Elections for a Constitutional Assembly, which was to confirm or to repudiate the Provisional Government, were held on March 24, and the new Assembly was to meet early in May. Meantime all kinds of duties and anxieties accumulated on Lamartine. The Polish, Hungarian, Spanish, German, and Italian exiles in Paris were all anxious that he should espouse their causes against their own Governments. He assured them that this was not the mission of the Second French Republic, whatever might have been that of the First, and that the cause of European liberty would lose, not gain, if France, with propagandist fervor, embroiled herself with the monarchical powers. A deputation of Irishmen, under Smith O'Brien, waited upon him to beg the assistance of fifty thousand French troops in Ireland, "to rid her of the English." Lamartine peremptorily refused, saying: "When one is not united by blood to a people, it is not allowable to interfere in its affairs with the strong hand." Smith O'Brien and his followers, deeply mortified, repaired at once to Ledru-Rollin's Red Republican Club, where they were loudly applauded, and Lamartine condemned.

Meantime there were disturbances everywhere. Men out of employment, excited by club orators, were ready for any violence. At Lyons they destroyed the hospitals and orphan asylums, out of mere wantonness.

One afternoon Lamartine received news that the soldiers at the Invalides, dissatisfied with General Petit, their commander, had dragged him to the street, placed him on a cart, and were carrying him thus around Paris. On foot he rushed to the rescue, trusting to his powers of haranguing the multitude; but luckily the general had been released before his arrival. There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. We smile at the spectacle of the ruler of France rushing on foot, through dim streets, after a cart he could not find. General Petit was that officer of the Old Guard whom Napoleon had embraced when he took leave of his beloved corps at Fontainebleau. Lamartine re-established him as commander at the Invalides, and the mutiny was put down.

On the night of the first day of the Provisional Government, a mob having demanded that the red flag of Communism should be substituted for the tricolor, Lamartine replied,—

"Citizens! neither I nor any member of the Government will adopt the Drapeau Rouge. We would rather adopt that other flag which is hoisted in a bombarded city to mark to the enemy the hospitals of the wounded. I will tell you in one word why I will oppose the red flag with the whole force of patriotic determination. It is, citizens, because the tricolor has made the tour of the world with the Republic and the Empire, with your liberties and your glory; the red flag has only made the tour of the Champ de Mars, dragged through the blood of citizens."

Muskets in the crowd were here levelled at the speaker, but were knocked up by the more peaceable of his hearers.

There was soon great discontent throughout the departments because of the imposition of a land-tax; but as Lamartine said truly, farmers would have found war or the triumph of Red Republicanism more expensive still.

On March 17, about three weeks after the departure of the king, a great Socialist demonstration was made in Paris. Large columns of men marched to the Hotel-de-Ville, singing the old revolutionary chant of "Ca ira." Ledru-Rollin, in the fulness of his heart, seeing these one hundred and twenty thousand men all marching with some discipline, said to his colleagues in the Council Chamber: "Do you know that your popularity is nothing to mine? I have but to open this window and call upon these men, and you would every one of you be turned into the street. Do you wish me to try it?"

Upon this, Garnier-Pages, the Finance Minister, walked up to Ledru-Rollin, and presenting a pistol, said: "If you make one step toward that window, it shall be your last." Ledru-Rollin paused a moment, and then sat down.

The object of the demonstration was to force the Provisional Government to take measures for raising and equalizing wages, and providing State employment for all out of employ. The main body was refused admittance into the Hotel-de-Ville, but a certain number of the leaders were permitted to address the Provisional Government. To Ledru-Rollin's and Louis Blanc's surprise, they found that half of these leaders were men they had never seen before, more radical radicals than themselves,—that revolutionary scum that rose to the surface in the Reign of Terror and the Commune.

A sense of common danger made Ledru-Rollin and Louis Blanc unite with their colleagues in refusing the demand of the deputation that the measures they advocated should be put in force by immediate decrees. Lamartine harangued them; so did Ledru-Rollin and Louis Blanc; and at last the disappointed multitude, with vengeance in their hearts, filed peaceably away.

A month later, April 15, another outbreak was planned. The chief club leaders wished it to be headed by Ledru-Rollin and Blanqui,—the latter a conspirator in Louis Philippe's time. But Ledru-Rollin refused to serve with Blanqui, having discovered from documents in his office (that of Minister of Justice) that Blanqui had once been a Government spy. "Well, then," said the club leaders, "since you decline to be our chief, you shall to-morrow share the fate of your colleagues." Ledru-Rollin, after a terrible night of vacillation, resolved to throw himself on Lamartine's generosity. He went to him at daybreak and told him of the impending danger. At once Lamartine sent him to call out the National Guard, while he himself summoned the Garde Mobile. The National Guard had been reorganized; but there were no regular soldiers in Paris,—they had been sent away to satisfy the people. The commander of the National Guard, however, refused to let his men be called out on the occasion; and Lamartine, on hearing this, went to the Hotel-de-Ville alone. But help came to him from an unexpected quarter. General Changarnier, who had been appointed ambassador to Berlin, called at Lamartine's house to return thanks for his appointment. Madame de Lamartine told him of the danger that menaced her husband, and he repaired at once to the Hotel-de-Ville. There he found only about twelve hundred boys of the Garde Mobile to oppose the expected two hundred thousand insurgents. He drew his Garde Mobile into the building, and prepared to stand a siege. There from early morning till the next day Lamartine remained with Marrast, the Mayor of Paris. He says that he harangued the mob from thirty to forty times. The other members of the Government remained in one of the public offices. With much difficulty the National Guard, whose organization was not yet complete, was brought upon the scene. The procession of the insurgents was cut in two, the commander of the National Guard employing the same tactics as those which the Duke of Wellington had used a week earlier, when dealing in London with the Chartist procession. The result was the complete discomfiture of the insurgents.

A few days afterwards the members of the Provisional Government sat twelve hours, on thrones erected for them under the Arch of Triumph, to see Gardes Mobiles, National Guards, troops of the line, and armed workmen, file past them, all shouting for Lamartine and Order! It was probably the proudest moment of Lamartine's life; in that flood-tide of his popularity he easily could have seized supreme power.

All through the provinces disturbances went on. The object of the Red Republicans had at first been to oppose the election of the National Assembly. So long as France remained under the provisional dictatorship of Lamartine and his colleagues, and the regular troops were kept out of Paris, they hoped to be able to seize supreme power, by a coup de main.

The National Assembly was, however, elected on Easter Day, and proved to be largely conservative. The deputies met May 4,—the anniversary of the meeting of the States-General in 1789, fifty-nine years before. Its hall was a temporary structure, erected in the courtyard of the Palais Bourbon, the former place of meeting for the Chamber of Deputies. There was no enthusiasm in the body for the Republic, and evidently a hostile feeling towards the Provisional Government, which it was disposed to think too much allied with Red Republicanism.

Two days after the Assembly met, the Provisional Government resigned its powers. To Lamartine's great chagrin, he stood, not first, but fourth, on a list of five men chosen temporarily to conduct the government. Some of his proceedings had made the Assembly fear (very unjustly) that he shared the revolutionary enthusiasms of Ledru-Rollin.

It was soon apparent that ultra-democracy in France was not favored by the majority of Frenchmen. The Socialists and Anarchists, finding that they could not form a tyrant majority in the Assembly, began to conspire against it. While a debate was going on ten days after it assembled, an alarm was raised that a fierce crowd was about to pour into its place of meeting. Lamartine harangued the mob, but this time without effect. His day was over. He was received with shouts of "You have played long enough upon the lyre! A bas Lamartine!" Ledru-Rollin tried to harangue in his turn, but with no better effect. The hall was invaded, and Lamartine, throwing up his arms, cried, "All is lost!"

Barbes, the man who led an emeute in 1839, and whose life had been spared by Louis Philippe through the exertions of Lamartine, led the insurgents. They demanded two things,—a forced tax of a milliard (that is, a thousand million) of francs, to be laid on the rich for the benefit of the poor; and that whoever gave orders to call out the National Guard against insurgents should be declared a traitor. "You are wrong, Barbes," cried a voice from the crowd; "two hours' sack of Paris is what we want." After this the president of the Assembly was pulled from his chair, and a new provisional government was nominated of fierce Red Republicans,—not red enough, however, for the crowd, which demanded Socialists and Anarchists redder still. By this time some battalions of the National Guard had been called out. At sight of their bayonets the insurgents fled, but concentrated their forces on the Hotel-de-Ville. This again they evacuated when cannon were pointed against it, and the cause of order was won.

General Cavaignac, who had just come home from Algeria, was made War Minister, and the clubs were closed. Louis Blanc was sent into exile. The Orleans family, which had been treated considerately by Lamartine, was forbidden to return to France.

