exile with an amount of respect which they rarely shew except to qualities of the highest order; and this too not merely on account of the name which he bore and the cause with which that name was identified-for as yet his prospects were but far off and indistinct, and his chance of sitting on the throne of France was most problematical—but mainly because they admired his unconquerable spirit and devotion and self-denial, and saw in him the promise of future greatness. How, indeed, could they fail to admire and respect the man who, for the love which even in exile he bore towards his ungrateful country, had refused to share one of the thrones of Europe, and had refused to purchase immunity from punishment for the Affair of Strasbourg' by a pledge and a promise to withdraw from Europe, and so betray the cause which he embodied in his person? Indeed, there were few sights that would touch the hearts of Englishmen more deeply than that of a man, the nephew and heir of the great man whom England had humbled, living in retirement, occupying a few humble rooms in an ordinary London street, carefully noting and studying the history and politics of that kingdom against which his uncle had lived in constant war, and learning how in time to come, when, as he firmly believed, his turn would arrive to sit upon the throne of France, he might best treat with those haughty islanders, whose greatness and strength had worked his uncle's downfall.

That, even while resident in London, he never abandoned those aspirations which he had so fondly cherished amongst the mountains of Switzerland, may be gathered from the following extract from a letter which about this time he addressed to a friend in France. 'You will be asked, as already some of the newspapers begin to ask, where is the Napoleonite party? Reply to this: "The party is nowhere, but the cause everywhere." The party is nowhere, because my friends have not mustered; but the cause has partisans everywhere, from the workshop of the artisan to the council-chamber of the king; from the barrack of the soldier to the palace of the marshal of France. Legitimists, republicans, disciples of the juste milieu, all who wish to see strong government and constitutional liberty, an imposing attitude on the part of authority-all these, I say, are Napoleonists, whether they avow it or not. . . . . Perhaps, even yet, if, accustomed as they have been to despise authority, my countrymen should undermine the foundations of the social system, the name of Napoleon may prove an anchor of safety for all that is noble and worthy and serviceable in France.'

But not only while resident in London did the prince devote much time to a careful study of the English constitution, both in theory and in practice, but he took care to mix with men of thoughtful and philosophic minds, both English and foreign. From them he gleaned much valuable information, which a man seated high on an imperial or royal throne must of necessity be precluded

from obtaining; and it was in London that he fully formed those views of political philosophy which we find elaborated in his later published works, and especially in his Idées Napoléoniennes, which first saw the light in a collective form in 1839.

The object of this work, which occupied his leisure hours for considerably more than a year, was to correct the many misconceptions-as they appeared to him-which were abroad both in England and upon the continent as to the career of the great Napoleon; to give a correct idea not only of all that he really accomplished in the midst of war, and in the face of enemies on every side, but also of that which he ever had at heart, and which no doubt he would have accomplished in fact, if he had not been prevented by the force of circumstances too powerful for mortal genius and energy to contend against. Identifying himself, as he ever has striven to identify himself, with the policy of the first Napoleon, in this important work we see the prince who was destined in due time to re-establish and to develop the imperial policy as a whole, labouring to impress the world at large with what he conceived to be its real tendencies, aims, and objects. "The emperor is no more,' he remarks in his introduction to this book, but his spirit survives. Deprived of the power of defending his tutelary power with my sword, I can at least defend his memory with my pen. To enlighten public opinion by developing the thoughts which presided over his high conceptions, to recall the memory of his vast projects, this is a task which gladdens my heart and consoles me in my exile.' After some preliminary remarks upon the forms and principles of government in general, he proceeds: 'Advancing upon the stage of the world, Napoleon saw that it was his part to be the testamentary executor of the Revolution. The destructive fire of parties was not extinct; and when the Revolution, dying but not vanquished, bequeathed to Napoleon the accomplishment of his last wishes, it might have been said to him: "Concentrate upon solid foundations the principal results of my exertions; reunite the divided people of France; repulse feudal Europe, leagued against me; heal my wounds; enlighten the nations; extend in breadth that which I have done in depth. Be for Europe what I have been to France; and even though you water with your blood the tree of civilisation, though you see your projects misrepresented, and your family wandering about the world without a native land to own them, never abandon the sacred cause of the French people, but lead it to triumph by all means which genius calls into being, and which humanity approves." And again he writes: 'The Emperor Napoleon contributed more than any other man to accelerate the reign of liberty, by preserving the moral influence of the Revolution, and by diminishing the fears which it inspired. But for the Consulate and the Empire, the Revolution would have been merely a great drama, leaving behind it grand memories, but few traces. The Revolution would have been

