to London. Always the friend and supporter of order and law, in the following April he gave a new pledge of his opposition to the views of the friends of anarchy, by enrolling himself as a special constable on an occasion when it was expected that the peace would be broken in the streets of London by organised bands of agitators.

A proposal was now made in the National Assembly of France to repeal the proscription against the Bonaparte family, with the single exception of the prince himself. This led to a strong protest from the prince, who wrote to the 'Citizens Representatives' asking the grounds of this invidious distinction, adding: 'The same reasons which have made me ere this take up arms against the government of Louis Philippe, would lead me, if my services were required, to devote myself to the defence of the Assembly, as being the result of universal suffrage. In the presence of the national sovereignty I cannot and will not claim more than my rights as a French citizen; but these I will ever demand with an energy which an honest heart must desire, from the knowledge that it has never done anything to render it unworthy of its country.'

The fact is that men of every shade of opinion were agreed in one point, that of opposing the one man who was the special object of their fears, and whose independent position made him the antagonist of all petty intrigues and sectional manœuvres. In spite of the proscription which stood still unrepealed, the prince had been elected as their representative by several important constituencies; and it was not until Paris had been sickened of the anarchy and bloodshed which came to a head in the Red and Socialist insurrection of the following June, when Cavaignac and Lamartine, the former as 'dictator,' and the latter by his magic eloquence, helped to calm the storm, that any chance seemed to be offered to the prince to return to Paris.

In the following September, five different departments returned Louis Napoleon as their representative, by majorities so emphatic that it was impossible any longer to enforce the proscription against him. He took his seat in the Assembly on the 26th of the same month; and after two months wasted in the struggles of party against party, the conviction gradually forced itself upon the minds of all that his name was the only one which offered a chance of annihilating discord by reconciling parties and interests. From being, therefore, an outcast and proscribed citizen, to use a common phrase, he had rapidly become 'a necessity;' and when it was resolved that a president of the republic should be chosen in the following December, the choice of the people, whose votes were given by universal suffrage, fell on him by an overwhelming majority; the issue of the voting was as under: Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, 5,434,226; General Cavaignac, 1,448,107; M. Ledru Rollin, 370,119; M. Raspail, 36,900; M. A. de Lamartine, 17,910; General Changarnier, 4790.

This response of the people of France to the name of Louis

Napoleon Bonaparte was rendered the more emphatic by the fact that Cavaignac was regarded as the 'official' candidate, and that his respected name and the fresh memory of his recent services as president of the council and dictator must have secured to him many votes. But Louis Napoleon was looked upon as the living embodiment of a principle-a principle for which he had lived and had suffered the principle of which his name was the symbol, and which, it was clear, was still as deeply rooted as ever in the affections of the people of France.

In his new capacity as President of the new republic, he never compromised the opinions which he had ever avowed by deed or word. His opinion was unchanged that the imperial system, with an imperial head, was the best system for France. But he had found a republican form of government established; and his real and sincere desire was that this form should be administered in its integrity, irrespective of factions and parties. He called on all Frenchmen who loved their country to 'unite in promoting the stability and prosperity of the republic;' but he felt, and he told the Assembly that this result never would or could be attained unless the person intrusted with the chief authority should be honestly and heartily supported by the leading members of their body. It was in vain to administer a republic, if Orleanists, and Legitimists, and Socialists were allowed each to pull in a different direction. It was in good faith that Louis Napoleon promised his adhesion to the republican experiment; and long and hard were his struggles to effect the fulfilment of the conditions under which he had accepted the office of president; and it was only when his exertions failed, and it was shewn by experience that some higher and stronger sanction than that of the presidential chair was needed in order to control the eccentricities of individuals and the strife of parties, which had been largely fostered by the clubs, that he resolved on following another course.

For two years, however, this chaotic state of things continued ; and even after the election of a new chamber, the Prince President found it a most difficult task to give unity to its counsels, or to hold rival parties in check. He therefore now commenced a series of tours in the provinces, in each of which he shewed himself to the people as the advocate of sound social measures, and anxious to redress all local grievances, and to develop the internal resources of the country. These tours brought out more and more strongly the popular sentiments in his favour as the true representative of the national glory. Meantime, the Socialists and the clubs were not idle in their work of sowing dissensions, and perplexing the president of the newly chosen chamber, in the hope of driving him to throw down the reins of state, and to allow them to go on in their anarchical designs. This state of things reached its crisis early in 1851, when the systematic opposition of conflicting parties, and the menacing

attitude assumed by General Changarnier, as commander of the army of Paris, in whom were centered the hopes of the Bourbons and Orleanists, brought matters to a 'dead-lock;' and, to add a fresh source of complication, it was announced that in the following year the Prince de Joinville, one of the sons of the exiled king, Louis Philippe, would be set up against the president as a rival candidate for the chair, with the programme of 'war to the knife against England.' The Socialists, too, it was known, were looking forward to the presidential election of 1852 as a convenient opportunity for overturning society at large.

