The daughters of the Comte and Comtesse de Montijo made their acquaintance with Paris when they were not more than four or five. It was about 1830 or 1831 when the family went to reside there for a while. Prosper Mérimée, whose name can no more be kept out of the history of the Empress than could Mr. Dick suppress the mention of King Charles’s head, was there, and his friend of the British Museum, Dr. Panizzi, was kept informed of the strolls on the boulevards of the little Eugénie, and of her liking, not only for the author of the story of “Carmen,” which Bizet was later to set to music, but for the sweets given to her by Mérimée.

The Montijos seem to have been then in only fairly easy circumstances. Three or four years later their fortunes improved, the head of the family having died.

Eugénie’s education begins at a celebrated convent school, on whose books she figures as Eugénie Palafox, a name used by her for a score of years.

At the Sacré-Cœur, Rue de la Varenne, the little Montijo is supremely happy. Her holidays and those other days when she is allowed “out” she spends with her mother’s friend, the Comtesse de Laborde, at a country house at Passy, where a park runs down to the Seine. Mme. de Laborde has promised Madame mère to make Eugénie’s school life as pleasant as possible, and she fulfils her promise to the letter. The Comtesse de Laborde has three daughters, all well married, all charming mondaines: Mme. Delessert—who, as the wife of the Préfet, is a personage—Mme. Bocher, and Mme. Odiar. Eugénie is in the good graces of this captivating trio. But the lady to whom she is particularly attached is the Comtesse de Nadaillac, daughter of Mme. Delessert, and grand-daughter of the Comtesse de Laborde.

At the age of eleven (in 1837) she makes the vows imposed upon communicants, in the stereotyped phrase, “La fille de la Comtesse de Téba (Montijo) fit sa première communion,” in the chapel of the convent school. Soon—in March, 1839—there comes a hurried departure for Spain, whither her parents had returned a short time previously. Her father has died, and the child’s Parisian “schooling” is over. For some little time before the loss of their father Eugénie and her eldest sister, Francisca, familiarly “Pacca,” had been in the charge, in Paris, of an English governess, Miss Flowers,[17] who accompanied them to Madrid at the time of the Count’s death. Mérimée wrote: “No one would credit the regret I feel at their departure” (from Paris). I will note only in passing that Eugénie’s education was “finished” in this country at a school at Clifton, Bristol.

Having ceased to be a schoolgirl, the Señorita Eugénie de Montijo undergoes a transformation. She is, and for some years will remain, in her teens. At fifteen she is bewitching. In the saddle, what a charming and picturesque figure! Madrid has no such fearless rider. There is no particular evidence that now and then she gallops through the streets riding à califourchon; but legend has it so, and in this case legend may possibly not wholly err. In the forties she is heedless of criticism, perhaps because only her rivals can find it in their hearts to malign her. As yet she is not seen in the hunting-field. She little recks that ten years or so later she will be arousing the undisguised hostility of her sex at the imperial chasses at Compiègne.

The Señorita would hardly be Spanish were she not much in view when all Madrid foregathers at the bull-fights. Like her companions, she has her favourite toreadors, and is lavish of her rewards—gold and flowers. Matadors and picadors do her homage. She is coquette to her little finger-tips. A smile from that sunny face and a word from those rosebud lips are eagerly contended for, and she is not slow in according both. Meanwhile the élégants group themselves around her as thick as bees round the tulips and honeysuckles. In those Southern climes, if anywhere, flirtation is one of the fine arts. The Señorita Eugénie—“Ugenia” in her own language—is not the least ardent disciple of the genus flirt. She coquettes with this Duke and that Duke. He of Ossuna and he of Sesto (Alganices) are rivals. There is yet a third Duke—Alba—over whom she essays to cast a spell; but, alas! the course of true love is diverted—perhaps unconsciously—by Pacca, the beautiful sister, and she it is who becomes Duquesa. Around this episode of unrequited love how many “histories” have been woven, mostly apocryphal! “Ugenia,” some would have us believe, resorts to what she thinks is a phial of poison, and awakes from her torpor to discover—oh, horror!—that she has swallowed a portion of the disgusting, but harmless, contents of a blacking-bottle!

