France in the Nineteenth Century

by Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer

His foreign policy was still more successful. "The Empire is peace," he had early proclaimed to be his motto. At first the idea of a Napoleon on the throne of France had greatly terrified the nations; but by degrees it seemed as if he really meant to be the Napoleon of Peace, as his uncle had been the Napoleon of War. He took every opportunity of reiterating his desire to be on good terms with his neighbors. With respect to England, those who knew him best asserted earnestly that he had always been in sympathy with the country that had sheltered him in exile. Count Walewski, whom he sent over as ambassador to London, was very popular there. He attended the funeral of the Duke of Wellington in his official capacity, and in return for this courtesy England restored to the French emperor his uncle's will, which had been laid up in Doctor's Commons with other wills of persons who had died on English soil. Russia was haughty to the new emperor; but the other courts of Europe accepted him, and most of them did so with considerable alacrity; for was he not holding down Socialism and Internationalism, which they dreaded far more than Napoleonism, and by which they were menaced in their own lands?

The great perplexity of the new emperor was his relation to Italy. He and his brother had taken the oaths of a Carbonaro in that country, in 1831. It is not to this day certain that his brother did not die by a Carbonaro's knife, rather than by the measles. Be that as it may, Louis Napoleon knew that if he failed to keep his promises as to the liberation of Italy, assassination awaited him.

How he endeavored to reconcile his engagements as a Carbonaro with his policy as the French emperor belongs less to the historical gossip of France than to that of Italy. So too the history of the Crimean War seems to belong par excellence to that of Russia. It was undertaken by England and France as allies, joined afterwards by a Sardinian army under General La Marmora, by the Turkish troops under Omar Pasha, and by an Egyptian contingent; but as we are now engaged on the personal history of the emperor and empress, I will rather here tell how Napoleon III., having formed a camp of one hundred thousand soldiers at Boulogne, on the very ground where his uncle had assembled his great army for the invasion of England, decided to ascertain, through his ambassador in London, if it would be agreeable to Prince Albert to visit that camp and see the manœuvres of his army. Finding that the invitation would be acceptable to the prince, he addressed him the following letter:—

July 3, 1854.

MON FRÈRE,—Your Royal Highness knows that putting in practice your own idea, and wishing to carry out to the end the struggle with Russia that we have begun together, I have decided to form an army between Boulogne and St. Omer. I need not tell your Highness how pleased I should be to see you, and how happy I should be to show you my soldiers. I am convinced, moreover, that personal ties will strengthen the union so happily established between two great nations. I beg you to present my respectful homage to the queen, and to receive this expression of the esteem and sincere affection I have conceived for you.

With this, mon frère, I pray God to have you in his holy keeping.

NAPOLEON.

The prince accepted the invitation, addressing the emperor as "Sire et mon frère." The queen entirely approved the visit, and Baron Stockmar predicted much advantage from it, "inasmuch," he said, "as the good or evil destiny of the present time will directly and chiefly depend upon a rational, honorable, and resolute alliance between England and France."

Prince Albert met the emperor at Boulogne, Sept. 4, 1854. The Duke of Newcastle, who was in attendance on Prince Albert, wrote to a friend that tears stood in the emperor's eyes when he received his guest as he stepped upon French soil; and the prince wrote that evening to the queen:—

"The emperor has been very nervous, if we are to believe those who stood near him and who know him well. He was kindly and courteous, and does not look so old nor so pale as his portraits make him, and is much gayer than he is generally represented. The visit cannot fail to be a source of great gratification to him.... I have had two long talks with him, in which he spoke very sensibly about the war and the questions du jour. People here are sanguine about the results of the expedition to the Crimea, and very sensitive about the behavior of Admiral Sir Charles Napier."