THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON THE

THIRD.

BIOGRAPHIES of the present Emperor of

derstood him best, and deserved to be nearest his heart, was the high-souled Hortense.

It is recorded that Louis Napoleon began to influence the destinies of France when he was six years old. On that dreadful night, when the utter destruction of Napoleon's hopes and the proximate capture of Paris by the advancing allies burst upon the panic-stricken Paris

the French are following each other with some rapidity in Europe. French Republicans, Bonapartists, British officers, thinkers, talkers, and scribblers, all seem to have fallen foul of Louis Napoleon with common accord. A list of recent Imperial biographies might be ex-ians, and the Empress Marie Louise, obedient tended almost to any length.

As there is comparatively but little known of him in this hemisphere, we propose to condense into a few pages the salient features of his career, endeavoring to judge him from an independent point of view.

to Napoleon's mandate, "Rather let my son be at the bottom of the Seine than in the hands of the allies," fled with the King of Rome to the Provinces, Queen Hortense sank to sleep, overcome with weariness and excitement. She was roused by a letter from her husband-who troubled himself very little about her in general

refused. He demanded his children. She sent them to him. He changed his mind on receiving them, and sent them back before daybreak. Next morning she appeared in the streets with the two little boys, showed them to the soldiers

King of Rome-and swore to remain with them. The National Guard was roused to enthusiasm by her spirited conduct, and carried the two boys in triumph along the streets. Louis Napoleon was then just six years old.

History tells us that his father was Napoleon's brother Louis, who was made King of Hol--directing her to follow the Empress. She land against his will, was married to Hortense Beauharnais, also against his will, abdicated, and lived an obscure and uneventful life in Italy for a quarter of a century afterward. But these facts are by no means so clear as might be wished. The date of the marriage of Hor--who were exasperated at the departure of the tense and Louis is strangely uncertain. All that can be said positively is, that they were probably married in January, 1802. On referring to the historical registers, it appears that their eldest son-whose whole existence is clouded in mystery-died 5th May, 1807, at the age of seven. Napoleon had chosen him to be his heir, and loved him with the fondness of a father. It was only when he died that the idea of a divorce from Josephine entered the Emperor's mind. For the two other children of Hortense, Napoleon and Louis, the Emperor always evinced a like fatherly feeling. It was well understood that, in the event of the death of the King of Rome, they were to succeed to the Empire.

Louis

Hortense did not keep her oath. Paris was past defense; with the consent of the officers she fled. At Rambouillet she overtook the exkings Jerome and Joseph eating a hasty supper, and with nerves much disturbed. was with Marie Louise. The ex-kings coolly hoped that Hortense was well provided with money, as she would probably be taken by the Cossacks if she were not. They had secured all the horses at the place for themselves. Indeed, the only thing the Queen and her children had to eat that night was a crust of bread which one of her women contrived to purloin. Louis, at this juncture, wrote from Blois to his wife, ordering her to repair thither without delay. The heartlessness of the fellow roused her.

"I had intended to go to Blois," she said; "but now I won't."

A more striking contrast than Louis and his wife can not well be imagined. It has been usual with the assailants of Napoleon to laud Louis for certain philosophical virtues. The fact was, he was the most insignificant creature in the world-the imbecile of his family. He never knew his own mind for two days together. He never did or said a sensible thing. He never helped his brother, though he was content It seems that the Emperor Alexander was to profit by his greatness while carping at his smitten with a characteristic Platonic passion policy. He had not soul enough to love any for Hortense. He insisted on her retaining one. Hortense, on the contrary, had a virile an estate, with the title of Duchess, under the spirit. In her were gathered some of the high- Bourbons. He spent most of his time with her est qualities of human nature-boldness, perse- while at Paris. A strange anecdote is told of verance, constancy, self-reliance, energy. She his intercourse with little Louis Napoleon. The despised her husband, and loved no one but boys could not be made to understand that there the Emperor. Him she idolized. At his com- were kings in Prussia and Russia who were not mand she married Louis; by his consent she their uncles. All the kings they had ever known left him; at his invitation she went to live near they had been in the habit of addressing as "unthe Tuileries; by his command she spent an cle;" why not Alexander too? Was he no rehour every day of her life with him. First and lation at all to the Emperor? inquired the unlast, her soul was his. We have all heard of conscious juvenile satirists. They were given the boundless confidence reposed in him by the to understand that, though an enemy, he was soldiers of his guard. There was not a trooper a generous one, and that their mother owed who believed in him more firmly or cherished him all she had in the world. The next time him more ardently than Hortense Beauharnais. Alexander visited the family little Louis crept Of all the women of his court, the one who un-up to him, pushed a ring into his hand, and