drowned in the counter-revolution; whereas the precise contrary took place, because Napoleon planted in France and spread in Europe the principal advantages of the grand crisis of '89, and because-to employ one of his own expressions-he sobered the Revolution, consolidated the dynasties of kings, and elevated the people.' Declaring that the secret and source of all the imperial power lay in the deep convictions of the people of France, and in fact was but the expression of the popular will; then vindicating the memory of his uncle from the charge of having followed the dictates of mere personal vanity, he argues that 'to obviate that want of fixity and continuity, the absence of which is the great defect of republics, it had become necessary to create an hereditary family, to be the conservator of the interests of the people at large;' he dwells with affectionate reverence on the tolerant and comprehensive spirit in which the first Napoleon ever exercised his power, ruling, or aiming at ruling, for the benefit, not of a class, but of all his people, never exclusive, never intolerant, bent always rather on recalling exiles and enfranchising those who were deprived of their rights, than on punishing or excluding any from their homes or their rights as citizens; he urges that under and by means of Napoleon the nation was 'gradually approaching, without shock or agitation, to a normal state, in which liberty would have been the support of power and the guarantee of the general well-being, instead of being a weapon of war and a torch of discord;' that it was he, and none but he, who 'closed the yawning gulf of revolution.' Next, vindicating the general wisdom of his uncle's administration, he urges that the Empire of the first Napoleon was not really warlike but peaceful in its intention, that the emperor desired nothing so much as an honourable peace with the rest of Europe, and especially with England, and that his ultimate object was 'to substitute among the nations of Europe the social state for the state of nature, making the interests of the individual subordinate to his municipal and civil interests, these to national interests, and national to European interests, and all to the highest interests of humanity.' In fine, according to the prince, the emperor, ‘if fortune had not abandoned him, would have reconstructed Europe. To cement the European association, he would have caused the adoption of a European code, correcting the judicial errors of European countries, much as the Court of Cassation corrects the errors of the tribunals of France. He would have founded a European institute, to animate, direct, and bring into harmonious co-operation all the learned institutions of Europe; and further, the uniformity of moneys, weights, and measures; and last of all, the uniformity of legislation would have been secured by his intervention.' And then he draws out, in the following terse and pregnant phrases, the general tendency of those 'ideas which animated the emperor. 'The Idées Napoleoniennes bear the character of ideas which regulate the movement of societies, since they