The Assembly was now dissolved, and a new Chamber of Deputies was to be chosen in June. Among the candidates for election was Prince Louis Napoleon. He had already, in the days of Lamartine's administration, visited Paris, and had replied to a polite request from the provisional Government that he would speedily leave the capital, that any man who would disturb the Provisional Government was no true friend to France. Now he professed to ask only to be permitted to become a representative of the people, saying that he had "not forgotten that Napoleon, before being the first magistrate in France, was its first citizen."

Then cries of "Vive l'empereur!" began to be heard. Louis Napoleon's earliest "idea" had been that France needed an emperor whose throne should be based on universal suffrage. To this "idea" he added another,—that it was his destiny to be the chosen emperor.

No one in these days can conceive the hold that the memory of the First Napoleon had, in 1848, on the affections of the French people. That he put down anarchy with an iron hand was by the Anarchists forgotten. He was a son of the Revolution. His marches through Europe had scattered the seeds of revolutionary ideas. The heart of France responded to such verses as Beranger's "Grand'-mere." In vain Lamartine represented the impolicy and unfairness of proscribing the Orleans family while admitting into France the head of the house of Bonaparte. Louis Napoleon was elected deputy by four departments; but he subsequently hesitated to take his seat, fearing, he said, that he might be the cause of dissension in the Assembly.

The deputies from Paris were all Socialists, but those from the departments were frequently men of note and reputation. The country members were nearly all friends to order and conservatism.

The first necessary measure was to get rid of the national workshops. On June 20, one hundred and twenty thousand workmen were being paid daily two francs each, only two thousand of whom had anything to do, while fifty thousand more were clamoring for admission.

Of course any measure to suppress the national workshops, or to send home those who had come up to Paris for employment in them, was opposed by the workmen. It was computed that among those employed, or rather paid, by the State for doing nothing, were twenty-five thousand desperate men, ready for any fight, and that half this number were ex-convicts. The Government had nominally large forces at its command, but it was doubtful how far its troops could be relied on.

On June 22, 1848, at nightfall the struggle began. By morning half Paris was covered with barricades. It was very hard to collect troops, but Cavaignac was a tried soldier. He divided his little force into four parts. It was not till the evening of the 23d that hostilities commenced, and at the same time General Cavaignac was named by the Assembly dictator. This inspired confidence. Cavaignac was well supported, and acted with the greatest energy. The street-fighting was fiercer than any Paris had ever seen, and no real success was gained by Cavaignac till the evening of the 24th, after twenty-four hours of hard fighting. That success was the storming of the church of Sainte Genevieve (called also the Pantheon) and the destruction of its walls. But still the fight went on. Many generals were wounded. Cavaignac used his cannon freely, and even his bombs. It was night on June 26 before the troops could be pronounced victorious, and then they had not stormed the most formidable of the barricades,—that of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Says Sir Archibald Alison,—

"But ere the attack on this barricade commenced, a sublime instance of Christian heroism and devotion occurred, which shines forth like a heavenly glory in the midst of these terrible scenes of carnage. Monseigneur Affre, archbishop of Paris, horror-stricken with the slaughter which for three days had been going on, resolved to attempt a reconciliation between the contending parties, or perish in the attempt. Having obtained leave from General Cavaignac to repair to the headquarters of the insurgents, he set out, dressed in his pontifical robes, having the cross in his hand, attended by his two chaplains, also in full canonicals, and three intrepid members of the Assembly. Deeply affected by this courageous act, which they knew was almost certain death, the people, as he walked through the streets, fell on their knees and besought him to desist; but he persisted, saying, 'It is my duty; a good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.' At seven in the evening he arrived at the Place de la Bastille, where the fire of musketry was extremely warm on both sides. It ceased on either side at the august spectacle, and the archbishop, bearing the cross aloft, advanced with his two priests to the foot of the barricade. A single attendant, bearing a green branch, preceded the prelate. The soldiers, seeing him advance so close to those who had already slain bearers of flags-of-truce, approached in order to give him succor in case of need; the insurgents, on their side, descended the barricade, and the redoubtable combatants stood close to each other, exchanging looks of defiance. Suddenly a shot was heard. Instantly the cry arose of 'Treason! Treason!' and the combatants, retreating on either side, began to exchange shots with as much fury as ever. Undismayed by the storm of balls which incessantly flew over his head from all quarters, the prelate advanced slowly, attended by his chaplains, to the summit of the barricade. One of them had his hat pierced by three balls, but the archbishop himself, almost by a miracle, escaped while on the top. He had descended three steps on the other side, when he was pierced through the loins by a shot from a window. The insurgents, horror-struck, approached him where he fell, stanched the wound, which at once was seen to be mortal, and carried him to a neighboring hospital. When told that he had only a few minutes to live, 'God be praised!' he said, 'and may He accept my life as an expiation for my omissions during my episcopacy, and as an offering for the salvation of this misguided people.' With these words he expired."

As soon as the archbishop's death was known, the insurgents made proposals to capitulate, on condition of a general pardon. This Cavaignac refused, saying that they must surrender unconditionally. The fight therefore lasted until daybreak. Then the insurgents capitulated, and all was over.

No one ever knew how many fell. Six generals were killed or mortally wounded. Ten thousand bodies were recognized and buried, and it is said that nearly as many more were thrown unclaimed into the Seine. There were fifteen thousand prisoners, of whom three thousand died of jail-fever. Thousands were sent to Cayenne; thousands to the galleys. This terrible four days' fight cost France more lives than any battle of the Empire.

The insurrection being over, and Cavaignac dictator, the next thing was for the Assembly to make a constitution. This constitution was short-lived. A president was to be chosen for four years, with re-election as often as might be desired. He was to be elected by universal suffrage. He was to have a salary of about one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars per annum, and he was to have much the same powers as the President of the United States.

There were two principal presidential candidates,—Prince Louis Napoleon, who had taken his seat in the Assembly; and Cavaignac, who had the power of Government on his side, and was sanguine of election. The prince proclaimed in letters and placards his deep attachment to the Republic, and denounced as his enemies and slanderers all those who said he was not firmly resolved to maintain the constitution.

The result of the election showed Louis Napoleon to have had five and a half millions of votes; Cavaignac one and a half million; Lamartine, who six months before had been a popular idol, had nineteen thousand.



An early friend of Louis Napoleon, who seems to have been willing to talk freely of the playmate of her childhood, thus spoke of him to an English traveller.

"He is," she said, "a strange being. His mind wants keeping. A trifle close to his eyes hides from him large objects at a distance.... The great progress in political knowledge made by the higher classes in France from 1815 to 1848 is lost on him. When we met in 1836, after three years' separation, I was struck by his backwardness in political knowledge. Up to 1848 he never had lived in France except as a child or a captive. His opinions and feelings were those of the French masses from 1799 to 1812. Though these opinions had been modified in the minds of the higher classes, they were, in 1848, those of the multitude, who despise parliamentary government, despise the pope, despise the priests, delight in profuse expenditure, delight in war, hold the Rhine to be our national frontier, and that it is our duty to seize all that lies on the French side. The people and he were of one mind. I have no doubt that the little he may have heard, and the less that he attended to, from the persons he saw between 1848 and 1852 about liberty, self-government, economy, the supremacy of the Assembly, respect for foreign nations, and fidelity to treaties, appeared to him the silliest talk imaginable. So it would have appeared to all in the lower classes of France; so it would have appeared to the army, which is drawn from those classes, and exaggerates their political views."

"The prince president is romantic, impulsive, and bizarre," said one of his officials to the same English gentleman, "indolent, vain, good-natured, selfish, fearing and disliking his superiors;... he loves to excite the astonishment of the populace. As a child he liked best bad children,—as a man, bad men."

But one good quality he had pre-eminently,—no man was ever more grateful for kindness, or more indulgent to his friends.

Such was the man, untried, uneducated in French politics, covered with ridicule, and even of doubtful courage, whom the voices of five and a half millions of French voters called to the presidential chair. It was to the country Louis Napoleon had appealed, to the rural population of France as against the dangerous classes in the great cities. Paris had for sixty years been making revolutions for the country; now it was the turn of the provincials, who said they were tired of receiving a new Government by mail whenever it pleased the Parisians to make one. Paris contained one hundred and forty thousand Socialists, besides Anarchists and Red Republicans. With these the rural population had no sympathy. Louis Napoleon was not chosen by their votes, nor by those of their sympathizers in other great cities. His success was in the rural districts alone.

His election was a great disappointment to the Assembly, and from the first moment the prince president and that body were antagonistic to each other. The president claimed to hold his powers from the people, and to be in no way under the control of the Assembly; the Assembly was forever talking of deposing him, of imprisoning him at Vincennes, and so on.

