Brussels, prophesied mischief to France | mates depend on your interests." Still, if she rushed into aggressive war : "Our the general feeling among Senior's assofate is to be partitioned, or at least dimin- ciates is favorable to England. Thus ished; the nephew is not destined to suc- Circourt says, in answer to the question, ceed where the uncle failed. The rest "Do you, like Sydney Smith, think our of Europe has grown much faster than mission is to make calico ?" England's France has." The appearance of pros- missions have been many, to introduce perity in that Paris which was in a fer- into the world representative government ment of pulling down and rebuilding, and and free trade, and to keep_alive the emwhere the nouveaux riches were rearing bers of European liberty. But your great palaces as sumptuous as fairy_dreams, mission is that foretold by Shakespeare, Rivet and others distrusted. The Duc to found empires, to scatter wide the civde Broglie remarked that, except railways, ilized man. Fifty years hence three or nothing was done which could not be four hundred millions of the most ener completed in a year or two. "Men build getic men in the world will speak English. houses, which will be salable in a year, French and German will be dialects, as but they don't drain, or reclaim, or plant Dutch and Portuguese are now." France woods seris factura nepotibus umbram; has one merit, that of having in 1789 for they fear that fifty years hence grand-made the hitherto religious and philochildren and forests may both be want- sophical doctrine of the natural equality ing." France, thought the duke, can of man a principle of political action. support seventy-two million people quite And yet this levelling was not an unmixed as easily as England can her eighteen blessing; it destroyed all the smaller millions; 66 our undeveloped resources knots of resistance by which the great are enormous." central authorities were kept in check. Interesting, instructive, but a little Thus, in Germany (says Mohl) there is monotonous is the talk of these anti- less real liberty than there was two hunBonapartists. Lanjuinais prophesies the dred years ago, owing to the havoc which speedy assassination of the emperor; the French Revolution made of local Dumon groans over the coarse luxury and expensive living; Dussard lamenting, as he points out the tall chimneys beginning to fringe the Seine, that even the clear air of Paris will be lost; Dunoyer asserting that all the revolutions in The only thing that seems to have outFrance have been nothing but struggles wardly moved the impassive Louis Napofor public employment: "our government leon was Changarnier's rash boast that if has more than three hundred thousand a coup d'état was attempted he would places to give away in the civil service, yours has perhaps ten thousand;" Villemain (whom the very eclectic Cousin classed among the four masters of style, the others being Tocqueville, G. Sand, and himself) regretting that the French are no longer a reading people, and that French books, unread at home, were sold mostly in Russia and Belgium; Montalembert admitting that eastern France, which suffered most in the old war, was nevertheless the stronghold of Napoleonism.*

Sometimes there is a good deal of natural irritation at our rather too pronounced regard for the emperor: "In 1852 he was a mixture of Danton and Domitian; now, in 1854, he is something greater than Cromwell. Your moral esti

• When he was canvassing there a peasant said: "Comment veut-on que je ne vote pas pour le monsieur, moi qui ai eu le nez gelé à Moscou?" "Et quand,' added his wife, "nous avons eu deux fois la maison pallée ?"

institutions: "The Germans hate their own sovereigns and their petty despotisms, but they will accept no French help against them. They will resist any im pulse that comes from France."

drag him to Vincennes. Čarlier repeated it; and it was never forgotten nor forgiven. Everything about Louis Napoleon (and all the volumes are full of him) is interesting; for, whatever we may think of the man, the strange fact is unaltered, that for more than twenty years he was able to rule one of the first nations of Europe.

Mr. Senior's own opinion was very strong; he speaks of him as "a man who generally has no plan, and when he has one conceals it, and plays the statesman en conspirateur." This feeling may have colored his impressions of what he heard; but it could not alter the words. "The very army would have turned against the coup d'état (disheartened as it was by the silence and disapprobation of the people on the day before) if some fools had not unadvisedly and prematurely raised barricades on 3rd December, 1851." That is Jules Simon's explanation of Louis Napoleon's initial success. It was a sur

