subject with Prince Albert in 1858, casting and recasting the map of Europe and Africa in his conversation with the freedom of a Bonaparte; and amid all the vacillations of an uncertain and divided policy he never wholly lost sight of the waters of the Rhine. The complexion of affairs did not, however, permit a frank and thorough pursuit either of the one aim or of the other. Napoleon could not sacrifice the temporal independence of the Papacy to the Italian Kingdom and at the same time retain the loyalty of the French clericals; and the designs on Belgium and the Rhine were of so revolutionary a character that they could only be tentatively and secretly pressed as part of a general scheme of reconstruction. The problem of alliances was as complex as the objects of policy were various and confused. The English alliance, consistent with enmity to Russia and help to Piedmont, was at variance with any scheme for extending the frontier to the north-east. On the other hand an understanding with Austria, while it would gratify the clericals and check the Prussians, would carry dismay into all the Liberal and nationalist circles in Europe. The Emperor was torn between conflicting sympathies and opposing counsels. Persigny was the friend of the English, Drouyn of the Austrians, Morny of the Russians. Ollivier gives it as his opinion that the capital fault of the Empire was that it did not make a firm friend of the Tsar after the Crimean War. Napoleon listened to everybody and trusted nobody. Like Louis XV he sent abroad secret agents and wove his own web of secret diplomacy. Walewski was kept in ignorance of his master's secret meeting with Cavour at Plombières and of the offensive and defensive alliance which was there entered into. No ambassador and no Minister knew of the Triple Alliance between Austria, Italy and France which was so nearly concluded in 1869. A declaration from one of my Ministers,' observed Napoleon to Von Goltz, would not be important. I alone know what the foreign policy of France will be -a perfectly intelligible position, but one not easily to be conciliated with parliamentary control.

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The truth of the matter is that Napoleon III was illfitted for the rôle of a constitutional monarch, not because he was devoid of public virtue or popular instincts, but

because he could not divest himself of certain ingrained habits of mind, partly due to his antecedents as a plotter, partly to his early practice of autocracy, which are incompatible with true parliamentary government. His reputation both as a man and a statesman has suffered abrupt and unusual vicissitudes. After a period of almost unqualified censure and contempt, a marked tendency has set in to portray the Emperor not indeed as a model of domestic virtue-that would be plainly impossible-but as more generous and less Macchiavellian than he had been depicted, to discover in him a certain width of view and elevation of aim, a kindliness of disposition, even a warmth of heart, wholly incompatible with the cruel and calculating egotism ascribed to him by such writers as Kinglake and Victor Hugo. This tendency, which is part of the general revival of Napoleonic studies and has been powerfully assisted by the writings of M. Ollivier, has recently found an English exponent in Mr Simpson, who has derived from a careful study of Louis Bonaparte's early life a great, perhaps an excessive, admiration for the character of his hero. That Louis Bonaparte possessed in early life an inflexible faith in his destiny, that his tenacity was proof against failures which would have dashed the courage and ruined the prospects of nine out of ten pretenders, that in the midst of a good deal of trumpery display and vulgar self-indulgence he showed industry and resource, that he played a remarkably bad hand with surprising skill, always keeping himself in view when it was most opportune that he should be noticed, always projecting his mind into the future and cleverly guiding it into the grooves of the social progress, will not be denied by any one who studies the pages of Mr Simpson or those of his French precursors, MM. Thirria and Lebey. But was he of the stuff out of which constitutional monarchs are made? Was he loyal? Was he capable of trusting his Ministers? Had he those habits of judicious compromise and quiet influence which are essential to the successful conduct of a constitutional monarchy? Above all, was he prepared to make a permanent surrender of autocratic power, or were his concessions accompanied by half-formed and cloudy resolutions of withdrawal which the energetic pressure of a reactionany camarilla might at any moment

cause to solidify in action? It is to questions such as these that M. Ollivier supplies an unsatisfactory answer.