Immediately after his election the prince president found it very difficult to form a cabinet. After being repulsed in various quarters, he sent a confidential messenger to Lamartine, asking him to meet him by night on horseback in a dark alley in the Bois de Boulogne. After listening to his rival's appeal for assistance in this emergency, Lamartine frankly told him that for various reasons he felt himself to be not only the most useless, but the most dangerous minister a new Government could select. He said, "I should ruin myself without serving you." The prince seemed grieved. "With regard to popularity," he answered, with a smile, "I have enough for both of us." "I know it," replied Lamartine; "but having, as I think, given you unanswerable reasons for my refusal, I give you my word of honor that if by to-morrow you have not been able to win over and to rally to you the men I will name, I will accept the post of prime minister in default of others."

Before morning the prince president had succeeded elsewhere; but he retained a sincere respect and regard for Lamartine, who after this incident fades out of the page of history. He lived a few years longer; but he was oppressed by pecuniary difficulties, from which neither his literary industry, nor the assistance of the Government, nor the subscriptions of his friends, seemed able to extricate him. Several times Milly, the dear home of his childhood, was put up for sale by his creditors. It was more than once rescued on his behalf, but in the end was sold.

Lamartine was buried with national honors; but among all the chances and changes that have distracted the attention of his countrymen from his career, he does not seem to have received from the world or the French nation all the honor, praise, and gratitude that his memory deserves.

Louis Napoleon, who had all his life dreamed of being the French emperor, though he took care to repudiate such an idea in all his public speeches, had not been president of the Republic six weeks before he read a plan for a coup d'etat to General Changarnier, who utterly refused to listen to it.

We need not here dwell on the struggles that went on between the prince president and the Assembly, from December, 1848, to November, 1851. It is enough to say that the Chamber, from being the governing power in France, found itself reduced to a mere legislative body much hampered by the mistrust and contempt of the Executive. Its members of course hated "the Man at the Elysee," or "Celui-ci," as they called him. The Socialists hated the Assembly even more than they hated the president. The army was all for him. The bourgeoisie were thankful that under his rule they might at least find protection from Socialism and anarchy.

From the election of Prince Louis to the coup d'etat in December, 1851, there were four serious emeutes in Paris, and once the city was in a state of siege. It was estimated that to put down the smallest of these revolts cost two hundred thousand dollars.

Foreign nations were too busy with their own affairs in 1848 to have time to meddle with the Government of Louis Napoleon,—indeed, Russia and Prussia were much obliged to him for keeping out the Orleans family, whom they by no means wished to see on the French throne.

One thing that Louis Napoleon did to gain favor with the country party caused great indignation among genuine republicans, and, indeed, throughout Europe. This was the part he took against the Republic of Rome.

Pio Nono, having been elected pope in 1846, had started on his career as a liberal pontiff and ruler; but before 1848 he had disappointed the expectations of all parties, and had fled from Rome to Gaeta, where Ferdinand, king of the Two Sicilies (commonly known as King Bomba) had also taken refuge. Lamartine, at the time his power ceased, had been fitting out a French army to lend help to the Romans if they should be attacked by the Austrians, and if need were, to protect the pope, who before his flight was supposed to be opposed to Austrian domination. Louis Napoleon ordered General Oudinot, who commanded the French forces, to disembark his troops at Civita Vecchia, and either to occupy Rome peaceably, or to attack the revolutionists. A battle was fought, and the French worsted; but they ended by gaining the city and holding it, putting down the Roman republicans, and handing the city over to Austrian and papal vengeance on Pio Nono's return.

The new president, anxious to strengthen his popularity in the provinces, made several tours. Everywhere, as the nephew of his uncle, he was received with wild enthusiasm. He was not a man to captivate by his manners on public occasions, neither was he a ready speaker; but he looked his best on horseback, and above all, there was in his favor, among the middle class of Frenchmen, a very potent feeling,—the dread of change.

As a deputy, before his election by the country as its president, he used to sit in the Chamber silent and alone, pitied by some, and neglected by all. Silence, indeed, was necessary to his success, for, "silent and smoking, he matured his plans." One of the first things he did when he became president was to attempt to get possession of all papers in the archives concerning his conduct at Strasburg and Boulogne.

There had been a new Assembly elected. It had few of the old republican leaders in it, but the Left and the Right and half the Centre were opposed to the prince president. The Left in the French Chamber means the Red Republicans; the Right, those members who are in favor of monarchy; the Centre, the Moderates, who are willing to accept any good government.

One of the objects of this Assembly, which foresaw that a coup d'etat might be at hand, was to get command of a little army for its own protection. It appointed as commander of this force General Changarnier, with whom the prince president had recently quarrelled, and designated four of its members, whom it called quoestors, to look into all matters relating to its safety.

The constitution was to be revised by this Assembly. Nobody cared much about the constitution, which had not had time to acquire any hold on the affections of the people, and Louis Napoleon had recently acquired popularity with the turbulent part of the population of Paris by opposing a measure calculated to restrict universal suffrage, and to prevent tramps, aliens, and ex-convicts from voting at elections. The prince president, who wanted, for his own purposes, as large a popular vote as possible, was opposed to any restrictions on the suffrage.

Such was the condition of things on Nov. 26, 1851, when Louis Napoleon summoned the principal generals and colonels of the troops in and around Paris to meet him at the Elysee. At this meeting they all swore to support the president if called upon to do so, and never to tell of this engagement. They kept the secret for five years.

Meantime the Assembly on its part was hatching a conspiracy to overturn the president and send him to a dungeon at Vincennes; while all who refused to support its authority were to be declared guilty of treason.

The three men called the generals of the Army of Africa,—namely, Cavaignac, Changarnier, and Lamoriciere,—were opposed to the prince president. They were either Republicans or Orleanists.

Thus the crisis approached. Each party was ready to spring upon the other. Again France was to experience a political convulsion, and the party that moved first would gain the day.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE COUP D'ETAT.

"In voting for Louis Napoleon," says Alison, "the French rural population understood that it was voting for an emperor and for the repression of the clubs in Paris. It seemed to Frenchmen in the country that they had only a choice between Jacobin rule by the clubs, or Napoleonic rule by an emperor." So, though Louis Napoleon, when he presented himself as a presidential candidate, assured the electors, "I am not so ambitious as to dream of empire, of war, nor of subversive theories; educated in free countries and in the school of misfortune, I shall always remain faithful to the duties that your suffrages impose on me," public sentiment abroad and at home, whether hostile or favorable, expected that he would before long make himself virtually, if not in name, the Emperor Napoleon. Indeed, the army was encouraged by its officers to shout, "Vive l'empereur!" and "Vive Napoleon!" And General Changarnier, for disapproving of these demonstrations, had been dismissed from his post as military commander at the capital. He was forthwith, as we have seen, appointed to a military command in the confidence of the Assembly.

By the autumn of 1851 Louis Napoleon had fully made up his mind as to his coup d'etat, and had arranged all its details. He had five intimates, who were his counsellors,—De Morny, De Maupas, De Persigny, Fleury, and General Saint-Arnaud.



De Morny has always been reputed to have been the half-brother of Louis Napoleon. In 1847 he lived luxuriously in a small hotel in the Champs Elysees, surrounded by rare and costly works of art. He had then never been considered anything but a man of fashion; but he proved well fitted to keep secrets, to conduct plots, and to do the cruellest things in a jocund, off-hand way.

Saint-Arnaud's name had been originally Jacques Le Roy. At one time, under the name of Florival, he had been an actor in Paris at one of the suburban theatres. He had served three times in the French army, and been twice dismissed for conduct unbecoming an officer. His third term of service for his country was in a foreign legion, composed of dare-devils of all nations, who enrolled themselves in the army of Algeria. There his brilliant bravery had a large share in securing the capture of Constantine. He rose rapidly to be a general, was an excellent administrator, a cultivated and agreeable companion, perfectly unscrupulous, and ready to assist in any scheme of what he considered necessary cruelty. Fleury, who had been sent to Africa to select a military chief fitted to carry out the coup d'etat, found Saint-Arnaud the very man to suit the purpose of his master. Saint-Arnaud was tall, thin, and bony, with close-cropped hair. De Morny used to laugh behind his back at the way he said le peuple souverain, and said he knew as little about the sovereign people as about the pronunciation. He spoke English well, for he had lived for some years an exile in Leicester Square,—the disreputable French quarter of London; this accomplishment was of great service to him during the Crimean War.

De Maupas had been a country prefect, and was eager for promotion. Louis Napoleon converted him into his Minister of Police.

Fleury was the simple-hearted and attached friend of his master.

De Persigny, like Saint-Arnaud, had changed his name, having begun life as Fialin.

These five plotted the coup d'etat[1]; arranged all its details, and kept their own counsel.

[Footnote 1: De Maupas, Le Coup d'Etat.]

The generals and colonels in garrison in Paris had been sounded, as we have seen, in reference to their allegiance to the Great Emperor's nephew, and by the close of 1851 all things had been made ready for the proposed coup d'etat.

A coup d'etat is much the same thing as a coup de main,—with this difference, that in the political coup de main it is the mob that takes the initiative, in the coup d'etat the Government; and the Government generally has the army on its side.

