CHAP. armed followers, and supported by one of the officers XIV. of the garrison whom he had previously gained over;

but also having to do with a number of soldiery, of whom some would be for him and some inclining against him, and others confused and perplexed. Now, this was exactly what happened to him: his arrangements had been so skilful, and fortune had so far lured him on, that whither he meant to go, there he was at last, standing in the very circumstances which he had brought about with long design aforethought. But then his nature failed him. Becoming agitated, and losing his presence of mind,* he could not govern the result of the struggle by the resources of his intellect; and being also without the fire and the joyfulness which come to warlike men in moments of crisis and of danger, he was ill qualified to kindle the hearts of the bewildered soldiery. So, when at last a firm, angry officert forced his way into the barrack-yard, he conquered the Prince almost instantly by the strength of a more resolute nature, and turned him out into the street, with all his fifty armed followers, with his flag and his eagle,‡ and his counterfeit headquarters Staff, as though he were dealing with a mere troop of strolling players.§ Yet only a few weeks afterwards this same Prince Louis Napoleon was able to show, by his demeanour

* This is his own explanation of his state given before the Chamber of Peers. The flutter he was in caused him, as he explained, to let his pistol go off without intending it, and to hit a soldier who was not taking part against him.-Moniteur for 1840, p. 2031-2034.

+ Captain Col. Puygellier.

The eagle here spoken of is the wooden one.

§ Moniteur, ubi ante.

XIV.

before the Chamber of Peers, that where the occasion CHAP. gave him leisure for thought, and for the exercise of mental control, he knew how to comport himself with dignity, and with a generous care for the safety and welfare of his followers.

It was natural that a man thus constituted should be much inclined to linger in the early stages of a plot; but since it chanced that by his birth and by his ambition Prince Louis Napoleon was put forward before the world as a pretender to the throne of France, he had always had around him a few keen adventurers who were willing to partake his fortunes; and if there were times when his personal wishes would have inclined him to choose repose or indefinite delay, he was too considerate in his feelings towards his little knot of followers to be capable of forgetting their needs.

His overthe gentle

tures to

men of

at the time

when he

was President.

In 1851, motives of this kind, joined with feelings of disappointment and of personal humiliation, were driving the President forward. He had always wished France to bring about a change in the Constitution, but originally he had hoped to be able to do this with the aid and approval of some at least of the statesmen and eminent generals of the country; and the fact of his desiring such concurrence in his plans seems to show that he did not at first intend to trample upon France by subjecting her to a sheer Asiatic despotism, but rather to found such a monarchy as might have the support of men of station and character. But besides that few people believed him to be so able a man as he really was, there attached to him at

CHAP. this period a good deal of ridicule. So, although XIV. there were numbers in France who would have been

Is rebuffed, and

other

hands.

Motives which pressed him forward.

heartily glad to see the Republic crushed by some able dictator, there were hardly any public men who believed that in the President of the Republic they would find the man they wanted. Therefore his overtures to the gentlemen of France were always rejected. Every statesman to whom he applied refused to entertain his proposals. Every general whom he urged always said that for whatever he did he must have an order from the Minister of War.'

6

The President being thus rebuffed, his plan of falls into changing the form of government with the assent of some of the leading statesmen and generals of the country degenerated into schemes of a very different kind; and at length he fell into the hands of persons of the quality of Persigny, Morny, and Fleury. With these men he plotted; and, strangely enough, it happened that the character and the pressing wants of his associates gave strength and purpose to designs which, without this stimulus, might have long remained mere dreams. The President was easy and generous in the use of money, and he gave his followers all he could; but the checks created by the constitution of the Republic were so effective, that beyond the narrow limit allowed by law he was without any command of the State resources. In their inveterate love of strong government, the Republicans had placed within reach of the Chief of the State ample means for overthrowing their whole structure, and yet they allowed him to remain subject

XIV.

to the same kind of anxiety, and to be driven to the CHAP. same kind of expedients, as an embarrassed tradesman. This was the President's actual plight; and if he looked to the future as designed for him by the Constitution, he could see nothing but the prospect of having to step down on a day already fixed, and descend from a conspicuous station into poverty and darkness. He would have been content, perhaps, to get what he needed by fair means. In the beginning of the year he had tried hard to induce the Chambers to increase the funds placed at his disposal. He failed. From that moment it was to be expected that, even if he himself should still wish to keep his hands from the purse of France, his associates, becoming more and more impatient, and more and more practical in their views, would soon press their chief into action.

clares for

suffrage.

The President had been a promoter of the law of He dethe 31st of May restricting the franchise, but he now universal became the champion of universal suffrage. To minds versed in politics this change might have sufficed to disclose the nature of the schemes upon which the Chief of the State was brooding; but from first to last, words tending to allay suspicion had been used with great industry and skill. From the moment of his coming before the public in February 1848, the Prince laid hold of almost every occasion he could find for vowing again and again that he harboured no schemes against the Constitution. The speech which he addressed to the Assembly

VOL. I.

XIV.

His solemn declarations of loyalty to the Republic.

CHAP. in 1850* may be taken as one instance out of numbers of these solemn and volunteered declarations. He considered,' he said, 'as great criminals, those who by personal ambition compromised the small amount of stability secured by the Constitution; . . . . . that if 'the Constitution contained defects and dangers, the Assembly was competent to expose them to the eyes of the country; but that he alone, bound by his ' oath, restrained himself within the strict limits traced 'by that act.' He declared that the first duty of au'thorities was to inspire the people with respect for 'the law by never deviating from it themselves; and 'that his anxiety was not, he assured the Assembly, 'to know who would govern France in 1852, but to employ the time at his disposal, so that the transi'tion, whatever it might be, should be effected without agitation or disturbance; for,' said he, the noblest object, and the most worthy of an exalted mind, is 'not to seek when in power how to perpetuate it, but 'to labour inseparably to fortify, for the benefit of all,

6

6

those principles of authority and morality which defy 'the passions of mankind and the instability of laws.'

It was thus that, in language well contrived for winning belief, he repudiated as wicked and preposterous the notion of his being the man who would or could act against the Constitution; and supposing that when he voluntarily made these declarations he had resolved to do what he afterwards did, he would have been guilty of deceit more than

*13th November.

+ See an enumeration of a few of these given ante.