No salon in Madrid was more frequented than the Comtesse de Montijo’s. The daughters were not the only magnets. Madame mère was a woman of esprit, and had a genius for making friends and keeping them. “Theatricals” drew all Madrid to the house. Eugénie was seen in De Musset’s “Caprice,” with the enamoured Duc de Sesto in the cast. The summers—or a portion of them—were passed on the Montijo property at Carabanchel.

Every great lady in Madrid has her circle of young and middle-aged men, known as “pollos”—literally, chickens. Among the Comtesse de Montijo’s “pollos,” all more or less smitten by the radiant Señorita Eugénie, was General Espartero’s successful rival, General Narvaly, Duke of Valencia, short, dark, a stern soldier, as supple in the young lady’s hands as the youngest and most impressionable of her “pollos.” A lady well known in social London, the wife of a foreign diplomatist, and gifted with the pen of a ready writer, drew this somewhat caustic portrait of the future Empress when she was the most-discussed personage in Madrid:

The variegated life of the Spanish girl who was destined to become Empress of the French—her life between the ages of fifteen and twenty-six—has never been, and never will be, described in detail. They were “Wanderjähre,” years of travel, visits to modish Continental resorts, and one or two sojourns in England. Once, in the summer of 1851, she and her mother (but not “Pacca”) attended a Court ball at Buckingham Palace—an incident which Queen Victoria may have recalled in one or other of her numerous meetings with the imperial lady, but not recorded by the Queen in her “Leaves” or her “Letters.” The presence of the Spanish ladies among the Queen’s guests was, however, noted in the official list, the compiler of which, or the printers, effectually mangled the names of both. A week later Lord Malmesbury saw them at Cambridge House, Piccadilly, the town residence of Viscount and Viscountess Palmerston, now, and for many years past, the Naval and Military Club. Mlle. de Montijo struck Lord Malmesbury as being “very handsome”; with the “flair” of a modern journalist, he noted her auburn hair and her “beautiful skin and figure.” He would have earned our thanks had he given us the names of the social sponsors of the Montijos in London. It was our Great Exhibition year, and we may be certain that the ladies were among the hundreds of thousands who flocked to Paxton’s huge glass palace in Hyde Park, the exact site of which is probably unknown to all but the fogies of 1911.[18]

A resort which found much favour with the mother and daughter was Eaux-Bonnes, in the Pyrenees. At the hotel honoured by their presence was an observant gentleman who for a full fortnight had the felicity of dining in the company of the fair Spaniards. He was therefore, according to one of his friends, who made attractive “copy” of it for a Belgian paper, able to “coldly study” the younger lady. “C’est une très belle et très jolie femme, qui tiendra fort bien sa place, attendu qu’elle a, comme on dit, le physique de l’emploi.”[19]

CHAPTER II

THE BOYHOOD AND YOUTH OF NAPOLEON III

Luckily, M. Stéfane-Pol has recently produced a volume of the greatest value, entitled “La Jeunesse de Napoléon III.,”[20] containing the hitherto unpublished correspondence of the Prince’s tutor, Philippe Le Bas (of the Institut), with many original illustrations, some from the Prince’s own pencil, others by Queen Hortense and by artists familiar with Arenenberg.

“Prince Louis Bonaparte,” wrote Alphonse Karr, in “Les Guêpes,” “born in Paris in 1808, educated abroad, knew neither France nor its ways. He spoke our language with difficulty, with a very strong German accent. His early youth has left no souvenir, even in the mind of his most complaisant biographers.”

Even his partisans confine themselves to generalities, stupidly inaccurate. “Although far from France,” says M. Stéfane-Pol, “we read in a contemporary publication describing the coup d’état, ‘the education of the young Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was entirely French. His mother imbued him with a love of his natal land, and his father taught him, at an early age, to sacrifice everything—life, honours, and fortune—for the holy and sacred cause of the people; taught him, too, to dare and to suffer all things for the triumph of such great interests. Later, his parents, in order to complete his education, confided him to the care of M. Le Bas, son of the Conventionnel of that name, from whom the Prince acquired the wisest and most solid Republican principles.’”

Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, youngest son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, and of Hortense de Beauharnais, was born on April 20, 1808. He was Napoleon I.’s nephew, and the Empress Joséphine’s grandson. He was baptized at the Palace of Fontainebleau by Cardinal Fesch, uncle of Napoleon I., and held at the font by the Great Emperor himself. In the Moniteur of April 21 his birth was thus chronicled:

Napoleon I. and Joséphine had been divorced previous to the birth of the child, whose godmother was Marie Louise, Napoleon’s second consort. At the time of his birth the parents of the future Napoleon III. were living apart. “I am sorry Louis is not here,” said the mother; “this infant would have reconciled us.”

