maintain his position. Louis' 
 reserve. Resigns seat for Corsica. Announces candidature 
 for September 17. Startling result ; election by five de- 
 partments. Arrival in Paris ..... 267 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 AFTEE MANY DAYS 
 
 The Republican Constitution. Method of President's election. 
 Intervention of Lamartine. Its motives and results. 
 Triumph of universal suffrage. Reserve of Louis Napoleon. 
 His silence in the Chamber. His answer to attacks. 
 Inauguration of the Constitution. November 4th. The 
 contest for the Presidency. Strength and weakness of 
 Cavaignac's position. The sources of Louis Napoleon's 
 success. Influence of his name. Importance of his early 
 
xxii TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 career shown by contrast between his position and that of 
 his cousins. This influence of hia past career on his success 
 in 1848 insufficiently recognised. The anti-Eepublican 
 spirit of the country. Some reflections on this fact. 
 Normanby's despatches on this point. Cavaignac's own 
 admission. Methods of the two candidates. The election, 
 December 10th. Triumph of Louis Napoleon. Installed 
 as President. The outstanding feature in his past 
 success. Letter to Vieillard, June 1842. His prospects 
 for the future in the light of his past . . . 296 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 Some Eaely Lettees op Louis Napoleon . . .331 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 BiBLIOGEAPHY ...... 354 
 
 Index ■ . . . 373 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Louis Napoleon in 1836, cetat. 28 . Photogravwre frontispiece 
 
 Facsimile of Letter from Louis Napoleon to 
 
 General Sir Kobert Wilson in 1836 . To face page 92, 93 
 
 Facsimile of Louis Napoleon's Proclamation to 
 
 the Inhabitants of Fas-de-Calais in 1840 . „ 172 
 
 Porte de Calais, Boulogne ... „ 182 
 
 Louis Napoleon's Prison at Boulogne . . „ 184 
 
 La Grosse Tour, Ham .... „ 198 
 
 Facsimile of Opening Clauses of Louis 
 Napoleon's Draft for Treaty of Alliance 
 with the Duke of Brunswick . . „ 238 
 
 Louis Napoleon's Prison at Ham . . „ 248 
 
 Facsimile of Smith's Attested Copy of Louis 
 Napoleon's Draft for Treaty with the 
 Duke of Brunswick ... „ 368, 369 
 
 xxili 
 
THE RISE OF LOUIS NAPOLEON 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BIRTH OF THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND 
 
 {Introductory. 1814-1848.) 
 
 Me causae eventorum magis movent quam ipsa eventa. 
 
 CiCEEO. 
 
 The close of the year 1814 saw what was to all 
 appearance the definite conclusion of an epoch 
 without parallel in the history of modern Europe. 
 Since the beginning of the century, that history had 
 been in effect the biography of one man. And 
 now at last the man had fallen, with every circum- 
 stance of finality. Neither Napoleon himself nor 
 any of his name or race was ever again to ascend 
 the throne of France. The representatives of the 
 ancient dynasties, in taking up once more the task 
 of governing Europe for themselves, had readily 
 and unanimously come to this decision. A little 
 less easily, with not quite such unbroken unanimity, 
 but still with perfect confidence that their decision 
 once reached would be conclusive and incontest- 
 able, they were now proceeding to the political 
 
2 THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND [oH. i. 
 
 reconstruction of Europe — in other words, to the 
 division of the spoils of victory. 
 
 A few months later the Congress of Vienna 
 was rudely reminded that the man after all was 
 not yet exhausted. The news of Napoleon's 
 return from Elba was received by the assembled 
 potentates with very pardonable surprise; for 
 never had his star seemed lower than at this 
 time. The final collapse of his power, in spite 
 of the brilliant winter campaign of 1814, had 
 been unexpectedly sudden. France had not 
 rallied to him in his dark days as she had to 
 Louis XIV two hundred years before. The truth 
 is that even in France, during the period of 
 his actual rule, Napoleon never enjoyed anything 
 approaching to the unanimous hero worship 
 of which he afterwards became the object. In 
 the year 1814 nothing had occurred to obscure 
 the magnitude and importance of the discontent 
 to which Napoleon's rule had given rise in 
 France itself. If later these discontents have 
 been generally unrecognised, or realised very 
 imperfectly, this may in part be due to the fact 
 that, while a vast literature has grown up round 
 the Napoleonic campaigns, the internal history of 
 France under the First Empire has to this day 
 hardly received its fair share of attention. But 
 chiefly it is owing to the impression produced by 
 Napoleon's striking and apparently overwhelming 
 success in the spring of 1815. In remembering 
 the triumphant march from Grenoble to Paris, it 
 
NAPOLEON'S OBVIOUS WEAKNESS IN 1814 3 
 
 is easy to forget that from large portions of 
 France ; Napoleon could count at no time on 
 more than a passive acquiescence in his rule ; 
 that towards the end of his reign he was, outside 
 the army and certain localities such as the 
 eastern provinces, positively unpopular, actively 
 disliked. Even the army seemed to have failed 
 him at the end. Indeed the solemn sanction, 
 with which Europe forbade any restoration of his 
 power, appeared for a moment almost unnecessary ; 
 for France seemed voluntarily to have abandoned 
 him. The restoration of the Bourbons had been 
 represented as the act of the French nation ; the 
 allies, and especially Alexander of Russia, posed 
 as liberators and not conquerors. France had 
 acquiesced in the restoration — without enthusiasm, 
 it is true, but without visible protest — and in 
 Paris itself there was show enough of popular 
 welcome to make the r&le of Louis and of the 
 allies not altogether incredible. There was no 
 great love for King Log, but the memories of 
 King Stork were too recent for his depredations 
 to be forgotten; and many, who did not pretend 
 to rejoice at the restoration of the Bourbons, were 
 yet unfeignedly relieved at the cessation of the 
 ceaseless drain of men and money which the later 
 and more fantastic of Napoleon's schemes had 
 imposed on them. There was moreover in France, 
 as in the rest of Europe, a sturdy and genuine 
 spirit of constitutional liberalism afloat; and at 
 this time France, like the rest of Europe, still 
 
4 THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND [CH. I. 
 
 regarded the overthrow of the Napoleonic despotism 
 as a preliminary to the attainment of some form 
 of self-government. Little wonder that the general 
 impression of the Congress of Vienna, on hearing 
 the first news of Napoleon's return, was one of 
 almost incredulous surprise ; when even Wellington, 
 who had but recently come to the congress from 
 Paris after some months' service as British 
 ambassador to the restored Bourbon court, could 
 only conclude that Napoleon 'had acted on false 
 or no information, and that the king would destroy 
 him without difficulty in a short time.' 
 
 This prophecy was signally falsified : but those 
 who regard it merely as a portentous blunder, 
 arguing a complete lack of insight into popular 
 feehng, misunderstand the true nature of Napoleon's 
 achievement in the spring of 1815. That achieve- 
 ment, dramatic and unprecedented as it was, was 
 the personal triumph of a great general whom 
 his troops hail as imperator even on the morning 
 after defeat, not the welcome of a sovereign whom 
 his longing subjects greet on his return as the 
 saviour of his country.^ The bourgeois population 
 for the most part stood aside in indifference or 
 in sullen silence. Napoleon might have found it 
 harder to maintain his seat on the French throne 
 
 ' This title was actually proposed for Napoleon by a member 
 of the newly assembled Chamber of Deputies (Felix LepeUetier), and 
 expressly negatived by an overwhelming majority of the assembly. 
 Nothing could be more significant of the true attitude of thoughtful 
 contemporary opinion in France towards the returned emperor than 
 the temper of the deputies as revealed in their debates during this 
 short session of June 1815. 
 
NAPOLEON'S APPARENl' STRENGTH IN 1815 5 
 
 than to win his way back to it, even had no foreign 
 hand been raised to pull him down. For when he 
 set forth on his last campaign, he left behind him 
 many who feared the consequences of his possible 
 success even more than those of his probable 
 failure. 
 
 But the ease with which he overran France on 
 his return from Elba deceived Europe then, as it 
 was to deceive France itself in the future ; and the 
 seeming change in the attitude of France towards 
 Napoleon brought with it a real change in the 
 attitude of Europe towards France. There could 
 be no illusion as to the method of the second 
 restoration of the Bom-bons. This time it was 
 frankly as part of the allies' baggage that they were 
 dumped down once more on the throne of their 
 ancestors. Thei powers were no longer, even by 
 courtesy, mere benevolent spectators. They had 
 imposed the Bourbons as they had imposed the 
 indemnity. And to France, looking back on the 
 event, acceptance of the Bourbon rule became a 
 sign of dependence. It was not Alexander who 
 was remembered as the liberator, but Napoleon 
 himself, whose last appearance on the scene 
 of practical politics had thus gained all the 
 tactical advantage of opposition to the powers 
 that be. 
 
 Contemporary observers were for the most part 
 quite unconscious of the great historical significance 
 of 'the hundred days.' To the majority of the 
 statesmen of the period the incidents which cul- 
 
6 THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND [CH. I. 
 
 minated in Waterloo appeared to form a brief 
 episode which delayed, without materially modify- 
 ing, the European settlement of 1815, Even the 
 historians of the following generation persisted in 
 regarding 'the hundred days' as a mere epilogue 
 to the great drama of the First Empire's fall, not 
 reaUsing that it was in point of fact a prologue to 
 the strange romance of the Second Empire's rise. 
 A similar attitude is revealed in the most interest- 
 ing EngUsh study of Napoleon's captivity at St 
 Helena. To Lord Rosebery that captivity is 
 ' The Last Phase,' and nothing more. But we 
 shall not rightly appreciate the importance of this 
 phase if we ignore the constructive work of 
 Napoleon diu'ing his captivity. For St Helena saw 
 not only the end of a great career, but the 
 beginning of a great creation ; it was the scene not 
 merely of the death of Napoleon, but of the birth of 
 the Napoleonic Legend. Indirectly, we have here 
 another and still more important result of 'the 
 hundred days.' Great service, as we have seen 
 already, was rendered to the Napoleonic tradition 
 by Napoleon's initial success in 1815 : a greater 
 benefit still was to result to it from the punishment 
 which befell him for his final failure. 
 
 At Elba, Napoleon's kingdom must have 
 remained limited to the small territory over which 
 he actually bore rule. So long as he remained 
 there, his horizon seemed to be completely bounded 
 by the narrow straits and shallow seas which swept 
 the few leagues of his island empire. There was 
 
LIMITATIONS OF ELBA 7 
 
 something almost toylike in the mimic court, the 
 petty sway in which 'the Emperor' — for he was 
 stUl suffered to retain the title — affected to take 
 such interest; as in some new Trianon, in which 
 the founder of the empire should imitate the 
 relaxation of the ancien regime, when the grandeur 
 of Versailles had grown oppressive. The whole 
 affair smacked too much of the pastoral play. At 
 best, the central figure could not be much more 
 than the exiled duke in the Forest of Arden. If 
 Napoleon had relinquished perforce the painted 
 pomp of Paris, he still affected a philosophic 
 preference for the soothing calm of Porto Ferrajo. 
 This was hardly the role on which to base a 
 vindication of his great past ; hardly in character 
 with a clamorous appeal for the future of his 
 family. Out of Elba could have come no dynastic 
 resurrection. 
 
 But on St Helena all was different. Unwit-' 
 tingly his victorious foes had presented their 
 captive with a singularly effective background for 
 the closing scene of his career. Posed on a solitary 
 rock, alone in mid- Atlantic, he could gather to 
 himself once more an empire world-wide and 
 universal. For Napoleon, to own little was to court 
 contempt ; to have nothing was to hold the world 
 in fee. Half a century later the bearer of another 
 great name ceased to rule over a petty Italian 
 principality. Here too an effort was made to turn 
 a small material loss into a great moral gain. But 
 the prisoner of the rock was a cleverer actor than 
 
8 THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND [CH. i. 
 
 the prisoner of the garden, and, it may be added, 
 was happier in his audience. For if Napoleon 
 was wiser in his generation than Pio Nono, it 
 must be admitted that he was also more fortunate 
 in it. 
 
 It is not easy for us to enter into the spirit of 
 that strange age which followed the Congress of 
 Vienna. Yet if we are to understand what came 
 after, it is essential that we should make the 
 attempt. Here was a generation which believed 
 itself to have witnessed one of the most tremendous 
 dramas in all history. It had seen nation after 
 nation go down before Napoleon; coalition after 
 coalition burst asunder and flung in fragmentary 
 confusion by the mere sweep of his great arm : an 
 arm whose strength seemed to grow greater as its 
 weight grew heavier with each successful defiance 
 of international law. To many the very idea of 
 successful opposition had come to appear an idle 
 dream. ' You may strain at your chains, but the 
 man will be too much for you.' This was all Goethe 
 had to say to the authors of the War of Liberation — 
 the sole comment of Germany's greatest mind on the 
 inception of Germany's greatest effort and greatest 
 achievement hitherto. Yet the chains were broken 
 and the man was fallen after all. Little wonder 
 that as before the event there had been many who 
 regarded it as beyond the power of human effort to 
 bring about, so after it there should be some who 
 saw in its unexpected accomplishment a direct 
 intervention of divine providence. Alike in the 
 
ILLUSIONS OF THE AGE 9 
 
 slow annihilation of the grand army on its retreat 
 from Moscow, and in the swift climax and sudden 
 catastrophe of the Waterloo campaign, was dis- 
 cerned the plain intervention of a God who ruled, 
 and did not merely reign. Nor was this all. Such 
 a reading of the past could not but affect men's 
 expectation for the future. Surely there was now 
 to be inaugurated that golden age of which the 
 older centuries had dreamed, for history might 
 grow dim indeed ere such another prologue could 
 be found for the millennium. Speculations such as 
 these, though far of course from universal, were 
 yet curiously prevalent ; it is not easy to peruse 
 the memoirs, the correspondence, the very jour- 
 nalism of the age without finding traces of them 
 — occurring occasionally in most unexpected 
 quarters. 
 
 Indeed for a brief moment it seemed as though 
 these vague aspirations might find some sort of 
 fulfilment. Two nations stood out at the close of 
 the Titanic struggle as Napoleon's victors by sea 
 and land. In their power it had been to demand 
 almost any return for their victory. Yet England 
 showed herself at the Congress of Vienna more 
 anxious to secure the abolition of the slave trade 
 than to obtain any adequate commercial or 
 territorial returns for the sacrifices of her long and 
 costly campaigns. And Eussia, as personified by 
 Alexander — ^for the Tsar at this time was the 
 absolute personification of his state — though far 
 from neglectful of such advantages, was engrossed 
 
10 THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND [oh. i. 
 
 with the idea of establishing a reign of universal 
 
 peace. The arbitrament of war was to give place 
 
 to the just award of a brotherhood of Christian 
 
 kings— who recognised 'that the Christian nation 
 
 of which they and their peoples form part has 
 
 really no other sovereign than the sole rightful 
 
 owner of all power ... our divine God and 
 
 Saviour Jesus Christ' ; and agreed 'to recommend 
 
 to their peoples the principles and duties He had 
 
 committed to mankind.' For some years, indeed, 
 
 Alexander not only set the example of liberal 
 
 reform in Poland, but threw the shield of his great 
 
 influence over the liberal movements of Spain and 
 
 Italy. Even in Prussia, Frederick William's edict 
 
 promising a constitution to his people seemed to 
 
 foreshow the fulfilment of the hopes which the war 
 
 of liberation had inspired. One alone of the great 
 
 powers was unmoved by any of the high and 
 
 generous hopes of the period : Austria dreamed no 
 
 dreams either of free nations or of free citizenship ; 
 
 Metternich saw no vision, but only vain visionaries 
 
 whose dangerous imaginings it must be his task to 
 
 dispel. To that task he set himself with but too 
 
 swift success. 
 
 The weak, well-meaning King of Prussia was 
 the first to succumb. A few hundred students met 
 at the Wartburg to celebrate a double anniversary 
 which appealed to Protestant and patriotic senti- 
 ment: at once Frederick William was convinced 
 that repression alone could save Prussia from revo- 
 lution. Alexander himself was the next to yield to 
 
ME'lTERNICH AND THE REACTION 11 
 
 the spell of Metternich, who played so dexterously 
 on the fears that his own cunning had created. 
 England under Castlereagh, and even Canning, 
 turned as it were its face to the wall, and in 
 contemplating the grinding hardships of its own 
 domestic lot — the result in great part of reac- 
 tion from the vast effort spent on the Napol- 
 eonic campaigns — had little pity and no help 
 to extend to the disappointed liberals of the 
 Continent. 
 
 Thus it was that throughout Europe those new 
 forces, whose uneasy stirrings kings had turned to 
 their ptu-pose, found themselves after a brief moment 
 of fitful expression once more voiceless and vent- 
 less. The Holy Alliance itself — that very band of 
 Christian princes which was to lead in a new reign 
 of enlightenment and peace — took after 1818 the 
 form of a definitely reactionary alliance of govern- 
 ments against the governed. Slowly on the newly 
 risen peoples, great with the consciousness of an 
 unprecedented achievement in the past, great with 
 high hopes of they knew not what vague splendour 
 for the future, settled the heavy pall of Metternich's 
 tyranny. And as one by one the lesser lights died 
 down beneath that dull extinguisher, men's eyes 
 turned slowly to the solitary beacon on the Atlantic 
 rock, and their hearts went out again to the man 
 alone on St Helena. 
 
 With such a stage and such an audience, a less 
 consummate actor than Napoleon might have been 
 successful. Mournfully over the ocean rolled the 
 
12 THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND [CH. i. 
 
 majestic utterances, the mild and beneficent medita- 
 tions of this latter-day Marcus Aurelius. The halo 
 of unbounded success was exchanged now for the 
 subtler glamour of unmerited failure. Fate and 
 the gods had decreed his fall at Waterloo : true ; 
 but he would show them that appeal was yet 
 possible to a higher judgment-court than theirs, 
 Cato might still prefer the beaten cause : and 
 never was appeal made to him more sonorous, 
 more insistent, or more successful. The second 
 Alexander had failed in his great scheme for the 
 foundation of a vast Oriental empire, wherein the 
 rejuvenated peoples of the East should sun them- 
 selves in the light of a more than Alexandrine 
 Hellenism. The latter-day Charlemagne had failed 
 in his majestic design for the federation of all 
 Western Europe in a higher harmony than it yet 
 had known. And Ea^ and West alike had reason 
 to lament that failure. 
 
 Such was the purport of the studied utterances 
 borne to Europe from St Helena ; and the liberals 
 of Europe received them gladly. They had been 
 mistaken, it seemed, in imagining that Napoleon's 
 overthrow would be their deliverance : might they 
 not also have been mistaken in supposing that his 
 triumph would have been their undoing? How 
 should they disbelieve his statement that his victory 
 would have been the victory of their own noble 
 hopes, when his defeat had proved their defeat, 
 when his very punishment was in a measure their 
 punishment ? The men against whom were directed 
 
DEUS FIO 13 
 
 irksome restrictions of the Carlsbad Decrees, and 
 the petty intrusions of the Mainz Commissioners, 
 could sympathise with the * victim ' of Sir Hudson 
 Lowe. For as such Napoleon was regarded by his 
 unsuspecting admirers. A new r61e was thus 
 opened to the great actor. Surely he too must have 
 had something of the divine fire in gift for man, 
 that he should thus be chained like a second 
 Prometheus to his rock. But not even the most 
 pathetic conception of all heathen mythology 
 seemed adequate to the promoters of the cult of 
 Napoleon. The French press freely compared his 
 suflferings to those of our Lord. No lesser 
 similitude would now suffice for one in whom ten 
 years earlier many had discerned the visible 
 incarnation of the Antichrist. The transition is 
 more amazing in appearance than in reality. For, 
 admitting the superhuman proportions of the 
 central figure, there could be no intermediate stage : 
 ceasing to be devilish. Napoleon straightway became 
 divine. And if we find the last comparison so 
 startling as to be offensive, we must remember 
 that fifty years later it was employed with even 
 greater freedom by la bonne presse, both in France 
 and out of it, when the attempt was being made to 
 launch on a less credulous age the legend of the 
 Prisoner of the Vatican. 
 
 The age on which the Napoleonic Legend was 
 sprung was, on the contrary, a curiously credulous 
 one. It was the age of a recurrence towards 
 mediaeval ideals in Eeligion, of a legitimatist 
 
14 THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND [CH. i. 
 
 restoration in Politics, of the Gothic revival in 
 Architecture, of the romantic reaction in Literature. 
 It was an age which, if it prided itself on any- 
 thing, was proud that it was not as its predecessor, 
 'an age of common sense.' And indeed it was 
 not ; for in general it was more anxious to avoid 
 the obvious than to attain the truth ; or, rather, it 
 was only willing to recognise the truth in the uncom- 
 mon, and too readily mistook anything uncommon for 
 the truth. In one respect, certainly, it was inferior 
 to its much despised predecessor. The age which 
 rewrote Shakespeare in its own more refined verse, 
 or introduced into Gothic masterpieces the amenities 
 of eighteenth century architecture — this age, what- 
 ever else it lacked, possessed a sturdy spirit of 
 self-reUance, a most hardy confidence in its own 
 enlightenment and good judgment. Now the 
 romantic reaction, whatever else it possessed, 
 sufiered from a morbid self-depreciation, an 
 excessive mistrust of its own powers. Politically 
 we may now look back on it if we will as a 
 period of respite, a space wherein an overwrought 
 Europe might take breath between the Napoleonic 
 wars and those which were involved in the great 
 national movements which lay before it. But to 
 the contemporary observer no such consolation was 
 forthcoming : to him the age could only appear a 
 period of bathos, a time of small men and little 
 things succeeding to one of great men and 
 tremendous events. So it was that a generation 
 curiously deficient in the historic sense was yet 
 
TRAILING CLOUDS OF OLORY 15 
 
 sincerely devoted to the study of history. From 
 the reahties of a not very glorious present, men 
 turned eagerly to the glories of a not very real past. 
 And of these, none was more glorious — or less 
 real — than the legendary Napoleon, 
 
 The actual Napoleon was not blind to the 
 advantages of his position, though he was careful 
 never wholly to admit them, even to his own 
 followers. 'Our situation here may even have 
 its attractions,' he remarked in one of those 
 studied confidences with which at times he 
 favoured his disciples at St Helena. 'If I had 
 died on the throne amid the clouds of my 
 omnipotence, I should have remained a problem 
 to many; to-day, thanks to my misfortune, they 
 can judge of me naked as I am.' This remark 
 has often been quoted as an admission of the 
 truth on Napoleon's part. It is indeed note- 
 worthy; not, however, as an admission, but as a 
 perversion of the truth. For it stands in precise 
 contradiction to the fact. The clouds which 
 obscured men's judgment of Napoleon were due 
 to the greatness, not of his former power, but of 
 his final misfortune. It was to his actual use of 
 power when he was all-powerful that his critics 
 should have looked, had they wished to see him 
 'naked as he was.' Had he died in the clear 
 noonday of his fortune. Napoleon might indeed 
 have been remembered naked as he was — cruel, 
 brilliant, pitiless. It was precisely the dark clouds 
 which surrounded the setting of his sun that his 
 
16 THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND [CH. i. 
 
 genius contrived to tinge with every glorious hue : 
 these were the gorgeous mists which baffled 
 criticism, and enabled him— in his own phrase 
 — 'to remain a problem to many.' It is true 
 that the years spent at St Helena were of 
 immense service to the Napoleonic tradition. But 
 this was not because, stripped of the trappings 
 of power, he could there be seen in utter naked- 
 ness. On the contrary, it was because he 
 was there able to wrap himself in a mantle far 
 more mystic and majestic, and far less penetrable 
 to the shafts of criticism, than any external 
 circumstance of power ; because he there succeeded 
 in evading the light of common day. — the most 
 serviceable light after all for those who would 
 see things as they are. By a deliberately eclectic 
 representation or misrepresentation of his own 
 past, part of his career was brought into pro- 
 minence, while part of it was withdrawn into 
 obscurity. Consciously or unconsciously. Napoleon 
 availed himself in this process of a habit of men's 
 minds which was as beneficial to the tradition of 
 the First Empire as it has since proved disastrous 
 to the memory of the second. It is the fact that it 
 is to the beginning or the ending of an institution 
 that men are apt to look, when they seek to 
 pronounce judgment on its nature. Now the 
 beginning of Napoleon's career was on the whole 
 its least vulnerable point. Never was his military 
 genius more brilliantly displayed than in the Italian 
 campaign of 1796. Nor did any of his later 
 
PLAUDITE 17 
 
 triumphs appeal more strongly to the imagination of 
 France than his half-accomplished Egyptian exploit 
 of 1799. Napoleon here had comparatively little to 
 do with his facts save to direct attention to them. 
 
 But with the close of the empire it was not so. 
 The motives which inspired the hundred days' raid 
 were selfish; the methods of its execution were 
 faulty ; the results of its failure were disastrous to 
 France. The political innovations of Constant's 
 framing, which Napoleon flung as a sop to liberal 
 opinion, were palpably insincere : the military tactics 
 of the concluding campaign were not free from 
 grave error. With deliberate purpose and extra- 
 ordinary success he now proceeded to explain away 
 the latter, and to enhance the importance of the 
 former. The mistakes which lost Waterloo were 
 those of subordinates; the steps he had taken in 
 the path of liberal reform were as nothing to the 
 progress he had really intended in that direction. 
 
 The legend took the form its author and subject 
 had desired. He was remembered as the 'little 
 corporal,' the hero of the Italian campaign, the 
 husband of the humble Josephine, not yet aUied in 
 marriage to one of the ancient dynasties of Europe. 
 Or else, he was the Emperor of 1815, with his pale, 
 haunted face ; deserted now by his Austrian queen, 
 granting liberal reforms in France, turning grandly at 
 bay to face the banded forces of reactionary Europe, 
 and finally, 
 
 ' Broken in a strain of fate 
 And leagued kings at Waterloo, 
 When the people's hands let go.' 
 
18 THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND [CH. i. 
 
 And so, in recollecting the real glory of the 
 empire's inception and the fictitious glamour of 
 its close, Europe began to forget the insolent 
 oppression of the heyday of the imperial rule, 
 France too forgot— what only by forgetting could 
 she have forgiven— that it was Napoleon and none 
 other who had lost her her natural frontiers, the 
 Ehine and the Alps : forgot in fact the vast abuse 
 of his unparalleled power ; remembering only the 
 glory of its acquisition and the tragedy of its loss. 
 
 This then was the heritage which after 
 Napoleon's death in 1821 lay waiting till one of 
 his proscribed name and race should be found coiu-- 
 ageous enough to lay claim to it. It was a task 
 from which the boldest might well shrink. It was 
 not merely that the claimant must be willing to take 
 his life in his hand, ready if need were that his 
 death should be his sole contribution to the imperial 
 cause. This was true, but it would only be the 
 beginning of his troubles. In such an enterprise 
 initial success was only a degree less, hazardous than 
 initial failure. For the name of Napoleon, admir- 
 able as a stepping-stone to power, might become 
 a mere embarrassment when power was won. In 
 the nature of things; it was a name reserved for 
 ever to its first holder : any other who bore it 
 must challenge comparison with the greatest 
 general in history. But even this was not all. 
 The subtle alchemy which had been applied to 
 all Napoleon's motives and actions had reduced 
 the wars themselves to the position of mere 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF NAPOLEON'S SUCCESSOR 19 
 
 by-products : glorious as they were, they had 
 only been his ineffectual strivings after a yet more 
 glorious peace. And it was the tradition of 
 this idealised Napoleon that his would-be suc- 
 cessor must take up; the tradition of a man 
 whose greatness had escaped exaggeration only 
 where exaggeration was impossible, whose faults 
 had been forgotten, whose aims had been idealised, 
 whose achievements had been transcended in the 
 light of an uncritical legend. Not even Napoleon 
 risen from the dead could have been certain of 
 success in such an enterprise. The prophet him- 
 self, allowed to descend from his chariot of fire, 
 might have found his mantle grown too large 
 for him. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BIRTH OF LOUIS NAPOLEON 
 
 (1808-1815. Aetat. 1-7.) 
 
 In vera nescis nullum fore morte alium te 
 Qui possit vivus tibi te lugere peremptum 
 Stansque jacentem. 
 
 Lucretius. 
 
 Thou know'st not, there shall not be other thou 
 When thou art dead indeed .that can tell how 
 Alive to waile thee dying, 
 Standing to waile thee lying. 
 
 John Floeio. 
 
 It is time that we turn from the heritage to the 
 heir, from the mantle to the man who was destined 
 to wear it, and to do so we must go back to 
 the halcyon days of the First Empire. On April 
 20, 1808, Queen Hortense, wife of Louis, King 
 of Holland, gave birth in the early morning to 
 her third son, the future founder of the Second 
 Empire. He was the first child of the imperial 
 house who was born a prince, for Napoleon was 
 still faithful to his childless empress ; and Louis had 
 not yet been promoted to his uneasy throne when 
 his other two sons were born. Of these the elder 
 had already died, so that one life alone — that of 
 his four-year-old brother. Napoleon Louis — stood 
 
 20 
 
1808] ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE BIRTH 21 
 
 between the infant born in the centre of Paris, and 
 the ultimate succession to the vast empire of which 
 that city was then the capital. 
 
 His birth was a source of lively satisfaction to 
 the imperial house. Napoleon on the Spanish 
 fi'ontier, on the point of adding a new kingdom 
 to the dominions of his dynasty, rejoiced at the 
 timely birth of a new heir. From Bayonne he 
 wrote to congratulate Hortense; and along the 
 whole Spanish frontier French cannon saluted the 
 birth of a child, who might as easily have become 
 King of Spain as Emperor of the French. A still 
 warmer letter, breathing a yet greater delight, came 
 to Hortense from her mother Josephine. For to 
 her the news was of more than dynastic import- 
 ance. Herself beyond hope of bearing an heir to 
 Napoleon, she lived already in perpetual fear of 
 the fate which soon afterwards befell her. For the 
 unhappy marriage of Hortense to Louis Napoleon 
 she had herself been mainly responsible. Alone 
 among her husband's family, Louis had seemed 
 to bear her no ill-will, and she hoped by marrying 
 him to her daughter to secure the powerful support 
 of Napoleon's favourite brother. 
 
 Regarded as a political alliance, there had been 
 much to recommend the marriage. It formed a 
 fresh link between the two families of Beauhamais 
 and Bonaparte ; and if Napoleon himself were to be 
 denied a son, it might well seem that he could hope 
 for no better heir than one who should unite the 
 many excellent qualities of Louis and Hortense. 
 
22 THE BIRTH OF LOUIS NAPOLEON [CH. ii. 
 
 At the time of her marriage, in January 1802, 
 Hortense was a beautiful girl of nineteen, whose 
 grace and charm had already won her golden 
 opinions in Paris, and whose stirring songs — for 
 she was a musician of no small merit — were soon 
 to be heard throughout the length and breadth of 
 France. Louis, her husband, though not the ablest, 
 was in many ways the most estimable of Napoleon's 
 brothers. By nature quiet, studious, retiring, he 
 had been forced by Napoleon to adopt a military 
 life. In this capacity he had shown himself in Italy 
 a brave but unambitious soldier ; a strict but un- 
 sympathetic disciplinarian. But his military career 
 was already closed at the time of his marriage. 
 Indeed, since his return from the Egyptian expedi- 
 tion in 1799, his health had rendered active military 
 service impossible for him. After occupying a 
 series of important civil positions, he was placed 
 by his brother, in June 1806, on the throne of 
 Holland. For Napoleon was at this time engaged 
 in converting a polite fiction into a substantial 
 truth : henceforth when saluting a fellow-monarch 
 as Sire, mon frere, he would allude to a physical 
 fact. His brother of Holland retained his regal 
 style for something less than four years. Louis' 
 brief reign was marked by a conscientious attempt 
 to govern in the interests of his subjects, but his 
 position was from the first an impossible one. 
 
 Ever behind him loomed his inexorable brother, 
 sternly demanding the levies of men, money, and 
 munitions, which his incessant campaigns entailed. 
 
1810] LOUIS, KING OF HOLLAND 23 
 
 Sincerely desirous of being king by the will of his 
 people, and for their good, Louis was not long 
 suflFered to forget that he was in fact king by grace 
 of Napoleon, and at his pleasure. From the first 
 the two titles could hardly be reconciled ; they 
 became plainly incompatible when Napoleon began 
 to enforce strictly the observance of his Berlin 
 Decrees. To an essentially commercial community, 
 inhabiting a country with a long coast -line facing 
 the continental ports of England, any interruption 
 of the English trade spelt misery, any absolute 
 cessation of it meant sheer ruin. Louis might 
 hope to mitigate the other Napoleonic exactions, 
 nor were they in themselves insupportable. But 
 nothing short of the complete abrogation of the 
 Continental System could save Holland, and noth- 
 ing less than its most rigorous enforcement could 
 satisfy Napoleon. For it was a characteristic 
 feature of the fantastic scheme that its entire 
 success depended on the completeness with which 
 it was put into execution ; one gap would render 
 useless the whole hedge so laboriously constructed. 
 The natural result followed. In the summer of 
 1810, Louis, who had already some two years 
 earlier refused promotion to the throne of Spain, 
 resigned his thankless office in Holland, abdicating 
 in favour of his elder son, or in his default, of the 
 future Napoleon III. In accepting the kingdom, in 
 the first instance, he had shown a weakness which 
 betrayed his better judgment ; nor had his actual 
 reign been fi:'ee from certain ineptitudes and absurdi- 
 
24 THE BIRTH OF LOUIS NAPOLEON [CH. ii. 
 
 ties which gave point to his brother's merciless 
 criticisms. But the manner of its close was not 
 undignified : the calm surrender of an office which 
 he could not hope to hold with honour, and the 
 fearless protest against the annexation of his king- 
 dom to the French Empire, serve to stamp the 
 character of the King of Holland as that of a high- 
 minded and honest man. 'From the throne he 
 had mounted amid the curses of his people, he 
 descended amid their tears,' says Landor; and 
 indeed, his subjects could not but recognise the 
 sincerity of the goodwill which had cost their 
 sovereign his crown. 
 
 When Louis left Holland to lead a life of retire- 
 ment at Toeplitz, Hortense did not accompany him, 
 but returned with her children to her old home at 
 St Leu. For his brief reign had cost Louis the 
 affection not only of his brother but of his wife. 
 
 Hortense — as her songs bear witness — was an 
 enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon, and no less 
 attached than her soldier brother, Eugene, to the 
 military glory of France. She could not in the 
 least sympathise with the process of acclimatisation 
 by which patriotism came to her husband to mean 
 loyalty to his adopted country, Holland. To her 
 there could only be one patrie, and any opposition 
 to the imperious demands which came from Paris 
 was an act of treachery to Napoleon and disloyalty 
 to France. 
 
 Her impetuous nature caused Hortense to make 
 no secret of her opinions : she became the head of 
 
1810] CHARACTER OF KING LOUIS 25 
 
 the French party in the little court at the Hague, 
 as her husband was of the Dutch. As early as 
 1807, Napoleon warned his brother that this open 
 antagonism threatened to give public scandal. 
 Unfortunately, the political differences of Hortense 
 and her husband were not the sole cause of their 
 estrangement. Personal misunderstandings were 
 already making cordial relations between them 
 impossible. It is improbable that either had ever 
 really loved the other ; certainly Hortense had never 
 pretended to regard her husband with more than 
 dutiful attachment. His good qualities — like her 
 own — were many, but they were not such as she 
 could appreciate : his faults were precisely those 
 which she could not endure. There was too much 
 truth in Napoleon's stricture : ' You treat a young 
 woman as though you were drilling a regiment ' ; 
 and Hortense was the last woman in the world to 
 tolerate a martinet for a husband. At no time a 
 very ardent lover, Louis grew ever more taciturn 
 and unapproachable as he grew older ; he suffered 
 from a chronic rheumatism contracted in Egypt, 
 and the settled melancholy of his later years was 
 possibly a consequence — indeed, a symptom — of 
 the disease with which he was afflicted. It would 
 be a fruitless task to seek to apportion the blame 
 of the breach between the two ; but Hortense's own 
 explanation seems the true one : each had just the 
 faults which rendered fatal the faults of the other. 
 The real blame must rest elsewhere : with the 
 brother who had over-ruled Louis' protests; still 
 
26 THE BIRTH OF LOUIS NAPOLEON [oh. ii. 
 
 more with the mother who sacrificed to her own 
 hopes and fears the happiness of her child. 
 
 For Josephine, indeed, the hopes had ah"eady 
 been disappointed, the fears already fulfilled, even 
 before the practical dissolution of her daughter's 
 marriage in 1810. At no time after the death of 
 Hortense's eldest son had there been any real doubt 
 of Napoleon's intention to seek a new wife ; and 
 when in November 1810 the state christening of 
 the future Napoleon III took place at Fontaine- 
 bleau, it was the new Empress, Marie Louise of 
 Austria, who acted with Napoleon as godparent. 
 At the Emperor's request the child had been named 
 Charles Louis Napoleon, but the first of these 
 names was soon dropped, and it was as Louis 
 Napoleon that the prince was generally known for 
 the next forty years. 
 
 The year which followed the christening, though 
 without incident of any kind in the life of the 
 infant prince, saw the birth of two children whose 
 careers could not but afiect materially his future 
 fortunes. In March a son was born to Napoleon 
 himself, and the magnificent ceremony of the 
 preceding year was thrown into the shade by that 
 attending the baptism of the ill-starred King of 
 Rome. Prince Louis' chance of becoming 
 Napoleon's heir was thus already greatly dimin- 
 ished, and his prospects were not improved by the 
 birth, in October, of another son to Hortense, 
 whose father was not Louis of Holland but the 
 Comte de Flahaut. Under the title of the Due de 
 
1811] PARENTAGE OF LOUIS NAPOLEON 27 
 
 Morny, this child was destined to win European 
 fame as one of the most statesmanlike of the 
 supporters of the Second Empire. But great as 
 were the services he was to render to his half- 
 brother in his life, they were hardly greater than 
 the disservice his birth could not but occasion him. 
 For it gave point and circumstance to an assertion 
 freely made by the enemies of his house in later 
 years ; that Napoleon III had in his veins no 
 drop of Napoleonic blood, that his undoubted 
 dissimilarity of feature and physique to other 
 members of the Napoleonic family was to be 
 accounted for by attributing his fatherhood to a 
 certain Admiral Verhuel, an acquaintance of 
 Hortense ; and that the absence of the King of 
 Holland at the birth and baptism of the child was 
 a tacit disavowal of paternity. It has even been 
 asserted that King Louis explicitly denied it in a 
 letter addressed to the Pope in 1831 ; but a single 
 sentence from an apocryphal letter, unsupported 
 by documentary evidence, cannot claim serious 
 attention when in flat contradiction to it stand 
 numerous authentic avowals made by King Louis 
 at every period of his subsequent life, that the boy 
 was indeed his son. As his son he announced his 
 birth to his people assembled in his capital, with 
 all the formality usual on such an occasion. As 
 his son he addressed him, or alluded to him, in 
 many letters of undoubted authenticity ; and, finally, 
 to 'my sole surviving son, Louis Napoleon,' he 
 left in his will his entire property. That the king 
 
28 THE BIRTH OF LOUIS NAPOLEON [CH. ir. 
 
 was himself in error as to the child's parentage is 
 not contended even by those who have raised the 
 question ; their assumption is that he was pre- 
 vailed upon to conceal his knowledge. But, apart 
 from the fact that Louis of Holland was certainly 
 incapable of successful concealment, it is most 
 improbable that any inducement, personal or 
 political, would have prevailed on him to attempt 
 concealment in such a case. As a matter of fact 
 no such inducements existed. The child was a 
 weakling, seemingly little likely to survive his 
 sturdy elder brother. After 1811 his pohtical 
 prospects were of the scantiest, while Louis' 
 personal relations with his wife and brother were 
 not such as to induce him to recognise the child 
 through any consideration of then- feelings. The 
 very fact which has served as the basis for the 
 whole assertion — the known faithlessness of 
 Hortense after 1810 — is itself a most cogent 
 argument against the supposition that King Louis 
 could either have been himself deceived, or desirous 
 of deceiving others in this matter.^ 
 
 The author of this unhappy marriage did not 
 long survive the double indignity of her own 
 divorce and her daughter's disgrace. The calamities 
 of the closing years of the empire, which passed 
 serenely over the unconscious head of Prince Louis, 
 weighed all too heavily on Josephine. A year 
 before her death the haggard remnant of the Grand 
 
 ' For a further discussion of this question, see Appendix B, 
 p. 368. 
 
1814] FALL OF THE EMPIRE 29 
 
 Army made its way back to France ; and in their 
 stony faces Paris must have read something of 
 the message which Athen^ learned from the 
 scattered survivors of the Sicilian Expedition. 
 Hortense was present when Napoleon bade fare- 
 well to his National Guard, before starting for his 
 brilliant defensive campaign of 1814. And when 
 that campaign was over and the allies were at the 
 gates of Paris, it was Hortense who vainly 
 endeavoured to persuade the Empress to hold the 
 city to the last. In this she failed : Marie Louise 
 fled, the city was pronounced untenable; and 
 Hortense was forced to seek safety for her children 
 by taking refuge with her mother at her estate in 
 Navarre. After Napoleon had been installed in his 
 island empire at Elba, they returned to Malmaison ; 
 and there it was that Josephine, unable to share 
 the Emperor's exile, died before his return. 
 
 The allied princes treated Hortense and her 
 family with great respect. Among her visitors at 
 this time was the King of Prussia, who brought his 
 two boys to see her children. The incident, trivial 
 enough in itself, acquires a curious interest in the 
 light of later history. For the younger son of King 
 William was to become the first German Emperor ; 
 and the younger son of Queen Hortense seems likely 
 long to be known as the last Emperor of the French. 
 No omens of the portentous future are recorded of 
 this their first meeting ; but we can imagine— and 
 half envy — the delight with which the mediaeval 
 chronicler would have seized and embellished this 
 
30 THE BIRTH. OF LOUIS NAPOLEON [CH. ii. 
 
 nursery encounter of the victor and the victim of 
 Sedan. At times the modern historian is tempted 
 to regret the lost privileges of his predecessors; 
 tempted even to regard as perverse the code vs^hich 
 still permits him to point a moral, but no longer 
 suffers him to adorn a tale. 
 
 Another and more frequent royal visitor at 
 Malmaison was the Tsar Alexander, who dis- 
 played towards Hortense and her children all 
 that chivah-ous tenderness of which his nature 
 was capable. At this time he was still liberal in 
 his political views. Thus he refused to attend a 
 solemn Te Deum which was celebrated in the 
 presence of the allies for the return of the 
 Bourbons ; instead, he left Paris for the occasion, 
 and spent the day at Malmaison with Queen 
 Hortense.^ Often he discussed with her the future 
 prospects of France ; and always he expressed the 
 conviction that 'the restoration of the Bourbons 
 was a great mistake, and that France ought to have 
 been left free to choose its own sovereign.' ^ His 
 sympathy towards Hortense took more practical 
 form. Not only did he shield her from any 
 annoyance at the hands of the restored Bourbons, 
 
 ' Eeported in unpublished portions of Queen Hortense's Memoirs, 
 and quoted from them by Louis Napoleon in a letter written to 
 remonstrate with the Tsar Nicholas on his opposition to the 
 assumption of the title Napoleon III. This letter Louis Napoleon 
 read to Cowley, the British Ambassador, on the 24th of January 1853. 
 ' It is perhaps as able a document as ever came from the emperor's 
 pen,' was Cowley's comment, ' and as far as my humble opinion is of 
 any weight, this is no mean praise.'— (Cowley to Lord John Kussell, 
 26th January 1853.) 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
1815] THE HUNDRED DAYS 31 
 
 but he secured for her the estate of St Leu as a 
 duchy, to be held by her under the title she had 
 already adopted since her husband's abdication of 
 the crown of Holland. Her position, notwithstand- 
 ing, was not an easy one. To the returned Emigres 
 she was an object of suspicion and dislike, while 
 the less fortunate Bonapartists looked with some 
 disfavour on her cordial relations with Napoleon's 
 conquerors. Nor was she free from private 
 troubles. As a result of proceedings instituted by 
 King Louis in the French law-courts in 1814, an 
 award was made by which the elder son was 
 handed over to his father's care, though the younger 
 was allowed to remain with Hortense. The result 
 was a great grief to her; but other news which 
 reached her on the same day (6th March) as the 
 award, left her little time to mourn her domestic 
 misfortunes. Napoleon had landed in France. 
 A fortnight later he was in Paris. 
 
 In the hurried events of the hundred days 
 Hortense and her children played a prominent 
 part, for Napoleon's own son, with the Empress 
 Marie Louise, was in the hands of the allies. It 
 was therefore the two sons of Hortense whom 
 Napoleon presented to his reassembled legions in 
 the Place du Carrousel. Together they were 
 present at the brilliant but unconvincing ceremony 
 with which Napoleon inaugurated his liberal con- 
 stitution, on the Champ de Mars. Together they 
 visited the Emperor to bid him good-bye on the 
 eve of his departure for the Waterloo campaign. 
 
32 THE BIRTH OF LOUIS NAPOLEON [oh. ii. 
 
 The account of Louis' last interview with his 
 uncle is well known, though it rests on poor 
 authority.^ The Emperor — for the story is at any 
 rate worthy of repetition — was in consultation with 
 Marshal Soult, deep in the study of the coming 
 campaign. To him ran a seven-year-old boy, who 
 flimg his tearful face in his uncle's lap. 'What 
 ails you, Louis 1' said Napoleon, little pleased to 
 be so interrupted at such a moment. ' Sir, my 
 governess tells me you are going to the war. Oh 
 do not go, do not go.' Softened a little, the 
 Emperor answered more kindly, ' Why not, child 1 
 It is not the first time I have been to the wars. 
 What is there to cry about? I shall be back 
 again directly.' 'TJncle dear, the wicked allies 
 want to kill you. Please uncle, please let me go 
 with you.' The grim warrior was touched now, 
 and silent for a moment, as he kissed his favourite 
 nephew. Then calling the child's mother to him 
 he said, 'Take the boy, and scold his governess 
 for working on his feelings.' And again more 
 tenderly to Marshal Soult, who had been visibly 
 touched by the scene : ' There, Marshal, kiss the 
 boy: he will have a good heart and a lofty 
 soul . . . Perhaps after all he is the hope of 
 my race.' 
 
 If these were not the words with which 
 Napoleon I bade farewell to Napoleon III — 
 and it is far from certain that they were — at 
 least they ought to have been. For indeed 
 
 ' See Appendix B, p. 360. 
 
1815] THE PARTING 33 
 
 the frail child whom he left behind at Paris 
 was to pick up the crown let fall at Waterloo, 
 to wear it longer than his uncle himself had 
 done, and only after a yet more strange event- 
 fal history than his, himself to drop it in the still 
 deeper downfall of Sedan. And when all deduc- 
 tions have been made, and all detractions taken 
 into account, there still remains proof enough of 
 an essential kindhness of heart and loftiness of 
 conception displayed by Louis Napoleon at every 
 portion of his career. 
 
CHAPTEE III 
 
 EXILE AND EDUCATION 
 
 (1815-1830. Aetat. 7-21.) 
 
 Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education. 
 
 Bacon. 
 
 In the misfortunes which Napoleon's raid brought 
 upon France )Hortense had her full share. After 
 the second restoration Alexander was no longer 
 disposed to screen her from the attacks of the 
 Bourbons; and the memory of his former favours 
 only served to increase their animosity towards 
 her. On July 19, 1815, she was informed that she 
 must leave Paris immediately with her children, 
 and withdraw from French territory. 
 
 The exiles were accompanied to the frontier by 
 a guard of Austrian troops, and before the end of 
 their journey had reason to be glad of their escort. 
 For since the second overthrow of Napoleon large 
 districts in the south of France had been given 
 over to a royalist and clerical reign of terror. 
 At Dijon, a hostile mob surrounded Hortense's 
 carriage, and royalist officers broke into her apart- 
 ment, demanding her arrest. Thus it was, indebted 
 to foreign troops for their safe passage out of their 
 
 34 
 
1815] LOUIS PARTED FROM HIS BROTHER 35 
 
 own country, that Hortense and her sons passed 
 into exile. 
 
 Their troubles were not at an end when they 
 had left French soil behind them, for the narrowed 
 frontier of France did not mark the limits of the 
 Bourbon power for persecution. With diflBculty 
 the fugitives obtained permission to tarry a few 
 days at Geneva, before proceeding to Aix in Savoy. 
 Here Hortense was allowed to remain for a little 
 time ; and it was during her short sojourn at Aix 
 that her husband sent for his elder son, whom the 
 French law-courts had awarded to his custody. 
 The parting was a sad one for both mother 
 and brother, and to young Louis it was a real 
 misfortune. Already deprived of a father's care, 
 he was now to lose the companionship of his 
 brother. It is true that his mother's affection 
 for him was increased by the severance of these 
 other ties. But this was hardly a compensation for 
 the other loss ; indeed, in a sense, it was an 
 aggravation of it. Louis at this time was a shy, 
 delicate boy, whose occasional shrewd remarks 
 alone gave promise of an intellect of any unusual 
 capacity. It is possible that the paternal guidance 
 of even so eccentric a father as King Louis of 
 Holland might have been of value, in the develop- 
 ment of an intelligence as curiously precocious in 
 some ways as it was unaccountably backward in 
 others. Beyond question, it was the society of 
 other boys, rather than the concentration upon him 
 of his mother's well-meaning but somewhat absurd 
 
36 EXILE AND EDUCATION [oh. III. 
 
 precautions, which he needed to give vigour to a 
 disposition naturally the reverse of robust. 
 
 In October 1815 the Great Powers once again 
 requested Hortense and her son to "move on." 
 This time they indicated Switzerland as a place 
 where her sojourn would be comparatively inoffen- 
 sive. But even so, she was to remain under the 
 closest scrutiny and restriction. She was to live 
 in the canton of St Gall, and never to go outside 
 of it ; and she was to remain under the surveillance 
 of the ministers of the fom- Powers. Even this 
 small room was, however, denied to her by the 
 Swiss Diet ; for on hearing of the decision of the 
 allies it hastily decreed that no member of the 
 Bonaparte family should be suffered to dwell in 
 Swiss territory on any conditions whatsoever. In 
 this strait, Hortense turned to a member of her 
 family who retained an ofiScial position of some 
 political importance. Her cousin, Stephanie de 
 Beauharnais, was the wife of the Grand Duke of 
 Baden; and in this duchy, if nowhere else, the 
 Bonapartes might expect some measure of official 
 protection. Accordingly, in November 1815, the 
 queen and her remaining son set out for Constance. 
 To reach this town it was necessary to pass 
 through Switzerland. Twice on their journey the 
 travellers' rooms were invaded by police officers; 
 once Hortense was actually placed under arrest. 
 
 Early in December the refugees arrived at Con- 
 stance, where they were allowed to remain in peace 
 for something over a year. In May 1816, however. 
 
1816] VISIT TO BERG 37 
 
 Hortense proceeded to Berg, in Bavaria, on a visit 
 to her brother Eugene. Here, as in Baden, the 
 Beauharnais were connected by marriage with the 
 existing dynasties; for Napoleon had married 
 Prince Eugene to a daughter of the King of Bavaria. 
 The summer months of 1816 were passed very 
 pleasantly by Louis Napoleon in the company of 
 Eugene's five children : in their friendships the 
 eight-year-old boy found some compensation for 
 the loss of his own brother. Soon after her return 
 to Constance it became clear to Hortense that she 
 would not be allowed to make her permanent 
 home in Baden. Early in 1817 she was definitely 
 requested by the court of Baden to leave Constance. 
 This request was ' grounded it seems on her mode 
 of living, and the apparent extent of her corre- 
 spondence.' ^ 
 
 Hortense hesitated for a while whether she 
 should seek a final home in Bavaria, or Switzer- 
 land. Although the decree against her residence 
 in Switzerland was still in force, she had been 
 allowed, for the good of her health, to make a 
 short stay in one of the Swiss cantons in 1816. 
 She now received from the canton of Thurgau 
 a definite invitation to reside in its territory. 
 Encouraged by these tokens of a more tolerant 
 attitude on the part of the Swiss authorities, Hor- 
 tense purchased in February 1817 an old country 
 house at Arenenberg, in the fi'iendly canton of 
 Thurgau. Her previous experience at the hands of 
 
 1 Stratford Canning to Castlereagh. Berne, 21st February 1817. 
 
38 EXILE AND EDUCATION [cH. in. 
 
 the Great Powers led her, however, to insert a clause 
 into the deed of sale, stipulating that the transaction 
 should not be binding on her if the government 
 refused to sanction her residence at Arenenberg/ 
 
 That there would be long and vexatious opposi- 
 tion to her settlement in Thurgau, Hortense had 
 every reason to expect. Apart from this, the 
 chateau was in no state for immediate occupation : 
 extensive alterations were necessary to turn the 
 almost ruinous building into a comfortable country 
 house. For her immediate use, Hortense there- 
 fore purchased a house at Augsburg, in Bavaria ; 
 and thither she proceeded in May 1817, on her 
 departure from Baden. 
 
 Into the details of the grave debates, with 
 which ambassadors and ministers of the five 
 Great Powers discussed their attitude towards 
 this act of the Duchess of St Leu, it is hardly 
 necessary for us to enter. As an instance of 
 the portentous gravity with which they regarded 
 her every movement, it may suffice if we give one 
 brief extract from the lengthy despatch of the 
 English envoy in Switzerland, on the morrow of 
 the purchase. 
 
 'My first step,' wrote Stratford Canning to 
 Castlereagh, in February 1817, 'has been to consult 
 with the other ministers concerned in the business, 
 not omitting the French envoy. They are unani- 
 mous, and I confess that I agree with them, in the 
 opinion that we have at present no adequate means 
 
 ^ Canning to Castlereagh, 21st Feb. 1817. 
 
1817] PURCHASE OF ARENENBERG 39 
 
 of controuling either the correspondence or the 
 movements of Madame de St Leu. The position 
 which she has selected on the banks of the Lake 
 of Constance, at the very extremity of Switzerland, 
 whether accidentally or not, is of itself calculated 
 to render observation difficult. The police of the 
 canton of Thurgovie, as in most parts of Switzerland, 
 is too weak to be depended on. The employment 
 of secret agents would be attended with expense, 
 and from the remoteness of the situation would be 
 exposed to continual failure. An avowed agent 
 placed on the spot, and authorised to inspect her 
 correspondence — by which alone it may be presumed 
 that any mischief can be done — would doubtless be 
 able to exercise an effectual control ; but there is 
 nothing in the protocol to justify any interference 
 of so direct a nature.' ^ 
 
 For some time it appeared that these reasons 
 would induce the allies to insist on the exclusion of 
 Hortense from Thurgau. In July 1817 the ambas- 
 sadors of the four Powers at Paris signed an official 
 note, which they sent to the president of the Swiss 
 Diet, through the Swiss charge d'affaires in Paris.^ 
 This note required that the diet should enforce its 
 decree of 1815 ; and the diet accordingly announced 
 once more its intention of so doing.^ None the 
 less, Hortense did not abandon her purchase, and 
 continued to alter and enlarge it, even paying 
 
 ■ Canning to Castlereagh, 21st Feb. 1817. 
 
 2 Ibid., 1st August 1817. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
40 EXILE AND EDUCATION [CH. in. 
 
 occasional visits to Arenenberg to supervise the 
 improvements herself. But it was not until 1821, 
 vt'hen the death of Napoleon had somewhat allayed 
 the anxieties of the Great Powers, that she was 
 able finally to enter into possession of her new 
 abode. This was to be her real home until the 
 time of her death, sixteen years later ; but a natural 
 love of travel led her to spend almost half her life 
 away from it. For these sixteen years, however, 
 it was the home to which Louis returned in the 
 intervals of his other pursuits. The exiles were 
 fortunate in their final resting-place; for though 
 of a rather sombre grandeur, no more lovely view 
 could have been found, than that from the chateau 
 looking over the Rhine as it leaves Lake Constance. 
 Hitherto the prince had been less fortunate in 
 the matter of his education. The troubled years 
 of the First Empire's close had come too early 
 to afiect his life. But the period of homeless 
 wandering which followed rendered difficult any 
 systematised study; and the uncertainty as to 
 which parent was to be entrusted with the charge 
 of his upbringing had a further unfortunate effect. 
 Although in 1815 King Louis had only established 
 his claim to the elder brother, yet as late as 1819 
 in a letter to Hortense he had written, 'in a 
 certain time Louis also must come to me.' In 
 the same letter he had criticised very severely the 
 method of instruction adopted by Louis' first 
 teacher, the Abbd Bertrand. The abb^ was 
 indeed an incompetent tutor. Cheery, courteous, 
 
1820] LOUIS NAPOLEON'S TUTORS 41 
 
 and good-natured, his knowledge was superficial, 
 and his method of imparting it had the effect of 
 rendering any subject he dealt with distasteful to 
 his pupil, whom he still addressed by his nursery 
 nickname of Oui-Oui. Louis was, in fact, a very 
 docile child, but even for him the abbe proved too 
 poor a disciplinarian. Though the father's criticism 
 was just, the threat with which it was backed had 
 the effect of postponing its good effects. For 
 Hortense hesitated to engage another tutor while 
 still uncertain whether she would be allowed to 
 keep the younger son under her care. It was not 
 until June 1820, when she had realised that her 
 husband was not likely to act on his threat, that 
 she found a new tutor in the person of Philip 
 Lebas. The choice was a singularly happy one. 
 Son of a republican leader who had figured in the 
 great revolution, he had himself served with credit 
 in the closing campaigns of the empire. Though 
 only twenty-five years old, he was already a hus- 
 band and a father, and he was glad to exchange 
 a poorly paid civil post for the tutorship which 
 Hortense offered him. A resolute disciplinarian, 
 an upright and conscientious teacher, he was also 
 a genuine scholar whose subsequent career was one 
 of well-merited distinction. A fortnight after his 
 arrival, in a letter to his father-in-law in Paris, Lebas 
 thus describes his pupil. 'I cannot hide from 
 myself the fact that my task will be anything but 
 an easy one. My pupil is twelve years old ; he has 
 aptitude, but is not well advanced : I might even 
 
42 EXILE AND EDUCATION [cH. III. 
 
 say that his knowledge on a great many points 
 is practically nil. It would have been much 
 more satisfactory to me, had I taken him in 
 hand at the age of seven or eight. As it is, I find 
 myself in the position of an architect who is 
 bidden to make habitable an ill-built house : he 
 has to pull down, even to lay the foundations afresh, 
 if he would attain his object. Still I must not lose 
 courage; though I see little love of work in my 
 pupil, I have at least found more docility than I 
 expected, a desire to please me, a fear of dis- 
 satisfying me, and an excellent heart. With quali- 
 ties such as these one has something to build on.' 
 
 Lebas' orderly mind was much perturbed by 
 the lack of rule which he found in the boy's life 
 hitherto. 'When I came here,' he writes three 
 weeks later, ' I found a child who got up at 7, or 
 
 8, or even 9 ' (poor Lebas is quite overcome by the 
 bare idea of this last hour), ' according as the abbe 
 had more or less desire for sleep.' The new tutor 
 stops all this at once, substituting the following 
 rather Draconian regime : up at 6 ; walk on the 
 mountain-side till 7 ; 7 to 8.30, grammar; 8.30 to 
 
 9, recreation; 9 to 10.30, Latin; 10.30, lunch. At 
 12.30 they start work again with a lesson in 
 arithmetic, followed at 1 by instruction in German 
 or in writing. At 2 a Greek lesson — which the 
 prince likes; from 3 to 4 he has a swimming 
 lesson; from 4 to 6 he learns geography and 
 history. Dinner follows at 6, and a walk after- 
 wards; then upstairs at 8, where the boy makes 
 
1821] FIRST COMMUNION 43 
 
 fe,ir copies of his exercises, or listens — in a state 
 of acute mental indigestion, one would imagine — to 
 fine passages of prose or verse read to him by his 
 tutor. At 9 he goes to bed. Lebas is pleased, 
 but not altogether satisfied with this prospect : 
 next year, however, he hopes to turn to account 
 the time spent on the two walks, by administering 
 during them peripatetic doses of instruction in 
 astronomy and natural history. 
 
 This routine seems to have been maintained for 
 some little time : in October there is no change, 
 save that the prince now gets up at half-past 6 
 instead of 6 ; he still goes to bed at 9 ; has one 
 horn' for meals and two for recreation — it cannot 
 surely have been merely play — and the rest is all 
 work. One would imagine that the prince ran a 
 risk of becoming the proverbial dull boy ; but his 
 tutor, on the contrary, sees excellent efiects result- 
 ing fi'om this ordered life, notably a disappearance 
 of his old disUke for work. By February 1821, 
 Louis is reading Cornelius Nepos, has learnt the 
 Greek declensions, and is beginning fi-actions : more 
 important, he is learning to spell, an accomplish- 
 ment of which he was entirely innocent when Lebas 
 arrived. In the spring of this year Louis made 
 his first communion, and on this occasion he 
 received fi'om his father, a very devout Catholic, 
 the most friendly letter ever addressed to him by 
 the ex- King of Holland. 
 
 'I give you my blessing,' wrote the Coxmt de 
 St Leu, 'with all my heart . . . and on this 
 
44 EXILE AND EDUCATION [CH. in. 
 
 solemn occasion I renew the paternal benediction 
 which every morning and evening I bestow on 
 you.' 
 
 In the summer of 1821, Louis Napoleon's 
 education entered upon a new stage. For when 
 Hortense left Bavaria for Arenenberg, she was 
 prevailed upon by Lebas to leave her son behind 
 at Augsburg, in the charge of himself and his wife. 
 At the same time the tutor obtained permission 
 for his pupil to attend classes at the college or 
 gymnasium of Augsburg. Both these concessions 
 were highly valued by Lebas : for the two things 
 which he considered most useful for Louis' education 
 were the absence of his mother, and the presence 
 and competition of other boys. 
 
 In August, the tutor describes the effect of the 
 news of Napoleon's death both on his pupil and on 
 Germany. The former could barely remember 
 Napoleon's caresses, save in the way in which a 
 child imagines itself to remember the events of its 
 infancy which it has often heard related. But his 
 sensitive spirit was so much moved by his uncle's 
 death that his tutor gave him three days' whole 
 holiday, no ordinary concession from Lebas. 
 Germany had reason to remember Napoleon in 
 very different fashion; but Lebas notices only an 
 overwhelming indignation and regret, in which men 
 of all parties join, at the manner in which the great 
 man had as they supposed been done to death. 
 
 A year later, in July 1822, we find the prince 
 reading the eighth book of the Metamorphoses and 
 
1823] INTERRUPTED STUDIES 45 
 
 the first book of the Odyssey. Lebas is satisfied 
 with his industry, but still has to complain that his 
 pupil does not readily concentrate his attention on 
 the matter in hand. In the same month the old 
 abbd wrote very sensibly to Lebas on this subject, 
 which might, he thought, be due to physical causes : 
 time might be the best cure for it, any too drastic 
 eflFort to correct the fault might have a bad effect. 
 In November of the same year the tutor writes 
 more hopefully ; he can discern in his pupil growing 
 powers of imagination, and the faculty of expressing 
 his ideas with ease and almost with elegance. But 
 the year 1823 was less fruitful. King Louis had 
 several times allowed his elder son to visit Hor- 
 tense at Arenenberg; he now insisted, naturally 
 enough, that Louis should be sent to visit him, 
 Lebas accompanied the boy to Marienbad, where his 
 invalid father was taking the waters. There they 
 stayed for a month, the tutor all the while lamenting 
 this break in their studies. On their return things 
 fared no better, for it had been arranged that both 
 parents should spend the winter with their children 
 in Eome; so, at the end of October, master and 
 pupil had again to leave Augsburg, reaching Eome 
 in the middle of November. Hortense found Eome 
 a much more pleasant wintering place than Augs- 
 burg; and Louis was naturally pleased with the 
 change. But Lebas was greatly perturbed at this, 
 long interruption of his pupil's education. 'He 
 goes to bed late,' he wrote, 'he gets up late; 
 works little and lazily until luncheon; rides at 
 
46 EXILE AND EDUCATION [cH. in. 
 
 midday, comes in tired at three o'clock; yawns 
 over his lessons till five, and then goes to pass the 
 rest of the day vrith his father.' The visit to Eome 
 was terminated by the death of Prince Eugfene in 
 the spring of 1824 : utterly overcome with grief, 
 Hortense hastened back in May to Bavaria, to be 
 present at his funeral in Munich. Then followed 
 a more quiet year; Hortense, mourning for her 
 brother's death, even passed the whole winter of 
 1825 at Arenenberg. The death of the King of 
 Bavaria in this year deprived Ae Bonapartes of 
 their last royal protector. Perhaps for this reason, 
 unusual difficulties were made before they were 
 allowed passports in the autumn of 1826 to return 
 to Eome. ' Soon we shall need a congress every 
 time we wish to change our abode,' wrote Louis, 
 on November 20 to his father. If the pupil 
 complained of the obstacles to travel, the tutor 
 complained even more bitterly of the necessity of 
 travelling at all. He writes in December in sad 
 dismay from Augsburg, while they were still await- 
 ing their passports : ' Always journeys and rumours 
 of journeys. When they are not travelling the 
 prince's work is still in suspense, because they are 
 preparing to travel : the "greater part of his books 
 are packed and inaccessible.' To a man like Lebas, 
 who could not bear to be out of reach of a good 
 library, a hfe of this sort was personally distasteful ; 
 but his chief source of regret was a genuine sorrow 
 at what he conceived to be the reckless waste of 
 the most critical years in the prince's period of 
 
1827] LEBAS DISMISSED 47 
 
 education. 'Our life is a sadly squandered one,' 
 he wrote in March 1826, 'and our studies suffer 
 from it.' Lebas can hardly find one or two hours 
 a day free for work; these he spends in reading 
 Tacitus with his pupil. He protests; Hortense 
 grants the truth of his protest, but no steps are 
 taken to make good the lost time. ' And it would 
 have made me so happy,' he .continues, rather 
 pathetically, ' to have seen that the dear boy should 
 have been as distinguished by his knowledge as he 
 will still be by his good qualities and fine char- 
 acter. But, alas, the highroads are not the places 
 for a solid education ! One must resign oneself to 
 a superficial manhood when we tvu-n wanderers at 
 this time of life.' 
 
 This process continued for another year and a 
 half — a period unsatisfactory enough to master and 
 pupil alike. In September 1827, Hortense dis- 
 missed Lebas rather abruptly, pleading the neces- 
 sity of stricter economy on her part : probably his 
 attitude of perpetual protest had wearied her; 
 possibly his pronounced republicanism and rather 
 austere puritanism began to prove irksome to both 
 mother and son. 
 
 It is of course arguable that, for a youth of Louis 
 Napoleon's delicate physique, the travels of which 
 Lebas complains so much were as valuable as the 
 studies *at Augsburg; that the months spent at 
 Rome with his mother, at Marienbad and Florence 
 with his father, or nearer home with his uncle 
 Eugene, or his cousin the Duchess of Baden, had no 
 
48 EXILE AND EDUCATION [CH. iil. 
 
 small part in the development of a boy naturally 
 shy and retiring. And it is diflScult in any case to 
 share the tutor's regret that the enormous pro- 
 gramme of work, which he mapped out for the 
 twelve-year-old boy, could not be carried out in its 
 entirety. None the less the correspondence reveals 
 the real flaw in the prince's education — the 
 demoralising effects of a desultory and rather 
 aimless travel, at a period when a fixed rule, even 
 if it be a poor one, is better than no rule at all. 
 Louis himself looked back on the long years spent 
 at the college at Augsburg without enthusiasm, if 
 not with regret ; but it says something for the effects 
 of Lebas' training that he not only recognised the 
 defects of his own education, but set himself assidu- 
 ously during his sojourn at Rome, after his tutor's 
 departure, to correct them by a self-imposed course 
 of study. 
 
 Many stories are told of Louis Napoleon's boy- 
 hood in Switzerland which illustrate traits in his 
 character that were to be more strikingly dis- 
 played in his later life. At Constance, when he 
 was eight years old, he succeeded in going out for 
 a walk by himself: his mother's reader. Mile 
 Cochelet, discovered him coming home barefooted 
 and in his shirt sleeves through the midwinter 
 snow ; outside the garden he had met a poor family 
 so miserably clad, that having no money he had 
 given one of the children his boots and another 
 his coat. 
 
 Six years later, while staying with the Grand 
 
1822] LOUIS NAPOLEON'S APPEARANCE 49 
 
 Duchess of Baden, he was standing on the bridge 
 which spans the Neckar at Mannheim, when one of 
 his cousins chanced to drop a flower into the river ; 
 the princess laughingly lamented the days when 
 any chivalrous squire would have recovered her 
 flower for her. At once Louis, fully dressed as he 
 was, dived from the bridge into midstream, and 
 after swimming about for some minutes, came to 
 the bank and presented the frightened princess 
 with her draggled flower. This incident shows 
 well the deep hold which the sentimental German 
 romanticism had taken on the boy's mind ; it 
 serves also to explain the quixotic generosity of 
 many of Louis Napoleon's later political ideas. 
 
 Probably the chief gain of these early years lay 
 in the physical, rather than the mental, development 
 of the boy. It is true that, unlike his brother, 
 Louis Napoleon did not grow better-looking as he 
 grew older. As a child, he had been distinctly 
 good-looking ; fragile indeed, but possessed of a 
 certain delicate beauty of feature which accorded 
 well with the shy grace of his manner. This 
 regularity of feature he lost in early manhood, 
 though a high forehead, a keen glance, and a bright 
 smile saved his rather melancholy face from becom- 
 ing altogether uninteresting. He had already a 
 slight military moustache : the famous imperial 
 was not adopted until some dozen years later. 
 When it was added, it was probably a mistake, as 
 it lengthened further a face which was already 
 quite long enough, and emphasised the dis- 
 
 D 
 
50 EXILE AND EDUCATION [CH. m. 
 
 similarity, already suflficiently pronounced, of 
 Napoleon III and Napoleon I, Like his uncle, 
 Louis Napoleon when full grown was of less than 
 middle height. Unlike him, his form, though agile 
 and muscular, lacked symmetry. His body was 
 long, his legs were short. This disproportion in 
 his figure had, however, one compensation of which 
 the prince was very well aware. The length of 
 his body gave him, when on horseback, the 
 appearance of commanding height ; and as he was 
 careful to make himself a proficient horseman, he 
 was able to take full advantage of this fact in later 
 years. 
 
 Although the prince had lost something in 
 appearance in these fifteen years, he had gained 
 greatly in strength. When he went to Augsburg, 
 he was a feeble child, shy, timid, and retiring. In 
 1829, the year in which he came of age, he had run 
 rather to the other extreme. In Rome in this 
 year he made the acquaintance of the thu'd 
 Lord Malmesbury, who describes him in his 
 memoirs as ' a wild, harum-scarum youth, what the 
 French call un crane, riding at full gallop through 
 the streets to the peril of the public ; fencing and 
 pistol-shooting, apparently without serious thought 
 of any kind, although even then he was possessed 
 with the conviction that he would one day rule 
 France. . . . He was a very good horseman, a 
 proficient at athletic games ; although short, he was 
 very active and muscular. His face was grave and 
 dark, but redeemed by a singularly bright smile.' 
 
1829] CAMP AT THUN 51 
 
 This might not be an ideal method of behaviour, 
 but on the whole it was a change in the right 
 direction. Besides being, as Lord Malmesbury 
 says, a very good horseman, Louis was a swimmer 
 of quite remarkable excellence, a good gymnast, a 
 fair fencer, and an excellent shot : as a young man, 
 he is said to have swum across Lake Constance ; 
 while it is certain that he repeatedly bore off the 
 prize in the annual shooting match of his canton. 
 
 As these accomplishments bear witness, his 
 studies had by this time taken a definitely military 
 turn. He was especially interested in the history 
 and science of artillery, on which subject he wrote 
 four years later a monograph of some distinction. 
 In order to gain a more than theoretical knowledge 
 of the service, he enrolled himself as a volunteer 
 in the military camp at Thun, serving under an old 
 oflScer of Napoleon's, Colonel Dufour. For several 
 summers running he took his part in this very 
 practical experience of the duties of a soldier, with 
 a good-humoured alacrity which won him the 
 esteem of his fellow-ofiicers. It is not unusual to 
 find, in the anti-Napoleonic literature of a later 
 period, remarks disparaging these manoeuvres at 
 Thun as the merest pretence of military training. 
 These strictures seem rather unfair, A Swiss 
 volunteer artillery camp was not, of course, the 
 equivalent of an actual campaign as a method of 
 teaching the duties of an ofiicer; but such 
 experience as it could afibrd was attained in 
 Louis' case by no royal road. Carrying his own 
 
52 EXILE AND EDUCATION [CH. in. 
 
 baggage, feeding on the black bread of the country, 
 marching at times some thirty or forty miles a day, 
 and camping in the open — if this was not military 
 training, it was a fairly adequate substitute for it. 
 Nor was it the fault of the young prince that he 
 was denied an opportunity of winning his spurs in 
 an actual campaign of first-class importance. At 
 the end of the year 1828 he was extremely anxious 
 to serve as a volunteer in the Russian army against 
 the Turks. So ardent were his entreaties that his 
 mother gave a reluctant assent to the project. In 
 January 1829 he wrote to ask his father's per- 
 mission to join the Russian army as a volunteer 
 in the spring. His mother had consented, he 
 wrote; his aunt, the Grand Duchess of Baden, 
 thought the step a worthy one; the Czar would 
 almost certainly grant his request. 'At last I 
 should be able to do something worthy of you. 
 By making this campaign I should gain the 
 advantage of perfecting my instruction, of proving 
 the courage I have received from you, of attracting 
 general interest by it.' And he concluded by 
 begging his father, by all he held most dear, to 
 allow him the chance of making himself worthy of 
 his name. But King Louis met his son's request 
 with an absolute refusal. No cause whatever, he 
 said, could justify service under a strange flag in 
 an alien cause. His father's reply was a cruel 
 disappointment to the boy. But that it was wise 
 and well grounded cannot now be disputed. Fifty 
 years later another exiled prince who bore the 
 
1829] FATHER AND SON 53 
 
 name of Louis Napoleon won from his mother 
 leave to seek glory in a quarrel which was not his 
 own. This time there was no stern father to say 
 him nay. And so the boy went forth and found 
 what he sought — but at the cost gf his life. Had 
 Queen Hortense's leave not been over-ruled, there 
 might have been no Second Empire. Had the 
 Empress Eugenie's permission to her son been 
 recalled, it is possible that we might ere now have 
 seen the establishment of a third empire. A com- 
 parison, which clearly shows the wisdom of the 
 father's prohibition, becomes more ambiguous if it 
 be applied to the fate of the sons. For which 
 of them was truly happier — the boy who died 
 gloriously with all his wounds in front, or the man 
 who lived to suffer in premature old age every 
 inglorious back-handed stab that human ingenuity 
 could devise or malevolence almost preterhuman 
 could direct — this, of course, is another question, 
 and one which might meet with a different answer. 
 The event itself remains noteworthy, apart from 
 the comparison we have suggested, if only because 
 it furnishes the one example of effective interven- 
 tion on the part of King Louis in the education of 
 his younger son. 
 