"Where are your children?" asked the Em- directly notified her to quit. She replied by peror, with very unusual bitterness. selecting leisurely a house with a good view, and settling down in it. The Grand Duke re

"You have placed them in a false position lapsed into silence, and Hortense busied herself about the education of her children.

surgents. Louis Philippe checkmated the Republicans in France; at Rome there seemed a fairer prospect. Louis Napoleon removed to Rome with his mother. He rode the streets wrapped in a tricolor, and walked arm in arm with the chief of the carbonari. In a fit of passion the Pope sent a troop of horse to seize him; he retaliated by calling the peasantry to arms and taking a chief command.

Hortense had taken refuge at Florence; there she received a letter from Louis Napoleon to say that he and his brother "had entered into engagements; their name compelled, them to aid the unhappy populations which invited them to assist them." She was distracted. Her husband-who never turned up but to embarrass his family-suddenly appeared on the stage at this crisis. For twenty years or so the boys had been almost strangers to him; he was now seized with so much affection for them, and so alarmed at their peril, that he pestered their mother from morning till night to go out to the theatre of war and bring them home. He actually persuaded her to write to the insurgent General, begging him to dismiss them from the army. The other members of the Bonaparte family aided him. Jerome wrote, Cardinal Fesch sent messengers to the insurgents, imploring them to get rid of the young men; and after a struggle they succeeded. Napoleon and Louis were deprived of their commands, and rejected when they offered to serve as volunteers.

Now the hand of tyranny began to press on them. The Grand Duke of Tuscany notified their mother that they must not enter his dominions. The Austrian embassador stated in writing that the fate of traitors-death-awaited them. Switzerland-then in the hands of Austria-closed her doors against them. In the midst of the confusion, the eldest of the brothers, Napoleon, died suddenly, mysteriously, no one but his brother knows how. Some sudden disease no doubt overtook him, and carried him off rapidly. All that is known is that, after giving signal proof of personal valor and generalship, he was taken ill at Forli; that his broth-, er watched over him with extreme tenderness, nursed him, in fact, like a baby; and finally held him in his arms when he died, then flew to console his mother.

It was no time for grief. The Austrian troops were already on the Papal territory, encircling Louis Napoleon; his name had been expressly omitted from the amnesty, while a general order pronounced sentence of death on all "foreigners" implicated in the insurrection. Hortense mechanically traveled to Ancona, and chartered a small vessel for flight. But fortune had not done its worst. The day before the sailing of the vessel the brave mother noticed that her son looked ill. She sent for a physician, who declared that he had the measles, and could not be moved. As usual, in the midst of her perplexity, there came a letter from her husband, commanding her to leave Italy directly with her

son, and not on any account to fail to acquaint him with all her movements.

It was at crises like this that the character of Hortense showed itself. She took no counsel but of her own judgment. She asked no help. In the presence of the most appalling dangers she had presence of mind enough to carry out a scheme requiring boldness, coolness, and extraordinary nerve. She took passage for her son in another vessel bound for Corfu, paid the fare, and obtained, by great exertion, a passport from the authorities. She sent his baggage on board and publicly recommended him to the captain. She wrote to her husband that their dear son was at length in safety. She received the congratulations of her friends at Ancona on her son's escape. Having taken these precautionary measures, she made a bed for Louis Napoleon in a cabinet adjoining her own room, and pretexted a violent fit of illness. To the hotel where she was staying came an Austrian officer, sent expressly to capture Louis Napoleon. He lodged so near his prey that Hortense had to put her hand on her son's mouth when he coughed to escape detection. She nursed Louis for many days and nights with an anxiety which can not be described; he tottered on the brink of life, and every drug that was brought to him might have proved the means of his betrayal. length he recovered. Early one morning, before the Austrian soldiers who swarmed in the house were awake, Hortense and her son made their escape.

At

The perils they encountered on their journey through Italy; their hairbreadth escapes; the agreeable fictions which Hortense told to any and every authority she met; the figure which the future Emperor cut as a footman standing beside his mother's carriage, and listening to her account of his voyage from Ancona-all this can be imagined.