It was said that the King of Holland was not the father of the young Louis Napoleon.[21] It is difficult, however, to adduce proofs of that assertion. There is one fact concerning which there is general agreement. There was no physical or moral resemblance between the brother of Napoleon I. and the son of Hortense de Beauharnais. The infant had neither the face nor the character of the Bonapartes; on the contrary, he was the image of his mother, whose large heart, as well as many other characteristics, he inherited. Ambition and superstition were the principal features of the life of Queen Hortense. “She inspired her son,” said Henri Martin, “with a fanatical faith in his destiny,” and circumstances developed in both mother and son a firm belief in their lucky star. With the exception of the King of Rome, Louis Napoleon was the only Prince born under the imperial régime—the only one whose birth was greeted by military honours and the people’s homage. Was not that (asks M. Stéfane-Pol) a presage of his destiny? A family register, devoted to the children of the imperial dynasty, was deposited at the Senate as the grand-livre of the right of succession. The name of Prince Louis was the first to be inscribed in it, with all the pomp of a consecration. What better auspices could there have been for an aspirant Emperor?

Later, when the Duchesse de Saint-Leu (Queen Hortense), mother of Prince Louis Napoleon, occupied the leisure afforded her by her exile in roaming through Switzerland with Mlle. Cochelet, she had no object in view except that which chance offered. “All our distractions during these wanderings,” wrote Mlle. Cochelet, “were confined to searching for four-leaved shamrocks, to which were attached various ideas. ‘If,’ said the Duchesse, ‘I find a four-leaved shamrock, it will signify that we shall return to France before very long, or that I shall receive a letter from my son to-morrow,’ and so on.” The author does not add, “Or perhaps I shall reign through my son,” but that is implied in most of the wishes of the ex-Queen of Holland.

In 1834 Louis Napoleon and his mother travelled in Italy. They had been in Rome for some time, when one day Hortense consulted a negress, a somnambulist, who, according to M. de La Guéronnière, had produced some remarkable phenomena. A clever magnetizer sent the negress to sleep, and presently, in response to the eager questions of Hortense, the somnambulist exclaimed suddenly, as if inspired, “I see your son happy and triumphant. A great nation takes him for chief.” “For Emperor, you mean, do you not?” asked the mother breathlessly. “For chief,” replied the somnambulist. Hortense could not obtain from the negress anything more satisfactory, but the prediction was confirmed subsequently by what the doyen of Paris priests said to Louis Napoleon, then President of the Republic: “Monseigneur, the will of God will be fulfilled quand même.”

Louis Napoleon was imbued with all his mother’s superstitious ideas. One of his friends having asked him why the attempt at Strasburg had failed, the Prince smilingly furnished an explanation which doubtless accorded with his fatalistic instincts—a wheel of his carriage had come off between Lehr and Strasburg! But his instincts required guiding, and Hortense was not equal to the task. While she was making lint for the wounded and weaving patriotic romances to cheer the faint-hearted, the mother of the future Emperor (then Queen of Holland) inculcated in the young Louis those bellicose ideas which were quite foreign to his calm and dreamy nature. “Supposing you had not a sou in the world to call your own,” she said to her eldest boy one day, “what would you do, Napoleon, to gain a livelihood?” “I should go for a soldier,” was the reply. “And you, Louis, what would you do?” “I should sell violets, like the little boy who stands at the gates of the Tuileries,” answered the child whom Destiny had marked out for an Emperor. There was something in this boy’s character to reform, and his mother set about the task, invoking the aid of all around her—amongst them Napoleon I. and Mme. Bure, the faithful nurse, who was jealous of the attention bestowed upon the boy by Mme. de Boubers and the Abbé Bertrand.