 Although he was thus prevented from putting 
 them to the test of actual war, Louis did not dis- 
 continue his military studies and exercises ; he 
 was, in fact, in the midst of the usual arduous 
 routine at Thun when he heard the news of the 
 July Kevolution of 1830 in Paris. The fifteen 
 
54 EXILE AND EDUCATION [CH. ni. 
 
 years which had passed since his exile, though 
 they had given some proof of the wonderful 
 recuperative power of France, had not sufficed 
 really to attach the French people to the restored 
 Bourbon rule. Louis XVIII had shown no great 
 interest or initiative in the foreign policy of his 
 country, but his domestic rule had displayed real 
 tact and skill in moderating the reactionary 
 tendencies of a portion of his supporters. 
 
 Charles X, who had succeeded to the throne in 
 1824, was, on the contrary, ambitious and success- 
 ful in his external policy. But in the qualities 
 which had enabled his brother to reconcile to some 
 extent the internal dissensions of France, he showed 
 himself lamentably deficient. In 1830 the fruits of 
 his foreign policy were ripe for the plucking : the 
 capture of Algiers had laid the foundation of a 
 great French empire south of the Mediterranean, 
 and negotiations were on foot with Russia by which 
 France might have secured the acquisition of 
 Belgium, and so extended her territories once more 
 towards the Rhine. ^ Unfortunately for himself and 
 
 ' These schemes were more far-reaching than has generally been 
 supposed. Thus, at the crisis of the Turco-Eussian war, in 
 September 1829, a general plan for the redivision of Europe was 
 discussed and approved by the council of Charles X. By this 
 scheme, which was only to be presented to England as an accom- 
 plished decision, Russia was to get Wallachia, Moldavia, and a large 
 accession of territory in Asia (this last with the avowed object of 
 bringing Eussia into contact and conflict with the British dominions 
 in, India). Austria was to have Bosnia, Servia, Herzegovina, and 
 Turkish Dalmatia; Prussia would receive Saxony and Holland as 
 far as the Ehine ; Bavaria was to be slightly increased. France 
 itself would get Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Prussian territories 
 on this side of the Ehine. To England the Dutch colonies were to 
 
1830] THE JULY REVOLUTION 55 
 
 for France, Charles X chose this very moment for 
 a mad endeavour to make a short cut through the 
 tangled obstacles with which his domestic mis- 
 government had surrounded him at home. This he 
 attempted to do by an xmprecedented extension of 
 certain vague administrative powers granted to the 
 sovereign under the Charter of 1814. The publica- 
 tion of the Ordinances was followed by vigorous 
 opposition, for the most part constitutional in 
 
 be offered ; but it was not expected that they wotild be accepted, 
 and in the more probable event of war with England other disposi- 
 tion was to be made of them. The King of Saxony was to be compen- 
 sated by a cis-Khenane kingdom ; while the King of the Netherlands 
 would become King of Greece — a kingdom comprising the whole of 
 the remnant of European Turkey (Bulgaria, Thrace, Macedonia, etc.). 
 
 Not only was the scheme approved, but confidential instructions 
 to the French ambassador at St Petersburg were made out in this 
 sense. Owing, however, to the sudden announcement of peace these 
 instructions were not sent. 
 
 Polignac kept the documents ; when, however, on 28th July 1830 
 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was invaded by the mob, they were 
 made away with, and in great part destroyed. But M. Bois-le-Comte, 
 who was Prince Polignac's chej du cabinet and minister of foreign 
 affairs, had kept in his own possession copies of all the papers. 
 
 In the autumn of 1856 some considerable ill-feeling had arisen 
 between France and England, owing to differences as to the inter- 
 pretation of clauses in the Treaty of Paris. The Comte de Bois-le- 
 Comte took this opportunity, on 26th November 1856, of sending 
 these papers to Napoleon HI, with the suggestion that he would do 
 well to devise some such Anglophobe scheme with Eussia himself. 
 
 Napoleon III proceeded instead to show the whole of the 
 documents in question to Cowley, the British ambassador, even 
 allowing him to take them away and copy them. Thus they found 
 their way belatedly to the archives of the English Foreign Office. 
 
 Here I disinterred them, while investigating the diplomatic 
 correspondence of a later period; and thinking them of just 
 sufficient intrinsic interest to deserve publication, I give here 
 this brief rdsum6 of an extensive dossier. Of their indirect 
 importance I shall have to treat elsewhere ; for Napoleon III 
 characteristically utilised this opening as a preliminary of overtures 
 of his own to England for a scheme of mutual aggrandisement. 
 
56 EXILE AND EDUCATION [CH. ill. 
 
 intention; but a series of accidents delayed the 
 announcement of concessions which the native 
 obstinacy of the king had ah-eady rendered suffi- 
 ciently tardy. Meanwhile, the clever juggling of a 
 few astute politicians, and a successful coup de 
 theatre at the Hotel de Ville— with Lafayette 
 as stage-manager and Louis Philippe and a 
 tricolor as mise en scbne — had placed the Duke 
 of Orleans on the throne of the Bourbons. 
 The constitutional opposition had not desired a 
 change of dynasty, but only the due observance of 
 the Charter by the existing one : the armed revolu- 
 tionaries who had fought in the streets of Paris 
 desired not a new monarch, but the abolition of 
 monarchical government. Yet, when the confusion 
 of the July days had subsided, it was Louis 
 Philippe who had emerged from them — for all the 
 world like the rabbit produced from the conjm-er's 
 silk hat, a slightly scared rabbit seeming itself 
 to share something of the general surprise which 
 greets its appearance. It was not quite what 
 Paris had expected, but there was a very general 
 disposition to accept the result with alacrity. The 
 prudent welcomed it as a compromise : the pro- 
 vinces accepted it as an accomplished fact. Ingenu- 
 ous enthusiasts saw in Louis Philippe a saviour of 
 the nations, a Napoleon of peace, a citizen king : 
 ingenious apologists^ discerned in the House of 
 
 > E.g., Guizot, L'Histoire de la Revolution d'Angleterre. It was to 
 refute this comparison that Louis Napoleon, during his imprisonment 
 at Ham, wrote his Fragments Histm-iques, 1688 et 1830 ; see p. 202 
 below. 
 
1830] AN HISTORICAL PARALLEL 57 
 
 Orleans in 1830 the counterpart of the House of 
 Orange in 1688. 
 
 Indeed, the parallel was, at first sight, a curi- 
 ously striking one. On the ruins of a premature 
 parliamentarianism a great king had established a 
 " new monarchy " — despotic, centralised, autocratic. 
 A century and a half passed ; the circumstances 
 which justified the original despotism ceased to 
 exist, smaller kings had succeeded to the great 
 position and lowered its prestige. The reigning 
 monarch, though personally a man of estimable 
 character and admirable intentions, was attached to 
 an unpopular domestic policy, and espoused to an 
 unpopular foreign wife ; he loses his crown and his 
 head to a republican revolution. The republic falls 
 almost at once before a military dictator; the 
 dictator is personally successful, but his attempts to 
 secm'e a dynastic succession for his son fails. The 
 ancient dynasty is restored in the person of an 
 astute man of the world, a king of really states- 
 man-like instincts, though he might appear to be 
 intent only on never again going on his travels : 
 shrewd enough to see the necessity of humouring 
 the parliamentary spirit, and able enough to hold in 
 hand the more reckless of his own supporters. To 
 him succeeds a fanatic brother, obstinate, priest- 
 ridden, tactlessly despotic : a man whose hand of 
 clay flaunts the mailed fist. An unwarrantable 
 extension of a vague constitutional privilege de- 
 prives him of his throne. Such, briefly, were the 
 antecedents alike of the English revolution of 1688, 
 
58 EXILE AND EDUCATION [CH. iii. 
 
 and of the French revolution of 1830. Each 
 revolution ended in the acceptance of the vacant 
 throne by a younger branch of the old dynasty on a 
 professedly parliamentary basis. Surely if ever the 
 history of the past could shed light on the prospects 
 of the future, France, too, might now hope that she 
 had at last found, like England, a permanent settle- 
 ment of the problem of constitutional government. 
 But here the parallel, hitherto one of the most 
 remarkable in all history, broke down completely. 
 Those who based on it their hopes of ultimate 
 Orleanist success were unmindful of the thousand 
 and one disparities which mar the nicest and most 
 symmetrical of historical parallels. For us, it is 
 enough to take note of the one essential cause of 
 divergence, which, in itself, was the sum and con- 
 summation of the other thousand. In England in 
 1688, there did not exist the vestige of a Crom- 
 wellian legend ; in France in 1830, there did exist 
 a Napoleonic legend, whose growth alone was a 
 disturbing factor sufficient to throw the parallel out 
 of gear. Only slowly do the two lines show signs 
 of parting. In either case a long period of unrest 
 followed the revolution, dm-ing which the success of 
 the constitutional experiment remained in doubt. 
 But in England, throughout that period of uncer- 
 tainty, this one thing was certain, that the chances 
 of a descendant or imitator of Cromwell were nil. 
 Conceive the uprising in England of such a man, 
 who, 'recognising the regular though ephemeral title' 
 of son Kichard, should style himself Cromwell III ! 
 
1830] CROMWELL AND NAPOLEON 59 
 
 It so happened that there did actually exist 
 in England, during this very period of unrest, the 
 one man in her history who was really qualified 
 to play the part of a Napoleon. For the greatest 
 general England ever produced was also one of 
 the boldest, the most ambitious, and most un- 
 scrupulous of English statesmen. But even for 
 him the anti-Cromwellian feeling was too strong. 
 In the striking phrase of a recent historian, ' Dark 
 across the path of Marlborough's ambition lay the 
 sinister shadow of Cromwell.' The fact was, that 
 as in France men who had no other political 
 opmion in common imited in their praise of the 
 dead Napoleon, so in England they agreed in 
 cursing Cromwell. Thiers and Victor Hugo were 
 at one on the first point; Clarendon and Ludlow 
 united on the second. Two centuries were to pass 
 before Cromwell in his turn found his Thiers and 
 his Vendome column : but when Carlyle produced 
 his great vindication of the Protector, and Lord 
 Rosebery raised his statue in the precincts of 
 St Stephen's, the time had long passed when a 
 Cromwellian legend could be of any djmastic 
 importance. 
 
 It would be a mistake to imagine that even 
 in the revolution of 1830 there was no trace of 
 Bonaparte feeling. During the July days many 
 houses in Paris, especially in the workman's 
 quarter, were adorned with placards on behalf of 
 Napoleon II, But where was Napoleon II ? 
 Napoleon's son, while he lived, was the only pos- 
 
60 EXILE AND EDUCATION [CH. ill. 
 
 sible claimant to that title. Any effective effort, 
 however, on behalf of the Due de Reichstadt was 
 out of the question while he remained a virtual 
 prisoner in the hands of Austria. Moreover, his 
 days were already clearly numbered by the disease 
 which caused his death two years later. In his 
 enforced absence, Prince Napoleon, Louis' elder 
 brother, was invited by certain Bonapartists in 
 Paris to put himself at their head, but he declined 
 to attempt a civil war against a sovereign not yet 
 proved unworthy of the popular cause. From 
 America, when all was over, arrived a futile mani- 
 festo from King Joseph on behalf of the Emperor's 
 son. Louis himself did not move from the round 
 of his military duties at Thun. Though his letters 
 show that he was watching the course of events 
 in Paris with consuming interest, he remained at 
 Thun until his camp broke up in the autumn. At 
 the end of October he started quietly with his 
 mother on the usual winter visit to Rome, intent , 
 to all seeming, on nothing more noteworthy than 
 the ordered routine in which the preceding winters 
 had been spent. But the year 1830 was one in 
 which ordered routines were apt to be rudely dis- 
 turbed, nor were the effects of the July days confined 
 to France. Among the countries which felt the 
 shock of the revolution in Paris was one which was 
 to be almost as intimately connected as France 
 itself with the fortunes of Louis Napoleon : one 
 for whose sake he made larger sacrifices, and to 
 whose cause he rendered greater services, than 
 
1830] TOWARDS ITALY 61 
 
 perhaps any other sovereign has ever done for a 
 nation not his own. That country was Italy; 
 and it was to Italy that Louis Napoleon was 
 going quietly with his mother in the autumn 
 of 1830. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FIRST ATTEMPT TO DELIVER ITALY — AND 
 WHAT CAME OF IT 
 
 {November 1830 to April 1831. Aetat. 22.) 
 
 These are the records half eifaced 
 Which with the hand of youth he traced 
 
 On history's page : 
 But with fresh victories he drew 
 Each fading character anew 
 
 In his ripe age. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 A LEISURELY joumey, broken by a fortnight spent 
 at Florence in the company of Prince Napoleon, 
 brought Hortense and Louis to Rome about the 
 middle of November 1830. A fortnight after their 
 arrival, the death of Pope Pius VIII left the 
 Papal States without a master at a very critical 
 moment. Since 1821 the fallen cause of Italian 
 independence had been kept alive only by secret 
 societies, of which the Carbonari were the most 
 powerful ; and latterly these societies had made the 
 Papal States their headquarters. Already then' 
 hopes had been kindled by the success of the July 
 revolution in France, and by its consequences in 
 Belgium and Poland; the interregnum at Rome 
 which followed the Pope's death seemed therefore 
 
1830] NAPOLEON AND ITALY 63 
 
 to afford a favourable opportunity for a fresh 
 endeavour to win freedom for Italy, 
 
 Now, with the possible exception of Poland, 
 there was no country in Europe in which a national 
 cause was so intimately connected with the name 
 of Napoleon as in Italy. Italy had not been 
 conquered by Napoleon, but overrun by him ; on 
 her soil he had defeated not Italians, but their 
 foreign oppressors. Italian sentiment did not resent 
 the rule of a man himself half Italian by descent. 
 Italian interests were not noticeably injured by a 
 government which, if rigorous, was at least more 
 rational than most of those which came before or 
 after it. Under its bracing influence Italy awoke 
 to strenuous if somewhat artificial life ; imder 
 Napoleon's banners her sons showed that they had 
 not really forgotten how to die. The Italians were 
 alone among the peoples of Europe outside France 
 in regarding Napoleon's victories with something 
 like national pride ; alone too in this, that they 
 not only gained nothing, but had not expected to 
 gain anything, by his fall. The cause of national 
 independence, even of national unity, had been 
 advanced by his actual rule ; while from St Helena 
 he had of course explained to them that his one 
 purpose for their future had been the foundation, 
 as a kingdom to be ruled from Rome by his second 
 son, of a truly ft'ee and united Italy. 
 
 It was natural, therefore, that the Bonaparte 
 family should be favourable and not altogether 
 disinterested spectators of the Italian movement. 
 
64 ITALY [CH. IV. 
 
 For what they were denied in France, they might 
 find compensation in Italy. In December an 
 informal gathering took place in Rome of some 
 of the most prominent members of the family — 
 including besides Louis and his mother, King 
 Jerome and Cardinal Fesch, It is xmcertain 
 whether any plans for common action resulted 
 from this meeting, but it is clear that it had the 
 effect of alarming the French and the Papal govern- 
 ments. The elder Bonapartes retained considerable 
 private fortunes. These, it was believed, they were 
 ready to sink in the revolutionary cause in the hope 
 of political aggran'disement. Louis Napoleon, as 
 well as his elder brother, was supposed to be 
 himself a member of the Carbonari. On this point 
 it is still impossible to speak with absolute 
 certainty; the old Scots verdict of 'not proven' 
 seems to be all that history can yet arrive at on 
 the question — a verdict which in this case certainly 
 admits of the usual inference.^ Probably both 
 brothers had given verbal though not written 
 engagements to this society, signifying their co- 
 operation with its methods and objects. It is 
 certain that the governors of the city regarded 
 Louis' presence in Rome with suspicion and 
 dislike ; and when, shortly after the family conclave 
 at his mother's palace, he proceeded to ride through 
 the streets with the tricolor displayed on his person, 
 thus flaunting with ostentatious indiscretion his 
 sympathies with the national cause, they at once 
 
 ' See Appendix, p. 362. 
 
1831] LOUIS EXPELLED FROM ROME 65 
 
 demanded his immediate departure from Rome. 
 Despite the expostulations of his uncle, Cardinal 
 Fesch, he was conducted by Papal troops to the 
 frontier, whence he proceeded to join his brother at 
 Florence. Hortense, who remained in Rome, was 
 unfeignedly pleased to see him removed out of 
 harm's way, even in so unceremonious a fashion ; 
 for she had no desire to see her sons risk their lives 
 in Italy in a cause which she recognised as hopeless. 
 She wrote to them at Florence, warning them in a 
 very sensible letter of the hopelessness of any 
 united effort on Italy's behalf at that time, and 
 begging them to beware of the alluring suggestions 
 of men who had nothing to lose, who saw only 
 what their imagination wished to see. 'The 
 man,' she continued, 'who allows himself to be 
 carried away by the arguments of the first comer, 
 without making use of his own judgment, will be 
 a mediocrity all his life. There exist magical 
 names that may exercise a great influence over 
 coming events ; but they should not appear in 
 revolutions except to re-establish order, by giving 
 security to nations and checking the unbalanced 
 power of kings. Those who beai" them must wait 
 with patience : if they foment troubles, they will 
 share the fate of adventurers who have been made 
 use of, only to be deserted or betrayed on the first 
 mishap.' To which the princes replied very duti- 
 fully that they had carefully read their mother's 
 letter, and entirely recognised its wisdom. They 
 then proceeded immediately to act in direct opposi- 
 
66 ITALY [CH. IV. 
 
 tion to its advice, only to prove by bitter experience 
 how correct had been their mother's forecast of 
 events. Menotti, an enthusiastic patriot from 
 Modena, visited the princes at Florence, and 
 appealed to them to let their glorious name 
 become a rallying point for the down-trodden 
 patriots of Italy. His enthusiasm and eloquence 
 gained the day; and when, on February 5, 1831, 
 Bologna rose in revolt, the two brothers put 
 themselves at its head. If we think the better of 
 the mother for her wise advice, we need not 
 perhaps think the worse of her sons for disregarding 
 it. Their action, reckless as it was, was generous 
 and single-minded enough. By this time, any hopes 
 the elder members of the family had based on the 
 Italian disturbance were already at an end. King 
 Louis, Jerome, and Cardinal Fesch were alike op- 
 posed to the rash act. They used every possible 
 argument to induce the yoxmg men to return from 
 the rebels' camp ; and finding that impossible, they 
 refused to coimtenance their efforts or to give them 
 financial support. After their experience of the 
 previous year the princes had not expected to receive 
 any encouragement from their parents; this time, 
 however, they had avoided their probable opposition 
 by starting without informing them of their intention. 
 It was only when Hortense reached Florence, at 
 the beginning of March, that she learnt of her sons' 
 departure to the scene of the rebellion. Expecting 
 to meet them on her arrival, she found instead a 
 letter from Prince Louis waiting for her. 'The 
 
1831] AN ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION 67 
 
 name they bore and the engagements they had 
 accepted obliged them,' he wrote, 'to act as they 
 had done.' Other letters, joyful and enthusiastic, 
 followed from Terni. ' For the first time I know 
 what it is to live,' wrote Louis (from Terni, 26th 
 February) ; 'before I have done nothing but vege- 
 tate. A fairer or more honourable position than 
 ours could not be imagined.' 
 
 The two princes had indeed been received at 
 first with wild enthusiasm, and had been raised to 
 the chief commands in the little army. 'The 
 revolutionary forces assembled near Foligno and 
 Viterbo are variously computed at 3000 and 5000 
 men,' wrote the British minister at 'Florence. 
 ' They have been joined by two sons of the Duke 
 of St Leu, the ex-King of Holland, who were 
 received by the troops with great enthusiasm.' ' 
 Both brothers displayed courage and resource. 
 Prince Napoleon succeeded in repelling a body of 
 Papal troops who attempted to recapture Terni 
 and Spoleto, and Louis made his preparations for 
 the assault of Civitk Castellana with a coolness and 
 certainty of aim which won the respect of men 
 older than himself He rightly judged that if this 
 assault were successful, Eome would lie open to his 
 attack. It was in the fighting before Civit^ Castel- 
 lana that Count Felix Orsini lost his life ; Orsini, 
 
 ' E. H. Seymour to Palmerston, Florence, 1st March 1831. 
 ' Duke ' is a misnomer : on his abdication in 1810 Louis assumed 
 the modest title Comte de St Leu. Nothing in his wife's subsequent 
 conduct caused him more annoyance than her adoption of the same 
 territorial title with the higher rank of Duchess, 
 
68 ITALY [CH. IV. 
 
 whose son, a generation later, thought he could 
 best serve the cause for which his father died, by 
 attempting to assassinate Louis Napoleon himself 
 
 So threatening appeared the dispositions of the 
 rebels that the new Pope hastened to make 
 provision for his escape from Rome, in case the 
 insurgents should press him further.^ Indeed, had 
 Gregory XVI been able to oppose no more formid- 
 able forces than the Papal troops to their advance, 
 the leaders of the insurrection would probably have 
 carried their movement to a triumphant conclusion. 
 But while making his preparations for retreat from 
 Rome, the Pope lost no time in appealing for 
 deliverance to Austria; and Austria at once pre- 
 pared to come to his aid. It now became evident 
 that unless the revolutionaries also could hope for 
 foreign intervention in their favour, their cause was 
 lost. France was the only country whose help they 
 could expect. But so long as Austria could point 
 to the presence of the two princes in the rebel 
 ranks, as evidence of the Bonapartist character of 
 the movement, Louis Philippe would have an 
 admirable excuse for refusing to intervene on its 
 behalf Accordingly the insurgents became as 
 eager for the princes' departure as they had been for 
 their arrival. While on the point of following up 
 their attack on Civit^ Castellana by a march on 
 Eome itself, the brothers were recalled by the 
 revolutionary government of Bologna, and replaced 
 by General Sercognani. Bitterly disappointed, they 
 
 ' E. H. Seymour to Palmerston, Florence, 7th March 1831. 
 
1831] A PERILOUS POSITION 69 
 
 obeyed these orders and returned to Bologna, where 
 they were informed that their further services were 
 not required in any capacity. Accepting with the 
 best grace they might the humiliating situation in 
 which they were placed, the brothers retired to 
 Forli. They had found neither glory nor gratitude 
 in their adventure, but dangers in plenty still 
 awaited them. In dismissing the princes the revolu- 
 tionists had deprived their movement of the chief 
 element of its existing strength, without in any way 
 securing the help they hoped from France. Louis 
 Philippe did not lift a finger on their behalf. After 
 the departure of the princes the Papal government 
 no longer feared those who still remained in arms, 
 and the advance of the Austrians showed by this 
 time that the movement had no hope of success. 
 It also had the effect of encouraging the lesser 
 governments to refuse the princes passage through 
 their territories. Tuscany forbade them to cross its 
 frontier. The Austrian minister at Florence told 
 King Louis that their return to Switzerland would 
 not be permitted. An Austrian fleet in the 
 Adriatic prevented escape by sea : and from the 
 amnesty published by the Austrian general on 
 his arrival in Papal territory their names were 
 expressly excepted. Hortense indeed was warned 
 that the princes would find no protection in their 
 imperial rank if they fell into the hands of the 
 Austrian troops, but would be liable to the death 
 penalty which had been declared against all 
 foreigners taking part in the movement. Realising 
 
70 ITALY [CH. IT. 
 
 that their position was one of extreme danger, she 
 resolved to remain in Florence no longer, but to go 
 herself in search of them. Before leaving the city, 
 she obtained from an English friend a British pass- 
 port, made out for an EngUsh lady travelling with 
 her two sons through Paris to England. For she 
 had determined on a line of retreat whose apparent 
 risk might be its real security. If in those troubled 
 times Switzerland was indeed not strong enough to 
 offer a safe refuge for her sons, she might at least be 
 sure that in England they would be safe from the 
 molestation of Austria or France. The direct route 
 seemed barred by the decree of exile which forbade 
 the princes to set foot in France. But where every 
 road seemed dangerous this might be the safest, since 
 nowhere would their presence be less suspected. 
 
 Armed, then, with this passport for futm'e use, 
 Hortense set out from Florence on March 10, in 
 search of her sons. Ignorant of their whereabouts, 
 and imagining that they were still at the front, she 
 had travelled as far south as Perugia before learn- 
 ing that they were really at Forli. Turning north- 
 wards, she was met by the news that her" elder son 
 was dangerously ill, and desired greatly to see her. 
 Half out of her mind with grief and anxiety, she 
 hastened forward, refusing to believe the rumour 
 which met her that her son was not ill but dead. 
 But at Pesaro, Prince Louis himself confirmed the 
 tale. After a three days' illness,^ his brother had 
 died in his arms on March 17, fever smitten at 
 
 ' E. H. Seymour to Palmerston, 22nd March 1831. 
 
1831] IN HIDING AT ANCONA 71 
 
 Faenza. On the eve of the occupation of their city 
 by the Austrians, the whole population of Forli had 
 joined Louis in following his brother to the grave, 
 mourning the death aUke of their short-lived hopes 
 and of their champion of a day. 
 
 For Hortense, however, it was no time to mourn 
 
 the dead, but to save the Uving, if by any means 
 
 her younger son could be saved from his brother's 
 
 fate. Louis himself was very ill. Yet the 
 
 Austrians were marching on Pesaro, and it was 
 
 impossible to remain there. At all costs they must 
 
 avoid the advancing menace of the Austrian troops. 
 
 A hurried drive brought mother and son to Ancona ; 
 
 but here the latter's condition became so much 
 
 worse that further travel became out of the question 
 
 for the time. In nursing his brother Louis had 
 
 himself been infected with measles, the disease 
 
 with which his brother's illness had begun. 
 
 Hortense, who throughout the whole of this 
 
 Itahan episode is seen at her best, was equal to 
 
 the emergency. She at once engaged a place for 
 
 her son in a vessel about to start for Corfu. His 
 
 passport for that island was procured from the 
 
 authorities of Ancona before the amval of the 
 
 Austrians, and his luggage was ostentatiously put 
 
 on board. And when next day the Austrian army 
 
 entered the city they believed that the proscribed 
 
 prince had made good his escape to Greece. 
 
 In reality he was lying delirious and in high 
 fever in the palace occupied by his mother. 
 Announcing that she herself was very ill, Hortense 
 
72 ITALY [OH. IV. 
 
 placed the real patient in a small inner room which 
 opened out of her own. Every precaution was 
 taken to conceal the fact of his presence ; but when 
 the Austrian commander proceeded to demand the 
 palace for his own use it seemed that none could 
 be effective. The queen, indeed, was allowed to 
 retain a few rooms for herself; but for a week the 
 prince lay sick in a room which was only divided 
 from that of the Austrian commander by the thick- 
 ness of a double wooden door ; forbidden to speak, 
 lest the sound of a man's voice heard through the 
 thin baiTier should betray the secret of his presence. 
 It was no time for a lengthy convalescence. As 
 soon as Louis was so far recovered as to be able to 
 travel with no greater danger to himself than 
 that involved by his continued presence in Ancona, 
 Hortense announced her intention of leaving the 
 city. Never dreaming that her son was going with 
 her the Austrian commander raised no objection, 
 but furnished her with a pass through the Austrian 
 lines. Prince Louis was disguised as one of her 
 footmen. In order to lessen the chance of his 
 disguise being discovered, the queen started on her 
 journey before daylight. Very early on the morning 
 of Easter Sunday she passed through the Austrian 
 lines, and as she explained that she wished to hear 
 mass at Loreto on her way, the unusual horn- of her 
 departure created no suspicion. 
 
 Elaborate precautions such as these, though 
 they did not prevent an occasional Italian from 
 recognising the prince, yet saved the party from 
 
1831] TUSCAN FRONTIER CROSSED 73 
 
 any interference on the part of the Austrian 
 officials until the Papal States were left behind. 
 But Tuscany was still to be traversed, and here the 
 chances of detection were even greater ; for Louis 
 and his brother had been very familiar figures in the 
 little kmgdom. Thinking to decrease the danger, 
 the fugitives crossed the frontier at midnight ; but 
 even so they narrowly escaped summary arrest. 
 The most stringent orders had been given that 
 Louis was to be prevented from entering Tuscan 
 territory. Hortense was not to be allowed to 
 proceed until she had been examined by a special 
 commissioner of police ; but the commissioner was 
 at this hour in bed some miles away. He had, 
 however, left orders that no one was to be allowed 
 to proceed until his return. Hortense sent her 
 passport by her own courier to the commissioner ; 
 fortunately he was sleepy, and had no mind to turn 
 out on such an errand in the middle of the night ; 
 he therefore signed the passport, on receiving a 
 most solemn assurance that Prince Louis was not 
 with his mother. When the morning came it was 
 almost certain that the man would discover his 
 mistake, and exceedingly probable that he would 
 endeavom' to repair it ; the more so as the courier, 
 in the hope of putting him off his guard by seeming 
 innocence, had invited him to call and inspect the 
 party personally the next morning at Camoscia. 
 Meanwhile a few precious hours were gained, but 
 even this slight advantage seemed likely to be lost 
 when the fugitives arrived at Camoscia, and found 
 
74 ITALY [CH. IV. 
 
 that they could obtain no relays of post-horses there. 
 It seemed as though they might be forced to keep 
 their engagement after all. There was nothing for 
 it but stay awhile and rest their wearied horses : 
 these, indeed, were more fortunate than their 
 masters— they could be stabled without trouble. 
 But for Hortense or her son to enter the inn would 
 have been to court recognition, since it was full of 
 political refugees like themselves. Hortense could 
 at least rest in her own coach ; the future Emperor 
 of the French, very recently recovered from a 
 dangerous ilhiess, had to sleep on a stone bench in 
 the open street. The man who was to become the 
 most powerful potentate in Europe could only hope 
 to save his life by making his bed correspond to his 
 flunkey garb. 
 
 As soon as the horses were fit to move, the 
 fugitives proceeded with what speed they could. 
 Starting before daybreak, they travelled along by- 
 roads and changed horses, and drivers, as soon and 
 as often as they had opportunity. By this means 
 they were enabled, after a long day's drive, to take 
 a night's rest in a small village in comparative 
 security; for by this time they might hope that 
 they had shaken oflF any possible pursuers. It was 
 still, however, necessary to pass through Siena. 
 As this town was an habitual stopping-place of 
 Hortense on her yearly visit to Rome, she could not 
 hope to pass through it unrecognised. She there- 
 fore made no attempt at an impossible incognito, 
 but drove boldly through the city in the daytime. 
 
1831] PASSAGE THROUGH SIENA 75 
 
 Since there was no other road than that which went 
 through the city, Louis could not avoid passing 
 through the town without serious risk of losing his 
 way, and so falling into the hands of the police who 
 occupied the whole neighbourhood. He therefore 
 went as far as the city gate in his mother's carriage ; 
 while her passport was being examined there, he 
 jumped out and hastened through by-streets to the 
 Florence gate. A little way beyond the city he was 
 to wait for his mother ; but again no horses could 
 be procured, and those they had could not go on 
 without two hours' rest. This unexpected delay 
 nearly led to the two missing each other; but 
 fortunately the carriage met Louis just as he was 
 returning in search of it to the city gate, where 
 he would probably have been discovered and 
 arrested. 
 
 The most hazardous part of their journey was 
 over when the Tuscan frontier had been again 
 crossed, and Pisa and Lucca left behind. Hortense 
 now fell back on her original English passport: 
 Louis no longer travelled as her servant, but as 
 one of the two sons mentioned in the passport ; the 
 place of the other was taken by a young noble- 
 man, also deeply implicated in the recent rebellion, 
 who had accompanied Hortense from Florence, and 
 had hitherto been disguised as one of her servants. 
 At Pietra Santa they turned aside to see the home 
 of that elder son for whom Hortense had been 
 obliged to find a substitute; for now that the 
 immediate danger for the living son had been 
 
76 ITALY [CH. IV. 
 
 largely surmounted she had time once more to 
 feel the loss of the other. Delay was still unsafe, 
 however, and a narrow escape from recognition 
 caused the fugitives again to hasten onwards. 
 They passed hurriedly through Massa and Genoa 
 towards the French frontier, which they crossed 
 by way of Antibes. At Cannes they halted, 
 sleeping on French soil for the first time 
 after fifteen years of exile. So ended Louis 
 Napoleon's first attempt to deliver Italy. The 
 whole episode remains one of the most obscure 
 in his life. As we have the facts at present, 
 it is less the impetuous ardour of the son than 
 the courage and resource of the mother that 
 impress our attention. But it remains clear 
 that in this adventure Louis was under fixe for 
 the fii'st time, and that he behaved creditably 
 enough in his first brief tenure of military 
 command. 
 
 From this youthful intervention of Louis 
 Napoleon in Italy there resulted in any case 
 two facts of first-rate importance. The death of 
 his brother rendered all but certain his own 
 eventual succession to the position of head of the 
 House of Bonaparte. By an arrangement made in 
 1804, Napoleon had limited the succession of his 
 empire, in default of direct issue of his own, to 
 two of his brothers and their male descendants. 
 These brothers were Louis of Holland, and Joseph, 
 afterwards King of Spain. Now Napoleon's own 
 son was by this time in ill-health, and Joseph 
 
1831] EXITS AND ENTRANCES 77 
 
 had no sons. Hence in becoming his father's 
 sole heir, Louis Napoleon became also the practi- 
 cally certain successor to the primacy of the 
 Napoleonic house. To most men this would 
 have seemed the emptiest of empty honours: to 
 Louis Napoleon it carried with it the entail of a 
 vast inheritance. To mark his sense of this fact, 
 the prince reversed the order of his Christian 
 names, signing himself for the next seventeen 
 years Napoleon Louis, instead of Louis Napoleon. 
 Henceforth his every effort must be devoted to 
 making good the claim which this signature 
 impUed; to hastening the day when his first 
 name might be shed entirely, and he should 
 be able with regal simplicity to write himself 
 'Napoleon.' 
 
 Even more important was the other consequence 
 which followed jfrom this affair. It can hardly 
 be questioned that his youthful intervention in an 
 Italian rising served permanently to interest Louis 
 Napoleon in what was to be the greatest achieve- 
 ment of his life — the liberation of Italy. There 
 was indeed a strange difference in the fashion of 
 his exit from Italy and of his next entrance as 
 her champion. Now as a sorry fugitive he was 
 being huddled in disguise from Italy where his life 
 was forfeit, to France wherein he was forbidden 
 to set foot by a decree of perpetual exile. Then 
 as the most powerful sovereign in Europe he was to 
 return from France, of which he was absolute ruler, 
 to Italy in whose cause he had mobilised what 
 
78 ITALY [CH. IV. 
 
 was still the first army in the world. Yet the two 
 events cannot be wholly disconnected. If in the 
 winter of 1831 Louis Napoleon had not played 
 his puerile part in the feeble rising of Bologna, 
 Napoleon III would hardly have risked his crown 
 for Italy in the summer of 1859. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 EOUIS NAPOLEON A POLITICAL APPRENTICE 
 
 (1831-1835. Aetat. 23-27.) 
 
 Must I not serve a long apprenticehood 
 To foreign passages, and in the end, 
 Having my freedom, boast of nothing else 
 But that I was a journeyman to grief 9 
 
 Shakespeaee. 
 
 Although Louis had recovered from his ilhiess 
 by the time he left Italy, he was still in far from 
 good health. His brother's death, and the in- 
 glorious ending of an enterprise on which he had 
 embarked with such high hopes, had thrown him 
 into a condition of profound melancholy, resembling 
 somewhat the periods of sombre silence with 
 which his father was afflicted. This mood passed 
 from him when he found himself once more in 
 France. Apathy gave place to an absorbing 
 interest in every detail of the life he saw around 
 him ; interest to an intense desire that he himself 
 might be permitted to share in future in the civic 
 rights of his own country. He seems to have 
 imagined that Louis Philippe might be induced 
 not merely to repeal the sentence of exile which 
 
 79 
 
80 A POLITICAL APPRENTICE [CH. V. 
 
 hung over him, but even to allow him to serve 
 in the French army. His mother was less hope- 
 ful. It was true that the king was to some extent 
 under obligation to her, for in 1815 she had 
 secured pensions for his mother and aunt, and 
 permission for them to reside in France during 
 the hundred days. Louis Philippe had, in fact, 
 given her to understand that she might rely on his 
 good offices. But when her son showed her a 
 rather grandiose epistle which he had addressed 
 to the king, asking his leave to serve as a simple 
 soldier in the French army, Hortense begged 
 that he would at least wait until they had reached 
 Paris, when a personal appeal might be made with 
 more chance of success. 
 
 To Paris they came after an uneventful journey, 
 during which they were careful to conceal their 
 identity. On her arrival, Hortense lost no time in 
 informing the king of her presence. Louis Philippe 
 was not particularly pleased at the appearance of 
 these rather embarrassing visitors, but he finally con- 
 sented to see the queen. He received her secretly, 
 and with extraordinary precautions against dis- 
 covery, at the Palais Eoyal. He was affable, almost 
 affectionate in his manner. He could sympathise 
 only too well with the sorrows of an exile; soon 
 he hoped that there would be no French exiles; 
 he was resolved that none should exist under his 
 rule. Meanwhile could he serve her in any way ? 
 She had just claims, he knew, on the French 
 Government. She must make him her family 
 
1831] RECEPTION BY LOUIS PHILIPPE 81 
 
 lawyer, and he would see that her affairs were 
 
 attended to. As to her son's request, he would 
 
 be glad to see the letter, and consider it ; only it 
 
 was essential that the prince's presence in Paris 
 
 should remain a profound secret. Hortense was 
 
 gratified at her reception, and returned in high 
 
 spirits to her hotel. There she found her son in 
 
 bed, suffering apparently from a fresh attack of 
 
 the fever which had prostrated him in Italy. An 
 
 obliging doctor now forbade his removal from 
 
 Paris. Louis Philippe learnt of the prolongation 
 
 of their visit with annoyance not unmixed with 
 
 suspicion ; Casimir Perier, the only one of his 
 
 ministers whom he had informed of their presence, 
 
 op^y avowed his belief that the prince's illness 
 
 was a mere fiction designed to procure him a few 
 
 days in Paris, which he might spend in plotting 
 
 against the new dynasty. These suspicions were 
 
 natural, and possibly well grounded ; it is clear that 
 
 Louis did, din-ing his short stay in Paris, enter into 
 
 relations with some of the republican leaders; 
 
 while in the autumn of the same year traces were 
 
 found of his acquaintance with some Bonapartist 
 
 plotters, who were arrested while arranging a rising 
 
 in the eastern provinces. It seems probable that 
 
 Louis reaUy was unwell; but it cannot be denied 
 
 that his second feverish attack was as timely as 
 
 the first had been dangerous and inconvenient. A 
 
 week's delay at Ancona had meant the hourly 
 
 possibihty of ignominious capture ; a week's delay 
 
 in Paris now excused his presence at a time when 
 
 F 
 
82 A POLITICAL APPRENTICE [CH. V. 
 
 the strong Bonaparte feeling which abeady existed 
 there would be sure to find expression. 
 
 The fifth of May, the anniversary of Napoleon's 
 death, had by this time become a day of national 
 celebration in his honour. This year the manifesta- 
 tion promised to be one of unusual importance. 
 For Louis Philippe's Government had decided to 
 restore the Little Corporal to his original position 
 on the Vendome Column, and the work was now 
 actually in progress. It was hoped that this 
 official tribute to the memory of Napoleon would 
 deprive the growing force of the Napoleonic Legend 
 of any anti-dynastic aims ; possibly that it would 
 even turn it into a source of strength for the new 
 monarchy. None the less, Louis Philippe, who 
 had not yet been a year on the throne, could not 
 but feel some anxiety as to the success of this 
 rather risky experiment. And the presence of 
 Hortense and Louis Napoleon within a stone's 
 throw of the Vendome Column was not calculated 
 to lessen that anxiety. On May 4 a pressing 
 message was sent by the hand of a king's aide-de- 
 camp, insisting on their immediate departure from 
 Paris. Fortunately he arrived at a moment when 
 the doctor was actually applying leeches to his 
 patient, and Hortense succeeded in satisfying the 
 messenger that her son could not make the journey 
 that day. She was thus able to watch on the 
 following day from the window of her hotel the 
 vast crowd which assembled round the Vendome 
 Column to honour Napoleon's memory. She was 
 
1831] ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND 83 
 
 informed, however, that unless her son's life would 
 actually be endangered by the journey, there must 
 be no further delay in their departure. It was not 
 possible to represent Prince Louis as being in any 
 immediate danger of death, so on the 6th, Hortense 
 and her son left Paris, and about a week later they 
 arrived in London.^ There the prince was at 
 once prostrated by a severe attack of jaundice, 
 caused apparently by a rough passage at a time 
 when he was not very fit to travel. His illness, 
 however, though acute, did not last long, and the 
 warm welcome which the exiles met in London 
 helped them both to forget a new disappointment 
 of their hopes. For Louis Philippe had given 
 Hortense to understand before she left Paris, that 
 though he could secure the revocation of the act 
 which exiled her, yet he could not promise as 
 much for her son. And even if at some future 
 date Louis were permitted to return to France, it 
 would still be impossible for him to serve in the 
 army unless he first abandoned his own name. 
 This stipulation was not unreasonable from the 
 king's point of view, but it suflBced to render 
 useless to Prince Louis any concessions which were 
 
 ^ According to some accounts — e.g., M. Duval, Napoleon III, 
 EnfoMce, Jewiesse — they remained in Paris until the 12th, and did 
 not reach Calais before the 18th of May. In any case they seem to 
 have gone straight to London, though the first mention of their 
 arrival occurring in the Times is a full month later. 'Prince 
 Louis Napoleon Buonaparte, second son of Louis Buonaparte, has 
 arrived in London, and is staying with his mother, Hortensia, 
 Duchess of St Leu, formerly Queen of Holland. Also, Achilles 
 Murat, son of Murat, is in town, and these eminent foreigners paid 
 on Friday a visit to Earl Grey.'— The Times, Monday, 20th June 1831. 
 
84 A POLITICAL APPRENTICE [CH. V. 
 
 made to depend on it. For at the time his name 
 was his one possession, and to abandon it would 
 have been to abandon his claim to the inheritance 
 which might devolve on him. The king's reply 
 was accompanied by an offer of financial assist- 
 ance ; this Hortense had refused. 
 
 Louis and his mother stayed in England for 
 nearly three months. The greater part of this time 
 was spent in the capital, where they were visited 
 and entertained by many persons of distinction. 
 No oflBcial notice was taken of their presence 
 save by Talleyrand, the French ambassador, who 
 anxiously enquired as to their present object in 
 visiting London, and the date and route of their 
 return journey to Switzerland. Indeed, on the 
 last two points he saved them the trouble of 
 coming to a decision for themselves. They had 
 intended to return almost immediately by way of 
 Belgium ; they were informed that they must not 
 leave England until the beginning of August, and 
 that even then they must avoid Belgium. The 
 July monarchy wished to celebrate its first anni- 
 versary without the presence of its embarrassing 
 visitors of May ; and the passage of Louis Napoleon 
 through Belgium might give rise to political dis- 
 turbance in the newly constituted kingdom. It 
 was suspected that disturbance of this sort might 
 be not merely the result, but the object of the pro- 
 jected jom-ney : Prince Leopold, the newly elected 
 King of the Belgians, did not himself share this sus- 
 picion, but the precaution was a very natural one. 
 
1831] AN APPEAL FROM POLAND 85 
 
 It was not, therefore, until the 7th of August 
 that Hortense and her son left England, Their 
 return voyage through France was uneventful, and 
 before the end of the month they found themselves 
 once more at the quiet retreat of Arenenberg. 
 Here Prince Louis was to spend the greater part 
 of the next five years. Unlike the exciting months 
 he had just passed, this was to prove the least 
 eventful period of his life — save for that other 
 lustrum which he spent ten years later in imprison- 
 ment. At the moment of his return, it is true, an 
 event occurred which appeared to promise a 
 repetition on a larger scale of all the alarms and 
 excursions of the preceding year. At the end of 
 August 1831 a PoHsh deputation reached the 
 prince at Arenenberg, begging him to put himself 
 at the head of the insurgents. In some ways this 
 was a weightier appeal than that to which Louis 
 and his brother had yielded so readily a year ago : 
 the Pohsh revolutionary movement in itself was a 
 far more serious affair than the Italian rising had 
 been ; and this appeal bore the signature of some 
 of its most distinguished leaders and generals, 
 entreating the prince, as 'the nephew of the 
 greatest captain of all the ages,' to put himself at 
 their head. None the less, he refused. His 
 mother, who had lost one son already in a like 
 cause, redoubled her endeavours to dissuade the 
 survivor from another mad adventm'e of the same 
 kind. This time her advice was supported by her 
 son's own experience of its previous truth. More- 
 
86 A POLITICAL APPRENTICE [oh. v. 
 
 over, Louis Napoleon had never quite that 
 sympathy with the Poles which he always had for 
 the Italians ; he did not feel himself committed to 
 the support of their cause as he was to that of 
 Italy ; possibly, too, he recognised that he had only 
 been invited to head the movement at the eleventh 
 hour, when its chance of success had practically 
 vanished. His refusal in any case was only given 
 with reluctance; according to some accounts he 
 actually reconsidered it, and had gone secretly as 
 far as the Swiss frontier, on his way to Poland, 
 when he was met with the news of the fall of its 
 capital on September 8, and deterred from 
 further progress by the grim announcement that 
 ' Order reigned in Warsaw.' 
 
 Now, at any rate, he recognised that the 
 revolutionary period of 1830-31 was at an end, 
 and that with it had closed any present prospect 
 of advancing his position by acting as champion 
 with the sword of any of the distressed peoples of 
 Europe. He therefore turned his attention to the 
 possibilities of a literary vindication of the 
 Napoleonic claims. Realising the great service 
 which Thiers, Beranger, Victor Hugo, and others 
 were, consciously or unconsciously, rendering the 
 imperial cause by their writings, he resolved him- 
 self to embark on a series of political pamphlets ; 
 which should serve at once to attract attention to 
 his own person as a claimant of the traditions of 
 the empire, and also to show that the liberal and 
 democratic tendencies which had been attributed 
 
1832] FIRST LITERARY EFFORT 87 
 
 to the Emperor, were not repudiated, but rather 
 welcomed, by his descendants. 
 
 On the first of these pamphlets — for they hardly 
 deserve a more dignified name — Prince Louis was 
 engaged during the winter of 1832. It was 
 published under the title of Reveries Politiques in 
 May 1832. As Napoleon's son the Duke of 
 Eeiehstadt was stiU aUve at this time, it is he who 
 throughout the leaflet is spoken of as the 
 inheritor of Napoleon's claims ; and from this fact 
 some of Louis Napoleon's apologists have striven 
 to show that his writings were not originally 
 inspired by any personal ambition. But since the 
 Duke of Eeichstadt was known to be in the last 
 stages of consumption at the time of the composi- 
 tion of this pamphlet, and in fact died two months 
 after its pubhcation, the contention in any case has 
 very little value; and it becomes altogether 
 untenable in the light of one significant clause in 
 the ' Sketch of a Constitution ' which is appended 
 to the Political Reflections. That clause, which has 
 been rather curiously ignored, provides that in the 
 event of the son, or nearest surviving relative of the 
 Emperor, not being a suitable candidate, the people 
 shall be empowered to choose for themselves a fit 
 successor. Thus Prince Louis disposes not only 
 of the Duke of Eeichstadt, should his illness chance 
 to prove a lingering one, but also of the two 
 brothers of Napoleon, who, by the terms of his 
 will, would still intervene between himself and the 
 inheritance, even on the death of the duke. The 
 
88 A POLITICAL APPRENTICE [CH. V. 
 
 fact was, that since the death of his brother in Italy, 
 Louis was convinced that he himself was the only 
 member of the Bonaparte family who could forward 
 the imperial claims. His father was a confirmed 
 invalid ; his uncle, King Joseph, was an old man, 
 and had no sons. The incompetence of the older 
 members of the Napoleonic house had been 
 sufficiently proved in 1830, for Louis believed — and 
 many who were no well-wishers of the Napoleonic 
 cause shared the belief — that a resolute imperialist 
 candidate would have had a good chance of success 
 in Paris at the time of the July revolution. The 
 Political Reflections, therefore, must be regarded 
 as the first public assertion by Louis Napoleon of 
 his position as a possible candidate for the imperial 
 heritage. The prince avows himself a republican 
 by inclination, who is none the less driven to the 
 belief that under existing conditions an empire is 
 the only form of government in which the liberties 
 of the French people can be preserved. If the 
 Rhine were an ocean — if, that is, France were an 
 insular and not a continental power — he would be 
 in favour of a republic in practice. As it is, while 
 giving the elective power to the people, and the 
 deliberative power to the legislative body, he would 
 reserve to the emperor the execution of the people's 
 will. 
 
 The paper as a whole is slight and somewhat 
 sentimental, fluent in expression, but not par- 
 ticularly striking in conception ; if there is little in 
 it to provoke criticism, there is also little to arrest 
 
1833] TREATISE ON SWISS INSTITUTIONS 89 
 
 attention. Another and more substantial treatise 
 appeared in 1833, entitled Considerations Poli- 
 tiqms et Militaires sur la Suisse. In so far 
 as it concerns Switzerland it is a sympathetic 
 and really intelligent study of the condition and 
 prospects of the country, based on intimate know- 
 ledge of its customs and recent history. But 
 Switzerland, of course, was not the author's sole 
 concern. ' If in speaking of Switzerland I have been 
 unable to prevent the frequent recurrence of my 
 thoughts to France, I trust that my digressions may 
 be pardoned,' he writes in the preface ; and these 
 digressions form indeed no small part of the whole. 
 The Considerations met with a favourable recep- 
 tion in Switzerland; and their author, who had 
 received the civic rights of the canton of Thurgau a 
 year before, was now made an honorary citizen of 
 the Swiss Republic. The compliment was the more 
 remarkable as Louis had not abstained from some 
 rather searching, though entirely friendly, criticism 
 of the Swiss institutions ; pointing out in particular 
 the necessity of adjusting the possibly conflicting 
 rights of the individual canton and the republic as a 
 whole. The importance of this question was soon 
 shown in the case of Switzerland, by the conflict 
 between the Sonderbund and the Protestant 
 cantons ; while later — and on a larger scale — its 
 gravity was demonstrated by the war between the 
 Confederate and Federal States in America. 
 
 A year later the prince received another mark 
 of local esteem which gave him even greater 
 
90 A POLITICAL APPRENTICE [CH. v. 
 
 pleasure. In July 1834 the canton of Berne made 
 him a captain of the artillery regiment of their 
 canton. At this time he was already busily pre- 
 paring a Manual of Artillery for the use of the 
 Swiss Army. Here the prince had a subject which 
 he had already studied minutely ; one in which he 
 continued to take a keen and practical interest 
 until the end of his life. The result was a treatise 
 which, if too technical to be of any general interest, 
 was possessed of far more value than the rather 
 vague political generalisations of the previous 
 pamphlets. Unlike its predecessors, this volume 
 was not avowedly concerned with current political 
 events ; but even more than its predecessors was 
 it designed to forward the political ambitions of its 
 author. The Manuel d'Artillerie was a book of 
 real merit, a closely printed, closely reasoned volume 
 of over five himdred pages, succinct in form, 
 precise in detail, clear and lucid in expression — 
 almost a model of what such a book should be. 
 It may or may not have been the unaided work 
 of the prince ; in any case, it was a volume on the 
 title-page of which Napoleon's nephew could put 
 his name without fear of criticism. 
 
 Much industry and study must have gone to the 
 composition of the book ; industry not less untiring 
 was now spent on its distribution. Every French 
 officer with whom the prince had the slightest 
 personal acquaintance, or the remotest connexion 
 through some common friend, received a presenta- 
 tion copy of the work, with a friendly letter 
 
1835] RELATIONS WITH FRENCH OFFICERS 91 
 
 assuring its recipient of the author's personal 
 esteem and regard. By such means Louis Napoleon 
 endeavoured, not unsuccessfully, to make his name 
 famihar in the French army.' If the favour 
 remained unacknowledged, no harm was done; if 
 an answer was forthcoming, it was easy for Louis 
 to judge from its terms whether he had found a 
 possible friend; and unless his reply had been 
 absolutely frigid, the officer found himself the 
 recipient of further correspondence from the prince. 
 Officers with whom Louis had succeeded in estab- 
 lishing friendly relations would receive further 
 copies, with the request that they would give them 
 to their comrades, telling them at the same time 
 that the prince would be glad to hear from them 
 their opinions on his work. 
 
 Not only French officers, but also the prince's 
 military acquaintances in Switzerland, Germany, 
 and even England received similar communications 
 from him : one such letter which has not hitherto 
 seen the light, we reproduce on the following page ; 
 it was addressed to Sir Eobert Wilson, a dis- 
 tinguished English general, and shows very well 
 both Louis Napoleon's activity in distributing his 
 work, and also his wide interest in the subject with 
 which it deals, 
 
 'I send you,' writes Louis, *a work which 
 I have recently published : I beg you will accept 
 
 ' ' A book called the Manuel des Artillews, which is said to have 
 some merit, and has been widely circulated among military people, 
 is represented to have been written by Prince Louis.' — Granville to 
 Palmerston, Paris, 4th Nov. 1836. 
 
92 A POLITICAL APPRENTICE [oh. v. 
 
 it as a token of my remembrance, and shall be 
 happy if it merit yom* approbation. If it would 
 not be an abuse of your kindness, I would beg 
 you, General, to be so good as send the second 
 copy, which I enclose, to any distinguished officer 
 of the English artillery, asking him on my 
 behalf to be kind enough to give me exact 
 particulars of the breech-loading cannon recently 
 constructed in England, As I am in touch 
 with all that goes on in France and Germany, 
 I could in return give him all the particulars 
 he might desire on the artillery of these two 
 countries.' 
 
 The prince goes on to plead his great 
 interest in the subject as the excuse for making 
 this rather bold demand, and the letter con- 
 cludes with some personal compliments to the 
 general himself.^ 
 
 Although Prince Louis lost no opportunity at 
 this period of exhibiting himself publicly as a 
 
 ' 'G^n6ral, 
 
 'Je vous envoye un ouvrage que j'ai public 
 derniferement ; je vous prie de I'accepter comme un souvenir 
 de ma part, et je serais heureux qu'U m^ritlt votre approbation. 
 Si ce n'^tait abuser de votre complaisance, je vous prierais, 
 G^ndral, de vouloir bien remettre le second exemplaire que je 
 vous envoye h. quelque officier distingud de TartUlerie anglaise, 
 en lui demandant de ma part qu'il voulut bien me donner 
 des renseignements exacts sur les canons qu'on a construits 
 derniferement en Angleterre pour 6tre charges par la cidasse. 
 Comme je suis au courrant (sic) de tout ce qui se fait en France 
 et en Allemagne, je pourrais en revanche lui donner tous 
 les renseignements qu'il d^sirerait sur I'artillerie de ces deux 
 pays. Je vous demande pardon, Gdndral, de vous charger d'une 
 telle commission, mais d'un c6t^ Tamour de la science et de 
 
1835] SELF-ANALYSIS 93 
 
 candidate for an alternative form of government 
 in France, yet his private correspondence shows 
 that he had no delusions as to the true difficulties 
 of his situation. A letter written in January 1835 
 to his friend M. Vieillard, his brother's former tutor, 
 is worthy of quotation in this connexion. 'I 
 know,' wrote the prince, 'that I count for much 
 through my name, but nothing as yet through 
 myself; aristocrat by birth, I am democrat by 
 breeding and by conviction ; owing all to inherit- 
 ance, yet really all to election; . . . taxed with 
 personal ambition if I take one step outside my 
 wonted track, taxed with apathy and indifference 
 if I stay quiet in my corner ; an object of fear by 
 reason of my name to liberal and absolutist alike, 
 I am in fact without political friends of any sort, 
 save those whose experience of the freaks of fortune 
 makes them regard me as one who may conceiv- 
 ably become a useful tool.' Yet with full know- 
 ledge of the difficulties which beset his first steps, 
 
 I'autre le souvenir de I'amabilit^ que vous m'avez toiyours 
 temoignee m'ont encourage a vous demander ce service. 
 
 'J'ai &te si charme du sejour que j'ai fait dans votre beau 
 pays que je serais bien heureux de pouvoir y retourner ; vous serez 
 une des personnes que j'aurai le plus de plaisir a revoir. 
 
 'Adieu, General, ma mere me charge de la rappeler a votre 
 souvenir, je vous prie de croire a ma consideration et a mes 
 sentimens distinga^. 
 
 'Napoleon Louis Bonapajite. 
 
 < ABBKBIfBEBOf CANTON DB ThUBQOVIB, 
 
 ' le 24 Mars 1886.' 
 
 Correspondence of Sir Robert WUson, Brit. Mus. Addl. MSS. 
 30, 116153. 
 
94 A POLITICAL APPRENTICE [CH. v. 
 
 the prince announces his firm intention of pushing 
 forward, deterred by no secondary interest, debarred 
 by no obstacles, until he has forced himself 'to 
 an eminence high enough to catch the dying rays 
 of the sun of St Helena.' It would be difficult to 
 imagine a juster or more clear-sighted appreciation 
 of his position and prospects than that contained 
 in this letter ; while its closing sentence is an 
 epitome of his whole effort at this time. It is 
 not perhaps unfair to see in this last pictiu-esque 
 phrase a recognition on Louis Napoleon's part 
 of the need of judicious self-advertisement. Cer- 
 tainly he lost no opportunity of bringing himself 
 into notice. Any reference in the French Chamber 
 to his family, or the law which banished them, 
 brought a letter of expostulation from his pen; 
 any little mark of local esteem fi:-om his Swiss 
 friends produced a note expressing his gratifica- 
 tion—letters which generally recurred to the text 
 of his imperial pretensions, and were always 
 couched in a style suited to the position 
 claimed rather than that occupied by their writer. 
 Did any idle rumour gain currency about the 
 prince, he would take it up, toy with it, explain 
 it, expand it, and finally with infinite circum- 
 stance and ceremony give it the coup de grace 
 of ultimate denial. So, in 1831, he had issued 
 an elaborate denial of the report that he was 
 seeking the crown of Belgium; so, in 1835, 
 he went out of his way to deny a rumour that 
 he was a suitor for the hand of Queen Maria 
 
1835] SELF-ADVERTISEMENT 95 
 
 of Portugal/ Not content with giving a serious 
 contradiction to a report which was in no danger 
 of being taken seriously, he proceeded to give 
 reasons for a hypothetical refusal on his part to 
 share the throne of Portugal even if it were offered 
 to him : he has not forgotten the noble conduct 
 of his father, who abdicated the throne of Holland 
 because he could not reconcile Dutch interests and 
 French; the hope of some day serving France is 
 worth more to him than all the thrones on earth. 
 Any attention which utterances of this sort could 
 provoke was, of course, rather that of ridicule than 
 respect; but even so it was not without value 
 to the prince at this time. Indeed, one of the 
 elements of his success as a pretender was the 
 fact that he was not afraid of making himself 
 ridiculous — possibly because he was not always 
 conscious of doing so. A sense of humour is 
 almost as effective a deterrent as a sense of 
 honour ; and for a political pretender it may even 
 be the more awkward possession of the two. 
 
 ' Queen Maria's first husband was Auguste de Beauharnais, a 
 cousin of Louis Napoleon's. This fact alone gave the rumour any 
 semblance of truth. I can find no sign that even among the long 
 list of candidates submitted to the queen, Louis Napoleon's name 
 was ever seriously put forward. Queen Maria herself wished to 
 marry the Due de Nemours, and a considerable party in Portugal 
 favoured a royal alliance with a son of Louis Philippe. But the 
 energetic representations of England checked the design : ' I informed 
 the Marquis of Saldanha that I would not make use of qualifying and 
 diplomatic phrases, but tell him at once that the marriage of the 
 queen with a Frenchman would play the very devil in England 
 with the Portuguese cause.' (Lord Walden to Palmerston. ' Most 
 Confidential.' Lisbon, 28th May 1836.) As usual, it was the house 
 of Saxe-Coburg which eventually supplied the eligible prince. 
 
96 A POLITICAL APPRENTICE [CH. v. 
 
 If at the time Louis Napoleon was glad to 
 avail himself of any rumour which linked his name 
 with royalty, he could not complain if after his own 
 accession to power there should be foimd persons 
 wiUing to boast that they themselves might easily 
 have been connected by marriage with the future 
 Emperor of the French. For the most part these 
 assertions, as they share the motive of Louis' 
 hypothetical refusal of a royal consort, so they share 
 also its emptiness of truth. In this category may 
 probably be included the two claims which have 
 been made to the honour of refusing offers of 
 marriage from Louis Napoleon during his sojovirn 
 in Switzerland, Of these, one was made on behalf 
 of a Mauritius tea-planter's widow; the other 
 on behalf of a Mile Bocher, afterwards the wife 
 of one of Napoleon Ill's ministers. Neither 
 claim was advanced until long after Napoleon Ill's 
 death. 
 
 But to this period does belong the one attach- 
 ment of Louis Napoleon in early life, which did 
 certainly come within measurable distance of 
 marriage. After the death of his wife, in November 
 1835, King Jerome with his two children came to 
 visit Queen Hortense at Arenenberg, Neither then 
 nor at any subsequent time was there an entire 
 sympathy between Louis and Jerome's son. Prince 
 Napoleon. But with the king's daughter, the 
 Princess Mathilde, Louis Napoleon soon fell deeply 
 in love. He was twenty- seven, she was seventeen, 
 a gentle, accomplished, and beautiful princess. 
 
1835] PRINCESS MATHILDE 97 
 
 Parents on both sides smiled on the match. There 
 was no hurry, but there were no serious dif- 
 ficulties. Settlements were arranged, and every- 
 thing seemed to promise a smooth course for 
 true love. 
 
 But for Louis Napoleon smooth courses had no 
 attraction; or such occasional attraction as they 
 did present to him came but as a temptation to 
 be resolutely put aside. A few slight obstacles 
 must in any case have been forthcoming, for 
 King Jerome was a man inclined to drive a 
 hard bargain, and there was some haggling before 
 the marriage settlements could be arranged. But 
 to Louis these details must have seemed more 
 than ordinarily trivial. For while they were in 
 process of arrangement he was himself busied 
 in very different fashion. Eightly convinced that 
 he had found an admirable empress, he intended 
 to offer her no smaller dominion than an empire. 
 To the suggestions of his relatives, urging him 
 with one voice to seek a life of peaceful 
 retirement for himself and his wife, he tm-ned 
 a deaf ear. Dust and strife and the heat of 
 the day must first be encountered, ere Louis 
 Napoleon's bride could reach the palace he 
 intended her to adorn. 
 
 That there were limits to the amount which 
 pamphlets and correspondence could effect for his 
 great cause was a fact of which Louis had long 
 been acutely conscious. At the end of 1835, he 
 was, as we have said, twenty- seven years old — an 
 
 G 
 
98 A POLITICAL APPRENTICE [oh. v. 
 
 age at which his uncle had achieved his magnificent 
 Itahan campaign of 1796. The prince could not 
 but feel that it was high time that he made some 
 more decisive effort to challenge the opinion of 
 France than he had hitherto done. The four years 
 which had passed since his own Itahan exploit had 
 been monotonous enough, though they cannot be 
 said to have been entirely wasted. The summers, 
 save for the usual period at the artillery camp, had 
 been spent at Arenenberg ; the winters occupied in 
 travel and study at Geneva, London, and Bome. 
 Some useful work had been done, and some valu- 
 able friendships made. But it was only in this 
 year, 1835, that the prince met the most important 
 of all his early friends — M. Fialin, better known 
 by the title he had recently assumed of Viscount 
 de Persigny. Born in the same year as Louis 
 Napoleon, he had entered the French army in 1825, 
 and in three years became adjutant of the 4th 
 Hussars. His military career, however, was cut 
 short in 1830 by his ardent support of the extreme 
 revolutionary movement ; he was accused of insub- 
 ordination, and retired. He thereupon went to 
 Paris, and became a journalist ; in 1834 his 
 vigorous and enthusiastic advocacy of the Bona- 
 partist cause attracted the attention of King Joseph, 
 who gave him a letter of introduction to his 
 nephew. If this was really the means of bringing 
 the two young men together, it is noteworthy as 
 being almost the only service of real value ever 
 rendered to Louis Napoleon by any member of the 
 
1834] MERE OBLIVION 99 
 
 imperial family in his attempt to render possible 
 the restoration of the imperial dynasty. Indeed 
 the prince's faith in his name and in his own future 
 was the more remarkable — and in a sense, the more 
 admirable — that it was shared by none of the Bona- 
 parte family, who regarded his efforts without 
 encouragement or support, and greeted his failures 
 with disavowal and ridicule. His mother alone 
 never derided his ambitions, but even she had no 
 particular hope of their fulfilment. ' You complain 
 of men's injustice,' he wrote to her in 1834; 'I 
 venture to think that you have no right to complain. 
 How can you expect the French to remember us, 
 when by our own act we have sought oblivion for 
 fifteen years ; when, these fifteen years every action 
 of every member of my family has been inspired by 
 the fear of compromising himself, and by that 
 alone ; when they have avoided every occasion of 
 displaying their persons, every means of publicly 
 recalling their memories to the mind of the people ? ' 
 It was this resolution at all costs to escape oblivion 
 which had been the prince's ruling motive in the 
 last four years : the time was now come when he 
 was resolved to seek an opportunity of presenting 
 himself personally to the French people as a candi- 
 date for the imperial throne. During the year 
 which followed his meeting with Persigny this 
 resolution took shape and substance, and by the 
 summer of 1836 a definite scheme had emerged. 
 Prince Louis was to appear with only a small body 
 of personal adherents at some frontier town ; the 
 
100 A POLITICAL APPRENTICE [CH. v. 
 
 garrison was to be gained over, and a march on 
 Paris was to follow, which it was hoped would 
 prove as bloodless and triumphal as had been the 
 return of Napoleon from Elba, It only remained 
 to choose the starting-point, and a variety of 
 reasons rendered the decision an easy one. The 
 north-eastern frontier was at once the most acces- 
 sible to Louis and the nearest to Paris. The most 
 important garrison town on that frontier was known 
 to be in a state of profound discontent towards the 
 July government.^ There, too, was stationed the 
 4th Artillery, the Emperor's own regiment, which 
 had opened to him the gates of Grenoble in 1815 ; 
 and since their colonel had undertaken to declare in 
 his favour, the prince had more than a priori 
 evidence of its readiness to play a like part in this 
 second return from Elba. The choice of the start- 
 ing-point could, therefore, be no longer doubtful. 
 It was in the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine — 
 their names not yet linked by the sinister hyphen 
 which now unites them — that the supporters of the 
 democratic empire were most numerous and most 
 enthusiastic. It was from the city of Strasburg — 
 whose effigy in the Place de la Concorde was not yet 
 draped in perennial black — that Louis Napoleon 
 hoped to win his way back to the imperial throne. 
 
 ' 'In that city, perhaps more than in any other place in France, 
 a republican spirit prevails.'— Granville to Palmerston, Paris, 4th 
 November 1836. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE FIRST CLAIM TO THE INHERITANCE 
 
 {June 1836 to March 1837. Aetat. 28.) 
 
 Begin: the getting out of doors is the greatest part of the 
 journey. . . . Stay till the waters are low, stay till some boats 
 come by to transport you, stay till a bridge be built for you ; 
 —you had even as good stay till the river be quite past. 
 
 Abraham Cowley. 
 
 On the evening of October 31, 1836, there reached 
 Paris a telegraphic despatch — or rather a fragment 
 of one — which threw the cabinet of Louis Phihppe 
 into a state bordering on consternation. It ran as 
 follows : — 
 
 'Strasburg, Oct. 30, 1836. This morning, 
 about six o'clock, Louis Napoleon, son of the 
 Duchess of Saint Leu, who had in his confidence 
 the colonel of artillery, Vaudrey, traversed the 
 streets of Strasburg with part of . . .' Here 
 the despatch broke off abruptly : it had been sent 
 by the t^legraphe a4rien', a fog along the line of 
 signals prevented the transmission of the remaining 
 portion, which would have informed the king what 
 had happened to this audacious young man, who 
 had thus paraded the streets of a strong garrison 
 
 101 
 
102 THE FIRST CLAIM [oh. VI. 
 
 town with an unknown following. Indeed, what 
 might not have happened in the thirty hours which 
 had passed between the sending of the message 
 and the receiving of it ? In that time the rebellion, 
 if such it were, might have gained a formidable 
 headway; even now the restorer of the empire 
 might be moving in triumphant progress towards 
 Paris. For it is hardly possible that the precedent 
 of 1815, which had prompted the prince to his 
 action, can have been absent from the mind of 
 Louis Philippe in the hours which followed, 
 Guizot in his memoirs gives a graphic description 
 of the cabinet council hurriedly summoned to meet 
 at the Txiileries ; of the flitting to and fro of the 
 anxious queen and princes, asking questions 
 which could not be answered ; of the wakeful night 
 spent by the king and his advisers in preparing for 
 eventualities which never occurred, the hours of 
 weary waiting for news which did not come. For 
 the despatch had stopped short, like the feuilleion 
 which was just making its first appearance in 
 French journalism, at the most exciting moment 
 of its narrative. There was nothing for it, how- 
 ever, but to wait for the morning; and with the 
 morning came the concluding instalment of the 
 despatch. With it came also a personal report by 
 special messenger from General Voirol, the governor 
 of Strasburg, in which he related the whole story 
 of the rising. After all had not telegraphy, then 
 in its infancy, played him this rather childish prank. 
 King Louis Philippe would have been spared a 
 
1836] THE NEWS IN PARIS 103 
 
 great deal of needless anxiety. For the entire affair 
 had been over in something under three hours, 
 and the would-be emperor was already under lock 
 and key when the original message was despatched. 
 The sense of relief was overwhelming. It was 
 possible to smile now at the fears of the previous 
 night; it was politic to conceal the fact that one 
 had ever felt afraid. The news of the rising was 
 now for the first time made public in terms of con- 
 temptuous brevity and calculated unconcern. In 
 its published, and possibly doctored, form General 
 Voirol's despatch in no way suggested that there 
 had been anything in the rising which could cause 
 the Government a moment's uneasiness. Part of 
 the 4th Artillery had indeed joined the prince, but 
 all the other regiments had remained faithful; ce 
 jeune imprudent had been arrested, and everyone 
 concerned — except, of course, this same foolish 
 young man and his insignificant following — deserved 
 great credit. The French press and the foreign 
 correspondents in Paris followed the official lead 
 almost without exception, and for the most part in 
 all good faith. Indeed, the belief of a young man, 
 personally almost unknown, that he could enter 
 France and with a body of fifteen obscure fol- 
 lowers effect a bloodless and triumphal progress 
 to the Tuileries, obliterating all opposition by the 
 mere shadow of his great name — this was a thing 
 which in the event of success would have seemed 
 sublime, but in the light of failure could only 
 appear ridiculous. There were, moreover, certain 
 
104 THE FIRST CLAIM [CH. vi. 
 
 accidental absurdities in connexion with the affair 
 which the Government exploited with much 
 dexterity and success ; they even contrived to give 
 the impression that they had been completely 
 informed of the whole circumstances of the plot 
 for some time past, and had deliberately allowed it 
 to go so far as it had gone in order the more 
 effectually to demonstrate its futility. How far 
 this was from the fact is shown by a letter written 
 by the Duke of Orleans on the afternoon of Novem- 
 ber 1, the day on which the news of the failure 
 of the revolt had arrived. Writing to his brother, 
 the Duke of Nemours, he congratulated him that 
 owing to his absence from Paris he had learnt the 
 whole story at once, and thus escaped ' the horrible 
 imcertainties we have gone through. The whole 
 of last night we sat up without news : I had 
 decided to set out for Strasburg, when M. de 
 Franqueville arrived.' 
 
 Indeed it can hardly now be questioned that 
 the July monarchy was conscious of having narrowly 
 escaped a crisis of real gravity ; and that there was 
 far more justification for their first alarms than 
 they would have cared to admit. For the insur- 
 rection had been neither hastily resolved on nor 
 altogether rashly executed. As we have seen 
 already, Louis had been steadily cultivating 
 the acquaintance of French officers ever since the 
 publication of his military work; and from the 
 time of his meeting with Persigny, in 1835, had 
 been contemplating some such enterprise as that 
 
1836] LAITY AND VAUDREY 105 
 
 which he had actually attempted. In that year he 
 began to frequent Baden-Baden, a watering-place 
 which by its nearness to the French frontier 
 served as an admirable point for his preliminary 
 preparations ; here he could meet, without giving 
 rise to suspicion, the discontented residents of 
 Alsace, and interview the officers of Strasburg who 
 were inclined to hig cause. The first important 
 military recruit was Laity, a lieutenant of an engineer 
 battalion in the Strasbm'g garrison — a whole- 
 hearted adherent whose services were to prove 
 only less valuable than Persigny's. But an 
 acquisition of greater immediate importance was 
 Colonel Vaudrey. His distinguished military 
 record, his noble bearing and appearance, most of 
 all the important position he now occupied, marked 
 him as a man whose adherence would be a most 
 valuable addition to the cause. For he had served 
 with bravery and distinction in the Napoleonic 
 campaigns ; he was a soldier of fine presence and 
 commanding physique ; he was a commander of 
 the 3rd and 4th Artillery regiments stationed at 
 Strasburg. Certain grievances against the Govern- 
 ment of July disposed him to listen with favour to 
 the prince's suggestions ; but it was the charms of 
 a fair enthusiast in the Napoleonic cause, a certain 
 Madame Gordon, to whom Persigny had introduced 
 him, that finally overcame his last hesitations. It 
 was late in the summer of 1836 when Prince Louis 
 received his promise of support, and the assurance 
 that the colonel of the most Bonapartist regiment 
 
106 THE FIRST CLAIM [oh. vi. 
 
 in France would declare himself in his favour when 
 the time for action came. It was a very great 
 gain, but the prince looked higher still. He was 
 convinced that General Voirol himself, the governor 
 of Strasburg, would not refuse to aid him. In the 
 middle of August he wrote the general a letter 
 which was practically an open overture. Voirol 
 did not reply, and informed his Government of 
 what had happened. Yet no steps were taken to 
 prevent the progress of the plot, and Louis still 
 believed that Voirol would not oppose him when 
 the time came. Two months before the risingi he 
 rode over to Strasbm-g, entered the city at night- 
 fall, and was presented to a party of some twenty 
 officers. His reception was enthusiastic; no 
 particular precautions seem to have been thought 
 necessary against the possibility of betrayal So 
 unguarded and so indiscriminate were the prince's 
 advances that it is hard to avoid the conclusion 
 that many officers who did not, as things turned 
 out, declare themselves in favour of the rising, were 
 yet curiously lukewarm or still more curiously 
 short-sighted in their devotion to the monarchical 
 cause ; and that not a few were careful, without 
 committing themselves too deeply in case of the 
 failure of the movement, to avoid any such 
 gratuitous excess of zeal as should prevent them 
 from claiming a share in the advantages of its 
 possible success. 
 
