Letter from Joseph to Louis.
"My dear Brother,—I have received your letter of the 27th of December. I am afflicted by the depression of spirits in which it was written. It is true that for many years fortune has been constantly severe with us. But it is something to be able to say to one's self that fortune is blind. And an irreproachable conscience and a good heart offer many consolations. They accompany us wherever we go, and prevent us from being too severe in our turn against fortune and her favorites of the day.
"It is indeed true that there are but few gleams of happiness to be met in this life. The least unfortunate have still their storms. There are but few privileged men. How many there are whom we must admit to be more unhappy than we are. And we do not sufficiently take into account the sufferings of dishonored men, whose conscience will at times awake and react upon those who have done it violence. Those who have borne arms against their country, against their benefactor, who have sold their services to foreigners, think you they can be happy? The consciousness of not having merited the abandonment of which you speak, is not that a happy sentiment? It is necessary then for us to perceive what we are in this life, and not what we could wish to be. Being men, we are destined to live, that is to say, to suffer. But we can preserve our own self-respect, and the esteem of the friends who appreciate us. So long as that continues, one is not absolutely unhappy. In that point of view, no person ought to be more satisfied than yourself, my dear Louis. All other evils over which we have no control are hard to endure, undoubtedly. But their necessity, in spite of ourselves, should lead us to bear them. We ought to submit to that which we can not prevent.
"Still, I can say nothing upon this subject which you do not know as well as I do. But I am not writing a dissertation. I recount my sensations and my sentiments as they flow from my pen. The consciousness of not meriting the evil which one suffers greatly mitigates that evil. Adieu, my dear Louis. I love you as ever. We have not known any revolutions in our affections."
Meeting of the Brothers in London.
Soon after Joseph had established himself in London, he called his brothers Lucien and Jerome, and his nephew, Prince Louis Napoleon, to join him there. The acts of the Government of Louis Philippe and the intense opposition they encountered engrossed his meditations. Fully satisfied that the Government could not maintain itself in the course it was pursuing, Joseph deemed it important for the triumph of what he called the popular cause, to effect a cordial union between the Republican and Imperial parties. The Government thwarted this union by sending spies into the clubs, who, joining those associations, assumed to be earnest democrats, and strove in every way to promote discord, while they extolled in most extravagant terms the brutal deeds of Marat, St. Just, and Robespierre. Joseph could not act in harmony with such men, and the projected alliance was abandoned.[AM]
Testimony of Louis Napoleon.
In a brief sketch which Louis Napoleon, while a prisoner at Ham, wrote of his uncle Joseph just after his death, he says: "In general, Prince Louis Napoleon was in accord with his uncle upon all fundamental questions; but he differed from him upon one essential point, which offered a very strange contrast. The old man, whose days were nearly finished, did not wish to precipitate any thing. He was resigned to await the developments of time. But the young man, impatient, wished to act, and to precipitate events.
The Attempt at Strasbourg.
"The insurrection at Strasbourg, in the month of October, 1836, thus took place without the authorization and without the participation of Joseph. He was also much displeased with it, since the journals deceived him respecting the aim and intentions of his nephew. In 1837 Joseph revisited America. Upon his return to Europe in 1839 he found his nephew in England. Then, enlightened respecting the object, the means, and the plans of Prince Louis Napoleon, he restored to him all his tenderness. The publication of Les Idees Napoleoniennes merited his entire approbation. And upon that occasion he declared openly that, in his quality of friend and depositary of the most intimate thoughts of the Emperor, he could say positively that that book contained the exact and faithful record of the political intentions of his brother."