Louis Napoleon and his five associates were about to do the most audacious thing in modern history; but no man can deny them the praise awarded to the unjust steward. If the thing was to be done, or, in the language of Victor Hugo, if the crime was to be committed, it could not have been more admirably planned or more skilfully executed.

The world, to all appearance, went on in its usual way. The Assembly, on December 1, 1851, was busy discussing the project of a railroad to Lyons. That evening M. de Morny was at the Opera Comique in company with General Changarnier, and the prince president was doing the honors as usual in his reception-room at the Elysee. His visage was as calm, his manners were as conciliatory and affable, as usual. No symptoms of anything extraordinary were to be seen, and an approaching municipal election in Paris accounted for the arrival of several estafettes and couriers, which from time to time called the prince president from the room. When the company had taken leave, Saint-Arnaud, Maupas, Morny, and a colonel on the staff went with the prince president into his smoking-room, where the duties of each were assigned to him. Everything was to be done by clock-work. Exactly at the hour appointed, all the African generals and several of their friends were to be arrested. Exactly at the moment indicated, troops were to move into position. At so many minutes past six A. M. all the printing-offices were to be surrounded. Every man who had in any way been prominent in politics since the days of Louis Philippe was to be put under arrest.

By seven o'clock in the morning all this had been accomplished. The Parisians awoke to find their walls placarded by proclamations signed by Prince Louis Napoleon as President, De Morny as Minister of the Interior, De Maupas as Prefect of Police, and Saint-Arnaud as Minister of War.

These proclamations announced,—

I. The dissolution of the Assembly. II. The restoration of universal suffrage. III. A general election on December 14. IV. The dissolution of the Council of State. V. That Paris was in a state of siege.

This last meant that any man might be arrested, without warrant, at the pleasure of the police.

Another placard forbade any printer, on pain of death, to print any placard not authorized by Government; and death likewise was announced for anyone who tore down a Government placard.

Louis Napoleon followed this up by an appeal to the people. He said he wished the people to judge between the Assembly and himself. If France would not support him, she must choose another president. In place of the constitution of 1848 he proposed one that should make the presidential term of office ten years; he also proposed that the president's cabinet should be of his own selection.

Louis Napoleon had entire confidence that all elections by universal suffrage would be in his favor. He had just made extensive tours in the provinces, and had been received everywhere with enthusiasm.

Thus far I have given the historical outline of the story; but if we look into Victor Hugo's "Histoire d'un Crime," and disentangle its facts from its hysterics, we may receive from his personal narrative a vivid idea of what passed in Paris from the night of Dec. 1, 1851, to the evening of December 4, when all was over.

Roused early in the morning by members of the Assembly, who came to announce the events of the night, Victor Hugo, to whom genuine republicans who were not Socialists looked as a leader, was, like all the rest of Paris, taken completely by surprise. One of his visitors was a working-man, a wood-carver; of him Hugo eagerly asked: "What do the working-men—the people—say as they read the placards?" He answered: "Some say one thing, some another. The thing has been so done that they cannot understand it. Men going to their work are reading the placards. Not one in a hundred says anything, and those who do, say generally, 'Good! Universal suffrage is reestablished. The conservative majority in the Assembly is got rid of,—that's splendid! Thiers is arrested,—better still! Changarnier is in prison,—bravo!' Beneath every placard there are men placed to lead the approval. My opinion is that the people will approve!"

At exactly six that morning, Cavaignac, Changarnier, Lamoriciere, Thiers, and all those who had lain down to sleep as cabinet ministers of the prince president, were roused from their beds by officers of cavalry, with orders to dress quickly, for they were under arrest. Before each door a hackney-coach was waiting, and an escort of two hundred Lancers was in a street near by. Resistance seemed useless in the face of such precautions, but Victor Hugo and his friends were resolved upon a fight. They put their official scarves as deputies into their pockets, and started forth to see if they could raise the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. But their friend the wood-carver had told them truly,—there was neither sympathy nor enthusiasm in the streets for the constitution that had fallen, the deputies who had been placed under arrest, nor for violated political institutions.

In vain they appealed to the people in the name of the law. The mob seemed to consider that provided it had universal suffrage, and that the man of its choice were at the head of affairs, it had better trust the safety of the nation to one man than risk the uncertainties that might attend the tyranny of many.

The frantic efforts made that day by Victor Hugo and a few other deputies of the Left to rouse the populace are almost ludicrous. Victor Hugo, no doubt, was a brave man, though a very melodramatic one, and he seems to have thought that if he could get the soldiers to shoot him,—him, the greatest literary star of France since the death of Voltaire,—the notoriety of his death might rouse the population.

Here is one scene in his narrative. He and three of his friends, finding that the Faubourg Saint-Antoine gave no ear to their appeals, and for once was disinclined to fight, decided to return home, and took seats in an omnibus which passed them on the Place de la Bastille.

"We were all glad to get in," says Victor Hugo. "I took it much to heart that I had not that morning, when I saw a crowd assembled round the Porte Saint-Martin, shouted 'To arms!'... The omnibus started. I was sitting at the end on the left, my friend young Armand was beside me. As the omnibus moved on, the crowd became more closely packed upon the Boulevard. When we reached the narrow ascent near the Porte Saint-Martin, a regiment of heavy cavalry met us. The men were Cuirassiers. Their horses were in a trot, and their swords were drawn. All of a sudden the regiment came to a halt. Something was in their way. Their halt detained the omnibus. My heart was stirred. Close before me, a yard from me, were Frenchmen turned into Mamelukes, citizen-supporters of the Republic transformed into the mercenaries of a Second Empire! From my seat I could almost put my hand upon them. I could no longer bear the sight. I let down the glass, I put my head out of the window, and looked steadily at the close line of armed men. Then I shouted: 'Down with Louis Bonaparte! Those who serve traitors are traitors!' The nearest soldiers turned their faces towards me, and looked dazed with astonishment. The rest did not stir. When I shouted, Armand let down his glass and thrust half his body out of his window, shaking his fist at the soldiers. He too cried out: 'Down with all traitors!' Our example was contagious. 'Down with traitors!' cried my other two friends in the omnibus. 'Down with the dictator!' cried a generous young man who sat beside me. All the passengers in the omnibus, except this young man, seemed to be filled with terror. 'Hold your tongues!' they cried; 'you will have us all massacred.' The most frightened of them let down his glass and shouted to the soldiers: 'Vive le Prince Napoleon! Vive l'empereur!' The soldiers looked at us in solemn silence. A mounted policeman menaced us with his drawn sword. The crowd seemed stupefied.... The soldiers had no orders to act, so nothing came of it. The regiment started at a gallop, so did the omnibus. As long as the Cuirassiers were passing, Armand and I, hanging half out of our windows, continued to shout at them, 'Down with the dictator!'"

This foolhardy and melodramatic performance was one of many such scenes, calculated to turn tragedy into farce.

Meantime, from early morning the hall of the representatives had been surrounded by soldiers with mortars and cannon. As the deputies arrived they were allowed to pass the gates, but were not permitted to enter their chamber. Their president, or Speaker, M. Dupin, was appealed to. He said he could do nothing; it was hopeless to resist such a display of force. At last the representatives, becoming, as the soldiers put it, "noisy and troublesome," were collared and turned out into the street. One by one the most excited were arrested. The remainder decided to go to the High Court of Justice and demand a warrant to depose and arrest the prince president. But they could not find the judges; they had hidden themselves away. When at last they succeeded in discovering the place where they were sitting, the police followed closely on their track, and the judges were forced to shut up their court and march off, under a guard of soldiers.

The representatives then decided to go to the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, and there reorganize into a legislative body. They were nearly all members belonging to the Right, but they were as indignant as the Left at the outrage.

They formed into a column, marching two and two abreast; but the Left would not march with the Right, so they proceeded in two parallel columns, one on each side of the way. Arrived at the Mairie, they made Jules de Lasteyrie, Lafayette's grandson, president pro tempore, and proceeded to pass a decree deposing Louis Bonaparte. Scarcely was this done when a battalion of cavalry arrived, and the legislators soon perceived that they were prisoners. After a great deal of altercation with the soldiers, they were marched off to a barrack-yard on the Quai d'Orsay.

When all this was reported to De Morny, he remarked: "It is well; but they are the last deputies who will be made prisoners,"—meaning that any others would be shot.

It was half-past three when the deputies were locked into the barrack-yard. The December day was cold and frosty, the sky overcast. The first thing they did was to call the roll. There were two hundred and twenty of them, out of a total membership of seven hundred and fifty. Among them were many of the best and most conservative men of France. There was Jules Grevy, the future president (M. Thiers was already in prison); Jules de Lasteyrie; Sainte-Beuve, the great critic; Berryer, the great lawyer; the Duc de Luynes, the richest man in France; and Odillon Barrot, the popular idol at the commencement of the late revolution. De Tocqueville was there, the great writer on America; General Oudinot, and several other generals; the Duc de Broglie, great-grandson of Madame de Stael; Eugene Sue, the novelist; Coquerel, the French Protestant preacher; and M. de Remusat, the son of that lady who has given us her experiences of the court of the First Napoleon.

