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destiny." He planned the invasion of Egypt, and thus wantonly invaded the Turkish dominions. After the peace of Amiens he sought pretexts for renewing war with England, and threatened her with invasion. Foiled in that, he suddenly fell upon Austria, then Prussia, then Russia. Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland made him fancy himself master of Europe. After the peace of Tilsit he wantonly invaded Spain and Portugal, and annexed them to his empire. Then he renewed war with Austria, and, having cleared the way to Russia, he set out on his fatal march to Moscow. Ile had foes all round him now, and fighting his way back with difficulty to France, he arrived in Paris to find the armies of indignant Europe marching upon that city. His fate was at hand, but he met it bravely and was overpowered. An exile in Elba, he still had faith in his "destiny," and escaped to France to receive his crowning defeat at Waterloo. Ile left France in the occupation of foreign soldiers.

Louis Napoleon began his military career by making war upon France in two attempts to revive the prestige of the name of Bonaparte-one at Strasbourg, the other at Bologne. He became an object of ridicule, as well as a prisoner at Ham. But fortune favored him; he escaped, and, after the revolu tion of 1848, was elected a member of the assembly, and subsequently president. He, like his uncle, was a product of the revolution, and, by means of the army, seated himself on the imperial throne. We have already alluded to his arresting and imprisoning or exiling a number of his political opponents, and we do it again here to point out that in so doing he only imitated his uncle, who, on becoming provisional consul, immediately banished fifty "anarchists." "That," said Napoleon, "was the first act of my administration.”*

Napoleon III. proclaimed an empire of peace, but before three months elapsed he joined England in an alliance against Russia. He announced his determination "to tear up the treaties of 1815." The first step was war with Russia: it was popular and so engaged public attention that he had time to

* Las Casas.

consolidate his empire. Once more imitating his uncle, he created a senate, or upper chamber, of well-paid, pliable adherents, and made his surviving uncle, Jerome Bonaparte, president of it. Pensions and palaces, dotations and decorations, were prodigally bestowed on his relatives, connexions and personal friends and accomplices. The second empire was being carried out on precisely the same plan as the first. The Legion of Honor was revived, and titles of nobility were revived. Fialin became a duke, and Walewski and De Morny

counts.

After the Crimean war there was a brief interval of peace in Europe, but France carried on military operations in Anam and against the Chinese. Then, in 1859, the emperor undertook to liberate Italy, with what result we have already seen. This was a purely gratuitous attack on Austria, and it might be contended that he had no right to make it. But he did, and so the treaties of 1815, in which Austria figured, were torn up. The prestige of France stood high: the French army, believing itself to be the best in the world, panted for more “glory,” and looked to the man they were maintaining on the throne for it. Ile cast his eyes around the horizon, and saw troubles arising among ourselves; these resulted in open war between the Northern and the Southern States. Here was a grand opportunity for playing a part. He proposed to himself the dismemberment of our Union, but he wanted the nerve to attempt it alone. He, therefore, invited England to join him in the enterprise, but she declined the honor as rather perilous. Twice he essayed to persuade her, but failed. It was annoying that so glorious an opportunity of breaking up a rising empire should be lost; but he bethought him of Mexico, as his uncle had done of Spain, and he determined to effect by military force the "pacification" of that so-called republic. The non-payment of the claims of certain Frenchmen against the Mexican government sufficed for a pretext; but again the emperor preferred having allies in the affair, in order to conceal the real nature of his designs. England and Spain were invited to join in the attempt to make Mexico pay her debts. At first they concurred; but as

soon as they discovered that that was merely a pretext, and that the emperor's real design was the conquest of the country, they renounced the affair altogether. The invasion which followed was as wanton as that of Spain in 1807; but it might extend the influence of France and help the Southern States; and, by an afterthought, Napoleon perceived it might be made available to regain the friendship of Austria by offering the conquered country to one of her archdukes, in case he (Napoleon) should find it difficult or dangerous for him to annex it to France.

The story of this disastrous enterprise is too fresh in everybody's memory to need recapitulation. The first Napoleon would have conducted it in person; his nephew confided it to Bazaine and Forey. The archduke Maximilian was saluted emperor of Mexico. But in the meantime the civil war in the United States had ceased, and the Federal government was in a position to intervene. It threatened to expel the French from Mexico, and even sent an ultimatum to the emperor requiring him to withdraw his army by a given day.* There was no alternative but to comply. He did not dare to venture on a war with this country, and moreover a strong republican party was growing up in France, which he had to watch narrowly. He sought to evade the humiliation by asking Maximilian to resign, and he withdrew his support from him. Bazaine returned to France, having married a very rich relative of Juarez, and poor Maximilian expiated his ambition and folly at Queretaro.

