PRINCE NAPOLEON.
Some few years ago, seven or eight perhaps, a certain sensation was created among artists, and journalists, and literary men, and connoisseurs, and critics, by one of Flandrin's best portraits. Undoubtedly, the portrait was an admirable likeness; no one who had ever seen the original could deny or question that; but yet there was an air, a character, a certain depth of idealized expression about it which seemed to present the subject in a new light, and threw one into a kind of doubt as to whether he had ever truly understood the original before. Either the painter had unduly glorified his sitter, or the sitter had impressed upon the artist a true idea of his character and intellect which had never before been revealed to the public at large. The portrait was that of a man of middle age, with a smooth, broad, thoughtful brow, a character of command about the finely-formed, somewhat sensuous lips; chin and nose beautifully moulded, in fact what ladies who write novels would call "chiselled;" a face degenerating a little into mere flesh, but still dignified and imposing. Everywhere over the face there was a tone of dissatisfaction, of disappointment, of sullenness mingling strangely with the sensuous characteristics, and conveying somehow the idea of great power and daring ambition unduly repressed by outward conditions, or rendered barren by inward defects, or actually frustrated by failure and fate. "A Cæsar out of employment!" exclaimed a celebrated French author and critic. So much there was of the Cæsar in the face that no school-boy, no Miss in her teens could have even glanced at it without saying, "That is the face of a Bonaparte!" Were not the features a little too massive, it might have passed for an admirable likeness of the victor of Austerlitz; or, at all events, of the Napoleon of Leipzig or the Hundred Days. Probably any ordinary observer would at once have set it down as a portrait of the great Napoleon, and never thought there could be any doubt about the matter. It was, in fact, the likeness of Napoleon-Jerome, son of the rattle-pate King of Westphalia—Prince Napoleon, as he is ordinarily called, the Plon-plon whom soldiers jeer at, the "Red Prince" whom priests and Legitimists denounce, the cousin of the Emperor of the French, the son-in-law of the King of Italy.
It was only somewhere about, or a little before the time of the Flandrin portrait, that Prince Napoleon had the honor of becoming a mystery in the eyes of the public. Up to 1860, his character was quite settled in public estimation, just as that of Louis Napoleon had been up to the time of the coup d'etat. Public opinion generally settles the characters of conspicuous men at first by the intuitive process—the most delightful and easy method possible, dispensing, as it does, with any necessity for studying the subject, or even knowing anything at all about it. When the intuitive process has once adjusted a man's character, it is not easy to get people to believe in any other adjustment. Still, there are some remarkable instances of a change in popular opinion. The case of Louis Napoleon, the Emperor, is one illustration; that of Prince Napoleon, his cousin, is another, not so remarkable, certainly, but still quite worthy of some attention.
Prince Napoleon had been before the world more or less since he appeared as representative of Corsica, in the Constituent Assembly of 1848. He was made conspicuous, in a negative sort of way, by having had no hand in the coup d'etat, or having even opposed it, although he did not scruple to profit by its success and enjoy its golden advantages. He had a command in the Crimean war; he was sent into Tuscany during the Italian campaign. All that time public opinion in Europe was unanimous about him. He was a sensualist, a coward, an imbecile, and a blockhead. He was a fat, stupid, muddle-headed Heliogabalus. Dulness, cowardice, and profligacy were his principal, perhaps his only characteristics. When the young Clotilde, of Savoy, was given to him for a wife, a positive cry of wonder and disgust went up from every country of Europe. In good truth, it was a scandalous thing to marry a young and innocent girl to a man nearly as old as her father; and who, undoubtedly, had been a mauvais sujet, and had led a life of dissipation so far. But Europe cried aloud as if three out of every four princely alliances were not made on the same principle and endowed with the same character. Had the Princess Clotilde been affianced to a hog or a gorilla, there could hardly have been greater wonder and horror expressed, so clear was the public mind about the stupidity and brutality of Prince Napoleon.
Certainly, if one looked a little deeper than mere public opinion, he would have found, even then, that here and there some men, not quite incapable of judging, did not accept the popular estimate of the Emperor's cousin. All through the memorable progress of the Congress of Paris—out of which sprang Italy—we find, by the documents subsequently made public, that Cavour was in close and frequent consultation with Prince Napoleon. Once we find Cavour saying that Prince Napoleon complains of his slowness, his too great moderation, and thinks he could serve the cause better by a little more boldness. "Perhaps he is right," says Cavour, in words to that effect; "but I fear I lack his force of character, his daringness of purpose." Richard Cobden makes the acquaintance of Prince Napoleon, and is surprised and delighted with his advanced opinions on the subject of free trade; and deliberately describes him (I heard Cobden use the words) as "one of the best informed, if not the very best informed, of all the public men of Europe." Kinglake observes the Prince during the Crimean campaign—where Napoleon-Jerome got his reputation for cowardice and his nick-name of Plon-plon—and finds in him a genius very like that of his uncle, the great Napoleon, especially a wonderful power of distinguishing at a glance between the essentials and the accidentals of any question or situation—and any one who has ever studied politics and public men will know how rare a faculty that is—and finally declares that he sees no reason to believe him inferior in courage to the conqueror of Marengo! Edmond About, not a very dull personage, and not quite given up to panegyric, bursts into a strain of almost lyrical enthusiasm about the wit, the brilliancy, the culture, the daring ambition of Prince Napoleon, and declares that the Prince is kept as much out of the way as possible, because a man endowed with a soul of such unresting energy, and the face of the great Emperor, is too formidable a personage to be seen hanging about the steps of a throne. To close this string of illustrations, Prince Napoleon is in somewhat frequent and confidential intercourse with Michel Chevalier, a man not likely to cultivate the society of heavy blockheads and dullards, even though these might happen to wear princely coronets. Clearly, public opinion here was even more directly at odds than it often is with the opinion of some whom we may call experts; and the difference was so great that there seemed no possible way of reconciling the two. A man may be a profligate and yet a man of genius, and even a patriot; but one cannot be a profligate blockhead and a man of genius, a Cloten and an Alcibiades, a Cæsar and a Pyrgopolinices at once.