For two hours the deputies remained in the open air; then they were transferred at dark to the third story of a wing of the barracks. They found themselves in two long halls, with low ceilings and dirty walls, used as the soldiers' dormitories. They had no furniture but some wooden benches. M. de Tocqueville was quite ill. The rooms were bitterly cold. An hour or so later, three representatives, who had demanded to share the fate of their colleagues, were brought in. One of these was the Marquis de La Vallette, who had married Mrs. Welles, a very beautiful and fascinating American lady.

Night came. Most of the prisoners had eaten nothing since morning. A collection of five francs apiece was taken up amongst them, and a cold collation was provided by a neighboring restaurant. They ate standing, with their plates in their hands. "Just like a supper at a ball," remarked one of the younger ones. They had very few drinking-glasses. Right and Left, having been reconciled by this time, drank together. "Equality and Fraternity!" remarked a conservative nobleman as he drank with one of the Red Republicans. "Ah," was the answer, "but not Liberty." Eight more prisoners before long were added to their number, and three were released,—one because he was eighty, one because of his wife's illness, and one because he had been accidentally wounded. At last, sixty mattresses were brought in, for two hundred and twenty-five men. They had no blankets, and had to trust to their great-coats to keep them from the cold. A few of them went to sleep, but were roused at midnight by an order that their quarters must be changed. They were taken down by parties to all the voitures cellulaires (or Black Marias) in Paris. Each deputy was put into a separate cell, where he sat cramped and freezing for hours. It was nearly seven A. M., December 3, before these prison-vans were ready to start.

Some went to the great prison of Mazas, some to Vincennes, some to Fort Valerien. At Mazas they were treated in all respects like criminals, except that they were not allowed a daily walk,—a privilege the knaves and malefactors obtained. Two deputies only were favored with beds,—M. Thiers and another elderly man. M. Grevy had none, nor the African generals, the ex-dictator Cavaignac among them.

Such of the members of the Left as were not in prison spent December 2, 3, and 4 in endeavoring to assemble and reorganize the remains of the Assembly; but the police followed them up too closely.

A few barricades were raised, and the first man killed on one of them was named Baudin. He threw away his life recklessly and to no purpose; but it is the fashion among advanced republicans to this day to decorate his grave and to honor his memory with communistic speeches. He was rather a fine young fellow, and might have lived to do the State some service.

By the night of December 3 there was a good deal of commotion in the city. Two days of disorganization, idleness, and excitement had made workmen more inflammable than when they remained passive under the appeals of Victor Hugo. The remainder of the story, so far as it concerns the uprising and massacre in the streets of Paris, I will borrow from the experience of an American eye-witness; but first I will tell what happened to the African generals imprisoned at Mazas.

On the night of December 3 the station of the great railroad to the north was filled with soldiers. About six o'clock the next morning two voitures cellulaires drove up, each attended by a light carriage containing an especial agent sent by the police. These vehicles, just as they were, were rolled on to trucks, and the train moved out of the station. There were eight cells in each voiture cellulaire; four were occupied by prisoners, four by policemen. It was bitterly cold, and in the second of the prison-vans the police, half frozen, opened the doors of their cells and came out to walk up and down and warm themselves. Then a voice was heard from one of the prisoners. "Ah, ca, it is bitterly cold here. Could n't one be allowed to re-light one's cigar?" At this another voice called out: "Tiens! is that you, Lamoriciere? Good morning!" "Good morning, Cavaignac," replied the other. Then a third voice came from the third cell. It was that of Changarnier. "Messieurs les Generaux," cried a fourth, "do not forget that I am one of you." The speaker was a quoestor of the Chamber of Deputies, a man charged with the safety of the National Assembly. The generals who had spoken, and Bedeau, who was in the next van, were, with the exception of Bugeaud, the four leading commanders in the French army. The other four prisoners were Colonel Charras, General Le Flo, Baze the quoestor, and a deputy, Count Roger (du Nord). At midnight they had been roused from sleep and ordered to dress immediately. "Are we going to be shot?" asked Charras, but no answer was vouchsafed him. They were put into the voitures cellulaires, each knowing nothing of the presence of the others; even the police who were in charge of them, had no idea what prisoners they had in custody. After this recognition between the generals, they were permitted to come out of their cells and walk up and down the van to warm themselves, taking care, however, that they were not seen at liberty by the special agents in the carriages attending on each van.

On reaching Ham, the former prison of Louis Napoleon, Cavaignac, whom he had succeeded as ruler of France, was put into his former chamber. "Chassez croissez," said De Morny, when the report was made to him.

December 4, the last day of the struggle, was by far the most terrible. Louis Napoleon, in spite of many benefits which France and the world owe him, will never be cleansed from the stain that the outrages of that day have left upon his memory. It may be said, however, that the details of the coup d'etat were left to his subordinates, and that probably both success and infamy are due in large part to the flippant Morny.

It was a cold, drizzling day. Such barricades as had been built were very slimly defended, and with no enthusiasm. The insurgents were short of ammunition, nor did the troops attack them with much vigor. In fact, the soldiers were but few, for all were being concentrated on that part of the Boulevard where strangers do their shopping and eat ices at Tortoni's. The programme for that day was not fighting, but a massacre.

The American gentleman whose narrative I am about to quote, says,—

"On December 3 there was more excitement in the streets than there had been on December 2. The secret societies had got to work. The Reds were recovering from their astonishment. Ex-members of the National Assembly had harangued the multitude and circulated addresses calculated to rouse the people to resistance. On the 4th there was not much stirring. The shops were closed. I went into the heart of the city on business, where I soon found myself in the midst of a panic-stricken crowd. The residents were closing their doors and barricading their windows. Some said the Faubourgs were rising; some that the troops were approaching, with cannon.

"Hearing there were barricades at the Porte Saint-Denis, I pushed directly for the spot. The work was going on bravely. Stagings had been torn from unfinished houses, iron railings from the magnificent gateway; trees were cut down, street sheds demolished; carts, carriages, and omnibuses were being triumphantly dragged from hiding-places to the monstrous pile. There were not very many men at work, but those who were engaged, labored like beavers. Blouses and broadcloth were about equally mixed. A few men armed with cutlasses, muskets, and pistols appeared to act as leaders; soon a search was made in neighboring houses for arms. I was surprised to see how many boys were in the ranks of the insurgents. They went to work as if insurrection were a frolic. I shuddered as I thought how many of them would be shot or bayoneted before night fell. The sentiments of the spectators seemed different. Some said, 'Let them go ahead. They want to plunder and kill: they will soon be taught a good lesson.' Others encouraged the barricade-makers. One man, hearing that I was an American, said with a sigh, 'Ah, you live in a true republic!'

"After remaining two hours at this barricade, and seeing no fighting, I turned on to the Boulevard. There, troops were advancing slowly, with loaded cannon. From time to time they charged the people, who slipped out of the way by side streets, as I did myself. Coming back on the Boulevard des Italiens, I found the entire length of the Boulevards, from the Porte Saint-Denis to the Madeleine, filled with troops in order of battle. In the novelty and beauty of the scene I quite lost sight of danger. At one time they chased away the crowd; but soon sentinels were removed from the corners of the streets, and as many spectators as thought proper pressed on to the sidewalks of the Boulevard.... Opposite to me was the Seventh Lancers,—a fine corps, recently arrived in Paris. Suddenly, at the upper end of the line, the discharge of a cannon was heard, followed by a blaze of musketry and a general charge. The spectators on the Boulevard took to flight. They pitched into open doors, or loudly demanded entrance at the closed ones. I was fortunate enough to get into a neighboring carriage-way, through the grated porte-cochere of which I could see what was going on. The firing was tremendous. Volley after volley followed so fast that it seemed like one continued peal of thunder. Suddenly there was a louder and a nearer crash. The cavalry in front of me wavered; and then, as if struck by a panic, turned and rushed in disorder down the street, making the ground tremble under their tread. What could have occurred? In a few minutes they came charging back, firing their pistols on all sides. Then came a quick succession of orders: 'Shut all windows! Keep out of sight! Open the blinds!' etc. It seemed that unexpected shots had been fired from some of the windows on the soldiers, from which they had suffered so much as to cause a recoil. The roll of firearms was now terrific. Mortars and cannon were fired at short-range point-blank at the suspicious houses, which were then carried by assault. The rattle of small shot against windows and walls was incessant. This, too, was in the finest part of the Boulevard. Costly houses were completely riddled, their fronts were knocked in, their floors pierced with balls. The windows throughout the neighborhood were destroyed by the concussion of the cannon. Of the hairbreadth escape of some of the inmates, and of the general destruction of property, I need not speak. The Government afterwards footed all the bills for the last. The firing continued for more than an hour, and then receded to more distant parts of the city; for the field of combat embraced an area of several miles, and there were forty thousand troops engaged in it. As soon as I could do so with safety, I left my covert, and endeavored to see what had happened elsewhere. But troops guarded every possible avenue, and fired on all those who attempted to approach any interdicted spot. I noticed some pools of blood, but the corpses had been removed; in a cross-street I saw a well-dressed man gasping his life away on a rude stretcher. Those around him told me he had six balls in him. In the Rue Richelieu there was the corpse of a young girl. Somebody had placed lighted candles at its head and feet. When I reached the parts of the town removed from the surveillance of the soldiers, I noticed a bitter feeling among the better classes for the day's work. The slaughter had been amongst those of their own class, which was unusual. The number slain was at first, of course, exaggerated, but it was with no gratifying emotions that we could reduce it a few hundreds. It was civil war,—fratricide. I reached home indignant and mournful."