The early life of Louis Napoleon would, of itself, constitute a weighty reason for distrusting the solidity of the Liberal Empire. For the profession of constitutional monarchy there can be no worse training than a youth expended in conspiracy. Now whether or no Louis Bonaparte was in 1831 an enrolled member of the Carbonaro Society or only in avowed sympathy with its aims, it is certain that he graduated in Italian conspiracy and that for eighteen years conspiracy of the most secret kind was the main strand of his existence. And this conspiracy belonged in no small measure to the type which is most repugnant to a delicate conscience. For about five years Louis Bonaparte's main object was to debauch the loyalty of the French army. He began by composing a treatise on artillery and by circulating it as widely as might be among the French officers of that arm. Then in 1836, when his name had acquired some notoriety, he made an attempt to corrupt the garrison of Strasburg, was arrested, pardoned by the King and despatched to America. Having failed with the great eastern garrison, he and his friends next turned their attention to the army of the north. In 1840 they crossed the Channel, a live eagle tied to the mast of their vessel, and descended on Boulogne. The affair was a ludicrous and ignominious failure. The Pretender was this time put upon his trial and sentenced to lifelong imprisonment in the insalubrious castle of Ham. Here, exhibiting the finer side of a character singularly compounded of good and evil, he addressed himself to the cultivation of those branches of knowledge which seemed likely to commend him to the rising generation. He composed a pamphlet on the extinction of pauperism which drew a warm eulogy from George Sand, advocated protective duties on sugar to conciliate the beetroot industry, and recommended a study of the Prussian military system to keep his name before the soldiers. Louis Blanc visited him in prison and found him interested in Socialism; Lord Malmesbury, another visitor, reported that five years of confinement had not emptied his mind or relaxed his faith. It is, however, probable that both in mind and body he was permanently

affected by his imprisonment at Ham, that he here grew into those vague, dreamy and indecisive habits which became the perplexity of his advisers and the calamity of his country, and that it was here that were sown the seeds of that serious malady without which Prussia might now be a less powerful State, and France a more weighty factor in the balance of Europe.

We are not here specially concerned with the moral aspect of Louis Bonaparte's early escapades. His defenders invite us to believe that he was justified in attempting to overturn a government which was supported by brute force alone. That the July monarchy was 'wholly without the spirit of improvement,' and that it 'wrought almost exclusively through the meaner and more selfish instincts of mankind,' is the verdict of John Stuart Mill; but admitting all the allegations which have been brought against it, such as that it was sprung upon the country by a small knot of politicians and journalists, that it was neither brave, nor glorious, nor progressive, that it entirely failed to strike the common imagination or to enlist the affections of France, it may still be asked by what right a young gentleman, with not as much as fifty friends in the country, embarked upon an adventure which could only have one of two issues-instant failure or a costly civil war. The government which Louis Bonaparte sallied out to overthrow was not ideal; but at least it enlarged the liberties of the country and rallied to its support an array of parliamentary talent such as France had not seen before and has never since enjoyed. Moreover, in 1836, when the first assault was made upon the fidelity of the army, the government of Louis Philippe had not yet developed into a rigid system that stationary and unintelligent resistance to reform which brought about its downfall twelve years later. There was at that time every reason to believe that the frame of the constitution might be gradually adapted to the needs of a democracy. The hereditary peerage had gone; the franchise, though still far too narrow, had been expanded; and since property was safe and the principles of social equality had been secured in the institutions of the country, there was no grave reason for discontent. The plan of the building was tolerable, and its insufficiencies could be remedied by alterations

and additions. A patriot would at least have waited until there was reason to suppose that the occupants themselves were determined to pull the old structure down and to rebuild upon a new and improved plan from basement to rafter.

That moment came in 1848; and out of the whirlpool of revolution Disraeli's 'Prince Florestan' swam ashore

with a crown. He had arrived in London two years earlier, the hero of an escape which in its brilliant perfection of contrivance would have done honour to the invention of Dumas; and at the first tidings of the February revolution he crossed the Channel to take advantage of events. Finding the political skies vexed and unpropitious, he discreetly returned to his safe London harbourage to wait for a softer wind and a calmer sea. No very long draft was made upon his patience. Reputations are quickly used up in the furnace of revolution, and in the course of one short summer all the brightest flowers of the early spring were parched and drooping. Ledru-Rollin, ominously prominent in March, was a beaten man in May. Lamartine, who was expected to be able to sweep the country in April, was a spent force in October. Cavaignac, who had saved Paris in June, was reported in November to be assured of defeat for the significant reason that he was supposed to be specially identified with the Republic. All the odds were on the new man, who bore a famous name, who had kept himself free from paltry entanglements, who had, steered clear of the dangerous shoals upon which so many light and flaunting barks had run to their destruction.

When it was decided that the President of the Republic should be elected not by the legislature but by the people, Louis Bonaparte was assured of victory. The eloquent and irresponsible tribute of two sublime sentimentalists were blazoned on his electoral manifestoes. Chateaubriand had written that no name went better with the glory of France, and George Sand, in allusion to the tract on pauperism, announced that the Napoleon of to-day personified the sufferings of the people, as his uncle had been the incarnation of their pride. The candidate himself behaved with rare discretion. He was watchful and silent, holding himself aloof from public debate or party war-cries, while shadowing forth that