66

prise — a real coup; but had there been | ment and promotion on government no opposition the army would not have favor. Every judge's life is a struggle, followed it up. Why," Mr. Senior first for existence and afterwards for sometimes asks, "do you go on living comfort; it is therefore one of servile under a government that you hate? subservience. The Church is equally Lanjuinais protests against the idea that subservient, but to a foreign master. abject fear is the cause. "Our submis- The instant a boy enters a seminary he sion (he says) is produced by deeper and ceases to be a Frenchman; he is not even more generous motives on the fear lest an Italian; he is a Papist. As to the in attempting to obtain liberty we may administrative body, it is the blind instruendanger civilization;" and he goes on ment of the executive. Its thirty-five to say that sooner than lose their unre- thousand maires, its hundreds of préfets strained power celui-ci and his co-conspir- and sous-préfets, its thousands of cantonators will treat France as the Austrians niers and gardes champêtres in the provtreated Gallicia, as Robespierre treated inces, and in the towns its tens of Paris, that they will let loose the passions thousands of receveurs, policemen, genof the mob, rousing the laborer against darmerie, and employés of different names the proprietor, the workman against the and attributions, all appointed, promoted, master, the peuple against the well-born. and dismissed by the government—not "They threaten us with a general sanscu- one of whom, whatever be his misconduct, lotterie; the army combined with the mob can be prosecuted without its consent. would be able to trample Paris under form with the judges the chains with foot." This agrees with the feeling so which France, like Gulliver, is pinned to general among Mr. Senior's friends, that the earth." And then, when Senior hints the emperor was at bottom a Socialist, that the great chain is the army, "No," always ready to coquet with those rouges, replies Guizot, "it is the only body that fear of whom had enabled him to make has any freedom or preserves any freethe coup. He is said to have been a dom for the others. Soldiers have Carbonaro ; ; and, as a recreant member, to leisure; many read; all talk. They are have lived in constant dread of assassina- drawn from the soundest part of our poption. Hence his Italian policy, and the ulation, and are beloved by the peasantry. change which came over him after Or- A part of the army, brought from Africa sini's attempt warned him that the Car- and corrupted for the purpose, surprised bonari had not forgiven him. Auguste Paris and enabled Louis Napoleon to Chevalier, in fact, thought as seriously of turn out an unpopular Assembly and to these secret societies as our late premier overturn an absurd, unworkable constituin "Lothair" does of "the Mary Anne." tion. And now the whole army is the "Nous avons non la Terreur mais le friend of order, and would rather retain Règne de la Peur," he says, when explain- the empire than run the risk of a revolu ing to Mr. Senior his fear of a sudden tion." outbreak.

This is valuable as the last recorded utterance of one with whom Mr. Senior had so many interesting talks; but, look ing to the wondrous change which the coup d'état made in the state of France, we can hardly accept it as a sufficient reason. "The people love to have it so " always comes in as an echo to every attempted explanation of the success of the arch-conspirator.

Guizot

But besides the fear lest the attempt to oust Louis Napoleon might lead to the worst kind of social war, Paris was kept down by the huge garrison, not of the Troupe (line), but of the Garde, i.e., picked men from every regiment, highly paid, privileged in many ways, and comfortably housed, whereas when a line regiment came to Paris it was confined to the forts and strictly cut off from all intercourse With this army, of which with the people. The Garde numbered thought so highly, the general testimony fifty thousand, and its officers were all was that the emperor was unpopular. elderly men, who had entered the army The officers despised his pretensions as a when there was little education, and had commander, and their contempt spread to forgotten all the feelings of citizens. the ranks. When Senior remarks that They were Louis Napoleon's blind instru- for a man who made the experiment of ments. Guizot thought the army far the commanding one hundred and fifty thoubest of the great bodies left in France. sand men for the first time after he was "The judges, of whom there are six thou-fifty the emperor seemed to have done sand, at salaries rising from £105 to well, Changarnier shows that he was only £1,500, are dependent for every appoint- saved from total defeat by the still greater

one.

view is much the same: "The Duke of Wellington used to say that the presence of the First Napoleon was equal to a reinforcement of forty thousand men. The presence of the Third Napoleon is as much dreaded as a diminution of the army by forty thousand would be."*