Victor Hugo says of the massacre: "There were no combatants on the side of the people. There could not be said to have been any mob, though the Boulevard was crowded with spectators. Then, as the wounded and terrified rushed into houses, the soldiers rushed in after them."

Tortoni's was gutted; the fashionable Baths of Jouvence were torn to pieces; one hotel was demolished; twenty-eight houses were so injured that they had next day to be pulled down. Peaceful shopkeepers, dressmakers, and English strangers were among the slain,—an old man with an umbrella, a young man with an opera-glass. In the house where Jouvin sold gloves there was a pile of dead bodies.

The firing was over by four P. M. It has never been known how many were massacred. Some said twenty-five hundred, some made it five hundred, and almost every person killed was, not a Red combatant, but an innocent victim.

Thus Louis Napoleon made himself master of Paris. The army was all for him, the masses were apathetic, the rural population was on his side. A few weeks later a plebiscite made him emperor.

The coup d'etat having succeeded, most Frenchmen gave in their adhesion to its author. It remained only to dispose of the prisoners. Without any preliminary investigation, squads of them were shot, chiefly in the court-yard of the Prefecture of Police. All deputies of the Left were sent into exile, except some who were imprisoned in Algerine fortresses or sent to Cayenne,—the French political penal colony at that period.

Victor Hugo remained a fortnight in hiding, believing, on the authority of Alexandre Dumas, that a price was set upon his head. He gives some moving accounts of little children whom he saw lying in their blood on the evening of the massacre. His chief associates nearly all escaped arrest, and got away from France in various disguises. Their adventures are all of them very picturesque, and some are very amusing.

Several of the eight prisoners at Ham suffered much from dampness. Lamoriciere, indeed, contracted permanent rheumatism during his imprisonment. He begged earnestly to be allowed to write to his wife, but was permitted to send her only three words, without date: "I am well."

On the night of January 6, the commandant of the fortress, in full uniform, accompanied by a Government agent, entered the sleeping-room of each prisoner, and ordered him to rise and dress, as he was to be sent immediately into exile under charge of two agents of police detailed to accompany him over the frontier. Nor was he to travel under his own name, a travelling alias having been provided for him. At the railroad station at Creil, Colonel Charras met Changarnier. "Tiens, General!" he cried, "is that you? I am travelling under the name of Vincent." "And I," replied Changarnier, "am called Leblanc." Each was placed with his two police agents in a separate carriage. The latter were armed. Their orders were to treat their prisoners with respect, but in case of necessity to shoot them.

The journey was made without incident until they reached Valenciennes, a place very near the frontier line between France and Belgium. There, as the coup d'etat had proved a success, official zeal was in the ascendency. The police commissioner of Valenciennes examined the passports. As he was taking Leblanc's into his hand, he recognized the man before him. He started, and cried out: "You are General Changarnier!" "That is no affair of mine at present," said the general. At once the police agents interposed, and assured the commissioner that the passports were all in order. Nothing they could say would convince him of the fact. The prefect and town authorities, proud of their own sagacity in capturing State prisoners who were endeavoring to escape from France, held them in custody while they sent word of their exploit to Paris. They at once received orders to put all the party on the train for Belgium.

Charras was liberated at Brussels, Changarnier at Mons, Lamoriciere was carried to Cologne, M. Baze to Aix-la-Chapelle. They were not released at the same place nor at the same time, Louis Napoleon having said that safety required that a space should be put between the generals.



CHAPTER IX.

THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE.

A plebiscite—Louis Napoleon's political panacea—was ordered Dec. 20, 1851, two weeks after the coup d'etat, to say if the people of France approved or disapproved the usurpation of the prince president. The national approval as expressed in this plebiscite was overwhelming. Each peasant and artisan seemed to fancy he was voting to revive the past glories of France, when expressing his approval of a Prince Napoleon. The more thoughtful voters, like M. de Montalembert, considered that the coup d'etat was a crushing blow struck at Red Republicanism, Communism, the International Society, and disorder generally.

For a while the prince president governed by decrees; then a new legislative body was assembled. Its first duty was to revise the constitution. The republican constitution of 1850 was in the main re-adopted, but with one important alteration. The prince president was to be turned into the Emperor Napoleon III., and the throne was to be hereditary in his family.

After the passage of this measure it was submitted by another plebiscite to the people. The plebiscite is a universal suffrage vote of yes or no, in answer to some question put by the Government to the nation. The question this time was: Shall the prince president become emperor? There were 7,800,000 ayes, and 224,000 noes.

When the news of this overwhelming success reached the Elysee, Louis Napoleon sat so still and unmoved, smoking his cigar, that his cousin, Madame Baiocchi, rushing up to him, shook him, and exclaimed: "Is it possible that you are made of stone?"

Having thus secured his elevation by the almost universal consent of Frenchmen, the new emperor's next step was to insure his dynasty by a marriage that might probably give heirs to the throne. He chose the title Napoleon III. because the son of the Great Napoleon had been Napoleon II. for a few days after his father's abdication at Fontainebleau in 1814. The next heir to the imperial dignities (Lucien Bonaparte having refused anything of the kind for himself or for his family) was Jerome Napoleon, familiarly called Plon-Plon. He was the only son of Jerome Bonaparte and the Princess Catherine of Wuertemberg. But Prince Napoleon, though clever, was wilful and eccentric, and made a boast of being a Red Republican; moreover, his father's Baltimore marriage had made his legitimacy more than doubtful,—at any rate, Louis Napoleon was by no means desirous of passing on to him the succession to the empire; and being now forty-four years old, he was desirous of marrying as soon as possible.

When a boy, it had been proposed to marry him to his cousin Mathilde, and something like an attachment had sprung up between them; but after his fiasco at Strasburg he was no longer considered an eligible suitor either for Princess Mathilde or another cousin who had been named for him, a princess of Baden. Princess Mathilde was married to the Russian banker, Prince Demidorff; but when Louis Napoleon became prince president, he requested her to preside at the Elysee.

The new emperor, or his advisers, looked round at the various marriageable princesses belonging to the smaller courts of Germany. The sister of that Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern whose selection for the throne of Spain led afterwards to the Franco-Prussian war, was spoken of; but the lady most seriously considered was the Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe. She was daughter of Queen Victoria's half-sister Feodora; and to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, as heads of the family, the matter was referred. A recent memoir-writer tells us of seeing the queen at Windsor when the matter was under discussion. The queen and her husband were apparently not averse to the alliance, hesitating only on the grounds of religion and morals; but it is doubtful how far the new emperor went personally in the affair. His inclination had for some time pointed to the reigning beauty of Paris, Mademoiselle Eugenie de Montijo.

This young lady's grandfather was Captain Fitzpatrick, of a good old Scottish family, which had in past times married with the Stuarts. Captain Fitzpatrick had been American consul at a port in southern Spain. He had a particularly charming daughter, who made a brilliant Spanish marriage, her husband being the Count de Teba (or Marquis de Montijo, for he bore both titles). The Montijos were connected with the grandest ducal families in Spain and Portugal, and even with the royal families of those nations.

The Count de Teba died while his two daughters were young, and they were left under the guardianship of their very charming mother. The elder married the Duke of Alva; the younger became the Empress Eugenie.

Eugenie was for some time at school in England at Clifton. She was described by those who knew her there as a pretty, sprightly little girl, much given to independence, and something of a tom boy,—a character there is reason to think she preserved until it was modified by the exigencies of her position.

Mr. George Ticknor, of Boston, frequently mentioned Madame de Teba to his friends as a singularly charming woman. In 1818 he wrote home to a friend in America:

"I knew Madame de Teba in Madrid, and from what I saw of her there and at Malaga, I do not doubt she is the most cultivated and interesting woman in Spain. Young, beautiful, educated strictly by her mother, a Scotchwoman,—who for this purpose carried her to London and kept her there six or seven years,—possessing extraordinary talents, and giving an air of originality to all she says and does, she unites in a most bewitching manner the Andalusian grace and frankness to a French facility in her manners and a genuine English thoroughness in her knowledge and accomplishments. She knows the chief modern languages well, and feels their different characters, and estimates their literature aright. She has the foreign accomplishments of singing, painting, playing, etc., joined to the natural one of dancing, in a high degree. In conversation she is brilliant and original, yet with all this she is a true Spaniard, and as full of Spanish feelings as she is of talent and culture."