advance of their own force, though deprived of their author, like a mass which, launched into space, must arrive by its own gravity at its destined goal. There is no need to reconstruct the system of the emperor; be patient, and it will reconstruct itself. Sovereigns and peoples all will aid in working out its re-establishment, because every sensible man will see in it a guarantee of order, of peace, and of prosperity. And thus he sums up the result of his retrospect. "The period of the Empire was the period of war against the old European system. The old system triumphed ; but notwithstanding the fall of Napoleon, his "Ideas" have spread and are still spreading in every direction. The conquerors themselves have adopted the ideas of the conquered; and nations are wearying themselves with efforts to restore that which Napoleon established, or at least sought to establish among them. In France, especially, there is an incessant demand, under other names and other forms, for the realisation of the ideas of the emperor. Whenever a great work or a great public measure is to be carried into effect, it is generally a project of Napoleon that is executed, or merely completed. Every act of power, every proposition of the Chamber, is made in some way or other to refer to Napoleon, in order to obtain popularity. From one word which falls from his lips men now construct an entire system.' From the middle of the year 1838 down to the month of August 1840, when he left England for Boulogne, not for the purpose of exciting a sanguinary revolution, as has sometimes been asserted, but simply with the hope and object of eliciting a spontaneous expression of the national will of the French people in reference to the government of Louis Philippe, and to the form and principles of government most in harmony with the wishes and interests of the nation at large, Louis Napoleon continued to live in England; and here he imbibed those amicable feelings which he has ever cherished, both as a member of the Republic and as head of the Empire of France, towards the country which extended to him the ægis of its hospitality and protection when exiled and hunted from the land of his adoption. These feelings of sincere friendship, it is only right to remark here, he has never been contented with professing, but has always carried out in fact; and if ever he has alluded to the necessity of 'revenging the defeat of Waterloo,' it is scarcely necessary to remark that there is a peaceful as well as a warlike manner in which retaliation may be made for every defeat.

And if, while resident in London, the prince did not spend his time in indolence, still less did he make use of it in order to take note of our weak points, so as to profit hereafter by his knowledge of them. It was never said or breathed against him that he went down surreptitiously to Portsmouth or Plymouth, in order to ascertain the weakness of our national defences, with a view to attack us hereafter. On the contrary, he studied English men, English women, and English literature; studied our countrymen in themselves and as

they are; mingling in general society with but little reserve, and endeavouring to gain that stand-point from which he could take an intelligent and appreciative view of our thoughts, our habits, our laws, and our institutions. He was to be seen at our theatres, our operas, our concerts, and on our race-courses, and he played his part, as one of the contending knights, in the revival of that display of medieval chivalry, the Eglinton tournament, in the autumn of 1839.

It was while he was thus living in England that the Socialist émeute under Barbès occurred in France. It was scarcely to be supposed that any movement of the kind could fail to interest the prince; but he speedily saw through its meaning, and refused in any way to countenance it. He had plenty of enemies, indeed, ready to accuse him of complicity in it; and one at least of the London daily papers did not hesitate to express its belief that he was at the bottom of the plot. But he publicly and emphatically denied the charge by a letter published at the time in the public journals, so that, with all wellinformed and well-meaning persons of every shade of opinion, he was acquitted of all connection with the levelling and bloodthirsty objects of such a Socialist conspiracy. In his letter on this occasion, the prince remarked, that 'if he were the life and soul of a conspiracy, he would dare to be the leader of it in the day of danger, and would not deny it after a defeat.' It was felt that these indeed were words of truth and sincerity. He had shewn them once to be true at Strasbourg, and the day was perhaps nearer than either he or any one else then thought, when he should be called to prove them true again. Indeed, it must be owned that, without perfect truthfulness and sincerity, he never could have achieved that success which has ultimately astonished the world.

On the 6th of August 1840, with but little preparation and concerted action, and attended only by Count Montholon and General Voison, and a few faithful followers, Louis Napoleon ventured upon an enterprise even more rash and inconsiderate than that of Strasbourg-nothing less than a hostile invasion of France. Overcome by the intensity of his convictions, and apparently not reckoning the consequences, he crossed over to Boulogne from the English coast, and landed on the shore of France, in order, as it appeared, to make an experiment on the feelings of the nation towards the imperial House and the eagle of the Empire. He scattered around him a few copies of a printed proclamation announcing a change in the government. The little party marched through the town to the guard-house, shouting the well-remembered cry of 'Vive l'Empereur.' The soldiers were called out to join the prince's standard; but probably on account of the suddenness of the coup de main, and a doubt as to the identity of the newly landed stranger with the nephew of the great Napoleon, the main body of soldiers, and their officers, with the exception of a single subaltern,