 When all but the final arrangements had been 
 made, Louis left Baden and returned to Arenenberg 
 
1836] ARRIVAL IN STRASBURG 107 
 
 on a short visit to his mother. On October 24 
 he told her that he was starting the next day 
 to join a hunting-party in the Principality of 
 Heckingen, and early in the morning of the 25th 
 he bade her farewell. Although she may not have 
 been fully aware of his plans Hortense seems at 
 least to have realised that it was not quite an 
 ordinary parting, for as he left she placed on his 
 finger her most cherished possession, the wedding- 
 ring with which her mother Josephine had been 
 married to the Emperor. A year later, when next 
 her son saw her, Queen Hortense was on her 
 deathbed, so that the parting was practically their 
 last. 
 
 Troubled by no gloomy reflections, the prince 
 set forth with his one serving-man to recover his 
 throne. They reached Freiburg on the evening of 
 the 25th, and remained there until the morning of 
 the 28th. During that time they were joined by 
 Colonel Vaudrey and Mme Gordon ; but other and 
 more important officers whom the prince had 
 expected to arrive from Paris did not appear. To 
 wait longer seemed useless; so on the 28th they 
 advanced on Strasburg, entering the city just 
 before the gates were closed for the night. 
 Persigny had preceded them, and was already in 
 residence in lodgings which he had taken a month 
 ago. There the prince passed the night, and spent 
 the following day in interviewing the leaders of the 
 revolt. On the evening of the 29th a final council 
 of war was held. The date of the rising had 
 
108 THE FIRST CLAIM [oh. VI. 
 
 originally been fixed for the 31st; but it was 
 resolved on Persigny's advice to act on the 30th. 
 It has been stated that the change of date had a 
 great deal to do with the failure of the attempt, 
 but there is no suflBcient evidence to show that any 
 important accession to the prince's forces would 
 have resulted from a day's delay; while it is 
 manifest that to linger in Strasburg on the brink of 
 action was a course so dangerous that nothing 
 short of great and apparent gain could justify it. 
 
 Another change of plan in connexion vnth the 
 movement had, however, a really important effect 
 on its chances of success. The garrison of Stras- 
 burg consisted of three regiments of the line, two 
 artillery regiments, and a battalion of engineers. 
 But two of the infantry regiments were stationed 
 in remote and isolated portions of the town, and 
 could therefore be ignored, in so far at least as the 
 opening moves of the game was concerned. The 
 order in which the three remaining regiments were 
 to be approached was an important question, and one 
 on which decision was not easily reached. The 4th 
 Artillery, Napoleon's old regiment, and the one now 
 under Vaudrey's immediate command, was stationed 
 in the Austerlitz Barracks at the south of the town. 
 The 3rd Artillery, with the engineer battalion, was 
 in the centre of the city, near the open space of the 
 Place d'Armes; unlike the 4th Artillery, it had 
 its cannon close at hand and ready for immediate 
 use. The only other regiment to be considered 
 was the 46th Infantry, which was stationed in the 
 
1836] A CHANGE OF PLAN 109 
 
 Finkmatt Barracks under the northern rampart of 
 the city. It had been originally intended that the 
 prince should present himself first to the 3rd 
 Artillery, the largest and most important regiment 
 in the town. If it were won it was practically 
 certain that the 4th Artillery would follow its 
 example, and the engineers would in all prob- 
 ability do the same. After that it would not 
 matter whether the infantry and population did or 
 did not follow suit ; possessed of the arsenal and 
 150 cannon the prince could from the Place 
 d'Armes terrorise into instant obedience the entire 
 city, and the infantry even had it wished could 
 have offered no effective opposition to such a 
 display of force as this. The plan was simple, 
 practicable, and almost assured of success if once 
 the 3rd Artillery joined the prince. But it is 
 characteristic of his whole nature that he finally 
 put his veto on it. He did not wish to date his 
 reign from a successful military revolt, or to 
 terrorise a civilian population into silent obedience 
 to his will. He desired to rely not on the army 
 alone, still less on any one branch of the army, but 
 on a spontaneous outburst of democratic enthusiasm 
 in which soldier and citizen, infantry and artillery, 
 should join. There must be no attempt, therefore, 
 to over-awe the civilian population or even the line 
 regiments ; the movement must be without blood- 
 shed, and if possible without even the threat of 
 bloodshed. As the commanding position of the 
 3rd Artillery had now ceased to matter, it was 
 
110 THE FIRST CLAIM [CH. vi. 
 
 resolved to appear first, not to them, but to the 4th 
 Artillery, in the Austerlitz Barracks. So far the 
 change was good, for in any case it would probably 
 have been wise to begin with the regiment which 
 was known to be the most Bonapartist in the 
 garrison. But instead of proceeding at once to the 
 3rd when the 4th Artillery had been won over, it 
 was now resolved that the prince with the main body 
 should go right on to the 46th Infantry; detachments 
 of the 4th Artillery would meanwhile distribute 
 proclamations among the citizens and the troops; 
 and all would converge together in the Place 
 d'Armes to be joined by the 3rd Artillery and the 
 engineers. As compared with the original plan it 
 was complicated instead of simple, and though not 
 altogether impracticable it left far greater room for 
 some disastrous hitch. It was, however, eminently 
 characteristic of the humane and visionary turn of 
 the prince's mind to sacrifice a present concrete 
 advantage for the future triumph of a vague but 
 magnanimous idea. 
 
 This alteration had of course been resolved 
 on some time before the final meeting on the 
 evening of the 29th, which was concerned only with 
 last details of its execution. At ten in the evening 
 the gathering broke up. The prince and his little 
 band of immediate followers remained in hiding for 
 the night in a house rented by one of their number, 
 situated at no great distance from the Austerlitz 
 Barracks. 
 
 Louis here proceeded to write out his proclama- 
 
1836] THE EVE OF ACTION 111 
 
 tions; he had considered it prudent to avoid 
 having them printed in advance. Then he wrote 
 two letters to his mother, one announcing the 
 success of his effort, the other its failure. This 
 epistolary exercise was probably a mere means 
 of passing the time, for Louis had not quite his 
 uncle's supreme gift of detachment, and sleep was 
 beyond his summons on such an occasion. But 
 it is wiser to leave success to announce itself^ than 
 to prepare proclamation of it before it is won ; and 
 of this fact Louis was soon to be rudely apprised. 
 
 Six o'clock in the morning was the hour fixed 
 by the conspirators for their appearance at the 
 Austerlitz Barracks. An hour before that time 
 a body of cavalry was heard advancing in their 
 direction, and the conspirators thought themselves 
 betrayed at the last moment. But they were 
 unmolested. At last the hour struck. Turning 
 to his followers, the prince said simply, ' Gentlemen, 
 the time has come. Now we shall see whether 
 France still remembers twenty years of glory.' 
 'Have no doubt of it,' they answered: 'France 
 follows,' 
 
 Dressed now in the emblems of their brief 
 authority the little band sallied forth. The prince 
 wore a blue artillery uniform ; on his shoulders 
 were a colonel's epaulettes, on his breast the star 
 and broad riband of the Legion of Honour, upon 
 his head a general's hat not unhke the famous 
 cocked hat worn by the Little Corporal. Colonel 
 Parquin, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars who 
 
112 THE FIRST CLAIM [CH. VI. 
 
 had long been a frequent visitor at Arenenberg, was 
 dressed as a general. De Querelles, a retired 
 cavalry officer, bore the shrouded eagle of the 
 empire. 
 
 The morning was dark and cold; there had 
 been some snow, but with daybreak it gradually 
 ceased to fall. The distance to be covered was 
 short, and in a few minutes the party arrived at 
 the Austerlitz Barracks, Vaudrey had gone there 
 an hour earlier, and had already made every 
 preparation for their reception. When the prince 
 entered the courtyard of the barracks the regiment 
 was already drawn up on parade, though entirely 
 ignorant of the cause of their assembly at this 
 unwonted hour. Directly he saw Louis, Vaudrey 
 advanced to meet him, and led him to the centre 
 of the square. In a few stirring words he 
 introduced the prince, who had come to win back 
 the people's rights — could the nephew of the 
 Emperor count on them ? The question was soon 
 answered. Shouts of 'Vive I'Empereur!' long, 
 loud, and almost unanimous were the reply. The 
 prince had to make a sign with his hand to procure 
 a hearing for himself. He had appealed to them 
 first, he said, on account of the great memories 
 they had in common. 'In your regiment it was 
 that the Emperor Napoleon my uncle, served as 
 captain; in your company, he made himself 
 illustrious at the siege of Toulon; and yours 
 again was the regiment that opened the gates of 
 Grenoble to him on his return from the isle of 
 
1836] A PROSPEROUS BEGINNING 113 
 
 Elba. Soldiers, there are new destinies reserved 
 for you. Yours is the glory of beginning a great 
 enterprise ; yovirs the honour of being first to salute 
 the eagle of Austerlitz and Wagram.' From 
 Querelles he took the eagle, and holding it aloft 
 before their eyes, he bade them behold in it not 
 merely the symbol of their country's glory, but the 
 harbinger of its liberty. Eenewed and enthusiastic 
 cheers greeted the prince's address. Every sword 
 was waved, and every voice raised; the regiment 
 seemed resolved to outdo its own record in 
 devotion to the imperial cause. The regimental 
 band struck up; Prince Louis took over the 
 command, and marched out of the barracks in 
 triumph at the head of the regiment. In accord- 
 ance with the new plan, by which everything was 
 to be attempted at once, a number of detachments 
 were now broken off from the main body and 
 despatched on their several missions. Laity went 
 off to his engineer battalion ; two other lieutenants 
 were sent to rouse the 3rd Artillery ; Lombard, a 
 military doctor of Strasburg, was sent to seize 
 the printing offices, and print with the utmost 
 despatch proclamations from Prince Louis to the 
 army, the nation, and the citizens of Strasburg. 
 An officer was sent on in advance to inform the 
 4,6th Infantry of what had happened, and to 
 prepare them for the prince's reception; one 
 detachment was sent to seize the telegraph office, 
 and another, under the immediate command of 
 Persigny himself, to arrest the prefect. 
 
 H 
 
114 THE FIRST CLAIM [oH. vi. 
 
 Meanwhile the main body, headed by the 
 prince and Colonel Vaudrey, made their way 
 towards the centre of the town. It was still 
 early morning, and even the main streets were at 
 first almost empty. But soon crowds gathered 
 on the way, and many of them took up the 
 soldiers' cry — 'Vive Napoleon! Vive I'Empereur! 
 Vive la Uberte!' According to the insurgents' 
 own account the popular enthusiasm was so great 
 as to delay the prince's progress, since numbers 
 of the crowd pressed closely round him or rushed 
 out to embrace the eagle which Querelles was 
 carrying. What is certain is that bodies of 
 civilians hostile to the Government gathered in 
 the streets, ready to throw in their lot with the 
 rising in case of its further success.^ 
 
 To the prince at the moment such success may 
 well have seemed assured. Both at the police 
 station and at the military headquarters the guard 
 on duty turned out and presented arms as he passed. 
 So escorted and so greeted, he reached the Place 
 d'Armes. Here he halted the column while he 
 himself with his staff went up to General Voirol's 
 rooms, hoping by a personal appeal to win him 
 to his cause. But the general refused. Surprised 
 and mortified, the prince after some parley placed 
 
 1 Granville to Palmerston : — 
 
 'Paeis, iybiJ. 4, 1836. 
 
 'I am told from good authority, that Parties of Eepublicans 
 linked arm in arm appeared collectively in the streets, waiting to 
 see whether the attempt of Louis Buonaparte and Colonel Vaudrey 
 would occasion the defection of any considerable portion of the 
 garrison.' 
 
1836] PROGRESS OF THE RISING 115 
 
 him under arrest. Parquin himself was left in 
 charge of the prisoner ; but he proved an ineflBcient 
 custodian, and the general managed to make his 
 escape shortly after the prince's departure. This 
 was the first check, but it was far from being a 
 fatal one. The prince returned to the square, and 
 together with Vaudrey and the greater part of 
 the 4th Artillery resumed the advance towards 
 the Finkmatt Barracks. 
 
 It was now that a really serious and perfectly 
 avoidable mistake was made. The barracks in 
 question consisted of a long building parallel to the 
 ramparts, from which they were only separated by 
 a narrow enclosed court — the parade ground of the 
 46th Infantry. It had been arranged that the 
 prince should advance by way of the ramparts. 
 The courtyard was not ten yards in breadth, and a 
 voice less clear and penetrating than Louis' would 
 have been perfectly audible from the ramparts. 
 The fact that the prince would have made his 
 appearance with a whole regiment at his back 
 would have added greatly to his chances of success, 
 while even had he failed his unmolested retreat 
 would have been absolutely assured ; and it would 
 still be possible for him to make his appeal to the 
 3rd Artillery. 
 
 Instead, however, of adopting this course the 
 regiment now advanced by the Faubourg Pierre, 
 a street broad enough in itself, but only communi- 
 cating with the barrack square by a narrow lane. 
 The prince was therefore obliged to leave half his 
 
116 THE FIRST CLAIM [CH. VI. 
 
 troops in the Faubourg, while he himself with four 
 hundred men marched up the lane. To secure his 
 retreat he was forced to leave the majority even of 
 these , outside in the lane, so that on entering the 
 barrack-yard he had with him only his staff and a 
 small escort. 
 
 The results of this gratuitous error were now 
 visible. It had rendered the failure of the appeal 
 to the 46th not only more probable, but more fatal. 
 For in entering the courtyard Louis had placed 
 himself in a trap from which escape was hardly 
 possible should the infantry declare against him. 
 Another minor mishap was also revealed. The 
 officer who had been despatched to prepare the 46th 
 for the prince's arrival had not yet appeared. Hence 
 the troops, instead of being already on the parade 
 ground, were still in barracks. For a few minutes, 
 however, it seemed as though not even this series 
 of misfortunes were going to affect the success of 
 the movement. Indeed it had now almost reached 
 a stage in which it could survive a few initial 
 mishaps. The prefect and General Voirol were 
 under arrest : so were the colonel and brigadier- 
 general of the 3rd Artillery — the only officers in 
 that regiment from whom serious opposition was 
 expected. The telegraph office and printing presses 
 were in the hands of the prince's followers ; Laity 
 with his company of engineers was advancing to 
 join the revolutionary forces, and portions of the 
 3rd Artillery were already on their way to the 
 general rendezvous at the Place d'Armes, 
 
1836] THE CRISIS 117 
 
 Even in his straitened position in the barrack- 
 yard of the 46th it seemed as though Louis would 
 achieve his purpose. On seeing his entry from the 
 barrack windows the soldiers began to flock down 
 to the courtyard. Many of them took up the cry 
 -of the artillery; shouts of 'Vive I'Empereur!' 
 were heard on all sides. An old sergeant who had 
 served in the Imperial Guard ran forward and 
 kissed the prince's hand. The soldiers were visibly 
 impressed by the incident, which was precisely of a 
 kind that would appeal to them most strongly. 
 Some of the 46th were actually being formed into 
 companies by the prince's officers. A few stead- 
 fastly refused to support the rising ; a larger number 
 seemed already to have decided in its favbin-, but 
 the majority still wavered, awaiting some decisive 
 impulse in one direction or the other. It was a 
 moment when a word, a masterful sentence might 
 settle the fate of the entire movement, and with it 
 perhaps the destinies of France for a dozen years 
 to come. That word was spoken. Suddenly, from 
 the back of the barrack-yard an officer snapped out, 
 'Soldiers, they are making fools of you. This 
 person they present to you as the Emperor's son is 
 only a dummy in disguise.' Another officer caught 
 up the cry, adding, ' I recognise him. It is Colonel 
 Vaudrey's nephew.' 
 
 Instantly the whole aspect of affairs was altered. 
 The faithful were confirmed in their resistance, the 
 waverers rallied to the voice of authority. For the 
 prince it was a paralysing blow. Had he so wished 
 
118 THE FIRST CLAIM [OH. vi. 
 
 he might by this time have been in command of 
 150 pieces of cannon; instead, he had preferred to 
 rely solely on the magic of his name. And now in 
 a moment this weapon was struck from his hand. 
 To some extent it was even turned against him : 
 for of the 46th, it was just the men who had 
 been most ready to welcome the descendant of 
 the Emperor who were most furious that they 
 should have been tricked by the vain use of 
 his name. The artillery indeed remained faith- 
 ful, but all chance of winning over the infantry 
 was lost. 
 
 Vainly now the prince's partisans tried to drown 
 all dissident voices in a great shout for the emperor. 
 Confusion of utterance, bewilderment of spirit, had 
 overtaken his followers. Cries and counter cries 
 were heard. The infantry surged forward towards 
 the prince ; more artillery from the Faubourg came 
 up to his rescue and drove them back. In doing 
 this they unfortunately separated Louis Napoleon 
 from his staff. From the ramparts the populace, 
 who had not ceased to cheer the prince, hurled 
 stones and curses on the infantry, Talandier, the 
 colonel of the 46th, ordered the gates of the barrack- 
 yard to be shut. Two of the prince's officers who 
 were still with him offered to force a passage with 
 their swords through the infantry ; indeed, only by 
 some such drastic step as this could he now hope 
 to make good his escape. But Louis refused ; he 
 was determined that in no case should blood he 
 shed. The infantry re-formed. The prince and his 
 
1836] ARREST 119 
 
 recent rescuers were driven back against the wall of 
 the barracks. The prince defended himself without 
 wounding his assailants ; finally, they closed on him 
 and made him prisoner. He was formally arrested 
 by a young officer of the 46th.^ 
 
 Vaudrey was still free, and still in command of 
 the greater portion of his regiment. Talandier 
 demanded his surrender, but he refused, and the 
 artillery showed themselves eager to defend him. 
 But another clever falsehood confidently uttered 
 disarmed him in his turn. Talandier told him that 
 the enthusiasm of the citizens in favour of the 
 rising was entirely due to their beUef that it was 
 in favour of the restoration of Charles X; that 
 they would be ready to tear Vaudrey in pieces 
 when they discovered its true object. Staggered 
 by this last blow, the colonel dismissed his men 
 
 ' Probably Sub-lieutenant Pleignier. It is interesting to find 
 that fourteen years later this same oflBcer appealed personally to 
 Louis Napoleon for promotion, promising to be zealous in his service. 
 In September 1850 a great review of troops was held at Versailles ; 
 Louis Napoleon, as President of the Eepublic, was present. Nor- 
 manby, then British ambassador, accompanied him. 'It may 
 interest your Lordship,' he writes to Palmerston, in a despatch 
 dated 26th September 1850, ' if I here add a word upon an incident 
 that occurred within my own personal observation. In riding in at 
 the great gate of the station at Versailles, an officer in the uniform of 
 a captain came between the President and myself and presented a 
 petition, [saying, " I hope you will remember me ; I was the officer 
 who arrested you at Strasburg." The President took the petition 
 
 from him, saying, with perfect calm, " Your name is What you 
 
 did on that occasion was your duty, and certainly would not be 
 an impediment to your advancement; but I have already made 
 enquiries about you, and the report is not favourable." On the officer 
 attempting to add something, as to the zeal with which he would now 
 serve his Government, the prince stopped him, saying his case should 
 be further inquired into.' 
 
120 THE FIRST CLAIM [CH. vi. 
 
 and yielded himself prisoner ; for he now believed 
 that resistance was hopeless, and that it might even 
 endanger the prince's life. Persigny alone had the 
 heart to attempt desperate measures. On hearing 
 of the prince's captm-e he hurried back to the 
 artillery barracks to get the guns out, for he at 
 least had no scruples as to the shedding of blood. 
 But what would have been perfectly feasible before 
 had now become impossible, Vaudrey alone of the 
 insurgents had access to the arsenal, and no one 
 else could order out ammunition. And Vaudrey 
 was now a prisoner. The last faint chance of 
 success had therefore disappeared. Lombard de- 
 stroyed the proclamations ; Persigny burned the 
 prince's private papers, and then made good his 
 own escape. A few shots fired over their heads 
 from the Finkmatt Barracks dispersed the crowd. 
 The officers and men of the 3rd Artillery and of 
 the engineers who had aheady set out to the 
 general rendezvous of the revolt returned in haste 
 to their barracks, and found to their relief that the 
 authorities were easily satisfied as to the innocence 
 of their morning excursion. Indeed it was soon 
 evident that a perfect harmony of purpose existed 
 between culprits imwilling to be caught, and a 
 Government unwilling to find culprits. The rising 
 was to be minimised; it might be necessary to 
 bring to trial officers caught red-handed, but it was 
 neither necessary nor politic to bring to light 
 further ramifications of the plot ; it was impossible 
 to deny the revolt of the 4th Artillery, but it was 
 
1836] IMPRISONMENT 121 
 
 easy to ignore signs of disaffection in the remaining 
 regiments of the garrison. 
 
 By eight o'clock in the morning, in something 
 less than three hours from its inception, the Stras- 
 burg insurrection was at an end. So unexpected 
 had been its sudden collapse and so bright had 
 seemed its prospect of success, that the messenger 
 to whom Louis had entrusted his two letters to his 
 mother had already despatched the one announcing 
 the success of the undertaking. The queen's reply, 
 recommending her son to display moderation and 
 mercy in his victory, was one of the features of the 
 affairs which lent itself most readily to the ridicule 
 of the Government. For at the moment she wrote 
 it her son was a prisoner in rigorous and solitary 
 confinement. 
 
 In prison at Strasburg he remained until Nov- 
 ember 9, when he was brought to Paris. He 
 arrived there on the 11th, and was lodged for the 
 few hours he spent in the capital at the Prefecture 
 of Police. After long and anxious consideration, 
 Louis Philippe's advisers had determined not to 
 bring the prince to trial. There were many reasons 
 which prevented them from doing so. Hitherto 
 they had been successful beyond their hopes in their 
 effort to cast ridicule upon the whole affair. In 
 the Parisian press Louis Napoleon was portrayed 
 in a series of grotesque caricatures ; he was repre- 
 sented as having adopted in every detail the historic 
 costume of the emperor ; he was depicted as a 
 person contemptible in appearance and lacking in 
 
122 THE FIRST CLAIM [CH. vi. 
 
 ordinary intelligence. 'I was told this morning,' 
 writes Granville in his despatch to Palmerston on 
 November 4, 'that the young Louis Buonaparte 
 fainted at the moment of his arrest, that he has 
 since been continually shedding tears and writing 
 letters ^ imploring the mercy of the Government : 
 and that these letters are ill- written and ill- spelt.' 
 To our ambassador this account seemed 'extra- 
 ordinary ' ; to the French Government its circula- 
 tion, Kke that of the other inspired comments on 
 the affair, was abundantly satisfactory. Now to 
 have put Louis on his trial, whatever the issue of 
 that trial might be, would have been at once to 
 demonstrate the absurdity of such reports as these. 
 Moreover, even if his condemnation were assured, 
 the prince would have increased his hold on the 
 popular mind ; as a political martyr his importance 
 would become considerable; attempts might be 
 made to rescue him, or petitions circulated to 
 procure his pardon. But it was far from probable 
 that any jury could be found in France at the time 
 which could be relied on to condemn such a prisoner, 
 and his acquittal could not but be a most awkward 
 rebuff for the Government who brought him to 
 trial. The dilemma was avoided by the course 
 
 ' It is hardly necessary to point out that had this really been 
 Louis Napoleon's attitude, the Government would easily have 
 obtained from the prince the promise of a continual residence in 
 America, a promise ;which, as a matter of fact, they were utterly 
 unable to extract from him. Hortense indeed did write both ' to the 
 king and to Count M0I6, supplicating mercy for her only son' 
 (Granville to Palmerston, 11 th November 1836). But Louis resented 
 this action. 
 
1836] THE ROYAL CLEMENCY 123 
 
 actually adopted by Louis Philippe's advisers, that 
 of shipping the prince oflf unceremoniously to the 
 United States. There was much to recommend 
 the plan to them. Its apparent generosity would 
 confirm the impression that they declined to take 
 the matter seriously. Nothing could be simpler 
 than to see that the prince was not allowed to 
 reach land until the first interest in the affair had 
 subsided; nothing easier than to suggest, and 
 during his enforced silence sedulously to spread the 
 rumour, that he had promised the king that when 
 he had reached America he would remain there. 
 If he did remain, the Government's object would 
 have been attained ; if he did not, at least they 
 would have inflicted on him a stigma not easily 
 effaced ; despite his denials a vague idea would 
 still survive that somehow he had abused the 
 simple-hearted generosity of the affable old king. 
 
 There was, indeed, not much of simplicity in the 
 king's conduct. At the same time it is not easy 
 to sympathise with the rather exaggerated abuse 
 which the majority of imperialist writers have 
 bestowed on his conduct in refusing to have the 
 prince tried. They have assumed that Louis had 
 a sort of prescriptive right to a trial ; and that the 
 denying of it to him was an intolerable grievance. 
 As a matter of fact the king had, of covu-se, a 
 perfect right to deal with his prisoner in any way 
 he should deem most conducive to the stability of 
 his own Government; in this case the course he 
 actually adopted was clearly the wisest one open 
 
124 THE FIRST CLAIM [CH. vi. 
 
 to him. But in the Government's very successful 
 attempt to represent him as having promised to 
 remain in America for a term of years, the prince 
 had indeed a really legitimate grievance. His own 
 vehement denials failed completely to convince the 
 majority of his contemporaries that he had given 
 no such promise ; and when he returned to Europe 
 a few months after his landing in America the 
 renewed abuse of him in the French ministerial 
 press was generally regarded as justified. It was 
 only in 1840, when he was placed on trial for his 
 attack on Boulogne, that a chance admission on the 
 part of one of the Government prosecutors showed 
 how groundless this charge was. 'Pardoned un- 
 conditionally,' said M. Franck - Carre, referring to 
 Louis' treatment after his former venture, 'ought 
 he not to have remembered that his machinations 
 were not feared ? ' 
 
 This indirect and unintentional admission was 
 the only withdrawal ever made by Louis Philippe's 
 Government of the charge they were now deliber- 
 ately preparing against Prince Louis. Although it 
 has generally been considered a suflBcient vindica- 
 tion of the prince's action in this respect, yet it did 
 not stop the circulation of the charge in the French 
 press ; nor did it prevent the majority of the later 
 anti-imperialist writers, and even some sober his- 
 torians, froHi pronouncing him guilty of a breach 
 of faith in his return to Europe. The following 
 extracts from the despatches of the British ambas- 
 sador at this time are therefore of importance ; for 
 
1836] PARDONED WITHOUT TRIAL 125 
 
 they form a more conclusive refutation of the 
 charge than any hitherto forthcoming. On Nov- 
 ember 7, Granville writes : ' It has been decided 
 by the French Government not to bring to trial Louis 
 Napoleon Buonaparte. The mode of dealing with 
 him has occupied for the last three days very much 
 the attention of the French Government. He will 
 be removed from Europe ; but it is, I believe, still 
 uncertain whether an arrangement will be made 
 with him and his family for his being allowed to 
 go to the United States of America on his own 
 parole not to return to France; or whether as a 
 prisoner of war he shall be conveyed to some 
 distant possession of France.' Four days later, 
 however, he writes : ' Louis Napoleon Bonaparte 
 will not be brought to trial : he will not be sent 
 to any French colony ; he will be permitted to go to 
 the United States of America, not being even 
 required to engage his parole not to return to 
 France,' Nothing could be more explicit than 
 this ; and Granville goes on to explain the French 
 Government's reason for an act which he describes 
 as 'illegal, but not unprecedented.' 'There is 
 strong reason to believe that no jury in the Eastern 
 provinces of France would be found who would 
 condemn a member of the Bonaparte family for a 
 political offence ; and it seems now doubtful whether 
 his associates at Strasburg may not be acquitted.'* 
 Here we have a shrewd sidelight on the motives 
 of Louis Philippe's generosity towards his prisoner ; 
 
 * Granville to Palmerston, 11th November 1836. 
 
126 THE FIRST CLAIM [CH. vi. 
 
 here, too, we find the most conclusive proof of the 
 duphcity of his Government's subsequent action in 
 accusing the prince of breaking his promise to the 
 king. 
 
 During his short stay in Paris Louis was not 
 allowed to see his mother, who had hastened there 
 in case her intercessions should prove necessary or 
 efiectual to save her son's life. A few hours after 
 his arrival he was hurried on to Lorient, the port 
 from which he was to sail for America. Although 
 he reached the coast on November 13, a series 
 of contrary winds prevented the AndromMe, the 
 frigate which was to convey him to the United 
 States, from leaving France until the 21st. During 
 the interval the prince wrote a letter to his friend 
 M. Vieillard, expressing his misery at the Govern- 
 ment's refusal to allow him to share the fate of his 
 friends, and denying that he had even been asked 
 to engage himself to remain in America. At the 
 same time it is clear that he did not contemplate 
 an immediate retiu-n, for in a letter to his mother, 
 written at the same time, he announced his intention 
 of becoming a farmer and cultivating his own land 
 in America. On the day of his departure the sub- 
 Prefect of Lorient handed the prince a small case 
 containing 15,000 francs in gold. This deed has 
 been rightly praised as a kindly and considerate 
 act on the part of the king. But it must be 
 remembered that it was only the partial restitution 
 of a very much larger sum which had been found 
 in the prince's possession at the time of his arrest, 
 
1836] TRANSPORTATION 127 
 
 when 200,000 francs were taken from him and 
 confiscated. Moreover it was a piece of generosity 
 which cost Louis Philippe little and paid him well, 
 for it formed a very fitting close to the incident 
 from his point of view. 
 
 In accordance with sealed orders which were 
 only opened when the AndromMe had been some 
 days at sea, her captain proceeded to make a vast 
 ddtour to Eio de Janeiro; and it was only after 
 some weeks had been spent off the Brazilian 
 harbour that he proceeded towards New York, the 
 prince's final destination. Throughout the long 
 voyage, which was an unusually rough one, the 
 prince was treated with the utmost consideration 
 and respect by all on board ; indeed Napoleon him- 
 self on his journey to St Helena could hardly have 
 been the object of more profound or sympathetic 
 attention. None the less his reflections, as shown 
 in a long budget — half letter, half diary — which he 
 wrote on the voyage and sent to his mother on 
 reaching America, were far from pleasant ones. 
 He had, indeed, less to reproach himself with than 
 has sometimes been imagined. Saving that one 
 all- satisfying argument, success, his attempt lacked 
 hardly any of the contentions which have been 
 used to justify risings against constituted authority. 
 He had not sought to suppress by force a popular 
 government, but to overthrow by a popular move- 
 ment a government which he believed to rest on 
 force alone. He had deliberately refrained from 
 the use of intimidation, when by availing hipiself 
 
128 THE FIRST CLAIM [CH. VI. 
 
 of such means he might have greatly increased his 
 prospect of succesa And in spite of this self- 
 imposed limitation he had come within measurable 
 distance of achieving his purpose. For what must 
 still appear rash and reckless in the movement the 
 prince's own presence at its head must be held in 
 some measure to atone. For it is idle to deny- 
 that in assuming this position he took his life in 
 his hand. His conduct on the day itself had been 
 sufiBciently creditable. His calm and phlegmatic 
 nature was not indeed one of those on which, as 
 on Macaulay's hero, ' danger acted like wine ' ; 
 when the time for action arrived he was not more — 
 but neither was he less — courageous than in the 
 period of preparation which preceded it. Courage 
 of calm persistence and steadfast endurance he 
 possessed in no ordinary degree ; but owing to this 
 dead-level characteristic it was seen at relatively 
 less advantage in moments of crisis and action 
 than in periods of suffering and persistent mis- 
 fortune. For he was capable of none of that sudden 
 exaltation, nothing of the Homeric joy of battle, 
 which takes possession, for a space, of many more 
 peaceful souls than his in times of sudden stress ; 
 yet neither was he subject to the fits of reaction 
 and depression which come to most men when the 
 battle has been fought — and lost. 
 
 So it is possible that in the supreme moment 
 at the Finkmatt Barracks another and not really 
 greater man might, by some inspiration, some 
 sudden assertion of personal supremacy, have saved 
 
1836] THE COST OF FAILURE 129 
 
 his cause from inglorious collapse. So it is certain 
 that in the period which followed its failure, a 
 greater man than Louis Napoleon could not have 
 shown a worthier resignation, or faced with calmer 
 dignity the prospect of imminent death. For this 
 was the penalty which in the first hours of their 
 captivity the prince and his followers seem to have 
 believed the Government would inflict upon them. 
 
 Two personal griefs in connexion with the affair 
 are revealed by the prince's letters written at this 
 time. No sooner had King Jerome learnt of the 
 Strasburg attempt and its unhappy ending than he 
 at once, and in peremptory terms, renounced all 
 further connexion with Louis, abruptly breaking off 
 the negotiations for his daughter's marriage with 
 the prince. Great as was the benefit which 
 eventually resulted to the imperial cause even 
 from the failure of the Strasburg insurrection, yet 
 that benefit was dearly purchased by the rupture 
 of this engagement. Princess Mathilde really 
 understood Louis Napoleon, and such a marriage 
 would have given him not only a sympathetic 
 wife, but a gentle, wise, and loyal counsellor. 
 Incidentally, it might have saved him from much 
 of the annoyance to which he was subjected by the 
 jealousy of Prince Napoleon at a later date. By 
 what it might have promoted, and no less by what 
 it must have precluded, this marriage would have 
 had a great and probably a beneficent effect on the 
 prince's future career. 
 
 Greatly as Louis was grieved by the breach 
 
130 THE FIRST CLAIM [CH. vi. 
 
 of this engagement, he was for the moment almost 
 equally distressed by the fear that the Government 
 might succeed in its attempt to represent him as 
 having escaped the fate of his companions by his 
 own act : he had not feared ridicule in the event of 
 failure, but he did deeply resent the unjust implica- 
 tion of cowardice. 
 
 But greater than any personal anxiety was 
 his concern for the fate of his companions, 
 whom the Government had put on their trial. 
 He feared that his absence might prejudice 
 their case, or that the Government, after thus 
 isolating them, might inflict on its lesser victims a 
 punishment which it had not dared to impose on 
 himself. As a matter of fact Louis Philippe's 
 Government was given no opportunity of displaying 
 either clemency or severity towards its prisoners. 
 Its first intention had been to have them tried by 
 court-martial;^ but on realising that they might 
 appeal to the Court of Cassation against the 
 legality of such a mode of trial, and that such an 
 appeal would certainly result in their favour, a 
 second council of Louis Philippe's ministers decided 
 that they should be tried by the ordinary Court of 
 Assize.^ This was done at Strasburg in January 
 1837, and after a trial which lasted for twelve days 
 a local jury unanimously, and in the teeth of the 
 evidence submitted to them, found the accused 
 not guilty. The prisoners throughout displayed 
 
 ' Granville to Palmerston, 4th November 1836. 
 2 Ibid. 
 
1837] ACQUITTAL 131 
 
 extraordinary spirit and audacity; so far from 
 extenuating or apologising for their actions, they 
 appeared to glory in what they had done. Dis- 
 tinguished counsel were engaged in the proceedings, 
 which were followed with interest and reported in 
 detail both in French and foreign journals. For 
 the first time since the fall of the empire, a certain 
 amount of attention was drawn to the existence of 
 a possible Bonapartist pretender ; during the time 
 of the trial some 8000 copies were sold of a 
 biography of Prince Louis which had been hastily 
 printed for the occasion. On the day of' the 
 acquittal the whole city of Strasburg, not excluding 
 the garrison, was in a state of wild rejoicing ; the 
 released prisoners were received with triumphant 
 welcome, and on the evening of their discharge 
 were formally entertained at a public banquet. 
 
 By the tidings of this triumphant acquittal Louis 
 Napoleon was greeted on March 30, 1837, when 
 he landed at Norfolk, in Virginia, at the end of his 
 long voyage. The news was confirmed by an 
 Italian friend. Count Arese, who, together with 
 the prince's valet, Thelin, had hastened to America 
 to join him in his exile. And so, in setting foot in 
 the New World, he was able to take new hope 
 for his chances of success in the Old. For in 
 that acquittal he fovmd — if not the ideal ending of 
 his venture, at least some compensation for its 
 failure, and a sufficient vindication of his own 
 action in his own sight. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON A POLITICAL PRETENDER 
 
 {April 1837 to August 1840. Aetat. 29-32.) 
 
 Omnium quae dixerat feceratque arte quadam ostentator. 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
 On his arrival in America Prince Louis did not 
 expect to find himself altogether friendless. From 
 the time of the downfall of the empire until 1832, 
 King Joseph had been living in the United States ; 
 and although he had been in England for the 
 last few years, yet he was now on the point of 
 returning to America. As soon as he knew that 
 he was himself bound for the same country, Louis 
 had written to his uncle to inform him of the fact ; 
 he had hoped to obtain introductions from him 
 to various influential persons in New York, and 
 possibly to buy from King Joseph a little land, 
 which he might till as a farmer. But now, as 
 always, the prince was to find himself deprived of 
 any help from his own family : on his arrival in 
 New York, whither he proceeded at once on his 
 landing, he found neither response nor greeting 
 from his uncle, for the ex- King of Spain did not 
 
 132 
 
1837] NOT WITHOUT HONOUR 133 
 
 even condescend to acknowledge the receipt of 
 the prince's letter. Louis now wrote to him again ; 
 this time the deference with which he still thought 
 it fitting to address the nominal head of the 
 Napoleonic house hardly conceals his scorn of the 
 policy which the elder members of that family 
 were pursuing. 
 
 'Had I succeeded at Strasburg,' he wrote, 
 'and we were very near success — had I marched 
 forward on Paris, drawing the people after me 
 spellbound by their memories of the empire, and 
 had I on my arrival played the pretender and 
 appropriated the regal power — ah, then, indeed it 
 had shown grandeur of spirit to disavow my 
 conduct, to cut me adrift. But nowl Now I 
 have made trial of one of those rash enterprises 
 which alone can re-establish what twenty peace- 
 ful years have caused to be forgotten. Into that 
 enterprise I fling myself, taking my life in my 
 hand, convinced that even my death would help 
 our cause : through no will of mine I escape 
 bayonet and scaffold — only to meet despite and 
 disdain at the hand of my own family.' 
 
 His short sojourn in America was the occasion 
 of another injury inflicted on the prince by a 
 different member of his family. Shortly after his 
 own arrival there appeared in New York a 
 certain Prince Pierre Napoleon, who proceeded to 
 scandalise the city by a series of discreditable 
 escapades. Some twenty years afterwards the 
 emperor himself was charged with the actions 
 
134 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. vii. 
 
 of his rowdy, ne'er-do-weel cousin. It was left 
 to one of the many American friends whom he 
 made during his stay at New York, to expose 
 the confusion. 
 
 Indeed, the prince suffered little from his 
 uncle's refusal to give him introductions in New 
 York. On his arrival there, he at once found his 
 way into some of the best society in the city : 
 during his two months residence in America he was 
 a good deal 'honised/ and received more invita- 
 tions than it was possible for him to accept. He 
 was entertained not only by some of the oldest and 
 most aristocratic families of New York, but by its 
 leading litterateurs, including Cooper, Halleck, 
 General Webb, and Washington Irving. Those 
 who made his acquaintance, found him thought- 
 ful, reserved, and silent to the verge of dullness ; 
 and marvelled that a young man in other respects 
 so entirely sane, should be in the habit of prefacing 
 his statements of his future intentions with the 
 words, ' When I am emperor.' 
 
 The fact was that the verdict of the Strasbm'g 
 jury had convinced the prince that his political life 
 was not ended after all. He at once renounced his 
 first intention of buying land in the United States 
 and there pursuing a pastoral existence for the rest 
 of his days. He did not, however, contemplate 
 any immediate return to Europe, but hoped to 
 turn his enforced visit to America to a useful 
 purpose. At the end of May he had determined 
 to make a year's tour of the United States. 
 
1837] AMERICAN NOTES 135 
 
 Doubtless this design, had it been carried out, 
 would have resulted in the appearance of a 
 companion volume to the Considerations sur la 
 Suisse, a volume virhich would probably have 
 exceeded in value his work on the smaller republic. 
 For the prince's impressions of America, as shown 
 by the letters he wrote during his short residence 
 in New York, are of quite exceptional interest. 
 'The states of America had acted in their own 
 interest, at a time when their only interest was 
 commerce, in separating themselves from the mother 
 country,' he wrote to Vieillard, in a letter dated 
 April 30, from New York. 'But a minor who 
 declares himself to be of age at sixteen, let his 
 physical strength be what it may, is only a child. 
 We are men only when we have reached the full 
 development of our physical and moral forces. 
 Now this country possesses immense material 
 forces, but in moral forces it is entirely deficient. 
 The United States beUeved themselves to be a 
 nation as soon as they had a government elected 
 by themselves, a president and chambers. They 
 were, and are stiU, only an independent colony. 
 The transition is going on daily, . . . but I do not 
 think it will be completed without crises and 
 convulsions.' Hitherto their problems had been 
 simple ; a few police regulations had been all that 
 was really requisite for their government. 'But 
 now the population has thickened. It is composed 
 of an American type that is sharply defined, and 
 of daily arriving immigrants who have no education. 
 
136 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. vii. 
 
 no popular traditions, and for the most part no 
 patriotism ... In the midst of this world of 
 traders, where there is not a man who is not a 
 speculator, it has entered the heads of a few honest 
 men that slavery, although it is highly profitable, is 
 a bad thing; and for the first time, the heart of 
 America has vibrated for an interest that is not 
 financial' Thus Louis Napoleon lights by 
 chance upon the subject which was to be the 
 occasion of those convulsions which he thus pre- 
 dicted ; revealing incidentally that he fully realised 
 a fact hidden to most Frenchmen of his day — that 
 in their war with England, the revolted states were 
 contending in an entirely practical manner for 
 commercial and material advantages ; that though 
 they might throw their grievances into constitu- 
 tional form, and indulge after their success in 
 high-flown aphorisms, yet the colonists were in 
 no true sense imbued with the great ideas so soon 
 to find expression in the French revolution. One 
 final remark from the same letter deserves 
 quotation, a remark which would suffice to show 
 that the prince's impressions were based on an 
 acquaintance with the Northern and not the 
 Southern States. 'Here there is the right to 
 act, but not to think,' wrote Louis ; ' here there 
 is liberty to acquire, but not liberty to enjoy.' 
 This stricture has not lost its truth of a people to 
 whom the pronunciation of the word leisure is a 
 stumbling-block, and the meaning of it a mystery 
 unto this day. 
 
1837] AN INTERRUPl'ED TOUR 137 
 
 In fine, Louis Napoleon's impressions of 
 the Northern States give evidence of so much 
 insight, that we would gladly have more of them ; 
 but this is not the only reason why the abandon- 
 ment of his American tour is to be regretted. For 
 it is at least possible that a detailed and methodical 
 siu-vey of the United States at this time might 
 have saved the prince from grave error in his sub- 
 sequent policy. To have written a book on 
 American institutions is not, perhaps, necessarily to 
 have a complete capacity for the diplomatic hand- 
 ling of international relations with America; but 
 study spent on such a work might have altered for 
 the better, and could not have altered for the worse, 
 Louis Napoleon's political dealings with the United 
 States. A more intimate acquaintance with the 
 political feeling of the North might have shown him 
 that if he would offend that feeling he must be 
 prepared to render it powerless ; a more intimate 
 acquaintance with the social conditions of the South 
 might have induced him to give effective support to 
 the Confederate forces at the crisis of the Civil War. 
 But the journey was never made. For while he 
 was making his final arrangements for it, the prince 
 received a letter from his mother which caused him 
 to abandon his design. 
 
 For many years Queen Hortense had been in 
 ill-health, and latterly she had been sufiering from 
 a disease which only an operation could arrest. 
 The sudden shock of learning that her son was a 
 prisoner whose life was justly forfeit, the hurried 
 
138 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. vii. 
 
 journey to Paris, the sad return without sight of 
 him, and finally, the long period of cruel suspense 
 in which she waited for news of his arrival in 
 America — for the French Government, which had 
 insisted on hurrying her return journey to Arenen- 
 berg, had not informed her of the explanation of her 
 son's long silence — all these had combined to hasten 
 the progress of her illness. On her return to 
 Switzerland it became clear that the operation 
 could no longer be delayed. Early in April she 
 wrote this farewell letter to Louis, believing that it 
 would be the last she would ever send him : — 
 
 ' My dear Son, 
 
 ' I have to undergo a severe operation : 
 should it not succeed, I send you by this letter my 
 last blessing. We shall meet each other again, 
 shall we not ? in a better world, where you will 
 rejoin me, though not I hope for many years to 
 come ; and you will remember that in leaving this 
 one I have no one to regret but you — you whose 
 loving kindness alone gave my life here any charm. 
 It will be a consolation to you, dear boy, to think 
 that you have made your mother as happy as she 
 could be made. . . . Quite certainly there is an- 
 other meeting. . . . Hold this sweet hope : it is 
 too necessary not to be true.- — ^Your loving mother, 
 
 * HOKTENSE.' 
 
 But the specialist who had been summoned to 
 perform the operation saw at once that he had 
 come too late. With a kindness which it would be 
 
1837] RETURN TO EUROPE 139 
 
 hard to justify and harder to condemn, he gave the 
 queen to understand that he would not operate — not 
 because such a course was useless, but because it 
 was unnecessary ; not because she was too ill, but 
 because she was not ill enough. And so Hortense 
 on hearing her death-warrant, believed that she had 
 received a fresh lease of Hfe : she hastened to write 
 again to her son, in order as she said that she might 
 be the first to tell him the good news. But Dr 
 Conneau, her family physician, who did not know 
 what hope Hortense might have given her son of her 
 recovery, but did know that any hope at all was 
 false, had written on the envelope the words, ' Venez, 
 venez.' The letter was delayed in transmission, and 
 only reached the prince on June 3. He at once 
 booked a passage on the next homeward-bound 
 packet, the George Washington, and sailed on the 
 12th. It is characteristic of him that even so he 
 did not omit to write a formal letter to the President 
 of the United States, informing him of his reasons 
 for leaving ; insisting that he had made no sort of 
 promise to abstain from retm-ning to Europe, and 
 expressing his regret at his inability to visit the 
 President at Washington. It was his policy to 
 assume that his comings and goings were a matter 
 in which the heads of nations should naturally feel 
 concern. 
 
 On July 10 Prince Louis reached London. 
 The French ambassador refused to give him a pass- 
 port for Arenenberg ; neither the Austrian embassy 
 nor the Prussian legation would help him. Finally 
 
140 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. vii. 
 
 he procured a passport made out for an American 
 friend ; the Swiss consul made no difficulty about 
 signing — relations between France and Switzerland 
 were already strained — and on the 30th Louis left 
 London in disguise. He sailed to Rotterdam, and 
 coming up the Rhine by boat reached Arenenberg 
 on the evening of August 4. When Louis saw 
 his mother on the morning after his arrival, it was 
 clear that she had not many weeks to live. 
 Although her son summoned doctor after doctor 
 to her bedside in the vain hope of reversing the 
 sentence, it was his own presence there, rather than 
 any assistance they could give, which enabled her to 
 hold on to life for two months after his return. On 
 the 9th of October, in the early morning, she died : 
 — her hands extended towards the son who had done 
 so much to comfort her later years. For, indeed, 
 whatever his later shortcomings as a husband, it 
 must be set down to the credit of Louis Napoleon 
 that he was to his mother an almost ideal son; 
 indeed, in this case, the relationship was invested 
 with the almost pathetic tenderness which can exist 
 between a French mother and her only son. Un- 
 fortunately, it is not possible to write of Hortense 
 that she was an ideal mother. Courage, high spirits, 
 large-hearted charity, and devoted attachment to her 
 son — all these qualities she possessed ; and the love 
 he had for her, no less than the crowded throng of 
 Swiss peasants who were present with him at her 
 funeral, bore witness to them. Yet the immense 
 influence which her position as her son's sole 
 
1837] HORTENSE AND HER SON 141 
 
 guardian, and his own singularly receptive nature, 
 placed in her hands, might certainly have been put 
 to better use than it was. With all the talents and 
 almost all the virtues, Hortense was not in the 
 ordinary sense of the term a virtuous woman. We 
 have seen reason for the belief that the denial of 
 Louis' right to his father's name was mere mal- 
 evolent scandal ; but Hortense might justly have 
 incurred her son's reproaches for having by her 
 later conduct rendered such scandal possible. 
 
 Her failings in this respect had a more serious 
 result. A highly impressionable boy, in whose eyes 
 his mother could do no wrong, was brought up in 
 an atmosphere in which the ordinary definitions of 
 certain offences were blurred; he was accustomed 
 to the belief that the possession of an artistic 
 temperament excused its owner from the exact 
 observance of conventional morality. It would 
 have been better, perhaps, if in an education in 
 which so little stress was laid on moral integrity 
 there had been less insistence on religious exercises : 
 a spirit so naturally devout as Louis Napoleon's 
 would almost certainly have discovered religion for 
 itself, and might possibly have accepted with Chris- 
 tianity the obligations which it ordinarily imposes. 
 As it was, he learnt to believe that the devout 
 attachment to Catholicism which characterised both 
 himself and his mother was compatible with fre- 
 quent lapses from its precepts in these matters ; he 
 was thus for ever released from what was probably 
 the one binding force which could have restrained a 
 
142 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. vil. 
 
 nature such as his from its peculiar weakness. We 
 are not suggesting that that nature was in itself a 
 peculiarly vicious one, or that a tithe of the asser- 
 tions based on this supposition are actually true. 
 But the fact remains that while other rulers of men 
 have offended as he offended without noticeably 
 impairing the efficiency of their government, the 
 private faults of Louis Napoleon and the scandal 
 occasioned by them did most seriously affect and 
 detract from his public services to the State. And 
 for the evils which befell her country by this cause, 
 that eminently patriotic Frenchwoman, Hortense de 
 Beauharnais, Queen of Holland, Duchess of St Leu, 
 cannot escape her share of blame. 
 
 It was, of course, with thoughts very different 
 from these that Louis followed his mother's coffin 
 to the last impressive service at the church of 
 Ermatingen, before it passed where he could follow 
 it no longer, to its final resting-place in France. 
 For a government which could afford to be more 
 merciful to the dead than to the living had allowed 
 the queen the last boon she asked of it — leave 
 to be buried at Malmaison, her home during the 
 happiest period of her life. 
 
 Towards the prince himself less indulgence was 
 shown. The news of his return to Europe had 
 caused considerable annoyance to the advisers of 
 Louis Philippe. The French ministerial press gave 
 renewed currency to the false assertion that in 
 leaving America he had been guilty of breach of 
 faith; at the same time a hint was given to the 
 
1838] GENTLE AND CIRCUITOUS 143 
 
 Swiss Government that his continued residence in 
 Arenenberg would be displeasing to France. When 
 after his mother's death Louis showed no signs 
 of immediate departure, but instead, proceeded in 
 January 1838 to instal himself in a new house at 
 Gottlieben, these protests took a more definite form. 
 The French ambassador, the Duke of Monte- 
 bello, repeated his request for the prince's expulsion, 
 grounding it on the public declaration of the Swiss 
 Diet in 1815, forbidding any Bonaparte to live in 
 Switzerland. The duke ' himself recently informed 
 me,' wrote the English representative at Berne at 
 the end of January,^ 'that his efforts have been 
 hitherto confined to unofficial communications with 
 Mr Am Ehyn, late president of the Vorost, at 
 whose suggestion in consequence the Thurgovian 
 Government has caused an insinuation to be con- 
 veyed indirectly to the above-mentioned personage 
 [Louis Napoleon], that he might perhaps find it 
 convenient to take up his quarters elsewhere. . . . 
 He does not, however, appear disposed to under- 
 stand the hint, nor does the French ambassador 
 seem to entertain hopes of succeeding by the use of 
 such gentle and circuitous means.' 'It seems 
 generally admitted,' adds Morier, 'that the char- 
 acter and talents of the personage in question are 
 too insignificant to render him personally formidable 
 to the French Government,' but 'some of the 
 principal actors in the Strasburg plot are said to be 
 at present residing with him.' 
 
 1 Morier to Palmerston, Berne, 31st January 1838. 
 
144 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [oh. vii. 
 
 As he expected, Montebello achieved nothing : 
 the president refused to act at all except on an 
 official demand, and then he would only be willing 
 to refer the matter to the judgment of the 
 Cantons,^ Here the question stood at the middle 
 of February, and here, in all probability, it would 
 have been allowed to rest but for an event which 
 occurred in Paris a few months later. 
 
 Early in June 1838, Laity published his account 
 of the Strasburg insurrection, in which he had 
 played so prominent a part : an account designed 
 to show that the affair was in reality a serious and 
 almost successful revolt, and that the Government's 
 affected disdain was neither genuine nor justified. 
 By an act of extraordinary folly, the account 
 was at once seized, its sale forbidden, and its 
 author placed in prison, pending his trial by the 
 Court of Peers. In the trial which followed. Laity 
 adopted an attitude, not of apology or even of self- 
 defence, but of almost defiant vindication of the 
 Napoleonic cause and of its protagonist, Prince 
 Louis. On the 10th of July he was sentenced to a 
 fine of 10,000 francs, to five years' imprisonment, 
 and to police surveillance for the rest of his life. 
 The Orleanist Government could hardly have 
 played more completely into the hands of their 
 opponents had Prince Louis himself been allowed 
 to dictate their action. In prohibiting the circula- 
 tion of Laity's volume they had given it the best 
 advertisement it could have received. Left alone, 
 
 ' Morier to Palmerston, 13th February 1838. 
 
1838] THE LAITY PAMPHLET 145 
 
 it would have found few to read it, and hardly any 
 to take it seriously. But when its distribution 
 was forbidden, large numbers of curious or 
 interested persons were at some pains to procure 
 a copy ; and when its author was condemned, those 
 readers became convinced that the extraordinary 
 severity with which he had been treated was the 
 best possible proof of the truth and importance of 
 his writings. What would have been an obscure 
 pamphlet was thus made an object of real political 
 importance.^ 
 
 The excessive severity of the sentence passed 
 on Laity gave him the rank of a political martyr ; 
 while the nature of his offence was so nearly 
 connected with the liberty of the Press — always a 
 burning question to the constitutional party in 
 France at this period — that he did not fail to 
 obtaia the sympathies of all newspapers hostile to 
 the Government, as well as of some which were 
 ordinarily its supporters. In short, the Govern- 
 ment had by its act accomplished what the 
 pamphlet would have attempted in vain. It had 
 made it clear to the world that to the advisers of 
 Louis Philippe the Strasburg affair was in reality 
 a matter of serious moment, and that its authors 
 were objects of fear rather than ridicule to the 
 Government they attacked. 
 
 Incidentally, the trial of Laity had, of course, 
 directed a considerable amount of interest and 
 
 * Of sufficient importance, for example, for Granville to consider 
 worth sending to Palmerston, 27th June 1838. 
 
 K 
 
146 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. Vli. 
 
 attention towards Louis Napoleon himself. As 
 though to make sure that he should have not 
 merely the reflected merit of a vicarious martyrdom, 
 but the direct compliment of personal persecution, 
 the Mold Government now proceeded to address 
 an urgent note to the Federal Diet demanding his 
 expulsion from Switzerland. This was, of course, 
 exactly what the prince had desired. In this 
 hope, as he afterwards admitted,^ he had 
 caused the pamphlet to be pubhshed; with 
 this object, certainly, he had addressed to 
 Laity, on the eVe of his trial, a letter in which 
 he assumed full responsibility for the publica- 
 tion and the contents of the offending document. 
 The French Government's demand was therefore 
 a piece of persecution most welcome to its 
 apparent victim. 
 
 But to the Swiss Government it was for a 
 number of reasons most unpalatable. Switzerland 
 had always regarded with jealousy any attempt to 
 diminish her privileged position as the refuge of 
 political exiles ; and in this case the peremptory 
 form of the French request would have made 
 immediate compliance seem an act of humiliating 
 submission. Moreover, Prince Louis had shown 
 himself a more desirable guest than many exiles. 
 His evident appreciation of their hospitality, his 
 sympathetic study of their institutions, the interest 
 he displayed and the active part he took in their 
 military training, their local shooting-matches, their 
 
 1 Letter to M. Vieillard, 10th June 1842. See p. 324. 
 
1838] THE FRENCH DEMAND 147 
 
 rural pursuits— all these had won him a considerable 
 popularity with his Swiss hosts, and had rendered 
 him a valued and important citizen of his own 
 canton of Thurgau. Doubtless, too, the fact that 
 the prince had money to spend, and spent it freely, 
 was not altogether without its influence on a race 
 which was already beginning to learn how profit- 
 ably the foreigner may be entertained. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of at once complying with 
 the French Government's demand, the Swiss 
 Government proceeded to a leisurely and not over 
 friendly examination of its terms. They did not, 
 indeed, venture on a downright refusal ; but in the 
 manifold devices of a constitution framed to hold 
 in elaborate equipoise the balance of local and 
 central authority, they found ample opportunity of 
 postponing a definite answer. The Federal Diet 
 took note of the demand, adjourned its discussion 
 for a week, and after a debate in which the French 
 claims were freely criticised, appointed a com- 
 mission to confer with the local authorities of 
 Thurgau on the question. It was not until the 
 beginning of September that this commission 
 made its report to the diet ; and when it did, the 
 diet found an excuse for delay by referring the 
 question to the Cantonal Grand Councils, arrang- 
 ing itself to meet again and to receive their report 
 on the 1st of October. In the weeks which 
 followed, the several councils voted on the question 
 amid much local excitement, and as the month 
 advanced it became evident that the majority of 
 
148 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. Vli. 
 
 the cantons were opposed to yielding to the French 
 demand. 
 
 By this time the afiFair had assumed really 
 serious proportions. The Mol^ Government per- 
 sisted in its request with a vehemence which was 
 not lessened, but rather increased, by the fact that its 
 action was condemned, almost without exception, 
 by the entire French press ; dimly conscious that it 
 had blundered badly in making the demand at all, 
 the Government was the more clearly aware that 
 for that very reason it could not afford to have 
 made it in vain. It sought and obtained the 
 diplomatic support of Austria, Prussia, and several 
 of the minor German courts ; at the same time it 
 began to concentrate troops on the Swiss frontier, 
 openly threatening to enforce its demand by 
 invasion. In Switzerland itself the excitement was 
 even greater ; on several former occasions the 
 republic had been treated with scant courtesy by 
 Louis Philippe's Government, and there now 
 appeared to be a strong feeling in favour of 
 resistance — if necessary armed resistance — to its 
 peremptory demand. Louis Napoleon himself 
 meanwhile was enjoying the situation to the full. 
 Thanks to the strangely irrational process which 
 governs popular opinion on such occasions, he was 
 not looked askance at as the cause of the whole 
 trouble ; on the contrary, he was invested with an 
 increased popularity, being regarded as a sort of 
 personification of the stand Switzerland was making 
 for her national rights. His own canton elected 
 
1838] A LINE OF RETREAT 149 
 
 him deputy of its grand council ; others conferred 
 on him the rights of honorary citizenship. Some 
 of these honours he accepted, others he declined ; 
 but always he made them the occasion of some 
 public pronouncement in which he fully guarded 
 his claim to fuU civil rights in France. For the 
 moment his sayings and doings were reported in 
 half the leading newspapers in Europe, and he was 
 careful to avail himself of this new advantage. 
 
 It was only in the middle of September that 
 Louis Napoleon at length began to take measures 
 for putting an end to the situation. On the 17th, 
 Persigny called on the British envoy at Berne, and 
 presented him with a letter asking whether in case 
 of necessity the prince might be granted a passport 
 for England under a false name ; ^ he also showed 
 Morier a letter from Louis himself to the same 
 effect. The prince desired an answer if possible 
 before the 1st of October, when the diet would meet. 
 
 Two days later Persigny again called on Morier, 
 this time to inform him that Louis Napoleon 
 had definitely decided to leave Switzerland. 
 
 1 ' Bbene, le 17 Sep. 1838. 
 ' Monsieur le ministre, 
 
 'Le Prince Napol^on-l^uis me charge de demander a 
 votre excellence si, le cas ^ch^ant, elle lui donnerait des Passeports 
 pour I'Angleterre sous un faux nom ; il vous prie de vouloir bien 
 demander a ce sujet des instructions a votre gouvemement, en vous 
 transmettant cette demande je saisis I'occasion, etc. etc. 
 
 ' ViC* DE Peebigny.' 
 
 'On my asking M. de Persigny,' says Morier, ' what was to be 
 understood by the expression in his letter "le cas ^ch6ant," his 
 answer was, "le cas ou le Prince serait oblige de quitter la Suisse."' 
 —Morier to Palmerston, 17th Sept. 1838. 
 
150 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. Vli. 
 
 * It appears singular,' wrote Morier in his despatch 
 announcing the fact to Palmerston, ' that this reso- 
 lution should be made at the very time that so many 
 of the executive councils are pronouncing themselves 
 decidedly against the demand of France for the 
 prince's expulsion. This has been remarkably the 
 case with Berne, where an opposite decision was confi- 
 dently anticipated, as also with Zurich and Lucerne.'^ 
 In point of fact, it was precisely by timing the 
 announcement of his voluntary departure from 
 Switzerland at the very moment when both 
 governments seemed definitely to have committed 
 themselves to an irreconcilable attitude that Louis 
 Napoleon secured for himself the uttermost 
 advantage which the situation could afibrd. 
 This fact has been clearly recognisable, even by 
 the imperfect light in which Louis Napoleon's 
 action on this occasion has hitherto been 
 judged. For even had it been in his power, it 
 could not have been his policy to bring about a 
 war. War must have tested most severely his 
 popularity with his Swiss hosts; war might even 
 have rallied national opinion in France to the 
 support of the Monarchy. And in any case it 
 would ill have become a pretender to have served 
 in arms against the country he hoped to rule. 
 What was possible and eminently politic was to 
 secure for himself the credit of having averted a 
 European war. On September 22 the prince 
 addressed to the President of the Petty Council of 
 
 ' Morier to Palmerston, 19th September 1838. 
 
1838] PEACE WITH HONOUR 151 
 
 Thurgau a letter in which he announced his inten- 
 tion of leaving Switzerland of his own accord, 
 ' Switzerland has shown,' he wrote, ' that she was 
 ready to make great sacrifices to maintain her 
 dignity. She has known how to do her duty as a 
 free country ; I shall know. how to do mine. , . . 
 It only remains for me to leave a country where my 
 presence would be a pretext of great calamities. 
 In quitting of my own will the only country in 
 Europe where I have found refuge and protection, 
 I hope I shall prove to the Swiss nation that I was 
 worthy of the many marks of esteem they have 
 shown me. , , , My one consolation for leaving 
 Switzerland is the knowledge that by doing so I am 
 saving her from great troubles.' Dignified in its 
 terms, generous in its apparent self- surrender, this 
 letter produced exactly the effect that its author 
 desired. His popularity in Switzerland was 
 redoubled; while from the Government of Louis 
 Phihppe he seemed to strip the last semblance 
 of justification. His name had become known 
 throughout Europe ; all France saw that his claims 
 were clearly a matter of grave anxiety to the 
 existing dynasty. Hereafter he was no longer an 
 unknown adventurer, but a recognised pretender 
 to the French throne; a pretender who would 
 become no whit less formidable by his voluntary- 
 removal from Switzerland to England. 
 
 With such vigour and enthusiasm did Switzer- 
 land appear to rally to the prince's cause on the eve 
 of his departure, that some of those who had most 
 
152 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. til 
 
 welcomed his letter as a solution to an awkward 
 question were afraid that he might be tempted to 
 go back on his published decision. On Septem- 
 ber 24, after a long debate, the Grand Council 
 of Berne decided in the prince's favour. 'This 
 result, which was hailed by acclamations of the 
 people assembled in the streets, is not the least 
 remarkable symptom of the hostile feeling against 
 France roused by this question,' wrote Morier. 
 'A majority of the cantons for refusing the 
 expulsion of Louis Bonaparte seems thus already 
 secured. ... It remains to be seen whether the 
 above-mentioned personage will now continue in 
 the resolution of retiring from Switzerland.'^ 
 
 For reasons which we have already suggested, 
 it could in no case have been Louis' intention to 
 remain in Switzerland; least of all could it have 
 been his policy to revoke a declaration which had 
 won for him the sympathy and approval of many 
 who had never hitherto allowed him 'a single 
 redeeming quality. But as a matter of fact, even 
 had he wished to forfeit his new-won reputation 
 in this way, it would have been out of his power 
 to do so. 
 
 The extensive diplomatic correspondence in 
 connexion with the demand for the prince's 
 expulsion serves to confirm one fact which has 
 until now remained a matter of conjecture, and 
 to bring to light another which has hardly even 
 been guessed at hitherto. On the one hand, it is 
 
 > Morier to Palmerston, 25th September 1838. 
 
1838] A SUCCESSFUL ALLIANCE 153 
 
 abundantly clear that the French Government did 
 actually intend in case of necessity to proceed to 
 extreme measures ; it was no mere demonstration 
 against the frontier, but an actual military occupa- 
 tion of Swiss territories, which Mold contemplated 
 if Montebello's demands were refused. 
 
 But if the military preparations of France were 
 more seriously intended than has sometimes been 
 believed, the Swiss war party, on the other hand, 
 or at any rate the leaders of that party, were less 
 siacere than they appeared.^ For we now learn 
 that between them and Louis Napoleon there 
 
 ' In proof of these two facts — the sincerity of the war prepara- 
 tions on the part of France, and the insincerity of the leaders of 
 the Swiss war party — the following extracts may suffice, from much 
 which makes for the same conclusion. 
 
 28th Sept. — Morier to Palmerston. ' The Avoyer Tscharner, who 
 called on me yesterday, . . . did not scruple to declare his belief 
 that this step of Louis Bonaparte's had been concerted with the 
 leaders of the war party in the different grand councils, who had 
 only made such a brave show of defiance to France from the 
 persuasion that they would not, in consequence of this premeditated 
 disappearance of their tool from Swiss territory, be called upon to 
 testify their patriotism by more substantial proofs than their 
 speeche^.' 
 
 1st Oct. — Morier to Palmerston. ' M. de Montigny of the French 
 Embassy called on me yesterday . . . He said that it had been 
 known at the Embassy for the last three weeks that such a letter 
 was in contemplation ; he spoke of it as a matter concerted among 
 the party who were for rejecting the demand of the French Govern- 
 ment, for the purpose of furnishing them with a safe opportunity of 
 braving the latter with impunity ; and at the same time, expressed 
 his confidence that the affair would now be settled without the 
 necessity of having recourse to a military occupation of the country, 
 a measure which he said, had been irrevocably determined ; adding 
 that he found at Strasburg a division of artillery under orders to 
 march towards the Swiss frontier, and that the camp at St Omer 
 was ready to break up at a moment's notice for the same destina- 
 tion.' 
 
154 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [ch. vil 
 
 existed an understanding which amounted to a 
 compact for the confusion of the common enemy. 
 The patriotic burgers were by voice and vote to 
 champion Louis' cause, to talk at large of 
 Helvetian liberties, to hurl defiance at Louis 
 Philippe and his demands. Louis on his part 
 was at the last moment to relieve them fi'om the 
 necessity of translating their words into action, by 
 himself of his own initiative bidding his gallant 
 defenders a dignified and pathetic farewell. The 
 arrangement lacked no element of neatness or 
 dexterity. The French Government had desired 
 to abash the insolence of Louis Napoleon's Swiss 
 defenders no less than to humiliate Louis Napoleon 
 himself. In open contest, neither the prince nor 
 the war party could have effected anything against 
 Louis Philippe : by this simple yet singularly 
 effective manoeuvre they were severally enabled 
 to flout his threats and mock his revenge. 
 Conscious of their overwhelming military advan- 
 tage the Mole ministry could safely threaten war ; 
 but confident that war would not really ensue, 
 the Swiss patriots could no less safely accept the 
 challenge. In a conflict so limited, the forces of 
 the two combatants were not merely equalised, 
 but reversed: in actual battle the victory must 
 have gone to the giant ; for that very reason, in 
 the preliminary sparring men's sympathies went 
 to the dwarf. No crumb of comfort was left to 
 the French Government. It was denied the 
 opportunity of proving that its military prepara- 
 
1838] MOLl^'S DISCOMFITURE 
 
 155 
 
 tions were effective ; it was suffered only to show 
 that they were not feared. Wishing to ensure 
 the ignominious expulsion of Louis Napoleon at 
 the hands of the Swiss themselves, it had merely 
 succeeded in evoking for him from those same 
 Swiss an apparently overwhelming ovation, and 
 in presenting him with an admirably effective and 
 dignified exit from the scene of his triumph. All 
 the honom-s of this rather farcical melodrama — 
 the fine speeches and the plaudits of the crowd — 
 these were divided between Louis and his gallant 
 defenders; the French Government had to be 
 content with the part of the blustering and baffled 
 bully. 
 
 So clearly had Montebello's demand failed in 
 its purpose, that it seemed doubtful for a moment 
 whether the French Government would accept this 
 ending of the incident. It was rumoured 'that no 
 passport would be given to Louis Bonaparte except 
 by a prescribed route, not at his own choice, and 
 unless his removal from Switzerland were distinctly 
 declared to be the result not of his own voluntary 
 choice, but of a compliance for the demand made for 
 his expulsion.' ^ But wiser councils prevailed : the 
 good offices of the British Government were offered 
 and accepted, and in due course the prince received 
 his passports for England. For it was to England, 
 now as once before, that Louis Napoleon turned 
 when Switzerland was not strong enough to afford 
 him shelter. It has been suggested that England 
 
 > Morier to Palmerston, 28th Sept. 1838. 
 
156 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. vil. 
 
 was not sorry on this occasion to administer a 
 slight reproof to Louis Philippe's administration 
 by the alacrity with which it welcomed the prince. 
 So far as the Government was concerned, this 
 was not the case. Its attitude was scrupulously 
 correct. For Persigny's application for a passport 
 to England for the prince's use was not granted 
 until Mold had been informed of it, and asked what 
 action on the part of the English Government 
 would be most helpful to him in the matter.^ 
 
 But such motive may well have conduced to the 
 extraordinarily cordial reception which was given to 
 Prince Louis by English society on his arrival from 
 Switzerland. The autumn of 1838 and the early 
 months of 1839 marked the high- water mark of 
 his apparent importance as a pretender. His 
 departure from Switzerland had been the occasion 
 of great demonstrations in his honour by members 
 of his own canton ; his leisurely passage through 
 Germany and Holland on his way to England was 
 turned, by dint of good stage management, into a 
 semi-royal progress ; was he not already, as one of 
 the French papers had styled him, 'Emperor in 
 partibus ' ? And during the London season which 
 followed his arrival he was one of the most lionised 
 men in the country. The newspapers of the time 
 contain most frequent and detailed accounts of his 
 social engagements : whether he is paying a round 
 of visits to the country houses of the nobility, or 
 
 > Palmerston to Granville, 29th Sept. 1838. Morier to Palmer- 
 ston, 5th Oct. 1838. 
 
1838] ARRIVAL IN LONDON 157 
 
 travelling in the provinces, or leading a fashionable 
 life in London, his movements are recorded as 
 those of a person of public importance. We know 
 enough of his management of these matters to feel 
 sure that he was careful himself to provide the 
 Press with full information as to his doings ; but it 
 still remains clear that for a time after his arrival 
 he figured largely in the public eye, and was the 
 intimate companion of many of the nobility, and 
 not a few of the notable men of the period. The 
 considerable fortune which he had just inherited 
 from his mother enabled him to live in some state ; 
 and though his expenditure was prodigal, it was 
 not altogether purposeless. Disraeli in one of 
 his pohtical novels describes the method and 
 discerns the motive of Louis Napoleon's profusion 
 at this period. 'Prince Florestan had arrived in 
 town, and was now settled in his mansion in 
 Carlton Terrace. . . . The world thought that he 
 had fitted up his fine house, and bought his fine 
 horses, merely for the enjoyment of life. His 
 purposes were very different. Though his acquaint- 
 ances were limited they were not undistinguished, 
 and he Hved with them in intimacy. . . . The 
 Duke of St Angelo controlled the household at 
 Carlton Gardens with skill. The appointments 
 were finished, and the cuisine refined. There was 
 a dinner twice a week. ... It was an interesting 
 and useful house for a young man, and especially a 
 young politician, to frequent. The prince en- 
 couraged conversation, though himself inclined to 
 
158 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. vii. 
 
 taciturnity. When he did speak, his terse remarks 
 and condensed views were striking, and were 
 remembered.' The author of Endymion became 
 himself one of the prince's intimate acquaintances 
 at this time, and his sketch of Louis Napoleon is 
 of peculiar interest. For it is not only a sym- 
 pathetic study in itself, but it proceeds from the 
 one contemporary statesman in England whose 
 character and career afford a real parallel to those 
 of the future Emperor of the French. Bohemians 
 both, they were both faced in youth with obstacles 
 which seemed unsurmountable. These obstacles 
 they encountered not decorously and apologetically, 
 as became young men who attempted the impos- 
 sible, but boastfully and with unaffected confidence 
 of their future success ; so that the incredulous 
 generation which had laughed at them as mad- 
 men could never quite forgive them that their 
 boast had been fulfilled. Both were dreamers 
 whose dreams came true — yet not so true as to 
 free them altogether from the charge of char- 
 latanism. Each was eminently successful as ruler 
 of a race whose national characteristics were 
 foreign to him ; yet both were in some 
 sort adventurers until the end of their days. 
 That the characters differed in some ways as 
 essentially as the careers, is, of course, beyond 
 question ; but the touch of extravagance by which 
 both were distinguished was not an accidental 
 feature of resemblance. Nor would a modern 
 Plutarch, desirous of compiling a parallel series 
 
1838] AN ADVENTURER 159 
 
 of French and English 'lives,' seek any other 
 companion picture for Louis Napoleon, Emperor 
 of the French, than Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 
 Beaconsfield. 
 
