1808-1873.
THE SECOND EMPIRE.
Prince Louis Napoleon, or, as he afterward became, Emperor Napoleon III., is too important a personage to be omitted in the sketch of European history during the nineteenth century. It is not yet time to form a true estimate of his character and deeds, since no impartial biographies of him have yet appeared, and since he died less than thirty years ago. The discrepancy of opinion respecting him is even greater than that concerning his illustrious uncle.
No one doubts that the first Napoleon was the greatest figure of his age, and the greatest general that the world has produced, with the exception alone of Alexander and Caesar. No one questions his transcendent abilities, his unrivalled fame, and his potent influence on the affairs of Europe for a quarter of a century, leaving a name so august that its mighty prestige enabled his nephew to steal his sceptre; and his character has been so searchingly and critically sifted that there is unanimity among most historians as to his leading traits,--a boundless ambition and unscruplous adaptation of means to an end: that end his self- exaltation at any cost. His enlarged and enlightened intellect was sullied by hypocrisy, dissimulation, and treachery, accompanied by minor faults with which every one is familiar, but which are often overlooked in the immense services he rendered to his country and to civilization.
Napoleon III., aspiring to imitate his uncle, also contributed important services, but was not equal to the task he assumed, and made so many mistakes that he can hardly be called a great man, although he performed a great rôle in the drama of European politics, and at one time occupied a superb position. With him are associated the three great international wars which took place in the interval between the banishment of Napoleon I. to St. Helena and the establishment of the French Republic on its present basis,--a period of more than fifty years,--namely, the Crimean war; the war between Austria, France, and Italy; and the Franco-Prussian war, which resulted in the humiliation of France and the exaltation of Prussia.
When Louis Napoleon came into power in 1848, on the fall of Louis Philippe, it was generally supposed that European nations had sheathed the sword against one another, and that all future contests would be confined to enslaved peoples seeking independence, with which contests other nations would have nothing to do; but Louis Napoleon, as soon as he had established his throne on the ruins of French liberties, knew no other way to perpetuate his dominion than by embroiling the nations of Europe in contests with one another, in order to divert the minds of the French people from the humiliation which the loss of their liberties had caused, and to direct their energies in new channels,--in other words, to inflate them with visions of military glory as his uncle had done, by taking advantage of the besetting and hereditary weakness of the national character. In the meantime the usurper bestowed so many benefits on the middle and lower classes, gave such a stimulus to trade, adorned his capital with such magnificent works of art, and increased so manifestly the material prosperity of France, that his reign was regarded as benignant and fortunate by most people, until the whole edifice which he had built to dazzle the world tumbled down in a single day after his disastrous defeat at Sedan,--the most humiliating fall which any French dynasty ever experienced.
Louis Napoleon offers in his own person an example of those extremes of fortune which constitute the essence of romantic conditions and appeal to the imagination. The third son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland (brother of Napoleon), and Hortense Beauharnais, daughter of the Empress Josephine by her first marriage, he was born in Paris, in the palace of the Tuileries, April 20, 1808. Living in Switzerland, with his mother and brother (Napoleon Louis), he was well-educated, expert in all athletic sports,--especially in riding and fencing,--and trained to the study and practice of artillery and military engineering. The two brothers engaged in an Italian revolt in 1830; both fell ill, and while one died the other was saved by the mother's devotion. In 1831 the Poles made an insurrection, and offered Louis Napoleon their chief command and the crown of Poland; but the death, in 1832, of the only son of his uncle aroused Louis's ambition for a larger place, and the sovereignty of France became his "fixed idea." He studied hard, wrote and published several political and military works, and in 1836 made a foolish attempt at a Napoleonic revolt against Louis Philippe. It ended in humiliating failure, and he was exiled to America, where he lived in obscurity for about a year; but he returned to Switzerland to see his dying mother, and then was obliged to flee to England. In 1838 he published his "Napoleonic Ideas;" in 1840 he made, at Boulogne, another weak demonstration upon the French throne, and was imprisoned in the fortress of Ham. Here he did much literary work, but escaped in 1848 to Belgium, whence he hurried back to Paris when the revolution broke out. Getting himself elected a deputy in the National Assembly, he took his seat.
The year 1848, when Louis Napoleon appeared on the stage of history, was marked by extraordinary political and social agitations, not merely in France but throughout Europe. It saw the unexpected fall of the constitutional monarchy in France, which had been during eighteen years firmly upheld by Louis Philippe, with the assistance of the ablest and wisest ministers the country had known for a century,--the policy of which was pacific, and the leading political idea of which was an alliance with Great Britain. The king fled before the storm of revolutionary ideas,--as Metternich was obliged to do in Vienna, and Ferdinand in Naples,--and a provisional government succeeded, of which Lamartine was the central figure. A new legislative assembly was chosen to support a republic, in which the most distinguished men of France, of all opinions, were represented. Among the deputies was Louis Napoleon, who had hastened from England to take part in the revolution. He sat on the back benches of the Chamber neglected, silent, and despised by the leading men in France, but not yet hated nor feared.
When a President