In November, 1851, the imminence of the coup d’état was talked about all over Paris as being necessary and anticipated. In the salons it was a topic of “chaff”; at the Elysée (the Prince-President’s abode) it was studied in detail; the Church hoped for it; the people expected it; the army reckoned upon it. The plan (says the pseudonymous Baron d’Ambès) was sketched at the end of October by Saint-Arnaud and Maupas, whom Louis Napoleon informed, about this time, of Changarnier’s conspiracy against the Elysée. To wait longer would be fatal. The lists of those who were to be proscribed were prepared in September. The programme for December 1 was drawn up to the most minute details. From 3 to 4 a.m. the police commissaries were to be received by the Préfet. At 5.30 the Palace of the Assembly would be occupied. At 6 arrest of Generals, representatives of Parliament, heads of societies, and dangerous democrats. At 6.30 proclamations were to be affixed to the walls, troops to be posted near the houses of those persons who were to be arrested, and positions for fighting were to be taken up by the military. By 7 o’clock it was to be “all over.” At 8 the Minister of the Interior was to send instructions to the Préfets.
The “men of the coup d’état” were divided into three classes:
First, Saint-Arnaud, Morny, and Maupas.
Second, General Magnan, Persigny, and Fleury.
Third, Baroche, Rouher, F. Barrot, De Parieu, Dumas, Véron, Romieu, Fould, Magne, Drouyn de Lhuys, De Royer, Schneider, Fortoul, Espinasse, Billault, etc.
The programme was carried out to the letter on December 1, and a year later the Prince-President had exchanged that title for the supreme one of Napoleon III., Emperor of the French. The Bonapartists’ excuse for the “coup” was that it was absolutely necessary to “sweep the board” of the President’s opponents in Parliament and out of it, and also in the army. There was sanguinary fighting in the streets, it is true, and the President was branded throughout the World as a perjurer and a criminal of the deepest dye, who had “waded through blood to a throne.” To many historians of the period he remains the “Man of December.” To later writers, not overburdened with a knowledge of the facts, he is the “Man of Sedan,” a pitiful and an ignominious figure, unworthy of sympathy.
The new Constitution was promulgated on January 14, 1852. It confided the Government of the French Republic for ten years to “Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the present President of the Republic.” (Prince Jérôme, ex-King of Westphalia, was President of the Senate.)
On November 4 the Prince sent a message to the Senate, saying that the nation had “loudly manifested its will to re-establish the Empire.” This message was dated from the Palace of St. Cloud. The Prince had now governed France for four years. A Committee of the Senate was appointed to draw up a report, and on November 6 it submitted to the Senate several resolutions, the series being known as “Senatus Consultum.” Article I declared that the “Imperial dynasty is re-established. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is Emperor of the French under the name of Napoleon III.” The imperial dignity was made hereditary from male to male, “to the perpetual exclusion of the females and their descendants.” The Senate passed and signed all the articles, and on Sunday, November 21, the voting “for the Empire” began, and lasted several days.
On December 2, 1852, the anniversary of the coup d’état, in the afternoon, the Emperor, who had been “proclaimed” at St. Cloud the previous evening, made his official entry into his capital. It was wet and cold, and, although all Paris had turned out to see the military pageant, the enthusiasm might have been greater than it was. The Emperor, mounted on a showy charger, looked anything but bright. He