Henceforward the young Louis made considerable progress. Although he was always extremely sensitive, he longed to share the dangers of others. Renault, imitating Mlle. Cochelet, tells this story of him:

Hortense must have relished these last words. Are not great captains regarded as oracles? When, at Paris, as at St. Leu, some of the visitors discussed metaphysics, or grouped themselves around La Bédoyère, reading Racine or Shakespeare; when others posed to Garnerey for their portraits, and others played billiards, Louis Napoleon and his brother listened open-mouthed to the tales of heroism which Mlle. Cochelet was instructed to tell them. Later, in the land of exile, while the Duchesse de St. Leu and her suite played diabolo—one room serving as salon and salle à manger—and when the only book at their disposal was a volume of “Anecdotes de la Cour de Philippe-Auguste,” discovered, after a long search, by the Abbé Bernard, the ex-Queen of Holland would watch her sons playing at soldiers with the common children. And the day came when she saw Louis at the military school of Thün learning how to command, and then at Rome, at the house of his grandmother, Lætitia Bonaparte—scenes which enabled her to record the story of Prince Louis Napoleon’s youth.

The character of the Prince, according to Mlle. Cochelet, was amiable, timid, self-contained. He spoke very little, and Le Bas (his tutor) adds that he was naturally distrait and inactive. Thus he always remained. Those who most flattered Napoleon III. never concealed, in rhetorical phrases, the evident inertness of his physical nature; morally, he was a docile slave.

M. de La Guéronnière finds, in this portrait which he gives of the Prince, a justification for the various appreciations formulated of his mind and character. But do we not see, on the contrary, in the portrait a simple play of antitheses, a fantastic interpretation of that which appeared to be the evident reality?—which is to say that Louis Napoleon was a young man of average intelligence, without mental unbending, and characterized by an absolute lack of willpower. Like all who hesitate and dream, he finished by attaching an idea to himself and adopting it, in order not to be submerged by other ideas. Thus he deserved the title of “doux entêté” given to him by his mother. But his impassiveness, his stiffness, were only timidity, and his resolutions to act showed themselves only after delays or with sudden coups, which emphasized his weakness.

He had doubtless a certain fatalistic power of resistance, but this side of his character only showed the absence of an active mind; the enterprises of Stratford and Boulogne do not contradict this view. As to the coup d’état, one might explain it by many causes foreign to a ripe will. Besides, was not the coup d’état predicted by the “Grand Albert,” and did not that prediction give the rein to the superstitious docility of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte?[23]

However this may be, whatsoever his faults may have been, we must recognize in him who was Napoleon III. one quality: he had a heart. Even his adversaries knew this, and some of them—those who were sincere—admitted it with a good grace. The words of Georges Sand, written when the Prince was a prisoner in the fortress of Ham, would have remained true if events, stronger than his apparent energy, had not let loose against him hatreds at once tenacious and justified. “Two or three of us,” she wrote, “often talk about you, and we always say, after recognizing the dangers which would follow your accession to power of any kind, ‘He possesses the gift of making himself loved; it is impossible not to love him.’”

Le Bas, who knew the Prince better than anyone else, speaks of his excellent heart, and quotes examples of the sensitiveness and the generous instincts of him whom his mother and the Abbé Bertrand long called “notre petit oui-oui.”

The character of the child reflects, in an exaggerated form, the qualities and the defects of those by whom he was surrounded. It is sufficient to peruse the letters of the Abbé Bertrand to understand the lightness and the inconsistency which vitiated the education of the future Emperor Napoleon III. The Republican Le Bas, on the contrary, enunciated more severe, and at the same time more generous, ideas, which his pupil transmitted into Utopian reveries. Later, the Prince’s initiation into military studies gave him a taste for the profession of arms, and inspired him with the secret hope of continuing, by modifying and even socializing it, the work of Napoleon I.

The docility of the child bent under the influence of his preceptors, as it had previously given way under that of his mother and the intimates of the household. But, besides this, the fashionable life, the soirées, the concerts, the drawing-room theatricals, and the organization of lotteries, as well as the excessive walks and drives, disarranged the carefully-elaborated programmes of education, so that the personality of Prince Louis could not prevail against the numerous changes of scene, to say nothing of the drawbacks to study caused by the life in exile and the uncertainty of what might happen at any moment.

It would be a curious study to examine the writings of Napoleon III., and to ascertain who amongst those by whom he was surrounded in his youth inspired him with the thoughts which he has put into his book, “Idées Napoléoniennes.” That work, his essays on military subjects, and his “Extinction de Paupérisme,” all reveal the accurate memory of the former pupil of the camp of Thün, and show how well he recollected the lessons of Le Bas and the advice of the ambitious Hortense, while they also give evidences of that futility for which the Abbé Bertrand was to some extent responsible.