We cannot refrain from adding the last sad scene of this miserable affair. It is the last interview of the unfortunate Carlotta, the wife of Maximilian, with Napoleon III. She has come in all haste from Mexico, by desire of her husband, to explain to him the situation there and implore assistance. She arrives in Paris and puts up at the Grand Hotel, but no notice is taken of her. She hastens to St. Cloud, throws herself at the emperor's feet, and exhausts all her arguments and supplications. He remains sombre and icy, and promises

*Le Dernier des Napoléons, p. 194.

an answer to-morrow.

On the morrow he goes to the Grand Hotel, and coldly announces to the unhappy exile that circumstances have changed, and he can do nothing more for Mexico. Carlotta, terrified at the disastrous consequences of this desertion, wildly exclaims: "But this is our death-warrant!" and making a last desperate appeal to the past and the future, she prays and implores; but he rises to take his leave, and says in an unsympathizing tone: "It is useless to persist, madame; not another man, not another franc." It was too much. The courage and brain of the poor wife gave way simultaneously. Despair and madness seized her. She stood up before the emperor, her face on fire, her eyes flashing, and cried out in a heated voice: "Ah! then I was not deceived. I know you now, you executioner of my family! Yes, take your revenge upon the grand daughter of Louis Phillippe-of him who snatched you from poverty and the scaffold!" The emperor quitted the room, but, like one of the avenging Eumenides, the princess followed him down the staircase, shrieking out these words: "Perhaps you think, by means of your police, to force from me your letters and your promises; but you are mistaken;-they are in a safe place. Be off! and may God curse you as he did Cain!" She then descended into the court-yard, called for a carriage, cast herself wildly into it, her hair streaming loose, her eyes wandering, her lips trembling. She murmured "air! air!" and fell fainting on the cushions. She was insane! They sent her to Rome, to the Vatican. It is said that Napoleon I., in his dreams at St. Helena, used to see the spectre of the Duke d'Enghien. It would not be surprising if Napoleon III. in his visions saw the murdered Maximilian and his poor lunatic wife!*

The author of that searching work, Le Dernier des Napoléon (supposed by some to be Count Beust, late prime minister of Austria, but who is more probably some influential partisan of the Count de Chambord), attributes the Mexican war to the empress Eugenie; † while the Liberal opposition in the press and the Corps Legislatif attributed it to a desire for plunder,

* Le Dernier des Napoléon, p. 40.

VOL. XXVII.-NO. LIII.

+ See Chap. 11.

2

making it a mere question of dollars and of speculation in mines or land. We do not agree with either view, though it is possible that the empress, backed by the Church party, was anxious for the downfall of Juarez and his party, who had deprived the Church in Mexico of much of its wealth, and therefore she entered heartily into the scheme. It is also probable that, had the expedition succeeded, a large indemnity would have found its way into the imperial treasury, with, perhaps, a naval station on the Atlantic seaboard and another on the Pacific. But the real design was the emperor's own. His grand idea, as formulated in his letter to General Forey, was to resuscitate in America the influence of the Latin race, and to put a stop to the ambitious aspirations of the United States, by establishing a Franco-Spanish empire in the centre of the continent as a barrier to their further progress south, or, failing that, Mexico might come to terms and accept a French protectorate. "Si, au contraire," says the emperor, "le Mexique conserve son indépendance et maintient l'integrité de son territaire, si un gouvernement stable s'y constitue avec l'assistance de la France, nous aurons rendue à la race Latine de l' autre côté de l'ocean sa force et son prestige." Here we have the development of one of the Napoleonic ideas, that as the ruler of France he was at the head of the Latin race.

We have said that the invasion of Mexico was as wanton as that of Spain by the first Napoleon; we may add that it was as fatal to its projector. It did not, it is true, cost France 300,000 of her best troops, as the Spanish war did, but it jeopardized her relations with this country, and destroyed Napoleon the Third's prestige, both for success and for astuteness; it gave a fresh weapon to his enemies, the republicans and the monarchists, to use against him, and they were not slow to avail themselves of it. To regain his waning popularity he had recourse to his uncle's expedient of surrounding himself with a brilliant court, and making Paris a centre of attraction for foreigners. By this means he would gratify his own taste for splendor and luxury, and that of the empress, and at the same time secure the affection of the Parisians.

The Tuileries offered ostentatious hospitality to foreigners,

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