Washington Irving, in 1853, thirty-five years later, writing to his nephew, speaks in equal praise of Madame de Teba.

"I believe I told you," he says, "that I knew the grandfather of the empress, old Mr. Fitzpatrick. In 1827 I was in the house of his son-in-law, Count Teba, at Granada, a gallant, intelligent gentleman, much cut up in the wars, having lost an eye and been maimed in a leg and hand. Some years after, in Madrid, I was invited to the house of his widow, Madame de Montijo, one of the leaders of ton. She received me with the warmth and eagerness of an old friend. She claimed me as the friend of her late husband. She subsequently introduced me to the little girls I had known in Granada, now fashionable belles in Madrid."

In some lines of Walter Savage Landor, Madame de Montijo was addressed as a "lode-star of her sex."

The Marquis de Montijo had been an adherent of Joseph Bonaparte while the latter was king of Spain, and his eye had been put out at the battle of Salamanca. He was a liberal in politics, and his house was always open to cultivated men.

Such was the ancestry of the beautiful young lady who, tall, fair, and graceful, with hair like one of Titian's beauties, was travelling with her mother from capital to capital, after the marriage of her sister to the Duke of Alva, and who spent the winters of 1850, 1851, and 1852 in the French capital. Mademoiselle Eugenie had conceived a romantic admiration for the young prince who at Strasburg and Boulogne had been so unfortunate. Her father had been a stanch adherent of Bonaparte, and she is said to have pleaded with her mother at one time to visit the prisoner at Ham and to place her fortune at his disposal.

This circumstance, when confided to the prince president, disposed him to be interested in the young lady. She and her mother were often at the Elysee, at Fontainebleau, and at Compiegne. Mademoiselle de Montijo was a superb horsewoman, and riding was the emperor's especial personal accomplishment. On one occasion they got lost together in the forest at Compiegne, and then society began to make remarks upon their intimacy.

The emperor was indeed most seriously in love with Mademoiselle de Montijo. It is said, on the authority of M. de Goncourt, that in one of their rides he asked her, with strange frankness, if she had ever been in love with any man. She answered with equal frankness, "I may have had fancies, sire, but I have never forgotten that I was Mademoiselle de Montijo."[1]

[Footnote 1: Pierre de Lano. La Cour de L'Empereur Napoleon III.]

Such a project of marriage was not approved by the emperor's family, it was not favored by his ministers, and the ladies of his court were all astir.

At a ball given on New Year's Day, 1853, by the emperor at the Tuileries, the wife of a cabinet minister was rude and insulting to Mademoiselle de Montijo. Seeing that she looked troubled, the emperor inquired the cause; and when he knew it, he said quietly: "To-morrow no one will dare to insult you again." There is also a story, which seems to rest on good authority, that a few weeks before this, at Compiegne, he had placed a crown of oak-leaves on her head, saying: "I hope soon to replace it with a better one."[2] Like the Empress Josephine, she had had it prophesied to her in her girlhood that she should one day wear a crown.

[Footnote 2: Jerrold, Life of Napoleon III.]

The day after the occurrence at the ball at the Tuileries, the Duc de Morny waited on Madame de Montijo with a letter from the emperor, formally requesting her daughter's hand.

The ladies, after this, removed to the Elysee, which was given to them, and preparations for the marriage went on apace.

In less than a month afterwards Eugenie de Montijo was empress of France.

Here is the emperor's own official announcement of his intended marriage:—

"I accede to the wish so often manifested by my people in announcing my marriage to you. The union which I am about to contract is not in harmony with old political traditions, and in this lies its advantage. France, by her successive revolutions, has been widely sundered from the rest of Europe. A wise Government should so rule as to bring her back within the circle of ancient monarchies. But this result will be more readily obtained by a frank and straightforward policy, by a loyal intercourse, than by royal alliances, which often create false security, and subordinate national to family interests. Moreover, past examples have left superstitious beliefs in the popular mind. The people have not forgotten that for sixty years foreign princesses have mounted the steps of the throne only to see their race scattered and proscribed, either by war or revolution. One woman alone appears to have brought with her good fortune, and lives, more than the rest, in the memory of the people; and this woman, the wife of General Bonaparte, was not of royal blood. We must admit this much, however. In 1810 the marriage of Napoleon I. with Marie Louise was a great event. It was a bond for the future, and a real gratification to the national pride.... But when, in the face of ancient Europe, one is carried by the force of a new principle to the level of the old dynasties, it is not by affecting an ancient descent and endeavoring at any price to enter the family of kings, that one compels recognition. It is rather by remembering one's origin; it is by preserving one's own character, and assuming frankly towards Europe the position of a parvenu,—a glorious title when one rises by the suffrages of a great people. Thus impelled, as I have been, to part from the precedents that have been hitherto followed, my marriage is only a private matter. It remained for me to choose my wife. She who has become the object of my choice is of lofty birth, French in heart and education and by the memory of the blood shed by her father in the cause of the Empire. She has, as a Spaniard, the advantage of not having a family in France to whom it would be necessary to give honors and dignities. Gifted with every quality of the heart, she will be the ornament of the throne, as in the hour of danger she would be one of its most courageous defenders. A pious Catholic, she will address one prayer with me to Heaven for the happiness of France. Kindly and good, she will show in the same position, I firmly believe, the virtues of the Empress Josephine."

The State coaches of the First Empire were regilded for the occasion, the crown diamonds were drawn from the hiding-place where they had lain since Louis Philippe's time, and were reset for the lady who was to wear them, while her apartments at the Tuileries were rapidly prepared.

The emperor was radiant. He had followed his inclination, and now that his choice was made, it seemed to receive universal approval. The London "Times" said: "Mademoiselle de Montijo knows better the character of France than any princess who could have been fetched from a German principality. She combines by her birth the energy of the Scottish and Spanish races, and if the opinion we hold of her be correct, she is, as Napoleon says, made not only to adorn the throne, but to defend it in the hour of danger."

The Municipal Council of Paris voted six hundred thousand francs to buy her a diamond necklace as a wedding present. Very gracefully she declined the necklace, but accepted the money, with which she endowed an Orphan Asylum.

The wedding-day was Jan. 29, 1853. Crowds lined the streets as the bride and her cortege drove to the Tuileries, where they were received by the Grand Chamberlain and other court dignitaries, who conducted the bride to the first salon. There she was received by Prince Napoleon and his sister, the Princess Mathilde, who introduced her into the salon, where the emperor, with his uncle, King Jerome, surrounded by a glittering throng of cardinals, marshals, admirals, and great officers of State, stood ready to receive her. Thence, at nine o'clock, she was led by the emperor to the Salle des Marechaux and seated beside him on a raised throne. The marriage contract was then read, and signed by the bride and bridegroom and by all the princes and princesses present.

The bride wore a marvellous dress of Alencon point lace, clasped with a diamond and sapphire girdle made for the Empress Marie Louise, and she looked, said a beholder, "the imperial beauty of a poet's vision." The emperor was in a general's uniform. He wore the collar of the Legion of Honor which his uncle the Great Emperor used to wear. He wore also the collar of the Golden Fleece that had once belonged to the Emperor Charles V.

The civil marriage being concluded, the imperial pair and the wedding guests passed into the theatre, where a cantata, composed by Auber for the occasion, was sung. The empress, robed in lace and glittering in jewels, seemed, says an eye-witness, to realize the picture presented of herself in the composer's words:—

"Espagne bien aimee, Ou le ciel est vermeil, C'est toi qui l'as formee D'un rayon de soleil."[1]

[Footnote 1: Ah, beautiful Spain, With thy skies ever bright, Thou hast formed her for us From a ray of sunlight.]

When the cantata had been sung, the Grand Master of the Ceremonies conducted the bride, as yet only half married, back to the Elysee.

The next morning all Paris was astir to see the wedding procession pass to the cathedral of Notre Dame. Early in the morning the emperor had repaired to the Elysee, where, in the chapel, he and the empress had heard mass, and after making their confession, had partaken of the Holy Communion. There were two hundred thousand sightseers in Paris that day, in addition to the usual population.

The empress wore upon her golden hair the crown that the First Napoleon had placed upon the head of Marie Louise. The body of the church was filled with men,—ambassadors, military and naval officers, and high officials. Their wives were in the galleries. As the great doors of the cathedral were opened to admit the bridal procession, a broad path of light gleamed from the door up to the altar, adding additional brilliancy to the glittering scene. Up the long aisle the emperor led his bride, flashing with the light of jewels, among them the unlucky regent diamond, which glittered on her bosom. After the Spanish fashion, she crossed her brow, her lips, her heart, her thumb, as she knelt for the nuptial benediction. The ceremony over, the archbishop conducted the married pair to the porch of the cathedral, and they drove along the Quai to the Tuileries.