“Slave of the souvenirs of his childhood,” wrote the Emperor, “the man obeys all his life, without doubting them, the impressions which he received when he was young, and the experiences and influences of which he has been the object.”[24]

If (concludes M. Stéfane-Pol) circumstances had not been stronger than the free-will of Napoleon III., those impressions, experiences, and influences, many and various as they were, would never have brought about the unheard-of metamorphosis of a man of heart and delicacy, if not of reason, until popular sentiment, refusing to analyze him in order to arrive at a result, finished by execrating him.

CHAPTER III

FROM LONDON TO HAM VIÂ BOULOGNE

Between 1839 and 1848 Prince Louis Napoleon (allowing for the six years which he spent at Ham) resided mostly, if not entirely, in London. In the first part of those years—on his arrival here from Switzerland, which he had left under pressure of Louis Philippe’s Government—he lodged at Fenton’s Hotel, St. James’s Street,[25] soon removing to Carlton Terrace, Pall Mall. In 1846, upon his escape from Ham and his return to London (May 27), he stayed for a while at the Brunswick Hotel, Jermyn Street; then changed his quarters to King Street, St. James’s, where he was living when he acted as a special constable during the Chartist riots.[26] From King Street he wrote (February 15, 1847) to a friend, M. Vieillard:

An intimate friend of the Prince (the pseudonymous “Baron d’Ambès”) asserts that Louis Napoleon “left Lord Cardigan’s house to occupy Lord Ripon’s, Carlton Gardens. He did not lose by the change.”[27] His drawing-rooms were “full of glorious souvenirs and sacred relics. There were portraits of the Emperor, the Empress, and Queen Hortense; the ring of the ‘crowning’; the ring worn by Napoleon I. at his marriage with Joséphine; the tricolour cashmere scarf which he wore at the Battle of the Pyramids; the portraits of all the members of the imperial family; the famous talisman of Charlemagne, found in his tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle, and sent to Napoleon by the cathedral clergy in 1804; a medallion with two portraits, painted by Isabey; and other marvels, doubly dear to him who religiously preserves them.”

The Prince drove or rode every day. His cabriolet, driven by himself, soon became familiar in the West End; in the Ladies’ Mile it was much remarked, for the Prince soon made a number of friends, well-known men and pretty élégantes, some of whom were to be seen at Lady Blessington’s. “In London he visited only important personages. He was an assiduous frequenter of the libraries, and a good customer of the booksellers. He now (1840) published his volume, ‘Les Idées Napoléoniennes,’ a résumé of that programme of democratic empire which he always upheld.”

About this time De Persigny appeared among the authors. His “book” was a very small one, but it was read in Paris by everybody, for it was a cleverly-written account of a “visit to Prince Louis” (it was so entitled). It was published anonymously, but people soon gave a name to it. De Persigny, it seems, had read Vertot’s “Révolutions Romaines” (a favourite book of Napoleon I.), and discovered a parallel between Prince Louis, nephew of Napoleon, and Octavius, grandnephew of Julius Cæsar. De Persigny’s work touched the Prince, whose hopes were revived by its emotional passages.

Louis Napoleon’s attempts—first at Strasburg in 1836, and next at Boulogne in 1840—to arouse France to a sense of his merits were signal failures, so farcical as to cover him with ridicule in a country where that defect is popularly supposed to “kill.” He was a laughing-stock, yet he survived both contempt and obloquy, to say nothing of six years’ imprisonment. In the Strasburg plot the Prince was assisted by a lady (of the same age as himself) who called herself Mrs. Gordon, and who was born Bruault-Eléonore Bruault. She had been a singer, and had received lessons in Paris from Rossini. Some time in the year 1836, beautiful and poor, she was in London, where she came in contact with De Persigny, who probably introduced her to the Prince. After the fiasco at Strasburg she was quick enough to burn all compromising documents before the police could seize them. Moreover, she contrived to get De Persigny, disguised as a cook, out of the town. He reached London safely, and narrated the story of the “attempt” in a pamphlet published in London and in Paris. Fleury joined De Persigny in London; they shared lodgings, belonged to the same club, and were presently joined by the Marquis de Gricourt.[28]