 Her own liberality, and her son's political 
 expenditure in connexion with the Strasburg 
 insurrection had already considerably diminished 
 Queen Hortense's fortune. None the less, Louis 
 inherited from her an income not far short of 
 five thousand a year. While it is true, therefore, 
 that Louis Napoleon was at this time a political 
 adventurer, it must be remembered that he was 
 not an adventurer who had nothing to lose. His 
 name would have assured him a certain social 
 standing ; his fortune would have enabled him to 
 lead for the rest of his days a life smoothed of 
 aU asperities. Doubtless Louis Napoleon was 
 ambitious; but that ambition can hardly be con- 
 demned as sordid which leads a man to forfeit the 
 certain possession of every material comfort which 
 life can afford. Or, if such ambition be sordid, at 
 least it is not vulgar: none other of Napoleon's 
 family could be taxed with it ; hardly any 
 other pretender has incmred the reproach of 
 preferring such dangerous and laborious efibrts 
 to win back what his ancestors have lost, to 
 the leisurely and dignified enjoyment of what 
 those ancestors have left — the remnant of a kingly 
 fortune and the heritage of a name. In this 
 case the fortune at any rate was spent in no 
 niggardly fashion on behalf of the pretender's 
 
160 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. vil. 
 
 political designs. As the benefits of the Strasburg 
 insurrection did not cease with the failure of the 
 actual rising, so Louis had no reason to complain 
 if the expenditure it entailed on him proved 
 permanent as well; and he accepted without 
 question the moral obligation of providing for the 
 maintenance of all whose participation in that 
 rising had compromised their future. Further 
 expenditure was incurred in other ways. From 
 the time of the Strasburg rising onwards there 
 were published without intermission a series of 
 laudatory accounts of Louis Napoleon; eulogistic 
 commentaries on his life, his claims, his writings, 
 and his latest political achievements. Every year 
 saw the appearance of one or more of these 
 publications : often they obtained a considerable 
 sale, and always they were given a considerable 
 circulation ; sometimes they paid their way, but 
 more often they must have involved expenditure 
 on the part of the prince. In 1839 two news- 
 papers were established in Paris ; newspapers not 
 merely Napoleonic in sentiment, but definitely 
 Bonapartist in their propaganda. From these 
 papers Louis hoped great things; indeed it must 
 have seemed a definite step forward that he should 
 have his own papers in a city where every branch 
 of dynastic opposition finds in the possession of a 
 distinctive journal the first sign of a political 
 future — or the last relic of a political past. Louis 
 Napoleon admitted a few years later that in his 
 own case the experiment had been a complete 
 
1839] IMPERIAL PRETENSIONS 161 
 
 failure, and that the money he had so spent was 
 altogether wasted. A hundred and forty thousand 
 francs was the sum spent on founding the 
 Capitole alone; this was the more important of 
 the two papers, but its influence was never con- 
 siderable. And two Bonapartist clubs which were 
 also founded in Paris during this year were equally 
 inefiective; here again Louis was involved in a 
 certain amount of useless expenditure. 
 
 Apart from the sums which the prince spent on 
 objects avowedly political, much of his profusion 
 in other ways was indirectly designed to further 
 his pretensions. If he occupied in turn two of 
 the best private houses in London — first, Lord 
 Cardigan's mansion in Carlton Terrace, and then a 
 house owned by the Earl of Eipon in Carlton 
 Gardens — if his estabEshment included a baronial 
 suite of retainers, and his stables contained excel- 
 lent horses for every conceivable occasion, all 
 this brave show was not without a purpose. It 
 was not mere vanity which made Louis flaunt the 
 imperial eagle on the panels of his carriage, or have 
 aides-de-camp standing behind him when he 
 entered his box at the opera. Nor is it without 
 significance that all his English acquaintances of 
 this time, who have left any record of their impres- 
 sions of him, agree in dwelling on his invincible 
 persuasion repeatedly expressed that he would live 
 to be Emperor of France. Ordinarily silent and 
 reserved, he was on this one point — where silence 
 might have seemed most essential — ^utterly lacking 
 
162 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. vii. 
 
 in reticence. The conviction itself was undoubtedly 
 absolutely sincere, but he may have considered the 
 parade he made of it, as well as of his other imperial 
 pretensions, in some degree helpful to its fulfilment. 
 
 Not all his proceedings at this time can be so 
 excused. Much of his expenditure was mere 
 extravagance ; to his fashionable pleasures he 
 added some not unfashionable vides. From this 
 time dates his acquaintance with Miss Howard, 
 who was for many years not only a zealous sup- 
 porter of his political ambitions, but his mistress. 
 Another suitor for Miss Howard's good graces seems 
 to have been A. W. Kinglake; Louis Napoleon's 
 disappointed rival had afterwards the satisfaction of 
 achieving an adequate revenge, by including in his 
 picturesque and imaginative Invasion of the Crimea 
 an exceptionally picturesque and imaginative account 
 of the antecedents of the Second Empire. 
 
 Nor were all the prince's social activities cal- 
 culated to advance the cause he had at heart. In 
 August 1839 he took part in the Eglinton Tourna- 
 ment, an isolated forerunner of the 'pageant' of 
 later years. Strangely enough, a proceeding which 
 to a later and on the whole a more prosaic age 
 appears to justify itself, was yet overwhelmed with 
 ridicule in the heyday of the romantic reaction. 
 Other and less innocent actions of the prince at 
 this time seemed to his future defenders to have 
 called for less excuse than his appearance as a 
 knight in armour at this representation of mediaeval 
 chivahy. But in spite of an occasional false step of 
 
1839] A DISCLAIMER 163 
 
 this kind, the majority of his social activities were 
 useful means of retaining for himself a certain 
 amount of the popular interest he had acquired on 
 his arrival. Moreover, they did not at all diminish 
 his interest in political affairs. Throughout his 
 sojourn in England he was a close observer of the 
 course of events in France, as he was himself 
 closely observed by agents of the French Govern- 
 ment, In May 1839 an attempt was made to 
 connect his name with an unsuccessful rising in 
 Paris ; the letter to the Times, in which he denied 
 all connexion with it, was shorter and more 
 pointed than most of his disclaimers. ' If I were 
 the soul of a conspiracy,' he wrote, ' I should also 
 be its leader in the hour of danger, nor should I 
 deny it after defeat.' 
 
 A few months later the French Government 
 learnt that if he was not for the moment engaged 
 in active plots against it, he had by no means given 
 up his political designs. The Iddes NapoUoniennes, 
 published in Paris in 1839, was a new political 
 manifesto from Louis Napoleon, The circulation 
 of his earlier works had consisted almost exclu- 
 sively of presentation copies. With the Idees 
 NapoUoniennes this was not the case. Sold at the 
 low price of half a franc, it had a large and genuine 
 sale. In France four editions of it were rapidly 
 printed ; and the work was translated and pub- 
 lished not only in English, German, and Spanish, 
 but also in Italian, and even Russian and 
 Portuguese. In publishing it, the prince desired to 
 
164 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. vii. 
 
 show that something larger than a personal ambition 
 had lain behind his apparently reckless insurrec- 
 tion at Strasburg • that someone more than a mere 
 political adventurer had inherited the name of 
 Napoleon ; that this name stood for a system, and 
 in that system lay the sole salvation of France, 
 A vindication of the Emperor was followed by a 
 sustained and often telling comparison between the 
 great administrative reforms he had introduced in 
 the intervals of bis wars, and the small achievement 
 of his successors in four-and-twenty years of peace, 
 Reading into the First Empire all manner of bene- 
 ficent designs, the writer plainly hinted that only 
 the restoration of the imperial system was wanting 
 to secure their practical accomplishment. The 
 Napoleonic idea was already a great vitalising 
 force ; it needed but to take corporate and concrete 
 form to become the effective means of healing all 
 that was amiss with France or Europe. ' The 
 book of a very able mind ; with few ideas, but 
 those ideas bold, large and reducible to vigorous 
 action,' This was Bulwer Lytton's comment — and 
 a not unjust one — on the most noteworthy of all 
 the written works of Louis Napoleon. 'Prince 
 Louis in publishing Les Idees Napoleoniennes is 
 evidently contemplating an appeal to the Bona- 
 partism of France, if not of Europe,' wrote the 
 Athenoewn,'^ in the course of a four-column review 
 of the book. ' He is perhaps the only member of 
 his family who does not despair of its fortunes. . . . 
 
 ' 3rd August 1839. 
 
1839] A MANIFESTO 165 
 
 We are satisfied indeed that Prince Louis has taken 
 a wrong view of that portion of history which he 
 has undertaken to illustrate ; but we are equally 
 satisfied that there are many " potent, grave, and 
 reverend signers " in Parliament and out who will 
 be surprised if they learn from its pages that there 
 is such a thing at all as a philosophy of history.' 
 To the grave and reverend signers of the French 
 Parliament a few months later, the significance of 
 the volume was pointed out by the one great 
 Frenchman of his day who never fell a victim to 
 the Napoleonic Legend. In a notable speech, 
 wherein he pointed out to the Orleanist Govern- 
 ment the folly of encouraging the worship of 
 Napoleon, Lamartine spoke of ' editions of the 
 Iddes Napoleoniennes running to five hundred 
 thousand copies,' as one sign among many of the 
 danger of a possible Napoleonic pretender. 
 
 While in the Idees Napoleoniennes Louis had 
 been able to present the restored empire as the 
 ideal mode of government for France, decency 
 forbade that he should himself describe himself as 
 the person ideally fitted to restore it. It was left 
 to his whole-hearted supporter Persigny to under- 
 take a complete presentation of his personal 
 qualifications for this role. The Lettres de Londres, 
 published by him early in 1840, were designed 
 to portray the prince in that light to the French 
 people. Not content with describing his studious 
 habits, his military interests, his athletic powers — 
 in all of which he was more or less within the 
 
166 A POLITICAL PRETENDER [CH. vil. 
 
 truth — Persigny went on to describe bis hero as 
 physically resembUng the Emperor, a resemblance 
 which only a most loyal fancy could suggest. 
 Taken together, the Id^es and the Lettres formed 
 a complete statement of Louis Napoleon's claim 
 to revive in his own person the imperial system. 
 
 By this time the prince was no longer, even in 
 appearance, absorbed in the fashionable pursuits of 
 London life. English society, which had greeted 
 him so effusively on his arrival, concerned itself 
 less with his doings in 1840. And he was himself 
 as that year advanced ever more obviously en- 
 grossed with his own schemes. He continued, 
 however, to give small dinner parties at Carlton 
 Gardens, and to receive similar hospitality from 
 the small circle of intimate friends which survived 
 from the large number of his earlier English 
 acquaintance. 
 
 It was on one of these latter occasions, at the 
 beginning of August 1840, that he surprised 
 several of his fellow-guests by inviting them to 
 dine with him, that day twelvemonths, at the 
 Tuileries. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE SECOND CLAIM TO THE INHERITANCE 
 
 {August to October 1840. Aetat. 32.) 
 
 Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting 
 That would not let me sleep : methought I lay- 
 Worse than the mutines on the bilboes. Rashly 1 
 Then praised be rashness for it. Let us know 
 Our indiscretion sometimes serves ns well 
 When our deep plots do pall. 
 
 Shakespbaee. 
 
 Dreaming always of his future destiny, and 
 pondering often on the failure of his past attempt 
 to realise it, Louis Napoleon had by this time 
 convinced himself that a second effort could not 
 but have a very different issue. Ever more 
 clearly in his ears rang the wild acclamations 
 with which he had been hailed by the one regi- 
 ment in France to whom he had appeared as the 
 Emperor's undoubted heir; ever more significant 
 seemed those answering cheers which had greeted 
 the acquittal of his fellow-prisoners at Strasburg. 
 As he looked back on the events of that October 
 morning, the attempt took new form in his 
 memory. It was no longer a forlorn hope which for 
 an instant had come marvellously near to success ; 
 rather it was a practically certain triumph which 
 by a fatality, through a series of perverse mis- 
 
 167 
 
168 THE SECOND CLAIM [CH. viil. 
 
 chances, had been snatched from his very grasp. 
 And if so much was true in 1836, what was not 
 possible in 1840? In the former year his name, 
 his very existence, was all but unknown in France. 
 Now, thanks to the Strasburg affair itself, and to 
 his own most skilful handling of its consequences, 
 all the world knew that there existed in his person 
 a vigorous and persistent claimant to the imperial 
 inheritance. Then his only precedent had been the 
 Emperor's return from Elba; now that precedent 
 seemed not weakened but fortified by his own 
 initial experience at Strasburg. Then he had been 
 merely his uncle's nephew; now he might almost 
 hope that France had taken notice of his individual 
 existence. 
 
 But there were reasons far more weighty than 
 these personal ones which induced Louis Napoleon 
 to repeat in the summer of 1840 his hazardous 
 appeal to the French people. The Government of 
 Louis Philippe had by this time visibly forfeited 
 the slight popularity of its early years. A reaction- 
 ary administration at home was accompanied by 
 a servile timidity in foreign affairs. Conscious of 
 his declining popularity, Louis Philippe turned 
 once more to the flowing stream of the Napoleonic 
 Legend ; if he could bathe again in these magical 
 waters, he might renew his waning strength. He 
 sought and obtained permission firom the English 
 Government to fetch home from St Helena the 
 body of Napoleon. To a mind like Louis 
 Napoleon's this was almost a challenge. The 
 
1840] THE CHALLENGE 169 
 
 Emperor's ashes were to be brought back to 
 Paris, Very good ; then the Emperor's heir 
 should be there to receive them. The funeral 
 baked meats should serve a double purpose;^ the 
 veteran soldiers of the First Empire, assembled to 
 pay their last honours to its founder, should find 
 themselves assisting also at the magnificent in- 
 auguration of the second. The fact that even his 
 failure at such a moment would be peculiarly 
 embarrassing for Louis Philippe had probably but 
 little effect on the prince's decision — for failure was 
 an alternative he did not seriously contemplate. 
 
 Another event of the same year undoubtedly 
 served to confirm him in his resolution. The 
 French Government had allowed itself to espouse 
 the cause of Mehemet Ali, a rebellious vassal 
 of the Sultan, whose victories threatened to 
 overthrow his master's throne. The French people 
 had been deeply stirred by the brilliant successes 
 of this Egyptian enigma, successor of the Mame- 
 
 ' In this connexion, as showing how consistently Louis Napoleon 
 sought to achieve the same end by the same means at different 
 portions of his career, it may be worth while here to allude to a 
 fact in his later history not hitherto known. The diplomatic 
 correspondence of the period shows that on the morrow of the 
 coup d'etat, when he was again seeking an occasion for the proclama- 
 tion of a restored empire, Louis Napoleon's first attempt to prepare 
 the way for his design was by a precisely similar expedient. Since 
 Napoleon I had already been translated, the would-be Napoleon lH 
 applied to Austria for leave to transfer the bones of Napoleon II 
 to Paris. With the circumstances of this request and of its 
 contemptuous refusal by Austria, we hope to deal in detail in a later 
 volume : here we have only desired to call attention to a rather 
 noticeable example of the persistence of a fixed idea on Louis 
 Napoleon's choice of methods. 
 
170 THE SECOND CLAIM [oh. viii. 
 
 lukes, conqueror of Nubia, founder of Khartoum. 
 The victories which had extended his dominions 
 from the Nile to the Euphrates, and thrice seemed 
 to place Constantinople itself within his grasp, had 
 come as a vivid reminder to France of that early 
 Eastern phase of Napoleon's career which had 
 always appealed so powerfully to her imagination. 
 
 On July 15, 1840- — exactly a week after Louis 
 Philippe's son had set sail to St Helena in quest of 
 Napoleon's body — France learned that a treaty had 
 been signed behind her back by the representatives 
 of England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The 
 four Powers agreed to despatch an ultimatum to 
 Mehemet Ali, and to proceed without consulting 
 France to the settlement of the Eastern question. 
 Palmerston was generally careful in his conduct of 
 foreign affairs never to inflict an injury without 
 conveying an insult. He now explained to the 
 world at large that one must expect France to cry 
 like a naughty child ; but that its noise would be 
 hushed at any time by the sight of the rod. For a 
 moment this seemed doubtful. Even Louis 
 Philippe was driven to warlike words by the 
 cry of indignation which went up from France : 
 to Louis Napoleon the cry seemed a plain invita- 
 tion to make an end of a government of which 
 Palmerston's description was the mere truth. 
 
 The preparations for the descent did not greatly 
 differ from those which preceded the Strasburg 
 venture. Lille was the point first chosen for the 
 attempt — a strong garrison town, the headquarters 
 
1840] PRELIMINARY OVERTURES 171 
 
 of the army of the North. Thither, in the spring 
 of 1840, were despatched Lombard and Parquia; 
 they seem to have been well received by many of 
 the officers, though they were not apparently 
 successful in obtaining any definite pledges of 
 support. To a more recent recruit — de Mesonan — 
 was entrusted a more important task, that of 
 vnnning over General Magnan, the commander of 
 the army of the North. Mesonan succeeded in 
 making himself an intimate acquaintance of the 
 general's ; but his overtures, when they were made, 
 seem to have been clumsy in the extreme. They 
 consisted apparently in suddenly showing to the 
 general a letter of Louis Napoleon's instructions to 
 himself, in which the latter spoke of Magnan as one 
 of his future marshals, and bade Mesonan offer him 
 100,000 francs down, and deposit 300,000 more at his 
 bankers, to meet the possible loss of his command. 
 According to the general's own account, given 
 at the trial which followed the failure of the 
 attempt, he repudiated the suggestion with the 
 utmost indignation, bidding its bearer go and get 
 himself hanged elsewhere. However vigorously 
 repulsed he may have been, Mesonan returned to 
 approach the general again in July on the same 
 subject; again with the same results. Magnan 
 informed his Government that a Bonapartist intrigue 
 was afoot, but again omitted the obvious step of 
 placing the emissary under arrest. The prince 
 drew his own conclusions — dictated no doubt by 
 his hopes, but perhaps not without some justifica- 
 
172 THE SECOND CLAIM [oh. viii. 
 
 tion of reason. "While recognising that Magnan 
 would not declare for him in the first instance, he 
 yet believed that he had only to win over a regiment, 
 to be able to rely on his support. That regiment he 
 believed he could find in the 42nd Infantry, whose 
 commander had promised his support. 
 
 It was not, however, to their colonel, who was 
 stationed at Calais, but to a subordinate officer, 
 Lieutenant Aladenize, that he looked in the first 
 instance. For the lieutenant with two companies 
 of his regiment formed part of the small garrison 
 at Boulogne; and the prince decided that this 
 should be the starting-point of his venture. It was 
 easily accessible from the sea; the garrison was 
 small ; and yet if it were won, its example would 
 have great influence on the important centre of Lille. 
 
 In England preparations went briskly forward. 
 Muskets were bought from Birmingham, French 
 uniforms from Paris ; buttons stamped with the 
 figure 40 were sewn on them in London — this 
 number being that of the other infantry regiment 
 quartered in Calais. Proclamations were printed 
 to the army and to the French people, and to the 
 inhabitants of Pas-de-Calais.^ A steamer — the 
 
 ' A reduced facsimile copy of this last proclamation is given on 
 the following page. The original from which it was made was 
 carefully preserved and mounted on silk by a devout Bonapartist ; 
 it is now in the possession of Mr E. M. Merridew, Times correspon- 
 dent at Boulogne, to whom I am indebted for leave to make this 
 reproduction. It will be noticed that the day of the month is filled 
 in in ink, a fact which shows that the exact date of the expedition 
 was only decided at the last moment. The printing is the work of 
 Dr Conneau, effected secretly at Carlton Gardens by means of a small 
 hand-press. 
 
7"^ 
 
 4^; 
 
 Proelamiitloii 
 
 DV PBmcE 
 
 N APOLEO]\[ - LOUis 
 aux Haiiitaiis 
 
 ]>4^partenieiit 
 
 , PAS DE CAJLAIS 
 
 HABITANS <I.i Dipartt-mcnt du PAS DE CALAIS rtde IIOVUKSNE! 
 
 I- bnivcs. y ai ddbnrqa^ s 
 
 "Icsolfrnn^iB. dont unc 
 
 Suivi (t' un petil noKiurr ut- univi^. ) ; 
 Iwt (lyn^ ^' tnirrnwr.... f- „„,,i^ jj,. It^ia , ,„„,,. 
 
 W dc»<iii*<« •!« Ij> Fraiw-c. ct lion Ics ci ijproiiK-ilreu J ai dcs amis pubsims. n 
 
 Urieur commc A I' inlirii-ur, owi m" onl proniU du mc souteoir. L« KigniJ ost donn^, 
 et Wf ntfil lowie )u Fraircr, eX Pari* In premise ee If vcront en nuisae pour fouler a.a\ 
 pictb (Kx 01IS de iii»-ii*ori«i'. d" UMirpnliim <l d' i^inrninir. oar loulc-slca villcs, commti 
 Lous le» lianicnux out it dc-ntiitidcr puinplo iiu ^iivcmciiu'nt, liw iiit4r6U pnrLieulicrK 
 qu*>il a nl audoiiiitb. dcs itittriis geii^ram qn il a (raliis. 
 
 VoyCi ''OS ports pr< -i|iir ilwrls; vovck vos hnnjurs <|iii tnngiiliiM^iil siir la ^evej 
 vojK-B Votr*- |iOpii((itii>n Uln^ripiisr, tpii (i n pus tie *(uoi iiuurrir scs cnnrna. parixi|i(e 
 le gofllfpnitiixtit n' » pn^ ost prolvger son commrrce. Ct iScrtra-vuiis Qvec moi: TnJ- 
 trca (WepnrnUst-z, 1' i-.prii Nnpd^-omi-n. qui iie e' ixiciijkt.- cjue du bicii du peuplc s' •- 
 ranee pour vyus wjiit'oiidrc. 
 - Hiibitviiis du DfpitrtcMiciit du Pas do CnlaLs! Ne crnic;iie-/ point qipc les lions <|iii 
 vous ottncbent ii iosvoisinsd'Oulrt-iucr Boii-nt rompua. Lcs dbpouillcs mortelles de 
 r Cni|>«rrur. rt T Aigic Inipirlnlc ne rfvicnDCiit dtr T usil. (jn' avt^c di-s Hcnliiuetiii 
 d' uiioar rl de rf-coiiriliftliun. D<-iix erfliids pvuplcii aoiil fiut» pour s' entviidre, ct la 
 gtoricusf ColuniK. tpii s avancc licrt'nirnt HUr le rivaje, comm« tin souvanir <!■■ 
 giicrrf, de» if iidro loi lUOiiunifTil cvptBluiru de toiilcs nos baliics pass^«sl 
 
 \'ilk d* BouIugTicl *\av Nnpiilpou ainiait t«iit, rnus alk» 4trc Ic pri'mi(T aimcou 
 d' iiuc t-lioinB, qui ri'iiiiirB tyiic li'n pimpli k liiilist'iij i oire gloirc srra inip^rMbaMo. el 
 In Praoi;!! voln-o J-ob m-lionft Jt grhc-. i ci-t. liuumirti g^i^rcux. qui Itrs preuiicra ont 
 talu4 de )f iirs ttcvlttiUBlioiis i>utri- drnptnu d' Ausli-rlite, 
 
 Ha^itltIlS fip Boulogn*.'! Venpz ■ nioi. el nyr/. runfiHncc dfius la iniaiiion provi- 
 deutrtBc. que m' a U'goi te niarl)r de Saintc HtiAnc. Du hntil dc la Coloruit dt In 
 Grande Arm^c li- Utnic d* V Einpcr.-ur vc ille siir nous, et Qpplnudil A uoa eflbrlR, 
 parcMjii' ils »' oi.l qn" un bnt, Ic Itonlicur dc la Frnnei . 
 
 Hign.^: NAPOLEON. 
 
 U G.I mONTHOLOX f-f. dc >l,.ior gin6r«l. 
 U- CI VOISIN f.r d' Aide ftlajor g^iitrul . 
 LcC.t WESONAN Clutd' Eul Altijor. 
 
 Boulogne k ^ ''^:'^- IHW- 
 
 lii. .; H. 
 
 Zoi/.i5 Jfapoleon's Proclamation 
 to the Inhabitants of Fas -de- Calais. 
 
 [To face -p. 172. 
 
1840] TIME AND TIDE 173 
 
 Edinburgh Castle — was hired for a month, as though 
 for a party of pleasure-seekers. On August 3 
 a last council of war was held at Carlton 
 Gardens ; early next morning th>ere were placed 
 on board the steamer the several cases of uniforms, 
 nine horses, two carriages, and a considerable 
 quantity of wine and spirits. At nine o'clock the 
 steamer left London Bridge; only a few of the 
 party, headed by Count Orsi, were then on board. 
 At Greenwich, at Gravesend, at Margate, and at 
 Eamsgate the remaining members of the expedi- 
 tion were taken on board — fifty-six in all. This 
 piecemeal process of embarkation was thought 
 necessary to avoid arousing the suspicion of the 
 EngUsh authorities, but it retarded the ship's 
 progress considerably; and as further delay was 
 caused by a misunderstanding as to the spot at 
 which the prince himself was to join the expedi- 
 tion, Eamsgate was not reached until shortly 
 before daybreak on the 5th. This was the time 
 originally fixed for the landing at Boulogne ; but it 
 now became necessary to postpone the descent for 
 another twenty-four hours. Forestier, a cousin of 
 Persigny's, was sent across the Channel at once by 
 boat, to warn Aladenize of the change of plan — a 
 change which was the more unfortunate as there 
 was reason to think that the most formidable 
 opponent of the scheme, Captain Col-Puygdlier, 
 the commander of the detachment at Boulogne, 
 would on the day originally chosen have been 
 absent from his troops. 
 
174 THE SECOND CLAIM [CH. vni. 
 
 Though it was impossible to attempt a landing 
 in France until nightfall, it was considered unsafe 
 to spend the day in an EngUsh harbour; it was 
 therefore resolved that the Edinburgh Castle 
 should at once put out to sea, and cruise about 
 the Channel till midnight. This was accordingly 
 done. 
 
 It was a motley crew at whose head Louis 
 Napoleon now found himself. The captain of 
 the steamer and most of the seamen were English : 
 the men who were to appear in the uniform of the 
 40th were chiefly French, though they included a 
 certain number of Poles. The sea was rough, 
 and the necessity of spending the whole day upon 
 it was profoundly unpleasant to many of the 
 passengers. If there was no drunkenness on 
 board, there was a good deal of drinking, especi- 
 ally among the subordinate members of the expedi- 
 tion. These had apparently only the vaguest idea 
 when they embarked of the nature of the service 
 required from them : it is clear, however, that they 
 accepted their part readily enough when it was 
 explained to them ; their readiness, no doubt, was 
 partly due to a gift of a hundred francs each with 
 which these explanations were accompanied. The 
 prince himself addressed them in a short speech : 
 Boulogne, he told them, was the only obstacle 
 that confronted them ; were it once won, success 
 was certain; powerful and devoted friends would 
 second them ; and ' as sure as there is a sun above 
 us, in a few days we shall be in Paris, and history 
 
1840] THE CROSSING 175 
 
 will tell that it was with a handful of gallant 
 fellows like you that I have accomplished this 
 great and glorious deed.' They were brave words ; 
 but the tale history has to tell of the Boulogne 
 adventure is a very different one. Probably, 
 however, they in no way exaggerated the prince's 
 confidence of success — a confidence to which all 
 his preparations bear witness. His proclamation 
 spoke of powerful friends inside and outside 
 France on whose support he relied. Among his 
 papers were maps of Northern France with minute 
 particulars of the situation of different regiments 
 on the way to Paris ; his principal followers bore 
 the most detailed injunctions as to proceedings on 
 entering the different garrison towns, the exact 
 task to be assigned to each ofiicer, the precise 
 disposition of the forces as they were won over. 
 In the ship's cabin were stowed not only the 
 uniforms to be worn on landing at Boulogne, but 
 gorgeous evening clothes for use at a magnificent 
 reception to be held on the following evening. 
 And there — that no touch of auspicious absurdity 
 should be lacking to the scene — fastened to the 
 mainmast was a live eagle, forlornly surveying the 
 seasick saviours of France. Its presence there 
 was attributed by the prince's apologists to a whim 
 of Parquin : if this was so, Parquin's whims were 
 uncommonly like his leader's, for the idea was 
 quite Louis-Napoleonic. On the other hand, the 
 story that it was with this melancholy fowl perched 
 upon his shoulder that the prince landed at 
 
176 THE SECOND CLAIM [CH. viil. 
 
 Boulogne is a mere anti-Bonapartist fiction; like 
 the nine horses and two carriages, the bird 
 remained on the ship till all was over. 
 
 At about one o'clock in the morning of 
 August 6 the Edinburgh Castle anchored off. the 
 port of Wimereux, a small coast town some three 
 miles north of Boulogne, The steamer remained 
 nearly a mile off from the land; the passengers 
 were landed by boat. Over two hours were spent 
 in the process : for there was only one boat, and 
 it had to make four journeys to land the entire 
 party. The landing was not effected without 
 discovery. A customs-house officer challenged 
 the first boat-load; he was informed that they 
 were soldiers of the 40th Regiment sailing from 
 Dunkirk to Cherbourg, but forced to land there, 
 owing to an accident to their steamer. Only half 
 satisfied by the explanation, backed though it was 
 by the uniforms worn by the expeditionaries, the 
 officer warned his superior, who with the entire 
 body of his subordinates now demanded explana- 
 tions. But by this time all the prince's followers 
 were safely landed, and they had moreover been 
 joined by Lieutenant Aladenize, with Forestier and 
 M. Bataille from Boulogne. The customs-house 
 forces were easily outnumbered. Their two officers 
 were strongly urged to join the prince in his 
 adventure; but they could not be won over either 
 by offers of promotion should the enterprise prove 
 successful, or promises of pensions should its 
 failure lead to the loss of their positions. Against 
 
1840] BOULOGNE 177 
 
 the wishes of his followers, Louis Napoleon there- 
 upon insisted that they should be allowed to go 
 free; only stopping to exact a promise of silence 
 from them as to what had happened. The men, 
 however, were forced to act as guides to the party 
 on the road from Wimereux to Boulogne ; but as 
 they also obstinately refused to join the prince, 
 they were dismissed at the entrance to the town. 
 It was now close on five o'clock, and broad 
 daylight. The little army entered the still sleeping 
 town. Lieutenant Aladenize was at its head; 
 next came Lombard, bearing a large silk tricolour, 
 fringed with gold, emblazoned with the names of 
 Napoleon's victories, and surmounted by a brazen 
 eagle. The prince himself with his brilliantly 
 apparelled stafi" followed, and the seeming soldiers 
 of the 40th Regiment brought up the rear. 
 
 At the centre of the lower town the column 
 passed a sentry post, where were stationed four 
 men and a sergeant. The sentry, seeing what he 
 took to be a body of superior officers, summoned 
 the guard, who turned out and presented arms. 
 Aladenize attempted to induce the sergeant to join 
 the prince, but neither he nor any of his men 
 would move from their post. This was a dis- 
 couraging beginning, and it was at once followed 
 by another and more serious check. Shortly after 
 resuming their march they met Sub- lieutenant 
 Maussion, an officer of the 42nd. One of the 
 insurgents hailed him, asking him if he knew the 
 prince. The officer, surprised, said that he did not. 
 
 M 
 
178 THE SECOND CLAIM [ch. viii. 
 
 'Come, then, I will present you,' said the other; 
 and in spite of the oflBcer's protests and excuses the 
 presentation took place. Maussion found himself 
 marching alongside of Louis Napoleon, who him- 
 self urged him to join his cause, explaining the 
 objects of his landing. Maussion listened, seemed 
 doubtful as to his course of action, and found a 
 pretext for slipping out of the group. In spite of 
 these rebuffs, Aladenize was still in high spirits ; he 
 had probably sounded some of his men already, and 
 was in any case confident of his own influence over 
 his two detachments. The procession went for- 
 ward, unaugmented but unmolested, until it reached 
 the barracks of the 42nd Regiment. Here for a 
 moment it seemed as if Aladenize's judgment was 
 correct. At his order, the sentry post at the 
 entrance of the barracks turned out and presented 
 arms ; while the prince and his whole column 
 marched into the barracks unopposed. 
 
 At once two men were stationed at the gateway 
 with orders to allow no officer to enter, and to 
 prevent anyone from leaving the barracks on any 
 pretext whatsoever. Into a little crowd of curious 
 civilians which had collected outside, one of the 
 prince's partisans scattered pieces of silver, calling 
 for shouts of ' Vive I'Empereur ! ' The crowd very 
 contentedly took up the cry, scrambling the while 
 for the one-franc and five-franc pieces which were 
 being showered upon them. Inside the barracks 
 Aladenize was presenting the prince to such of his 
 men as were present, ' Here is an old soldier,' he 
 
1840] THE APPEAL 179 
 
 said, introducing a sergeant to the prince, 'who 
 deserves a pair of epaulettes.' Nothing simpler; 
 Louis Napoleon created him on the spot captain of 
 grenadiers. Two other sergeants were also pre- 
 sented, and were also promised commissions. It 
 was a simple and gratifying process — this largesse 
 of honours within the barracks and of money 
 without. Nor was it ineffectual ; the cry of ' Vive 
 I'Empereur ! ' spread from the civilians outside to the 
 troops within ; from the sham soldiers of the 40th 
 to the real ones of the 42nd. 
 
 Whether the prince would have gone on to turn 
 all the privates into sergeants does not appear; 
 for Aladenize had just succeeded in mustering 
 them all to hear the prince's harangue, when that 
 happened which brought the whole comedy to an 
 abrupt and ignominious conclusion. 
 
 The fatal fault in the insurgents' conduct of 
 affairs hitherto — if one fault can be singled out as 
 fatal in an enterprise which never came within 
 measiu-able distance of success — at any rate the 
 most gratuitous blunder, was the omission to secure 
 the silence of the various officials who had been 
 passed on the way to the barracks. As at Strasburg, 
 so at Boulogne, Louis Napoleon had given injunc- 
 tions to his followers that there was to be no blood- 
 shed. But without bloodshed it would have been 
 perfectly easy to have bound and gagged the customs- 
 house officials ; hardly more difficult to have done the 
 same with the sergeant and his four men at the 
 Place d' Alton ; and absolutely possible to have pre- 
 
180 THE SECOND CLAIM [CH. viii. 
 
 vented Sub-lieutenant Maussion from leaving the 
 insurgents' ranks, when he had once unwillingly 
 become entangled in them. Owing to the lack of 
 this elementary precaution, Louis Napoleon was not 
 suffered quietly to annex Aladenize's two com- 
 panies, as otherwise he would possibly have suc- 
 ceeded in doing. For Maussion had no sooner 
 made his escape than he ran straight to his 
 commander, the redoubtable Captain Col-Puygelier, 
 and told him what was in progress. Leaving his 
 superior officer hastily donning his uniform, he then 
 hurried to the barracks himself There Aladenize 
 again attempted to overcome his scruples, but in 
 vain ; while they were stiU speaking, the captain 
 himself appeared, angry and menacing. One of 
 Louis Napoleon's officers stopped him at the gate. 
 ' Prince Louis is here,' he said ; 'join us, and your 
 fortune is made.' ' I must see my soldiers,' shouted 
 the captain, ' where are they 1 ' Sword in hand, he 
 brushed his way past the feeble, ineffectual opposi- 
 tion of those who were guarding the gateway. At 
 all costs he ought to have been prevented from 
 getting into the courtyard. Once inside, he had 
 his men within hearing ; and the effect on them of 
 his few sharp words of rebuke was at once visible. 
 Now, as at Strasburg, it was Persigny who was 
 willing to attempt desperate measures to save a 
 falling cause. He flung himself at Puygelier, 
 intending to kill him. But at this point Aladenize 
 interfered, declaring that if any harm befell his 
 captain he would himself declare against the rising. 
 
1840] REPULSE 181 
 
 Louis Napoleon appealed to the captain, but his 
 oyertures were repulsed with scorn. For a few 
 minutes Puygelier remained struggling to release 
 himself. By this time some other officers had 
 effected an entrance ; they now rushed up with 
 bare swords ; a scuffle ensued, and the captain was 
 rescued. Once among his own soldiers, he was 
 completely master of the situation. Turning to 
 Louis Napoleon, he abruptly ordered him out of 
 his barracks. The prince raised a pistol which he 
 was carrying and fired it aimlessly — accidentally, he 
 afterwards maintained. The bullet slightly wounded 
 one of the soldiers of the 42nd in the mouth. He 
 may have hoped that the diversion might in some 
 unforeseen manner change the aspect of affairs ; 
 possibly he reaUy intended to shoot the colonel ; it 
 is just possible that he hoped to provoke reprisals 
 and get himself decently killed. Whatever its 
 intention, its effect was the immediate withdrawal 
 of the invaders from the barracks ; for the prince's 
 followers had no desire for an encounter of this 
 kind. They retreated in good order, leaving 
 the barracks as they had entered them, without 
 any opposition. It is noteworthy that Captain 
 Col- Puygelier, whose loyalty and zeal were beyond 
 all question, made no attempt to prevent the 
 departure of the prince, or even at immediate 
 pursuit; his first care was to shut the gates 
 of the barracks behind them. Clearly he was 
 far from certain of the temper of his men. He 
 despatched, however, a small body of picked men 
 
182 THE SECOND CLAIM [ch. vin. 
 
 headed by Maussion to seize the port, and shortly 
 afterwards set out himself with others towards 
 the upper town, to defend the castle and the 
 arsenal. 
 
 Outside the barracks, Louis Napoleon insisted 
 on leading his followers towards the upper town. 
 It would still have been possible for them to return 
 unmolested to the harbour and put out at once to 
 sea. Some of his followers urged this course, but 
 the prince refused to hear of it. On their way 
 through the streets, the insurgents had to pass a 
 number of civilians; for it was now six o'clock, 
 and reports of what was in progress had run 
 through the town. Money and proclamations 
 were scattered among these bystanders. As the 
 procession passed the sub-prefecture, the sub- 
 prefect came out, and summoned the rebels in 
 the king's name to disperse and to lay down their 
 flag ; he attempted to bar their way himself, but a 
 blow from the eagle with which the offending flag 
 was mounted sent him staggering backwards. The 
 adventurers arrived at the upper town, only to find 
 the gates of the ramparts closed. After attempt- 
 ing in vain to break through the Porte de Calais 
 with axes, they again besought the prince — this 
 time unanimously — to abandon an evidently hope- 
 less adventure. Again he refused to retreat, and 
 hurried his little company on to a tall monument, 
 more than half a mile away from Boulogne — the 
 Column of the Grand Army. The solitary sentinel 
 was forced to give up the keys of the stairway; 
 
2 
 O 
 O 
 
 o 
 
1840] FLIGHT 183 
 
 Lombard ascended the column and planted the 
 imperial flag at its summit. It may have been 
 a mere demonstration ; it was more probably a pre- 
 arranged signal. Possibly it had been arranged 
 that that flag should be hoisted there in case of 
 success as a rallying-point for promised reinforce- 
 ments ; and Louis Napoleon may have had some 
 desperate hope that such reinforcement might still 
 arrive when they saw it. But by this time his 
 own followers were no longer under his command. 
 Seeing the approach of the regular troops and of 
 bodies of the National Guard, most of them 
 scattered in flight, and were captured in various 
 hiding-places in the course of the day. The prince, 
 according to all accounts, was firmly resolved that 
 he would not himself sin-vive the sorry ending of 
 this his second claim. To get himself killed, with 
 his back to the Column of the Grand Army and 
 his flag flying above him, thus only could he now 
 hope ta save from ridicule a cause which in his 
 own person — so for the moment he may have 
 thought — he could no longer hope to serve. But 
 if such was really his purpose, he was not allowed 
 to carry it out; the few friends who remained at 
 his side seized him by force and hurried him to the 
 shore. There, about half a dozen in number, they 
 plunged into the water, and swam out towards an 
 empty lifeboat which was anchored close to the 
 beach. They reached it, but found it hardly big 
 enough to hold them. This mattered the less 
 since at this moment the National Guard was 
 
184 THE SECOND CLAIM [oh. viir. 
 
 carried away by a martial ardour hitherto kept 
 under prudent control. Up to this time the 
 citizen soldiers had abstained from firing at 
 fugitives, who after all were still armed. But 
 now, struggling into the boat but some twenty 
 yards distant, they afibrded an easy and tempting 
 shot. A volley was fired with the happiest effects : 
 one of the fugitives was shot dead, two others 
 severely wounded, a fourth drowned, and the 
 boat itself was capsized. Louis Napoleon was 
 himself slightly wounded; he and four of the 
 siu-vivors were finally picked up by a boat and 
 brought to land as prisoners. They were driven up to 
 the castle in the upper town, and there imprisoned. 
 The French Government did not consider it 
 advisable to allow their captive to remain at 
 Boulogne a day longer than they could help. The 
 reports of the British consul at Boulogne show 
 that although the inhabitants remained absolutely 
 quiet, the local authorities were extremely per- 
 turbed, and took every conceivable precaution on 
 the morrow of the attempt.' Before the evening 
 of the 6th their instructions arrived ; the prince 
 was to be removed, as soon as adequate arrange- 
 ments could be made for his custody on the 
 journey, to the fortress of Ham — a stronghold on 
 the river Somme, about a hundred miles south- 
 east of Boulogne. The most elaborate precautions 
 were taken to prevent his release or escape 
 on the way. Early in the morning of August 
 
 ' W. Hamilton to Palmerston, 7th August 1840. 
 
o 
 
1840] A PROTEST 185 
 
 8/ Louis was put in a closed carriage, with an officer 
 at his side who had orders to shoot his prisoner 
 if he made any attempt to get away. A strong 
 escort accompanied them, and sentries were freely 
 stationed on the roadside. Ham was reached 
 before daybreak on the 9th. Three days later 
 — on August 12 — the prince was taken on 
 to Paris, where he was lodged in the Conciergerie, 
 in a cell which had been occupied some five years 
 before by a notorious assassin, Fieschi. This 
 indignity was the occasion of a letter of vehement 
 protest from King Louis at Florence; a letter 
 from him appeared in the French papers on 
 August 26. His only remaining son had been 
 enticed into a trap : the real culprits were those 
 who had led him there ; the real shame theirs who 
 inflicted on him such an indignity as deliberately 
 to associate his punishment with that of an 
 infamous assassin. It was an utterance natural 
 in a distressed father, and eminently characteristic 
 of the ex-King of Holland; but it was hardly 
 warranted by the facts. Louis Napoleon had 
 neither been enticed to Boulogne by agents of 
 
 ' All published accounts give the time of departure at midnight 
 on 7th August. But the consul's report is explicit, contemporary, 
 and almost certainly accurate : — 
 
 ' BoDLOGNE, 1 p.m., Aug. 8. 
 
 'Louis Napoleon left this a quarter before nine o'clock this 
 morning, under a very strong escort, composed of Gardes Munici- 
 paux from Paris, lancers, and gendarmes.' — W. Hamilton to 
 Palmers ton. 
 
 Two months later — on 7th October — Hamilton reports that steps 
 are being taken to fortify the place. This precaution was an un- 
 doubted consequence of Louis Napoleon's landing. 
 
186 THE SECOND CLAIM [CH. viii. 
 
 the French Government, nor persuaded to the 
 attempt by rash friends ; the deed, such as it was, 
 was his own. And the fact that the cell had once 
 been occupied by Fieschi probably troubled him 
 far less than the present necessity of sharing it 
 day and night with three gaolers. 
 
 To the French Government the suggestion that 
 they had themselves had a hand in landing Louis 
 Napoleon at Boulogne was not altogether dis- 
 pleasing ; for it tended to make the whole episode 
 yet more ridiculous in the eyes of the nation. 
 Louis Philippe himself was anxious at once to 
 magnify the loyalty of Boulogne, and to minimise 
 the importance of the rising by which that loyalty 
 had been tested. With the first object he pro- 
 ceeded in person to the town. Captain Col- 
 Puygdlier received the weU-earned promotion to 
 the rank of major ; his troops were thanked, and 
 at the first opportunity quietly removed to another 
 station. But it was for the National Guard that 
 the king reserved his most effusive thanks ; in the 
 presence of his queen and some half-dozen members 
 of his royal family the citizen king reviewed his 
 citizen soldiers, addressing them as his dear 
 comrades, and explaining to them his desire to 
 'consecrate by this solemnity the glory that the 
 city of Boulogne had acquired through the event.' 
 For the constant necessity of reconciling a very 
 bellicose people to a very pacific government had 
 by this time made the king an adept in the art of 
 making a little glory go a long way. Louis 
 
1840] REWARD AND PUNISHMENT 187 
 
 Napoleon ob the morning of the 6th was not more 
 prodigal of honours to the 42nd than Louis Philippe 
 a fortnight later to the National Guard. Had they 
 succeeded in shooting the pretender, the king could 
 hardly have been more grateful; after all, if they 
 had failed to do so, it was their marksmanship and 
 not their loyalty that had been at fault. And if 
 loyalty were a commoner virtue than marksmanship 
 in the citizen soldier, Louis Philippe was the last 
 to wish it otherwise. 
 
 It was easy to reward those who had crushed the 
 rising ; to secure the punishment of its authors was 
 not quite such a simple matter. In the case of the 
 Strasburg insurgents the law had been allowed to 
 take its ordinary course. But trial by jury had 
 resulted in an acquittal, and the king's advisers had 
 no mind to risk a repetition of this rebuff. They 
 now fell back upon an expedient which they had 
 employed in 1838 in dealing with Laity's pamphlet. 
 By arraigning Laity before the Court of Peers, they 
 had secured his condemnation and outrageously 
 heavy pimishment on a charge which could not 
 have been sustained for a moment in any ordinary 
 court. By an equally irregular, but in this case far 
 more justifiable procedure, it was now determined 
 to try the Boulogne prisoners directly before this 
 supreme tribunal. The trial was fixed for Sep- 
 tember 28. The month of September was 
 employed by the Government in rigorous private 
 examinations of its prisoners ; and by Louis 
 Napoleon in such preparations for his trial as were 
 
188 THE SECOND CLAIM [CH. viii. 
 
 possible for him. To all questions addressed to 
 him he refused any answer, contenting himself 
 with the statement that he alone was responsible 
 for all that had been done. 
 
 The truth of this avowal might benefit his 
 fellow-prisoners ; but it must have been a reflection 
 far from comforting to the prince himself. By his 
 own act he seemed utterly to have undoq,e what- 
 ever of success the labour of years had brought 
 about. How should it profit him now that a 
 French regiment had saluted his eagle, that a 
 French jury had shown sympathy with his cause, 
 that the French Government had betrayed its fear 
 of his machinations — when for all future time the 
 insurrection of Strasburg would be linked in men's 
 memories with the fiasco of Boulogne, and both 
 alike confounded in common derision 1 Of what 
 use now to him were all his little successes, the 
 outcome of so much patient manipulation, when 
 the whole erection he had based on them had been 
 brought to ignominious and ridiculous collapse? 
 For their fabrications about Strasburg, Louis 
 Philippe's Government would find the best of all 
 possible support in the facts of Boulogne. If 
 September 1838 marked the climax of his apparent 
 importance as a pretender, September 1840 saw the 
 most abject moments in the whole life of Louis 
 Napoleon. Even that other September, thirty 
 years later, can hardly have held more bitterness 
 for his own soul. For the mighty mightily fallen 
 share their grief with a host of sympathetic 
 
1840] THE RETORT COURTEOUS 189 
 
 spectators ; even the dishonoured end of one 
 who has attained to honour makes by contrast its 
 pathetic appeal to posterity. But to have fallen 
 from high hopes which can never now be known to 
 have been well founded, this is an agony that must 
 be endured alone. 
 
 On September 28, at half-past twelve in 
 the morning, the prisoners were brought for the 
 first time before the Court of Peers. Louis 
 Napoleon was led in first, closely followed by the 
 famous advocate Berryer, who had undertaken his 
 defence. A little man dressed in black, slightly 
 built, pale faced, with a calm manner and a dreamy 
 eye — this was the first vision which the Court of 
 Peers had of their future emperor. By his side, a 
 much more noticeable figure, stood the venerable 
 General Montholon, who after sharing Napoleon's 
 exile at St Helena had in his old age placed his life 
 at the disposal of his heir. In all, some twenty 
 prisoners were present ; the Government did not 
 bring to trial the obvious underlings of the 
 expedition. 
 
 It was to this rather insignificant young man 
 that the chancellor, Duke Pasquier, first spoke. 
 Addressing him abruptly as ' first accused,' he bade 
 him stand ; then he asked him his name, age, and 
 profession. To the last question the prisoner 
 replied slowly, 'A French prince in exile.' This 
 rather striking answer to a very ordinary question 
 was the first sign of intelligence he had given. 
 The peers turned curious eyes upon him, and noted 
 
190 THE SECOND CLAIM [CH. Vlii. 
 
 that his dark clothes were relieved by one ornament, 
 the great star of the Legion of Honour. He was 
 asking now for leave to make a short statement 
 before he answered farther questions. Leave was 
 given, and Louis Napoleon proceeded to make the 
 first of those short felicitous speeches in which he 
 excelled. Often in after years he saved an awkward 
 situation by this means, turning a doubtful issue 
 into certain victory; but never again had he to 
 make use of this gift in quite so desperate a 
 situation. 
 
 He was happy, he said, that now at last he was 
 able to speak at large in France to Frenchmen. No 
 personal ambition had led him on, but the belief 
 that France had never taken back of her free will 
 what she had given in 1804. For a moment indeed 
 in 1830 he had believed that France had formed a 
 truly national government ; but the sad experience 
 of the last ten years had undeceived him. And so 
 he had felt it his duty to appeal to the people ; to 
 recall to a France fallen from its great position, 
 silent among the concourse of kings, that other 
 France so peaceful within, so formidable without. 
 Had he succeeded at Boulogne, he would have 
 called a national congress and bidden it choose 
 how it would have France governed ; for only the 
 free decision of the nation could put an end to the 
 present troubles and discontents. 'As for my 
 enterprise,' he continued, 'again I tell you I had 
 no accomplices. Alone I made all my resolutions. 
 None knew beforehand my plans, my resources, or 
 
1840] THE REPROOF VALIANT 191 
 
 my hopes. If I have sinned against any man, it is 
 against my own friends. None the less, I trust 
 they will not accuse me of having lightly abused 
 com-age and devotion such as theirs. They will 
 understand the motives of honour and prudence 
 which forbid me to reveal even to them how far- 
 reaching and overwhelming were my reasons for 
 counting on success. 
 
 ' One last word, gentlemen. I stand before you 
 the representative of a principle, a cause, a defeat. 
 The principle is the sovereignty of the people; 
 the cause is the cause of the Empire ; the defeat, 
 Waterloo. That principle you have recognised, 
 that cause you have served, that defeat you would 
 revenge. No, there is no disagreement between 
 you and me.' Upon his judges, now visibly moved, 
 this strange young man turned in conclusion, 
 closing his peculiar defence by dismissing as 
 unworthy to judge him the tribunal before which 
 he was arraigned. ' The representative of a 
 political cause, I cannot accept a jurisdiction that 
 is itself political. Your forms deceive no one. In 
 the coming conflict there is room only for conqueror 
 and conquered. If you are the men of the 
 conqueror, I can expect no justice and will accept 
 no generosity at your hands.' The peers stirred 
 uneasily as they listened. It was not at all the 
 kind of pleading that they had expected. The 
 Government accounts had prepared them for an 
 undignified appeal, a piteous request for mercy. 
 But this was not even a defence, it was a defiance. 
 
192 THE SECOND CLAIM [CH. viii. 
 
 Functionaries many of them of the First Empire, 
 whose allegiance had ah'eady in turn been given to 
 three successive dynasties, they could hardly fail 
 to recognise in their prisoner's statement an 
 accusation of themselves. And vfhat did he mean 
 — this pretender whose cause was already so visibly 
 lost — what did he mean by speaking of the conflict 
 as a future one, — la lutte qui s'ouvre ? Apart from 
 that, he was plainly and hopelessly in the wrong, 
 palpably guilty of a puerile and criminal folly. 
 How, then, had he managed to lift his case above 
 their jurisdiction, to place himself beyond the reach 
 of their most just condemnation ? Well, they 
 would hear more ; and they turned again to listen 
 to their remarkable prisoner. But there was no 
 more for them to hear. To the renewed stream of 
 questions, questions mainly designed to elicit the 
 acquaintance of his companions with his plans, 
 Louis Napoleon returned monosyllabic answers, or 
 more often refused to give any answer at all. The 
 chancellor proceeded to examine the other accused. 
 Their behaviour was exactly that of the prisoners at 
 the Strasburg trial. They did indeed accept the 
 shelter proffered to them by their chief by denying 
 any previous knowledge of his plans. But, save for 
 that, they in no way attempted to extenuate their 
 fault. They had followed Louis Napoleon blindly, 
 and would follow him again. So spoke Mesonan, 
 Montholon, Voisin, Desjardins, Montauban, Laborde 
 and Galvani, veteran soldiers of the First Empire, 
 who had served with distinction in many a hard- 
 
1840] ATTITUDE OF THE ACCUSED 193 
 
 fought fight, under Prince Eugene, King Murat, 
 and the Emperor Napoleon himself. So Orsi, 
 Lombard, Persigny, Conneau and Bataille, whom in 
 Italy, Switzerland, and England the prince had 
 attached to his cause. Very different was the 
 conduct of General Magnan, who vehemently 
 repudiated all connexion with the attempt. ' Before 
 God and men, on the head of his five children,' he 
 swore that he had indignantly dismissed Mesonan 
 as soon as the overtures of Louis Napoleon were 
 disclosed to him. To many even of those present 
 he seemed to protest too much. And upon those 
 who can study his evidence and behaviour at the 
 trial in the fight of his subsequent conduct, the 
 conclusion forces itself that it was well for the 
 Government of Louis Philippe that the loyalty of 
 General Magnan after Boulogne was subjected to 
 no such severe test as befell General Voirol at 
 Strasburg. ^ 
 
 It was the procureur-general who, when all the 
 evidence had been heard, addressed the court for 
 the prosecution. His speech consisted of a pitiless 
 recital of the facts of the attempt, followed by a 
 powerful appeal for the heavy punishment which 
 those facts so plainly demanded. For the rest, it 
 was to prove useful to Louis Napoleon later, owing 
 to a chance phrase to which we have already 
 alluded — the phrase in which M. Franck-Carre 
 spoke of him as pardoned unconditionally 
 after Strasburg. On September 30 followed 
 Berryer's speech for the defence — in which the 
 
 N 
 
194 THE SECOND CLAIM [ch. tiii. 
 
 great legitimist orator poured scorn upon a 
 jurisdiction which existed only to defend all that 
 Louis Napoleon had wished to attack, rending 
 with biting anger the hypocrisy of those who 
 condemned after failure what they would most 
 certainly have condoned after success, caressing 
 with mocking praise the consistency of Louis 
 Philippe and of his ministers. The former was 
 honouring in death as the ' legitimate sovereign of 
 our country,' the man whoin in his lifetime he had 
 denounced and opposed as 'the Corsican usurper.' 
 The latter were pressing for a death sentence or 
 its equivalent on the heir of him to whose favours 
 they owed it that they were peers at all. Berryer 
 did well to avoid any attempt to deny or disprove 
 the facts alleged against his clients ; his object was 
 to obscure these by appealing to high-sounding 
 principles and abstract justification. In other 
 respects it was not a politic speech, if its intention 
 were to placate the peers. But such was not its 
 aim. It was an appeal over their heads to the 
 French people. Taken together with the prince's 
 own speech and with the behaviour of the other 
 prisoners, it was not without eflfect. The attempt 
 itself had been ludicrous; the trial had been 
 rendered a serious event. And what remained 
 — the punishment — was most serious of all. On 
 October 6 the peers pronounced their sentence. 
 This at any rate was no laughing matter. Of 
 the accused only four were acquitted. Aladenize 
 was sentenced to transportation for life ; Parquin 
 
1840] PERPETUAL IMPRISONMENT 195 
 
 who died in captivity — with Montholon, Lombard, 
 and Persigny to twenty years of 'detention,' 
 a severer form of imprisonment; Mdsonan to 
 fifteen, Voison and two others to ten, and three 
 more to five years of the same pmiishment. 
 Conneau was imprisoned for five years, and 
 Laborde for two. And 'Charles Louis Napoleon 
 Bonaparte' was sentenced to perpetual imprison- 
 ment in a fortress situated within the continental 
 territories of France. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON A POLITICAL PBISONBR 
 
 {October 1840 to March 1846. Aetat. 32-37.) 
 
 The plain was grassy, wild and bare, 
 Wide, wild and open. to the air, 
 Which had built up everywhere 
 An under-roof of doleful gray. 
 
 The wUd swan's death-hymn took the soul 
 Of that waste place with joy, 
 Hidden in sorrow ; at first to the ear. 
 The warble was low, and full and clear ; 
 And floating about the under sky, 
 Prevailing in weakness the coronach stole. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 A LITTLE back from the petty provincial town of 
 Ham, itself a dull and decayed habitation on the 
 sullen waters of the Somme, stands the imposing 
 remnant of a fifteenth-century fortress. From the 
 midst of a flat expanse of low-lying ground rises 
 ponderously a massive tower, a hundred feet in 
 height, with walls in places ten yards thick. No 
 feature of feudal cruelty is lacking to it. In the 
 thickness of its solid masonry dank steps of stone 
 wind their way down to sunless chasms where men 
 have forgotten the light. Under its shadow lay a 
 great courtyard, with ramparts and corner towers. 
 The surrounding moat was indeed empty, or 
 
 196 
 
1840] THE FORTRESS OF HAM 197 
 
 become degenerate into a mere swamp. But it 
 was still a double drawbridge which gave access 
 to the building from the town, and the Grosse 
 Tour itself still found its sombre reflection 
 in the sluggish waters of a little-used canal. 
 From the marshy bank would steal up in the 
 evening a white mist, half-way to greet the dark 
 low -lying clouds which generally overhung the 
 place by day. If the building itself was picturesque, 
 the surrounding landscape was desolate and mono- 
 tonous to a degree; while an imhealthy site 
 combined with an inhospitable climate to render it 
 a far from desirable dwelling-place. Obsolete for 
 centiuies as a fortress, the place had long been 
 used as a state prison. Here deputies of the 
 Convention had been confined after the first and 
 great revolution ; here after its small parody in 
 1830, Polignac, the hated minister of the last King 
 of France, had been imprisoned with his colleagues, 
 thankful that behind these walls he was safe from 
 the mob of Paris clamorous for his blood. Hither 
 by the same Government was now sent , Louis 
 Napoleon, grateful that so he might escape and 
 perhaps live down the ridicule of Europe. 
 
 On October 7 the frigate that was to bear 
 the Emperor's body back to France cast anchor 
 at St Helena. On the same day Louis Napoleon 
 was conducted from Paris to the intended scene 
 of his Ufelong captivity. Before the middle of 
 the month he was joined there by Dr Conneau 
 and General Montholon, who had been permitted 
 
198 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. IX. 
 
 to serve their terms of imprisonment in their 
 leader's company. In the corner of the courtyard 
 farthest from the gateway stands a low range of two- 
 storeyed buildings. General Montholon was given 
 two rooms on the ground floor ; from this a short 
 stair of crumbling stone led to the upper storey. 
 Here Louis Napoleon had a bedroom and sitting- 
 room at his disposal ; ^ a small bedroom adjacent to 
 the prince's was occupied by Dr Conneau. To make 
 the most of the httle light that reached it, the long 
 narrow passage which gave access to the rooms 
 was whitewashed. A spare room at the end of 
 the passage was turned by the prince into a 
 laboratory. Every window was closely barred. 
 From both storeys there was only one exit, and to 
 
 ' According to the tradition now prevalent at Ham, before 
 occup3Tng these rooms Louis Napoleon was confined for the first six 
 months of his imprisonment in a small cell nine feet square on the 
 first floor of the Grosse Tour : a slightly larger room on the ground 
 floor of the Tower is shown as General Montholon's abode for the 
 same period. The rest of the Ch§,teau now serves as barracks for 
 300 troops, and the Grosse Tour is the only part of the building 
 which is shown to the public. Although the concierge was positive 
 on the point, and though his statement was confirmed by the 
 numerous officials, civilian and military, to whose joint good offices 
 I owed my final admission to the prince's rooms in the barracks, I 
 am'none the less of opinion that the difficulty of visiting these rooms 
 forms the real ground of the tradition, which would be sufficiently 
 explained by the necessity of showing something as the scene of 
 Louis Napoleon's imprisonment. At any rate, there is no lack of 
 precedent for such a process under similar circumstances, while 
 there are in this case almost insuperable objections to the acceptance 
 of the tradition as true. Possibly, indeed, Louis may actually have 
 been confined in the ceU in question during the two days he passed 
 at Ham on his way from Boulogne to Paris in August 1840 : but the 
 statement that he was immured there for six months after his return 
 in October is conclusively disproved by his own silence on the point. 
 For Louis Napoleon was the last man to leave unadvertised any 
 picturesque persecution of this kind. 
 
1840] THE PRISON-HOUSE 199 
 
 reach this it was necessary to pass through a guard- 
 room. The entire building was on the prince's 
 arrival in a very dilapidated condition. But if 
 they were indifferently lodged, the prisoners had 
 the consolation of knowing that they were ade- 
 quately guarded. Of the four hundred soldiers 
 who were stationed in the fortress, sixty were 
 always on duty as sentries ; outside his own rooms 
 the prince was always followed by one of them ; 
 and when he was allowed to walk on the ramparts, 
 sentinels were placed to watch his movements at 
 every point, even including the far bank of the 
 canal. Demarle, the officer who had actually 
 arrested Louis Napoleon at Boulogne, was made 
 governor of the fortress ; four times a day he was 
 supposed personally to satisfy himself of his 
 prisoners' presence. All letters addressed to the 
 prince or written by him were liable to his 
 inspection ; often they were intercepted altogether ; 
 if they were in English they might be sent to Paris 
 for examination. Permission for the prisoners to 
 receive visitors was at first only granted very 
 sparingly; while the soldiers of the garrison re- 
 ceived the strictest injimctions to hold no converse 
 with the prince. 
 
 Almost the first visitor who was allowed to see 
 Louis brought him news of the one fact which 
 seemed wanting to complete his desolation. In 
 spite of King Jerome's action after Strasburg, Louis 
 had never whoUy abandoned the hope of marrying 
 the Princess Mathilde ; the father's anger might be 
 
200 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. ix. 
 
 appeased, or even ignored, if the princess herself 
 still cared for him. But what must have been 
 extremely difficult after Strasburg, became impos- 
 sible after Boulogne ; it was not to be expected 
 that Mathilde should cleave to a lover condemned to 
 perpetual imprisonment. In November 1840 she 
 was married to Anatole Demidoff. The prince 
 broke down utterly when the news reached him. 
 'This is the last and heaviest blow that fortune 
 had in store for me,' he said to Ferdinand 
 Barrot, the friend who told him what had hap- 
 pened; and indeed he may well have felt for the 
 moment that he had completely sacrificed his per- 
 sonal happiness, without in any way advancing his 
 political cause. 
 
 But it was just in such circumstances as these 
 that the real strength of Louis Napoleon's character 
 was most conspicuous. It was no great merit in 
 him that he accepted his fate without a murmur, 
 that he comported himself with dignity and 
 cheerfulness in a far from agreeable situation. 
 For that situation was, as he recognised, entirely 
 of his own making. But truly praiseworthy 
 was his refusal to recognise as final a defeat 
 which to everyone but himself seemed utterly 
 decisive. As though Boulogne had not made 
 him the laughing-stock of Europe, as though 
 ' perpetual imprisonment ' were the merest episode 
 in a man's life, the most natural preliminary 
 imaginable to eventual success, he at once set to 
 work to repair the seemingly irreparable ruin of 
 
1840] AN APOSTROPHE 201 
 
 his fortunes. The many and various schemes in 
 which he was engaged during these years were 
 valuable to him as distractions from the mono- 
 tonous routine of his prison life ; but they were all 
 inspired directly or indirectly by the desire to 
 forward the cause in which he still believed. In 
 December 1840 he busied himself with a pamphlet, 
 in which he addressed the shade of the Emperor, 
 translated now to its triumphal resting-place in 
 Paris : — ' Sire, you return to yoiu* capital, and the 
 people go out in crowds to greet your return. The 
 people throng your passage as of old ; the people 
 salute yoiu- presence as though you lived still. 
 But the great ones of to-day, the while they do 
 you homage, mutter beneath their breath, "God 
 grant he be dead indeed." . . . These men who 
 were so little tiU you made them so great, they 
 have denied your gospel and your glory : when I 
 spoke to them of your cause, they answered me 
 "We understand it not" . . . Vainly they say that 
 you are but a meteor that passes and leaves no 
 trace; they shall not disinherit you . . . From 
 the midst of yoxu" funeral pomp you have cast a 
 glance on my sombre prison; and you who 
 caressed me when I was a child, have said to me, 
 "Friend, I am content with thee; thou sufferest 
 for me." ' So, sentimental and grandiloquent, Louis 
 Napoleon apostrophised the Emperor; seeking to 
 contrast the fate which buried his uncle's body in 
 the Invalides, while it buried himself alive at Ham. 
 Napoleon's funeral was indeed a great show; but 
 
202 '- A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. ix. 
 
 of popular enthusiasm there was no great tiemon- 
 stration ; and few indeed of the myriads who went 
 to see the spectacle had a thought to spare for 
 Louis Napoleon. And Louis Napoleon himself 
 was not really in any hurry to leave his 'sombre 
 prison.' To an English friend at the beginning 
 of 1841 he wrote : ' I have no wish to be 
 elsewhere, for here I am in my right place. 
 Bearing the name I do, mine must either be the 
 gloom of a dimgeon or the glare of power.' So 
 passed December. January found the prisoner 
 engaged in very different manner. His chief 
 occupation in that month was a series of experi- 
 ments with the percussion caps used for priming 
 the guns then used in the French army; seeking 
 to find a new method for the more rapid adjust- 
 ment of the cap. He wrote a brief treatise on his 
 experiments, with the intention of sending it to the 
 Minister of War. 
 
 With February the sword was beaten into the 
 ploughshare. The prince obtained permission to 
 dig up a few square yards of ground on a sloping 
 mound at one end of his walk on the ramparts 
 within the confines of the fortress. Here he 
 planted seeds and shrubs whose stunted growth 
 afforded him a mild interest for the next five 
 years to come. 
 
 During the three months which followed, he 
 again betook himself to serious work. In May 
 1841 he published a small book, entitled Fragments 
 Historiqms. It was a refutation of M. Guizot's 
 
1841] A COMPARISON REFUTED 203 
 
 elaborate parallel between the events of 1830 in 
 France and those of 1688 in England. The 
 prince's correspondence of this date shows that 
 he had read widely on the subject before writing ; 
 but under a thin historical guise the book is a 
 plainly political pamphlet. As such it is rather 
 ingenious. It is never difficult to demonstrate 
 the weakness of a political parallel; and it 
 was by this time easy enough to show that 
 Louis Philippe would hardly bear comparison 
 with William of Orange. But Louis Napoleon 
 attempted more than this. He endeavoured not 
 merely to destroy the parallel but to reverse it ; 
 not merely to wipe it out, but to turn it upside 
 down. Those who sought precedents for the 
 Orleanist policy would find them, not in the 
 statesmanship of William III, but in the shifti- 
 ness and subservience of the Stuarts. And the 
 fate which befell the Stuarts might be the fate 
 which awaited Louis Philippe. 
 
 'The Stuarts had aflFable manners to win 
 people's hearts : William was dry, cold, and 
 reserved. The reigns of the Stuarts began always 
 tmder the happiest auspices. . . . William on the 
 contrary, was from the first surrounded with 
 innumerable dangers and difficulties. Why did 
 the former fail with so many chances of success, 
 while the latter was triumphant against so many 
 risks of death ? . . . The Stuarts perpetually found 
 themselves in a false position. The official repre- 
 sentatives of Protestantism, they were at the 
 bottom of their hearts Catholics. Compelled to 
 
204 A POLITICAL PRISONER [oh. ix. 
 
 be the representatives of a system of liberty and 
 toleration, they were absolutists by instinct. The 
 custodians of English interests, they were devoted 
 or sold to France, They resisted where they 
 should have yielded, and yielded where it was 
 their duty to resist. . . . Protestantism had become 
 in England since the sixteenth century the emblem 
 of every national interest. In order to be power- 
 ful within and without, the Stuarts had only to 
 place themselves frankly at its head : instead they 
 betrayed it abroad, and endeavoured to defeat it 
 at home. 
 
 'William, on the contrary, was truly by nature 
 and by conviction all he represented on the throne. 
 He was the founder of a new order of things, the 
 establishment of which his own skill and courage 
 had hastened. . . . The Stuarts went to war to 
 support their tottering power with a little glory; 
 William went to war to increase the influence 
 of England.' 
 
 Eeverse the words Protestant and Cathohc, 
 England and France; substitute Louis Philippe 
 for the Stuarts, and — more curious — for William 
 III read Louis Napoleon — and the parable is 
 explained. Louis Philippe was not mentioned by 
 name, but even so it is strange that his government 
 allowed the publication of so palpable an attack. 
 Stranger still, however, is the momentary choice 
 of William of Orange by Louis Napoleon for his 
 own model. Silent both, phlegmatic, taciturn, 
 there were superficially some points of resemblance 
 in their characters. But two more different 
 careers it would be difiicult to select. Granting 
 the connexion in their author's mind, these two 
 
1841] LOUIS ON REVOLUTIONS 205 
 
 sentences become rather ominous. Of the Stuarts, 
 he says they had forgotten 'that among nations 
 there has never been a government strong enough 
 to suppress Uberty at home for any length of time 
 unless it gives glory abroad,' And contrasting 
 William's advent to power with the circumstances of 
 the Stuart restoration, he makes this really signifi- 
 cant remark : ' In general, revolutions brought about 
 by one leader turn altogether to the profit of the 
 masses ; because to succeed, the man is obliged to 
 throw himself entirely on the national sentiments, 
 and to maintain his success must remain faithful 
 to those interests : revolutions made by the masses, 
 on the contrary, often profit the leaders only; 
 because the people think that their work is done on 
 the morrow of victory, and it is natural to them 
 to rest for a long time after the efforts that were 
 necessary for success.' The book was rather well 
 received, and had a respectable sale, though not, 
 of course, approaching that of the Idees Napoleon- 
 iennes. 
 
 The prince had now been in prison for six 
 months. In spite of his various occupations the 
 winter had passed slowly enough. Moreover it 
 had perceptibly told on his health. Accustomed 
 to vigorous exercise, he had now none, save for 
 his short walk on the ramparts with a warder at 
 his heels. A more serious grievance was the 
 utterly dilapidated condition in which he found his 
 rooms. The paper was peeling off" the walls, the 
 doors and windows were ill fitted ; and the brick 
 
206 A POLITICAL PRISONER [OH. ix. 
 
 floor was damp and uneven. From the first Dr 
 Conneau expostulated vigorously against this state 
 of things, and not vrithout cause. For the first time 
 in his life the prince was afflicted with rheumatism ; 
 during the whole period of his imprisonment he 
 was subject to attacks of it, often in acute form. 
 Poor old General Montholon wished himself back 
 at St Helena; the tactlessness of an English 
 governor, the vaunted indignities to which the 
 Emperor had been subjected, began to seem endm*- 
 able enough when compared with the ordered 
 discomfort of a French political imprisonment. 
 'The Emperor was not so badly treated by the 
 English in an English prison as his nephew is by 
 the French in a French prison.' So wrote 
 Montholon, intent doubtless on magnifying the 
 sufferings of nephew and uncle alike, but prob- 
 ably quite sincere in his relative estimation of 
 their several hardships. As a result of the per- 
 sistent complaints of Dr Conneau, the Minister of 
 the Interior made a grant of 600 francs for the 
 renovation of the rooms. The sum was barely 
 sufficient for the most obvious repairs ; it sufficed, 
 however, to place a proper floor in the room. Louis 
 Napoleon was informed that he might make 
 further alterations at his own expense; but he 
 refused 'to put a state prison in repair.' He did, 
 however, make certain additions to the furniture of 
 the rooms; and in the end they were quite pre- 
 sentable. In May he himself addressed a letter to 
 the Government, protesting against certain of the 
 
1841] COMPLAINTS AND CONCESSIONS 207 
 
 more pointless and gratuitous of the indignities of 
 his treatment. ' The sovereignty of the people 
 made my uncle an emperor, my father a king, and 
 myself a prince by birth.' Even as a prisoner, there- 
 fore, he had a right to somewhat different treatment 
 to that which he was receiving. Probably the 
 letter was inspired more by a desire of calling the 
 attention of France to his treatment than by any 
 great hope of obtaining an improvement in it. But 
 it seems to have occurred to Louis Philippe's 
 Government that it was hardly politic to allow their 
 prisoner such advertisement as a repetition of the 
 protest would give him. Several concessions were 
 accordingly granted to him. He was permitted to 
 exercise himself on horseback ; a privilege of which 
 he availed himself but sparingly. For to ride 
 solemnly round the courtyard — and this was all 
 that was permitted him — while the walls were Uned 
 with a doubled post of sentries and the governor 
 himself stood in the middle, this was a form of 
 amusement which soon became wearisome. Another 
 concession made at the same time was of more 
 value. Louis Napoleon's valet, Charles Thelin, had 
 recently been permitted to join him, but hitherto 
 he had not been allowed to come in and out 
 of the prison at his pleasure. Now the restric- 
 tions were withdrawn. The most important result 
 of this concession was to reduce to a dead letter 
 the inspection of the prince's correspondence. 
 From this time too the prince was allowed 
 to receive occasional visits from a few residents 
 
208 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. ix. 
 
 in Ham, or, more rarely, from his friends at a 
 distance. 
 
 From June 1841 to January 1842, Louis 
 Napoleon was engrossed with the idea of writing a 
 book on the life of Charlemagne. The project was 
 never realised, but the prince's correspondence 
 shows clearly enough the form it would have taken. 
 Of Charlemagne, as of Napoleon, it had been said 
 that his work was brilliant in appearance, but 
 transitory in its results ; both had been compared 
 to meteors whose brilliant careers left no permanent 
 traces behind them. Louis Napoleon desired to 
 refute this verdict in both cases. He purchased 
 numerous works on the subject, both English, 
 French, and German ; he corresponded on the 
 subject with the historian Sismondi ; he devoted,, 
 indeed, more time to this unfulfilled project than he 
 had given to his published pamphlet on the two 
 revolutions. It need not be said that history is 
 no loser by the abandonment of this design; it 
 is doubtful whether the subject would even have 
 served as a good framework for the loose 
 generalisations of a political pretender. Towards 
 the close of 1841 the prince returned to his 
 chemical experiments, and in February 1842 he 
 had indefinitely postponed the design, busying 
 himself instead with preparing a new edition to 
 his Manuel d'Artillerie. 
 
 A few months later he had a new interest. 
 After about five months' work on the subject he 
 pubUshed in August 1842 a pamphlet on a question 
 
1842] A DEFENCE OF PROTECTION 209 
 
 then much to the fore in France — the claims of 
 beetroot sugar to protection. One of the articles 
 of common consumption of which Napoleon's Berlin 
 decrees had prohibited the import was cane sugar. 
 For at that time the traffic in this sugar was wholly 
 in English hands. To meet the deficiency he had 
 encouraged the manufacture in France of sugar 
 extracted from beetroot. Other expedients de- 
 signed to replace other necessities of life, whose 
 importation Napoleon had prohibited, proved worth- 
 less enough, and had at once collapsed when the 
 prohibition was swept away. But the beet sugar 
 trade on the contrary acclimatised itself and became 
 the basis of a flourishing industry. It survived the 
 fall of the empire, and even a limited amount of 
 competition from the cane sugar for which it had 
 become a substitute. But now it was proposed, in 
 the interest of the French colonies in the Indies — 
 and indirectly in the interest of the French fleet — 
 to sacrifice the home industry in beet sugar to the 
 colonial cane sugar. It was, of course, the origin 
 of the French manufacture which interested Louis 
 Napoleon in the question. Doubtless too it was 
 this which caused him to decide in its favour; though 
 he "avowed that he approached the question without 
 bias, since any predilection for the beet industry 
 due to its Napoleonic origin was balanced by the 
 fact that his grandmother, the Empress Josephine, 
 had been born in the French Indies. His pamphlet 
 was frankly Protectionist. It was absurd, he said, 
 to sacrifice the prosperity of seven departments. 
 
