ran away blushing. When called to account, he said: "I had nothing but that ring, and I wished to give it to the Emperor, because he is good to mamma." Thus, during the brief interval of Napoleon's exile to Elba, Hortense and her children were almost the only members of his family who did not share his reverse. She took so little pains to conceal her fidelity to him that, when he landed, Lord Kinnaird flew to warn her that she would be the first victim of the revenge of the Bourbons. It was likely enough; they were mean enough for any thing. Hortense gave a musical party that night; met her guests with her usual smile, rallied the singers and performers with her usual gayety, and chatted serenely in her terrible care. But while the prima donna of the soirée was delighting the guests' ears with her first piece, the two children, Napoleon and Louis, were carried off for safety to the residence of a friend at some distance. Next day Hortense herself hid in a cachette in the wall of an old servant's house. Events flew in those days. Napoleon was soon in the Tuileries. Hortense hastened to meet him. say a word, or make a sign, or even cligner l'ail, they would throttle M. de Voyna in an instant. Her stay in Switzerland was short and unhappy. Her stony-hearted mother-in-law, Madame Mère, visited her, and coolly took her leave with a kiss on the forehead; Madame Mère was above emotion. Then came a command from her husband, who was at his ease in the Papal States, to relinquish to him the charge of his eldest son. Hortense at first rebelled; but dread of attempts on her son's life induced her to consent at last; and she was left alone with little Louis Napoleon, who was broken-hearted at the loss of his brother. Finally, to fill the cup, all sorts of persecutions awaited her from the enemies of France. Hortense's character was well known; the shrewdest statesmen of the day foresaw that the two children of Hortense were the most formidable of the Bourbons' enemies. All the great powers, and many of the small ones, sent special envoys to the canton where she resided to watch over her and spy out her movements. She fled. Louis Napoleon and his nurse accompanied her to Constance, in the dominions of the Grand Duke of Baden. That potentate “Where are your children ?” asked the Em- directly notified her to quit. She replied by peror, with very unusual bitterness. Hortense explained. 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. The usual stories are told about Louis Napoleon's boyhood, signifying independence of thought, secretiveness, and generosity. We hear of his being met one day by his servant at some distance from his home, walking in shirtsleeves and barefoot through mud and snow, and of his accounting for his sorry plight by saying that he had met a poor family of children, to one of whom he had given his coat, while he had put his shoes on the feet of another. But anecdotes of the childhood of great men are not often very authentic. Let us be content with knowing that his natural propensities were fair, and that, as well from the colleges of Augsburg and Thun as from his excellent mother, he received as perfect an education as the world can afford. Paris was no place for Hortense. She sent to Fouché to ask for passports. The King was in desolation at losing une femme si charmante; but, diable, in the present disturbed state of the country, she had perhaps best go abroad for a few months. Next day, royal order to depart before dusk. Of money, not a word. But the To conspire was and is the innate tendenKing's ministers, Talleyrand at their head, cy of every high-souled Italian and German. were ready to make good bargains for Hor- Whether at his mother's castle at Arenberg or tense's pictures and objects of art. With their at the homes of his relations in Italy, Louis aid she raised a few thousand francs, which Napoleon, from the first day of his manhood, carried her into Switzerland, a spectacled but threw his soul into conspiracies. He was then fiery Austrian-the Count de Voyna-escort- a Republican, with a queer streak of Bonapartism ing her to the frontier, and not sticking at a running through his democratic vein; he defree exhibition of the bayonet treatment to such sired the good of the people, but he had someRoyalist Frenchmen as evinced a propensity to how an idea that they were to be improved and insult her. The last mob into which she got benefited chiefly in order to render them more happened to consist of Bonapartists. They worthy of being ruled by members of his family. burst into the room, drove De Voyna into a During the interval which elapsed between the corner, and kept him there while the spokes-invasion of Spain by the French and the upman of the intruders, a venerable old man, in-heaval of 1830 conspiracies were rife throughformed Hortense confidentially that they did out Europe; the young Bonapartes offered their not wish to offend her in any way; let her but swords, the older ones their money, to the in 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 brother 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. It is not worth while to redescribe here Louis