It would be impossible, within the space of this paper, to give an account of the successive steps by which the president of the republic was led to seek the realisation of his favourite theory in his own person, and to exchange the chair of a president for the crown and the throne of an emperor. The factions and intrigues of the last three years had taught him that the republic was a 'delusion and a sham,' or, at all events, that it contained within itself no element of permanence; and that, in reality, however grandly the name of a republic might sound, it was as contrary to the genius as to the desires of the heart of France as a nation. It was also growing clearer to him day by day that his own power as president was far from sufficient to restrain the various discordant elements that were at work within the state, and, in fact, that it was morally impossible to reach the end of his term of office as president without a fresh outbreak and fresh bloodshed. 'Having cherished, though in vain, a hope of ruling France, as a republic, in a way conducive to its real interests,' we may suppose him to have said to the French people, 'I have found that I am myself mistaken, and that that form of government is not acceptable to the nation; I therefore throw myself again upon you; I ask you to restore France to that condition in which she stood under the first Empire. I firmly believe the policy of that Empire to be the only one under which France can reach the highest degree of prosperity, and accomplish her high destiny. If such be your opinion too, let that Empire be restored. I do not wish to represent any faction or party in the state; my aim is to be the representative of France in its entirety. I place my hopes, my intentions, my desires, in your hands; and if it be your will that the Empire should be restored, and in my person, then I believe that she will rise to a higher prosperity than she has as yet attained; and that the nations of Europe will be found to acquiesce in your decision.'

This was, in effect, the appeal which Louis Napoleon made to the French people. The result was that by an almost unanimous vote he was raised to the Empire; and if there be any one man of whom it can ever be said that he represents a nation, it must be owned that that man is Louis Napoleon. This was shewn by the coup d'état, for which he has been so severely criticised.

At the commencement of December, it was clear that the French

executive possessed no power to provide for the public safety. The choice was anarchy or despotism. The fact is not to be disguised that Louis Napoleon was under no obligation to shelter the French from the consequences of their perversity. As simply President of the Republic, he was at liberty to resign office if circumstances shewed that his rule was no longer practicable or acceptable. That is the strictly logical view of the matter. Why, then, did he not retire from his comfortless position, and leave France to its fate? We can only understand that, by taking an irregular step, he hoped to avert the threatened dissolution of society. He seemed to perceive that there was but one course to follow for this purpose-a coup d'état. The resolution once formed, the measures necessary to give it effect were framed with a completeness and precision which insured success.

On the night of December I the prince president held a grand reception at the Elysée. When the citizens of Paris awoke on the 2d, they found a presidential decree posted on the walls announcing the step which had been taken; and also proclamations addressed to the people, calling on them to affirm or negative the step. The Assembly was declared to be dissolved, and universal suffrage reestablished. In his address to the nation, the president said: 'Persuaded that the instability of the government and the preponderance of a single Assembly are permanent causes of trouble and disorder, I submit to your wills the following basis of a constitution : I. A responsible head, named for two years. 2. Ministers dependent on the executive power alone. 3. A council of state formed of the most eminent men, preparing the laws, and supporting the discussion of them before the legislative body. 4. A legislative body discussing and voting laws, and to be nominated by universal suffrage without scrutin de liste, which falsifies the election. 5. A second Assembly, formed of all the eminent men in the country, a preponderating power, guardian of the fundamental compact and of public liberties.

'The system founded by the First Consul at the commencement of the century has already given to France repose and prosperity; and it would again guarantee them to it. Such is my profound conviction. If you share in it, declare it by your suffrages. If, on the contrary, you prefer a government without strength, monarchical or republican, borrowed from I know not what past, or from some chimerical future, reply negatively. Thus, then, for the first time since 1804, you will vote with a knowledge of what you are doing, knowing well for whom and what. If I do not obtain the majority of your suffrages, I will then call for the meeting of a new Assembly, and I will give up the charge which I have received from you. But if you believe that the cause, of which my name is the symbol-that is to say, France regenerated by the Revolution of '89, and organised by the emperor-is still your own, proclaim it by consecrating the

powers which I ask from you. Then will France and Europe be preserved from anarchy; obstacles will be removed, rivalries will have disappeared, for all will respect, in the decision of the people, the decree of Providence.'

Such was the famous coup d'état, a step which, according to some persons, was one of unmixed treachery, fraud, injustice, and spoliation; but which others regard as not only necessary in the state of parties and the general 'dead-lock' to which the government had come, but also as one of the wisest and most salutary measures that have ever been recorded in history, and thoroughly justified by the good results which followed on its adoption.

Early in the morning, a number of officers, deputies, and other individuals who were likely to offer resistance to the object in view, were arrested. Several members of the Assembly, who, on going to the chamber, found it occupied by troops, met at the mairie of the tenth arrondissement, were bidden to disperse, and on refusing to do so, were placed under arrest. On the two following days, some blood was shed in the streets of Paris, in repressing the first symptoms of a Socialistic outbreak. But this summary proceeding averted still greater evils; and it is certain that had it not been executed thus suddenly, the streets of Paris once more would have run red with blood.

The next step was to ascertain, by universal suffrage, the real verdict of the nation at large upon the important measures which the president had found it necessary to take for the interests of the country. On the 20th and 21st, the vote was taken by ballot, and the coup d'état was approved by a majority of votes, still more overwhelming than that which had raised the prince to the presidential chair—namely, 7,439,219 against 640,737.

On the 16th of the following month of January (1852), the official journal of Paris contained a proclamation in which the president laid down the heads of the new constitution. The system now inaugurated was that of the Empire, the grand principle of the constitution being the responsibility of the head of the state to the people of France-in a word, to the national will. It was but a revival of the design of the first Napoleon, with slight modifications; and the prince avowed that with its adoption his own most ardent hopes would be fulfilled, and his 'mission' be 'accomplished.'

The imperial system being thus inaugurated, Louis Napoleon at once commenced a series of measures for the encouragement of industry and of public works, which have always been a conspicuous feature in his policy, as they were in that of his uncle. France soon began to feel the benefits of the change. Vigour, energy, and consistency of action took the place of inertness, distraction, and discord both in the city and the provinces. Commerce gradually revived, and industry began to flourish.

The year 1852 was pre-eminently one of revival and progress