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CHARLES LOUIS NAPOLEON is the third and last son of Louis Bonaparte, and his wife, Hortense Beauharnais; and was born at Paris, on April 20, in the year 1808. Accordingly, he is, at present, forty-three years of age. the Bonaparte family, France has the fate of being governed by foreign blood. The Emperor Napoleon was a native of Corsica. His nephew, the President, is of West-Indian origin, on his mother's side. His father, Louis, the youngest brother but one of the Emperor, and the fifth child of Charles Bonaparte, a judge at Ajaccio, and of Letitia Ramolino, was born September 2, 1778. Though an intelligent and honourable man, and though raised by his powerful brother to the throne of Holland, he never possessed the confidence of the Emperor, whose maxim, in regard to his brothers, whom he elevated into princes, was, that their first duty was to himself, their second to France; and, only when they had discharged these obligations, were they to give a preference to the interests of the nations over whom they were set. After laying down the crown of Holland (1810), which had, in a manner, been forced upon him; and, after being formally separated from his wife, Louis, taking the title of Count de Saint-Leu, from an estate near Paris, the gift of the Emperor, lived for a long time as a private person in Florence, where he died, in the year 1846. His wife, Hortense, was born in Paris, April 10, 1783. Her father, the Viscount de Beauharnais, born May 28, 1760, a native of Martinique, married in that island Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, who was born there January 23, 1763. Migrating into

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France, the Viscount, after holding offices of distinction, lost his life in the murderous collisions of the first French Revolution. Josephine's name has not escaped reproach. Her husband doubted whether Hortense was his child or that of a Creole; who, having fallen in love with Josephine Tascher, when only fourteen years of age, followed her to Paris. A divorce, legally sought for by her husband, was fused. Allowing her a liberal maintenance, however, he lived apart. Neither the mother nor the daughter can be considered a model of domestic affection. Nor were the domestic influences, under which the President was brought up, of the most favourable kind. In a second marriage, Josephine was allied to Napoleon Bonaparte. Thus Hortense, the President's mother, became the Emperor's daughter-in-law. By her marriage with Napoleon's brother, Louis, a second bond was formed; the daughter-in-law became also a sister-in-law. By a double tie, then, is the President connected with the Emperor. Some authorities point to a yet more intimate relationship between Napoleon and Hortense. Certainly the Emperor had a peculiar tenderness towards Napoleon Louis Charles, Hortense's first son. On his death (1807), however, and on the death of his next younger brother (1831), Napoleon Louis, the family rights and feelings settled on Louis Napoleon. It has already appeared that Louis and Hortense were not happy in their conjugal connexion. So great and lasting an impression does his home make on every man, that for a right appreciation of the President's character, one or two additional facts,

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relating to his parents, may not be useless. Without being beautiful, Hortense was intelligent and amiable. The domestic infelicity which she saw in the home of her father, she saw again in the home of her father-in-law. On his return from Egypt, in 1799, Napoleon, for two whole days, refused to see his wife, Josephine, with whom, as he believed, he had reason to be dissatisfied. A divorce was spoken of, and it was only by the entreaties of Hortense, and her brother, Eugene, that General Bonaparte became reconciled to his wife. The nuptials of Louis and Hortense were solemnized on the 4th of January, 1802. Two years, however, passed before the married pair felt any attachment to each other. It was contrary to his will that Louis had given his hand to Hortense. The alliance was a result of intrigue on the part of Josephine, who seeing Napoleon's brothers and sisters hostile to her, hoped, by the marriage, to better her own position in the family. Her expectation was disappointed. Hortense was scarcely less unwilling than Louis, when she sacrificed herself to her mother's plans. She was attached to Duroc, to whom, indeed, Napoleon had assigned his daughter-in-law. A marriage, formed under such auspices, was not likely to be very happy, or to afford the best moral discipline.

After her husband's abdication, Hortense took up her abode in Paris, which she did not quit when in 1814 Napoleon was compelled to make way for the Bourbons. Before the brief episode of "the Hundred Days," she was the soul of the Imperial party in the French metropolis. When Napoleon in June 1815, after the battle of Waterloo, passed eight days of imprisonment at Malmaison, she was his only companion. On his expatriation to Saint Helena, she accepted an invitation from the King of Bavaria, and took up her abode at Augsburg. In the year 1824 she purchased an estate at Arenenberg, in Switzerland, where she passed her time in summer.

mother who were separated. Were there no other cause of this alienation, his grandmother was accounted unfaithful, and his mother yielded to a marriage of convenience, if she was not unduly complacent toward her fatherin-law.