It was in the early part of 1861 that Prince Napoleon contributed something of his own spontaneous motion to help in the solution of the enigma. That was the year when the Emperor removed the restriction which prevented both Chambers of the Legislature from freely debating the address, and the press from fully reporting the discussions. There was a remarkable debate in the Senate, ranging over a great variety of domestic and foreign questions, and one most memorable event of the debate was the brilliant, powerful and exhaustive oration delivered, with splendid energy and rhetorical effect, by Prince Napoleon. Mon âne parle et même il parle bien, declares the astonished Joan, in Voltaire's scandalous poem, "La Pucelle." Perhaps there was something of a similar wonder mingled with the burst of genuine admiration which went up first from Paris, then from France, and finally from Europe and America, when that magnificent democratic manifesto came to be read. Certainly, I remember no single speech which, during my time, created anything like the same sensation in Europe. For it took the outer world wholly by surprise. It was not a case like that of the sensation lately created by the florid and fervid eloquence of the young Spanish orator, Castellar. In this latter case the public were surprised and delighted to find that there was a master of thrilling rhetoric alive, and arrayed on the side of democratic freedom, of whose very existence most persons had been previously ignorant. But, in the case of Prince Napoleon, the surprise was, that a man whom the public had long known, and always set down as a stupid sensualist, should suddenly, and without any previous warning, turn out a great orator, whose eloquence had in it something so fresh, and genuine, and forcible that it recalled the memory of the most glorious days of the French Tribune. I write of this celebrated oration now only from recollection; and, of course, I did not hear it spoken. I say "of course," because the rules of the French Senate, unlike those of the Corps Legislatif, forbid the presence of any strangers during the debates. But those who heard it spoke enthusiastically of the force and freedom with which it was delivered; the sudden, impulsive fervor of occasional outbursts; and the wonderful readiness with which the speaker, when interrupted, as he was very frequently, passed from one topic to another in order to dispose of the interruption, and replied to sudden challenge with even prompter repartee. No one could read the speech without admiring the extent and variety of the political knowledge it displayed; the prodigality of illustration it flung over every argument; the thrilling power of some of its rhetorical "phrases;" the tone of sustained and passionate eloquence which made itself heard all throughout; and, perhaps above all, that flexible, spontaneous readiness of language and resource to which every interruption, every interjected question only acted like a spur to a generous horse, calling forth new and greater, and wholly unexpected efforts. In the French Senate I need, perhaps, hardly tell my readers, it is the habit to allow the utmost license of interruption, and Prince Napoleon's audacious onslaught on the reactionists and the parti prêtre called out even an unusual amount of impatient utterance. Those who interrupted took little by their motion. The energetic Prince tossed off his assailants as a bull flings the dogs away on the points of his horns. "Our principles are not yours," scornfully exclaims a Legitimist nobleman—the late Marquis de la Rochejaquelein, if I remember rightly. "Your principles are not ours!" vehemently replies the orator. "No, nor are your antecedents ours. Our pride is that our fathers fell on the battle-field resisting the foreign invaders whom your fathers brought in for the subjugation of France!" The speech is studded with sudden replies equally fervid and telling. Indeed, the whole material of the oration is rich, strong, and genuine. There seems to be in the eloquence of the French Chambers, of late, a certain want of freshness and natural power. I do not speak of Berryer—he had no such want. But Thiers—by far the ablest living debater who speaks only from preparation—with all his wonderful science and skill as an artist in debate, appears to be always somewhat artificial and elaborate. Jules Favre, with his exquisitely modulated tones, and his unrivalled choice of words, hardly ever appears to me to rise to that height where the orator, lost in his subject, compels his hearers to lose themselves also in it. Now, I cannot help thinking that the two or three really great speeches made by Prince Napoleon had in them more of the native fibre, force and passion of oratory than those of almost any Frenchman since the days of Mirabeau.
However that may be, the effect wrought on the public mind was unmistakable. Plon-plon had startled Europe. He entered the palace of the Luxembourg on that memorable day without any repute but that of a dullard and a sensualist; he came out of it a recognized orator. I have been told that he lay back in his open carriage and smoked his cigar, as he drove home from the Senate, to all appearance the same indolent, sullen, heavy apathetic personage whom all Paris had previously known and despised.
One notable effect of this famous speech was the reply which a certain passage in it drew from Louis Philippe's son, the Duc d'Aumale. Prince Napoleon had indulged in a bitter sneer or two against former dynasties, and the Duc d'Aumale, a man of great culture and ability, took up the quarrel fiercely. The Duke assailed Prince Napoleon in one of the keenest, most biting pamphlets which the political controversy of our day has produced. Among other things, the Duke replied to a supposed imputation on the weakness of Louis Philippe by admitting, frankly, that the bourgeois King had not dealt with enemies, when in his power, as a Bonaparte would have done. "Et tenez, Prince," wrote the Duke, "the only time when the word of a Bonaparte may be believed is when he avows that he will never spare a defenceless enemy." The pamphlet bristled with points equally sharp and envenomed. But the Duc d'Aumale was not content with written rejoinder. He sent a challenge to the Prince, and in serious earnest. The Prince, it need hardly be said, did not accept the challenge.