Gustave de Beaumont differed wholly from Guizot in his estimate of the popularity of the army. So far from the peasant complacently "paying his debt of service to the State," he felt bitterly the gross inequality of the cost of a remplacant. For £80 (a fabulous sum to a laborer) a rich man could buy off his son and be free forever.

folly and incapacity of the Austrians. | thousand francs not to hurt him. These
He marched his one hundred and fifty francs he handed to the mayor, who
thousand in one long line, which any but counted them before the crowd, and found
the silliest imbeciles would have cut them one hundred and twenty thousand.
through in half a dozen places." Then When on his trial he claimed these, and
Hesse stopped the Austrians for four the cruel government of Louis Philippe
hours on their way to Magenta, and let him have them. His fur coat lined
Lichtenstein's inconceivable folly or with bank-notes was stolen." Lavergne's
cowardice at Solferino kept thirty-five
thousand cavalry inactive. Of Louis
Napoleon's personal courage there were
different estimates. No one attributed
to him any of the dash which his uncle is
supposed to have shown in the mythical
bridge of Arcola affair; but Lord Clyde,
quoting his friend General Viennois, said
that at Magenta he was for some time
under fire, and calmly remarked, "At the
worst nous mourrons en soldat." On the
other hand, Trochu told Senior that "as
for the two emperors, they were about
equally useless; but the Austrian, expos-
ing himself to fire and interfering, did
perhaps most harm." The French em-
peror crossed the Ticino bridge just be-
fore Magenta, and returned, asserting
that the Austrian army was only a recon-
naissance. He gave no orders to any
"Not one of the two hundred and
fifty persons around him was touched.
He can scarcely have been under fire.
He said he found a battle a very different
thing from what he expected. He thought
it would consist of manoeuvres scientifi-
cally planned and carefully executed. He
found it a scene of wild disorder, difficult
to understand, and governed more by ac-
cident than by skill." Changarnier, twice
over, spoke even more decidedly. He
quoted a letter from one of the Cent
Gardes to his mother, saying: "You need
not fear for me, for I'm close to the
emperor, and he never goes into danger."
He kept two miles in the rear, and at
Solferino smoked fifty-three cigars. "His
courage is great in theory; small in prac-
tice. At Strasburg he ran, and was found
in a state of abject terror hiding under a
carriage. In the Boulogne attempt, when
he was half-way across the Channel, he
became alarmed and wished to turn back.
The people about him kept him to his
purpose by making him half drunk with
champagne. On landing he fired at Vau-
dreuil, who after Strasburg had said that
he didn't dare even to fire a pistol in his
own defence. His hand shook so that he
missed his man at five paces, and wounded
a poor cook who was standing at a door
hard by. Then he ran to the sea and got
into a boat, but being pursued gave him-
self up and offered them two hundred

Of the fusillades after the coup d'état Mr. Senior speaks as if there could be no reasonable doubt that they took place. A juge substitut, whom Jules Simon met, said: "You are indignant; but I have a right to be far more indignant than you. You have seen only slaughter in hot blood. I have seen men taken by violence, not from behind a barricade or in a street, but out of the protection of justice. As juge substitut I was ordered on the fifth and sixth of December to go to the prisons to examine those accused of taking part in the insurrection, and either discharge them or remand them for trial. While I was performing this duty, officers, even sergeants and corporals, entered the prisons, seized the prisoners whom I was examining or had examined, and looked at their hands. If they were blackened with powder the men were carried off, to be shut up till night in a guard-room, and at night shot in the Champ de Mars or the Place des Invalides." Eye-witnesses, of course, there were none; but the Peyronnets who lived in the Champs Elysées, opposite the Champ de Mars, during the nights of the fourth and fifth, heard firing from the other side of the water, and never before nor after. Bloemarts, a watchmaker, was more circumstantial. Some friends of his, whose houses overlooked the garden of the Luxembourg, heard platoon firing on the night of the fifth,

The famous phrase "baptism of fire" was not (as some of us think) first used of the prince imperial in 1870. Mérimée uses it in reference to the emperor himself at Magenta.

51

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mission!"' From the day of his brother's | He delayed, however, till two volumes of
death he was a different man. When his
son was born his grand object became
the perpetuation of his dynasty.