210 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. ix. 
 
 the habitation of four million men^ to the interest 
 of some 30,000 colonists dwelling in two small 
 islands. It was possible in any case to protect the 
 consumer at too heavy a price. Cheapness of 
 goods might mean cheapness of labour, and cheap- 
 ness of laboui* meant the misery of the people. 
 Even England might find this to her cost. The 
 prince's great argument in favour of beet sugar 
 was that, unlike most manufactures, it scattered 
 centres of labour in the country instead of con- 
 glomerating them into towns, thus rearing a 
 vigorous and healthy population, free from the 
 physical and moral evils which ensued from the 
 crowding of men into small houses jn great cities. 
 In matters of tarifi", he continued, 'honour often 
 shows the right road, generally involving also 
 palpable and positive advantages.' As an instance 
 of" his meaning he pointed to the success of the 
 Prussian ZoUverein. The treatise shared the fate 
 of the great majority of such writings ; without 
 winning converts from those opposed to its prin- 
 ciples, it was welcomed and quoted by men who 
 already held its views. This party was, however, a 
 powerful one. The beet growers regarded it as the 
 best vindication of their position which had yet 
 appeared ; within a few months of its publication, 
 in November 1842, a second and enlarged edition 
 was produced. 
 
 This early essay in Protection is rather noticeable 
 in one who was to become the greatest continental 
 promoter of the principles of Free Trade. Its 
 
1842] THE REPUBLICAN PRESS 211 
 
 general attitude is rather like that of Euskin's revolt 
 from the Manchester school of political economy, 
 twenty years later. A similar attitude is shown in 
 many of the writings which follow during the next 
 two years. Always an indefatigable correspondent 
 — where correspondence could serve his aim — Louis 
 Napoleon from the beginning of his imprisonment 
 sought by this means to make the acquaintance of 
 the editors of provincial newspapers in the North 
 of France. By the end of 1842 he had so far 
 succeeded that the columns of some half-dozen 
 local papers were open to his writings. Of these 
 papers, all possessed a considerable sale and 
 influence in their own neighbourhood, while some 
 had a more than local importance ; the Parisian 
 press occasionally quoted articles from their columns. 
 Naturally the editors with whom Louis Napoleon 
 would correspond were men opposed to the existing 
 government. But it was less natural that the 
 opposition party with which he joined hands should 
 be almost entirely republican. For during the 
 later years of the prince's imprisonment there was 
 a curious approach to an understanding between 
 him and the republican opposition. His writings 
 at this time bear witness to this. He did not 
 really recede from any of his pretensions. The 
 utmost concession he ever made was drawn from him 
 by a direct enquiry by the editor of a republican 
 journal in 1843, as to what his pretensions would be 
 if he were a free citizen. ' I have never thought,' 
 he replied, ' and never shall think, that France is the 
 
212 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. iX. 
 
 appanage of a family ; I have never claimed any 
 rights save those of a French citizen ; I shall never 
 have any other desire than that of serving the 
 entire people, when they have chosen in full freedom 
 the form of government they desire. Born of a 
 family which owes its elevation to the national will, 
 I should be untrue to my origin, to my nature, to 
 my common sense, if I did not recognise the 
 national sovereignty of the people as the basis of 
 my political organisation.' But in the same letter 
 he continued, ' True I have pursued a lofty ambition, 
 but I have sought it openly. It was my ambition 
 to re-unite around my popular name aU the 
 partisans of the sovereignty of the people, all who 
 aspired to glory and liberty.' Louis Napoleon 
 never doubted, or pretended to doubt, what the 
 result of a free choice by the entire people would 
 be; the republicans of course were equally confident 
 that a republic would emerge from it ; both were 
 certain that it would destroy what both wished to 
 see destroyed — the Orleanist dynasty. Here then 
 was the basis of a working alliance. Each party 
 was to some extent making use of the other ; the 
 prince willing to appeal to a wider audience, the 
 republicans glad to annex the glamour of his name. 
 The series of articles which Louis Napoleon pub- 
 lished in this way during the years 1843 and 1844 
 deal with almost every aspect of French political 
 life. Though published at first anonymously, 
 their authorship was soon avowed, and they 
 attracted so much attention that in the latter 
 
1843] PROVINCIAL LETIERS 213 
 
 year the Government intervened to prevent the con- 
 tinuance of the series. Their hterary merit is not 
 much more than their method of pubhcation would 
 suggest — that of the better class of provincial 
 journalism. But their political views are always 
 thoughtful, often interesting, sometimes statesman- 
 Uke. A few brief quotations must suffice to 
 illustrate their tenor. 
 
 Dealing with a comparison then much in vogue 
 between the English and French parliamentary 
 methods, Louis showed clearly and well the various 
 points which divided the French imitation from the 
 English natural growth in its methods and results. 
 Especially he drew attention to the profound 
 influence of the ' tribune ' in French parliamentary 
 debates : the English member addressed the house 
 from his place, and discussion was business-like; 
 the French member harangued his audience from the 
 tribune, and the result was a series of set speeches. 
 
 On another question, destined unfortunately to 
 be a matter of more than passing controversy — on 
 the part proper to clergy in the education of 
 children — the prince wrote sensibly and well. The 
 clergy reasonably claimed the right of teaching 
 children Christianity. The State as reasonably 
 maintained its duty of keeping public instruction 
 under its own direction. Unfortunately, as things 
 stood, their claims were conflicting, for the clergy 
 were undemocratic in their sympathies, and it was 
 impossible to allow them liberty to teach the people 
 hatred of liberty. Atheism and ultramontanism 
 
214 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. ix. 
 
 were the enemies. Yet the worst possible remedy 
 was disestabhshment, which would force the clergy 
 to traflSe in sacred things. The education of the 
 clergy themselves was the vital point. Here 
 Southern Germany could give them an ideal 
 example. There was a Catholic clergy liberal and 
 tolerant, learned and patriotic ; for there candidates 
 for the priesthood were not isolated from childhood, 
 and embued in seminaries with a spirit hostile to 
 the society in which they were to live, but studied 
 theology in universities attended by students for 
 other professions. Let this be their model in 
 France. Only by making your priest a citizen can 
 you hope to make your citizen religious. 'Then, 
 but then only,' concluded Louis Napoleon, 'shall 
 we rejoice to see, as in Germany, ministers of 
 religion at the head of national education, teaching 
 our children the doctrine of Christ.' 
 
 Perhaps the most noteworthy of all these essays 
 is one on the problem of national defence, in which 
 the prince singles out the military organisation of 
 Prussia as that which in the most economical, 
 democratic, and efficient manner furnished its 
 country with a formidable army. He urged 
 France then, as he urged it twenty-five years 
 later, to make Prussia its model in this respect, 
 and to lose no time in introducing the Prussian 
 system in France. It must, of course, be remem- 
 bered, that the man who in 1843 discovered this 
 fact was proclaiming a truth which had not yet 
 become a truism. 
 
1843] AN ESSAY IN SOCIALISM 215 
 
 The essay which most attracted attention at the 
 time was one which least deserved it — a paper 
 entitled Extinction du Pauperisme, pubhshed in 
 the spring of 1844. It was a proposal to colonise 
 the large tracts of land then untilled in France with 
 the large number of men who were always lacking 
 the proper means of subsistence. Not more 
 practicable, it was possibly not less sincere than 
 other schemes of the kind propounded by St Simon, 
 Fourier, or Louis Blanc. The general sentiments 
 were admirable, its illustrations often telling, its 
 attacks on many existing grievances only too 
 pointed. But as a constructive scheme it was 
 devoid of merit. This, however, did not prevent it 
 from having a large circulation ; and as there are 
 always many to whom clarity of utterance implies 
 clarity of thought, to whom any reasoned scheme 
 will appear reasonable, any Utopia practicable if 
 plentifully empaled by statistics, the Extinction 
 du Pauperisme was of all the writings of his 
 imprisonment that which most benefited its author. 
 Beranger and George Sand vrrote to him express- 
 ing their appreciation ; while in the autumn of 1844 
 he received an address, largely signed by working 
 men, thanking him for his interest in their fate. 
 
 From his prison at Ham, as from his exile in 
 Switzerland and London, Louis Napoleon main- 
 tained a close watch on the course of political 
 affairs in France, allowing no occasion to pass un- 
 noticed which might serve him as an opportimity 
 for drawing attention to his own existence. In the 
 
216 A POLITICAL PRISONER [cH. ix. 
 
 summer of 1843, a former French deputy conceived 
 the project of a sort of popular French Dictionaiy 
 of National Biography ; he proposed to begin with 
 the life of Napoleon. But Lamartine, to whom he 
 submitted his scheme, replied by a letter in which 
 he pointed out that Napoleon's life was not ideally 
 fitted for the people's instruction ; and proceeded to 
 demonstrate that France would have stood that 
 day in a far happier position had Napoleon never 
 been born. At once Louis Napoleon is to the 
 fore ; in a long open letter he replied in detail to 
 the points of Lamartine's attack on his hero. 
 
 A year later, on July 28, 1844, Joseph, 
 the ex-King of Spain, died at Florence. This 
 event was not without its importance to Louis, 
 for Joseph until his death remained the nominal 
 head of his house. As such the prince had alluded 
 to him in his speech to the Peers, after the failure 
 of the Boulogne expedition; whether he would 
 have remembered his claims if this expedition had 
 succeeded, is more than doubtful. Now he was 
 dead, and to be praised : Louis Napoleon wrote 
 a short memoir of him, which was published in 
 the Revue de I' Empire. 
 
 A young chemist who lived in Ham, M. Acar, 
 was a frequent visitor of the prince during the 
 later years of his imprisonment. Together they 
 spent many hours in his extemporised laboratory, 
 indulging in mild experiments with electricity and 
 explosives. The prince found this occupation a 
 pleasant change from his literary work, often 
 
1843] DIVERS ADVERTISEMENTS 217 
 
 turning to it after a morning spent on the pamphlet 
 or essay on which he was for the time engaged. 
 But even these experiments were made to play 
 their part in the great work. In May 1843 a 
 letter of Louis Napoleon's, on his latest electrical 
 experiments, was read by M. Arago before the 
 French Academy of Sciences, and was printed in 
 the Bulletin de VAcadSmie, in the report of the 
 society's proceedings. It was the prince's con- 
 sistent policy to leave unattempted no method in 
 his power by which he might bring his name 
 before a fresh section of the French people. 
 
 M. Acar, the republican chemist, was not, how- 
 ever, his only visitor; nor were the prince's 
 dabblings in chemistry his sole recreations from 
 his more serious labours. Other and less edifying 
 amusements were not wanting. The visitor to 
 Ham is still shown the doorway by which 'La 
 Belle Sabotiere ' and others of her kind came and 
 went; the clogmaker's daughter herself became 
 the mother of two sons by the prince. Incidents 
 of this kind even Louis Napoleon's genius for 
 advertisement could not hope to turn to the profit 
 of his cause ; but if he was at no particular pains 
 to excuse his conduct in this respect, this was 
 doubtless because he was satisfied that in France 
 at any rate his political future would not be 
 seriously compromised by it. 
 
 During the later years of his imprisonment, 
 Louis was allowed to receive visits from a number 
 of friends outside Ham. Towards the end of the 
 
218 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. ix. 
 
 year 1844 Louis Blanc came to see the prince, 
 and spent three days at Ham in his company. 
 That he should have done so is significant of the 
 intimate relations which had by this time grown 
 up between the prince and the republican party. 
 Together they discussed the prince's own position 
 and the entire political situation of France. Fifteen 
 years later, when the prisoner had become Emperor 
 of the French, and his distinguished visitor an 
 exile from his country, Louis Blanc published an 
 account of their conversation. This account is 
 not without interest, though it bears signs of the 
 circumstances of its publication. The republican 
 seems for the nonce to have been possessed with 
 an unwonted and almost prophetic insight into 
 the future, and to have administered to Louis 
 Napoleon many admirable cautions, which were 
 signally justified by events which happened between 
 the giving of the advice and the publication of it. 
 Pity that in such case the truth of a prophecy 
 in fulfilment should so often be the measure of its 
 falsity in fact. Non credo quia credibile. 
 
 ' Among the various circumstances still present 
 to my memory, one,' wrote Louis Blanc, 'remains 
 worthy of mention, on account of the strange 
 aspect it gives to the hardness which Louis 
 Bonaparte showed afterwards. One afternoon he 
 was describing to me the details of his Boulogne 
 expedition, when his voice suddenly failed; he 
 stopped, tried in vain to master his emotion, and 
 burst into tears. Nor shall I ever forget our stroll 
 
1844] LOUIS BLANC 219 
 
 on the narrow rampart assigned to his melancholy 
 walks, and overlooked on all sides by sentinels, 
 I think I see him yet, walking with slow steps, 
 his head bent; I think I still hear his voice, 
 speaking low, lest the wind should carry his 
 words to the gaoler. The conversation turned 
 on a history of the Eoman emperors, by an 
 author whom Louis Bonaparte was praising 
 for having defended these tyrants, branded on 
 the shoulders for ever by Tacitus. According to 
 Louis Bonaparte, Tacitus was in the wrong. I 
 had not read the book which the prisoner admired 
 so much, but the motives of his admiration were 
 not far to seek. I combated it, and with a 
 vivacity that led him to say, " Speak low " ; and 
 turning, he pointed out to me a man wrapped in 
 a cloak, who was following us at a short distance 
 and never for an instant losing sight of us.' The 
 credibility of Tacitus as an historian has been often 
 debated since then, but never surely under quite 
 such curious circumstances. 
 
 That in after years Louis Blanc should give a 
 sinister tm-n to his recollections of him, mattered 
 little enough to Louis Napoleon. What was of 
 real importance and utility to him was the favour- 
 able impression he made upon his visitor at the 
 time itself For at this time Louis Blanc was 
 publishing a widely read history of France during 
 the first ten years of the Orleanist regime. This 
 history would in any case have been marked by 
 a hostility to Louis Philippe and his Government ; 
 
220 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. ix. 
 
 but to his intimacy with its author Louis Napoleon 
 owed a singularly sympathetic account of his own 
 first attempt to overthrow that Government. He 
 was described as 'generous, enterprising, an adept 
 in military exercise, elegant and haughty in his 
 uniform. There was not a braver officer or a 
 bolder rider. Although his features were mild 
 rather than energetic or commanding, although 
 there was a habitual languor in his look, full of 
 reverie, yet soldiers would doubtless have loved 
 him for his frank manners, for the candour of 
 his speech, for his size — diminutive, like that of 
 his uncle — and for the imperial light which the 
 passion of the moment would kindle in his blue 
 eye.' Such praise from such a source, even with 
 the qualifications which were added to it, was 
 worth more to Louis Napoleon than all Persigny's 
 whole-hearted eulogy. 
 
 Louis Blanc was not the only visitor who 
 published an accoimt of his experience. Towards 
 the end of 1845, an American friend, Henry Wikoff, 
 obtained with some difficulty permission to spend 
 four hours with Louis at Ham. He described him- 
 self as much shocked at the sad change which had 
 taken place in his appearance since he last met him 
 in London, five years ago or more. ' He had grown 
 much thinner, was very pale and sickly looking, and 
 his manner, how different from the gay martial air 
 he had worn in London ! . . . From his person my 
 glance wandered over the room, which surprised 
 me by its extreme rudeness. It was very small. 
 
1845] WIKOFPS ACCOUNT 221 
 
 the walls bare, and the floor without covering. . . , 
 The whole had very much the appearance of a 
 common kitchen in some unpretending private 
 house.' ^ The prince himself was violently affected 
 with rheumatism, but took his visitor out for the 
 little walk allotted him on the ramparts. ' All was 
 flat, monotonous, and cheerless. ... I never saw a 
 landscape so dreary and repulsive. . . . The gloom 
 of the surroimding objects was enhanced by the 
 humid air and cold shade which dwelt on all 
 around.' They returned to the prince's room before 
 his departure. At the end of the four hours 
 Wikoff took his leave. * As I reached the head of 
 the staircase,' he writes, ' I turned round instinc- 
 tively for a last look at the spot I had just quitted, 
 when to my surprise I found the prince had 
 followed me to the door, and was looking after me. 
 Nothing could have conveyed to my mind a keener 
 sense of the desolation into which he was relapsing 
 than this single act. His face and attitude both 
 bespoke the dreariness and melancholy which 
 surroimded him.' This picture may be a little too 
 
 ' Of this same room, Louis Blanc wrote that it was spacious, 
 well furnished, and provided with every domestic comfort. The 
 contradiction is perhaps just worth mentioning as typical of many, 
 even in points of fact, which face the biographer at every turn in the 
 evidence for Louis Napoleon's early life. Wikoff's account was 
 designed to discredit the Orleanist regime and to win sympathy for 
 his friend ; Louis Blanc in 1859 would have been willing even to 
 praise Louis Philippe, so that he could thereby discredit Louis 
 Napoleon. Through the courtesy of Commandant R^paloski I was 
 enabled to visit the room in question, which now serves as an officer's 
 bedroom. It is of respectable size, neither 'spacious' nor 'very 
 small,' some 16§ feet in length by 15 feet broad. 
 
222 A POLITICAL PRISONER [OH. IX. 
 
 highly coloured, but its main features seem true 
 enough. That his rooms were small and his life 
 monotonous, did not greatly trouble Louis. 'My 
 life passes here monotonously enough,' he wrote to 
 a friend in 1841, 'because the rigour of authority is 
 unbounded. Nevertheless I can not say that I 
 find myself bored, because I can create for myself 
 occupations which interest me.' As the years 
 passed on, this attitude changed a little; he was 
 growing weary of confinement, but still patient 
 under it. 'It is no personal ambition,' he wrote to 
 Vieillard in September 1843, ' which has made me 
 risk twice over what I prized more than life, my 
 reputation ; it is not the ambition to rule which has 
 prompted me to sacrifice once and again my private 
 affections, my fortune, my repose. It is a loftier 
 and more mysterious sentiment that has always led 
 me on and held me up. To have dared what I 
 have dared, to have endured what I have suffered, 
 there was need that I should feel in myself some- 
 thing of the martyr's faith which nothing can 
 destroy.' Later again, he half admits despondency. 
 ' There are in me two persons ; the man of politics, 
 and the private man. The political half of me is 
 and will remain absolutely unshaken ; but the 
 private man is very imhappy. Abandoned by all 
 the world, by old friends, by his family, by his very 
 father, he often lets himself give way to memories, 
 to regrets.' Once only, in the very considerable 
 amount of his correspondence during these years 
 which has by this time been made public, do we 
 
1845] ILL-HEALTH 223 
 
 find symptoms of despair. Of some suggested step 
 at the end of 1845 he wrote : ' Better a hundred 
 times death. Life holds no more attractions for 
 me. I had dreamed a great dream ; I thought I 
 could be useful to France, to humanity at large. I 
 saw outstretched before me a vast horizon, glowing 
 with that glory which leaves no regrets behind it. 
 I thought I should be able to ripen all that the 
 Emperor had sown on every side. And twice over 
 I have awoken behind bars.' More frequent in his 
 private letters are allusions to ill-health. In July 
 1843 he complains of headache every day for the 
 last four or five months. This, with rheumatism, 
 was his chief affliction. In May 1846 he writes of 
 pain in his eyes, which makes work impossible for 
 the time. Dilation of one pupil is the trouble, but 
 nothing very serious, he hopes. In the same letter 
 he adds : ' I have had bad news about my father. 
 Things go none too well with me either in mind or 
 body.' 
 
 The increasing ill-health of the prisoner was in 
 part owing to lack of regular exercise, a habit to 
 which he had long been addicted ; in part perhaps 
 it was due to the not very salubrious surroundings 
 of his prison. That the air was unwholesome seems 
 probable; for former prisoners at Ham had com- 
 plained of it bitterly.^ Perhaps, too, the extreme 
 
 ' U.g., M. de Peyronnet, ex-minister of Charles X, in a letter, 
 dated 28th Aug. 1831, published in La Quotidierme, speaks of Ham as 
 ' unhealthy and very badly situated. Half the day it is enveloped in 
 mist. The promenade consists of one end of the rampart, some sixty 
 yards in length, and just broad enough for two men to walk abreast. 
 From the foot of this rampart noisome vapours rise continually.' 
 
224 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. IX. 
 
 vigour with which he threw himself into his literary 
 work may have injured the prince's health. Gene- 
 rally rising very early, he at times stayed up all 
 night at his work. During the last three years of his 
 imprisonment he was busily engaged on a history 
 of artillery. On this book he spent more time and 
 trouble than on all the rest of the writings of his 
 imprisonment put together. The work was begun 
 without design, almost by accident. At the begin- 
 ning of 1842 he took up his old Manuel dIArtillerie, 
 to revise it for a new edition ; but it was not until 
 the spring of 1843 that he really began seriously to 
 work on it. In December he is still engaged on the 
 introduction, which he finds a work in itself. In 
 January 1844 he had decided to publish the intro- 
 duction as a separate work ; he believes it will be 
 a far more interesting one than the ManvM itself. 
 ' I believe that this work will make my military 
 reputation,' he added with naive simplicity. By 
 this time the design had expanded until it comprised 
 a complete history of the science of artillery from 
 the fourteenth century. During the next eighteen 
 months he continued to work on this subject with 
 extraordinary zeal and industry, almost without 
 intermission. Many hundreds of works on the 
 subject, by authors French, German, English and 
 Italian, were sent to him at Ham ; from the earliest 
 printed books to the latest pamphlet or periodical. 
 Tracings of drawings and copies of manuscripts 
 whose originals could not be sent were made for 
 him by an old friend of his childhood — Mme 
 
1844] A MILITARY TREATISE 225 
 
 Cornu. He corresponded also with many military 
 men on the subject ; but his published correspond- 
 ence with Mme Cornu alone for these two years is 
 most conclusive evidence of the extraordinary 
 assiduity with which he worked on this subject. 
 In December 1844, Leneveu, then a leading 
 military publisher in France, arranged to produce 
 the book. It was printed at the publisher's 
 expense, and the author was to receive half the 
 profits. These terms from such a publisher show 
 that by this time Louis Napoleon's writings com- 
 manded at any rate a respectable sale. Leneveu 
 also agreed to place his entire military library and 
 all his publications at the prince's disposal. This 
 concession was of importance to Louis, who had 
 already spent on military works sums larger than 
 his diminished fortune warranted. 
 
 Whether his iU-health was due to hard work, 
 long confinement, lack of exercise, or unhealthy 
 surroundings, it is clear that in the winter of 1845 
 Louis Napoleon began to wonder whether his 
 imprisonment had not continued long enough. 
 ' Nobody writes to me ; I am being forgotten,' he 
 wrote in February to one of his friends. Now to 
 be forgotten was the one fate he could not con- 
 template with resignation ; if his imprisonment 
 were really to have this effect it would cease to 
 serve his cause. So soon as he had come to this 
 conclusion, he set to work to raise the question of 
 his release. He sent a messenger to ask his friend 
 Lord Malmesbury to obtain leave to visit him. 
 
226 A POLITICAL PRISONER tcH. ix. 
 
 Malmesbury accordingly visited Louis Napoleon in 
 April, and it seems clear that he undertook to do 
 what he could in the matter. The prisoner himself 
 abstained from all appearance of interest in the 
 question. In the summer the Orleanist Govern- 
 ment sent to him an informal messenger in the 
 person of the Duke of Istria. The prince was 
 given to understand that a direct renunciation of 
 his rights to the throne, with a formal undertaking 
 to abstain from any hostile action against the 
 present dynasty, would suffice to procure his 
 liberation. Louis' reply, though conciliatory, was 
 in effect a refusal, and negotiations were dropped. 
 In the autumn Louis Philippe paid a visit to 
 England, and on his return all the Boulogne 
 conspirators who were still in captivity were 
 released, with the exception of Louis and his 
 companions. It now became evident that either 
 Lord Malmesbury had failed to influence the 
 English Government, or the English Government 
 had failed to influence Louis Philippe. Louis 
 Napoleon turned elsewhere. 
 
 Since his ill-advised letter of protest in the 
 autumn of 1840 against the Government's treat- 
 ment of its prisoner, the ex-King of Holland had 
 shown little sign of interest in his son's existence. 
 During this time he had been living in retirement 
 in Florence, in gradually failing health. Towards 
 the end of 1845 it became clear that he had not 
 long to live. Suddenly in August he despatched 
 a messenger— M. Poggioli— to Louis Philippe's 
 
1845] PROSPECTS OF RELEASE 227 
 
 ministers, asking that his son might be allowed 
 to visit him before he died. The request was 
 refused ; but the messenger was allowed to visit 
 the prince and inform him of his father's efforts 
 in his behalf Now it is possible that this was 
 really a sudden whim on the part of King Louis, 
 for the action would be quite in character with 
 the spasmodic interventions to which he was from 
 time to time prompted by his occasional fits of 
 interest in his son's affairs. But it is more 
 probable that the initiative in this instance came 
 from the son; that M. Poggioli was originally 
 commissioned by Louis Napoleon to sound his 
 father on the subject, and that the knowledge 
 of his approaching death made the latter readily 
 acquiesce in any steps which might render possible 
 a last meeting. Louis Napoleon, now as ever, 
 neglected no possible circumstance which could 
 be made to serve his political pm-pose. By putting 
 the plea for his release into his father's mouth, 
 he himself retained complete freedom of action. 
 More than that, by grounding the request on a 
 father's desire to see his only son before he 
 died, he rendered refusal on the part of Louis 
 Philippe difl&cult, ungracious, almost inhuman in 
 appearance. 
 
 Cleverly contrived, the situation was also 
 cleverly handled. Louis Napoleon wrote to his 
 father, thanking him heartily for this proof of 
 his attachment ; hitherto he said he had had 
 nothing for which he should even desire to leave 
 
228 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. IX. 
 
 his prison; now he would do all that in honour 
 he might do to render possible the fulfilment of 
 his father's wishes. This was in the middle of 
 September. Louis now waited for three months, 
 wishing to take no step in his own name until it 
 was quite clear that his father's efforts unaided 
 would prove ineffectual. In the interval, in 
 letters to his friends, he declared himself quite 
 passive in the matter. On Christmas Day, a date 
 not chosen accidentally, he at last wrote himself 
 to the Minister of the Interior. In a short letter, 
 in which no word was wasted, he stated his case. 
 His father's request had been refused ; the Govern- 
 ment insisted on a formal undertaking from 
 himself. His duty to his father demanded that 
 he should go as far as his honour would allow him 
 in the matter. 'I therefore declare to you, M. le 
 Ministre, that if the French G-overnment will 
 consent to permit me to go to Florence to fulfil 
 a sacred duty, I engage on my honom- to return 
 and constitute myself a prisoner as soon as the 
 Government may require me to do so.' The 
 Government's position was thus deftly turned. 
 The negotiations for the prince's release had been 
 unwelcome to them, but they realised the un- 
 popularity of a direct refusal. In seeking for 
 an engagement from Louis they had intended to 
 throw upon him the onus of that refusal. But 
 the engagement they intended was one by which 
 he should disclaim all dynastic rights or preten- 
 sions. The one he offered, while it seemed more 
 
1846] COURSE OF THE NEGOTIATIONS 229 
 
 ample, was really useless to them. For to claim 
 its fulfilment would have made a hero of the 
 reconstituted prisoner, and would load the Govern- 
 ment with unpopularity. The Government after 
 some delay replied indirectly that they could not 
 take the prince's demand into consideration; for 
 to grant it would be in effect to confer a free 
 pardon, for which the king would get no credit. 
 At the same time it was hinted to Louis that a 
 direct appeal to the king might have the desired 
 effect. On January- 14, 1846, Louis accordingly 
 wrote to the king. Though substantially the same 
 as its predecessor this letter was a little less curtly 
 worded. Without actually enlarging his engage- 
 ment, Louis added words which showed that he 
 should regard himself under an obligation if his 
 request were granted. 'I am convinced,' he 
 wrote, 'that your Majesty will appreciate as it 
 deserves a step which engages my gratitude 
 beforehand, and that touched by the isolation in 
 a foreign land of a man who on a throne won 
 the esteem of Europe, you will hear my father's 
 prayer and mine.' 
 
 Under cover of a scheme for the supervision 
 by him of a canal to be cut through Nicaragua, 
 Louis Napoleon even offered a further concession. 
 Indirectly, through Lord Londonderry, he under- 
 took, after spending a year with his father, to 
 proceed to America for this purpose. Apparently 
 the king's first impulse was to grant the request, 
 but his ministers persuaded him to hold out for 
 
230 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. IX. 
 
 more. Pardon must be deserved, they said, and 
 frankly acknowledged. A letter was drawn up by 
 the Minister of the Interior for Louis Napoleon's 
 signature; by signing this, he could go free, but 
 he would have plainly signed away his position 
 as a pretender. Now here Louis Philippe's 
 instinct was wiser than his ministers' wisdom. 
 Louis Napoleon was in fact playing with 
 the ministers of Louis Philippe, in exactly the 
 same way that Bismarck played with Louis 
 Napoleon's ministers some five-and-twenty years 
 later. In order that refusal might place his enemy 
 the more hopelessly in the wrong, he had gone 
 already to the very limit of honourable concession ; 
 he now abruptly refused to go a step farther. 
 His object had been attained. For Louis 
 Philippe's refusal lessened his own popularity, 
 and increased that of his prisoner. Opposition 
 deputies took up the prince's cause in the 
 Chamber; thirty-one members formed a deputa- 
 tion to ask the king for his release ; this failing, 
 they urged the prince to sign the ministers' letter, 
 and be free. To M. Barrot, his principal friend 
 among them, Louis wrote on February 2, 
 thanking them for their efforts on his behalf 
 'But,' he continued, 'I do not consider it con- 
 sistent with my duty to attach my name to the 
 letter of which you have sent me a copy. ... If I 
 signed, I should, in fact, really be asking for pardon 
 without avowing the fact ; I should take shelter 
 behind the request of my father ... I consider 
 
1846] KING'S GAMBIT DECLINED 231 
 
 such a course unworthy of me. If I thought it 
 consistent with my condition and honour merely 
 and simply to invoke the royal clemency, I would 
 write to the king, "Sire, I ask pardon."' His 
 private letters show that Louis was disappointed 
 that M. Barrot should have played into the hands 
 of the Government by advising him to sign. But 
 with the position as a whole he had no reason 
 to be dissatisfied. His name was once more in 
 men's mouths; his cause had been pleaded by 
 deputies of the French Chamber; members of 
 the English House of Lords had interceded on 
 his behalf. The journals of Paris and the pro- 
 vinces busied themselves again with the discussion 
 of his fate. Even if that fate were to be 
 imprisonment indefinitely continued, Louis need 
 have no immediate fear of being forgotten. As 
 a matter of fact he had no intention of allowing 
 his imprisonment to continue indefinitely. 
 
 Nothing now remains to be told of Louis 
 Napoleon's life in prison save his preparations 
 for the leaving of it. Here, then, we well 
 may pause for a moment to review the efiiects 
 of this long imprisonment on his future career 
 and character. 
 
 It is in the first place impossible to study in 
 any detail this period of his life without emerging 
 from that study with a greatly increased respect 
 for the prince's character. His untiring industry, 
 his unbroken confidence, his aptitude in making 
 the utmost use of every passing event, most of all 
 
232 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. ix. 
 
 his unquenchable faith in his own future — ^these 
 must impress even those to whom Strasburg 
 seemed a reckless adventure, and Boulogne a 
 very sorry fiasco indeed. In so far as the five 
 and a half years spent at Ham were beneficial to 
 the prince's reputation, they were beneficial also to 
 his future career. It has, we think, been too readily 
 assumed that the election of Louis Napoleon to 
 the presidency in 1848 was an absolute leap in the 
 dark, the mere surrender of a people in blind 
 obedience to a name. The motives of that election 
 were complicated enough, and we shall have to 
 examine them in their place. But here it may be 
 noted that by the spring of 1846 Louis Napoleon's 
 existence, his claims, and something of his fortunes 
 and his writings were known to all save the 
 absolutely illiterate of his fellow-countrymen. 
 Moreover it is clear that during the years of his 
 imprisonment Louis Napoleon was by some curious 
 subterranean process drawing to himself a real 
 following from among the lowest of the people. 
 Strasburg and Boulogne had attracted men's 
 attention to him, but it was Ham that won him 
 their sympathy. 
 
 For all this there was a price to be paid. 
 Never robust, the prince at the end of his 
 imprisonment found himself with sadly impaired 
 health. A few months in English watering-places 
 served to efface the immediate ill effects of his 
 sufferings. But some of the physical consequences 
 of his imprisonment proved lifelong ; among them a 
 
1846] RESULTS OF THE IMPRISONMENT 233 
 
 permanent tendency to acute rheumatism, which 
 predisposed him to that other dread disease by 
 which the last ten years of his life were so 
 fatally marred. 
 
 Another and not less unfortunate consequence 
 must be noted. Naturally meditative — almost 
 ruminative — in his process of thought, Louis 
 Napoleon emerged from Ham a confirmed visionary. 
 If in his later life we find at times a certain aloof- 
 ness from the actual, an indefinable remoteness fii-om 
 the realities of political life, we may confidently 
 assign as cause the long period of enforced seclusion 
 at Ham. A habit of mind to which he was 
 naturally prone was there fostered and encouraged. 
 For it was good for him then that he should be able 
 to subject the sordid present to a glorious future, 
 to blot out his prison walls by visions of his kingly 
 palace. But it was not good that when the great 
 future had become the actual present, when the 
 hermitage had really been exchanged for the 
 palace, then its master's mind should still be 
 groping forwards into a yet fiu-ther futurity. 
 Yet this was to become a mental obliquity 
 with Louis Napoleon. A well balanced mind, 
 that would hold in just equipoise the past and 
 future, must preserve its centre of gravity at 
 the present. With Louis Napoleon this centre 
 of gravity was permanently shifted towards the 
 future, to the prejudice at times of that present 
 on which the future depends. In the end the 
 result was disastrous. At Ham it had been the 
 
234 A POLITICAL PRISONER [CH. ix. 
 
 prince's consolation that he could project his vision 
 to the Tuileries ; at the Tuileries it was his undoing 
 that he should still be reaching forward to schemes 
 as far beyond his grasp as the palace of the 
 Tuileries itself had been distant from the prisoner 
 of Ham. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON REGAINS HIS LIBERTY 
 
 (1846 to December 1847. Aetat. 37-39.) 
 
 Nee tu . . . 'Kupijam-vincula/dicas: 
 Nam luctata canis nodum arripit, attamen illi 
 Cum fugit a coUo trahitur pars longa catense. 
 
 Peesius. 
 
 There are in the life of Louis Napoleon certain 
 incidents so grotesque in themselves, so fantastic 
 in their circumstances, that his biographer cannot 
 but feel some sort of apology to be due for their 
 narration in the sober history of a nineteenth- 
 century sovereign. Indeed, the reader who should 
 be confronted with the narrative in some detail 
 while still imfamiliar with its outline, might well 
 rub his eyes and wonder whether he had stumbled 
 unawares on some peculiarly impudent example of 
 pseudo-historical fiction. He need be under no 
 such apprehension. Few novelists would per- 
 petrate such wanton outrage on the probabilities ; 
 fewer still could with impunity make such 
 gratuitous demands upon the credulity of their 
 readers. It is the privilege of the historian that 
 he may at times tell a tale which would by its 
 extravagance destroy the reputation of the veriest 
 
 236 
 
236 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [CH. x. 
 
 master of romance. Only truth can afford utterly 
 to disregard verisimilitude. With this much of 
 extenuation for not a little of what has gone before, 
 and much that is to come, we proceed to recount 
 the manner in which Louis Napoleon took his 
 departure from Ham. 
 
 So soon as he has begun seriously to con- 
 template an early recovery of his liberty, Louis 
 foimd himself faced directly by what was prob- 
 ably the only difficulty hitherto unknown to 
 him — lack of funds. The large fortime he had 
 inherited from his mother had by this time dis- 
 appeared. His life in London had been an 
 extravagant one, the preparations for Boulogne 
 had been costly, and its consequences had been 
 financially disastrous. For Louis had felt himself 
 bound in honour to provide for all his followers 
 whose fortunes he had compromised : Strasburg and 
 Boulogne together had thus saddled him with a 
 large number of pensioners. Immediately after 
 Boulogne he had actually settled on many of them, 
 sums which would assure them from want ; his 
 natural generosity was stimulated in this instance 
 by a vague fear that his property, if not disposed of, 
 might be within the reach of the law. He had 
 retained for his personal use a sum which did 
 not greatly exceed his own private expenditure, 
 and the balance was quickly mortgaged for further 
 pensions. Not only was the Swiss property sold, 
 but certain claims of his upon the French Govern- 
 ment were turned into money for Montholon and 
 
1846] IN QUEST OF A LOAN 237 
 
 others of his friends. Sums borrowed in this way 
 had naturally to be heavily paid for in interest. 
 
 If, then, at the end of 1845 the prince had 
 money enough for his immediate necessities in 
 prison, he was without such funds as would enable 
 him to live at large in a style befitting a pretender. 
 One of the advantages of his position at Ham had 
 been the fact that while there his personal expendi- 
 ture could be cornparatively trifling. Indeed, as the 
 impoverished magnate when driven to retrenchment 
 conveniently cloaks his enforced frugality under the 
 guise of foreign travel, so a needy pretender, seek- 
 ing to economise without loss of caste, might do 
 worse than indulge in a term of political imprison- 
 ment. Better for him a dungeon than an attic. 
 
 Of this last fact Louis Napoleon was fully 
 aware. His first step, therefore, towards the 
 termination of his imprisonment, was to make 
 adequate preparation for his expenses as a free 
 man. A hundred and fifty thousand francs would, 
 he thought, enable him to emerge gracefully. He 
 at once took steps to procure this sum. Among 
 the friends who had recently been released was 
 Count Orsi. To him Louis now wrote, explaining 
 his necessity. Orsi appealed unsuccessfully to 
 several of the prince's English friends, and finally 
 turned to one who like Louis was 'a prince in 
 exile.' One of the few German princes who had 
 been driven from their thrones in 1830 was Charles 
 d'Este, the Duke of Brunswick, Although deprived 
 of his political position, this eccentric exile retained 
 
238 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [CH. X 
 
 a vast private fortune. Orsi sought an audience 
 from him, though without any great hope of success. 
 But Brunswick was probably not altogether 
 unprepared for some such appeal. For in the 
 summer of 1845 Louis Napoleon had already 
 conceived the idea of some scheme of co-opera- 
 tion between himself and the duke : among his 
 visitors at Ham at this time was a Mr G. T. 
 Smith, an agent of Brunswick's. In June he had 
 gravely drawn up in Smith's presence the rough 
 draft ^ of a treaty of alliance between himself and 
 this other dispossessed prince : by its terms, which- 
 ever of them should first return to power in his 
 own land was to assist to the best of his ability 
 the restoration of the other. After some hesita- 
 tion, Brunswick now agreed to Orsi's request, 
 undertaking to provide the sum required at 
 five per cent., on condition that, with the 
 bond, Louis should also sign this political treaty. 
 Immediately after the interview, which took place 
 at Brunswick House in London on December 1, 
 Orsi set out with Smith for Ham. As a 
 recently released prisoner himself, he had some 
 difficulty in obtaining permission to visit the 
 
 ' The opening sentences of this rough draft, with the Duke of 
 Brunswick's autograph corrections, are reproduced on the opposite 
 page. The duke's alterations are significant; notably his deletion 
 of Louis Napoleon's characteristic proposal for the union of all 
 Germany into one nation, to be governed under a sympathetic and 
 progressive constitution. Since Brunswick made no alterations in 
 the later clauses, I reproduce them, for greater clearness, not in 
 Louis' original draft, but in G. T. Smith's signed and attested copy of 
 it (p. 368 below). Both documents are now in the municipal archives 
 of Geneva. 
 
^ . > 
 
 
 ^V^9 
 
 
 Opening Clauses of Louis J^apoleon's Draft for 
 Treaty xvith the DuTce of Brunswick. 
 
 [To face ^. 238. 
 
1846] A TREATY OF ALLIANCE 239 
 
 prince; when after some delay the permission 
 was given, it was only for an interview in the 
 presence of the governor. Orsi introduced the 
 secretary as a collector anxious to purchase some 
 pictures belonging to the prince; under cover of 
 this little fiction, the bargain was accepted by 
 Louis Napoleon. In shaking hands with him at 
 the beginning of the interview, Orsi had smuggled 
 into his palm the bonds and the treaty itself, 
 written on satin. In the afternoon when the 
 visitors took their leave, the prince returned them 
 to Orsi in the same way, signed. Two days later they 
 were in London ; and the money was placed in the 
 hands of Louis Napoleon's bankers without delay. 
 
 If the end of January found the prince once 
 more in possession of means which would enable 
 him to live when he had regained his liberty, the 
 end of February saw the close of all prospects of 
 his immediate release. But Louis Napoleon had 
 now accustomed himself to the idea of an early 
 recovery of his freedom, and was convinced that 
 further imprisonment was not essential to his cause. 
 Many stories exist of opportunities of escape 
 preferred to Louis Napoleon during the course of 
 the first five years of his imprisonment : tales are 
 current of visitors who begged the prince to escape 
 in their clothes ; even of soldiers stationed at the 
 fortress, who, when the greater part of the garrison 
 were engaged on parade, ofiered to connive at his 
 escape. Severally, these stories rest on but indifferent 
 authority ; collectively, they amount to a presump- 
 
240 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [CH. X. 
 
 tion that had he so wished, the prince might have 
 attempted an escape long before he did, with 
 every prospect of success. In whatever form 
 the opportunity was offered to him, all accounts 
 agree that such offers were invariably met by 
 prompt and decisive refusal. 
 
 The fact was, that before the autumn of 1845 
 any attempt at evasion was morally impossible for 
 Louis Napoleon. As long as his co-mates of 
 Boulogne were his brothers in imprisonment, as 
 long as his own escape would have left his political 
 followers still undergoing punishment in his] cause, 
 so long was all thought of individual evasion out 
 of the question. For escape under such circum- 
 stances would have meant that he had achieved 
 by his own act after Boulogne the fate which was 
 inflicted on him despite his vehement protest 
 after Strasburg — the fate of being separated and 
 exempted from the misfortunes in which his 
 followers were involved. 
 
 But after November 1845 this barrier to Louis 
 Napoleon's escape ceased to exist. With the 
 exception of'.his own personal attendants, Conneau 
 and Montholon, all his fellow-prisoners were free. 
 And of the two who remained with him at Ham, 
 Conneau had already served his appointed term 
 of imprisonment, and now remained in confinement 
 at his own request, as a companion for the prince. 
 Montholon indeed had still three-quarters of his 
 nominal sentence in front of him; but it was 
 certain that any step which gave Louis his liberty 
 
1846] DIFFICULTIES OF ESCAPE 241 
 
 would also set the general free. Hence to Louis, 
 compunction for the fate of his fellow-prisoners 
 was now no longer a deterrent to his escape, but 
 an incentive to it. 
 
 Though the prince seems to have set on foot 
 negotiations for his own release as soon as ever it 
 was clear that * by doing so he would not be 
 deserting his companions, yet it was some time 
 later before he turned his attention to the possi- 
 bility of escape. He evidently regarded this step 
 as a last resource, only to be attempted if no 
 release should prove possible without the loss of 
 personal dignity or the abandonment of his political 
 designs. It was not until the beginning of May 
 1846 that he informed Dr Conneau of his intention 
 to adopt this extreme measure. The doctor used 
 every argument at his command — and they were 
 strong ones — to induce Louis to forgo his intention. 
 It was impossible to escape by night, for the 
 governor invariably called every evening ; generally 
 he stayed for a game of whist with his prisoners, 
 but always as he left he locked their doors upon 
 them, after personally satisfying himself that the 
 prince was in the building. It was inconceivable 
 that he should escape by day : the walls could not 
 be scaled ; the Gentries could not be passed ; his 
 gaoler could not be shaken off; the watchwords 
 which would enable him to pass the successive 
 doors were unknown to him. Even if he reached 
 the open he would be recaptured ; as for gaining 
 the frontier it was out of the question : if he did, 
 
242 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [CH. X. 
 
 he had no passport. Louis listened, but refused to 
 be persuaded. And it was left for Dr Conneau, 
 since he had failed to dissuade him from making 
 the attempt, to do his utmost to render the attempt 
 successful. 
 
 In the middle of May 1846 the Government 
 authorised in somewhat belated fashion the repair 
 of the staircase and other more dilapidated por- 
 tions of the prisoners' dwelling. On these repairs 
 a gang of workmen was employed for about ten days. 
 Louis determined to attempt an escape, disguised 
 as one of them.^ For some days the prince and 
 the doctor watched the workmen, carefully study- 
 ing their costumes, their behaviour, and most of 
 
 ' It has been contended that the escape of Louis Napoleon from 
 Ham was connived at by the prison authorities, and deliberately 
 sanctioned by the French Government. No evidence is forthcoming in 
 support of a theory which by its inherent improbability demands the 
 most unimpeachable testimony to render it credible. The French 
 Government had just refused to liberate Louis Napoleon, although 
 by releasing him they would have performed an act of graceful and 
 most politic clemency ; although by such an act they would have 
 placed Louis under an obvious obligation ; although by this means 
 they might actually have obtained from him an undertaking to 
 depart from Europe. It is hardly credible that immediately after- 
 wards this same Government should have liberated Louis in the one 
 way of all others which denied their action all appearance of grace, 
 and relieved their prisoner from aU semblance of obligation ; in the 
 one way of all others which would advertise not the generosity of 
 Louis Philippe, but the hardihood and ingenuity of Louis Napoleon. 
 And it is almost inconceivable that with the sole object of keeping 
 up an illusion ideally advantageous to the pretender and ideally 
 disparaging to themselves, the French Government should afterwards 
 have solemnly tried and condemned to terms of imprisonment men 
 who were in effect their own accomplices. 
 
 The nearest approach to evidence in favour of this rather pre- 
 posterous contention occurs in Fraser's Napoleon III My HecollecUom. 
 Sir William Fraser states that Louis Napoleon once told a friend of 
 his, that Louis Philippe had given him ten days in which to escape 
 
1846] A POSSIBLE DISGUISE 243 
 
 all the manner in which they entered and left the 
 fortress. The result was not encouraging. The 
 men were made to pass in single file before the 
 two sentinels at the gateway, and closely examined 
 as they passed both morning and evening. Then 
 the prisoners noticed that occasionally in the course 
 of a day, a single workman would leave the castle 
 carrying away old timber ; in this case he seemed 
 to undergo no such methodical scrutiny. This, 
 then, must be the manner in which the prince should 
 attempt his own departure. The time was easily 
 chosen. It must be after the arrival of the work- 
 men, and before the hour of the governor's rising ; 
 in other words, between six and eight in the 
 
 from Ham; whence the author deduces that the escape was 
 sanctioned by the king. This fragment of second-hand gossip could 
 in no case rank as good evidence. As a matter of fact, in this 
 instance there is no necessity to assume a misquotation; a 
 misunderstanding will suffice. Louis Philippe's Government had sent 
 a body of workmen to the prison for ten days ; during those ten 
 days only was escape possible for the prisoner. Alluding to these 
 notorious facts — probably after having himself made mention of 
 them— Louis Napoleon may easily, in a conversational account of 
 his escape, have so far over-rated his companion's intelligence as to 
 make use of the elliptical expression, ' Louis Philippe had given me 
 ten days in which to make good my escape.' 
 
 Against the contention must be set aU published evidence, and 
 every recorded utterance of every person who had anything to do 
 with the flight. It is perhaps just worth while to add, that in the 
 contemporary correspondence of the English diplomatic agents in 
 France I find no hint of doubt as to the bond fide character of the 
 escape ; nor could I discover at Ham itself any tradition questioning 
 its genuineness. 
 
 The editors of The Letters of Queen Victoria are responsible for 
 the statement that Louis Napoleon's escape from Ham was 
 ' undoubtedly connived at by the authorities ' ; had it not thus 
 received the sanction of a wide publicity in a work deservedly 
 regarded as authoritative, there would have been no necessity to 
 allude to a theory so entirely destitute of proof or probability. 
 
244 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [CH. x. 
 
 morning. That there was any interval at all 
 between the two events was due to the fact that 
 Demarle himself was suffering from an attack of 
 the rheumatism, so prevalent at Ham. Usually he 
 rose at dawn. It only remained to choose the day. 
 Here again the prince's choice was based on close 
 observation of the habits of his gaolers. Two 
 warders were always posted as sentinels at the 
 doorway of the prisoner's building. But Louis had 
 noticed that on Saturday morning one of them 
 was regularly sent to fetch the weekly newspapers, 
 and that the errand involved his absence from his 
 post for about a quarter of an hour; during that 
 quarter of an hour the risk of detection on the very 
 threshold of his prison would be halved for the 
 prince. The day and the hour no less than the 
 manner of his attempted escape were thus clearly 
 indicated. All was arranged for the morning of 
 Saturday, May 23. Louis now proceeded to inform 
 Thehn, his valet, of his design, and sent him to buy 
 workman's clothes for his disguise. The clothes 
 arrived looking impossibly new; but after having 
 been soaked in water, dried, and carefully soiled, 
 they seemed to promise an effective means of escape. 
 But Louis' designs did not altogether escape 
 the perverse miscarriage to which the best laid 
 plans of prisoners and princes are liable. On the 
 eve of his projected escape, the governor told him 
 that he would be glad to hear that two English 
 friends, whose visit he had long been expecting, had 
 at last obtained permission to come and see him ; 
 
1846] UNWELCOME VISITORS 245 
 
 they would visit him on Saturday, the 23rd. 
 Never had host been more anxious to reply, ' Not at 
 home,' and never would that reply have been more 
 absolutely sincere. But what would in fact have 
 been a particularly honest answer must from a 
 prisoner have seemed a peculiarly impudent fiction. 
 No excuse was possible which would not have 
 aroused the governor's suspicions, so Louis had 
 perforce to postpone his other engagement. 
 
 The prince succeeded in turning the unwelcome 
 visit to some slight advantage, for he obtained 
 from his English friends the passport of one of 
 their servants, on the plea that he wished to des- 
 patch Thelin on an errand to Belgium. But this 
 seemed but a small compensation for the delay, 
 for the work was rapidly drawing to a conclusion ; in- 
 deed, in order to insure that something should be left 
 to be done on the Monday, the prince gave orders 
 for some special repairs to be done at his own expense. 
 
 Sunday passed slowly enough. On that day 
 Louis wrote a letter for General Montholon. 
 The general was confined to his bed, also by 
 rheumatism. Louis explained that he had told 
 him nothing, wishing to screen him from punishment 
 at the Government's hands : as it was, he hoped that 
 his own escape would lead to the general's imme- 
 diate release. It did; but the general was little 
 pleased that he had not been consulted in the matter ; 
 the letter was only given to him after the prince's 
 escape was known. Another letter was also written. 
 A small room on the ground floor of the building 
 
246 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [oh. X. 
 
 was used as a chapel ; on the morning of the 25th 
 the curd from Ham was coming to say Mass there 
 for the prisoners ; and following his usual custom 
 he would breakfast with them afterwards. Louis 
 had grown greatly attached to this simple parish 
 priest. 'When I am emperor,' he told him shortly 
 before the end of his imprisonment, ' I will make 
 you a bishop.' And bishop he made him a few 
 years later, as well as High Almoner to his court 
 at the Tuileries. Now, instead of cancelling his 
 engagement in advance, Louis wrote a letter which 
 was only to be given him on his arrival. In it 
 he pleaded sudden indisposition, and asked him to 
 come instead on the following morning. With 
 this, all preparations were complete. 
 
 On the 25th, Conneau, Thelin, and Louis 
 Napoleon arose at daybreak. Listening anxiously, 
 and peering stealthily into the courtyard, they heard 
 the drawbridge let down and saw the workmen 
 enter between two files of soldiers a little after five 
 o'clock. It was a glorious morning, but for a 
 moment it seemed that the attempt might have to 
 be again postponed. For the conspirators noticed 
 that the one soldier who of all others had been 
 remarkable for the close scrutiny to which he 
 subjected all passers-by was now stationed at the 
 gate. To their great relief, he was taken off duty 
 at six o'clock. Louis Napoleon now hurried into 
 his disguise — a coarse shirt, blue trousers, a blue 
 blouse, and a workman's apron. It was at once 
 evident that the soiling process had been slightly 
 
1846] DISGUISE 247 
 
 overdone. As the escape had been planned for 
 Saturday, a week's accumulation of dirt had been 
 allowed for ; actually it was Monday morning, and 
 the workmen's clothes were in consequence compara- 
 tively clean. But though the disguise was not quite 
 successful in simulating the workman, it was 
 completely successful in dissimulating the prince. 
 Thick wooden clogs added a couple of inches to 
 his height ; a dash of rouge lent colour to his pale 
 cheeks; a long, flowing wig fell over his ears; a 
 peasant's hat covered his head. In his pocket he 
 carried his mother's farewell letter to him, as well 
 as the one written to her by the Emperor on his 
 birth. These were talismans which had been 
 soaked in the salt water of Boulogne while the 
 National Gi^ard were firing at him into the sea : 
 they should go with him now on this yet more 
 risky adventure, even if they added somewhat to 
 the risk of detection on the frontier. A little after 
 seven the decisive step was taken : the prince 
 shaved off his thick moustache and whiskers. Now 
 he had burned his boats. After this there could 
 be no turning back. And as he gazed on his 
 altered appearance in the glass, Louis Napoleon 
 may have fingered that other talisman which he had 
 slipped into his blouse — a short dagger, with which 
 he could make an end in case of need. He had 
 made up his mind that he would regard a third 
 failm-e as final ; and he had decided to make sure 
 that if failure it were, final it should be. It was 
 by this time nearly a quarter past seven. Th^lin 
 
248 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [CH. X. 
 
 strolled out of the room into the passage, where 
 the workmen were busy on the stairway. It was 
 a fine morning, and— would they like a drink ? It 
 was a grand morning, and they would be delighted 
 to drink with him. All trooped downstairs to a 
 room on the ground floor. Here Thelin produced 
 liquor enough for his purpose. Then he slipped 
 out, hastened up to his master, and told him that 
 the moment was come. Louis shouldered a short 
 plank which he had in readiness — it had been one 
 of the rough shelves on which he kept his books — 
 and putting a clay pipe in his mouth stepped out 
 into the passage. He was hardly out of the door 
 when a stray workman accosted him, taking him 
 for a companion. Without answering, he walked 
 down the passage. Thelin kept just in front of 
 him, carrying 'Ham,' his master's pet dog. To- 
 gether they went down the stairs ; then Thelin 
 hurried forward to the doorway, where the two 
 warders were posted. The valet at once engaged 
 one of them in conversation, telling him that his 
 master was ill : he contrived that in speaking to 
 him the sentinel should turn his back to the door. 
 Louis then marched out, his face screened by the 
 plank from the other warder. Through nervous- 
 ness or clumsiness — for he was a mere cigarette- 
 smoker — he let fall his pipe as he was walking 
 across the square ; he had presence of mind 
 enough, however, to stop ruefully in the article 
 of his flight, and carefully collect the broken 
 pieces. He passed the officer on guard, who was 
 
1846] ESCAPE 249 
 
 reading a letter. On the opposite side of the 
 square was standing the director of the works, 
 who knew all the workmen by sight; but Louis 
 passed him also unmolested. Reaching the door- 
 way, he gruffly asked leave to pass. The soldiers 
 at the wicket — especially a certain drummer — 
 looked curiously at this peculiar workman, who 
 wore clogs on a fine day; then they turned to 
 look at the yet more peculiar antics of Thelin and 
 the dog Ham. Meanwhile the wicket - keeper 
 opened the gate. On the drawbridge Louis passed 
 another official ; the sentinel on the other side let 
 him pass without hesitation. The prince was no 
 longer a prisoner; but he was not yet out of 
 danger. He had hardly passed the gate when 
 he saw two workmen coming towards him. He 
 held his plank before his face as he passed them, 
 and heard them say, ' Oh, it's Bertron.' After that 
 all went well. Louis walked slowly on ; Thelin 
 hurried forward, passed him without seeming to 
 recognise him, and then ran towards the town. 
 There he took a cab which he had engaged the 
 night before, arranging to drive it himself. Without 
 himself passing through the town, Louis now 
 hastened as fast as plank and clogs would allow 
 him along the main road towards St Quentin. A 
 cemetery on the outskirts of the town, about a 
 mile and a half from the fortress, was the point 
 arranged for his meeting with Thelin. On reaching 
 it, Louis fell on his knees before a cross in the 
 graveyard and thanked God for his deliverance. 
 
250 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [oh. x. 
 
 He had good cause, for, as he afterwards main- 
 tained, liberty that day meant to him no less than 
 life. Indeed it may possibly have meant even more. 
 Fatalist that he was, it is probable that he accepted 
 it as an earnest of greater success in the future. 
 
 Thelin did not keep his master waiting long. 
 Leaving his plank and clogs in a field, Louis jumped 
 into the cab ; and together they drove off at full 
 speed to St Quentin. On the way he got out and 
 hid part of his disguise in a ditch. At the entrance 
 of the town Thelin left him ; Louis walked through 
 the town and followed the road to Valenciennes. 
 His servant meanwhile hired a post-chaise, and after 
 a short delay overtook the prince. By hard driving, 
 and obtaining fresh horses on the way, they reached 
 Valenciennes at two o'clock in the afternoon. At 
 the station an oflBcial demanded passports, but a 
 glance at the one which Louis had borrowed served 
 to satisfy him. The train to Brussels did not leave 
 till four. For two anxious hours the fugitives had 
 to wait at the station, doing nothing. If their 
 flight had been observed, an express from Ham 
 might yet prove fatal. Their serving-man that 
 morning had chanced to be late in bringing their 
 coffee and rolls ; would he not think it strange that 
 Thdlin should have gone out without waiting for 
 himi These anxieties were not lessened by the 
 fact that Thelin was recognised by one of the 
 railway officials, who had formerly been a policeman 
 at Ham. The man would not be shaken off, and 
 Louis had to listen to a long conversation, in which 
 
1846] IMPERSONATION 251 
 
 Thelin was asked for news about his master. At 
 last the train came in. The two fugitives entered 
 it, crossed the frontier without mishap, and so 
 reached Brussels. Louis did not even have to show 
 his passport at the frontier. Without delay they 
 took train again for Ostend, and sailed for England. 
 The fugitives owed it to Dr Conneau that their 
 flight had remained undisturbed; for inside the 
 fortress of Ham, while postilion and railway 
 carriage were speeding them out of danger, the 
 doctor was playing with extraordinary zest a 
 comedy which might have strayed straight out of 
 the Middle Ages. As soon as he had seen from his 
 window that the prince was safely out of the 
 courtyard, Conneau returned at once to the prince's 
 rooms. Shutting the bedroom door, he lit a huge 
 fire in the sitting-room, set a kettle to boil on it, 
 and littered the room with sickroom paraphernalia. 
 A little after eight the servant announced that the 
 priest had arrived. Ah, yes; Conneau had 
 forgotten; but in any case he feared the prince 
 was not well enough to come down this morning. 
 Still he would ask him. He went into the 
 bedroom, and after a short interval returned with 
 the letter. He bade the servant take it to the 
 governor, who sent it on to the priest. After 
 breakfast the governor sent to ask if he might see 
 the prince. Conneau went himself with the 
 invalid's excuses, explaining the nature of his 
 illness. The governor had only wished to tell his 
 prisoner that permission had arrived for another 
 
252 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [CH. X. 
 
 visitor to come and see him shortly. Conneau 
 imdertook to deliver the message. He had sent 
 the warder already for castor oil. Someone had to 
 be ill, so on his return the devoted doctor 
 swallowed the remedy himself. This heroic 
 measure failing, he proceeded to make some very 
 realistic arrangements, by the admixture of some 
 chemicals from the laboratory with those uneaten 
 breakfasts about which the fugitives were so 
 needlessly perturbed. At noon, when the room 
 was in a sufficiently unsavoury condition, Conneau 
 summoned Laplace, the warder who acted as 
 servant to the prisoners, and bade him tidy it and 
 make the prince's bed ; he must make as much 
 haste and as little noise as he could, for the prince 
 needed rest, and must not be kept up a moment 
 longer than was absolutely necessary. While 
 Laplace was thus engaged, the doctor went to 
 and fro into the prince's sitting-room, conversing 
 with his patient in sickroom tones for the warder's 
 edification. Laplace was duly impressed, and 
 conveyed his impressions to the governor when the 
 latter shortly afterwards asked him how he found 
 the prisoner. Meanwhile, as soon as the warder 
 had done his work and was gone, Conneau dressed 
 up a dummy which he had ready, and placed it in 
 the bed with its face to the wall. Then he covered 
 its head with a handkerchief which the prince used 
 to wear when he slept. At one Demarle returned. 
 Conneau met him on the stairs. The prince was 
 easier, but extremely tired ; still he would go and 
 
1846] DISCOVERY 253 
 
 ask him if he would like to see the governor. He 
 went in and asked the dummy, and returned with 
 the prince's apologies ; he was afraid he was still 
 too unwell to see anyone. The governor retired, 
 and did not return until a quarter past seven. Ill 
 or well, he must see the prince now, he said, as he 
 had his report to make. Conneau opened the 
 door into the bedroom, and called to the prince, 
 but the figure did not answer. Then he tiptoed 
 out mysteriously, saying, ' Hush, he's asleep.' The 
 governor went in and glanced at the figure, and 
 came out into the sitting-room. He would wait ; 
 the prince could not sleep for ever. And he sat 
 down. After waiting a while, and asking where 
 Thelin was, he began to grow impatient. The 
 evening drum beat. Demarle started up, saying he 
 was sure the prince was awake, he had heard him 
 move. Eegardless of the doctor's protest, he stole 
 towards the bed, listened for a moment, and said, 
 ' Why, he is not breathing ? ' Then he took hold of 
 the dummy and shook it. 'The prince has 
 escaped!' 'Mais oui,' smiled the doctor. And 
 the farce was over. Demarle went out to order 
 the drawbridge to be raised, thus locking the 
 stable door very securely. Conneau was hand- 
 cuffed, taken to Peronne, tried, and condemned in 
 July to three months' imprisonment, amid signs of 
 popular sympathy. At the same time, the French 
 Government had the satisfaction of hearing that 
 Thelin was condemned in his absence to six 
 months' imprisonment. It would have been an 
 
254 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [oh. X. 
 
 equally harmless and gratifying proceeding to have 
 sentenced Louis himself to be shot for his own 
 share in the escape. 
 
 For on the day after that escape, master and 
 man alike had arrived safely in London. Here 
 they were received with unmistakable friendliness. 
 A certain amount of sympathy had been expressed 
 for the prince in England, when the French Govern- 
 ment refused to allow him to visit his father. 
 Now everyone was pleased at the cleverly contrived 
 escape. 'The testimonies of interest I receive 
 here are quite touching,' Louis wrote to a friend, 
 a few weeks after his landing. But public interest 
 in his doings soon subsided ; indeed his popularity 
 in 1846 was an even more short-lived affair than 
 that with which he had been welcomed in 1838. 
 
 He did not greatly concern himself with the 
 nature of his reception in England; for his first 
 step on arriving there was to attempt to proceed 
 to his father at Florence. Two days after his 
 arrival he wrote to the French ambassador, 
 volunteering the statement that his intentions 
 were pacific ; he wrote also in the same sense to 
 the English minister of Foreign Affairs. In part, 
 this statement was, no doubt, intended to mitigate 
 Conneau's punishment and to ensure Montholon's 
 release. But probably it was also connected with 
 the prince's renewed efforts to visit his father. 
 Either it would facilitate that visit, or it would 
 render more ungracious any intervention on the 
 part of the French Government to prevent it. 
 
1846] DEATH OF HIS FATHER 255 
 
 That Government did, in fact, intervene; the 
 Grand Duke of Tuscany refused to allow Louis 
 to spend even a day in his territories, stating that 
 his refusal vras necessitated by a proper deference 
 to the vpishes of France. The Austrian ambas- 
 sador declined to use his good offices. The prince 
 even wrote to Metternich, but he obtained no 
 answer. Under similar circumstances, nine years 
 before, he had employed false passports and 
 travelled in disguise to his mother's deathbed. 
 But then he had been sure of a safe retreat at 
 his journey's end. And his affection for his 
 mother was naturally a stronger incentive than 
 any filial feeling towards the father who had 
 interested himself so little in his son's affairs. 
 None the less, Louis' private letters seem to 
 show that the desire to visit his father before he 
 died was a genuine one. It remained unfulfilled. 
 For, on July 23, King Louis of Holland followed 
 King Joseph of Spain; and from a world which 
 had long ceased to remember their existence 
 passed silently another of those curious and rather 
 pathetic relics of the Napoleonic regime — the 
 Emperor's brothers. 
 
 On his arrival in England, the prince had fltmg 
 himself with some zest into the xmwonted pleasures 
 of social life ; dining with his old friends, and visit- 
 ing the opera, though he no longer retained a box 
 for his own use. But after his father's death he 
 affected for a while to live in retirement. In the 
 beginning of August, the book on which he had 
 
256 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [OH. X. 
 
 laboured so hard for the last three years was 
 pubhshed in Paris — the first volume of his History 
 of Artillery. The prince was well pleased with 
 it and its reception ; but as a matter of fact, it did 
 not render him any service at all proportionate to 
 the time he had spent upon it. His slight essay 
 on the Extinction of Pauperism, written in about 
 a twentieth of the time, and with perhaps a 
 hundredth part of its acquaintance with its subject, 
 was infinitely more useful to its author from 
 a political point of view. Louis intended at the 
 time to work on a farther volume of the history 
 in the following winter, though he admitted that 
 his health might unfit him for hard work for some 
 time to come. For some little time after his 
 escape his eye troubled him a good deal, and 
 had to be subjected to medical treatment. His 
 general health was also far from good. In the 
 middle of August he went to Bath, with which 
 he was much pleased. The surrounding country 
 he pronoimced the finest in England, and it was 
 not until the autumn that he returned to London, 
 greatly refreshed by his visit. At Bath, Louis was 
 joined by his cousin, Prince Napoleon, son of the 
 Emperor's sole surviving brother, King Jerome. 
 Eesembling the Emperor in a marked degree in 
 feature and expression, this prince had, like the rest 
 of his family, refrained from giving any help or 
 encouragement to Louis in his efforts on behalf of 
 the imperial cause. Unlike them, he was to live 
 to reap the full benefit of his cousin's achievement. 
 
1846] PRINCE NAPOLEON 257 
 
 In a letter to his friend Vieillard, three months 
 later, Louis describes his impression of his cousin, 
 whom he had thus met for the first time since 
 1835. 'The chief fault I find with him— if a 
 natural defect may be called a fault— is the im- 
 intelligible nature of his character, sometimes 
 frank, loyal, and open, at other times constrained 
 and dissimulating. At one moment his heart 
 seems to speak of glory, to suffer and sympathise 
 with you for all that is great and generous; at 
 another it is empty, arid, deceitful. As long as 
 I have no positive proof of evil, I make it my 
 practice to beheve good of a man; so, while I 
 remain on my guard, I allow firee play to my 
 impulses of friendliness or affection.' Louis 
 Napoleon was very slow indeed in this case to 
 accept positive proofs of disloyalty, intrigue, and 
 ingratitude; to the end of his reign he remained 
 a singularly generous friend to his rather un- 
 gracious cousin. 
 
 The first public act of the prince upon his 
 retm-n to London was the result of a revival of 
 the old libel that he had promised the French 
 Government after Strasburg that he would remain 
 in perpetual exile in America. Hitherto this 
 story had served its purpose in French ministerial 
 journals; now it had been incorporated by M. 
 Capefigue into a History of Europe since the 
 Accession of Louis Philippe. Louis Napoleon 
 at once published a letter to the author, indig- 
 nantly repudiating the assertion. He referred his 
 
 R 
 
258 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [oh. x. 
 
 correspondent to the admission of the public 
 prosecutor in the course of his trial in 1840; 
 he reminded him that had his promise been such a 
 fragile thing, the Government would have been less 
 anxious to secure it while he was at Ham, and he 
 himself would have been more ready to give it. 
 ' Condemn my policy, distort my actions, falsify my 
 motives, if you will. I shall not complain ; you do 
 but use your right of judgment. But I allow no 
 one to impugn my good faith, which, thank God, 
 I have known how to keep intact amid so many 
 cruel trials.' If this seem a proud boast from the 
 lips of Louis Napoleon, it must be remembered 
 that when it was uttered it was luiquestionably 
 true. 
 
 The winter of 1846 did not, after all, witness a 
 return on the part of Louis to his military studies ; 
 perhaps he realised that he had undertaken in his 
 History of Artillery a task too heavy for him. 
 In any case he could place to the credit of his 
 first volume his election in December 1846 as an 
 honorary member to the Army and Navy Club, a 
 compliment which he highly appreciated. At the 
 beginning of February 1847 the prince moved into 
 a small house, newly built, in King Street, off St 
 James's Square, where he remained until he left 
 England. Though conveniently situated, it was a 
 much more modest abode than his residence in 
 Carlton Terrace, his home during his last sojom-n 
 in England. Indeed, the rent of three hundred 
 pounds a year which he paid for it seems to have 
 
1847] EXTRAVAGANCE 259 
 
 been excessive. In this house he collected his books, 
 his family portraits — all his valuables which, to use 
 his own phrase, had escaped the shipwreck. 
 Although in that shipwreck the whole of his 
 mother's fortune had been swallowed up, yet the 
 death of his father left Louis in possession of a 
 respectable estate, which with prudent management 
 would have placed him again beyond the reach of 
 financial difficulties. But Louis was never prudent 
 in the matter of expenditure, and not all the 
 watchfulness of his foster-brother Bure, who 
 managed his estate, could keep his affairs free from 
 financial entanglements. 
 
 The year 1847 was the last year of the prince's 
 life as an exiled pretender. Yet at no time 
 since his first appearance in that role did he 
 evince so little interest in his own political pros- 
 pects. Although he did not abandon his designs, 
 he seems, on the eve of their fulfilment, for the 
 first time to have postponed his hopes of 
 putting them into effect. Perhaps he felt that it 
 would be wise to allow some years to elapse before 
 his next coup; possibly he thought that even a 
 political pretender deserves an occasional holiday. 
 Whatever his motive, there is no doubt about his 
 course of action. Six months of liberty had 
 restored him to good health ; while a decent 
 interval had by this time elapsed since his father's 
 death. . With the beginning of the year, therefore, 
 Louis flung himself joyously into a round of 
 pleasures ; as though eager in one London season 
 
260 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [CH. x. 
 
 to avenge himself for the enforced seclusion of six 
 years' imprisonment. Hardly a hermit at Ham, he 
 was altogether a Lothario in London. One result 
 of these amusements was a great increase in his 
 personal expenditure. His political expenses did 
 not decrease; if there were no publications to 
 support now, there were still pensioners in plenty ; 
 thus Conneau on his arrival in London was 
 presented with a practice which had cost nine 
 hundred pounds. But to these necessary expenses 
 were now added large sums spent by the prince on 
 his amusements; his himting expenses were con- 
 siderable, while his losses on the turf alone in this 
 year were out of all proportion to his means. 
 Finding himself short of ready money, he borrowed 
 recklessly; though it was only in 1848, and then 
 for political reasons, that he finally mortgaged his 
 paternal estate. Indeed, an apologist who wished 
 at all cost to vindicate Louis Napoleon's prophetic 
 instinct, even in the light of his conduct in 1847, 
 would have to ground his defence on the very 
 extravagance of that conduct. As though aware 
 that this was the last year in which he would be 
 dependent on his private means, as though conscious 
 that never again could his amusements be those of 
 an irresponsible t^juTi??, he proceeded gaily to exhaust 
 the one in giving full rein to the other. 
 
 Among other tokens of comparative indifiference 
 to his political prospects at this period must be 
 set a marked propensity to matrimony. During 
 these two years Louis Napoleon is credited with 
 
1847] IN QUEST OF A WIFE 261 
 
 more than one attempt to find an English bride. 
 He is reported to have wooed successfully a Miss 
 Howies, whose parents lived at Chislehurst; at 
 the last moment the engagement was broken off", 
 owing to her discovery of the nature of his relations 
 with Miss Howard. The prince is also said to have 
 proposed to a Miss Seymour, who subsequently 
 married an English nobleman. More interesting is 
 the report which makes him a suitor for the hand of 
 Miss Burdett, the future Baroness Burdett-Coutts. 
 Such an alliance would have been eminently in 
 keeping with the Orleanist regime; but nothing 
 more incongruous with the actual tradition of the 
 Second Empire could well be imagined. 
 
 There is a touch of extravagance even in the 
 political ideas of the prince during this year. In 
 the later years of his captivity at Ham, he had 
 interested himself in a fantastic project for the 
 junction under his auspices of the Atlantic and 
 Pacific oceans by means of a canal cut through the 
 Nicaraguan lakes. Certain informal negotiations 
 on the subject had passed between him and the 
 Nicaraguan minister for the Netherlands. At the 
 time the scheme had its value to the prince, since 
 it might serve as a pretext for facilitating his 
 release. Under cover of it he was even able to 
 justify to his followers the imdertaking which he 
 offered to the French Government, that he would if 
 released proceed to America after a year spent in 
 Florence with his father. But now in the summer 
 of 1847 Louis returned to the scheme. He 
 
262 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [CH. X. 
 
 published a pamphlet on the subject, the greater 
 part of which had been written at Ham. In the 
 pamphlet he strongly advocated the claims of 
 Nicaragua, as opposed to the Isthmus of Panama, 
 to be the route of an inter-oceanic canal. He even 
 proposed to form a company in England, and to 
 attempt to raise capital to the amount of four 
 million pounds. The canal was to be called the 
 Canale Napoleone de Nicaragua. In Nicaragua 
 itself, where there was nothing to be lost and 
 possibly much to be gained by the scheme, there 
 was naturally some feeling in its favotu". But the 
 English business men and capitalists whom Louis 
 consulted were less enthusiastic. As the year 1847 
 advanced his own interest in it declined ; with the 
 events of 1848 the whole scheme was thrown to 
 the winds. Among the remoter might-have-beens 
 of history we may conceive Louis Napoleon 
 President of a Central American Republic, leader 
 of a latter-day Darien scheme, foretaster of the 
 unhappy fate which befell M. de Lesseps in a 
 similar undertaking. 
 