Louis Napoleon was from the first marked out for social and political distinction. Baptised in a palace (Fontainebleau), he had for godfather and godmother an Emperor and an Empress, Napoleon and his second wife, Marie Louise. His birth was regarded with joy by the Emperor, as one means of transmitting his name and his dominion to posterity. The feeling did not entirely pass away when there was given him a son of his own loins in the King of Rome. These, the only two princes born under the empire, were welcomed into the world with similar demonstrations of gladness. Military honours and tokens of social homage accompanied their birth. Through all the lines of the Grand Army, the wide spaces of the Empire, and the kingdom of Holland, it was announced to the world by salvos of artillery. The child of Louis and Hortense received at baptism the name of Charles Louis. At his uncle's express request an addition was thereto made of the loved imperial designation, Napoleon. That designation is at once the emblem and the star of the President's destiny. Regarding it as the source and the guarantee of his power, he regards it also as the guide of his conduct. The word Napoleon recalls an empire. That Empire was the creature of the people's will. Hence the heir to the name Napoleon is pledged to two things hitherto disjoined and considered incapable of union, an Empire and a Republic. Here is the aim and here the solution of the President's life. He is the representative of a new order of things, a dynasty founded on new principles, of a throne established by the people's will, upheld by the people's sympathies, and ostensibly intended for the people's good. He is the heir and the champion of an Imperial crown, whose essence and whose glory are to be found in Republican institutions. This statement, to which reference will hereafter have to be made, is set down thus early in our hero's life, because it is indicated in his infancy, and affords the

indeed, must the germs of the thought have been placed in the heart of the young prince by his nearest relatives and associates. Filled with the idea and actuated by the desire of founding a new dynasty, Napoleon, on his assuming the Imperial sceptre, caused its descent to be legally fixed, first in the male offspring of his own body lawfully begotten; second, in sons whom he might adopt; and, thirdly, in the direct male descendants of his two brothers, Joseph and Louis. Joseph having no sons, and the two elder sons of Louis being dead, the right of inheritance fell to the third son, who was formally recognised by the Emperor and his Senate as the representative of the Imperial family. This honour, which for the time was taken away by the birth of the King of Rome, afterwards the Duke Von Reichstadt, came back at the death of that young Prince in 1832.

The regret which Napoleon felt at the loss of his eldest nephew, in 1807, was not mitigated at the promise which he saw in his brother's second son. His affections, therefore, were naturally turned to the third, who became a favourite with him. A touching scene took place between the two when the fallen Emperor took leave of the child who clung to his side. After "the Hundred Days," Charles Louis Napoleon was taken by his mother to Augsburg, and afterwards into Italy. From the year 1824 he resided with her at Arenenburg, while his elder brother lived with his father at Florence. The first considerable teacher of Louis Napoleon was Lebas, the son of the associate of Robespierre, who, rather than outlive his master, shot himself. Under his instructions and the instructions of the Greek scholar Hage, he made rapid progress in learning. Proceeding with his mother to Thurgau, he was made a citizen of that place, and pursued military studies, for which he had already shown an inclination. He took part in the military exercises of the garrison of Constance, and studied in the military school of Thun, in Bern, under General Dufour, who, when efforts were made to expel the Prince from Switzerland, in 1838, warmly espoused his cause. He was still engaged in military pursuits when he received information of the Revolution of July. The high hopes he then formed were little diminished by hearing that Louis

Philippe had taken the place of the elder Bourbons. From them the Bonaparte family had nothing to expect but prosecution or exile similar to that which its members had already experienced at their hands. Now, however, Louis Napoleon and the rest began to breathe a new life. They relied on promises of favour repeatedly made by the new monarch. But promises made by Kings in exile are proverbially worthless; and when did Louis Philippe keep a promise which he judged it his momentary interest to break? Acting, however, on the presumption that his words were of value, and that France would have need of the aid of all her sons, Louis Napoleon wrote to the King of the Barricades, requesting permission to serve in the army. An answer was given in a renewal of the decree of banishment.

