The skilful diplomacy which led to the alliance with England, the campaign in the Crimea, and the repulse of Russia, are too fresh in every body's recollection to bear any repetition. So far as they concern Napoleon III., the world is a witness to his matchless coolness and determination. What could be grander than the heroic inflexibility he displayed in the face of the accumulated disasters of that campaign, and the murmurs of his allies! Misfortune only seemed to nerve him to more vigorous effort. During that terrible winter of 1854-5, he appeared more like a fixed, unvarying law of nature than a man,—so immovable was he in his opposition to those who, pressed by the unlooked-for difficulties of the time, counselled a change of policy. The successful termination of the siege of Sebastopol, however, proved the justice of his calculations, and, while conquering monarchs in other times have been content to see the negotiations for peace made in some provincial town, or in a city of some neutral state, the proud satisfaction was conceded to him by Russia of having the peace conferences held in his own capital.
But while commemorating the success of his efforts to raise his country to a commanding position among the nations, we must not forget the great enterprises of internal improvement which he has set on foot within his empire. Who can recall what Paris was under Louis Philippe, or the time of the republic, and compare it with the Paris of to-day, without admiring the genius of Napoleon III.? Who does not recognize a wonderful capacity for the administration of government in the Emperor, when he sees that nearly all of these great improvements (unlike those of Louis XIV., which impoverished the nation) will gradually but surely pay for themselves by increasing the amount of taxable property? Indeed, the improvements in the city of Paris alone are on so vast a scale as to be incomprehensible to any one unacquainted with that capital. If Napoleon were to-day to fall a victim to that organization of republican assassins which is known to exist in France, as well as in the other states of Europe, he would leave, in the Louvre, in the Bois de Boulogne, in the new Boulevards, and the extension of the Rue de Rivoli, together with the countless other public works which now adorn Paris, testimonials to the splendour of his brief reign, such as no monarch ever left before: of him, as of Sir Christopher Wren, it might be truly said, "Si quæris monumentum, circumspice."
But we must not think that Napoleon has confined his exertions to the improvement of Paris alone. Not a single province of his empire has been neglected by him, and there is scarcely a town that has not felt the influence of his policy. The foreign commerce of France has been wonderfully increased by him, and his favourite project for a ship canal through the Isthmus of Suez is now numbered among the probabilities of the age. When it is considered what a narrow strip of land separates the Red Sea from the Mediterranean, and what an immense advantage such a canal would be to all the countries bordering on the latter, it is not wonderful that Napoleon should find so many friends among the sovereigns of Europe. He has not built the magnificent new port of Marseilles merely for the accommodation of the Mediterranean coasting trade of his empire. His far-seeing eye looks upon those massive quays covered with merchandise from every quarter of the Orient, brought, not around the stormy Cape, nor by the toilsome caravan over the parching desert, but by the swift steamers of the Messageries Impériales from every port of India, through the waters which, centuries ago, rolled back and opened a path of safety to the chosen people of God.
If the old proverb be true, that a man is known by the company he keeps, it is equally true, on the other hand, that a statesman may be rightly known by examining the character of his opponents. And who are the opponents of Napoleon III.? With the exception of a few partisans of the Bourbons, (whose opposition to the Napoleon dynasty is an hereditary complaint,) they are radical demagogues, who delight to mislead the fickle multitude with the words, "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," on their lips, but the designs of anarchy and bloodshed in their hearts. Their ranks are swelled by a number of visionary "philanthropists," and a large number of newspaper scribblers deprived of their occupation by Napoleon's salutary laws against abuse of the liberty of the press, and lacking ambition to earn an honest livelihood. Among them may be found a few literary men of high reputation, who have espoused some impracticable theory of government, and would blindly throw away their well-earned fame, and shed the last drop of their ink in forcing it upon an unwilling nation.
Slander, like Death, loves a shining mark. The fact cannot be doubted, if we look at the lives of the greatest and best men the world has ever seen. In truth, a large part of the heroism of the noblest patriots, and the purest philanthropists, has been created by the necessity they have been under to bear up against the obloquy with which enmity or envy has assailed them. The Emperor Napoleon is, beyond a doubt, the best abused man in Christendom. There probably never existed a man whose every act and every motive have been more studiously misrepresented and systematically lied about than his. It cannot be wondered at, either; for he exercises too much power in the state councils of Europe, and fills too large a space in the public eye, not to be assailed by those whose evil prophecies have been falsified by his brilliant reign, and whose lawless schemes have been frustrated by his unexampled prudence and firmness.