The first favor the empress asked of her husband was the pardon of more than four thousand unfortunate persons still exiled or imprisoned for their share in the risings that succeeded the coup d'etat.

When Washington Irving heard of the marriage, he wrote: "Louis Napoleon and Eugenie de Montijo,—Emperor and Empress of France! He whom I received as an exile at my cottage on the Hudson, she whom at Granada I have dandled on my knee! The last I saw of Eugenie de Montijo, she and her gay circle had swept away a charming young girl, beautiful and accomplished, my dear young friend, into their career of fashionable dissipation. Now Eugenie is on a throne, and the other a voluntary recluse in a convent of one of the most rigorous Orders." This convent is near Biarritz, where the nuns take vows of silence like the monks of La Trappe.[1] The empress when at Biarritz never failed to visit her former friend, who was permitted to converse with her.

[Footnote 1: Saturday Review, 1885.]

The beautiful woman thus raised to the imperial throne[2] was a mixed character,—not so perfect as some have represented her, but entirely to be acquitted of those grave faults that envy or disappointed expectations have attributed to her. Her character united kind-heartedness with inconsideration, imprudence with austerity, ardent feeling with great practical common-sense. Probably the emperor understood her very little at the time of his marriage, and that she long remained to him an enigma may have been one of her charms. With the impetuosity of her disposition and the intrepidity that had characterized her girlhood, she found it hard to submit to the restraints of her position, and the emperor had occasion frequently to remonstrate with her on her indifference to etiquette and public opinion. It was not until after her visit to Windsor in 1855 that she could be induced to establish court rules at the Tuileries, and to prescribe for herself and others, in public, a strict system of etiquette. But in her private hours, among her early friends, in the circle of ladies admitted to her intimacy, the empress was less discreet. Her impressions were apt to run into extremes; she indulged in whims like other pretty women; yet she was never carried by her romantic feelings or her enthusiasm beyond her power of self-control. Though careless of etiquette in private life, whenever a great occasion came, she could act with imperial dignity.

[Footnote 2: Pierre de Lano.]

Although she often experienced ingratitude, she was always generous. She was as ready to solicit favors and pardons as was the Empress Josephine. Sometimes she was even sorely embarrassed to find arguments in favor of her proteges. "Ah, mon Dieu!" she cried once, when pleading for the pardon of a workman, "how could he be guilty? He has a wife and five children to support; he could have had no time for conspiracy!"

As a wife she was devoted, not only to the public interests of her husband, but to his personal welfare. She was constantly anxious lest he should suffer from overwork; and her little select evening parties, which some people found fault with, were instituted by her with the chief object of amusing him.

Ben Jonson makes it a reproach against a lady of the sixteenth century that she would not "suffer herself to be admired." No such reproach could be addressed to the Empress Eugenie. Few women conscious of their power to charm will fail to exercise it. In the case of an empress,—young, lively, of an independent and adventurous spirit, and very beautiful,—all who approached her thought better of themselves from her apparent appreciation of their claims to consideration; and, indeed, in her position was it not the duty of the successor of Josephine to be gracious and charming to everybody?

Unfortunately the ladies who most enjoyed the intimacy of the Empress Eugenie were foreigners. She seems to have felt a certain distrust of Frenchwomen; and considering the ingratitude she often met with from those she served, it is hardly surprising that she preferred the intimacy of women who could not look to her for favors.

One of the ladies most intimate with the empress was the wife of Prince Richard Metternich, the Austrian ambassador. This lady seems to have had personal and political ends in view, and to have succeeded in inducing the empress to adopt and further them. That she was a dangerous and false friend may be judged from a speech she made when remonstrated with for countenancing and encouraging a project, favored by the empress, of making a promenade in the forest of Fontainebleau with her court-ladies in skirts which, like those in the old Scotch ballad, should be "kilted up to the knee." "You would not have advised your own empress," it was said to her, "to appear in such a garb." "Of course not," replied the ambassadress; "but my empress is of royal birth.—a real empress; while yours, ma chere, was Mademoiselle de Montijo!"

Brought up in private life, not early trained to the self-abnegation demanded of princesses, the Empress Eugenie did not bring into her new sphere all the aplomb and seriousness about little things which are early inculcated on ladies brought up to the profession of royalty. The career for which she had formed herself was that of a very charming woman; and one secret of her fascination was the sincerity of the interest she took in those around her. She loved to study character, to see into men's souls. She loved to be adored, while irresponsively she received men's homage. She especially liked the society of famous men, and when she was to meet them, she took pains to inform herself on the subjects about which they were most likely to converse.

That Queen Victoria loves her as a sister and a friend, is a testimony to her dignity and goodness; and we have her husband's own opinion of her, published on her fete-day, Dec. 15, 1868, after nearly sixteen years of marriage. The emperor had under his control a monthly magazine called "Le Dix Decembre," in which he often inserted articles from his own pen. The manuscript of this, in his own handwriting, was found in 1870 in the sack of the Tuileries. He omits all mention of his wife's Scotch ancestry, neither does he allude to her school-days in England. He speaks of her as a member of one of the most distinguished families in Spain, extols her father's attachment to the house of Bonaparte, and tells how she and her sister were placed at the Sacre Coeur, near Paris, declaring that "she acquired, we may say, the French before the Spanish language." He goes on to speak of her, not as the leader of a giddy circle of fashion in Madrid, as Washington Irving describes her, but as the thoughtful, studious young girl, with a precocious taste for social problems and for the society of men of letters; and he adds that after her marriage her simple, natural tastes did not disappear. "After her visit to the cholera patients at Amiens," he says, "nothing seemed to surprise her more than the applause that everywhere celebrated her courage. She seemed at last distressed by it.... At Compiegne," he also tells us, "nothing can be more attractive than five o'clock tea a l'imperatrice; though," he adds slyly, "sometimes she is a little too fond of argument."

Assuredly she filled a difficult place, and filled it well; but the court of the Second Empire was all spangles and tinsel. It was composed of men and women all more or less adventurers. It was the court of the nouveaux riches and of a mushroom aristocracy. There were prizes to be won and pleasures to be enjoyed, and it was "like as it was in the days of Noe, until the flood came, and swept them all away."

In the midst of the crowd that composed this court the emperor and the empress shine out as the best. Both wanted to do their duty, as they understood it, to France. Whether it was the emperor's fault or his misfortune, is still undecided; but, with one or two exceptions, he was able to attach to himself only keen-witted adventurers and mediocre men. Among the women, not one who was really superior rose above the crowd. The empress led a giddy circle of married women, as in her youth, according to Washington Irving, she had led a giddy circle of young girls.

The two most able men among the emperor's advisers were his own kinsmen,—Count Walewski, who died in 1868, and the Duc de Morny, a man calm, polished, socially amiable, and so clever that Guizot once said to him: "My dear Morny, you are the only man who could overturn the Empire; but you will never be foolish enough to do it." By his death, in 1865, Louis Napoleon was bereft of his ablest adviser.

Persigny, or Fialin, had been the close personal friend of the emperor in his exile, and took a prominent part in the abortive expedition to Boulogne. In his youth he had led a disreputable life, and was not a man of great intellect, but he was presumed to be devoted to his old comrade. His friendship, however, had not always a happy effect upon the fortunes of his master. In 1872 he made a miserable end of his adventurous life, after having turned against the emperor in his adversity.

Fleury was another personal friend of Louis Napoleon, and was probably his best. The prince president had distinguished him when he was only a subaltern in the army. He had enlisted in the ranks, and had done good service in Algeria. In the emperor's last days of failing health he loved to keep Fleury beside him; but the empress was jealous of her husband's friend, and used her influence to have him honorably exiled to St. Petersburg as French ambassador. This post he occupied when the Franco-Prussian war broke out, so that he could be of little help to his master.

Saint-Arnaud had been made a marshal and minister of war, in spite of having been twice turned out of the French army.

M. Rouher had charge of the emperor's financial concerns, and Fould was a man who understood bureau-work, and how to manipulate government machinery.

Whoever might be the emperor's ministers, this little clique of his personal adherents—De Morny, Persigny, Saint-Arnaud, Fleury, Rouher, and Fould—were always around their master, giving him their advice and sharing (so far as he allowed anyone to share) his intimate councils.

The members of the Bonaparte family were an immense expense to the emperor, and gave him no little trouble. They were not the least thirsty among those who thronged around the fountain of wealth and honor; and their importunate demands upon the emperor's bounty led to a perpetual and reckless waste of money. The empress frequently remonstrated with her husband in regard to his lavish largesses and too generous expenditure. Contrary to what has been generally supposed, she was herself orderly and methodical in her expenditures and accounts, always carefully examining her bills, and though by the emperor's express desire she always expended the large amount annually allowed her, she never exceeded that sum.