Napoleon's voyage to America. It was to him a pleasure trip. The captain of the frigate could not have treated him differently had he been a plenipotentiary instead of an exile; and on this side of the Atlantic he found abundance of sym Two men, both residents of Strasbourg, were ardently devoted to the scheme. One was Colonel Vaudrey of the artillery, a disappointed soldier; the other was a spy in the pay of Louis Philippe, who, having taken the lead in the conspirators' council in favor of energetic movement, 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 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. scandal-mongers have made much use. The 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 fool- The Boulogne expedition followed a period of idle dissipation in England. It is generally understood now in well-informed circles that it was not the hair-brained scheme that it has so often been described. A very large proportion of the officers of the army are believed to have been in the plot; and their subsequent attachment to Louis Napoleon is ascribed to gratitude for the discretion he observed with regard to their complicity when he was arrested. The true history of the affair will not be known until the Emperor reveals his secrets. were out 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 Napoleon with his sixty men was quickly driven into the mud, 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 tried for the murder of the man he had shot, as a prudent sovereign would have done, Louis Philippe gave an official recognition to the attempt by sending him to the House of Peers to be tried for high treason. True, the Peers were a reliable body, and, as the result showed, they answered the monarch's purpose in one way as well as the assizes could have done. But though they condemned Louis Napoleon to imprisonment for life, they dignified him, and made him an object of sympathy by their sentence. elevated him in public esteem. They reminded the old soldiers and the peasantry that Bonapartism was not dead. They struck a chord which the least reflection would have persuaded the King to avoid at any risk. They What the public now knows may be summed The prison of Ham, to which Louis Napoleon up in a very few words. The funds for the ex- was sent, is a huge pile in the midst of swamps pedition were raised by loan and by a fortunate and fens. The walls are thirty-six feet thick; operation in stocks. Louis Napoleon had a very it is surrounded by a wet ditch, and is, on the large sum with him in gold when he started. whole, one of the most secure prisons in the The men were sixty in number, and zero in world, besides being a most unhealthy resicharacter. They were mostly refugee French-dence. He was watched as closely as any Italmen, with nothing to lose. It has been said that they hardly knew the scheme on which they were embarked; Louis Napoleon is not likely to have told any thing which could safely be It was in this confinement that Louis Napokopi a secret; and it is certain that their cour-leon first gave evidence of the qualities of mind age was only kept up to the landing point by which have since characterized him. He showed copious draughts of Champagne. Much merriment has been caused by the published accounts of the landing in the mud at Boulogne, with the ragged conspirators, who ran bawling up the hill, the tame eagle that wouldn't fly to the top of the column, and the gaping peasantry, who couldn't make out what the noise was about. But the secret of all this has yet to be told. Even M. de la Guerronière, who had access to the best information, and had the best reasons for wishing to make out a good case for his master, fails to discover the true clew to the failure. In all probability error or confusion had arisen from a transposition of the regiments on duty at the place of landing. The chances are that arrangements had been made for the prompt adhesion of the regiment on duty to the cause of the invader; that officers of high rank throughout France were ready to invite their men to follow the example thus set; that reliance was placed on the force of example among the troops; and, finally, that all this plot fell through simply because the National Guards and others, who encountered the invaders, were not in the secret, while the troops who were ian culprit. Instructions suitable for an Austrian dungeon stimulated the vigilance of his jailers. no concern at his situation. He never doubted He 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. 