 But this Nicaraguan scheme possesses also an 
 actual historical significance ; for it unquestionably 
 served to predispose its author in favour of his own 
 disastrous intervention in American affairs. The 
 Mexican project, as we shall show hereafter, was 
 an earlier and more fundamental feature in the 
 diplomacy of the Second Empire than has hitherto 
 been supposed. In this connexion it may sufl&ce 
 here to point out that if for the two years 
 
1847] THE NICARAGUAN CANAL 263 
 
 which immediately preceded his return to France 
 Louis Napoleon's mind was largely occupied with 
 a possible millennium in Central America, within 
 two and a half years of his assumption of the 
 imperial title we find the Mexican scheme com- 
 pletely formulated and definitely advocated by the 
 foreign ministers of Napoleon III. 
 
 A smaller and more fortunate consequence of his 
 interest in this project may be seen in the contin- 
 uous support which Louis Napoleon gave to the 
 authors of the Suez Canal, support which was of real 
 value in the face of international jealousies which 
 threatened indefinitely to postpone the undertaking. 
 
 It has been suggested that the prince's con- 
 tinued attempts to obtain permission to visit his 
 father after his escape from Ham were merely 
 made for the sake of appearances ; that he thought 
 it politic to maintain a decent show of interest in 
 an event on which he had grounded negotiations for 
 his release. By an extension of the same argument 
 it would be possible to discover the same motive, 
 and no other, in his recurrence to the Nicaraguan 
 scheme in 1847. Either conjecture would appear 
 to be an over-subtle gloss upon the facts. In 
 history, if not elsewhere, the simpler reading is 
 often to be preferred; and we shall probably be 
 safe in seeing in the Nicaraguan idea merely 
 another sign that in the year 1847 Louis Napoleon 
 had no great expectation of an immediate return 
 to his own country. 
 
 Amid much that was fantastic in his policy and 
 
264 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [CH. x. 
 
 impolitic in his action during this year, it is quite a 
 relief to discover a stray letter of the prince's to 
 the editor of the Times, secretly communicating 
 to him some item of news from France, the 
 publication of which in England might benefit his 
 political position.^ The letter is of interest as 
 showing that, in spite of appearances to the con- 
 trary, Louis had not really lost sight in 1847 of his 
 interests as a pretender to the French throne. For 
 this is a case where generalisation is permissible ; 
 this single letter shows pretty clearly that Louis 
 was paying attention to the English Press and 
 watching the course of events in France. It has a 
 more particular significance in connexion with 
 Louis Napoleon's relations with the English press, 
 since it shows that he had already as an exiled 
 pretender formed the habit of sending secret com- 
 munications to the Times — a practice which he 
 was to continue on a more important scale as 
 Emperor of the French. 
 
 In the autumn of 1847 occurred the last event 
 under the Orleanist regime which gave Louis 
 Napoleon occasion to advertise his rights and his 
 wrongs. In his will the Count de St Leu had 
 desired that his body might rest in the village near 
 
 1 ' 3A King Street, 
 ' St James's Square, 1847. 
 
 ' J'envoie k M. le E^dacteur du Times un extrait d'une lettre 
 assez int&essante que j'ai regue de Paris. II peut la publier si eUe 
 lui convient, mais je le prie de laisser toujours ignorer la source de 
 cette communication. — NAPOLiioH Louis Bonaparte.' 
 
 Brit. Mus. Addl. MSS. 22,723, f. 31. 
 
1847] THE LAST POSE 265 
 
 Paris, whose name he had borne for forty years, 
 the place he 'liked better than any other in the 
 world.' His eldest son, who had died in infancy, 
 was already buried there. The king's last request 
 was that the body of his second son, the boy who 
 had died in Italy, should be brought back with his 
 own to the same resting-place. After a year's 
 delay the Orleanist Government gave its consent. 
 
 On September 29, 1847, father and son returned 
 together to St Leu : a guard of honour composed 
 of veteran soldiers of the imperial army attended 
 the ceremony. In October Louis Napoleon wrote 
 to thank the officer who had commanded them for 
 this ' act of homage and of reparation,' an act which 
 had * softened his own bitter grief at his inability 
 to kneel before the family tomb, and for a moment 
 had even made him forget that he was condemned 
 to be separated, apparently for ever, from the men 
 he loved best and the objects he most cherished.' 
 
 It was characteristic of Louis Napoleon that 
 he should thus turn the last rites of his nearest 
 relatives into an occasion for calling attention to 
 his own existence. For, throughout his career as 
 pretender he had held nothing too sacred, as he 
 had held nothing too trivial, to be pressed into 
 the service of his cause. The death of his mother 
 had excused his reappearance in Europe, when 
 Louis Philippe's clemency after Strasburg might 
 otherwise have seemed to impose on him a moral 
 obligation to remain in America. The translation 
 of his uncle's body to Paris was the signal for his 
 
266 LOUIS REGAINS HIS LIBERTY [CH. X. 
 
 landing at Boulogne. The death of his father 
 furnished him with an occasion for justifying his 
 escape from Ham. There can be little doubt that 
 on all these occasions Louis Napoleon was perfectly 
 sincere in the emotions which he expressed, but it 
 would be pressing coincidence a little far to contend 
 that the several services which resulted from them 
 to his cause were altogether accidental. 
 
 The funeral ceremony at St Leu and Louis' 
 comment upon it form then a not unfitting close to 
 one stage of his career. The curtain falls on Louis 
 Napoleon gazing forlornly towards France, where 
 the dust of all his dead is now foregathered; on 
 Louis Napoleon characteristically careful to utilize 
 the event by making it the occasion of a discourse 
 on his own position. Even the wording of his 
 comment on this occasion is appropriate in its 
 perversity. In 1840, on the eve of his most abject 
 failiire, the pretender had been prodigal of his 
 invitations to the Tuileries. It was not therefore 
 altogether unfitting that the same dramatic irony 
 should rule his last utterance in 1847 ; that on the 
 threshold of his amazing success he should be 
 engaged in bewailing a fate which condemned him 
 to be separated 'apparently for ever' from all 
 he held most dear. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP 
 
 {Jan. to Sept. 1848. Aetat. 39-40.) 
 
 ' Se tu segui tua stella 
 Non puoi fallire a glorioso porto.' 
 
 Dante. 
 
 If Louis Napoleon had never been less confident 
 of success than in the year 1847, it is probable 
 that at no time since the beginning of his reign had 
 Louis Philippe felt more secure in the possession 
 of his throne. For the first ten years of that reign 
 he had maintained his position visibly on sufferance, 
 at the mercy of the first fortuitous combination of 
 the perils by which he was daily assailed. Per- 
 petual embarrassments abroad, universal unrest at 
 home, risings in the capital, riots in the provincial 
 towns, insurrections in the army, tumults in the 
 Chambers, sedition in the Press — all these to the 
 accompaniment of plots without end for the 
 assassination of his own person — such were the 
 diflBculties which, albeit by many an unkingly shift, 
 Louis Philippe had managed for ten years to 
 suppress, or at any rate to survive. His ministers 
 had been less fortunate. Although his government 
 
 267 
 
268 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [CH. xi. 
 
 was ever more clearly becoming a personal rule, 
 the king fully realised the value of ministers, as 
 lightning-conductors. In this capacity they served 
 him well, but had frequently to be replaced : some 
 twenty changes of ministry were necessitated by 
 the storms of these early years. The crisis of the 
 reign was reached in the year 1840. A more than 
 usually gross affront had been placed upon France 
 by a combination of the Great Powers. The country 
 was on the very verge of war : Thiers as prime 
 minister declared that no other solution was 
 possible. The intervention of the king led to his 
 dismissal and the preservation of peace. And now 
 Louis Philippe found the minister who was to give 
 him comparative peace in the later years of his 
 reign. From 1840 to 1848, under the administration 
 of Guizot, France experienced — it would be too much 
 to say, enjoyed — a period of stable government. 
 Hitherto Louis Philippe had alternately sacrificed 
 popular ministers to the resentment of foreign 
 powers, and peaceable ministers to their unpopularity 
 vnth the Parisian mob. Now the compromise was 
 over. Henceforth the monarchy of July was 
 frankly reactionary at home, frankly pacific abroad. 
 Guizot's foreign policy compared favourably with 
 that of his numerous predecessors. Realising 
 always, as some of them had not, that in the last 
 resort Louis Philippe would insist on submission, 
 he at least saved France from the humiliation of 
 retreating at the last moment under compulsion 
 from untenable positions. For he was generally 
 
1847] GUIZOT 269 
 
 careful to avoid the beginnings of strife. One 
 exception he made, in the case of the Spanish 
 marriages. He has been accused in this instance 
 of sacrificing a national alliance to a dynastic 
 intrigue, and certainly the incident was not very 
 creditable to French diplomacy. But English 
 writers have exaggerated its importance as a 
 contributory cause to the overthrow of the 
 monarchy. As a matter of fact, France as a 
 whole was heartily tired of an alliance in which 
 she played so very secondary a part, for which she 
 paid so much and received so little in return. 
 Even the comparative failure of the intrigue was 
 largely outweighed by the pleasure of having for 
 once 'scored off' England, after so many submis- 
 sions to Palmerston's rather dictatorial direction. 
 
 It was no question of foreign policy which 
 caused the fall of the July monarchy. Nor was it 
 even the tardy outbreak of internal discontent 
 which directly brought about its overthrow. An 
 accident had set Louis Philippe on the throne, and 
 another accident was to remove him from it. In 
 saying this we do not mean to imply that the 
 revolution of February, in ridding France of the 
 July monarchy, did violence to the country's will. 
 If it was an accident which led to Louis Philippe's 
 fall at that moment, it was an essential weakness 
 which made him hold his throne at the mercy of 
 an accident. Only, it was this weakness of his own 
 hold on the country, rather than the strength of 
 the country in withstanding him, that brought about 
 
270 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [CH. xi. 
 
 his sudden collapse. The agitations of the first 
 part of his reign had apparently subsided. Epigram 
 and caricature had taken the place of mutiny and 
 insurrection. Socialist propaganda spread itself 
 abroad, but bread riots were a thing of the past. 
 Superficially the calm was unbroken : Guizot and 
 his rather mechanical majority proceeded quietly 
 on their way. Guizot was indeed a parliamentarian 
 rather than a statesman. To the country at large 
 he made no appeal, but he was careful to retain 
 the suffrages of the wealthier bourgeois, the "pays 
 legal.' By methods and with results not wholly 
 unlike those attending Walpole's administration of 
 affairs in England, he saw to it that his hold on 
 the parliamentary majority was maintained. He 
 availed himself to the full of those subtler forms of 
 bribery and intimidation, by which to this day, in 
 countries without genuine and instinctive capacity 
 for representative government, an existing adminis- 
 tration, by the mere fact that it is in power when it 
 goes to the polls, can render certain its return to 
 power. In a period of considerable material pros- 
 perity, when there were canals to be dug and railways 
 to be laid in every direction, each constituency knew 
 well that it must return a supporter of the existing 
 Government, if it would secure for itself its share 
 of the Government's favours. Once elected, the 
 management of the deputies was an even simpler 
 matter; for over one-third of them were paid 
 functionaries of the crown. In fine, Guizot was a 
 past-master of that art which in all ages has 
 
1847] THE REFORM BANQUETS 271 
 
 enabled political rulers to secure a calm while they 
 prepare a storm — the art of rendering legally^ 
 impregnable a morally indefensible position. 
 
 Despairing of any reform from a Chamber which 
 stood itself in such sore need of reform, the con- 
 stitutional opposition in the summer vacation of 
 1847 began to air their grievances at a series 
 of ' Reform Banquets ' held in the provincial towns. 
 The substance of their demands was the extension 
 of the franchise and the exclusion from the 
 Chamber of paid officials. Whether these demands 
 were really backed by an effective popular opinion 
 may perhaps be doubted; but in any case, the 
 method of drawing attention to them proved 
 unexpectedly successful. For the political banquet, 
 destined to become the tamest of public functions^ 
 was in its origin a formidable method of agitation. 
 
 As the autumn of 1847 wore on, the anti- 
 dynastic opposition proceeded to adopt, for their 
 own more drastic purpose, a device by which the 
 constitutional opposition had only sought a tardy 
 return to office. Still the Government remained 
 unmoved. But when, after the Chamber had re- 
 assembled, a great Reform Banquet was announced 
 to take place in Paris itself, Guizot at length 
 intervened and forbade it to be held. The opposi- 
 tion deputies protested, but decided to comply with 
 the Government's order. The 22nd of February, 
 the day appointed for the banquet, dawned quietly 
 enough. But in the morning, curious or hostile 
 crowds began to gather in the streets; some 
 
272 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [CH. XI. 
 
 scufifling with the police ensued ; only the appear- 
 ance of troops served by nightfall to restore the 
 semblance of order. As the morning of the 23rd 
 found the rising still smouldering, the Government 
 called out the National Guard. To their dismay 
 they found that it joined in the anti-ministerial 
 outcry. Alarmed at last, the king dismissed 
 Guizot. Paris seemed satisfied; illuminations 
 appeared in the boulevards. Only in the lower 
 quarters of the town did the announcement fail 
 in its effect. From the east end a hostile mob 
 marched to Guizot's residence, intent at any rate 
 on breaking his windows for him. A guard had 
 been set; upon provocation it fired. Some thirty 
 persons were killed, and all chance of conciliation 
 was at an end. The victims of the massacre were 
 carted round Paris; by the morning of the 24th 
 the rising was a budding revolution. Still the 
 regulars were loyal, and might if resolutely 
 employed have saved the situation. But their 
 efforts were paralysed by the hesitation of those 
 in authority ; a futile alternation between force and 
 concession irritated without alarming the populace 
 of Paris. 
 
 Easily discouraged, anxious for his great estates, 
 incapable by this time of resolute action or of 
 quick decision, Louis Philippe was not the man 
 to deal with such a situation as this. He abdicated 
 in favour of his grandson, and sought safety in 
 flight. The grandson's claims were brushed aside ; 
 a mob invaded the Chambers; a provisional govern- 
 
 I I 
 
1848] THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 273 
 
 ment was proposed ; the nominees of an opposition 
 newspaper were installed, to the acclamation of the 
 mob. Meanwhile at the H6tel de Ville the staff 
 of another and more violently republican news- 
 paper had by a similar process instituted another 
 provisional government, composed of more extreme 
 men. After looking askance at each other for a 
 moment, the two governments coalesced; and 
 from this fortuitous conjunction of a couple of 
 newspaper-staffs was born the Provisional Govern- 
 ment of the Second Eepublic. On February 
 25 this Government of orators and journalists 
 proclaimed the principle of the 'right to work'; 
 on the 26th they decreed the immediate estab- 
 lishment of national workshops, laying up for 
 themselves a rich store of troubles for the 
 future. On the 27th, Louis Napoleon arrived in 
 Paris. 
 
 The prince was in London when the tidings 
 of the revolution reached England. If he had 
 little foreseen so sudden a ripening of all 
 his hopes, he had, at least, no hesitation in 
 attempting to pluck the fruit. In 1830 a great 
 chance had in his opinion been lost to the imperial, 
 cause by the failure of any single member of his 
 family to present himself boldly in the capital. 
 This mistake should not be repeated. Before Louis 
 Philippe, a fugitive in disguise, had succeeded in 
 setting foot on English soil, Louis Napoleon, an 
 expectant pretender, was already on his way to 
 Paris. On February 28 the Provisional Govern- 
 
274 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [oh. xi. 
 
 ment received a short letter from him, announcing 
 that he had hastened from his exile to place 
 himself under the flag of the newly proclaimed 
 republic. The Government at once requested 
 him to leave the country — thus acknowledging 
 that the flag in question was not yet very firmly 
 planted. Louis replied in another little letter 
 (February 29) : ' I thought, gentlemen,' he wrote, 
 ' that after thirty -three years of exile and persecu- 
 tion, I had at length the right to find a home in 
 my native land. You think that my presence in 
 Paris at this time would be an embarrassment; 
 I therefore retire for the moment. You will see 
 in this sacrifice the purity of my intentions and 
 of my patriotism.' And within the week he was 
 back in London again, far from dissatisfied with 
 the result of his excursion. In requesting his 
 departm-e from France the Provisional Government 
 had recognised and enhanced his personal import- 
 ance; in his ready compliance with their wishes 
 he had accepted with good grace a part which 
 became him well; ih his phrase declaring his 
 departure to be but for the moment he safeguarded 
 his freedom of action for the future, and hinted 
 alike to friend and foe that they had not done with 
 him yet. 
 
 He was well out of Paris for the time. Many 
 reputations were to perish there in the mad 
 miscellany of the next few months. The Pro- 
 visional Government had ordained that a National 
 Convention, elected by universal sufirage, shoiald 
 
1848] THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 275 
 
 be assembled on March 5. Much would depend 
 on the result of that election. The liberals 
 dreaded the republic they had unintentionally 
 created ; the republicans dreaded still more the 
 socialist mob which was for the moment all 
 powerful in Paris. The socialists themselves 
 dreaded most of all the verdict of the people 
 whose champions they professed to be. For this 
 reason they forced the Provisional Government 
 to postpone the elections until April 23, in 
 order, as they frankly confessed, to give them a 
 chance of converting the electors. Although by 
 this means they prolonged their immediate dictator- 
 ship in Paris, they only enhanced the magnitude 
 of their electoral defeat. For every day which 
 passed rendered it more certain that the majority 
 would be opposed to socialism, more doubtful 
 whether it would even be tolerant of a republic. 
 The majority of the Assembly which met in April 
 was, in fact, mildly republican; but while the 
 socialists were an insignificant minority the repre- 
 sentatives of reaction were collectively a powerful 
 body, though for the moment they were divided 
 as to the form of reaction which they would 
 favour. 
 
 Louis Napoleon was urged by many of his 
 well-wishers to stand as a candidate at this general 
 election, but after some consideration he decided 
 to remain in the background a little longer. On 
 March 12 he sent Persigny over to Paris to 
 consult Odilon Barrot, his parliamentary champion 
 
276 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [CH. xi. 
 
 while he was at Ham, as to the course he should 
 pursue in the matter. Apparently the advice 
 was for abstention, for, a week later, Louis 
 made known in very characteristic fashion the 
 fact that he was not standing. He sent another 
 of his confidential communications to the Editor 
 of the Times : — 
 
 ' King Steeet, 
 ' March Wth, 184S. 
 
 ' Sir,^ 
 
 'Will you be kind enough to contradict 
 the report of my intention to become a candidate 
 for a seat in the National Assembly of France. 
 Believe me, yom-s, 
 
 ' Napoleon Louis Bonaparte. 
 
 ' I wish you would contradict the report without 
 publishing this letter.' 
 
 The postscript is typical of the care taken by 
 Louis during these months to conceal his tracks. 
 In this effort he was very successful ; to this day 
 many of his movements at this time remain obscure. 
 It was during these months and for his political 
 designs that he realised the remnant of his paternal 
 estate ; but there is no doubt that he added to the 
 amoimt available for his purpose by borrowing 
 from his English friends. He endeavovired, but 
 without success, to obtain a further loan from the 
 Duke of Brunswick ; with strange short-sightedness 
 the duke refused to advance any more money to 
 
 ' Brit. Mus. Addl. MSS. 22,723, f. 32. Endorsed by the Editor, 
 ' Not to be soUed or defaced.' 
 
1848] A CHAMPION OF ORDER 277 
 
 the prince. Louis Napoleon angrily declared that 
 he should regard this refusal as being in effect a 
 breach of the understanding between them; nor 
 was he ever afterwards reconciled to his eccentric 
 ally. Indeed the duke was almost the only one of 
 Louis Napoleon's early benefactors who had reason 
 to complain of being shabbily treated by him after 
 his accession to power. The debt itself was repaid 
 without doubt, and it is not perhaps to be wondered 
 at that Louis never found himself in a position to 
 restore such a very impossible potentate to his 
 German dominions. But there was no sufficient 
 reason for his refusal in after years to receive the 
 duke at the imperial court, or to make such slight 
 show of interest in his political prospects as might 
 have served to satisfy his client. 
 
 The prince's one public act at this time — his last 
 public act as an exile — was one of great boldness 
 and discernment. In general, if there is one thing 
 more than another which pleases a Parisian 
 revolutionary, it is that the inhabitants of surround- 
 ing states should pay la grande nation the com- 
 pliment of imitation whenever in its greater 
 enlightenment it sees that the time has come for 
 the final destruction of monarchical tyranny. In 
 1848 that compliment had been largely rendered ; 
 even in England a perceptible reflection of the 
 French revolution was seen in the revival of the 
 Chartist movement. Though not really formidable, 
 this movement was greatly feared at the time ; in 
 London large numbers of private citizens were 
 
278 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [ca XI. 
 
 enrolled as special constables to assist in the pre- 
 servation of order. Louis Napoleon enrolled him- 
 self in this force, and acted as special constable on 
 April 10, the day on which the great Chartist 
 petition was presented to Parliament.^ A man with 
 an eye only for the obvious would never in his 
 position have acted as he did then. Apparently 
 dependent on the good-will of the Parisian populace, 
 he had gone out of his way to display his hostility 
 to one of those sympathetic movements so dear 
 to the heart of the revolutionary propagandists. 
 
 In reality his act was only the first of many 
 which showed his singular insight into the desires 
 of the mute mass of the French people, as opposed 
 to the noisy Parisian mob. For though they had 
 not yet shown their desire, the French people were 
 
 ' M. Lebey (Strashowg et Boulogne, p. 265), folio-wing several 
 other French authorities, throws doubt on this fact, suggesting that 
 whUe he enrolled himself as a special constable, the prince never 
 actually served in this capacity. The fact is really beyond dispute : 
 I have been assured of it by several persons who had their informa- 
 tion from different eye-witnesses of Louis Napoleon on the occasion 
 of the great Chartist demonstration. One such reminiscence may 
 suffice, in proof of a fact which has been needlessly called in question. 
 Among Louis Napoleon's acquaintances in London was Mr Putnam, 
 the American publisher, father of the present head of the house, from 
 whom I had the story. Strolling out on to London Bridge to see 
 what was going forward on the critical 10th of April, Mr Putnam weis 
 surprised to meet Louis, armed and accoutred as a special constable. 
 ' Et que diable fait Monsieur Napoleon dans cette galere ? ' laughed 
 his friend. ' Sir,' said Louis Napoleon impressively, ' the peace of 
 London must be preserved.' At this time, of course, almost every 
 capital on the Continent was in the hands of the mob. M. Lebey is 
 evidently a little at sea on the whole question, for he explains that it 
 was habitual in London for men of the highest social position to act 
 as a kind of amateur detectives, ' a sort of secret national guard ' ; a 
 habit which the author very naturally characterises as ' one of the 
 most singular customs of London life,' 
 
1848] TWO LETTERS 279 
 
 by this time more anxious to restrain the antics of 
 their revolutionaries at home than to encourage the 
 hopes of their imitators abroad. 
 
 As in February Louis had been careful to show 
 the Provisional Government that his return to exile 
 was to be regarded as a concession and not a 
 surrender, so now he made it known in more 
 unmistakable terms that his refusal to come for- 
 ward at the general election did not in any way 
 imply a permanent withdrawal from political affairs. 
 Had he stood, he wrote on May 11, in an open 
 letter to one of his friends, his antecedents would 
 have made him against his will the man to whom 
 all the dissatisfied would seek as leader. But 
 'if France had need of me,' he continued, 'if my 
 part were clearly traced, I should not hesitate to 
 override all secondary considerations in order to 
 fulfil my duty. . . . Meanwhile voluntary exile is 
 pleasant, just because I know it is_ voluntary.' 
 Louis had, in fact, during these months, two scarcely 
 reconcilable objects in view. It was necessary 
 that he should give the people an occasional lead, 
 and allow them clearly to understand that there 
 was no height which he was not prepared to 
 venture, if they would follow him. But it was 
 also necessary that the Assembly should be propiti- 
 ated, the Assembly which might consign him again 
 to exile, or at any rate exclude him from political life. 
 On May 24 he wrote another letter, this time to the 
 president of the Assembly, protesting against the 
 maintenance of the law of banishment against him. 
 
280 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [oh. xi. 
 
 How had he deserved it? By declaring that 
 France was not the appanage of any man, family, 
 or party ? By his sufferings at the hands of the 
 Government which the Republic had overthrown ? 
 By his deference to the Provisional Government in 
 February ? By his disinterested refusal to come 
 forward in April ? It was in championship of uni- 
 versal suffrage that he had attacked Louis Philippe ; 
 the same cause would ensure his services to the 
 Assembly should they be required. ' In the presence 
 of a king elected by two hundred deputies, I could 
 remember that I was the heir of an empire founded 
 by four million Frenchmen. In the presence of the 
 national sovereignty, I can and will claim only my 
 rights as a French citizen.' These two letters are 
 typical of Louis Napoleon's cleverness in dealing 
 with the situation ; it is noteworthy that even the 
 letter intended for the people contained a phrase 
 which would soothe the Assembly, while even the 
 letter intended to propitiate the Assembly con- 
 tained an allusion designed to appeal to the people. 
 So far, the people had not expressed their 
 approbation, and the Assembly for that reason did 
 not as yet take the prince's utterances very seriously. 
 For the time it was still the socialists who were 
 the most formidable opponents of the Government, 
 Bitterly disappointed by the results of the general 
 election, the party of disorder declared that they 
 would not recognise the Assembly. On the 15th 
 of May they attempted to dissolve it by force, and 
 to create a new provisional government at the 
 
1848] THE NATIONAL WORKSHOPS 281 
 
 Hotel de Ville. By the aid of the National Guard 
 the Convention triumphed : but though some of the 
 most dangerous of its opponents were arrested, the 
 Assembly itself lost prestige by its feeble action on 
 this occasion. Everyone knew that a much more 
 formidable situation remained to be dealt with — the 
 dissolution of the national workshops — and every- 
 one feared that a government which had faced so 
 feebly the smaller crisis would be utterly helpless 
 before the gigantic problem which still remained 
 unsolved. 
 
 Early in March the national workshops devised 
 by the Provisional Government had been opened in 
 Paris. Some 6000 men were employed, and paid 
 two francs a day. At first there was some attempt 
 at supervision and restriction ; and the work done 
 was not altogether useless, though utterly unprofit- 
 able at the price paid for it. But the numbers 
 grew fast ; restrictions became unworkable ; even 
 the semblance of productive labour could not be 
 found. By the middle of March there were 14,000 
 men employed ; at the end of the month, 40,000 ; 
 by the middle of April, 66,000. All pretence of 
 finding useful employment for this vast host was 
 now dropped. They were set to work to dig out 
 the Champ de Mars, and when they had dug it out 
 they had the satisfaction of filling it up again. 
 Even so, they could not all be occupied ; they were 
 employed first every other day, then twice a week, 
 and at last at still rarer intervals. That they 
 might not starve in the streets, a pension of a 
 
282 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [oH. xi. 
 
 franc a day was allowed on the days in which they 
 were unemployed. And now from all France, 
 every day and by every road, there poured into 
 Paris a stream of vagabonds, and worse. Already, 
 as the supervision grew lax, the proportion of 
 genuine workmen honestly working had become 
 an infinitesimal minority. But if two francs a 
 day for doing useless work badly had been an 
 attraction, a franc a day for doing nothing at all 
 was an absolute irresistible allurement. By the 
 end of May an army of over 100,000 malcontents 
 was in the heart of Paris, armed, angry, menacing. 
 The Government hesitated to take a step which 
 must lead to civil war ; yet every day that passed 
 aggravated the evil, while it increased the ruinous 
 waste of public money. 
 
 In helpless impotence the Executive Commission 
 regarded its own monstrous handiwork, appalled 
 like Frankenstein before the enormity he had 
 himself created. Although in the face of this 
 crisis all other dangers paled to comparative 
 insignificance, yet the Eepublicans realised that 
 neither the Legitimist nor the Orleanist parties 
 were foes to be despised. Alone among their 
 possible antagonists they deemed unworthy of 
 serious notice the man and the name under whose 
 power they were so soon to fall. Although Louis 
 himself was not an original member of the Assembly, 
 two of his cousins, as well as a son of Murat, had 
 taken their seats in it without opposition. The 
 Bourbons had passed, and the Orleanists in 1832 
 
1848] LOUIS ELECTED DEPUTY 283 
 
 had reafl&rmed, a law under which all members of 
 the House of Bonaparte were banished from France. 
 That law remained unrepealed. But so harmless and 
 incapable of mischief did these three representa- 
 tives appear, that no one had protested against their 
 election. With a view to making regular their 
 position, the repeal of the law of exile was ten- 
 tatively discussed within a few days of the first 
 meeting of the Assembly ; on the 2nd of June its 
 abrogation was formally proposed by M. Pietri. 
 The proposal was favourably considered, and the 
 discussion of it was adjourned for a week. But 
 before that week had passed events had occurred 
 which turned the subject of an academic debate 
 into a question of vital importance. Louis Napoleon 
 had broken cover. 
 
 It was while Paris was endeavouring to summon 
 up courage to deal with the terrible monster in its 
 midst, that the first supplementary elections were 
 held, to fill the numerous vacancies which expulsion, 
 resignation, or double election had already created 
 in the new Assembly. At the last moment, Louis 
 withdrew the veto which he had previously placed 
 on the putting forward of his name. The result 
 was startling to those who had but a superficial 
 acquaintance with his past career, and no under- 
 standing of the real hold which that career had taken 
 on the popular imagination. On June 4 in spite, it 
 would seem, of considerable official pressure, four 
 of the twenty -three departments vacant elected as 
 their representative Louis Napoleon. After this, 
 
284 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [CH. xi. 
 
 events happened quickly. Portraits of Louis, 
 labelled 'Lui' spread themselves abroad with 
 strange rapidity ; from this time the prince became 
 ' the man ' to myriads of French voters. On the 10th 
 of June two Bonapartist newspapers appeared; 
 another followed on the 11th, another on the 12th, 
 and two more before the end of the week. Selling 
 themselves for a sou to any who would buy them, 
 giving themselves away to those who would not, 
 often changing their names, but always flaunting 
 the portrait and praising the character of Louis 
 Napoleon, these irresponsible auxiliaries were of no 
 small service to him. On the same 10th of June, 
 a report reached the Assembly that a regiment at 
 Troyes had refused to cheer the Republic, and had 
 instead raised the cry, ' Vive Napoleon ! ' Answering 
 a question on the subject in the Assembly, Gen. 
 Cavaignac, the Minister of War, hinted at steps 
 against Louis Napoleon. On the 11th, it was 
 reported that other regiments had shown the same 
 spirit ; on the 12th, despatches from Boulogne 
 announced that Laity and Persigny had arrived 
 from London and were making for Paris. 
 
 The National Assembly now realised that they 
 were faced by a fresh danger of unknown dimensions. 
 Had any of its members been inclined to doubt the 
 reports of Bonapartist feeling, the evidence of their 
 own senses must have convinced them of its reality. 
 For some days past cries for Louis Napoleon had 
 been heard on the boulevards ; and on the 12th, 
 the day appointed for consideration of his fate, 
 
1848] ORDER FOR LOUIS' ARREST 285 
 
 large crowds gathered to give voice to their feeling 
 in his favour ; it was thought necessary to surround 
 the Chambers with a strong force of the National 
 Guard. 
 
 Within the House a curious scene was enacted. 
 The Government announced that, on the strength of 
 the still unrepealed law, they had issued instructions 
 to the prefects of every department to arrest Louis 
 Bonaparte should he set foot on French soil. A 
 small vote of supplies required for current expenses 
 became in effect a repudiation or a confirmation of 
 this course of action. Lamartine was put up by the 
 Government to defend its deed. Generally he held 
 the House spell-bound with his eloquence. To-day 
 his magnificent rhetoric fell flat ; his speech seemed 
 to miss fire; its conclusion was marked by an 
 unaccustomed absence of applause. But in an 
 interval after he had spoken, reports reached the 
 House that the Bonapartist crowd without was still 
 swelling; that three shots had been fired on 
 ofiicers of the Guard, to the sound of cries of ' Vive 
 I'Empereur ! ' Lamartine strode back to the tribune : 
 'under his handling the incident became a portent, 
 the Assembly was swept away, the orator received 
 a great ovation. The vote of credit was passed by 
 an overwhelming majority ; and on the strength of 
 it the Government issued warrants for the arrest of 
 Laity and Persigny, as well as of their leader. 
 
 But the warrants were never put into force. 
 For, by an action typical of its time and of its 
 character, the Assembly was to reverse on the 13th 
 
286 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [CH. xi. 
 
 its decision of the 12th. Before any newly elected 
 member could take his seat, his right to do so had 
 to be confirmed by an examining body. It had 
 fallen to the republican Jules Favre to report on 
 Louis Napoleon's election. At the opening of the 
 debate on the I3th he rose to maintain that the 
 election ought to hold good. He quoted against 
 the Government's present action, a statement made 
 by one of its members on June 2, that the reten- 
 tion of the law of exile against Napoleon's house 
 would be a national disgrace. Since they had 
 taken no steps against Louis Napoleon as a 
 candidate, the Government could not now con- 
 sistently deny him his rights as an elected member. 
 Admitted to the Assembly, he would be a simple 
 citizen ; debarred from it, he would by this act of 
 ostracism be forced to reassume his position as a 
 pretender — a pretendership on which the votes of 
 some hundreds of thousands of his fellow-country- 
 men would have conferred a sort of legitimacy. In 
 vain the Government attempted by reasoned argu- 
 ment to maintain the ground which it had won the 
 day before. It was forced to confess that the 
 incident which had enabled Lamartine to secure his 
 triumph had never really taken place; only one 
 shot had been fired at all, and that apparently by 
 accident. A natural revulsion of feeling followed ; 
 the alarms of yesterday seemed rather ridiculous. 
 In the end, Louis Napoleon's admission to the 
 Assembly was voted by those who twenty-four 
 hours before had consented to his exile from 
 
1848) ' RESIGNATION 287 
 
 France ; and the Government, instead of resigning, 
 calmly rescinded its orders of the day before. 
 
 If the 13th reversed the action of the 12th, the 
 15th just failed to treat the 13th in the same way. 
 Closely following in London every debate in the 
 Chamber, Louis thought this moment opportune for 
 a hint at higher things. On June 14 in a letter to 
 the president of the Assembly, he wrote : ' I was 
 leaving for my post when I learnt that my election 
 would be the pretext for deplorable troubles and 
 fatal misunderstandings. . . . Should the people 
 impose duties on me, I should know how to fulfil 
 them. But I disavow all who ascribe to me ambitions 
 which are not mine. My name is the symbol of 
 order, nationality, and glory, and it would be a , 
 great grief to me to see it used to increase the \ 
 troubles which are rending our country. To avoid , 
 such a misfortune I should be ready to remain in \ 
 exile. I am willing to make any sacrifices for the j 
 good of France. Be so good, Mr President, as to 
 acquaint the Assembly with this letter.' 
 
 The worst possible impression was made upon 
 the Assembly by the haughty tone of this com- 
 munication, by the absence of any mention of the 
 republic, most of all by the ambiguous and sinister 
 phrase, ' should the people impose duties upon me.' 
 A scene of great excitement followed the reading of 
 the letter on the 15th. Member after member rose 
 and denounced the writer in terms of almost hysteri- 
 cal indignation. Luckily for Louis, none of his 
 enemies had the presence of mind to bring forward 
 
288 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [CH. xi. 
 
 a new law of banishment. But the danger was only- 
 postponed; it was evidently necessary that steps 
 should at once be taken to allay the feeling in the 
 Assembly. A messenger was sent post-haste to 
 London ; he arrived at King Street in the evening, 
 and informed the prince of the elBfect of his letter 
 on the Assembly. Louis at once sat down and 
 wrote another letter to the president ; as the first 
 messenger was tired out, he gave it to a friend who 
 at once started for Paris. Travelling all night, 
 this second messenger was able to deliver this 
 missive to the president by noon on the 16th. 
 Though proud of his fourfold election, Louis wrote, 
 he felt that the unjust suspicions to which it had 
 given rise, the troubles of which it had been the 
 cause, and the hostile attitude of the Government 
 itself, forced him to refuse the honour. ' I desire 
 order, and the maintenance of a wise, great, and 
 intelligent republic ; and since involrmtarily I am 
 the excuse for disorder, I place with deep regret 
 my resignation in your hands.' 
 
 So ended the attempt to exclude Louis from 
 the Assembly ; an attempt of which Normanby, 
 the English ambassador at Paris, wrote on the 
 morrow of its failure that it was ' generally felt to 
 be unjust if it had been expedient, and most 
 inexpedient even if it had been just.' ^ Indeed, the 
 
 1 Normanby to Palmerston, June 14tli, 1848. Here as elsewhere, 
 I quote from Normanby's contemporary despatches to the Foreign 
 Office. But the substance of many of Normanby's despatches during 
 this year, 1848, is given in his published journal, entitled A Year of 
 Bevolution in Paris, which appeared in 1856. 
 
1848] THE EXECUTIVE COMMISSION 289 
 
 Assembly had twice over been made to appear a 
 little foolish in this its first encoimter with Louis 
 Napoleon ; and the Bonapartist journals were able 
 to contrast very efiectively the petulance, the 
 indecision, the intolerance of the one, with the 
 calm, the reserve, the moderation of the other. In 
 ^-eality the suspicions of the republicans were only 
 too well grounded ; while the apparent self-sacrifice 
 of Louis Napoleon's action was in truth a very 
 politic piece of foresight and good judgment. But 
 Louis had not lost the art of putting his opponent 
 in the wrong ; and the Executive Commission in 
 1848 found itself in the same unenviable position 
 as Louis Philippe after the Swiss affair in 1838. 
 They seemed to have essayed a petty piece of 
 persecution ; while their apparent victim, in putting 
 an end to the difficulty by a voluntary conces- 
 sion, retired with all the honours of the day. 
 
 But more than by the zeal of his followers, 
 more even than by his own masterly inactivity, was 
 Louis to be aided throughout this struggle by the 
 pitiful incompetence of his opponents. ' The real 
 strength of the cry for him,' if we may again quote 
 from Normanby's despatches, 'is the odium with 
 which the present men are regarded. ... I do not 
 know that they possess as a body of public men 
 any one redeeming quality : nor if they remain in 
 office could I foresee any other check or limit to the 
 mischief they are capable of doing, except their per- 
 sonal incapacity or their parliamentary weakness.'^ 
 
 ' Normanby to Palmerston, 16th June 1848. 
 
 T 
 
290 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [oh. Xi. 
 
 This is strong language, but it hardly exaggerates 
 the prevalent opinion of reflecting witnesses ; it 
 must be remembered that it was held on the eve of 
 the June days of 1848. 
 
 Daily, at a cost of 170,000 francs a day, the 
 Kepublican Government was adding to the numbers 
 and to the armaments of the force which sooner or 
 later it must suppress or disperse. Openly the 
 men spent part of their unearned wage in the 
 purchase of ammunition. With clear purpose, their 
 newspapers published lists of banks or houses 
 where wealth was likely to be stored. Even the 
 existing Government realised that this scandal must 
 end. On June 21 it decreed the return of workmen 
 to the provinces, or their enrolment in the army. 
 The Government had chosen its own time for deal- 
 ing the blow; it had waited long enough in 
 all conscience ; yet its tardy action had every 
 accompaniment of precipitancy. No attempt was 
 made to do gradually a deed that was bound to 
 lead to bloodshed if done suddenly. No prepara- 
 tions were made beforehand for the suppression of 
 the inevitable revolt ; no armed reinforcements 
 were summoned from the provinces, no strategic 
 disposition was made even of the troops already 
 stationed in the capital. By a piece of good 
 fortune on which the Government had no right to 
 count, and of which it made no use, the whole of 
 the 22nd was allowed to pass without bloodshed. 
 This day's grace was employed by the authorities 
 in the insertion of provocative comments on the 
 
1848] CAVAIGNAC DICTATOR 291 
 
 situation in the official newspapers, and the placard- 
 ing of its intentions throughout Paris, in language 
 which could not have been less conciliatory if the 
 opposition to be encountered had been unarmed, 
 miwarlike, incapable of resistance. On the 23rd, 
 24th, 25th, and 26th was fought one of the 
 bloodiest civil wars which even Paris has wit- 
 nessed. It was not until the 24th that the 
 Executive Commission — in whose feeble hands the 
 government had been vested for the past two 
 months — was forced to make over its powers 
 in dictatorial form to General Cavaignac. Only 
 on the evening of that day did reinforcements 
 for the party of order begin to arrive from 
 the provinces. Even then three hundred barri- 
 cades had been erected and destroyed, eight 
 thousand prisoners had been taken, over ten 
 thousand persons had been killed or wounded, and 
 untold material damage done, before order was 
 restored in the streets. Under a decree passed by 
 the Assembly on the morrow of the war, some six 
 thousand men were ordered to be transported 
 without trial, not to Algeria, but to some less 
 desirable colony of France. On June 25, Cavaignac 
 surrendered his temporary powers to the Assembly, 
 but was by the Assembly at once reinvested with 
 them. He had used his dictatorship so well in 
 time of war, that the deputies could imagine no 
 better hands than his for the hardly less difficult 
 task of ensiu-ing the maintenance of order now that 
 peace had been restored. Unfortunately there are 
 
292 LOUIS REGAINS HIS CITIZENSHIP [CH. xi. 
 
 still men to whom the gods have given to win the 
 victory, but not to use it ; men who can act with 
 vigour in moments of crisis, but cannot maintain 
 their mastery of events in periods of diflBculty. 
 Such a man was Cavaignac. Emerging from the 
 June days with the immense prestige of one who 
 had saved society, he was in a few months by his 
 indecision, his tactlessness, his incalculable alter- 
 nation of ill-timed clemency with more ill-judged 
 severities, to fritter away the reputation he had 
 gained. 
 
 During the whole of July and August, Paris 
 remained in a state of siege. Measures of 
 repression were passed by the Assembly ; through- 
 out the country a strong reaction was manifest 
 against the extravagances of the preceding months. 
 Cavaignac by the origin of his power was a 
 champion of order ; and in this capacity he was 
 forced to oppose radical and socialist sedition. 
 But by descent, by education, and conviction 
 he was passionately, fanatically devoted to a 
 republican form of government. And for this 
 reason he was careful, by a sort of unfortunate 
 impartiality, to administer on every possible 
 occasion rebufis to that monarchical party which 
 had done such good service to the cause of order 
 in and after June. 'Whoever does not want the 
 repubhc,' he said in the Assembly on September 
 2, 'is our enemy, our everlasting enemy ... In 
 this struggle we are ready to abandon eveiything, 
 our responsibility, our repose, even our honour, 
 
1848] LOUIS NAPOLEON CUNCTATOR 293 
 
 should the republic ever demand such a sacrifice.' 
 But — again we quote Normanby — 'everyone, 
 including the Government themselves, has been 
 convinced within the last two months that . . . 
 the republic has in fact no considerable party in 
 the country, except those who would make it 
 synonymous with anarchy.'^ Hence Cavaignac's 
 position was an impossible one ; and in wavering 
 between his lingering reputation as champion of 
 order, and his desperate endeavour to maintain 
 the republic at all costs, his action had the 
 appearance of feebleness and irresolution. His 
 own reputation collapsed, and with it the one 
 chance of the combination to which he stood 
 pledged — an orderly republic. 
 
 Louis Napoleon was still in London. Owing 
 to some technicality, his election by Corsica, one 
 of the departments which had rallied to him in 
 June, did not take effect absolutely until July. 
 This gave Louis the chance of writing another 
 letter to the president of the Assembly, and 
 again resigning the seat. Qome entirely futile 
 attempts had been made to connect his name 
 with the June war; attempts equally groundless 
 and unsuccessful were also made with regard to 
 the monarchical leaders. The commission which 
 was appointed to investigate the affair failed, with 
 all the goodwill in the world, to discover any trace 
 of external assistance given to the rebels. But 
 until his entire innocence of this particular form 
 
 ' Normanby to Palmerston, 7th September 1848. 
 
294 LOUIS REGAITSS HIS CITIZENSHIP [CH. xi. 
 
 of intrigue had been conclusively proved, Louis 
 declined to make his entry into the Assembly. 
 
 At last, however, at the end of August, he 
 declared his intention of presenting himself as a 
 candidate at the next supplementary elections. 
 In the letter announcing his intention, he wrote : 
 'Now that it has been demonstrated that my 
 election in four departments was not the result 
 of intrigue, and that I have remained a stranger 
 to every kind of manifestation and political 
 manoeuvre, I should consider myself as avoiding 
 my duty if I did not respond to the appeal of 
 my fellow-citizens.' The elections in question 
 took place on September 17. Thirteen seats were 
 vacant. The result amply justified the opinion 
 Normanby had reached ten days before. In every 
 case the moderate Republic — Cavaignac's candidate 
 — was beaten. There were two victories for the 
 Red Republicans ; three or four for the monarchical 
 Conservatives. But these results paled before the 
 triumph of Louis Napoleon. For of the thirteen 
 departments vacant, five had elected him ; three 
 hundred thousand votes had been cast in his 
 favour, in addition to those which he had received 
 in June. 
 
 Called back in such imperious fashion to his 
 country and his civic rights, encompassed already 
 by the suffrages of half-a-million electors, Louis 
 Napoleon now took final leave of his little lodging 
 in King Street. On September 24 he arrived in 
 Paris, and drove to a hotel in the Place Vend6me. 
 
1848] THE MEETING 295 
 
 Thrice banished from his country; six years a 
 captive ; deported once to America ; tried once for 
 his life; imprisoned at Strasburg, at the Concier- 
 gerie, at Ham ; escaped from the bullets of Papal 
 troops in Italy, and of the National Guard at 
 Boulogne; passed in disguise through French 
 gaolers and Austrian soldiery ; Louis Napoleon, in 
 the fortieth year of his age and the thirty-third 
 of his exile, had returned to his birthplace in 
 peace. And as the September evening fell, and 
 the marvellous lights of Paris twinkled out in 
 the gathering gloom, from the window of his 
 hotel he could look full upon the towering column, 
 whence the Emperor with folded arms surveyed 
 his capital — and his heir. 
 
CHAPTEK XII 
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS 
 
 {October to December 1848. Aetat. 40.) 
 
 Cast thy bread upon the waters ; for thou shalt find it after 
 many days. Ecclesiastes. 
 
 If Louis Napoleon's foui'fold election in June had 
 nearly occasioned his banishment from France, his 
 fivefold election in September almost resulted in 
 his exclusion from political power. Both events 
 caused the republican authorities a momentary fit 
 of terror; but w^hile the first had found them 
 actually engaged in discussing Louis' future fate, 
 the second came upon them as they were framing 
 the constitution under which they themselves were 
 to govern or be governed. 
 
 In May a commission had been appointed to 
 draw up a republican constitution. At the end 
 of August the constitution thus prepared was 
 submitted to the Assembly. The legislative power 
 was placed in the hands of a single chamber of 
 seven himdred and fifty paid members, elected by 
 universal suffrage for three years ; a chamber which 
 could not be dissolved ; which might indeed adjourn 
 itself, but even so was forced to leave a committee 
 
 29S 
 
1848] THE CONSTITUTION 297 
 
 with power to reassemble it at any moment in case 
 of need. The executive power was given to a 
 president, elected for four years by universal 
 suffrage ; unlike the deputies, he could not be re- 
 elected ; he could dispose the army, but could not 
 command in person ; he could not suspend existing 
 law or retard new law. Theoretically his powers 
 were far less than those of a constitutional king. 
 This constitution was examined in detail by the 
 Assembly in September, and accepted in the end, 
 practically without alteration. A clause implying 
 the recognition of the ' right to work ' was struck 
 out; an unsuccessful attempt was made to 
 substitute a double for a single chamber. But 
 the really critical debates were those which dealt 
 with the manner of electing the president. At 
 first the supporters of the republic had welcomed 
 universal suffrage as the proper and democratic 
 method of election. But the return of Louis 
 Napoleon by five departments in September con- 
 vinced the more clear-sighted republicans that 
 universal suffrage would not give them what they 
 wanted. Various amendments were proposed with 
 the object of reducing the president to impotency, 
 or making him a servant of the Assembly, not merely 
 appointed by it, but liable to be dismissed by it 
 at will. But the only proposal which had any real 
 chance of being adopted was one which, while it 
 left intact the president's powers, made him owe his 
 office not to universal suffrage, but to the vote of 
 the Assembly. This proposal, although in flat 
 
298 AFTER MANY DAYS [CH. Xli. 
 
 contradiction to their previous utterances, was now 
 supported by Cavaignac and his ministers. It was 
 supported by republicans who, like him, had dis- 
 cernment enough to perceive that the country 
 did not want a republic, and devotion enough 
 to desire in spite of that knowledge to impose a 
 republican government on the country. It was 
 opposed by some extreme radicals ; by the whole 
 body of the monarchical opposition ; by the large 
 number of republicans who were still confident 
 that the country was republican; by a small 
 section of them who maintained, that even a 
 republic was not worth the having . unless the 
 country desired it, that it better became a republic 
 to die by the will of the people of which it 
 professed to be the expression, than to live by 
 means which did violence to that will ; better for 
 it an honoured memory than an existence prolonged 
 by means which would dishonour the name it bore. 
 This last section was numerically the smallest in 
 the Assembly; yet it was the section whose 
 influence was to decide the issue. For among 
 its members was that poet and prince of orators, 
 Lamartine. The debate — one of the most critical 
 in the annals of parliamentary discussion — was 
 brought to its conclusion on the 9th of October. 
 The supporters of the amendment did not lack 
 arguments. Elected by universal sufirage, the 
 wielder of the executive power would have a 
 source of authority co-ordinate with the Assembly ; 
 yet by the constitution the president was, and was 
 
1848] UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE 299 
 
 ifttended to be, subordinate to the Assembly. 
 Between these two co-ordinate powers there might 
 and would be conflict ; but there was no legal way 
 of settling such a conflict. Moreover, there were 
 monarchical memories, Napoleonic precedents; 
 dare the Assembly disregard them? To such 
 arguments Lamartine replied with a speech more 
 magically eloquent perhaps than any other ever 
 uttered from the French tribune. True, it was a 
 time of disafiection ; but for that reason were they 
 to distrust universal suffrage? So doing, they 
 would alienate it for ever; rather they ought to 
 reconquer it by trusting it. True, the president 
 would be popular ; but his popularity might be a 
 much-needed reinforcement to the unpopularity 
 of the Assembly. 'Though the dangers of the 
 republic are my dangers, though its fall is my 
 ostracism and my everlasting sorrow, yet I do not 
 hesitate to pronounce in favour of the course which 
 seems to you the most dangerous — election by the 
 people. . . . Then, whatever happens, it will be 
 good in history to have attempted the republic. . . . 
 It will be a dream if you hke, but a fair dream for 
 France and for humanity. ... If, in fine, this 
 people would turn back on its own self, would 
 make light of the blood shed so plentifully in 
 February and June, would speak the fatal words 
 ... let it so speak. We, at any rate, citizens, 
 will not speak them for it in advance.' There was 
 no resisting such an appeal. On October 9, 
 by a majority of three to one, the Assembly 
 
300 AFTER MANY DAYS [oh. Xll. 
 
 confirmed the clause which gave the election of 
 the president to the people. EepubUcans who, 
 looking back on the debate, saw in its conclusion 
 the death wound of the republic, have yet generally 
 refused to believe that Lamartine's intervention 
 was prompted by any but the loftiest motives. 
 Unfortunately it is a fact that the sublimest 
 eloquence does not necessarily imply the sublimest 
 self-surrender. Lamartine knew, every one knew, 
 that the vote of the Assembly would certainly 
 elect Cavaignac. But in the spring reports from 
 the coimtry had shown that, given universal 
 suffrage, he could himself count on four-fifths 
 of the total votes cast for the presidency.^ 
 Lamartine himself must have realised that his 
 popularity had greatly waned since then ; but 
 at any rate with universal suffrage he had a 
 chance of election ; without it he had none. 
 And what more Ukely than that his eloquent 
 defence of the popular vote should win back for 
 him the goodwill of the people? Ordinarily it 
 would be difficult to blame the man who advo- 
 cated a mode of election which favoured his 
 own candidature, and opposed one which was 
 fatal to it. But in this case it is still more 
 difficult to acquit Lamartine of preferring the risk 
 of the extinction of the republic to the certainty 
 of his own defeat. 
 
 ' Normanby to Palmerston, 24th April 1848. — ' M. Lamartine told 
 me that . . . yesterday, L. Eollin informed him that the result of his 
 reports from the country convinced him that if there were ten 
 million electors, he, Lamartine, would unite eight millions.' 
 
1848] SELDOM BUT SUMPTUOUS 301 
 
 Louis Napoleon had taken no part in the debate 
 on which depended his whole political future. He 
 had taken his seat on September 26, and had on 
 that day made a short speech in which he dis- 
 avowed all intrigue against the republic. The 
 Assembly had listened coldly, and the silence with 
 which they received his statement was an evident 
 compound of dislike and mistrust. Since that day 
 Louis had seldom appeared and still more seldom 
 spoken in the Chamber. Once while he was at 
 Ham, a friend who was pleased with the success of 
 his pamphlet on the sugar question wrote advising 
 him to develop his views on French taxation 
 generally. Louis replied by a refusal. ' I neither 
 can nor will,' he wrote, 'make myself a mere 
 pamphleteer. The occasion of my paper was 
 unique, and the origin of the question explained 
 my intervention. . . . Believe me, in my position 
 my intervention should be rare and always intel- 
 ligible. One must not fritter away one's fortune in 
 small change.' ^ 
 
 The man who realised this truth in prison had 
 taken one important step towards success in 
 parliament, where men are more easily forgiven for 
 speaking ill than for speaking often. One of his 
 rare utterances in the Chamber was drawn from 
 Louis by a proposal brought forward immediately 
 after the decisive vote as to the method of electing 
 the president : a proposal to exclude from that 
 office all members of houses that had reigned in 
 • Aug. 29, 1842. From Ham, to Mme Cornu. 
 
302 AFTER MANY DAYS [CH. xil. 
 
 France. Even Cavaignac opposed this amendment ; 
 urging, with no less justice than generosity, that 
 since the Chamber had decided to trust the people 
 in the matter, it must trust them whole-heartedly, 
 without restriction or reserve. But Louis himself 
 was forced to take some notice of an attack so 
 clearly personal. On this occasion his inability to 
 defend himself in debate was to prove his best 
 defence. Although he could deliver effectively a 
 prepared speech, the prince was at this time quite 
 incapable of improvising an adequate retort to any 
 sudden attack. But the few faltering sentences 
 from the tribune served him better than the most 
 eloquent of apologies ; for they once more convinced 
 his foes that he was an opponent beneath their 
 serious notice ; the mover of the amendment 
 announced with polite sarcasm that the prince's 
 speech had convinced him of the needlessness of 
 persisting in his proposal. This was on October 9 ; 
 two days later the laws against the Bonapartes 
 were finally repealed without further discussion. 
 Strangely tempting is the suggestion that the 
 prince in this debate deliberately exaggerated his 
 own incompetence ; for it is an undoubted fact that 
 Louis Napoleon, who hardly ever failed to speak 
 well, when speaking well could serve his cause, on 
 the one occasion in his life on which speaking ill 
 could serve him better, did speak superlatively 
 badly. 
 
 But here again we must avoid unnecessary 
 subtilties of interpretation. On the whole, in the 
 
1848] THE VIRTUE OF SILENCE 303 
 
 analysis of human motives, a healthy appreciation 
 of the obvious wiU serve us better than a morbid 
 distrust of the superficial. In this instance the 
 prince's breakdown is simply and sufficiently 
 explained, by the fact that he was called upon 
 unexpectedly to speak on a point which closely 
 affected his whole political future, at a time when 
 public speaking of any kind was still new to him, 
 and while the French language itself, as spoken by 
 Frenchmen in debate, was hardly yet familiar to 
 his ear. 
 
 After this oratorical failure Louis Napoleon 
 became a stiU more silent and infrequent figure at 
 the meetings of the Assembly. His cousins were 
 constant in attendance and frequent in utterance ; 
 he himself, since he lacked distinction of speech, 
 took refuge in the easier distinction of silence. 
 This was indeed his obvious policy ; his presence 
 in the Chamber would have exposed him to all the 
 ordinary knocks and blows of parliamentary conflict, 
 a conflict in which he could not have succeeded in 
 asserting any personal pre-eminence. But by remain- 
 ing studiously in the background, by employing his 
 cousins as ministers to speak for him, he adopted 
 already an attitude of semi-royal reserve. So 
 apparent was his design, that it soon became the 
 fixed purpose of his opponents to force him to take 
 part in the debates. On October 25 an unusually 
 violent attack was launched on him by a deputy, 
 who accused him of plotting an insurrection which 
 would place the presidency in his hands. As usual, 
 
304 AFTER MANY DAYS [oH. XII. 
 
 Louis was absent ; as usual, one of his cousins rose 
 to speak for him. But Prince Napoleon's advent 
 to the tribune was at once greeted by cries for 
 'Louis,' for 'the other one.' So great was the 
 excitement that Louis Napoleon himself felt bound 
 to take account of it. On the following day he 
 came in person to the Chamber and mounted the 
 tribune. This time he read his speech ; a speech in 
 which he formally annoimced his candidature for 
 the presidency. 
 
 He was sorry, he said, that his personal con- 
 cerns should again be obtruded upon the Assembly, 
 at a moment when all their time was needed for 
 the consideration of grave questions affecting 
 national interests. He defended himself briefly 
 against the general attacks which were brought 
 against him ; even from the attack grounded on his 
 taciturnity. ' I am reproached for my silence. It 
 is given to few to express in eloquent words true 
 and wholesome ideals. Is there no other way of 
 serving one's country? Acts, not words, are 
 wanted. ... I know that it is sought to encumber 
 my path with rocks and pitfalls. I shall not faU 
 over them. Always in my own way I shall follow 
 the line I have marked out for myself, without fear 
 but without anger. ... I declare, then, to those 
 who would organise against me a system of 
 provocation, that for the future I shall answer 
 no charge, no appeal, intended to make me 
 speak when I would hold my peace.' And to this 
 declaration he adhered. His defence was not a 
 
1848] AN INAUGURAL CEREMONY 305 
 
 very adequate one, but it did not lack dignity ; the 
 attacks to which he was subject were not alto- 
 gether ungrounded, but they were unmeasured and 
 unconvincing. 
 
 On November 4 the constitution was carried. 
 On Sunday, the 14th, it was solemnly inaugurated 
 at the Place de la Concorde, Mass was said by 
 the new Archbishop of Paris, successor of him 
 who had lost his life in a noble attempt to curtail 
 the horrors of the Jime days. A Te Deum was 
 sung, as for some especial mercy vouchsafed by 
 heaven; symbolical figures of Peace and Plenty 
 were there, as well as a plaster personification of 
 the constitution itself. Incense rose in clouds 
 from tripods at their feet to the tricolours above. 
 The whole ceremony, if a little puerile, was more 
 than a little pathetic. The bleak air of a dull 
 November morning, sUghtly snowing on the 
 assembled deputies, served to give an atmos- 
 phere of unreality to the rejoicings; while it 
 emphasised, if it partly explained, the marked 
 absence of any gathering of the people to witness 
 the latest boon which was being conferred upon 
 them. Indeed it was with ill-concealed relief 
 that the country turned from the wrangling 
 debates with which the constitution had been 
 carried, and the mummery with which it had 
 been inaugiq?ated, to the practical and absorbing 
 question which still remained to be decided. Who 
 was to be the first president of the republic ? In 
 
 other words, was the republic to receive the only 
 
 u 
 
306 AFTER MANY DAYS [OH. XIL 
 
 direct sanction which the people had the oppor- 
 tunity of bestowing, namely, the election of a 
 republican to the presidency ? 
 
 It was soon evident that the presidency lay 
 between Louis Napoleon himself and General 
 Cavaignac. The general had in his favour the memory 
 of his service in June, the support of the Assembly, 
 and — most important of all — the actual possession 
 of power. But gratitude for his former services 
 was by this time largely counteracted by irritation 
 at his recent indiscretions ; the Assembly was so 
 unpopular in the country that its support was a 
 very doubtful advantage ; while even the army 
 of functionaries, whose ready response to the voice 
 of authority teUs so much in France in favour of 
 the existing power, even the maires and pr4/ets, 
 were beginning to grow restless under the un- 
 certain hand of Cavaignac. The only assm-ed 
 following which remained to him in the country 
 was the entire body of republican voters ; but this 
 force was numerically an unknown quantity. On 
 the other hand, the general retained to the last 
 one great and inalienable advantage over his 
 opponent. By a clause in the constitution it was 
 decided that, unless the successful candidate for 
 the presidency obtained twice as many voters as 
 all his opponents put together, the right of election 
 would revert to the Assembly. And Cavaignac 
 could absolutely depend upon the Assembly to 
 elect himself. Thus he had a very substantial 
 handicap in his favom-; for if Louis Napoleon 
 
1848] THE RIVALS 307 
 
 obtained two votes for every one cast for Cavaignac, 
 Cavaignac would still become President. There 
 were several other candidates in the field who, 
 though personally out of the running, were yet 
 bound to be useful to the general. For their votes 
 would count with his towards the total which 
 Louis Napoleon must more than double if he 
 would become President. 
 
 On the face of it, then, Louis had an uphill 
 task before him. But he too had in his favour 
 many elements of success. In the first place, 
 he had as sources of strength all that was com- 
 plementary or contradictory to Cavaignac's. Thus, 
 he was detested by the Assembly ; but to be 
 detested by a detested body is not to be oneself 
 detested. Politically, the foes of our foes are oiir 
 friends. Again, as section after section of the party 
 of order was alienated by Cavaignac's ineptitude 
 or ofiended by his indiscretions, each in turn 
 rallied naturally to Cavaignac's principal opponent. 
 And finally, the fact that Cavaignac was the ofiicial 
 candidate of the republican party assured for 
 Louis the support of the whole anti-republican 
 feeling in the country. 
 
 Even more formidable were his positive sources 
 of strength; his name, his career, and the mon- 
 archical instinct of the French people. Of these 
 the first was the most important, for it carried 
 with it all that shadowy transcendental heritage 
 of which in our opening chapter we endeavoured 
 to give some idea. But it is a grave mistake — 
 
308 AFTER MANY DAYS [CH. Xll. 
 
 though a very common one — to assume that Louis 
 Napoleon's victory in 1848 was the triumph of a 
 name alone. True, Louis without his name could 
 have accomplished absolutely nothing. But this 
 is not to say that the name without Louis could 
 have eJBFected absolutely everything, or indeed any- 
 thing at all, in the region of practical politics. On 
 the contrary, there is every reason to beheve that 
 had not Louis formulated into a definite creed the 
 vague faith of which it was the symbol, had he 
 not galvanised into substantive action the evasive 
 life that was in it, had he not embodied it in 
 concrete form and personified it in his individual 
 existence — then the name of Napoleon would 
 for ever have lacked a local habitation; and 
 that strange spirit which had risen from St 
 Helena, must have remained 'a beautiful but 
 ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous 
 wings in vain.' We may wish that it had been 
 allowed so to remain ; for in becoming effectual 
 the angel ceased to be beautiful. Louis Napoleon's 
 faith in his star was about to be justified. But 
 while it is doubtless good for a man ' to hitch his 
 waggon to a star,' it is sometimes less good for 
 the star. We may prefer that Niagara should 
 continue to cast its waters in riotous and glorious 
 waste ; we may dislike to see it tamed by human 
 intervention, and turned to servile uses. But 
 though we grudge the engineer his triumph, we 
 must still concede him such praise as is due to 
 his ingenuity. After all, it is just because the 
 
1848] THE NAME NAPOLEON 309 
 
 process is artificial that we complain; and while 
 we blame the workman for his interference, we 
 cannot consistently deny the skill of his deed on 
 the score that all that has been accomplished was 
 automatic and inevitable. 
 
 How little the miaided name of Napoleon 
 could have effected in 1848, we shall better under- 
 stand if we glance for a moment at the position 
 of the other bearers of that name. When the 
 February revolution broke out, there was actually 
 residing in France one surviving brother of the 
 Emperor, Jerome, sometime king of "Westphalia. 
 With him was his son, Prince Napoleon, who in 
 form and feature bore striking resemblance to his 
 great namesake. Yet they remained absolutely 
 unnoticed. The Provisional Government never 
 asked them to depart from Paris ; it feared them 
 as little as Louis Philippe had feared them — Louis 
 Philippe who had contemptuously granted them 
 the favour they asked of a return to France, and 
 who at the time of his deposition was actually on 
 the point of granting to this fraterculus gigantis 
 a peerage and a pension. King Jerome was, and 
 remained, a nonentity; Prince Napoleon, as soon 
 as he ceased to be unknown, became intensely 
 unpopular. When, after the establishment of the 
 empire, Louis Napoleon, before the birth of his 
 son, adopted his cousin as his heir, he committed 
 one of the most unpopular actions of his reign. 
 An apologist who wished to defend this step 
 could only do so by regarding it as a precaution 
 
310 AFTER MANY DAYS [CH. xir. 
 
 against assassination ; Charles the Second's remark 
 to his brother might have been made by Louis 
 Napoleon to his cousin : ' No one would kill me 
 to make you king.' The only other Napoleonic 
 prince who appeared was Lucien's son Pierre, a 
 turbulent and vicious vagabond who, like the rest 
 of Lucien's sons, had been naturalised as a Roman 
 citizen. Prince Napoleon was eccentric ; the other 
 Napoleonic princes with the exception of Louis 
 himself were merely incompetent. But it was not 
 their present lack of ability that nullified the 
 advantage of their name : it was the fact that 
 in the past they had one and all bartered or 
 endeavoured to barter away their birthright ; and 
 that not of their necessity for a morsel of meat, 
 but that to their abundance they might add a 
 bounty ; readily foregoing their hope of a dynastic 
 future for any handful of silver which Louis 
 Philippe might care to toss them in exchange 
 for it. 
 
 Once in a moment of rare provocation Louis 
 Napoleon allowed himself to tax the nominal head 
 of the Napoleonic house with this betrayal of the 
 family cause. Stung by the ridicule which King 
 Joseph had thrown on his Strasburg rising, he wrote 
 to him in 1837: 'Yes, my enterprise has failed. 
 But it has made France hear that the family of the 
 Emperor is not yet dead ; that it can still count on 
 the service of devoted friends ; more, that its 
 pretensions are not confined to the demand of 
 petty pittances from the Government, but extend 
 
1848] LOUIS NAPOLEON'S ACHIEVEMENT 311 
 
 to the reconstruction in the people's cause of the 
 fabric that foreigners and Bourbons have destroyed. 
 This I have done; is it for you to cast it in my 
 teeth 1 ' 
 
 This was the mere truth. The other members 
 of his family were living in placid or querulous 
 retirement; at best their efforts were directed to 
 the attainment by deferential behaviour of some 
 material benefit from the existing Government. 
 Louis Napoleon alone was sacrificing rest and 
 fortune, was braving ridicule, danger, and dis- 
 comfort in the faith of a dynastic future. Hence 
 a path lay open to him in 1848 which was quite 
 closed to any of them. For a birthright once sold 
 is not easily recovered. 
 
 It is not, then, merely to their intrinsic interest 
 that the circumstances of Louis Napoleon's early 
 life owe their claim to a somewhat detailed 
 examination — though this narrative of them has 
 failed in its purpose if they seem to lack such 
 interest. Nor does their importance consist 
 solely in a fact which would in itself suffice to 
 render them important ; that they served to mould 
 and stamp with ineffaceable impress' the character 
 of a man who was for some fifteen years the 
 most prominent figure in Europe. Their chief 
 claim to the attention of the historian is after all 
 this — not that they made Louis Napoleon the kind 
 of emperor he was, 'a dreamer and a conspirator,' 
 but that without them he could scarcely have | 
 become emperor at all. In other words, without 
 
 / 
 
312 AFTER MANY DAYS [CH. xii. 
 
 them there might have been no Second Empire. 
 Even Louis Napoleon, who was infinitely the 
 cleverest representative of his name, could hardly 
 have become president in 1848 without the 
 advantage of his past career. While of the 
 other members of the house it is not too much 
 to say that even had they been endowed with all 
 the advantages Louis had so laboriously acquired 
 by eighteen years of labour, still they lacked the 
 dexterity which alone enabled him to make full use 
 of those advantages in 1848. 
 
 There remained a third factor in his success, 
 which also has hardly been realised at its true 
 value — the fact that at the time of the election to 
 the presidency, the great majority of the French 
 people desired nothing so much for the republic 
 i as its speedy and decent extinction. This is a 
 fact which has been not merely ignored, but 
 deliberately disguised, by many French historians 
 of the Second Republic. There are many to whom 
 the name of a republic has at all times a peculiar 
 virtue ; many who unconsciously hedge it about 
 with a divinity no longer accorded to kings; so 
 that while they regard with equanimity the fall of 
 an unpopular monarchy, they condemn almost as an 
 act of sacrilege the destruction of an vmpopular 
 republic. By such it is assumed that a republican 
 form of government cannot but have an especial 
 degree of popular approval. This would be in any 
 case a dangerous assumption where the populace 
 is instinctively monarchical ; it becomes the height 
 
1848] THE NAME REPUBLIC 313 
 
 of miwisdom where revolutionary changes are the 
 immediate result not of national movements, but of 
 street-fighting in the capital. For in such cases 
 when an existing government has been swept away 
 by its own unpopularity, unless its opponents are 
 agreed upon some immediate alternative to sub- 
 situte for it, a republic automatically ensues. And 
 since in Parisian revolution destruction is easier 
 than construction, by far its easiest outcome is the 
 one form of government which can be reached by 
 a purely negative process. In fine, of governments 
 in general in such a country as France, the republic 
 is the one not least but most likely to have a mere 
 accident as its reason of existence. 
 
 But the history of the second French republic 
 in particular has been invested with a wholly 
 spurious pathos. Because it died young, therefore 
 it was loved of the gods ; because it was pitiful in 
 its death, therefore it was delectable in its life; 
 because the manner of its execution was illegal, 
 unscrupulous, and indefensible, therefore its death 
 sentence had not been plainly voted by the French 
 people. To these sentimental non sequiturs other 
 and more practical inducements were added. It 
 was very natural that in the early days of the Third 
 Republic its eulogists should tell it that it was the 
 one form of government for which France had 
 been pining for the better part of a century ; that 
 in 1830 and 1848 no less than in 1815 the coxmtry 
 was baulked of its wishes; that it needed the 
 catastrophe of Sedan to give it what it had so 
 
314 AFTER MANY DAYS [oh. xil. 
 
 long desired. But the Third RepubUc ought now 
 to be able to dispense with help and defenders 
 such as these ; it should no longer need to rely 
 on representations of the past which are as much 
 a perversion of historical truth as those which 
 came to the hand of Louis Napoleon in the 
 Napoleonic Legend. For, considering the relative 
 possibilities of the two themes, the Second Republic 
 has been as successfully idealised as the First 
 Empire ; and in one case, as in the other, historical 
 criticism has been postponed to the interests of 
 political propaganda. 
 
 Of all the diplomatic agents who were accredited 
 to the Second Republic, there was none who 
 objected more violently or more openly to the 
 method by which it was finally suppressed than 
 the British ambassador, Lord Normanby. Though 
 not a repubhcan, his detestation of the cowp dIStat 
 was so unconcealed that it was found necessary 
 to replace him by a less excitable successor. It 
 may therefore be worth while to notice that 
 however much he grudged Louis Napoleon his 
 success later, he clearly perceived in 1848 how 
 greatly he was being served by the strength of 
 the anti - repubhcan feeling in France. Thus, 
 towards the end of October, before the result of 
 the election had become a foregone conclusion, 
 he wrote that he considered Louis Napoleon's 
 election certain, 'the persecution of the Govern- 
 ment since February having identified his suc- 
 cess with the. overthrow of that of which the 
 
1848] FRANCE AND THE REPUBLIC 315 
 
 people had become so weary.' This even more 
 than the prestige of his name would win him 
 support.^ A week later, discussing Cavaignac's 
 chances, he adds, 'The general opinion is that 
 General Cavaignac's defeat is assured precisely on 
 the ground on which he rests his hopes — that he 
 is supposed specially identified with the republic.'^ 
 And on the morrow of the election he comments 
 thus on Louis Napoleon's overwhelming majority : 
 ' The memory of the Emperor is no doubt for some- 
 thing in this impulse, but the hatred of the Eepublic 
 gives another signification to the name of Buonaparte, 
 and the traditional recollection that it was by such 
 means that the last republic was destroyed gives 
 pecuUar force to this mode of protestation.'* 
 
 On the eve of the elections, indeed, it became 
 evident to the republicans themselves that France 
 was not republican. Many of them confessed it 
 openly ; and if regard be paid to their admissions 
 at the time itself, rather than to their memoirs and 
 reminiscences published long afterwards with pal- 
 pable political object, it is clear that they had 
 already despaired of the republic before the result 
 of the popular vote was made known. Almost 
 alone among the republican leaders Cavaignac 
 himself consistently and incessantly maintained in 
 his every public utterance that the country was 
 indeed republican. 'The nation is seriously, 
 unswervingly engaged to pursue the path of 
 
 1 Normanby to Palmerston, 29tli October 1848. 
 
 ' Ihid., 2nd November. ^ Ihid. 12th December. 
 
316 AFTER MANY DAYS [cH. xii. 
 
 republicanism,' he wrote in a public letter to General 
 Changarnier in September. 'To wish anything 
 else would be to betray alike its interests and its 
 wishes.' It has generally been believed that such 
 statements were made in all good faith ; the 
 transparent sincerity of the general has been 
 contrasted with the subtle deceitfulness of his 
 opponent. But it is worthy of note that Cavaignac 
 himself, despite his public statements, was really 
 perfectly well aware that the country was utterly 
 opposed to republicanism. On November 27 the 
 general, in a confidential conversation, discussed his 
 chances of success with the British ambassador.^ 
 Normanby advised him not to appear to advocate 
 the indefinite prolongation of the present unpopular 
 assembly. ' The general's only answer was that new 
 elections for some time to come would destroy the 
 republic. I said : "Then you do not think the country 
 republican ? " " Certainly not, " was his answer, ' ' and 
 never was, and never was." "And you expect to 
 make it so 1 " " It is with that object alone that I 
 seek the presidency." ' In other words, Cavaignac 
 confessed that he was seeking the presidency with 
 the intention of riveting upon the people a form of 
 government which he knew they did not desire, 
 but to which he hoped in time to accustom them. 
 Louis Napoleon was seeking it with the intention of 
 freeing them from a form of government of which, 
 like Cavaignac, he knew they wished to be rid, and 
 of giving them one which he really beUeved they 
 
 ' Normanby to Palmerston (confidential), November 27, 1848. 
 
1848] A DEVELOPMENT FUND 317 
 
 desired. That his ambition was the more personal 
 one, is true ; that his method of accomplishing his 
 object was illegal, and worse than illegal, cannot be 
 denied. But if we turn from the means employed 
 to the ends in view, his was perhaps not so very 
 much less legitimate than his opponent's. 
 