For his attempt to make the troops at Strasburg mutiny in his favour Louis Napoleon was deported to America, where he arrived on March 30, 1837, after a long voyage, which he fully described in letters to his mother. At New York, on the evening of his arrival, the Prince dined with two American Generals, his brothers-in-law, and others, and later met his cousins, Achille and Lucien Murat and Pierre Bonaparte. Achille Murat was employed at the post-office; Lucien was married to a school-mistress; Prince Pierre was leading a gay life. The illness of Prince Louis’ mother brought him back from the United States. He reached London on July 10, 1837, and, by means of a passport borrowed from a Mr. Robinson, got to Arenenberg early in August, after frequently evading the Continental police. Queen Hortense died on October 5, consoled in her last moments by her son’s presence and Dr. Conneau’s promise that he would never leave him.[29]

One night in the first week of August, 1840, the walls of Boulogne-sur-Mer were placarded with proclamations signed “Napoleon.” These “posters,” which had been printed in London, were headed respectively, “To the French People,” “To the Army,” and “To the Inhabitants of the Department of the Pas de Calais” (Boulogne, of course, included). The “proclamations,” couched in very lofty terms, aroused no enthusiasm, but much merriment; they were really as amusing as anything in “Charivari.” “Soldats, aux armes! Vive la France!”—so ended the appeal to the troops.

Then, on the same wall, the Boulogne burgesses stared their hardest at a “Decree” which they read without a thrill. “Prince Napoleon, in the name of the French people, decrees as follows: The Dynasty of the Bourbons-d’Orléans has ceased to reign” (excusez du peu!) “The French people has entered into its rights. The troops are relieved from their oath of fidelity;” with much more similar rhodomontade. Without a tremor—doubtless with many a wink—Boulogne read that M. Thiers was appointed President of the Provisional Government, and that all who showed energetically their sympathy for “the national cause” would be recompensed “in a striking manner” in the name of the country! One would like to have seen the faces of the conspirators when the “proofs” of these grandiloquent pronunciamientos were taken to Carlton Terrace. How unenterprising of the Times, the Herald, and the Post not to have obtained early copies! Nor could those journals have suspected that the Prince between times—between gallivanting at Lady Blessington’s, riding one of his two saddle-horses (there were three others) in the Row, and “beating the town”—the aspiring, talented, and pertinacious Nephew of the Uncle, had devoted himself to the onerous task of “developing his programme”—

All admirable ideas, and all to be carried out one day, but not by entreating Strasburg troops to mutiny, or by “landings” at Boulogne-sur-Mer.

The Boulogne expedition was planned at Carlton Terrace in June, 1840. A steamer, the Edinburgh Castle, was purchased for the Prince, ostensibly for the use of “some gentlemen who wanted to cruise on the Scottish coast” (the name of the good ship seemed not altogether inappropriate). Guns were bought at Birmingham. Uniforms were brought over from the “Temple,” in Paris—all but the buttons; these were bought in London, and sewn on by Dr. Conneau! “Servants” were imported from France; they had all served in the army.

Between August 3 and August 5 the Edinburgh Castle made four trips to Boulogne. On the night of the 5th the vessel was anchored off Wimereux. All told, the imperial force numbered sixty-two, including thirty ex-soldiers (the “servants”). Ammunition, money, and horses were all taken safely across the Channel. And there was a live Eagle, symbolizing the return of “the other.” Money had been offered to the douaniers, who scorned the proffered bribes—a bad omen. The audacious conspirators went through Boulogne, shouting “Vive l’Empereur!” They tried to get the 42nd Line Regiment to “rise,” but the honest fellows turned deaf ears to the charmers. A detachment of that regiment attacked the conspirators. The Prince wanted to die at the foot of the Column of the Grande Armée, after “running-up” the imperial flag, but he was dragged away. Pursued by a handful of the National Guard, the conspirators took to their heels and made for the beach. The Prince and some of his friends jumped into the sea, hoping to regain “the lugger.” They were “shot down like ducks.” One was fatally wounded, another was drowned, others were badly hit. It was said that a bullet grazed the Prince “without hurting him.” Louis Napoleon, De Persigny, Dr. Conneau, and Mésonan were picked up by gendarmes, dragged into a boat, and taken to prison.