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, Dr. Conneau, had given out that he was ill; when the turnkeys visited his room he was seen in bed. One morning he rose early and dressed in the borrowed costume. A lay figure, built by Dr. Conneau, was dressed in night-shirt and night-cap, and stuffed in the bed. The disguised prisoner, shouldering a plank, with hat drawn over his eyes, then boldly walked out of his room, passed the workmen, descended the stairs, and walked along toward the draw-bridge. At the draw-bridge stood an officer who knew him well. We can easily picture Louis Napoleon's sensations as this untoward apparition crossed his path. He approached the officer with thoughts indescribable, ready, at the least signal, to throw down his plank, and start on a hopeless race; but, as good fortune would have it, the son of Mars was likewise devoted to Venus, and had just received a billet-doux which he was intent on perusing. Louis Napoleon walked past him; at a short distance he threw down the plank and hastened to a carriage which was in waiting; and in a few hours he was safely on the other side of the Belgian frontier. made up his mind that his visitor belonged to one or the other class, and refused to see him. "Tell the Count," said Louis Napoleon, wishing to keep up the joke, "that I will not go away till I see him!" "Ah! ça," cried Count d'Orsay, when he heard this answer, "describe me this insolent !” The man had not half completed the description when D'Orsay cried-"An odd-looking mouth and big mustaches! I'll wager it is Louis Napoleon!" And dashing down stairs, he clasped him in his arms. The interval which clapsed between the escape of Louis Napoleon and the Revolution of February, 1848, is said to have been spent by him in dissipation in London. Numberless stories are told of his wild freaks: it is said that he gambled, mixed in loose society, and generally scandalized his respectable acquaintance. However this may be, it is quite certain that he spent no small portion of his time in acquiring knowledge to serve a future ruler of France; that he made himself master of most of the wonders of machinery and mechanics; that he contrived a plan for the drainage of certain marshes in the south of France; that he made among the politicians and aristocracy of England a number of warm, devoted friends. When the explosion took place in February, he drove to his cousin's-Lady Douglas-and said, "In twelve months I shall be at the head of the government of France." At breakfast-time that morning the Governor of the Chateau of Ham was notified that the Prince was so ill that he could not leave his bed, and that he could not be seen. At noon the Governor called again, and refusing to be satisfied with Dr. Conneau's assurance, insisted on seeing his prisoner; but on being shown the lay figure in bed, retired satisfied. Toward evening He hastened to cross the Channel, and was in he reappeared, and was again told that the pris- Paris almost as soon as the King left it. But oner was asleep. This time the Governor would all was in fermentation. The law against the not be put off. He knew the anxiety of the Bonapartes was still in force; some journalists King, and he refused to be comforted by Dr.invoked it, crying aloud that the liberties of the Conneau. He would go to the bedside and satisfy himself. He would wake the sleeper, at all costs. He tried-but one shake was sufficient. "Doctor," said the enraged Governor, "when did the Prince escape?" young republic were in danger, and that this Prince Louis Napoleon meditated the establishment of an empire. The Provisional Government were so weak that you might have knocked them down with a feather. They asked Louis "At seven this morning, Monsieur le Gou- Napoleon to relieve them as he had relieved the verneur." Swiss. He agreed, on condition that they should help repeal the law which excluded his family from the French soil. Gens-d'armes and chasseurs were sent in every direction, and the whole country was rayaged in search of the fugitive; but the start had been ample; telegraphs were not in vogue, and the prisoner of Ham was on his way to London rejoicing. The outburst of June had been manfully and humanely quelled with shot, grape, and bayonet by Cavaignac, when Louis Napoleon, now lawfully a resident of France, was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly. This was the An anecdote of better aloi than many which are current on this subject is given, on good au-entering-wedge. thority, by Mr. St. John. The best of his old London friends was Count d'Orsay. A somewhat similar position in London society-in which they were both tainted-had brought them together. They appreciated and admired each other. Accordingly, when the Prince found himself in London once more, he drove straight to D'Orsay's, and bade the servant say that "a gentleman" desired to see the Count. The valet duly reported that a man of sinister aspect, who would not give his name, was below, and insisted on seeing Monsieur le Comte in person. D'Orsay, who spent the last years of his life in flying from creditors and bailiffs, No The story of the election has been told too often to be repeated here. Much that is senseless has been written by way of comment. doubt Ledru Rollin's candidature hurt Cavaignac, just as Frémont and Fillmore interfered with each other last fall. But to imagine that Prince Louis owed his election as President of the Republic to the old Napoleonic ideas is simply ridiculous. The real secret of his success lay in his being a better politician than his rivals; in his understanding the tricks and quirks of politics, the devices by which ballot-boxes are stuffed, and fraudulent returns made, better than any of the moderate or ultra republicans, |