 It is difficult in regard to the election itself to 
 find any great distinction between the methods 
 adopted by the two candidates. The Bonapartist 
 papers contained violent and unfair attacks on 
 Cavaignac ; those which supported Cavaignac con- 
 tained equally abusive and unfair attacks upon 
 Louis Napoleon. If the prince's agents distributed 
 flattering portraits of him, his opponents were no 
 less prodigal of scandalous caricatures. If his 
 supporters availed themselves to the full of the 
 grievances which can be ranged against any exist- 
 ing power, yet the Government imhesitatingly 
 attempted to bring all the great influence of 
 existing power to bear against their antagonist. ' I 
 cannot doubt that the most unscrupulous use will 
 be made of the powers which centralisation has put 
 into the hands of the Government to influence the 
 result,' * wrote Normanby on November 2. On that 
 day a circular was issued to the prefects, directing 
 them to impress upon their subordinates the real 
 interests of the republic. While the Minister of 
 the Interior explained their duties to the prefects, 
 the Minister of Education reminded the school- 
 masters that a fund of over a million francs voted 
 ^ Normanby to Palmerston, 2nd November 1848, 
 
318 AFTER MANY DAYS [CH. xii. 
 
 them by the Assembly was about to be distributed ; 
 gratitude either for past or future favours should 
 make them good republicans. Cavaignac himself 
 attempted by tardy activities and civilities to 
 propitiate some of the several sections of society 
 which he had contrived to offend. The general 
 was indeed an ideally bad candidate. Not greatly 
 caring if he were disapproved, he dishked and 
 resented the necessity of being 'on approval.' 
 Personally disinclined to make use of his official 
 powers in his own favour, he did not intervene 
 decidedly to prevent his colleagues from using 
 pressure on his behalf He had thus the appear- 
 ance of doing hesitatingly what it would greatly 
 have profited him to do with vigour, and greatly 
 have honoured him to leave undone altogether. 
 By this course he sacrificed at once the moral 
 prestige of a dignified reserve, and the material 
 benefit which must have resulted from an un- 
 blushing exercise of official pressure. 
 
 Towards the end of November he achieved his 
 last public triumph. Many had complained, with 
 reason, of his conduct of affairs since June ; it was 
 reserved for a few of the least scrupulous of his 
 opponents to attack him for his actual use of his 
 dictatorship in that month. It was asserted that 
 he had purposely allowed the rising to attain its 
 actual proportions, in order to render his own 
 dictatorship inevitable. On November 25 he 
 answered this charge in the Chamber. There could 
 be no doubt as to the result of a defence made in 
 
1846] ELECTION 319 
 
 the one place where his influence was unshaken, on 
 the one point on which his conduct was unassail- 
 able; by an overwhelming majority the deputies 
 reaffirmed the vote they had passed on the morrow 
 of the civil war — that General Cavaignac had 
 deserved well of his country. 
 
 But by this time it was clear to everyone that 
 the country would have none of him. On the very 
 eve of the elections, by a last act of folly his 
 Government renewed the fears of the supporters of 
 order, by including in a list of political pensioners 
 the heirs of several of Louis Philippe's would-be 
 assassins, among them those of that very Fieschi into 
 whose ceU Louis Napoleon had been thrust after 
 Boulogne. The- list was withdrawn and can- 
 celled almost immediately, but the impression it 
 created could not be effaced. 
 
 Five days later, on December 10, the election 
 took place. Although it was known almost 
 directly that Louis Napoleon had received the 
 necessary majority, it was not until the 20th that 
 the result was oflBcially announced. Nearly five 
 and a half millions of votes were given in favour 
 of Louis ; less than one and a half to the official 
 republican candidate, Cavaignac. The other four 
 candidates did not gain half-a-million votes between 
 them; Lamartine, the eloquent defender of the 
 popular vote, obtained from it less than eighteen 
 thousand supporters. 
 
 It was on the evening of the 20th that the 
 result of the vote was announced in the Chamber. 
 
320 AFTER MANY DAYS [oh. xii. 
 
 Cavaignac resigned his powers; the president of 
 the Assembly announced that Louis Napoleon 
 Bonaparte was duly elected to the presidency. 
 Then in the dimly-Hghted Chamber Louis Napoleon 
 himself came forward to the tribime — dressed as 
 on another occasion in black, and bearing on his 
 breast the grand cross of the Legion of Honour 
 which he had worn at his trial before the Court 
 of Peers. He took the oath of fidehty to the 
 republic prescribed by the Constitution, and then 
 amid profound silence he made a short speech in 
 which he reaffirmed his loyalty to the existing 
 order, and expressed in modest language his hope 
 that in conjunction with the Assembly he might 
 be able to foxmd a republic at once just and 
 democratic, neither visionary nor reactionary in 
 its behaviour. Then, accompanied by one or two 
 friends, and escorted by a few officials, he left 
 the Chamber and proceeded to the palace of the 
 Elys^e, where a few rooms had been hastily 
 prepared for his use. 
 
 Here in his unfurnished palace we may leave 
 him for the present; already on the footsteps of 
 a throne, yet newly bound by a solemn oath to 
 mount no higher; with the most difficult steps in 
 the ladder already scaled, yet with a barrier in 
 the path of his further progress which could hardly 
 be broken by honest means. If from oiu- study 
 of his early career we seek to explain the causes 
 of his success up to this point, there is one without 
 doubt which stands out before all others. By 
 
1848] FAITH 321 
 
 faith Louis Napoleon, feeble champion of a fallen 
 cause, had triumphed over every obstacle. For 
 among much that is unattractive, and not a little 
 that is actually repellent, there remains in this 
 early career of Louis Napoleon one of the most 
 striking examples of the rnountain-moving force 
 of faith that history can afford ; an example vrhich 
 is not less, but more startling, if other moral and 
 intellectual povrers be denied to him. As a matter 
 of fact, it is hardly possible for an impartial vrriter 
 at this date to deny him other gifts ; but they 
 remain either dependent on this one, or at any 
 rate subordinate to it. That he attempted a task 
 which few would have dared to essay, that he 
 persevered when all others would have desisted, 
 that neither failure, ridicule, nor imprisonment 
 tm-ned him from his purpose, this of course was 
 merely the direct consequence of a faith such as 
 his. But while it could give him the determination 
 to use every opportunity, faith alone could not 
 have given him the discernment to recognise it 
 where it lay hidden, the skill to create it where 
 it did not exist. And this skill was his beyond 
 doubt. Other gifts he had which aided him in his 
 achievement, but they were of secondary import- 
 ance. He had the power of attaching to himself 
 a few devoted friends — though not always of 
 discriminating his true friends from his false. He 
 had the knack of winning the goodwill of the 
 underlings with whom he was brought in contact ; 
 of gaining the lasting affection of his personal 
 
 X 
 
322 AFTER MANY DAYS [CH. xii. 
 
 dependents. Of Louis Napoleon his English 
 biographer and apologist, Jerrold, remarked truly 
 that he was an exception to the rule that no man 
 is a hero to his own valet. Unfortunately, Jerrold 
 himself was no exception to another rule which is 
 equally true — that every man, every biographer at 
 any rate, is inclined to be a valet to his own hero, 
 to dress him up in such guise as seems good to 
 him. This instinct — like all instincts that are 
 universal — is to some extent a right one. It is right 
 that a biographer should portray his subject as a 
 consistent whole, using the light which is available 
 to him for that purpose for the production of some- 
 thing more than a mere photograph. And we con- 
 fess we are even grateful to him, if in the process 
 he do not attempt by any too ruthless scrutiny 
 to expose after death all the petty infirmities which 
 have escaped ordinary notice in life. There are 
 judgments which even posterity may do well to 
 leave. But we have the right to ask that the 
 guise in which the biographer presents his hero 
 shall not be a disguise ; that the figure shall be 
 truly discernible in the light of the completed 
 life. And no one whose task it has been to make 
 his way through the 'lives' of Napoleon III can 
 ignore the fact that, whether in praise or blame, 
 the figure of Louis Napoleon has been heaped with 
 clumsy draperies till its very outlines are un- 
 recognisable. The difiiculty of attaining a true 
 picture of the man is in this case aggravated by 
 the fact that, at any rate after his accession to 
 
1842] ALONE I DID IT 323 
 
 power, Louis Napoleon was consciously posing 
 before history; to some extent he was aware 
 that he must make himself fit a mantle which 
 was not made to fit him. 
 
 Lest we should seem to have fallen under 
 our own condemnation, to have read into Louis 
 Napoleon's early actions a consistency of purpose 
 which did not reaUy animate them, to have induced 
 harmony and set design into incidents really 
 chaotic or irrelevant — most of all, lest we should 
 appear to attribute to his own prescience results 
 properly due to the promptings of able friends 
 or the coincidence of fortunate circumstances, we 
 here quote in conclusion a passage in which Louis 
 Napoleon summarised his own reading of his own 
 early life. In 1842 he wrote from Ham to a 
 friend who had complained of the folly of his 
 efibrts to attain his object : — 
 
 ' Your letter troubled me. It proved to me — 
 what, alas ! I knew only too well before — that in all 
 the steps which I consider useful or necessary I 
 can count on myself alone. . . . They call me self- 
 willed ; I assure you this is quite mitrue. I listen to 
 all advice, and after weighing it in my mind I decide 
 for myself But placed as I am with no beaten 
 path before me, what would become of me if I 
 acted otherwise ? Instead of taking a single 
 influence from me, my friends would all wish to 
 influence me themselves ; if I consented I should 
 be drawn in two hundred difierent ways at once ; 
 no morsel of my own self would be left to me. . . . 
 Now you tell me that I am trying to advance my 
 cause by puerile efforts. Heaven knows, success 
 
324 AFTER MANY DAYS [ch. xii. 
 
 depends on an immense number of infinitely small 
 things, which only at the end attain weight and count 
 for something. If you saw a shipwrecked man alone 
 on a desert island, you would say to him, "Don't 
 trouble to build logs of wood into a raft, which 
 will founder in the first storm; wait imtil chance 
 sends in your way a ship to rescue you." / would 
 say to him, "Employ all your efibrts in creating 
 instruments with which you may finally succeed 
 in constructing a vessel for yourself. This 
 occupation will sustain your moral being, for you 
 will always have an end in view. It will develop 
 your character, by the obstacles you wiU have to 
 overcome. It wiU prove to you, if you succeed, that 
 you are master of fate. When your ship is ready, 
 launch out in it hardily. If you succeed in 
 reaching land, you will owe your success to 
 yourself alone. If you fail, you have at least 
 found a better end than death by wild beasts or 
 of sheer weariness." No, there is nothing puerile 
 in my efforts, however feeble they be, so long as 
 they originate always from the same motive, and 
 make always for the same end. In 1832 I wrote a 
 treatise in Switzerland in order to gain the esteem 
 of those among whom I was forced to live. Then 
 for nearly three years I devoted myself to a work 
 on artillery, which I felt to be beyond my powers ; 
 in order that I might acquire by it some friends in 
 the army, and show that if I held no command I 
 had at least the knowledge necessary to the 
 commander. By this means I arrived at Strasburg. 
 Then I had the Laity pamphlet published; not 
 only in self-defence, but in order to give the 
 Government a cause to have me expelled from 
 Switzerland. In this I succeeded, and so re- 
 covered my freedom of action which I had in a 
 sense lost by my forced setting at hberty. At 
 London I published, against the advice of every- 
 
1842] ARMS— AND A MAN 325 
 
 one, the Napoleonic Ideas; that I might both 
 formulate the political ideas of the party, and 
 prove that I was not myself merely a reckless 
 adventurer. I tried to prepare the way for Boulogne 
 through the newspapers. But it was no business 
 for editors. They wished to get a living by 
 political agitation ; I wished to make them serve 
 me. Here I failed. Boulogne was an over- 
 whelming catastrophe for me. But after all I 
 am pulling myself up from it, by that interest which 
 always attaches to misfortune, by the inherent 
 elasticity of all national causes, which, though they 
 are often compromised by events, always regain in 
 time their original position. In fine, what results 
 from all this series of little acts and cruel 
 sufferings? Why, a consequence of immense 
 importance to me. In 1833 the Emperor and 
 his son were dead : there were no more inheritors 
 of the imperial cause. France knew of none. 
 True some Bonapartes sm-vived, here and there 
 in the backwaters of the world; bodies without 
 life, petrified mummies, imponderable phantoms. 
 But for the people the line was broken : all the 
 Bonapartes were dead. Well, I have retied the 
 thread; of my own self with my own strength I 
 have resuscitated it ; and to-day here I am, within 
 twenty leagues of Paris, hanging over the Govern- 
 ment like a sword of Damocles. In short, I have 
 built my boat, I have raised my mast ; now I only 
 ask the gods for a wind to carry me forward. . . . 
 
 ' In fine, would you know the difference which 
 exists between you and me in certain matters ? It 
 is that you proceed by method and calculation. 
 I have faith, the faith that makes men endure 
 all things with resignation, makes them trample 
 under foot domestic joys ; that faith which alone 
 is able to remove mountains.'^ 
 
 ^ Ham, 10th June 1842, to M. Vieillard. 
 
326 AFTER MANY DAYS [CH. xir. 
 
 This letter, written be it noted before the 
 mountains had been removed, is in itself a 
 sufficient proof that what Louis achieved he 
 achieved by the conscious exercise of his own 
 powers; nor would it be difficult to quote other 
 passages in proof of it, if other proof were 
 necessary. 
 
 It is easier to moralise on the past than to 
 prophesy of the future. If, not content with 
 accounting for his success hitherto, we should 
 seek also, from our study of Louis Napoleon's 
 early life, to forecast his conduct of affairs as the 
 head of a great nation, then we should have 
 essayed a more difficult task. We might hope 
 for him that as he had made the uttermost use 
 of talents and opportunities hitherto, so he would 
 turn to yet greater advantage the vastly increased 
 powers now placed in his hands. It is always 
 an attractive argument, that the qualities by which 
 men rise to rulership are necessarily the qualities 
 which fit them to rule. For such an assumption, 
 to whatever department of human enterprise it 
 be applied, provides a royal road to an easy and 
 comprehensive optimism. We are here concerned 
 with the contention only in relation to the capacity 
 of political rule. In this aspect of it, the fact 
 that the comparative accident of heredity continues 
 to produce rulers not notably inferior to those who 
 emerge from the most cunningly contrived systems 
 of election or competition, would alone suffice to 
 give pause to the assumption. 
 
1848] PAST AND FUTURE 327 
 
 But in the case of Louis Napoleon there would, 
 be even less than the usual foundation for hopes 
 so based. For if ordinarily the talents by which 
 a man may most quickly obtain rule are not 
 necessarily the talents which best qualify him to 
 rule, the especial means whereby a pretender 
 attains to power are almost inevitably the actual 
 reverse of the means by which a potentate main- 
 tains his power when it is won. To this fact 
 Louis Napoleon was to bear unconscious testimony. 
 We may, as we follow his career further, be forced 
 to the conclusion that this man who has found 
 his way to the rulership over ten cities, was only a 
 two-talent man after all. In any case, the methods 
 of his early years had served him so long and so 
 well that he could not bring himself to cast them 
 aside when they had achieved their purpose. He 
 declined to put away what was childish in his 
 past ; because in the past, when no other methods 
 were to his hand, he had successfully availed 
 himself of childish means and trivial instruments. 
 He never recognised the fact that in a pretender 
 alone is persistent self-advertisement tolerable or 
 even profitable; that pamphlets, open letters, 
 secret communications to the Press, while they 
 may help a pretender to a throne, can only stamp 
 a monarch as a pretender. He could not xmder- 
 stand that a successful conspirator has no further 
 need to conspire ; he never quite realised, now 
 that his long Odyssey was over, that ttoAu'/M';"? is 
 not the highest epithet to which the statesman can 
 
328 AFTER MANY DAYS [CH. xii. 
 
 aspipe. Hence in taking leave of Louis Napoleon 
 as a private citizen, we must to some extent be 
 prepared to find that the very qualities, which 
 have made him seem a prince among pretenders, 
 will hereafter stamp him as a pretender among 
 princes. 
 
 Yet we would not end on this note. Other and 
 more gracious characteristics of his youth clung to 
 him as well. The child who had given away the 
 clothes off his back to a passing pauper never in 
 later life turned a deaf ear to any voice of distress. 
 The boy who had leaped into the Neckar to 
 recover a lady's gauge never quite lost as a man 
 the quixotic gallantry which prompted him to that 
 deed ; even as emperor 
 
 ' Believing a nation may act 
 
 Unselfishly — shiver a lance 
 (As the least of her sons may, in fact), 
 And not for a cause of finance.' 
 
 ' Hitherto Fate has denied me the happiness of 
 serving my country ; . . . but so closely are the 
 destinies of all civilised nations bound together, 
 that to be of use to a free people is still to serve 
 France.' So Louis Napoleon had written in 1835 
 in the preface to his Manuel d'Artillerie: half, no 
 doubt, in apology for the fact that a volume 
 intended for circulation in the French army was 
 ostensibly written for the use of Swiss soldiers, 
 and was signed by the mere captain of a Swiss 
 artillery regiment; but half, it may be, from a 
 wistful desire to convince himself that his exist- 
 
1848] LOSS AND GAIN 329 
 
 ence already was not altogether purposeless. In 
 1848 the saying was no longer needed for an 
 exile's consolation ; for France at last was Louis 
 Napoleon's, and his not merely to serve but to 
 govern. But by this time, however engendered, 
 the belief in an essential harmony — even an 
 essential unity — in the interests of all civilised 
 nations, had become a fixed idea in the mind of 
 Louis Napoleon : to the end of his reign he 
 believed fondly that ' to be of use to a free people 
 was still to serve France.' During that reign 
 he was indeed useful in some degree to France, 
 and he was beyond question of immense service 
 to Italy. But it was in part at any rate his 
 fault that in being useful to France he was not 
 serving a free people : it may, in part, have been 
 his pvmishment that the immense service he ren- 
 dered to a free people proved anything but useful 
 to France. 
 
 Yet if the curse of the wanderer was upon 
 him, the gift of wonder was his also. Still the 
 author of the Extinction of Pauperism had his 
 schemes for the welfare of the working man ; 
 schemes which were in some part put into execu- 
 tion. Still the writer on the 'Nicaraguan Canal' 
 sought to civilise the world's waste places; to 
 break down commercial barriers, to unite neigh- 
 bouring oceans where international jealousies would 
 have kept them asunder. The prisoner of Ham 
 still dreamed of distant glories; of a revival of 
 the Latin races, of a sort of European patriotism 
 
330 AFTER MANY DAYS [cH. xii. 
 
 not easily conceived of now. Great schemes they 
 were, grandiose, magnificent ; sometimes even noble 
 in their failure, magnanimous in their partial 
 success. But while the dreamer gazed on far 
 horizons he stumbled ever more often over the 
 obstacles at his feet, and at last fell headlong, 
 tripped by an antagonist who never lifted his 
 eyes from the ground. 
 
APPENDIX A 
 
 SOME EAELY LETTERS OF LOUIS 
 NAPOLEON 
 
 All the letters quoted in this appendix have 
 been published before at various times. For this 
 reason, and for the saving of space, I have not 
 thought it necessary either to quote the letters 
 entire, or to give them in the original French. 
 Passages quoted in the text are not repeated in 
 this place. For obvious reasons, letters intended 
 for publication have been more sparingly employed 
 than those written by Louis to his near relatives 
 and intimate friends. The extracts given below 
 have generally been chosen with a view to 
 throwing light on the thoughts rather than the 
 actions of their writer ; for it seemed unnecessary 
 to reproduce here letters which serve as evidence 
 for statements of fact made in the text. Reference 
 to the most important of these will be found in 
 the Bibliography. 
 
 Should any apology be considered necessary for 
 the inclusion in crude form of so much published 
 material, I would plead that light may still be light 
 even when it has not come fresh from under a 
 bushel ; that although documentary evidence once 
 
332 APPENDIX A 
 
 published ceases in a sense to be documentary, yet 
 it does not for that reason cease to be evidence. 
 And I would quote in my defence the most 
 just remark of a distinguished English biographer : 
 'That it is undesirable to make the reader of 
 a biography suffer under the evils, with which 
 legislation by reference has made the student 
 of English law only too familiar in the pages of 
 the Statute Book.' 
 
 To his mother, on hearing of the death of Napoleon. 
 
 AuGSBtTRG, lith July 1821. 
 It is a great grief to me that I did not even see him once 
 before he died ; for at Paris I was so young that it is really 
 only in my heart that I retain any remembrance of him. When 
 I do wrong, if I think of this great man I seem to feel his spirit 
 within me bidding me make myself worthy of the name 
 Napoleon. 
 
 To his Jather, on his tieenty-first birthday. 
 
 [20i!A] April 1829. 
 To-day I am twenty-one ; I am of age ; but in this I see but 
 one reason the more for obeying you still, for following your 
 counsels, and so making myself worthy of you. 
 
 To his cousin, the Due de Reichstadt. 
 
 [No date. Probably in 1830.] 
 I turn everywhere for news of your health; and the 
 uncertainty in which I am left by indirect reports gives me 
 the greatest anxiety. ... If the presence of a nephew of your 
 father could do you any good, if the care of a friend who bears 
 the same name as you do could a little lighten your sufferings, 
 the opportunity of being of any use to one to whom I am 
 entirely devoted would make me more than happy. 
 
SOME EARLY LETTERS 333 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 Camp at Thun, 21st July 1880. 
 We have been at work now for three days. The exercise 
 we take does me a world of good ; I have twice my ordinary 
 appetite. ReveUlez is at a quarter to six in the morning : then 
 we march, drums beating, to the Polygon. . . . We sup at 
 eight, and then to bed ; for one is quite ready for sleep. 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 Camp at Thun, August 1830. 
 We are very quiet in our little corner, while far away men 
 fight for interests we hold most dear. . . . Think of it, the 
 Tricolor floats in France ! Happy the men who were able to 
 be the first to give it back its ancient splendour. 
 
 To his mother, on hearing that she was ill. 
 
 Florence, 18th December 1880. 
 I am much troubled by the news ; I hope you will not 
 choose the time when 1 am away and cannot nurse you to be 
 ill. If you do not write, send me news by Hortense [La Croix ; 
 afterwards Mme Cornu]. 
 
 To his mother, informing her that he had joined the Italian revolt. 
 
 February 1831. 
 Your affection will understand us. We have accepted 
 engagements, and we cannot depart from them. The name 
 we bear obliges us to help a suffering people that calls upon 
 us. Arrange that my sister-in-law may think that it was I 
 who carried off her husband ; she suffers at the idea that he 
 has hidden one action of his life from her. 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 Spoleto, I2th February 1831. 
 We have the joy of finding ourselves in the midst of a people 
 who treat us with the greatest kindness, and who are wild 
 with patriotism. . . . Send us all the money you can : this is 
 no time to think of economies. 
 
334 APPENDIX A 
 
 To his father. 
 
 London, June 1831. 
 Ah, my dear father, how cruel this world is ! One only 
 lives to suffer and to see others suffer. Truly, I cannot under- 
 stand how I have been able to survive my brother, the only 
 friend I had in the world, the only person with whom I could 
 find consolation in all possible misfortunes. 
 
 To his sister-in-law, Princess Charlotte. 
 
 Arenenbehs, 29th August 1831. 
 I have lost the being I loved best on this earth. Since his 
 death I have to force myself not to be indifferent to everything. 
 I never conceived a wish, never formed a plan, in which my 
 brother had not the half of all my thoughts. 
 
 To his father, on the disposition of his brother's estate. 
 
 Abenenbebg, Zlst August 1831. 
 I approve all you have done : naturally your first care 
 should be to carry out his wishes and make all the payments 
 he desired. As for me, I will have nothing to do with money 
 which comes to me from such a miserable source. What I 
 would like is any of his belongings. If you will send me 
 whatever you do not want to keep, as a souvenir of him, I 
 shall be grateful. 
 
 To Chateaubriand, after reading his pamphlet, ' De la Restauration 
 et de la Monarchie Elective,' in defence of the Bourbons. 
 
 Arenenberg, ith May 1832. 
 How happy are the Bourbons in possessing a genius like 
 yom-s to uphold them. You restore a cause with the weapons 
 that have been used to overthrow it ; you find words which 
 vibrate in every French heart. ... I also, M. le Vicomte, am 
 enthusiastic for all that concerns my country's honour. That 
 is why I have followed my first impulse in expressing to you 
 the sympathy I feel for the man who shows so much patriotism, 
 so much love of liberty. But permit me to tell you that you 
 are the only redoubtable defender of the old monarchy : you 
 
SOME EARLY LETTERS 335 
 
 would render it national if one could believe that it thought as 
 you do. To make it worthy it is not necessary that you should 
 declare yourself ux its favour, but rather that it should prove 
 itself worthy of your opinion. 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 Brussels, lith November 1832. 
 Yesterday we visited the field of the battle of Waterloo. 
 You can understand all I felt in seeing the spot where the fate 
 of France was decided, and where the star of the Emperor set 
 for ever. 
 
 To his father, who had complained of his writings, of his travelling, 
 and of his choice of friends. 
 
 London, Uth May 1833. 
 It is really very painful to me to find you irritated against 
 me at every turn, whether I venture to express my thoughts, or 
 whether in search of distraction I travel from one coimtry to 
 another. I came here to see my uncle Joseph. Having no 
 one else near me, I took Count Arese with me. . . . This young 
 man is of one of the best families of Milan ; he is calm, steadfast, 
 and what is more, he is very much attached to me, and I am 
 very fond of him. You must see that I have a right to be a 
 little pained when, after choosing my travelling companion 
 yourself six months ago, you suddenly bid me send away a man 
 1 like, and that on the strength of false reports which have been 
 made to you. Remember, father, that I am twenty-five, and 
 no longer a child. 
 
 To his father, who had answered his former letter after two 
 months' silence. 
 
 Arenenbeeg, Qth July 1833. 
 I was delighted to get your letter, it was so long since I 
 had heard from you that I was really grieved. I beg you, 
 dear father, never be angry with me : your anger hurts me 
 too much. I am young, and have a difficult and unenviable 
 position to fill. Forgive me if I sometimes differ from your 
 
336 APPENDIX A 
 
 opinions ; and when I do, reproach me, but do not punish me 
 by not writing. Alone here with my mother, with no other 
 bonds save those which attach me to you, obliged to pass my 
 youth without friends, without country, I strive to distract my 
 mind by busying myself about serious matters. 
 
 7'o Ms father, who is again angry ; this time at a reference to 
 himself in the ' Considerations sur la Suisse.' 
 
 Arenenbero, 2nd September 1833. 
 Perhaps, as you say, I was wrong not to have told you in 
 advance ; but I thought I could not displease you by one short 
 sentence in your praise. Had I wished to explain your conduct 
 and policy at length, I should certainly not have done so 
 without consulting you. 
 
 To his father, who had met his offer to visit him in his illness hy 
 a reference to his will. 
 
 Arenenbero, 2nd February 1834. 
 I was delighted with your letter, except where you speak of 
 ' patrimony.' I care little enough for money, and it is only 
 the sight of the poor people who come to me every day that 
 sometimes makes me regret the lack of it. But I am often 
 glad to think that if any ill chance should suddenly force me 
 to work for my living, I should face the change with perfect 
 resignation. 
 
 To a French Deputy, on hearing that the Bonaparies were to be 
 excluded from France under the same statute which banished 
 the Bourbons. 
 
 \_No date.'\ 
 I say nothing of a cruel and unjust law ; but I do protest 
 against a measure which tends to confound the family of the 
 man who was proud to owe everything to the French people 
 with the family brought back by the foreigner, the family 
 which claims incessantly outworn rights which belong to the 
 nation alone. In the name of all my family — and I trust they 
 
SOME EARLY LETTERS 337 
 
 will not disavow me — I intervene to ask that we be not placed 
 on the side of the conquerors — we, who are the conquered of 
 Waterloo. 
 
 To M, Vieillard, on the same subject. 
 
 Ahenenberg, l&th Pehrua/ry 1834. 
 Yes, as Marshal Soult said in his speech, the Government 
 banish us because the nation is not yet indifferent to us. . . . 
 You are quite right. It is not in gilded rooms nor in the 
 writings of a timid class that we shall find justice, but in the 
 street. Here we must look if we would find noble sentiments. 
 How I pity the narrow-minded people who think themselves 
 strong because they have a coterie, a party, a Vendee. They 
 do not see that their power would be far greater if, instead of 
 having the support of a few individuals, they had ideas and 
 interests in common with the entire nation. True, with a party 
 you may wage war, but so you cannot consolidate your con- 
 quest, having no foundation. 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 Baden, 10** July 1834. 
 I am sorry to see you worried by business matters, especially 
 if your anxieties are increased by concern for me. I shall 
 marry soon, and things wiU all settle themselves. In any 
 case, it is character and not fortune which confers independ- 
 ence. If I had to sell all my luxuries to-morrow — and the only 
 luxuries I have are my horses — and work for my living, I should 
 find myself less pleased perhaps, but not less happy or less 
 independent. 
 
 To his mother, on receiving from the Government of Berne a 
 commission as honorary captain of artillery. 
 
 Baseh, \Zth July 1834. 
 I am the more pleased, as it shows that my name will only 
 find sympathy where democracy reigns. Yesterday I was 
 walking on the Zurich road, when a coach passed full of 
 Bernese marksmen. When they saw me they raised a shout 
 of * Vive Napoleon ! ' These friendly demonstrations are so 
 many consolations for an outlaw like me. 
 
 Y 
 
338 APPENDIX A 
 
 To his father, who had complained at the publication of his 
 
 ' Manuel d'Artillerie,' and at his large subscriptions to local 
 
 charities. 
 
 Geneva, 1th February 1835. 
 
 I receive hard words from you so often that I ought to be 
 
 used to them. Yet each reproach you address to me wounds 
 
 me as keenly as if it were the first, [Explains that the 4000 
 
 francs he had spent on cannon for Thurgau, and the money for 
 
 the free school he supported at Gallensteinj were sums which 
 
 had come to him from his brother's estate.] Such are my plans 
 
 and actions. I see here neither interest nor ambition, but only 
 
 a wish for quiet occupation, and a desire to be useful to my 
 
 fellow-creatures. Is it fair that when I am always trying to 
 
 do good I should constantly be the object of your reproaches .'' 
 
 To M. Vieillard ; on the death of his cousin, the Duke of 
 Leucktenberg. 
 
 Geneva, 29th April 1835. 
 The Constitutionnel had an article on his death which touched 
 me, because of its truth. ' The young scions of the house of 
 Bonaparte,' it said, 'are all dying in exile, like shoots of a tree 
 that has been transplanted into a foreign climate.' To die 
 young is often a good fortune ; but to die before one has lived, 
 to die in one's bed of sickness, without glory, that is terrible. 
 
 To his grandmother, shortly before her death. 
 
 Baden, July 1835. 
 You can imagine how grateful to me is the blessing of the 
 mother of the Emperor, for I venerate the Emperor as a god, 
 and hold his memory in sacred esteem. 
 
 To his mother, on leaving his cousins at Baden. 
 
 Baden, lith August 1836. 
 It is neither the pleasures nor the society that 1 regret, it is 
 only that I shall no longer see France on the horizon — France 
 which has been constantly before my eyes for the last month. 
 
SOME EARLY LETTERS 339 
 
 To has mother, from prison at Strasburg. 
 
 Nwember 1, 18S6. 
 I am in prison with the other ofEcers. It is only for them 
 that I am troubled ; for myself, I was prepared for anything 
 when I embarked on this enterprise. Do not grieve, my 
 mother, I am the victim of a fair cause, a cause altogether 
 French ; later they will do me justice, and mourn for me. . . . 
 Happily no French blood was shed. That is my one con- 
 solation in misfortune. Courage, my mother, I shall know how 
 to sustain up to the end the honour of the name I bear. . . . 
 Good-bye, my dear mother, do not grieve uselessly over my fate. 
 Life is no great matter. . . . Honour and France are every- 
 thing to me. I embrace you with all my heart. 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 LoKiENT, lith November 1836. 
 Forgive me if, at the moment of leaving Europe my last 
 prayers are for my companions. ... As Colonel Vaudrey is not 
 rich, please send his counsel after the trial the amount of his 
 fees, and take it from what is left at my bank. I shall need 
 little in America ; I will become a farmer. 
 
 To M. Fieillard, from the Citadel of Port Louis. 
 
 November 19, 1836. 
 Against my will, I do not share the fate of those whose 
 existence I have compromised. And so all the world will take 
 me for a fool, a self-seeker, a coward. Before ever I set foot 
 in France I had accustomed myself to the prospect of the two 
 first accusations ; but the third is too cruel. 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 Os BOARD THE ' ANDHOMfeDE,' 
 
 November 1836. 
 What care I for the cries of the common crowd, who will 
 call me mad because I have failed, and who would have 
 
340 APPENDIX A 
 
 exaggerated my merit had I been successful ? . . . On the 
 29th [of October, the eve of the rising], at eleven o'clock at 
 night, one of my friends came to see me in the Rue de la 
 Fontaine, to conduct me to the place of rendezvous. We 
 walked across the town together. A magnificent moonlight 
 flooded the streets, and I accepted this as a good omen for the 
 morrow. I carefully observed all the places we passed ; the 
 universal silence made a deep impression on me. What, 
 thought I, may reign in place of this calm to-morrow ? 
 ' However,' I said to my companion, ' there will be no 
 disorder if 1 succeed : for it is to prevent the troubles which 
 often attend popular movements that I wished to accomplish this 
 revolution with the help of the army. But,' I added, "^what 
 confidence, what a profound conviction one must have of the 
 nobleness of a cause to face, not the dangers we are going to 
 meet, but public opinion, which will rend us in pieces and load 
 us with reproaches if we do not succeed. None the less I call 
 God to witness that it is not to gratify a personal ambition, 
 but because I believe I have a mission to fulfil, that I risk what 
 is more dear to me than life — the esteem of my fellow- 
 citizens.' . . . The night seemed very long. . . . How 
 difficult it is to describe what one feels on such occasions as 
 this : in one moment one lives more than ten years. For to 
 live is to use one's senses, faculties, every part of our being 
 which makes for the idea of existence. ... It is a source of 
 moral strength to be able to say, 'To-morrow I shall be the 
 deliverer of my coimtry, or else I shall be in my grave.' 
 Pitiable, indeed, is the man to whom circumstances have 
 forbidden either alternative. 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 On board the • Androm{:de,' 
 nth December 1836. 
 A few months ago, when I came back after taking Mathilde 
 home, I noticed as I entered the garden again a tree which 
 had been broken by a storm. I said to myself, ' Our marriage 
 will be broken by fate. . . .' My vague fear has been 
 realised. . . . Do not accuse me of weakness if I indulge 
 myself by telling you all I feel. One may regret what one 
 has lost without repenting of what one has done. 
 
SOME EARLY LETTERS 341 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 Ist Jarmary 1837. 
 
 This morning the officers came in a body to wish me a 
 
 Happy New Year. I was touched by this act of kindness. 
 
 At half-past four we were at table ; as we are 17 degrees west 
 
 of Constance, it was then 7 o'clock at Arenenberg. Very 
 
 likely you were at dinner ; I thought of you, and drank to 
 
 your health. Perhaps you did as much for me, anyway I gave 
 
 myself the pleasure of thinking you did. I thought also of 
 
 my companions in misfortune. Alas ! / am always thinking of 
 
 them. I thought that they were in more unhappy case than I 
 
 am, and the thought made me in turn far more unhappy than 
 
 they. 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 IQth January 1837. 
 
 We have just arrived at Rio Janeiro. The coup d'ceil of the 
 
 roadstead is superb ; I shall make a sketch of it to-morrow. 
 
 I hope this letter will reach you soon. Do not think of coming 
 
 to join me ; I do not know yet even where I shall settle ; 
 
 perhaps I may find it suit me better to live in South America. 
 
 Work, to which the uncertainty of my fate will oblige me to 
 
 return in order to create a position for myself — work will be 
 
 the only consolation 1 can taste. 
 
 To a friend. 
 
 New York, 5th April 1837. 
 I have read all my papers. I had imagined there was as 
 much generosity as policy in the Government's treatment of 
 me. I now see there was only policy. I have been traduced 
 when I was not there to defend myself. . . . And what of 
 their behaviour to my mother ? Why did they not tell her I 
 was to be taken first to Rio .'' I know her ; they must have 
 caused her cruel suffering. 
 
 To his father. 
 
 New York, Idth April 1837. 
 On arriving here I found your letter, in which you sent me 
 your blessing. It was the most consoling thing I could have 
 found here. . . . All my fair cousins have written me charming 
 letters — except Mathilde ! 
 
342 APPENDIX A 
 
 To Colonel Vaudrey. 
 
 New YoiK, \Uh April 1837. 
 For two months I have sailed in the tropics before a wind 
 from St Helena. Alas ! I could catch no glimpse of the historic 
 rock. But always the breezes seemed to float me those last 
 words the dying Emperor addressed to the companions of his 
 misfortune : ' I have sanctioned all the principles of the revolu- 
 tion ; I have infused them into my laws and actions. There is 
 not one of them that I have not consecrated. . . .' 
 
 To his mother, describing his journey from Norfolk to New York. 
 
 New Yoek, 11th April 1837. 
 On Ap. 2 the captain and officers conducted me to the 
 steamboat that conveyed me to Baltimore. . . . There were 
 two hundred passengers on board. The cabin reaches the 
 entire length of the boat. It is a narrow room about 160 feet 
 in length. . . . About four in the morning, being very hot, I 
 got up and went on deck to get some fresh air. I had hardly 
 reached the deck when I saw a gentleman following me in his 
 shirt, who seemed anxious to speak to me. After having twice 
 made the round of the ship, he at length accosted me. He 
 began with the customary ' Very beautiful night, sir.' Then 
 he said, ' Would you be so good, sir, as to tell me your history } ' 
 I nearly laughed in his face. But I restrained myself, and 
 merely told him that the memory of what had befallen me was 
 so painful that I could not comply with his request. . . . From 
 Philadelphia to New York we travelled in the same way. I 
 passed before Point Breeze, my uncle's residence. It is a pretty 
 little house on the banks of the Delaware, but the surrounding 
 country is flat. The only fine features are the width of the 
 stream (since it is agreed that this is beauty), and the steam- 
 boats, which are magnificent. 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 New York, %Mh April 1837. 
 When I left the frigate on which the tricolor floated, the 
 ship where men had shown me such attention, I wept as though 
 I were quitting my country a second time. The pleasure of 
 
SOME EARLY LETTERS 343 
 
 recovered liberty did not make up for the grief of being no 
 longer with fellow-countrymen under a French flag. 
 
 To his mother. 
 
 On board the 'Geokge Washington,' 
 9<* July 1837. 
 A strange place a packet-boat is. All these people whom 
 chance has thrown together appear as fond of one another as 
 though they had planned to travel together. We have a doctor 
 from Boston, and his family ; a New York trader, with his wife 
 and child; two ladies, who seem to have dropped from the 
 moon ; two capital English actors, an officer of the same country, 
 who has been in garrison in Canada and in the Antilles, two 
 Swiss, a priest, an Italian sculptor who carves in marble at 
 Washington the great deeds of American history ; a gentleman, 
 an innocentin, with whom I play chess — and the rest — freight. 
 
 To his father. 
 
 London, 12th July 1887. 
 If you knew, dear father, how wretched I am in the midst 
 of this London tumult, amid relatives who shun me and foes 
 who fear me ! My mother is dying, and I cannot carry her the 
 consolations of a son ; my father is ill, and I cannot hope to go 
 and see him. 
 
 To his uncle Joseph. 
 
 London, Vith July 1837. 
 I do not reproach myself in the least for my deed, because 
 I have acted from conviction. Moreover, whatever may be 
 your conduct towards me, mine shall remain unchanged. For 
 I have a religion that guides me, and I am not subject to 
 personal resentments. None the less, if you were not brother 
 of the Emperor and of my father, I should have every right to 
 quarrel with you ; I, your nephew, a champion of your cause, 
 went forth in all likelihood to be shot by a Bourbon ; and you, 
 uncle, range yourself on the side of his hangmen, wishing to 
 overwhelm me with your blame and reproaches. 
 
344 APPENDIX A 
 
 To his Jather. 
 
 Aeenenberg, ith October 1837. 
 To-day, at five in the morning, my mother died in my arms. 
 She had received all the consolations of the Church and of filial 
 love. I have no strength to write more. 
 
 To his father. 
 
 Abenenbebg, Z\st October 1837. 
 I am bound to spend the winter here in arranging my 
 mother's affairs ; they need arranging. My mother has left me 
 many obligations and responsibilities, and an old castle 
 [Gottlieben] half restored. I must finish this work in order to 
 realise something by it. Besides, it will be my one distraction 
 this winter. This new misfortune has induced my family to 
 show me some signs of affection. My uncles Joseph and 
 Lucien have written to me. Uncle Jerome is the only one who 
 has not deigned to do so. 
 
 To his Jather. 
 
 Gottlieben, \Oth May 1838. 
 I have spent the whole winter in the old castle of Gottlieben. 
 My mother had planned repairs, and I have carried them out. 
 Although it is less finely situated than Arenenberg, I like it 
 better, for here I am not haunted with heartrending memories. 
 
 To M. Laity, on the eve of his trial by the Court of Peers. 
 
 Arenekbebq, 2nd July 1838. 
 So you are to go before the Chamber of Peers, because you 
 have been generous and devoted enough to reproduce the 
 details of my enterprise ! In authorising you to publish them, 
 my only object, as you know, was to repel the cowardly 
 calumnies with which the Ministerial organs covered me during 
 the five months wherein I was in prison or at sea. My honour 
 and that of my friends were concerned in proving that it was 
 no mad dream which led me to Strasburg in 1836. They say 
 your pamphlet is a fresh conspiracy ; on the contrary, it acquits 
 me of the reproach of ever having conspired. . . . You will be 
 asked, as some newspapers are asking already. Where is the 
 Napoleonic party? Answer, 'The party is nowhere — the 
 
SOME EARLY LETTERS 345 
 
 cause is everywhere.' The party is nowhere, for my friends 
 are not brigaded ; but the cause has partisans everywhere, from 
 the workshop of the mechanic to the council chamber of the 
 King, from the soldiers' barracks to the palace of the marshal 
 of France — Republicans, Juste-Milieu, Legitimists, all who desire 
 a strong government, real liberty, an imposing governing 
 authority. All these, I say, are Napoleonists, whether they 
 know it or not ; for the Imperial system is not the bastard 
 imitation of English or American Constitutions, but the 
 governmental form of the principles of the Revolution. It is a 
 hierarchy in a democracy, equality before the law, reward for 
 merit ; it is, in short, a colossal pyramid with a broad base and 
 a high head. 
 
 Say that in authorising you to publish the pamphlet my 
 aim was not to disturb the tranquillity of France, nor to rekindle 
 smouldering passions, but to show myself to my fellow-citizens 
 as I am, and not as the hate of interest has depicted me. But 
 if some day parties were to overthrow the actual Government — 
 and the example of the last fifty years makes this supposition 
 permissible — if, accustomed as they have been for the last 
 twenty-three years to despise authority, they were to sap all 
 the foundations of the social edifice, then, perhaps, the name of 
 Napoleon would be a sheet-anchor for all that is generous and 
 truly patriotic in France. It is for this reason that I insist, as 
 you know, that the honour of the eagle of October 30 shall 
 remain intact ia spite of its defeat, and that the nephew of the 
 Emperor shall not be taken for a common adventurer. You 
 will be asked, no doubt, where you obtained all the statements 
 you publish ; you may say that you received them from me, 
 and that I certify on my honour that their truth has been 
 guaranteed to me by men worthy of belief. 
 
 To his father. 
 
 London, end of December 1838. 
 Though absence cannot in any way weaken my regard for 
 you, I am always afraid to write to you. For a long time past 
 not all that comes from me has the good fortune to please you. 
 Suffer me none the less at this season to mingle, with the good 
 wishes of the polite, the sincere good wishes of a son who only 
 asks his father for leave to express all his love and respect. 
 
346 APPENDIX A 
 
 To M. Berryer, thanking him for condticting his defence after 
 Boulogne. 
 
 The Conciergeme, 6th October 1840. 
 I do not know if I shall ever be in a position to give you 
 tokens of my gratitude. I do not know if you would ever be 
 willing to accept such tokens ; but whatever our respective 
 positions, outside of political life and its dreary obligations, we 
 shall always be able to regard each other with friendship and 
 esteem. 
 
 To Mme Salvage. 
 
 Ham, 16tk October 1840. 
 By this time I am installed. I have a good bed, white 
 curtains for my windows, a round table, a chest of drawers, and 
 six chairs. You see I have all that I ought to have. 
 
 To an old friend (Mme Cornii). 
 
 Ham, %th June 1841. 
 You are right in saying that childhood and youth are two 
 great saints which are only canonised after their death. But 
 let me add that the friends of our early years are like the 
 precious relics of these great saints, and as such are objects of 
 our attachment and veneration. Amongst other flattering 
 remarks you tell me that the only persons really to be 
 esteemed are those who have received the great consecration 
 of misfortune. You quote as your maxim, ' Tell me how you 
 suffered, and I will tell you what you are.' Again, my dear 
 Hortense, I find a surer touchstone for human character ; it is 
 to examine men's conduct towards those who suffer. 
 
 To M. Vieillard. 
 
 Ham, nth December 1841. 
 Here is another year nearly over. Accept my good wishes 
 for 1842. I wish you, and your wife as well, all that a friend 
 may wish for a friend. As for me, do not have any regrets ; 
 I have no right to accuse fate ; my misfortunes are my own 
 making, and to deplore them would be to revolt against nayself. 
 
SOME EARLY LETTERS 347 
 
 To M. Vieillard, explaining why he cannot support a certain 
 publication. 
 
 Ham, 10th April 1842. 
 I have a sacred duty to fulfil, the duty of providing for all 
 those who have devoted themselves to my cause ; and unfortun- 
 ately the pensions I am paying are in excess of my income. 
 I do what I can, too, for the unfortunate people around me ; and 
 to meet the cost of all this I am retrenching my expenditure 
 even on my pleasures ; for I have sold my horse, and I don't 
 suppose I shall buy another. 
 
 To M. Vieillard. 
 
 Ham, loth June 1842. 
 I begin by telling you how grieved I was by the sad end of 
 your poor Finette. No one knows better than I how much the 
 loss of a dog one loves can sadden a man. For I was a very 
 long time in consoling myself after losing a dog I had at Rome. 
 ... I readily admit that there are in Paris a hundred writers 
 cleverer than me. But ask Bastide, ask Louis Blanc, ask 
 George Sand or any of them, if in developing their political 
 ideas they have ever moved their readers to tears. I am sure 
 they have not ; yet I have seen and known a thousand instances 
 where my writings have produced this effect. Do you ask why ? 
 It is because the Napoleonic cause goes to the soul : it stirs 
 vibrant memories. And it is always by the heart, never by 
 cold reason, that one moves the masses. 
 
 To Mme Comu. 
 
 1th March 1843. 
 
 Have no fear about my experiments ; they are quite harm- 
 less, and distract me when I am tired. I cannot read or write 
 long without fatigue. Chemistry is an agreeable relaxation. 
 See the benefits of science ! A little copper, zinc, and acid, 
 and for several hours I forget my troubles and am the happiest 
 of mortals. 
 
 To M. Desportes, on hearing of the death of the Due d' Orleans. 
 
 Ham, ISth July 1842. 
 To-day every other thought ceases in face of the tragic 
 event which has just carried off the Due d' Orleans. In spite 
 
348 APPENDIX A 
 
 of the Interests of party and of conflicting claims, I personally 
 have been profoundly moved at the sight of a son snatched so 
 suddenly from his mother's love ; and my only thought has 
 been for the mourning and misfortune of a French family. 
 
 To M. Vieillard. 
 
 Ham, \8th April 1843. 
 You tell me that there is much talk of an amnesty at Paris, 
 and ask what I think of this news. I will answer your question 
 frankly. If to-morrow they should throw open the doors of my 
 prison, telling me, 'You are free, stay with us as a citizen,' 
 then indeed my heart would rejoice. But if they offered me 
 exUe in exchange for my actual position, I should repel it as an 
 aggravation of my punishment. Better imprisonment in France, 
 than liberty abroad. Besides, I know the meaning of the word 
 ' amnesty ' in the mouth of the present Government. [Repeats 
 the story of the Government's attempt to make it appear that 
 he had promised to remain in America.] That was the effect 
 of one amnesty the Government inflicted on me. Do you 
 suppose that after that I could possibly desire a second .'' 
 
 To Mme Cornu. 
 
 Ham, 5th Jane 1843. 
 Headaches, visitors, and hard work have prevented me from 
 writing sooner, but they did not prevent me from often thinking 
 of you. I was very pleased at the reading of my letter by 
 M. Arrago, and at its insertion in the Bulletin de l' Academic. I 
 wish I could say that my work on artillery is almost finished ; 
 but the farther I go forward the farther I fall behind. When 
 you see the proofs, you will understand how much patience is 
 necessary for such a labour. 
 
 To M. Vieillard. 
 
 Ham, i2nd April 1844. 
 Apparently, the longer my captivity lasts the more their 
 severity increases. But this is a small matter. By the ill-will 
 of the Government I measure its strength and mine. Here I 
 have an unfailing barometer. 
 
SOME EARLY LETTERS 349 
 
 To a friend at Florence, who was attempting to reconcile his 
 father to him. 
 
 Ham, tth May 1844. 
 Unhappily my father has not judged me as you have : 
 often he has attributed the most sordid motives to my actions. 
 I will tell you the- thing which wounded me most : it will 
 show you what I mean. In 1834 I was in Switzerland with 
 my mother when I learnt that cholera had broken out at 
 Leghorn. At once I asked for passports so that I could go to 
 my father and look after him in case he had been stricken 
 with the plague. Will you believe me, he answered me in the 
 coldest manner, and read in this proof of attachment motives 
 of self-interest. I have never been able to forget that : it was 
 a thing so foreign to my thoughts that I could hardly even 
 understand the idea of it. Am I not unfortunate to be so 
 misunderstood } Man Dieu ! I act from self-interest ! Why, 
 to-day I have spent almost all I possess in sustaining in their 
 misfortune the men whose existence I have compromised, and 
 I would give all my heritage for my father's embrace. Let 
 him give his whole fortune to Peter or Paul ; it is small matter 
 to me : I will work for my living. 
 
 To the same. 
 
 Ham, 7.Uh September 1844. 
 My definition of good fortune is almost the same as yours : 
 to command in order to do good, or to obey one whom he 
 loves, that is a man's true happiness. . . . You are right in 
 saying that my poor father is more wretched than me, since 
 I have what he has not, the hope of a better future. . . . Do 
 you know if he has read a notice in the Revue de FEmpire 
 which I have written on my Uncle Joseph? . . . My uncle 
 had told me at London that it was not fair that I should 
 support alone all the charges which political life has forced 
 me to accept : he often said that he would make me some 
 return in his will. He has done nothing of the kind. I have 
 avenged myself by writing an appreciation of him, clearing 
 him of the calumnies men showered on his memory. 
 
350 APPENDIX A 
 
 To a friend. —' 
 
 Ham, eth Janua/nf 1845. 
 Years roll on with a depressing monotony. It is only in 
 the promptings of my heart and conscience that I find strength 
 to stand up against this leaden atmosphere which surrounds and 
 suffocates me. 
 
 To George Sand. 
 
 Ham, 2ith January 1815. 
 I desire liberty, and even power. But I had rather die in 
 prison than owe my rise to a lie. I am not a republican, 
 because I believe that to-day, in face of party divisions and of 
 a monarchical Europe, the Republic is an impossibility. 
 
 To M. Peauger. 
 
 Ham, 3rd February 1845. 
 I beUeve in fate. If my body has miraculously escaped 
 every danger, if my soul is secure amid so many causes of 
 discouragement, it is because I am called to do something. 
 
 To M. Peauger. 
 
 Ham, Mth March 1845. 
 I am glad to find that our characters are so alike : we 
 pass by turns without excuse of reason from misery to joy, 
 from discouragement to hope. I loathe those ' golden mean ' 
 persons who are never gay and never sad, because they have 
 no lively sense of any emotion : such persons do not live, they 
 vegetate. 
 
 To his father. 
 
 Ham, 20M August 1845. 
 The Feast of St Louis approaches. In wi-iting to you, dear 
 father, I cannot repeat the banalities common on such occasions. 
 But I will tell you that every evening I address to God fervent 
 prayers for those I love ; and in them my first thought is to ask 
 for the lengthening of your days and the realisation of my 
 dearest wish — ^that of seeing you again, and being able once 
 more to embrace you. 
 
SOME EARLY LETTERS 351 
 
 To his father, on receiving his letter, asking Louis to visit him. 
 
 Ham, 19th September 1845. 
 Yesterday I had the first real joy I have experienced for 
 five years, when I received the kind letter you were so good as 
 to write. ... Till then I was resolved to do nothing at all to 
 leave my prison. For I had nowhere to go, nothing to do. 
 Was I to wander alone in a foreign land without friends ? 
 Better a grave in my own country. But now a new hope 
 dawns on my horizon, a new object presents itself for my 
 eiForts. 
 
 To M. Vieillard. 
 
 Ham, Uh December 1845. 
 I have found no more despicable role in history than that 
 played by Cromwell's son, who deserted his father's cause to 
 become an imobserved spectator at the coronation of the 
 Stuarts. 
 
 To Mme Cornu. 
 
 Ham, 3rd F^yruary 1846. 
 M. Odilon Barrot, acting against my wishes, drew up with 
 M. Duchatel a new draft of a letter to the king. He enclosed 
 with it a very kind letter, m'ging me to sign it, and eight or 
 ten deputies wrote in practically the same words. I repUed 
 yesterday to M. Odilon Barrot with a definite refusal. I told 
 him that I had asked the king for leave to visit my father, 
 because my duty called me to him ; but that I had no intention 
 of asking for pardon, and would rather stay in prison all my life 
 than demean myself. This unfortunate step of M. Barrot will 
 divide the deputies and rob me of the moral support which it 
 was so important for me to keep. 
 
 To General Montholon. 
 
 Ham, May 24, 1846. 
 I thought it better for your own sake to leave you in 
 ignorance of plans which are only a few days old ; besides, I 
 
352 APPENDIX A 
 
 am convinced that my escape will be nothing but good for you 
 and the other friends I leave in prison. . . . Believe me, 
 general, I was very sorry not to have shaken your hand before 
 I left. But I could not have done it ; my emotion would have 
 betrayed the secret I wished to keep from you. I have 
 taken steps to ensure the payment of your pension. As you 
 may have need of money in advance, I have given Conneau 
 two thousand francs, which he will give you. 
 
 To M. Degeorge. 
 
 London, June 1846. 
 The desire to see my father once more in this world 
 prompted me to undertake the boldest enterprise I have yet 
 attempted ; one which called for more resolution and courage 
 than those of Strasburg and Boulogne. For I had determined 
 not to endure the ridicule which is the lot of persons arrested 
 under disguise. 
 
 To M. Vieillard (an agnostic). 
 
 London, 6th June 1846. 
 You see, my dear M. Vieillard, a man who has experienced 
 such deep emotions becomes superstitious. Half a league from 
 Ham, when I found myself, on waiting for Charles on the 
 highway, opposite to the graveyard cross, I fell on my knees 
 and thanked God for my escape. Ah, do not laugh ; there are 
 instincts stronger than all philosophies, but God save you from 
 ever feeling them under like circumstances. 
 
 To the author of ' The Prisoner of Ham.' 
 
 London, 2Qth July 1846. 
 1 send you the documents I promised you, since you thought 
 they possessed some interest. I thank you for your desire to 
 correct by a simple statement of facts the false opinions now 
 existing respecting me. A simple and correct narrative of my 
 experiences, avoiding all propaganda and panegyric, may be 
 very useful to me. 
 
SOME EARLY LETTERS 353 
 
 To M. Vieillard. 
 
 3 KvnQ Stbeet, 17 th Fehrwtry 1847. 
 I have been installed for a fortnight in my new house, and 
 for the first time in seven years I am enjoying the pleasure of 
 being at home. I am collecting all my books, papers, and 
 family portraits ; in fact, everything of yalue which has escaped 
 the shipwreck. 
 
 To Captain Lecomte, commander of the guard of honour at thejinal 
 funeral ceremony of Louis of Holland. 
 
 London, ith October 1817. 
 It is not the man whom chance and the fortune of war made 
 a king for a few months that you have honoured with your 
 regrets, but the old soldier of the republican armies of Italy and 
 Eygpt — a man who remained but a little time on a throne, who 
 paid for a few years' glory by forty years of exile, and died 
 alone in a foreign land. 
 
APPENDIX B 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 This bibliography covers only that portion of Louis 
 Napoleon's career which is treated of in this volume, 
 i.e., the first forty years of his life. The evidence 
 for this period, as a whole, is far from satisfactory. 
 The most important authorities are marked with 
 an asterisk. Where the author's name is given 
 in brackets, the book was originally published 
 anonymously. The date of publication is given; 
 where the place of publication is not mentioned, 
 books with English titles were published in London, 
 and those with French titles at Paris. From these 
 two data the bias of the writer may generally be 
 inferred. Most of the accounts of Louis Napoleon's 
 exploits published before 1848 are friendly ; for the 
 obvious reason that it was not yet worth while for 
 anyone to attack him, while it was already greatly 
 to his interest to make himself known favotu-ably 
 to the French people. From 1848 to 1851 the 
 President was subject to the ordinary attacks of 
 pohtical hfe. After the coup d'etat and during the 
 earlier years of the Empire, all books published in 
 France were necessarily polite ; during the same 
 period, books published outside France were almost 
 uniformly hostile. As the reign advanced, moderate 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 355 
 
 criticism became possible in France, while qualified 
 appreciation became more common in Europe. But 
 the writings of the political exiles — books pubKshed 
 for the most part at Brussels or Geneva — these 
 naturally remained bitterly hostile. In the closing 
 years of the Empire criticism was unmuzzled in 
 France itself, and after the downfall the great 
 majority of French writers waxed almost hysterical 
 in their abuse of Napoleon III and all his works. 
 It was only after twenty years had passed that 
 some signs of an approach towards historic 
 impartiaUty began to appear; the latest French 
 writings on the Second Empire show perhaps a 
 slight reaction in its favour. 
 
 Almost aU accounts of Louis Napoleon's career, 
 published during his lifetime, were mere partisan 
 pamphlets attacking or defending him. Defenders 
 and detractors aUke were in many cases capable of 
 tampering with their facts. Hence the majority of 
 the earlier publications cited below are not altogether 
 reliable. But I enumerate them, rather than mere 
 compilations pubUshed after Louis Napoleon's death, 
 because they rank as primary authorities, and 
 because they may conceivably have had some 
 material influence on contemporary opinion. 
 
 I. — General Authorities for the Early Life 
 OF Louis Napoleon 
 
 Emile Ollivikr. L' Empire LibSral, 14 vols. ; in progress, 1895 
 et sqq. Vol. II., chapters i. and ii., cover this period, though 
 not, of course, in any great detail. M. Ollivier's work 
 only becomes of first-rate importance as he approaches the 
 later part of Napoleon Ill's reign. 
 
356 APPENDIX B 
 
 *H. Thibria. NapoUon III avant I'Empire. 2 vols. 1895-6. 
 The first scholarly study of this portion of Louis 
 Napoleon's life. Vol. I. treats of the period covered in 
 this book. 
 
 Only eleven pages on the first twenty-five years of Louis 
 Napoleon's life, but most useful afterwards. It contains 
 many quotations from the French press of the period, 
 illustrative of the contemporary opinion of Louis and the 
 Legend. 
 
 *A. Lebey. Strasbourg et Boulogne. 1906. 
 
 On the whole, the best book on this early period. 
 M. Lebey hardly succeeds in proving that these two 
 attempts possessed quite the importance -vhich he ascribes 
 to them, but his study of the subject is valuable and 
 illuminating. 
 
 F. GiRAUDEAU. Napoleon III intime. 1895. 
 
 The chief value of this book consists in a number of 
 Louis Napoleon's early letters contained in it which had 
 not before been published. 
 
 During the Second Empire a constant succes- 
 sion of eulogistic biographies of Napoleon III 
 was forthcoming. As examples of their kind, 
 the following may be mentioned : — 
 
 B. Renault. Histoire du prince Louis-Napoleon. 1852. 
 Gallix et Guy. Histoire complete et authentique de Louis- 
 Napoleon Bonaparte. 2 vols. 1853. 
 De Barins. Histoire populaire de Napoleon III. 1853. 
 A. Mansfield. NapoUon III. 1860. 
 E. FouRMESTREAux. NapoUon III. 1862. 
 
 These eulogistic lives do make some sHght 
 contributions to our knowledge of Louis Napoleon's 
 early days ; the series of diatribes which appeared 
 after the fall of the Second Empire do not. Their 
 authors were generally concerned with the later 
 and greater crimes of Napoleon III ; for this reason 
 they claim no notice here. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 357 
 
 The only English life of Napoleon III which is 
 of any value at all is 
 
 *Blanchard Jerrold. Life of Napoleon III. 4 vols. 1874-82. 
 Though a far from satisfactory biography, Jerrold's 
 book contains much valuable matter. For the disabilities 
 of a professed apologist he had real compensation, in 
 access to important documents in the possession of 
 the imperial family. This period is covered by the first 
 two volumes of the work, which has long been out of 
 print. 
 
 Archibald Forbes. Napoleon III. 1898. A mere rechauffe. 
 Also out of print. 
 
 F, H. Cheetham. Louis Napoleon and ike Genesis of the Second 
 Empire. 1908. 
 
 Save in regard to the Strasburg and Boulogne affairs, 
 this is an accurate and carefully compiled account of Louis 
 Napoleon's early life ; an account in which, in the author's 
 phrase, 'the works of M. Emile Ollivier, M. Thirria, and 
 M. Andre Lebey are largely drawn upon, in many cases 
 their narratives being closely followed.' 
 
 II. — Authorities for Particular Events 
 
 The Napoleonic Legend. 
 
 The literary foundation of the Napoleonic 
 Legend was laid by the memoirs of Napoleon's 
 companions at St Helena, and so indirectly it was 
 the work of Napoleon himself. Of these memoirs, 
 the more important were : — 
 
 O'Meara. Transactions at Si Helena. 1819. 
 
 „ Illness and Death of Napoleon. 1821. 
 
 „ Napoleon in Exile. 1822. 
 
 Las Cases. Memorial de Sainte Helene. 1823. 
 CoMTE DE MoNTHOLON. Menwircs pour servir a I'hisioire de France 
 
 sous Napoleon. 1823. 
 „ The Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena. 
 
 1846. 
 Antommarchi. Demiers Moments de NapoUon. 1825. 
 General Gourgaud. Refutation of Sir Walter Scott, 1827. 
 
358 APPENDIX B 
 
 Hardly less important was the contribution of 
 the whole school of French poets, who, in the 
 generation following Napoleon's fall, made his 
 exploits the subject of their song. Of these, the 
 most important were Beranger (1816 and onwards) 
 and Victor Hugo (1822 and onwards). 
 
 The Legend was finally incorporated into the 
 works of two of the greatest of French historians. 
 Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins (1847), and 
 Thiers' Histoire du Consulat et de V Empire (1845 
 onwards), succeeded together in presenting 
 Napoleon as a personification of the best work 
 of the Revolution. 
 
 But the real literature of the Legend defies the 
 bibliographer, for the true evidence of its growth 
 consists less in the writings of its great French 
 protagonists — poets, historians, ecclesiastics, 
 politicians — than in the innumerable references 
 and allusions to Napoleon with which the entire 
 literature of the reaction abounds. 
 
 For a good bibliography of the actual St Helena 
 literature, as well as a capable analysis of Napoleon's 
 own contribution to the Legend, see 
 
 Philippe Gonnard. Les Origines de la Legende NapoUonienne. 
 1906. 
 
 Parentage of Louis Napoleon. 
 
 The story that Louis Napoleon was no son of 
 King Louis of Holland is a tradition of long stand- 
 ing; but it is only the later — possibly the last — 
 stages of the controversy which need here be 
 traced. 
 
 In 1893, M. Hachet-Souplet, in his book cited 
 below, stated as a matter of common knowledge the 
 fact that King Louis had never wished to recognise 
 Louis as his son. Like almost all recent supporters 
 of this contention, he maintained that the real father 
 of the future emperor was Admiral Verhuel. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 359 
 
 In February 1894, M. Lucien Perey, in an 
 article in the Vie Contemporaine entitled 'La 
 Reine Hortense,' by the aid of unpublished 
 letters demonstrated the impossibility of accept- 
 ing this view. 
 
 In August 1894, W. Graham, in an article in 
 the Fortnightly Review entitled ' SideKghts on the 
 Second Empire,' revived the statement that in 
 1831 King Louis wrote to the Pope denying that 
 Louis Napoleon was his son. 
 
 In December 1894, M. Fernand Giraudeau, 
 in the Figaro (December 8, 12, and 15), pub- 
 lished a number of most intimate letters between 
 King Louis and his son Louis Napoleon, proving 
 that in his correspondence King Louis repeatedly 
 recognised the prince as his son. 
 
 The author of the English article stated that 
 his discovery was to be followed up by further 
 revelations ; but these have not yet been forth- 
 coming, nor has Mr Graham ever produced docu- 
 mentary evidence of the authenticity of the letter 
 from which he quoted. M. Giraudeau, on the 
 contrary, followed up his intervention in publish- 
 ing in 1895 his work quoted above, in which 
 incidentally he succeeds in showing that M. 
 Hachet-Souplet is a totally unreliable authority. 
 
 In 1896 appeared the Memoires du Marechal 
 de Castellane, which bear out M. Percy's conten- 
 tion that in the summer of 1807 Verhuel was 
 hardly acquainted with Hortense. 
 
 Though it has thus been shown to be untenable, 
 a far stronger case was made out for the paternity 
 of Admiral Verhuel than for any of the half-dozen 
 other men on whom scandal has endeavom-ed to 
 place it. The only one of these others in whose 
 case the contention has even a remote possibility 
 of truth is M. Decazes, a secretary of Napoleon's 
 mother; but a chance remark of his to Thiers, 
 
360 APPENDIX B 
 
 quoted by the latter at Versailles in 1871 (vide M. 
 de Baillehache, Prdtendants, p. 141), seems to show 
 that here too the contention of those who deny 
 the Napoleonic origin of Louis Napoleon is with- 
 out justification in fact. 
 
 Since 1879 the question has been a purely 
 academic one ; at the present time it is hardly an 
 open question at all. For no recent writer whose 
 opinion is of any moment denies that the whole 
 weight of the evidence is in favour of the belief 
 that Louis Napoleon was actually the son of Louis 
 of Holland. For this reason, and because the 
 arguments are largely of a physiological nature, 
 I do not summarise the contentions which have 
 been used by advocates of different views of this 
 question. The whole subject is discussed with a 
 certain French thoroughness by M. Lebey, op. cit., 
 pp. 2-14. 
 
 Childhood of Louis Napoleon. 
 
 Ladvocat. Memoires sur la cour de Louis-Napoleon et sur la 
 
 Hollande. 1828. 
 Mlle Cochelet. Memoires sur la reine Hortense. 1836. 
 Wraxall and Wehrhan. Memoirs of Queen Hortense. 2 vols. 
 
 1862. 
 Mme de Remusat. Memoires. 1880. 
 J. Turquan. La reine Hortense. 1896. 
 
 Louis Napoleon's farewell with his Uncle. 
 
 Jerrold quotes the story from Renault, op. cit., 
 
 1852. Mr Cheetham, following in the steps of 
 M. Lebey, states 'that it dates back at least to 
 
 1853, when it appeared in De Barin's Histoire 
 Populaire de Napoleon III.' The story is con- 
 siderably older than this, for it is told in detail 
 in Persigny's Lettres de Londres, published at 
 the beginning of 1840. The difiPerence in date is 
 material, for any claim the narrative has to accept- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 361 
 
 ance consists in the fact that it was current before 
 Soult's death in 1851. That Soult did not actually 
 deny it proves nothing ; that such a wholly unneces- 
 sary risk of denial should have been incurred does, 
 however, seem to show that the story had some 
 basis of fact. Had it been a mere invention, the 
 r61e of sympathetic spectator could obviously have 
 been assigned with greater safety and greater effect 
 to Marshal Ney. For some uses the dead lion is 
 doubly to be preferred. Still, Persigny's book, even 
 more than the ' lives ' of Renault, De Barins, Gallix 
 and Guy, etc., is a mere Tendenzschrift. Thus, 
 aU these official lives state that Louis Napoleon 
 was born at the Tuileries : in reality he was born 
 at No. 8 in the Eue Cerrutti, now the Eue Lafitte. 
 In any case, the parting before Waterloo was 
 not the final farewell of the two emperors of 
 the Napoleonic house, for it seems certain {vide 
 H. Houssaye, ' 1815,' vol. iii., 1905) that Napoleon 
 saw and embraced his nephew after Waterloo, 
 before he left Malmaison for Rochefort. 
 
 Youth and education. 
 
 Gborges Duval. Napoleon III : Enfance — Jeunesse. 1895. 
 
 *Stefane-Pol. La Jeunesse de Napoleon III. 1902. 
 
 A series of private letters from the prince's tutor, Le- 
 bas, to his own relatives in Paris. Most valuable, as 
 containing a perfectly frank contemporary account of the 
 tutor's impressions of his pupil during his term of office, 
 from 1820 to 1827. 
 
 The Italian episode of 1830-1. 
 
 *La Reine Hortense en Italic, en France, et en Angleterre, pendant 
 I'annie 1833. 
 
 This is the only published portion of Queen Horteniie't 
 extensive private memoirs ; it is almost the sole source of 
 information on this particular affair. 
 
362 APPENDIX B 
 
 Some further details are contained in a notice of 
 Prince Napoleon, Grand Due de Berg, by 
 
 E. Pascallet, in Le Biograpke Universel. 1854. 
 
 Relations with the Carbonari. 
 
 M. OUivier {pp. cit., vol. ii., p. 28) maintains that 
 Louis Napoleon was not a Carbonaro ; urging (1) 
 that the headquarters of the Carbonari were in 
 Southern Italy, and (2) that the 'engagements' 
 which Louis pleaded in the letter to his mother 
 quoted above (Appendix A, p. 333) referred solely 
 to the prince's promise given to Menotti. 
 
 M. Lebey {op. cit., pp. 34-48) discusses the ques- 
 tion in some detail, and concludes that Louis 
 Napoleon was a Carbonaro : for (1) note the 
 extremely guarded denial of Count Arese in his 
 letter to Jerrold, quoted by the latter, op. cit., 
 vol. i., pp. 155, 156; (2) this hypothesis gives a 
 natural meaning to the phrase in Louis' letter 
 referred to above ; (3) it explains the expulsion 
 of the prince from Rome ; (4) it renders intel- 
 ligible the action of Orsini ; (5) it is supported by 
 the fact that several of the prince's early friends 
 were undoubtedly members of the Carbonari. 
 
 M. Lebey has clearly the best of the argument, 
 even though he rather curiously ignores the one 
 piece of direct evidence in favour of his contention ; 
 viz., Count Or si's definite statement that in his 
 hearing, at a meeting of Italian conspirators on 
 the night of February 26, 1831, Louis Napoleon 
 declared himself to be a Carbonaro {op. cit. infra ; 
 p. 179). But the statement cannot be regarded 
 as absolutely conclusive, for it appeared fifty 
 years after the event, and Orsi is not an unexcep- 
 tionable witness. (See below, p. 367.) In any 
 case, the fact that no documentary evidence of 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 363 
 
 Louis Napoleon's membership of the Carbonari 
 has yet come to light, is strong presumptive 
 evidence that the society did not possess any 
 written engagements of the Prince. 
 
 On Louis Napoleon's visit to Paris in May 1831. 
 
 Le Due d'Aumale. Lettre sur I'Histoire de France, adressee au 
 Prince Napoleon. 1861. 
 
 On the Bonapartist plots of the first years of the 
 July Monarchy, and Louis Napoleon's alleged 
 connexion with them. 
 
 Memoires de M. Gisquet, Prefet de Police. 1840. 
 
 On Louis Napoleon's meeting with Persigny. 
 
 H. Castille. Le Comte de Persigny. 1857. 
 
 On his subsequent relations with him. 
 
 J. Delaroa. Dvc de Persigny et les Doctrines de I'Empire. 1865. 
 
 Occasional notices of Louis Napoleon's life in 
 Switzerland and Italy before his descent on 
 Strasburg occur in the following memoirs : — 
 
 Lady Blessington. The Idler in Italy. 1839-40. 
 Mme de Girardin. Lettres parisiennes. 1843. 
 Chateaubriand. Memoires d' Outre Tombe. Brussels, 1848-50. 
 Mme Recamier. Souvenirs et Correspondance. Edited by Mme. 
 
 Lenormant. 1859. 
 Malmesbury. Memoirs of an Ex-Minister. 1884. 
 
 Strasburg. 
 
 The most important published evidence respect- 
 ing the Strasburg affair is naturally contained in 
 the official account of the trial of the seven persons 
 accused of complicity in it. The Times for January 
 
364 APPENDIX B 
 
 1837 gives detailed reports of the trial ; but for a 
 verbatim report, see 
 
 L'Ohservateur dgs Tribunaux, January 1837. 
 
 *EuGENE Roche. 'Insurrection de Strasbourg et proems des 
 prevenus de complicite avec le prince Napoleon- Louis, etc' 
 
 With regard to evidence derived frora reports 
 of the trial, it must be remembered that though 
 the Government wished to secure the condem- 
 nation of those actually accused, they were still 
 more anxious to minimise the whole affair ; hence 
 in their cross-examination of the prisoners they 
 had no desire to bring to light any further 
 ramifications of the plot. And the accused, with- 
 out seeking to extenuate their own share in 
 the rising, naturally refrained from volunteering 
 information which might compromise others. 
 
 The history of the rising from the insurgents' 
 point of view is contained in 
 
 M. E. Persigny. Relation de V entreprise du Prince Napoleon- 
 Louis. London, 1837. 
 
 *Armand Laity. Relation historique des evenements du 30 Octohre, 
 1836. June 1838. Libraire Thomassin. 
 
 Both these accounts had a considerable cir- 
 culation. They agree in almost every particular, 
 but the latter attracted more attention than its 
 predecessor. It was corrected by Prince Louis 
 himself, and may be considered as containing his 
 own view on the rising. Though designed to 
 magnify its importance, these accounts refrain, 
 from obvious reasons, from giving details as to 
 persons involved in the plot who had not 
 actually been brought to trial. See also — 
 
 Moniteur, 1837. January 10, 13, 14, 20, and 21. 
 James Fazy. De la'tentative de NapoUon-Louis. Geneva. 1836. 
 ^Albert FERUi. Let graTidt ProcSs politique*, Strasbourg. 1868. 
 A. Maurin. Histoire de la chute des Bourbons, Bks. VI. and 
 VII. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 365 
 
 For Louis Napoleon's own account, see his 
 long letter to his mother, written in November 
 1836— 
 
 Collected Works of Loiiis Napoleon Bonaparte, 1852. Vol. I., pp. 
 10-27 ; 
 
 for the curiously sympathetic republican view — 
 
 Louis Blanc. Histoire de Dix Arts, Bk. V., 1844 ; 
 
 and for the Orleanist view — 
 
 GuizoT. Memoires pour servir d I'Mstoire de mon temps. 9 vols. 
 1858-68. Vol. V. 
 
