Under the stress of this new military ardor in France, agitation was revived for the return of Napoleon Bonaparte's remains from St. Helena to France. The consent of the British Government having been obtained, a decree to this effect was passed by the French Chambers. Other events helped to fan to fresh life the smouldering flames of Napoleonic imperialism. Thus the death of Napoleonic memories Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon's eldest brother, and of Marshal MacDonald, hero of Wagram, recalled a host of Napoleonic memories. On August 6, Prince Louis Napoleon deemed the time ripe for another Napoleonic rising. Crossing over from England with General Moltenon and fifty followers he attempted to incite an insurrection at Vimereux near Boulogne. He hoped to re-enact the events after Elba. Once Louis Napoleon's second fiasco more his plans ended in a fiasco. "Bonaparte or not, I see in you only a conspirator," exclaimed Colonel Puygelier. The conspirators fled back to their boat and capsized. Louis Napoleon was taken and sentenced to life imprisonment within the fortress of Ham. As a sop to popular feeling, King Louis Philippe permitted the bronze statue of the Great Napoleon to be replaced on the column of the Grande Armée in Paris.
WASHINGTON IRVING AND HIS FRIENDS
Painted by Daniel Huntington
| 1 Henry T Tackerman 2 Oliver Wendell Holmes 3 William Gilmore Simms 4 Fitz Greene Halleck 5 Nathaniel Hawthorne 6 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 7 Nathaniel Parker Willis 8 William H Prescott |
9 Washington Irving 10 James K Paulding 11 Ralph Waldo Emerson 12 William Cullen Bryant 13 John P Kennedy 14 J Fenimore Cooper 15 George Bancroft |
In England, great popular rejoicings had been occasioned by the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. A bill was passed Prince Consort Albert appointing the Prince Consort regent of England in case of the Queen's death. The royal couple were well matched. The credit of having brought about this marriage was chiefly due to Lord Melbourne. The tactful conduct of Prince Albert after the marriage fully justified his choice. Yet Prince Albert was never popular in England. Parliament cut down his proposed income from the Crown by nearly one half. The lower classes were prejudiced against him as a foreigner, while the nobility and army turned against him when they found that he preferred the society of men eminent for their intellectual attainments to that of dukes and marquises. On June 10, an First attempt to assassinate Victoria insane pot-boy named Oxford attempted to assassinate the Queen and the Prince Consort with a pistol. The would-be assassin was confined in an asylum. On November 21, Queen Victoria gave birth to her eldest child, Augusta, who subsequently became Empress of Germany.
Other English events of domestic importance were the passage of the vaccination act, the introduction of screw propellers in the British navy, First Charter petition and the State trial of the three leaders of the Chartist movement of the previous year. A monster petition subscribed by 1,280,000 signatures on a great cylinder was rolled into Parliament. In it were embodied new demands for a bill of rights, or the "People's Charter," comprising universal suffrage, including that of woman, secret ballots, payment of Parliamentary representatives, and the like. The denial of this petition provoked a Jack Frost's revolt popular uprising under the leadership of Jack Frost at Newport, which had to be suppressed by the military. After a sensational trial, the leaders were condemned to deportation.
Echoes of the English Regency were re-awakened by the death of "Beau" Brummel, a dandy after the manner of the French exquisites. It was a boast Death of Beau Brummel of this leader of fashion that he spoiled twenty-five cravats before one was tied to his liking. The Prince Regent in his dress imitated Brummel. The offended beau retaliated one day, when some of his friends saluted the Prince on Rotten Row, by asking, "Who is your fat friend?" Leigh Hunt improved upon this in his "Examiner" by describing the Prince as "a corpulent Adonis of fifty." For this Hunt was sentenced to imprisonment for two years and fined £500. After George IV. became king, Brummel fell into disfavor and had to leave London. Years later, the bankrupt beau, who had been cheated out of a snuff-box by Prince George, presented the King with another in token of submission. In the words of Thackeray, "the King took the snuff, and ordered his horses, and drove on, and had not the grace to notice his old companion—favorite, rival, enemy, superior." Poor Beau Brummel died in extreme poverty. Some of the striking episodes of the beau's career were dramatized in a play, which has kept alive the memory of this lesser light of modern English society.
The career of another striking figure of the Nineteenth Century was ended Death of Paganini by the death of Paganini, the most remarkable of violin virtuosi. The son of a poor shopkeeper, with little musical knowledge, but of some proficiency on the mandolin, Paganini received an indifferent early schooling in music. After the boy had come under the tutelage of Costa, the orchestral leader of Genoa, his progress on the violin was rapid. At the age of eight he composed a violin sonata. Soon he surpassed his instructors. At sixteen he ran away from his father, after a concert at Lucca, and made a tour of his own through Italy. Already he was addicted to gambling and other forms of dissipation. At Leghorn he had to sell his violin to pay a gambling debt. A Frenchman, M. Levron, lent him his own Guarnero violin. When he heard him play on it he was so charmed that he made him a present of the instrument. Paganini kept the Guarnero throughout the rest of his life. It was the turning-point of his career. After two Foremost violin virtuoso years of incessant practice, Paganini appeared in public again at Lucca, where he aroused unbounded enthusiasm by his novel performances on the G string. For the next twenty years he travelled and played throughout Italy, vanquishing all rivals. His superstitious countrymen believed him to be in league with the Evil One, an impression which Paganini loved to confirm by dark utterances and eccentricities of dress. Not until 1828 did he leave his own country to gather foreign laurels. His first appearance at Vienna was an unprecedented triumph. The Emperor appointed him court violinist and the city of Vienna presented him with a gold medal. From there he made a triumphal tour through Europe, appearing in Berlin, Paris and London. He was acknowledged the most wonderful violinist that had ever been heard. He soon amassed a colossal fortune. Withal, Paganini was almost as much a Genius and charlatan charlatan as he was an original genius. He liked to impress his audiences by fantastic eccentricities and by mere tricks of legerdemain, such as dropping and catching his instrument, or breaking one string after another to finish his concert on one alone. Other tricks of virtuosity, such as tuning up the A string by a semi-tone, left hand pizzicato, or his double thirds, were executed with such stupendous technique that they held connoisseurs and amateurs spellbound. His individuality, in fact, was so abnormal that it rendered him unfit to play with others in quartets or other chamber music. As a man he had all the worst faults of a genius. The vast sums of money which he accumulated were gambled away. His whole life Paganini's compositions was disgraced by unbridled sensuality coupled with sordid avarice. This explains in a measure Paganini's inferior rank as a composer. Famous are his variations on the tune "God Save the King," his "Studies," his twenty variations on "Il Carnevale di Venezia," and the concert allegro "Perpetual Motion." The celebrated twenty-four violin capricci, written early in Paganini's career, have been rendered familiar by their transcriptions to the pianoforte by Schumann and Liszt. Paganini died from the results of dissipation. He left his famous Guarnero fiddle to his birthplace, Genoa.
In Germany, King Frederick William III. of Prussia died in his sixty-sixth Frederick William IV. King of Prussia year. He was succeeded by Frederick William IV. The pending dispute between the Prussian Government and the Vatican, arising out of the refusal of the Rhenish priests to sanction marriages between Catholics and Protestants, found a temporary adjustment by the new king's concessions to the clergy.