The new aspect of political events invited the members of the Bonaparte family to meet together in council. Rome was chosen as the place. There, in December 1830, were assembled Letitia, the grandmother; her sons, Cardinal Fesch and Jerome; Hortense, and Louis Napoleon. They were troubled times. The world seemed teeming with revolutions. At Rome the peril was imminent. The presence of Louis Napoleon occasioned fear in the mind of the authorities. An intimation being in vain made to Cardinal Fesch, fifty Papal soldiers seized the troublesome young Prince, and conveyed him over the frontiers. Expelled from Rome, Louis Napoleon threw himself with ardour into the Italian Revolution which broke out in the ensuing February. Tricoloured flags waved in Ferrara, Urbino, and several other cities. There was, however, a want of union; there was also a want of high military talent. Louis Napoleon and his brother formed moving columns, and endeavoured to organise the revolutionary efforts. Aided by General Sercognani, they defeated the Papal forces in several places. Great rejoicing prevailed in the camp of the insurgents; alarm and confusion filled the Vatican. Both were of short duration. The crooked and double-tongued policy of the French and Austrian rulers gained the upper hand. The Princes were deprived of their command, and banished from the soil of Italy. Meanwhile the elder brother

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fell sick at Faenza, near which city he shortly after died (March 27, 1831). Louis Napoleon himself became unwell. What was he to do? Whither could he turn? A mother's love came to his aid. Hortense, taking him as one of her domestics, conducted him safely through lines of Austrian soldiers, in a constant succession of perils, to Cannes, the auspicious spot where the head of the family had landed on quitting Elba. Escaped from a foreign enemy, they were exposed to danger in their native land, and might be made prisoners by the first policeman who should recognise them. They resolved, if they were able, to make their way to Paris, in the hope that in Louis Philippe they should always find a friend. Had they not his word? Did not the Emperor, in 1815, permit that sovereign's mother, as well as his aunt, to remain in France? Did he not settle on the former an annuity of 400,000 francs, and on the latter an annuity of 200,000? Was not this done at the entreaty of Hortense herself? And had not the King taken occasion to show respect to the Emperor? The travellers reached Paris incognito (April, 1831). Alarmed at their arrival, Louis Philippe had recourse to duplicity and fair words. Meanwhile Louis Napoleon was seized with a fever, which made his mother fear she was on the point of losing her last and only son. The King's apprehensions increasing, the fugitives were commanded to leave the country. They found refuge in England, where they were well received by the aristocracy; but occasioned alarm and trouble in the mind of Talleyrand and other upholders of the then existing continental system. In England, Louis Napoleon received invitations to return to his native land, in order to take the lead in efforts for the restoration of his

family. Under the prudent advice of his mother he preferred to wait for events. Furnished, at length, with a French passport, Hortense and Louis set out incognito (August 7, 1831) for Switzerland; and, after visiting several places of special interest to them, reached Arenenberg, of which they were very fond, because its canton, after the last downfall of the Emperor, had withstood all the efforts and intrigues of diplomacy to deprive the banished Princes of that asylum.

With the death of the Duke of

Reichstadt (July 22, 1832) began a new phase of Louis Napoleon's life. Then he became the acknowledged head of the Bonapartists; and then even an imperial throne seemed not too high an object for his ambition. Henceforth he was actuated by the most vivid hopes and the most distressing fears. Secret alliances with his partisans, conspiracies, intrigues, daring enterprises, ambuscades, and personal risks, so enter into the life of our hero, as to call to mind the romantic vicissitudes of the last of the Stuarts. At first the aim of these endeavours extended to little more than to keep the Prince before the eyes and on the tongues of the French people. But this was a means to an end, and that end the restoration of the Bonaparte dynasty. To effect this object, a party was gradually formed in France. They would not openly avow their purpose, but, knowing that they were supported by the sympathies of a large portion of the army and the people, they ceased not to improve their organisation, and to extend their influence.

Other countries contributed to fix the eyes of men on Louis Napoleon, and to encourage in his own mind the loftiest expectations. He received an invitation to take the lead in the Polish Revolution (August, 1831), and was on the point of proceeding into the country, when he received news of the fall of Warsaw. The throne of Portugal seemed within his reach. He profited by the occasion to display his self-denial (Dec. 1835), as an act of affectionate regard for his native country. In order not to be lost from sight, he employed his leisure (1832-5) in putting forth writings in which, with greater or less clearness, he allowed his aims and his principles to be discerned. In the year 1832 he published his "Rêveries Politiques" ("Political Reveries "), iu which he advanced the opinion that France could be regenerated only by men of Napoleon's blood, that they alone were in a condition to unite the idea entertained by the Republicans with the demands of the martial spirit of the nation. In an appendix appeared in outline a constitution for France. In essence it is democratic; in form imperial. In his " Considérations Politiques et Militaires sur la Suisse" ("Political and Military Considerations on Switzerland"),