The law

At length they were in France. pronounced sentence of death on members of the Bonaparte family who dared to venture into the kingdom. But Louis Philippe was no Caligula. He called upon Hortense. Like Louis XVIII. he was in despair at parting with so charming a lady; but what could be done? His ministers were inexorable. He would reason with them. He would try to overcome their senseless prejudice. He would speak out, if it came to the worst, and let them know that he was no tyrant. But, meanwhile, did not Madame la Duchesse think it would be best to try the air of London-only for a short while?

The greatest embarrassment which awaited the fugitives in their English home, was the excessive liberty they enjoyed. It made them uneasy. When they went to a hotel nobody crossquestioned them. No spy dogged their steps in the street. Not a single police officer paid them visits of inspection. Hortense s'ennuyait at having no more romances to invent. She missed her persecutors. Even Louis Napoleon regretted the piquancy of former perils. Complete security was monotonous.

Partly, perhaps, because England was so dull

a home, but more directly in consequence of the | ernment; then the great conspirator was hurried schemes which the mother and son were plotting, they removed to Switzerland. There Louis Napoleon laid himself out for popularity, and succeeded in gathering around him a small circle of political proselytes, while he spread his name by various means through the French army. There he planned the attempt of Strasbourg.

It was an insane business. Some of the biographers whose works we have under, our eyes see merit in the scheme; we are not so fortunate. There were at Strasbourg half a dozen men of means who were anxious for the overthrow of the government. There were likewise a few others who were willing to help set up a new government in the hopes of sharing the loaves and fishes; among these was M. de Persigny. Finally, Louis Napoleon had about him some devoted adherents who were quite ready to risk something to elevate their patron, and, as a necessary consequence, themselves. These were the army on which the great conspirator had to rely. A dreamy notion that, after a lapse of twenty years, the old soldiers of the Empire would be roused to fight by the mere sight of an imperial eagle was the other stand-by. A miserable pair of crutches.

to Paris, alone. No one knew what fate awaited him. The King was well aware that the attempt was no rash impulse, but the cool fulfillment of a deliberate and long-planned policy. Through his spy he was made thoroughly acquainted with the extent of the conspirator's designs. Hortense had flown to Paris to intercede for her son; but after all, what could she have said?

This was the prospect. Within two hours after Louis Napoleon arrived at Paris he was seated in a post chaise on his way to L'Orient. He had been offered transportation to America as a punishment, and had promptly accepted.

There has been dispute whether he did or did not sign an engagement promising, in gratitude for the monarch's clemency, to plot no more against the Orleans family. Louis Philippe's friends assert that he did; he denies the story in toto. On the face of it, the preponderance of probability is on his side; for had he signed such a paper, why did not the government destroy his character by publishing it after the affair of Boulogne ? Louis Philippe was too wary to miss such an opportunity of killing off a rival.

Two men, both residents of Strasbourg, were It is not worth while to redescribe here Louis ardently devoted to the scheme. One was Col- Napoleon's voyage to America. It was to him onel Vaudrey of the artillery, a disappointed a pleasure trip. The captain of the frigate could soldier; the other was a spy in the pay of Louis not have treated him differently had he been a Philippe, who, having taken the lead in the plenipotentiary instead of an exile; and on this conspirators' council in favor of energetic move- side of the Atlantic he found abundance of symment, reported every night his own and his col-pathizing friends. Of the follies of his life here, leagues' performance to the chief of the royal | scandal-mongers have made much use. The police.

One November morning, exactly at six, Louis Napoleon and his friends issued forth from their houses into the dark streets of Strasbourg. The damp morning air chilled them. More chill and dreary still was the demeanor of the commandant of the garrison, General Voirol, a shrewd old soldier, who, when they burst into his room before he was dressed, and flourished the imperial eagle before him, laughed sardonically, and intimated that they ought to have their heads shaved and to be put on low diet. They hastened to the barracks. Colonel Vaudrey had ordered out his artillerymen with guns unlimbered, and matches lit; Louis Napoleon tried his power of persuasion on the infantry. They were dull of comprehension. It was a cold morning, and Louis Napoleon's speech did not warm them they yawned. When some officer cried "This is not the nephew of the Emperor but Colonel Vaudrey's; I know him well-" a Laugh of derision burst from the ranks.

only story worth remembering is the account of a dinner party given by a well-known gentleman in this city, at which the exile calmly and quietly foretold his advent to the throne of France, and in reply to the laughing request of his host, promised him a gracious reception at his Court-a promise amply redeemed a year or two since.