 America. 
 
 John S. C. Abbot. History of Napoleon III. Boston, 1868. 
 The Daily National Intelligencer. Washington, 1856. 
 
 {Correspondence — March 28, April 11, April 15. The 
 
 Rev. C. S. Stewart, General Watson Webb, and others ; 
 
 reproduced by Cheetham, op. cit., Appendix B.) 
 
 Notices of Louis Napoleon's doings in the 
 States appear in — 
 
 Pierre M. Irving. Life and Letters of Washington Irving. New 
 
 York. 1864. 
 General Wilson. Memoirs of Halleck. New York. 1869. 
 
 The Laity trial. 
 
 Saint-Edme. Proces d'Armand Laity. Landois. 1838. 
 Moniteur, July 4, 10, and 11, 1838. 
 
 The Swiss affair. 
 
 E. Lecomte. Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, la Suisse et le roi Louis- 
 Philippe. 1838. 
 
 M. le Professeui de la Rive. Rapport fait au Conseil repri- 
 sentatif. Geneva. 1838. 
 
 Jules Lombard. Le prince Louis - NapoUon Bonaparte et le 
 minister e Mole. 1839. 
 
366 APPENDIX B 
 
 England. 
 
 (Persigny.) Lettres de Londres. Vidte au Prince Louu. 1840. 
 Paqnerre. Procis de NapoUon-Louk Bonaparte. 1840. 
 James Bolkeley. The Tourney of Eglintoun. 1840. 
 J. A. St John. Louis Napolemi, Emperor of the French. 1857. 
 
 Several of his English acquaintances make 
 mention in their memoirs of Louis Napoleon's 
 life in London at this period, e.g. — 
 
 Sir H. Holland. Recollections of Past Life. 1872. 
 J. R. Planche. Recollections and Reflections. 1872. 
 See also Disraeli's Endymion. 1880. 
 
 On the Prince's alleged matrimonial designs, see — 
 
 Bingham (Hon. D. A.). The Marriages of the Bonapartes. 1881. 
 
 Vol. II., p. 327. 
 Le Figaro, 13th April 1894. 
 
 Sir William Fraser. Napoleon III: My Recollections. 1895. 
 Charles Bocher. Mimoires. 1907. 
 Blackwood's Magazine, Feb. 1907. 'Lady Burdett-Coutts.' 
 
 On his relations with Miss Howard — 
 
 Griscelli DE Vezzani. Memoirs of the Baron de Rimini. 1888. 
 De Beaumont- Vassy. MSmoires secrets du XIX"^ siecle. 1874. 
 
 and the quarrel with Kinglake in this connexion — 
 
 Rev. W. Tuckwell. Life of A. W. Kinglake. 1902. 
 
 But, according to Mr Graham's article cited 
 above, the Empress herself was the cause of the 
 quarrel. 
 
 Boulogne. 
 
 Here the evidence is even less satisfactory than 
 that which bears on the Strasburg insurrection. 
 Curiously enough, the trial of Louis Napoleon 
 himself in 1840 excited less attention, and was less 
 fully reported in the French press, than the trial of 
 his accomplices in 1837. The National gives 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 367 
 
 adequate reports, while the Bonapartist journal, 
 Le Capitole, devoted its expiring numbers to 
 accounts of the trial. This last paper was founded 
 in June 1840, and ceased publication on December 
 3 of the same year. 
 
 The most faithful reports of the trial, and so 
 the most important evidence on the affair, is con- 
 tained in — 
 
 *Saint-Edme. Proces de NapoUon-Louis Bonaparte. 1840. 
 *Albert Ferm^. Boulogne d'apres les documents authentiques. 
 1868. 
 
 The financial prehminaries of Boulogne are 
 narrated by 
 
 Elias Regnault. Histoire de Huit Ans. 3 vols. 1851 ; 
 
 a book generally useful for this period of Louis 
 Napoleon's Ufe. 
 
 Contemporary but far from reliable accounts 
 are contained in — 
 
 BoHAiRB. Proces du Prince NapoUon-Louis Bonaparte. 1840. 
 Simple expose de I'expedition de Boulogne et quelques mots sur le 
 
 prince Napoleon-Louis. 1840. 
 Gallois. Le prince Louis-Napoleon Buonaparte d Boulogne, 
 
 revelations historiques et diplomatiques, par M. de C, ancien 
 
 ministre plenipotentiaire, etc. 1840. 
 
 (The last is a grave attempt to represent the 
 prince as an agent of the Quadruple aUiance.) 
 
 Count Orsi. Recollections of the Last Half Century, 1881, 
 contains a graphic account of this affair, in which the 
 count took part himself. Orsi's narrative is always 
 interesting, though sometimes less dependable than it 
 might be expected from a man who professed to have 
 kept a contemporary record of the events he narrates in 
 his diary. The same volume contains brief accounts of 
 the Italian episode of 1830-1, of the preliminaries of the 
 escape from Ham, and of Louis Napoleon's excursion to 
 Paris in February 1848. 
 
368 APPENDIX B 
 
 Taxile Delord. Histoire du Second Empire. Vol. I. 1869. 
 
 Gives a complete list of the 152 members of the 
 court of peers who condemned Louis Napoleon^ and of 
 the 1 60 who abstained from voting. 
 
 On the fate of the historic eagle, really a 
 vulture, see — 
 
 La Presse. 21st November 1848. 
 
 Sutherland Edwards. Old and New Paris. 1894. 
 
 The imprisonment at Ham. 
 
 J. G. G. DE Feuillade. Le Chateau de Ham. 1842. 
 
 Ostensibly a guide to the prison ; really an appreciation 
 of the prisoner. 
 
 [Cp. a work of precisely similar character, published in 
 1833 in the interest of Polignac : Ham, Aout 1829 — 
 Novembre 1832, par un attach^ k la pr^sidence du conseil 
 des derniers ministres de la Restauration.] 
 
 Jed6. AbregS de I'histoire de Ham. (n.d.) 
 
 A real guide to the Chateau, with plans and illustra- 
 tions of the fortress. 
 
 M. C. E. Temblaire. Revue de I'Empire, 1842-1845. Gives 
 constant reports of the prince's activities at Ham. 
 
 Henry Wikoff. Biographical Sketches of Louis Napoleon 
 Bonaparte. A visit to the prince at the castle of Ham. New 
 York. 1849. 
 
 Louis Blanc. Revelations Historiques. Brussels. 1859. Vol. IL 
 
 A. de la Gueronni^re. Portraits politiques contemporains. 1851. 
 
 E. FOURMESTRAUX. Op. Clt. 
 
 A valuable source of information on Louis 
 Napoleon's work at this period exists in the 
 collection of over a hundred letters written by him 
 to his goddaughter, Hortense Lacroix, during his 
 imprisonment, and published by Jerrold, op. cit., 
 Vol. II., Appendix I., pp. 415-61. 
 
 (In La Revue there have recently appeared some 
 further selections from Louis Napoleon's letters to 
 Mme Cornu. It is announced that the entire 
 correspondence — 290 letters in all — will shortly be 
 published in book form.) 
 

 
 
 /% i t ■ r n,./yH J /■-/ /t-n&tfnj /•t Out- '^■>y~ 
 
 
 ^■T!. , 
 
 r. 
 
 
 Copy of Draft for Treaty of Alliance hetiveen Louis 
 Jfapoleorh and the Duke of Brunswick. 
 
 ro/ijCf p. 368.] [OTEB. 
 

 'M 
 
 '7 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 369 
 
 On the alleged opportunities of escape before 1845. 
 
 Dr Veron. Nouveaux memoires d'un bourgeois de Paris. 1866. 
 
 A. Mansfield. Op. cit. Bk. I. 
 
 Sir Henrv Drummond-Wolff. Some Notes of the Past. 1891. 
 
 On the negotiations for Louis Napoleon's release. 
 
 Odilon Barrot. Memoires. Vol. III. 1875. 
 
 S. PoGGioLi. Napoleon-Louis Bonaparte retenu en prison. Simple 
 
 recit. 1846. 
 
 Barrot and Poggioli were both actively concerned in 
 
 these negotiations ; the latter's brochure was written 
 
 before Louis Napoleon's escape. 
 
 On the treaty with the Duke of Brunswick. 
 
 Orsi. Recollections, op. cit. 
 
 Drummond-Wolff. Op. cit. 
 
 T. H. Buncombe. Life of T. S. Buncombe, M.P. 1868. 
 Unreliable. 
 
 Orsi himself acted as ambassador. Mr G. T. Smith, 
 who accompanied him to Ham, was afterwards T. S. 
 Duncombe's secretary. On the opposite page is repro- 
 duced his signed and attested copy of Louis Napoleon's 
 original draft of the treaty. 
 
 Louis Napoleon's subsequent relations with the Duke. 
 
 Sartorius. Le due de Brunsioick. 1875. 
 
 On the escape. 
 
 The official evidence is contained in the report 
 of Dr Conneau's trial at Peronne, for which see — 
 
 ' Tribunal correctional de Peronne, evasion du prince.' — Gazette 
 
 des Tribunaux, 1846. 
 * (F. T. Briffault.) The Prisoner of Ham : Authentic details of 
 the Captivity and Escape of Prince Napoleon Louis. 1846. 
 
 This book was written under Louis Napoleon's direction : 
 in letters to M. Degeorge, editor of the Progres du Pas-de- 
 Calais, and to Vieillard, June 1, 1846, he gives some 
 further details as to his own escape. 
 
 2 A 
 
370 APPENDIX B 
 
 Garnier. Papiers et Correspondance de la Familk Imperiale. 
 1871. 
 
 Contains Th61in's detailed bill for the prince's disguise, 
 the total cost of which was 25f. 25c. 
 
 Pierre Hachet-Souplet. Louis-Napoleon, prisonnier au fort de 
 Ham, 1893, adds some interesting details. The author is 
 the grandson of Calixte Souplet, editor of the Guetteur de 
 St Qu \jiim, one of Louis Napoleon's republican journalist 
 friends at Ham. The book is unreliable. 
 
 On the assertion that Louis Philippe connived 
 at the escape, see footnote to text, p. 242. 
 
 England, 1846-7. 
 As above, for England 1838-40. See also — 
 
 J. FoRSTER. Walter Savage Landor : A Biography. 1869. 
 Vol. II. 
 
 On Louis Napoleon's actimties in 1848. 
 
 Count Orsi's Recollections, and Odilon Barrot's Memoires, quoted 
 above. 
 
 (A. D. Vandam.) An Englishman in Paris. 2 vols. 1892. Con- 
 tains, though not at first hand, Persigny's account of his 
 part in the events of 1848. He accompanied Louis to Paris 
 in February. This account disagrees in many details with 
 that given by Orsi. 
 
 Aristide Ferriere. Revelations sur la propagande Napoleonienne 
 faite en 1848 et 1849 pour servir a I'histoire secrete des Sections 
 du Prince Louis-Napoleon Buonaparte. Turin. 1863. 
 
 Ferriere was one of Louis' confidential agents at this 
 time. He considered that his services had not been 
 adequately rewarded, and wrote his book to show their 
 importance. It contains information of real value, but 
 certainly exaggerates Ferriere's own r61e. It was he who 
 hastened to Louis on June 13 to announce the crisis of his 
 affairs in Paris. 
 
 *Andr£ Lebey. Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte et la Revolution de 
 1848. 2 vols. 1907-8. 
 
 In the year 1848 the biography of Louis 
 Napoleon becomes merged in the histor}!- of 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 371 
 
 France, and from this time onwards, though the 
 evidence is still unsatisfactory in some respects, 
 there is at least an abundance of material for all the 
 public actions and utterances of the prince. 
 
 Of the works on the Second Eepublic, the most 
 useful in this connexion is perhaps 
 
 Lord Normanby. A Year of Revolution in Paris. 1856. 
 
 For the general history of this year— 
 
 Lamartine. Trois mois au pouvoir. 1848. 
 
 Louis Blanc. Histoire de la revolution de 1848. 2nd ed. 1870. 
 Vermorel. Les homines de 1848. 1869. 
 
 Stern, Daniel. Histoire de la Revolution de 1848. 2 vols. 1850. 
 *Sti;in, L. Geschichie der socialen Bewegung in Frankreich. 2 vols. 
 1850. 
 
 Louis Napoleon's writings, until the year 1848. 
 
 Reveries politiques. Uti projet de Constitution. May 1832. 
 
 Considerations politiques et militaires sur la Suisse. July 1833. 
 
 Manuel d' Artillerie. November 1835. 
 
 Des idees Napoleoniennes. July 1839. 
 
 Fragments Mistoriques. May 1841. 
 
 Analyse de la question des sucres. August 1842. 
 
 Projet de Loi sur le recrutement de I'armee. 1843. 
 
 Extinction du Pauperisme. May 1844. 
 
 Reponse du Prince Napoleon-Louis a, M. de Lamartine. August 
 
 1844. 
 Canal of Nicaragua ; or, a project to connect the Atlantic and Pacific 
 
 Oceans hy means of a Canal. By N. L. B. 1846. 
 Etudes sur le passe et I'avenir de I' artillerie. 2 vols. 1846. 
 
 All the works enumerated above were published 
 separately at the dates mentioned ; it is worthy of 
 note that many of them had run through several 
 editions, and been translated into several languages 
 before 1848 ; in other words, it is clear that they 
 had attained a considerable circulation before their 
 author had attained a position which would 
 account for their sale. 
 
372 APPENDIX B 
 
 The above list does not include essays of Louis 
 Napoleon which made their appearance in reviews. 
 Of these the most important were — 
 
 ' Examen de la theorie physique et de la theorie purement 
 chimique de la pile voltaique,' published (May 1843) in the 
 Comptes rendus de l' Academic des sciences, vol. xvi.j pp. 1098- 
 1180. 
 
 ' Quelques mots sur Joseph-Napoleon Bonaparte ' (September 
 1844), in the Revue de V Empire. 
 
 Besides these more important writings, the 
 prince produced during his imprisonment at Ham 
 a considerable quantity of occasional articles, in 
 which he treated of almost every aspect of French 
 political life ; e.g., among his writings in 1843 were 
 articles on ' The MiKtary Organisation of France,' 
 ' The Clergy and the State,' ' Of Governments and 
 their Sustenance,' 'Peace or War,' 'The Duties of 
 the Opposition,' 'The Emperor's Opinion on the 
 Eelations of France and the European Powers,' 
 ' Eeforms to be desired in our Parliamentary 
 Institutions,' 'The Treatment of Negroes,' 'Of 
 Individual Liberty in England,' 'Espartero and 
 the Conservatives,' 'Recruiting for the Army,' and 
 ' The Destiny of Empires.' 
 
 The papers to which Louis Napoleon contributed 
 during his imprisonment were the 
 
 Guetteur de St Quentin ; Progres du Pas-de-Calais, 
 
 and less frequently to 
 
 Le Commerce, La Paix, La Revue de I'Empire, Le Journal de 
 Maine-et-Loire, Journal du Loiret, Almanack populaire de la 
 France. 
 
 For a consideration of Louis Napoleon's early 
 writings in the light of his subsequent policy, see 
 
 M. G. DE MoLiNARi. Napoleon III, pub liciste. Brussels. 1861, 
 
INDEX 
 
 [In the case of contemporaries of Louis Napoleon mentioned in the 
 following index, dates of birth and death have been given, wherever it 
 seemed possible that they might be of service for the pm'pose of identifica- 
 tion, or convenient for the sake of reference. Occasionally brief introductory 
 notices are inserted in this place after the names of Louis Napoleon's more 
 obscure adherents, of whom but casual mention has been made in the text. 
 The abbreviation n. in the index indicates that the reference is to a footnote.] 
 
 Abbot, J. S. C, (1805-1877) 365 
 
 Acar, M., 216, 217 
 
 Adriatic, 62 
 
 Aix, 35 
 
 Aladenize, Lieut., (6. 1813) 172, 173, 
 176-180, 194 
 
 Alexander I, Tsar, (1777-1825) 3, 9, 
 10, 30, 34 
 
 Algeria, 291 
 
 Algiers, 54 
 
 Alsace, 100, 105 
 
 America, 122n., 123, 124, 229, 257, 
 261, 265, 339, 341 
 
 United States of, see United 
 
 States 
 
 Analyse de la question des suores, 209, 
 210, 371 
 
 Ancona, 71, 72, 81 
 
 Andromide, the, 126, 127 
 
 Antibes, 76 
 
 Antomarchi, F., (c. 1760-1838) 357 
 
 Arago, M., (1786-1853) 217, 348 
 
 Arenenberg, chateau of, purchased 
 by Hortense, 37 ; becomes her 
 home, 40 ; Louis Napoleon's de- 
 parture from, 143, 344 ; mentioned, 
 44, 46, 85, 98, 106, 112, 139, 140 
 
 Arese, Count Francois [6. at Milan 
 1805, met Louis Napoleon at 
 Rome 1826, spent the year 1831 
 with him at Arenenberg, served in 
 Foreign Legion in Algeria 1832] 
 accompanies Louis Napoleon on 
 visit to England in 1833, 335; 
 joins him in America in 1837, 131 ; 
 on his relations with the Carbonari, 
 362 
 
 Army and Navy Club, 258 
 
 Artillery, Louis Napoleon on, see 
 Mamuel d'Artillerie, and Passi et 
 I'avenir de I'Artillerit 
 
 AthencBwm, the, 164, 165 
 
 Augsburg, 38, 44, 45, 47, 48, 50 
 373 
 
 Auguste de Beauharnais, see under 
 Beauharnais 
 
 Aumale, Due d', (1822-1897) 363 
 
 Austerlitz Barracks, the, at Stras- 
 burg, 108, 110-112 
 
 Austria, reactionary policy of, under 
 Metternich, 10, 11 ; prospective 
 share in Polignac's redivision of 
 Europe, 54m. ; intervenes to quell 
 the Italian insurrection, 68, 69, 71 ; 
 supports French demand for Louis 
 Napoleon's expulsion from Switzer- 
 land, 148 ; acts with England 
 against France in the Eastern 
 question, 170 
 
 Baden, 37, 38 
 
 Baden, Grand Duchess of, see Beau- 
 harnais, Stephanie de 
 Baden, Grand Duke of, (1786-1818) 
 
 36 
 Baden-Baden, 105, 106 
 Baillehache, M. de, 360 
 Baltimore, 342 
 Barins, De, 356, 360 
 Barrot, Ferdinand, (1806-1883) 200 
 Barrot, Odilon, (1791-1873) 230, 231, 
 
 275, 351, 369, 370 
 Bastide, M., 347 
 Bataille, Martial - Eugene, [civil 
 
 engineer, h. 1815] 176, 193 
 Bath, 256 
 
 Bavaria, 37, 38, 54n. 
 Bayonne, 21 
 Beauharnais, Auguste de, Duke of 
 
 Leuchtenberg, (1810-1835) 95«., 
 
 338 
 Eugfene, (1781-1824) 24, 37, 46, 
 
 47, 193 
 Hortense, de, (1783-1837) gives 
 
 birth to Louis Napoleon, 20, 21 ; 
 
 marriage to Louis of Holland, 22 ; 
 
 character, 24; political and personal 
 
374 
 
 INDEX 
 
 quarrels with her husband, 25 ; 
 liaison with Flahaut, 26; birth of 
 Morny, ibid. ; alleged liaison with 
 Verhuel, 27; with Decazes, 360; 
 her action in 1814, 29; visited by 
 Frederick William of Prussia, 29 ; 
 befriended by Alexander of Russia, 
 30 ; receives the estate of St Leu 
 as a duchy, 31 ; her husband's 
 annoyance at her use of this title, 
 67 ; banished from France, 34 ; at 
 Aix and Geneva, 35 ; reaches Con- 
 stance, 36 ; visits Berg, 37 ; ex- 
 pelled from Constance, ibid. ; goes 
 to Augsburg, 38 ; settles at 
 Arenenberg, 40 ; gives Louis 
 Napoleon leave to serve in the 
 Eastern war, 52; goes with him 
 to Italy, 61 ; present at a family 
 conclave in Rome, 64 ; fails to 
 dissuade her sons from joining the 
 Italian movement, 65 ; at Florence, 
 66 ; overtakes Louis Napoleon at 
 Pesaro, 70; smuggles him out of 
 Ancona, 72 ; brings him safely to 
 France, 73-76 ; interview with 
 Louis Philippe at Paris, 80, 81 ; 
 arrival in England, 83 ; returns to 
 Switzerland, 85 ; parting with 
 Louis pTapoleon before Strasburg, 
 107 ; hastens to Paris to intercede 
 for her son's life, 122m., 126 ; illness 
 of, 137 ; her farewell letter to her 
 son, 138, 247; proposed operation 
 on found impossible, 139 ; her 
 death, 140 ; influence of her educa- 
 tion on her son, 141 ; burial at 
 Malmaison, 142 ; amount of her 
 estate, 159 ; Louis Napoleon's 
 letters to, 332, 333, 335, 337-343; 
 her memoirs, 361 
 
 Beauharnais, Josephine, (1763-1814) 
 17, 21, 26, 28, 209 
 
 Stephanie de, 36, 47, 49, 52 
 
 Beaumont- Vassy, de, (6. 1813) 366 
 
 Beauregard, Countess of, see Miss 
 Howard 
 
 Beetroot sugar, Louis Napoleon's 
 pamphlet on, see Analyse de la 
 miestion des sucres 
 
 Belgimn, 54»., 62, 84, 94, 245 
 
 Beranger, P. J., (1780-1857) 86, 215, 
 358 
 
 Berg, 37 
 
 Berg, Grand Duke of, see Bonaparte, 
 Napoleon-Louis 
 
 Berlin Decrees, (November 1806) 23 
 
 Berne, 90, 143, 149, 150, 152 
 
 Berryer, P. A., (1790-1868) 189, 193, 
 194, 346 
 
 Bertrand, Abbe, 40 
 
 Bingham, Hon. D. A., 366 
 
 Birmingham, 172 
 
 Bismarck, Prince, (1815-1898) 230 
 
 Blanc, Louis, (1811-1882) visits Louis 
 Napoleon at Ham, 218 ; his account 
 of the Prince, 219, 220, 221m., 
 365, 368 ; mentioned, 347, 371 
 
 Blessington, Lady, (1789-1849) 363 
 
 Bocher, Charles, 366 
 
 Bocher, Mile, 96 
 
 Bois-le-Comte, C. J. Edmond, Comte 
 de, {d. 1863) 55m. 
 
 Bologna, 66, 69 
 
 Bonaparte, Charles Louis Napoleon, 
 s«« Napoleon, Louis 
 
 Charles Napoleon Louis, [Duke 
 
 of Berg, second son of King 
 Louis] (1804-1831) 20 ; placed in 
 legal custody of his father, 31 ; 
 parted from his brother, 35 ; de- 
 clines to intervene in 1830, 60 ; 
 relations with Carbonari, 64 ; joins 
 in the revolt of Bologna, 66 ; re- 
 pels contingent of Papal troops, 
 67 ; cashiered, 68 ; his death, 70 ; 
 Louis Napoleon on, 334 ; his final 
 burial at St Leu, 265 ; account of, 
 362 
 
 Charlotte, [daughter of King 
 
 Joseph, wife of Napoleon Louis] 
 (1802-1839) 334 
 
 Bugfene Louis Napoleon, Prince 
 
 Imperial, see under Napoleon 
 
 Francis Charles Joseph, Due 
 
 de Reichstadt, see under Napoleon 
 
 Jerome, King of Westphalia, 
 
 (1784-1860) 64, 66, 96, 97, 129, 199, 
 256, 309, 344 
 
 Joseph, King of Spain, (1768- 
 
 1844) protests against the pro- 
 clamation of Louis Philippe, 60 ; 
 position under Napoleon's will, 76, 
 87, 88; introduces Persigny to 
 Louis Napoleon, 98 ; Louis 
 Napoleon visits him at London, 
 335 ; disowns Louis Napoleon 
 after Strasburg, 132 ; upbraided 
 by Louis, 133, 310, 343 ; his death, 
 216 ; Louis Napoleon's tribute to 
 him, 216, 349, 372; mentioned, 
 255, 344 
 
 Prince Joseph Charles Paul 
 
 Napoleon, [son of King Jerome, 
 known as Prince Napoleon] (1822- 
 1891) 96, 256, 257, 304, 309, 310 
 
 Letitia, [Madame M6re] (1750- 
 
 1836) 338 
 
 Louis, King of Holland, (1778- 
 
 1846) 20 ; marries Hortense de 
 Beauharnais, 22 ; earlv career, 22 ; 
 becomes King of Holland, 22; 
 
INDEX 
 
 375 
 
 abdicates, 23 ; retires to ToepHtz, 
 2i ; relations with his wife, 26 ; 
 annoyance at her use of title 
 Duchess, 67 ; absent at birth and 
 baptism of Louis Napoleon, 27 ; 
 did he tacitly or openly disavow 
 his paternity of the child? 28, 
 358-360 ; awarded the custody of 
 his elder son, 31 ; sends for him, 
 35 ; threatens to claim his younger 
 son also, 40 ; friendly letter to him, 
 43; visited by Louis Napoleon, 
 45, 47 ; refuses to allow Louis to 
 serve against- Turkey, 52, 53; 
 opposes his son's participation in 
 the Italian insurrection, 66 ; pro- 
 tests against Louis Napoleon's 
 treatment after Boulogne, 185 ; 
 ill health, 226 ; misunderstanding 
 between him and Louis Napoleon, 
 349; his part in the negotiation 
 for Louis Napoleon's release, 227- 
 229 ; Louis unable to visit him, 
 254 ; his death, 255, 266 ; his will, 
 27, 259, 264; his final burial at 
 St Leu, 265, 266, 353; Louis 
 Napoleon's letters to him, 332, 
 334-336, 338, 341, 343-346, 360, 351 ; 
 Louis Napoleon's letters to, 46, 332, 
 334-336, 338, 341, 343-345, 350, 351 
 Bonaparte, Lucien, [Prince of 
 Canino] (1775-1840) 310, 344 
 
 Mathilde, [daughter of King 
 
 Jerome] (1820-1904) engaged to 
 Louis Napoleon, 96 ; the engage- 
 ment broken off, 129; married to 
 Anatole Demidoff, 199, 200 ; Louis 
 Napoleon on, 340, 341 
 
 Napoleon, see Napoleon 
 
 Napoleon Charles, [Prince Royal 
 
 of Holland, eldest son of King 
 Louis] (1802-1807) 20 
 
 Pierre, [son of Lucien] (1815- 
 
 1881) 133, 310 
 
 Bosnia, 54». 
 
 Boulogne, reasons for Louis Napol- 
 eon's expedition in 1840, 167-170 ; 
 preliminaries, 171, 172; starting of 
 the expedition, 173 ; the crossing, 
 174-178 ; landing at Wimereux, 
 176 ; arrival in the town, 177 ; the 
 appeal to the 42nd, 178 ; repulse, 
 179-182 ; retreat, 183 ; capture, 
 184; Louis Philippe's triumphal 
 visit to, 186 ; trial of the prisoners, 
 187-194; sentence, 194, 195; its 
 financial consequences, 236 ; Louis 
 Napoleon on his failure at, 325; 
 mentioned, 124, 232, 247, 284; 
 evidence regarding the affair, 366- 
 369 
 
 Brault, El^onore, see Gordon, Mme 
 Briffault, F. T., 352, 369 
 Brunswick, Charles, Duke of, (1804- 
 
 1873) 237, 288, 276, 277, 369 
 Brussels, 250, 251, 365 
 Bulgaria, 56». 
 Bulkeley, James, 366 
 Burdett-Coutts, Baroness, (1814-1906) 
 
 261 
 Bure, M.,(6. 1807)269 
 
 Calais, S3n. 
 
 Camoscia, 73 
 
 Cannes, 76 
 
 Canning, George, (1770-1827) 11 
 
 Canning, Stratford, (1786-1880) his 
 despatches quoted, 37, 38, 39 
 
 Capefigue, J. B. H. R., (1802-1872) 
 257 
 
 Ca/pitole, Le, 160, 161, 367 
 
 Carbonari, the, 62, 64 ; Louis Napo- 
 leon's relations with, 362, 363 
 
 Cardigan, 7th Eari of, (1797-1868) 161 
 
 Carlsbad Decrees, (August 1819) 13_ 
 
 Carlton Gardens, Louis Napoleon's 
 residence at, 157, 161, 166, l72m., 
 173 
 
 Carlton Terrace, Louis Napoleon's 
 residence at, 157, 161, 258 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, (1795-1881) 59 
 
 Carrousel, Place du, 31 
 
 Castille, H., 363 
 
 Castlereagh, Viscount, (1739-1821) 
 11, 38 
 
 Cavaignac, General Eugene, (1802- 
 1867) threatens to take steps 
 against Louis Napoleon, 284 ; 
 appointed dictator, 291 ; his power 
 continued after the June days, 
 291, 292; his character, 292; 
 difficulty of his position, 293; re- 
 pulse of his candidates in Sep- 
 tember, 294 ; opposes election of 
 president by universal suffrage, 
 298 ; Assembly remain faithful to 
 him, 300 ; opposes any special dis- 
 qualifications of ex-royal families 
 of France, 302 ; strength and 
 weakness of bis position as candi- 
 date for the presidency, 306, 307 ; 
 Normanby on, 315 ; professes to 
 believe that France was republican, 
 315, 316 ; insincerity of this pro- 
 fession, 316 ; his conduct as candi- 
 date, 317, 318; his last public 
 triumph, 318, 319; his crowning 
 blunder, 319 ; his defeat, 319 ; 
 resigns his powers, 320 
 Cerrutti, Rue, 361 
 Champ de Mars, 81, 281 
 Changarnier, General, {d. 1877) 316 
 
376 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Charlemagne, Napoleon compared 
 to, 12 ; Louis Napoleon on, 208 
 
 Charles X, (1767-1836) 54, 55, 119, 
 223w. 
 
 Chateaubriand, M. de, (1768-1848) 
 334, 363 
 
 Cheetham, Mr F. H., 357, 360, 365 
 
 Cherbourg, 176 
 
 Chislehurst, 261 
 
 Clarendon, 59 
 
 Civita Castellana, 67, 68 
 
 Cochelet, Mile, (d 1836) 48, 360 
 
 Col-Puyg^lier, Captain, (d 1869) 173, 
 180, 181, 186 
 
 Conciergerie, the, Louis Napoleon 
 imprisoned in, 185 
 
 Conneau, Dr, [6. Milan, 1803; secre- 
 tary to King Louis, 1830; doctor 
 of Queen Hortense] urges Louis 
 Napoleon to return from America, 
 139 ; prints his Boulogne pro- 
 clamations, 172». ; tried for his 
 share in the Boulogne expedition, 
 193 ; sentenced to five years' im- 
 prisonment, 196 ; imprisoned with 
 Louis Napoleon at Ham, 197, 198, 
 206 ; obtains jjermission to remain 
 at Ham after his sentence had 
 expired, 240 ; his share in the 
 prince's escape, 241, 242, 246 ; his 
 deception of Demarle, 261-253 ; 
 trial and sentence of, 263, 264 ; 
 presented by Louis Napoleon with 
 a London practice, 260 
 
 Considerations politiques et militaires 
 sur la Suisse, published 89, 371, 
 336 ; favourable reception of, 89 ; 
 possibility of a companion volume 
 on the United States, 135 ; Louis 
 Napoleon's intention in writing 
 It, 324 
 
 Constance, 36, 37, 39, 40, 48, 51 
 
 Constant, Benjamin, (1767-1830) 17 
 
 Constantinople, 170 
 
 Cooper, J. F., (1789-1851) 134 
 
 Corfu, 71 
 
 Cornu, Mme Hortense, (6. 1812) 225, 
 301m, 333, 368 
 
 Corsica, 293 
 
 Cowley, 1st Earl, (1804-1884) his 
 despatches quoted, 30m., 55m. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 58, 59 
 
 Bichard, 68 ; Louis Napoleon 
 
 on, 351 
 
 Dalmatia, 54n. 
 
 Decazes, M., (1780-1860) 359 
 
 Degeorge, Fr^d^ric, (1797-1864) 352, 
 
 369 
 Delaroa, J.,363 
 Delord, TaxUe, (5. 1815) 368 
 
 Demarle, Commandant, 199, 244, 
 251-263 
 
 DemidoiF, Anatole, (6. 1812) 200 
 
 Desjardins, Alexander Prosper, [6. 
 1789, retired captain, veteran of 
 the Napoleonic wars] tried for his 
 share in the Boulogne landing, 
 192 ; acquitted, 194 
 
 Desportes, M., 347 
 
 Dijon, 34 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, (1804-1881) de- 
 scribes Louis Napoleon in Endy- 
 mion, 157, 366 ; comparison of his 
 career and Louis Napoleon's, 158- 
 159 
 
 Drummond-WolfF, Sir Henry, 369 
 
 Duchatel, M., 361 
 
 Dufour, Colonel, (1787-1875) 51 
 
 Duncombe, T. H., 369 
 
 Duncombe, T. S., (1796-1861) 369 
 
 Dunkirk, 176 
 
 Duval, Georges, 83m., 361 
 
 Edinburgh Castle, the, 173, 174, 176 
 
 Edwards, H. Sutherland, 368 
 
 Eglinton Tournament, 162 
 
 Elba, 5, 29, 100, 168 
 
 England, generous attitude in 1815, 
 9 ; subsequent abandonment of 
 continental liberalism, 11 ; com- 
 parison of growth of Parliamen- 
 tarianism in England and in 
 France, 57-59 ; correctness of its 
 action in regard to the Swiss 
 question of 1838, 155, 156 ; isolates 
 France in 1840, 170; and the 
 ' Spanish Marriages,' 269 ; effect 
 of the Revolution of 1848 In, 277; 
 Louis Napoleon on the Revolution 
 of 1688 in, 202-206 ; on English pro- 
 cedure in Parliament, 213 ; Louis 
 Napoleon's first visit to, (10th May 
 to 7th Aug. 1831) 83-86; second visit, 
 (Nov. 1832 to May 1833) 98, 133 ; 
 third visit, (10th to 30th July 1837) 
 139-140, 343; fourth visit, (25th 
 Oct. 1838 to 4th Aug. 1840) 156- 
 173 ; fifth visit, (27th May 1846 to 
 23rd Sept. 1848) 254-294 
 
 Ermatingen, 142 
 
 Eugene, Prince, see Beauharnais, 
 Eugene 
 
 Eugenie, Empress, 53 
 
 Faenza, 71 
 
 Favre, Jules, (1809-1880) 286 
 
 Fazy, James, (1796-1878) 364 
 
 Ferm^, Albert, 367 
 
 Ferri^re, Aristide, [a banker, met 
 
 Louis Napoleon 1846] 370 
 Fesch, Cardinal, (1763-1839) 64-66 
 
INDEX 
 
 377 
 
 FeUillade, J. G. G. de, (1786-1880) 
 
 368 
 Fialin, see Persigny 
 Fieschi, (1790-1836) 185, 186, 319 
 Finkmatt Barracks, the, at Stras- 
 
 burg, 109, 115-120, 128 
 Flahaut, Comte de, (1785-1870) 26 
 Florence, 47, 62, 65-67, 69, 70, 185, 
 
 226, 228, 254, 261 
 Foligno, 67 
 Fontainebleau, 26 
 Forbes, Archibald, (1838-1900) 357 
 Forestier, M., (6. 1815) 173, 176 
 Forli, 69, 70 
 
 Forster, John, (1812-1876) 370 
 Fourmestraux, E., 365, 368 
 Fragments Historiques, 56»., 202-206, 
 
 371 
 France under the First Empire, 3 ; in 
 
 1814, 2, 29; during the Hundred 
 
 Days, 4,5,31; under Louis XVIII, 
 
 54 ; under Charles X, 54, 55 ; in 
 
 1830, 56 ; compared and contrasted 
 with England in 1688, 57-59; in 
 
 1831, 82; in 1836, 103, 122, 131; 
 and the punishment of Laity in 
 1838, 145 ; opinion on regarding 
 the Mole Government's treatment 
 of Switzerland, 148 ; Louis Napol- 
 eon's inherent importance in, 156; 
 growth of Napoleonic cult in, 82, 
 163, 168 ; political isolation of in 
 1840, 169, 170; under Louis* 
 Philippe, 267-271 ; the February 
 revolution in, 272 ; under the Pro- 
 visional Government of 1848, 273- 
 275 ; under the executive commis- 
 sion, 278-283 ; and the June days, 
 290-291; under Cavaignac, 291-293; 
 and the constitution of 1848, 305 ; 
 and the rival candidates for the 
 Presidency, 306 - 309 ; and the 
 Second Republic, 312-316 
 
 Franck-Carre, M., (1800-1861) 124, 
 
 193, 258 
 Franqueville, M. de, 104 
 Fraser, Sir William, (1816-1898) 
 
 242m., 243m., 366 
 Frederick William III, of Prussia, 
 
 (1770-1840) 10, 29 
 Freiburg, 107 
 
 Gaxiix, M. , 356, 361 
 
 Galvani, M., [6. 1786, served under 
 Murat in his Calabrian expedition, 
 1815] tried for his share in the 
 Boulogne rising, 192 ; acquitted, 
 194 
 
 Gamier, 370 
 
 Gay, Delphine, see Girardin, Mme de 
 
 Geneva, 35, 98, 238»., 355 
 
 Genoa, 76 
 
 Oeorge Washing^, the, 189 
 
 Girardin, Mme Emile de, (1806-1855) 
 363 
 
 Giraudeau, M. Fernand, 356, 359 
 
 Gisquet, M., (1792-1866) 363 
 
 Goethe, (1749-1832) 8 
 
 Gonnard, M. Phillippe, 358 
 
 Gordon, El^onore, [pie Brault at 
 Paris 6th Sept 1808, daughter of 
 a, captain of the Imperial Guard, 
 made her d^but as a professional 
 singer, Paris 1831, Drought by 
 Persigny to sing at Strasburg June 
 1836] wins over Colonel Vaudrey, 
 105 ; joins Louis Napoleon at 
 Freiburg, 107 
 
 Gottlieben, 143, 344 
 
 Gourgaud, General, (1783-1852) 357 
 
 Graham, W., Mr, 359, 366 
 
 GranviUe, first Earl, (1773-1846) 
 despatches quoted, 91«. , 114m. , 122, 
 125 
 
 Gravesend, 173 
 
 Greece, 55«., 71 
 
 Greenwich, 173 
 
 Gregory XVI, (1765-1846) 27, 68 
 
 Grenoble, 2, 112 
 
 Grey, Earl, (1802-1894) 83m. 
 
 Griscelli de Vezzani, M., 366 
 
 Gu^ronni^re, A. de la, (6. 1816) 368 
 
 Guizot, (1787-1874) 56m., 102, 202, 
 268-272, 365 
 
 Guy, M., 356,361 
 
 Hachet-Souplet, M. , 358, 359, 370 
 
 Hague, The, 25 
 
 HaUeck, Fitz-Greme, (1790-1867) 134 
 
 Ham, Fortress of, described, 196, 
 197 ; Louis Napoleon taken there 
 after Boulogne, 184, 185; his 
 return after his trial, 197 ; his 
 rooms in, 198 ; his captivity at, 
 199-231 ; effects of imprisonment 
 at on Louis Napoleon's character, 
 231-234 ; plans of escape from, 
 239-242 ; preliminaries of Louis 
 Napoleon's escape from, 243-246 ; 
 the escape, 247-254 ; evidence 
 regarding Louis Napoleon's im- 
 prisonment at and escape from, 
 368-370 
 
 Hamilton, W., 185». 
 
 Harryett, Elizabeth Anne, see 
 Howard, Miss 
 
 Heckingen, 107 
 
 Herzegovina, 54m. 
 
 Holland, 54m., 156 
 
 Sir Henry, (1788-1873) 366 
 
 Holy Alliance, Treaty of, (26th Sept. 
 1815) quoted, 10; mentioned, 11 
 
378 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hortense, Queen, see under Beau- 
 barnais 
 
 H6tel de Ville, Paris, 56 
 
 Houssaye, M. Henri, 361 
 
 Howard, Miss, [Elizabeth Ann 
 Haryett, assumed name of How- 
 ard] her relations with Louis 
 Napoleon in London, 162; occa- 
 sion of his quarrel with Kinglake, 
 
 162, 366 ; and of his breach with 
 Miss Rowles, 261 ; [created Coun- 
 tess de Beauregard, 1853, married 
 Clarence Trelawny, 1854, d. 1865] 
 
 Hugo, Victor, (1802-1885) 59, 86, 
 358 
 
 Idies NapoUoniennes, the, published, 
 
 163, 371 ; character of the pam- 
 phlet, 164; its large circulation, 
 165 ; Louis Napoleon's object in 
 publishing, 325 
 
 Irving, Pierre M., 365 
 
 Irving, Washington, (1788-1859) 134, 
 365 
 
 Istria, Duke of, 226 
 
 Italy, attitude towards Napoleon, 
 63 ; alleged Bonapartist intrigues 
 in, 64 ; insurrection of 1831 in, 
 60-69 ; Louis Napoleon's escape in 
 disguise through, 70-76 ; signifi- 
 cance of his participation in the 
 rising, 76-78 ; permanence of his 
 interest in the Italian cause, 60, 
 61, 77, 78, 86 
 
 Jehome, King, see under Bonaparte 
 Jerrold, Blanchard, (1826-1884) 322, 
 
 357, 362, 368 
 Joinville, Prince de, (1818-1900) 170 
 Joseph, King, see under Bonaparte 
 Josephine, Empress, see wnder Beau- 
 
 harnais 
 
 Khastoum, 170 
 
 King Street, St James, 258, 288, 
 
 294 
 Kinglake, A. W., (1809-1891), 162 
 
 Laborde, 6tienne, [6. 1782, fought 
 under the Empire in Spain, Bussia, 
 Saxony, Belgium, and France ; 
 officer of the Imperial Guard, with 
 Napoleon at Elba] tried for his 
 share in the Boulogne expedition, 
 192 ; sentenced to two years' 
 imprisonment, 195 
 Lacroix, Mile, see Cornu, Mme 
 Lafayette, M., (1757-1834) 58 
 Laity, Armand, (6. 1809) joins Louis 
 Napoleon, 105 ; takes part in the 
 Strasburg rising, 113, 116 ; pub- 
 
 lishes his account of the rising, 
 144, 364 ; Louis Napoleon's object 
 in causing its publication, 146, 324 ; 
 his letter to, on the eve of the 
 trial, 344, 345 ; trial and imprison- 
 ment, 144, 145, 187, 365 ; returns 
 to France in June 1848, 284; 
 ordered to be arrested, 285 ; the 
 order rescinded, 286, 287 
 
 Lamartine, A. de, (1790-1869) 165, 
 216, 285, 286, 298, 299, 300, 319, 
 358, 371 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage, (1775-1864) 
 24, 370 
 
 Laplace, Louis Napoleon's warder 
 at Ham, 250, 252 
 
 Las Cases, Marquis de, (1776-1842) 
 357 
 
 Lebas, Philip, (1794-1860) appointed 
 tutor to Louis Napoleon, 41; his 
 character, ibid, ; opinion of his 
 pupil, 43; his scheme of instruc- 
 tion, 43 ; left in sole charge of his 
 pupil, 44 ; his system of education 
 constantly interrupted, 44-46 ; dis- 
 missed by Hortense, 47 ; effects 
 of his training, 48 ; his letters, 361 
 
 Lebey, M. Andr^, 278re., 356, 357, 
 360, 362, 370 
 
 Lecomte, Captain, 353 
 
 Lecomte, Elisfe, 365 
 
 Ledru-Rollin, M., (1808-1874) 300m. 
 •Leghorn, 349 
 
 Leneveu, M.,225 
 
 Leopold, I, King of the Belgians, 
 (1790-1865) 84 
 
 Lepelletier, Felix, (1769-1837) in. 
 
 Lesseps, M. de, (1805-1894) 262 
 
 Lettres de Londres, 165, 166, 360, 361 
 
 Leuchtenberg, Duke of, see Beau- 
 harnais, Auguste de 
 
 Lille, 170, 172 
 
 Lombard, Jules, (6. 1809) 113, 120, 
 171, 177, 183, 193, 195, 365 
 
 London, 83, 98, 139, 156, 157, 172, 
 173, 215, 237, 254, 256, 257 
 
 Londonderry, Lord, (1778-1854) 229 
 
 Loreto, 72 
 
 Lorient, 126 
 
 Lorraine, 100 
 
 Louis XVIII, (1755-1824) 54 
 
 Louis Napoleon, see under Napoleon 
 
 Louis Philippe, King, (1773-1850) 
 becomes King of the French, 56 ; 
 his attitude towards the Italian 
 revolutionaries of 1831, 68, 69; 
 Louis Napoleon's appeal to, 79, 
 80 ; his reception of Queen Hor- 
 tense, 80 ; urges speedy departure 
 of her son, 81-83 ; offers her finan- 
 cial assistance, 84; receives news 
 
INDEX 
 
 379 
 
 of the failure of the Strasburg 
 rising, 101-103; his government's 
 affected disdain of the attempt, 
 104, 105 ; decision not to bring 
 Louis Napoleon to trial, 121-123 ; 
 story of Louis Napoleon's promise 
 to him that he would remain in 
 America disproved, 124-126; gift 
 of money to the prince, 127 ; his 
 government fails to secure the 
 conviction of Louis Napoleon's 
 accomplices, 130, 131 ; annoyed at 
 Louis Napoleon's return to Europe, 
 142 ; his government's attempt to 
 procure the prince's expulsion from 
 Switzerland, 143-154 ; its com- 
 plete discomfiture, 155, 156 ; his 
 concessions to the Napoleonic cult in 
 restoring his efEgyto the Vendome 
 column, 82 ; and his ashes to the 
 Invalides, 168, 169 ; his govern- 
 ment isolated and humiliated over 
 the Eastern Question, 169, 170; 
 visits Boulogne, 186, 187 ; Louis 
 Napoleon compares him to the 
 Stuarts, 203-205 ; his government's 
 concessions to their prisoner, 207 ; 
 his attitude in the negotiations for 
 Louis Napoleon's release, 229-231 ; 
 alleged complicity in Louis Napol- 
 eon's escape, 242-243m. ; summary 
 of his reign, 267-270; refuses 
 reforms in 1847, 271 ; his abdica- 
 tion and flight, 272 
 
 Lowe, Sir Hudson, (1769-1844) 13 
 
 Lucca, 75 
 
 Lucerne, 150 
 
 Ludlow, Edmund, 59 
 
 Luxembourg, 54n. 
 
 Lytton, Bulwer, (1803-1873) 164 
 
 MACEDOinA, 55n. 
 
 Magnan, General, (1791-1865) 171, 
 
 172, 193 
 Mainz, Commission of, (1820) 13 
 Malmaison, 29, 30, 142, 361 
 Malmesbury, 3rd Earl of, (1807-1889) 
 
 50, 51, 225, 226, 363 
 Mannheim, 49 
 Mansfield, A., 356, 369 
 Manuel d'Artillerie, publication of, 
 
 90, 371 ; method and object of its 
 
 distribution, 91, 92, 104, 324; 
 
 Louis Napoleon prepares a new 
 
 edition, 208, 224 ; preface quoted, 
 
 328. 
 Margate, 173 
 Maria, Donna, Queen of Portugal, 
 
 (1819-1853)94, 95«. 
 Marie Louise, (1771-1847) 26, 29, 31 
 Marieobad, 45, 47 
 
 Marlborough, 1st Duke of, 59 
 
 Massa, 76 
 
 Mathilde, Princess, tee under Bona- 
 parte 
 
 Maurin, A., 364 
 
 Maussion, Sub-lieutenant, 177, 178, 
 180 182 
 
 Mehe'met AH, (1807-1865) 169, 170 
 
 Menotti, Giro, {d. 1831) 66, 362 
 
 M^sonan, LeDuffde, [6. 1783, served 
 with distinction in campaign of 
 1809 ; taken prisoner by the 
 English, 1815 ; created officer of 
 the Legion of Honour for bravery 
 atthe rising of Lyons, 1834; retired 
 prematurely, 1837; wrote to the 
 papers complaining of this treat- 
 ment, 1838 ; received letter of con- 
 dolence from Louis Napoleon, and 
 became his ardent supporter, 1838] 
 endeavours to win over General 
 Magnan to Louis Napoleon, 171, 
 193 ; tried for his part in the 
 Boulogne landing, 192; condemned 
 to fifteen years' detention, 195 
 
 Metternich, Prince, (1773-1859) 10, 
 11, 255 
 
 Mexico, 262, 263 
 
 Milan, 335 
 
 Modena, 66 
 
 Mol6, Count, (1781-1855) 122»., 146, 
 148, 153, 154, 156 
 
 MoUnari, G. de, 372 
 
 Montauban, Bouffet de, [b. 1794, aide 
 de camp to Prince Eugene, fought 
 through Russian campaign and 
 during the Hundred Days] conduct 
 at trial after Boulogne, 192 ; sent- 
 enced to five years' detention, 
 195 
 
 Montebello, Due de, (1801-1874) 143, 
 144, 153, 155 
 
 Montigny, M. de, 158». 
 
 Montholon, General, (1782 - 1853) 
 published his account of Napoleon's 
 captivity, 357 ; tried for his part 
 in the Boulogne landing, 198, 192 ; 
 condemned to twenty years' deten- 
 tion, 194 ; imprisoned with Louis 
 Napoleon at Ham, 197, 198, 240 ; 
 pensioned by Louis Napoleon, 236 ; 
 annoyed that the prince had not 
 consulted him as to his escape, 
 246 ; Louis Napoleon's letter to, 
 on his escape, 245, 351-352 ; his 
 release, 245, 254 
 
 Morier, D. R., (1784-1877) his 
 despatches quoted, 143, 144, 149, 
 150, 152, 163».,165, 156ra. 
 
 Morny, Due de, (1811-1865) 27 
 
 Munich, 46 
 
380 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Murat, Joachim, (1771-1815) 88«., 
 
 198 
 Achilles, son of above, (1801- 
 
 1847) 85n. 
 Luclen, son of above, (1803- 
 
 1878) 282 
 
 Napoleon, (1769-1821); congratulates 
 Hortense on Louis Napoleon's 
 birth, 21 ; attitude towards his 
 brother Louis, 22, 23 ; remarriage, 
 26 ; apparent hopelessness of his 
 position in 1814, 1; his unpopu- 
 larity in France, 2; return to 
 Paris in 1815, 31; farewell inter- 
 view with his nephew, 32, 33, 
 360, 361 ; effect produced by his 
 early success and final failure in 
 1816, 6 ; contrast between his 
 position at Elba and at St Helena, 
 6-8 ; compared by his admirers to 
 Marcus Aurelius, Alexander, Char- 
 lemagne, Christ, 12-13; his remark 
 to Las Cases, 15 ; his re-statement 
 of his own past, 16, 17; diffi- 
 culties of his successor, 18, 19 ; 
 death, 44, 342 ; contrasted with 
 Cromwell, 57-59; with Pius IX, 
 7, 8, 13 ; sympathy of Italian 
 nationalists with, 63; his effigy 
 restored to the Vendome column, 
 82; translated to Paris, 168, 169, 
 197 ; apostrophised by Louis 
 Napoleon, 201, 202 ; Lamartine 
 on, 216 
 
 Napoleon, Louis, (1808-1873); birth, 
 20, 361 ; baptism, 26 ; disputed 
 paternity, 27, 28, 358-360 ; during 
 the hundred days, 31 ; farewell 
 interview with Napoleon, 32, 360, 
 361 ; banished from France, 34 ; 
 parted from his brother, 35 ; at 
 Constance, 36 ; visits Berg, 37 ; 
 his home at Arenenberg, 40 ; his 
 first tutor, 40, 41 ; described by 
 Lebas, 42 ; rigorous discipline of, 
 42, 43 ; first communion, 43 ; 
 education at Augsburg, 44 ; and 
 the death of Napoleon, 44, 332; 
 visits his father, 45 ; his studies 
 interrupted, 46 ; faults of his 
 education, 47, 48 ; romantic tem- 
 perament, 49 ; appearance, 49 ; 
 physical development, 50 ; athletic 
 powers, 50, 51 ; military training 
 at Thun, 51, 333 ; desires to serve 
 against the Turks in 1829, 52; 
 attitude regarding the July revolu- 
 tion, 60, 83, 273, 333 ; journey to 
 Rome in 1830, 60, 62 ; present at 
 family conference, 64; relations 
 
 with the Carbonari, 84, 362; ex- 
 pelled from Rome, 65 ; joins the 
 Italian insurgents, 66 ; enthusiastic 
 reception, 67, 333 ; attacks Civita 
 Castellana, 68; dismissed by the 
 revolutionary leaders, 69; present 
 at his brother's death, 70; illness 
 at Ancona, 71 ; escape in disguise, 
 72 ; passage through Tuscany, 73 ; 
 and Siena, 74 ; visits his brother's 
 home, 75 ; grief at his death, 79, 
 334; reverses his signature in 
 consequence, 77 ; enters France, 
 76 ; his permanent interest in Italy, 
 77, 78; letter to Louis Philippe, 
 80 ; his request refused, 83 ; illness 
 and intrigue in Paris, 81 ; ordered 
 to depart, 82 ; arrival in England, 
 83; supposed design on the 
 Belgian crown, 84, 94 ; return to 
 Arenenberg, 85 ; refusal to join 
 the Polish insurrection, 85, 86 ; 
 publishes the Riveries PoUiiques, 
 87; and the Duke of Reichstadt, 
 87, 332; first assertion of his 
 claims, 87 ; publishes the Oon- 
 sidirations sur la Suisse, 89 ; re- 
 ceives civic rights from Thur- 
 gau and Switzerland, 89; made 
 honorary captain of artillery, 90, 
 337; publishes the Manuel d'Ar- 
 tillerie, 90 ; methodical distribution 
 of it, 91, 92; estimate of his own 
 position in 1834, 99 ; and in 1835, 
 93 ; denies rumoured alliance with 
 Queen of Portugal, 96 ; alleged 
 matrimonial designs in Switzer- 
 land, 96; and in England, 260, 
 261 ; engagement to Princess 
 Mathilde, 96, 97 ; the engagement 
 broken off, 129 ; his attitude in 
 regard to it, 199, 200, 340 ; meeting 
 with Persigny, 98; preliminaries 
 of Strasburg, 99, 100, 104-106; 
 arrival at, 107 ; plan of operations, 
 108-110; reception by the 4th 
 Artillery, 112; at the Finkmatt 
 barracks, 116-118; conduct on 
 this occasion, 128 ; arrest, 119 ; 
 in prison, 121, 339 ; transported to 
 the United States, 123-131 ; alleged 
 promise to remain there, 124-126, 
 257, 258; journey, 127, 341; 
 landing, 131 ; in New York, 132 ; 
 favouraljle reception, 134 ; in- 
 dignant at his uncle's repudiation 
 of his conduct, 133, 310-311, 343; 
 opinion of the United States, 136, 
 136 ; proposed tour abandoned, 
 137 ; letter to the president, 139 ; 
 return to Europe, 139 ; arrival at 
 
INDEX 
 
 381 
 
 Arenenberg, 140 ; his mother's 
 death, 140 ; her influence on him, 
 141-142 ; his letters to her, 332, 333, 
 835, 337-343; at Gottlleben, 143, 
 344 ; French demands for his 
 expulsion from Switzerland, 142- 
 144, 146-156 ; popularity in Switzer- 
 land, 146, 147 ; causes the Laity 
 pamphlet to be published, 146 ; 
 object in doing so, 324 ; assumes 
 responsibility for its publication, 
 146, 344, 345; elected deputy 
 for Thurgau, 148 ; secret request 
 for passporte to England, 149 ; 
 announces his voluntary with- 
 drawal from Switzerland, 151 ; 
 compact with the Swiss war party, 
 153 ; completely outmanoeuvres 
 French Government, 164 ; receives 
 passports for England, 155 ; 
 triumphant departure from Swit- 
 zerland, 156 ; arrival in England, 
 156 ; described by Disraeli, 157 ; 
 proftise expenditure, 159, 161 ; 
 founds two newspapers, 160; his 
 life in London, 161, 162 ; relations 
 with Miss Howard, 162, 261 ; at 
 the Eglinton Tournament, 162 ; 
 charged with the Barbes' rising, 
 163 ; publishes the Idies Napol- 
 ioniennes, 163-165 ; described by 
 Persigny, 165, 166; reasons for 
 renewed attempt in 1840, 167- 
 170 ; preliminaries of Boulogne, 
 171-173; the landing, 174-176; 
 the attempt and its failure, 177- 
 184; imprisoned at Ham, 184; 
 at the Conciergerie, 185 ; trial by 
 the Court of Peers, 187-194; 
 sentenced to perpetual imprison- 
 ment, 195 ; return to Ham, 197 ; 
 his quarters in the fortress, 198, 
 221«. ; closely guarded, 199 ; 
 address to the Emperor's manes, 
 201 ; scientific experiments, 202, 
 216, 217, 347 ; publishes Fragmmts 
 Historiques, 203 ; obtains conces- 
 sions from the Government, 207 ; 
 proposed life of Charlemagne, 208 ; 
 pamphlet in defence of beet-sugar 
 industry, 209, 210 ; relations with 
 republican press, 211, 212 ; articles 
 in provincial journals, 213, 214 ; 
 publishes the Extinction dm 
 Pawpirisme, 215 ; replies to Lamar- 
 tine's depreciation of Napoleon, 
 216 ; publishes an appreciation of 
 King Joseph, 216, 349 ; and La 
 Belle Saboti^re, 217; visited by 
 Louis Blanc, 218, 219; described 
 by him, 220; visited by Henry 
 
 Wikoff, 220, 221; effect of im- 
 prisonment on his spirits, 222, 
 223 ; on his health, 205, 223, 232 ; 
 on his character, 232-234 ; laborious 
 compilation of a history of artillery, 
 224, 225 ; visited by Lord Malmes- 
 bury, 226; institutes negotiations 
 for his release, 226-230 ; refuses to 
 ask the king's pardon, 231 ; advan - 
 tage of the negotiation to him, 
 231 ; borrows money from the 
 Duke of Brimswick, 237-239; 
 preliminaries of escape, 241-246 ; 
 escape,247-250; arrival in England, 
 254; fails to obtain passports to 
 visit his father, 254, 255 ; publishes 
 History of Artillery, 256 ; meets 
 Prince Napoleon, 257 ; life in 
 London, 258-261 ; his Nicaraguan 
 scheme, 229, 261-263 ; secret com- 
 munications to the Times, 264, 276 ; 
 letter on occasion of his father's 
 funeral, 265 ; unprepared for the 
 February revolution, 266, 267; 
 hastens to Paris, 273 ; letter to Pro- 
 visional Government, 274; return 
 to England, 274 ; serves as special 
 constable, 277, 278; difficulty of 
 his position in 1848, 279, 280 
 elected by four departments, 283 
 propaganda in favour of, 284 
 arrest ordered by the Assembly, 
 285 ; validity of his election recog- 
 nised, 286 ; letter to the President 
 of the Assembly, 287 ; second 
 letter and resignation, 288 ; con- 
 sequences of this incident to, 289 
 Lord Normanby on, 289, 314, 315 
 resigns his seat for Corsica, 293 
 elected by five departments, 294 
 returns to Paris, 294, 295 ; takes 
 his seat in the Assembly, 301 ; his 
 reserve, 301, 303; his breakdown 
 in the Assembly, 302 ; announces 
 his candidature for the Presidency 
 of the Republic, 304 ; his position 
 strengthened by Cavaignac's un- 
 popularity, 307 ; by the influence 
 of his name, 307; by his past 
 career, 308-312 ; by the unpopu- 
 larity of the Republic, 312-316; 
 behaviour as candidate, 317 ; 
 elected president, 319 ; installed at 
 the Elysee, 320; causes of his 
 success, 321-323 ; his own reading 
 of his early career, 323-325; 
 elements of future weakness, 326- 
 328; early letters quoted, 46, 67, 
 91-94, 99, 202, 211, 212, 222, 225, 
 228, 229, 254, 257, 258, 264, 265, 
 274, 276, 279, 280, 287, 288, 301, 
 
382 
 
 INDEX 
 
 310, 323-325, 332-353; authorities 
 
 for early life of, 355-372 
 Napoleon, Francis Charles Joseph, 
 
 Due de Reichstadt, (1811-1833) 26, 
 
 31, 59, 60, 76, 87, 332 
 Eugfene Louis, Prince Imperial, 
 
 (1856-1879) 53 
 all other members of the family, 
 
 see under Bonaparte 
 Navarre, 29 
 Neckar, 49, 328 
 Nemours, Due de, (1814-1896) 95m., 
 
 104 
 New York, 127, 132-135, 342 
 Ney, Marshal, (1769-1815) 361 
 Nicaragua Canal, 229, 261-263, 328, 
 
 371 
 Nicholas, Tsar, (1796-1855) 30m. 
 Norfolk, Virginia, 131 
 Nonnanby, first Marquess of, (1797- 
 
 1863) his despatches quoted, 119»i., 
 
 288, 289, 293, 300, 314, 315, 316, 
 
 317, 371 
 Nubia, 170 
 
 Ollivier, M. Emile, 355, 357, 362 
 O'Meara, Barry, (1770-1836) 357 
 OrMans, Due d", (1810-1842U04, 347 
 Orleans, Louis Philippe, IDuke of, 
 
 see Louis Philippe 
 Orsi, Count, [a Florentine banker, h. 
 
 1808, met Louis Napoleon, 1827] 
 
 173, 193, 237, 238, 239, 362, 367, 
 
 369, 370 {d. 1899) 
 Orsini, Count, 67 
 
 Felix, (1819-1858) 362 
 
 Ostend, 251 
 
 Palmeeston, Lord, (1784-1865) 122, 
 150, 170, 269 ; despatch cited, 156 
 
 Panama, 262 
 
 Paris, and the First Restoration, 3 ; 
 in 1814, 29; the July Revolution 
 in, 53 ; Louis Napoleon in, in 1831, 
 80-83 ; and the news of the Stras- 
 burg rising, 101-104 ; Louis Napol- 
 eon in, in 1836, 121; in 1840, 
 185-195; February Revolution in, 
 271-273; Louis Napoleon's visit to, 
 274; the national workshops in, 
 281-283, 290, 291 ; Louis Napoleon's 
 final arrival in, 294, 295 
 
 Parquin, Colonel, [6. 1787, cavalry 
 officer under First Empire; after 
 serving in eleven campaigns re- 
 ceived Cross of Legion of Honour 
 from Napoleon in 1813 ; saved 
 the hfe of the Due de Raguse 
 in Portugal, and of Marshal 
 de Keggio at Leipzic ; met 
 Louis Napoleon 1822 ; married 
 
 Hortense's reader Mile Cochelet ; 
 and settled near Arenenberg 1824] 
 his part in the Strasburg rising, 
 111, 115 ; in the preliminaries of 
 Boulogne, 171 ; buys a live eagle, 
 175 ; sentenced to twenty years' 
 detention, 194 (d. 1845) 
 
 Parquin, Mme, see Cochelet, MUe 
 
 Pascallet, E., 362 
 
 Pas-de-Calais, 172 
 
 Pasquler, Due de, (1767-1862) 189 
 
 Pass4 et Vavenir de VArtillerie, dm, 
 224, 225, 256, 258, 371 
 
 Pawpirisme, Extinction da, 215, 256, 
 330, 371 
 
 Peauger, M., 350 
 
 Percy, M. Lucien, 359 
 
 Perier, Casimir, (1811-1876) 81 
 
 Peronne, 253, 369 
 
 Persigny, (1808-1872) early career, 
 98; meets Louis Napoleon, ibid., 
 99, 104, 105 ; his part in the Stras- 
 burg rising, 107, 108, 113, 120; 
 his account of the rising, 364 ; 
 interviews Morier, 149, 156; pub- 
 lishes description of Louis Napoleon 
 in his Letlres de Londres, 165, 366 ; 
 laudatory and unreliable character 
 of this description, 166, 361 ; his 
 action at Boulogne, 180 ; at the 
 trial, 193 ; condemned to twenty 
 years' ' detention,' 195 ; goes with 
 Louis Napoleon to Paris in Feb. 
 1848, 370 ; consults Odilon Barrot 
 on behalf of Louis Napoleon in 
 March 1848, 276 ; returns to France 
 in June, 1848, 284; his arrest 
 ordered, 285 ; the order rescinded, 
 286-287 ; accounts of, 363 
 
 Perugia, 70 
 
 Pesaro, 70, 71 
 
 Peyronnet, Cte., (1778-1854) 223«. 
 
 Philadelphia, 342 
 
 Pietra Santa, 75 
 
 Pi^tri, P. M., (e. 1810-1864) 283 
 
 PisSi 75 * 
 
 Pius' VIII, (1761-1830)62 
 
 Pius IX, (1792-1878) 8, 13 
 
 Planch^, J. R., (1796-1880) 366 
 
 Pleignier, Sub-lieutenant, 119m. 
 
 Poggioli, Sylvestre, 226, 227, 369 
 
 Point Breeze, 342 
 
 Poland, 85, 86 
 
 Polignac, Prince, (1780-1847) 55m., 
 197, 368 
 
 Portugal, 95 
 
 Prince Imperial, see Napoleon, 
 Eugfene Louis 
 
 Prussia, reaction in, 10 ; its share in 
 proposed redivision of Europe, 
 54». ; supports French demand 
 
INDEX 
 
 383 
 
 for Louis Napoleon's expulsion 
 from Switzerland, 148; acts with 
 England in isolating France In 
 1840_, 170 ; Louis Napoleon's ap- 
 preciation of its military strength, 
 214 
 
 Putnam, G. P., (1814-1872) 278n. 
 
 Puygelier, Captain, see Col-Puygelier 
 
 QuERELLES, M. de, (1812-1847) 112, 
 113, 114 
 
 Ramssate, 173 
 
 K^camier, Madame, (1777-1849) 363 
 
 Regnault, Elias, (1801-1868) 367 
 
 Reichstadt, Due de, see under 
 Napoleon 
 
 R6musat, Mme de, (1780-1821) 
 360 
 
 Renault, M. B,, 356, 361, 362 
 
 Reveries Poliiiqties, published, 87, 
 371 ; character and object of the 
 pamphlet, 88 
 
 Rhyn, M. Am., 143 
 
 Ripon, First Earl of, (1782-1859) 161 
 
 Rio de Janeiro, 127, 341 
 
 Roche, Engine, 364 
 
 Rochefort, 361 
 
 Rollin, see Ledru-RoUin 
 
 Rome, 45, 46, 48, 60, 62, 64, 68, 98 
 
 Rosebery, Lord, 59 
 
 Rotterdam, 140 
 
 Rowles, Emily, 261 
 
 Ruskin, John, (1819-1900) 211 
 
 Russell, Lord John, (1792-1878) 30». 
 
 Russia, liberal foreign policy of, in 
 1815, 9, 10 ; reaction, 11 ; Louis 
 Napoleon's desire to serve under, 
 against Turkey, 52 ; Polignac's 
 secret negotiation with, in 1829, 
 Sin. ; co-operates with England's 
 action against Mehemet Ali, 170 
 
 Sabotieke, La Belle, see Vergeot, 
 
 Alexandrine 
 Saint-Edme, 365, 367 
 St Gall, 36 
 St Helena, 7, 11, 12, 15, 16, 63, 94, 
 
 168, 170, 189, 197, 357-358 
 St John, J. A., (1801-1875) 366 
 St Leu, 24, 31, 265 
 
 Comte de, see Bonaparte, Louis 
 
 Duchess of, see Beauharnais, 
 
 Hortense de 
 St Omer, 153 
 St Petersburg, 55m. 
 St Quentin, 249, 250 
 Saldanha, Marquis of, (1791-1861) 
 
 95m. 
 Salvage, Mme, 346 
 
 Sand, George, (1804-1876) 215, 347, 
 350 
 
 Sartorius, 369 
 
 Savoy, 36 
 
 Saxony, 54». 
 
 Sedan, 313 
 
 Sercognani, General, 68 
 
 Servia, 54m. 
 
 Seymour, E. H., his despatches 
 quoted, 67, 68, 70 
 
 Miss, 261 
 
 Siena, 74 
 
 Sismondi, J. C. L. S., (1773-1842) 
 208 
 
 Smith, George Thomas, 238, 239, 
 369 
 
 Soult,Marshal,(1769-1851)32,337,361 
 
 Souplet, Calixte, 370 
 
 Spain, 21, 23 
 
 Spoleto, 67, 333 
 
 Stein, Lorenz von, 371 
 
 St^phane-Pol, M., 361 
 
 Stephanie, Grand Duchess of Baden, 
 see under Beauharnais 
 
 Stern, Daniel, (Mme d'Agoult) 371 
 
 Stewart, C. S., 134, 365 
 
 Strasburg, chosen as the scene of 
 Louis Napoleon's first expedition 
 V. Louis Philippe, 100 ; prelimin- 
 aries of the rising, 105, 106 ; 
 arrival of Louis Napoleon in, 107 ; 
 disposition of troops in, 108-109 ; 
 design of the insurgents, 110 ; out- 
 break, progress and failure of the 
 insurrection, 111-120 ; reception of 
 the news in Paris, 101-104; Louis 
 Napoleon's imprisonment at, 121 ; 
 trial and acquittal of other insur- 
 gents at, 130, 131, 134, 167 ; Laity's 
 account of, 144; Louis Napoleon 
 on, 339, 340 ; other references to, 
 129, 133, 143, 145, 153m., 169, 160, 
 168, 179, 187, 188, 192, 193, 232, 
 236, 257; evidence regarding the 
 rising, 363-365 
 
 Stuarts, the, Louis Napoleon on, 
 203-205 
 
 Suez Canal, 263 
 
 Switzerland, Louie Napoleon and his 
 mother take up their residence in, 
 40 ; opposition of the Allies, and 
 difBculties preliminary to their 
 residence in Thurgau, 36-39 ; Louis 
 Napoleon's military training in, 
 51 ; difficulty of returning there in 
 1831, 69 ; his return to in 1831, 85 ; 
 his book on, 89 ; receives honorary 
 citizenship of. ibid. ; returns to in 
 1837, 140; France requests Louis 
 Napoleon's expulsion from, 143, 
 144; postpones French demands. 
 
384 
 
 INDEX 
 
 146-148 ; apparent readiness to 
 fight for Louis Napoleon, 149 ; 
 Louis Napoleon's 'voluntary' de- 
 parture from, 150, 161 ; apparent 
 understanding between Swiss war 
 party, and the prince, 152-154 ; suc- 
 cess of this alliance, 155 ; Louis 
 Napoleon's triumphant departure 
 from, 156 
 
 Talandier, Colonel, 118, 119 
 Talleyrand, Prince de, (1754-1838) 84 
 Temi, 67 
 Th^lin, Charles, (6. 1801) 131, 207, 
 
 244, 245, 246, 248-251, 253, 254, 
 
 352, 870 
 Thiers, L. A., (1797-1877) 59, 86, 268, 
 
 358, 359 
 Thirria, M., 356, 357 
 Thrace, 55re. 
 Thun, 51, 53, 60, 333 
 Thurgau, 37-39, 89, 147, 148, 151 
 Times, The, 163, 264, 276, 363 
 Tirmarche, Abb^, 246 
 Toeplitz, 24 
 Toulon, 112 
 
 Tremblaire, M. C. E., 368 
 Troyes, 284 
 Tscharner, M., 153». 
 TuckweU, W., 366 
 Turkey, 55n. 
 Turquan, M., 360 
 Tuscany, 73, 255 
 
 United States, 123, 125, 126 ; Louis 
 Napoleon lands in, 131 ; his re- 
 sidence there, 132-139; proposed 
 tour of, 134 ; experience of travel 
 in, 342; impressions of, 135, 136; 
 letter to President of, 139 ; later 
 dealings with, 137 ; departure from, 
 139 ; evidence regarding his stay 
 there, 365 
 
 Valenciennes, 250 
 
 Vandam, A. D., 370 
 
 Vaudrey, Colonel, [6. 1786, served in 
 Italy 1806, taken prisoner in cam- 
 paign V. Austria 1809, Captain 
 1810,distinguished himself in action 
 before Gronen-Haissen 1 8 1 3,f ought 
 in 1814 campaign and at Waterloo, 
 placed in command of the 4th 
 Artillery 1834] promises his sup- 
 port to Louis Napoleon, 105 ; joins 
 him at Freiburg, 107 ; his part in 
 
 the Strasburg rising, 108, 112, 114, 
 
 115, 117; surrenders to Talandier, 
 119, 120; Louis Napoleon pays for 
 his defence, 339; Louis Napoleon 
 to, 342 
 
 Vend6me column, 59, 82 
 
 Vergeot, Alexandrine, ■ (La Belle 
 Sabotifere) her relations with Louis 
 Napoleon at Ham, 217 ; [married 
 to M. Bure, 1852; died at Paris, 
 1886] 
 
 Verhuel, Admiral, (1764-1845) 27, 
 358, 359 
 
 Vermorel, 371 
 
 Veron, Dr, 369 
 
 Versailles, 119«., 360 
 
 Vieillard, M., Louis Napoleon's 
 letters to, 93, 126, 136, 146m., 222, 
 257, 323-325, 337-339, 346-348, 361- 
 353, 369 
 
 Vienna, Congress of, 8 
 
 Virginia, 131 
 
 Viterbo, 67 
 
 Voirol, General, 102, 103, 106, 114, 
 
 116, 193 
 
 Voisin, Jean-Baptiste, [6. 1780, pro- 
 moted from the ranks at Auster- 
 litz, lieutenant-colonel 1813, retired 
 as colonel 1837] tried for his part 
 in the Boulogne landing, 192 ; con- 
 demned to ten years' detention, 196 
 
 Walden, Sixth Baron, (1799-1868) 
 
 95m. 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, 270 
 Warsaw, 86 
 Wartburg Festival, the, (18th October 
 
 1817) 10 
 Washington, 139 
 Waterloo, 9, 31, 33, 191, 335 
 Webb, General Watson, (6. 1782) 
 
 134, 365 
 Wehrhan, R., 360 
 Wellington, (1769-1852) 4 
 Wikoif, Henry, 220, 221, 368 
 William I, German Emperor, (1797- 
 
 1888) 29 
 WiUiam III, 128, 203, 204 
 Wilson, J. G., 365 
 Wilson, Sir Robert, (1777-1849) 91, 
 
 92, 
 Wimereux, 176, 177 
 Wraxall, Sir F., (1828-1865) 360 
 
 Zappi, Marquis, 75 
 Zurich, 150 
 
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