These things happened on August 6. On the 7th, in the afternoon, the Moniteur published a statement, signed by the War Minister, Cubières, that the conspirators had been “driven into the waves, which vomited them up again. Louis Napoleon and all his adherents have been captured, killed, or drowned.” The Prince, on the 9th, was taken from the château at Boulogne to the fortress of Ham. On the 12th he arrived in Paris in a carriage, escorted by departmental gendarmes and men of the Municipal Guard. He was kept, until his trial, in the strong-room of the Conciergerie, three gaolers never leaving him. Even his valet, Charles Thélin, was not allowed to see his forlorn, but not dejected, master.

While the Prince was under lock and key his ever-faithful valet wrote to a friend in London the subjoined letter (cited by Baron d’Ambès in his very remarkable volumes):

On September 28, 1840, Prince Louis Napoleon and some of his fellow-conspirators were tried at the Luxembourg before the Cour des Pairs, M. Pasquier presiding over the tribunal. Fifty-five persons had been arrested at Boulogne, but only twenty-two were proceeded against. The Prince was defended by the ablest advocate of his day, Berryer, whose brief was marked with a fee of £600; with him were MM. Marie and Ferdinand Barrot. M. Jules Favre defended other of the prisoners.

After President Pasquier had begun the “interrogation of identity,” the Prince rose and requested permission to read a short written statement in his defence. He began: “For the first time in my life I am allowed to raise my voice in France and to speak freely to Frenchmen.”

Towards the end of his address he said: “A last word, gentlemen. I represent before you a principle, a cause, a defeat. The principle is the sovereignty of the people; the cause that of the Empire; the defeat, Waterloo. The principle you have recognized, the cause you have served, the defeat you wish to avenge.”

The trial lasted until October 6, when the prisoners were sentenced: the Prince to perpetual imprisonment in a fortress; Montholon, Lombard, Conneau, and De Persigny to five years’ imprisonment; one was deported; others were sent to gaol for fifteen, ten, five, and two years.

The Prince heard his fate unmoved. To the greffier he remarked spiritedly: “Sir, they said formerly that the word ‘impossible’ was not French; to-day the same may be said of the word ‘perpetual.’”

During the trial the Prince sat in a fauteuil, guarded by two soldiers with fixed bayonets. He was a trim, alert-looking figure, in frock-coat and high black stock, wearing to and fro a tall hat.

His six years’ isolation at Ham—a huge fortress, with a moat—converted Louis Napoleon into a littérateur of almost the first rank. His industry was excessive. Reams of paper were covered with his straggling, careless writing, chiefly on military subjects. His foster-sister, Mme. Cornu, gave him valuable assistance by forwarding books which otherwise he would probably have been unable to obtain, looking after his proof-sheets, writing to his publishers, and sending him extracts from volumes for which she ransacked libraries. When, in his stonemason’s or bricklayer’s long blouse, cap, and canvas trousers, carrying a plank and smoking a pipe, he made his escape, “Badinguet” was the father of at least two children, boys, for whose maintenance and education he made adequate provision.[30]

On May 27, 1846, Louis Napoleon reached London, and put up at the Brunswick Hotel, where his name was entered as Comte d’Arenenberg. He is said to have astonished Lady Blessington and the friends who were dining with her by appearing at Gore House the same evening. He wrote to the French Ambassador (M. de Saint-Hilaire, who had been a friend of Queen Hortense) informing him that he had escaped from Ham solely to revisit his old father, and that he had no intention of making any more “attempts” against the French Government, his previous efforts having resulted so disastrously to himself. The Prince’s widowed father, the Comte de Saint-Leu, ex-King Louis of Holland, was residing at Florence, and Louis Napoleon vainly applied to the Austrian Ambassador in London and to the Grand Duke Leopold for permission to visit his father, who passed away in the following July.

All that the Comte de Saint-Leu possessed he left to his only surviving son, Louis Napoleon—his palace at Florence, his landed property at Civita Nuova, his money, and all his relics of Napoleon I. By his father’s death the Prince became a comparatively wealthy man. D’Ambès asserts that he had to his credit at Barings 150,000 francs (£6,000), and at Farquhar’s 3,000,000 francs (£120,000). We are led to believe that the Prince was unmercifully “bled” on all sides, and that he was soon deluged with begging letters from France, Switzerland, and Poland. “He spends a great deal. He already owns several houses in London, and has bought a house in Berkeley Street for Miss Howard.”

CHAPTER IV

COURTSHIP AND ENGAGEMENT

When Prince Louis Napoleon was rather over twenty-six he wrote to his father, the Comte de Saint-Leu:[31]