And what right has he to complain? If St. Gregory VII. were obliged to submit for centuries to being represented as an ambitious self-seeker and unscrupulous politician, instead of a wise and far-seeing pontiff, a vanquisher of tyrants, and a self-denying saint; if St. Thomas of Canterbury be held up, in hundreds of volumes, as a monster of ingratitude towards a beneficent sovereign, and a haughty and overbearing supporter of prelatical tyranny, instead of a martyr, in defence of religious liberty against the encroachments of the civil authority; if Cardinal Wolsey be held up to public scorn as a proud and selfish prince of the Church, a glutton, and a wine-bibber, instead of a skilful administrator of government, a liberal patron of learning, and all good arts, and the sole restrainer of the evil passions of the most shameless tyrant who ever sat upon the English throne; if Cardinal Richelieu be handed down from generation to generation, painted in the blackest colours, as a scheming politician, in whose heart, wile and cruelty were mixed up in equal parts, instead of a sagacious and inflexible statesman, and a patriot who made every thing (even his religion) bend to his devotion to the glory of his beloved France; if these great men have been thus misrepresented in that history which De Maistre aptly calls "a conspiracy against truth," I do not think that Napoleon III. can reasonably complain of finding himself denounced as a tyrant, a perjurer, and a victim of all the bad passions that vex the human heart, instead of a liberator of his country from that many-headed monstrosity, miscalled the République Française, an unswerving supporter of the cause of law and religion, and the architect of the present glory and prosperity of France. It must be a great consolation to the Emperor, under the slanders which have been heaped upon him, to reflect that their authors and the enemies who hate him worst, are, for the most part, infidels and assassins, and enemies of social order. Whatever errors a man may commit, he cannot be far from the course of right so long as he is hated and feared by people of that desperate stamp. The ancient adage tells us that "a cat may look at a king"; and it is, perhaps, a merciful provision of the law of compensation that the base reptiles which fatten on the offal of slander are permitted to trail their slime over a name which is the synonyme of the power and glory of France.
When the prejudices of the present day shall have died out, the historian will relate how devoted Napoleon III. was to every thing that concerned his country's welfare. He will tell of his ceaseless care for the most common wants of his people, and of his vigilance in enforcing laws against those who wronged the poor by their dishonest dealings in the necessaries of life. He will relate how promptly he turned his back upon nobles and ambassadors to visit some of his people who had been overwhelmed by a terrible calamity, and will describe the kind, fatherly manner in which he went among them, carrying succour and consolation to all. He will not compare the Emperor to his great warrior-uncle; he will contrast the two. He will show how the uncle made all Europe fear and hate him, and how the nephew converted his enemies into allies; how the uncle manured the soil of Europe with the bones of his soldiers, and the nephew, having given splendid proofs of his ability to make war, won for himself the title of "the Pacificator of Europe"; how the uncle, through his hot-headed ambition, finally made France the prey of a hostile alliance, and the nephew brought the representatives of all the European powers around him in his capital to make peace under his supervision.
The man who, after thirty years of exile and six years of close imprisonment, can take a country in the chaotic condition in which France found itself after the revolution of 1848, and reorganize its government, place its financial affairs on a better footing than they have been before within the memory of man, double its commerce, and raise it to the highest place among the states of Europe, cannot be an ordinary man. In 1852, the Emperor said, "France, in crowning me, crowns herself;" and he has proved the literal truth of his words. He has given France peace, prosperity, and a stable government. He has imitated Napoleon I. in every one of his great and praiseworthy actions in his civil capacity, while he has not made a single one of his mistakes. And if "he that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city," this remarkable man, whose self-control is undisturbed by his most unparalleled success, is destined to be known in history as Napoleon the Great.
The character of Napoleon III. is marked by a unity and a consistency such as invariably have distinguished the greatest men. We can see this consistency in his fidelity to the cause of law and order, whether it be manifested in his services as a special constable against the Chartists of England, or as the chief magistrate of his nation against the Chartists of France. And to this conspicuous virtue of steadfastness he adds a wonderful universality of acquirements and natural genius. We see him contracting favourable loans and averting impending dangers in the monetary affairs of France, and it would seem as if his early life had been spent amid the clamours of the Bourse; we see him concentrating troops in his capital against the threats of the revolutionists, or designing campaigns against the greatest military powers of Europe; we see him maintaining a perfect composure in the midst of deadly missiles which were expected to terminate his reign and dynasty, and it would seem as if the camp had always been his home, and the dangers of the battle-field his familiar associations; we see him buying up grain to prevent speculators from oppressing his people during a season of scarcity, or imprisoning bakers for a deficiency in the weight of their loaves, or regulating the sales of meats and vegetables,—and it would seem as if he always had been a prudent housekeeper and a profound student of domestic economy; we see him laying out parks, projecting new streets and public buildings, and we question whether he has paid most attention to architecture, engineering, or landscape-gardening; we see him visiting his subjects when they have been overwhelmed by a great calamity, and he would seem to have been a disciple of St. Thomas of Villanueva, or of St. Vincent of Paul; we see him taking the lead amid the chief statesmen and diplomatists of the world, we read his powerful state papers and speeches, and we wonder where he acquired his experience; we see him, in short, under all circumstances, and it appears that there is nothing that concerns his country's welfare or glory too difficult for him to grapple with, nor any thing affecting the happiness of his poorest subject trivial enough for him to overlook. By his advocacy of the cause of the Church, he has won a place in history by the side of Constantine and Charlemagne; by his internal policy and care for the needs of his subjects, his name deserves to be inscribed with those of St. Louis and Alfred. The language which Bulwer has put into the mouth of Cardinal Richelieu might be used by Napoleon III., and would from him be only the language of historical truth:—
"I found France rent asunder,
Sloth in the mart and schism within the temple,
Brawls festering to rebellion, and weak laws
Rotting away with rust— * * * *
I have re-created France, and from the ashes
Civilization on her luminous wings
Soars phoenix-like to Jove!"