None of the Bonapartes were quite at ease in this country. It is deficient in the true Napoleonic spirit. Louis Napoleon hastened back to Europe, in time to display his filial love at the death-bed of his mother. He loved her from first to last with an affection which never wavered; the mother and son were both models of devotion and unity of soul.

It is remembered by the reader that Louis Napoleon was at this time an exile, and proscribed. He had escaped a trial in France by consenting to his exile; whatever the terms of that consent were, he had broken them, and was liable to the penalties of his breach of faith. To retreat, as best he could, into a cul de sac; Accordingly, with singular want of tact and to escape, with some difficulty, being trampled judgment, Louis Philippe instructed his envoy under foot by the restive cavalry horses; to be to the Swiss Cantons to demand his extradition. charged by a regiment of infantry with fixed For some time France and Switzerland had not bayonets; to surrender, with the best grace pos- been friendly; the demand was urged with assible, to the commanding officer of his pursuers-perity and even menace. As might have been all this was the work of a few minutes. Detail expected, it roused the spirit of the Swiss inis useless. A few days were spent in a Stras- stead of convincing their reason. They debourg prison, awaiting the decision of the gov-clared they would not refuse an asylum to the

exile. Louis Philippe found himself in as foci ish a position as that lately occupied by the King of Prussia, with this difference, that his cause of quarrel was more petty and role. Like the King of Prussia, having intered ip na polley af incomidation, he could ni asily retrace his steps; when the Swiss mmset & exper Louis Napoleon, Louis Philippe scutura de Timpet It war. In an instant the rs i lampe vare apa Swizerland, ami he empathies of the ibera, of avere sunt aparat or he young Tus jum pumpi, Lots Napcieon Carl viniraving was 12 ans of name ad

were cut of the way. Very possibly Louis Philippe had as full information of this project as of the former one. However all this may be, Louis Napcieca with his sixty men was quickly driven into the mad, and there caught, after he had shot a grenadier dead with a pistol which he drew from his belt. This useless homicide has been justly reproached to him as one of the darkest stains on his career.

Of course there was no talk of exile this time. But still the King was not wise. Instead of handing Louis Napoleon to the courts, to be med far the murder of the man he had shot, as a prident sovereign would have done, Louis

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empt by sending him to the House of Peers to je med for high reason. True, the Peers were a reliable body, and, as the result showed, they answered the monarch's purpose in one way as weil as the assizes could have done. But though they sondemned Louis Napoleon to imprisonment for are, they dignified him, and made him an aject of sympathy by their sentence. They zus Vazviti s isernbod v gradtude evaded him in pallic esteem. They reminded be jserved aga meid scatters and the peasantry that Bona*ht to was .TENE. The parts was not dead. They struck a chord que Nisary of de ufsir wei 106 `e saw anal which the least refection would have persuaded de Support Yes his serta the King to avoid at any risk. Na de row

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The prison of Ham, to which Louis Napoleon was sent, is a huge pile in the midst of swamps and ens. The walls are thirty-six feet thick; u is surrounded by a wet ditch, and is, on the wheie, one of the most secure prisons in the world, besides being a most unhealthy residence. He was watched as closely as any Italan culprit. Instructions suitable for an Austrian dungeon stimulated the vigilance of his jailers

It was in this confinement that Louis Napolecu first gave evidence of the qualities of mind which have since characterized him. He showed no concern at his situation. He never doubted his escape. Months and years passed over; as he counted them, he confessed he thought the duration of his captivity singular; of the ultimate result he never had the least doubt. He amused his leisure by corresponding for the press, and completing works on strategy and engineering He entertained a proposal from an old Nicaragua Transit Company, which desired him to undertake the direction of works for the opening of a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific. When Louis Philippe declined to trust him as far as Nicaragua to perform this work, he wrote out his views, and sent them to the Board of Directors, politely regretting that circumstances over which he had no control deprived him of the pleasure of illustrating them in person.

When six years had elapsed, Louis Napoleon began to find prison life monotonous. The revolution he foresaw was dilatory: he resolved to escape. It was managed with ease. Workmen were repairing the part of the prison in which he was confined. He procured a carpenter's dress, slouched hat, and wooden shoes. For three days his faithful surgeon,