Truly “there is nothing so successful as success,” and never has it been more clearly illustrated than in the history of Louis Napoleon. All writers who have narrated the events of his life, when in the full plentitude of his power he sat upon his throne at the Tuileries, have extolled him as a demi-god, and praised in most extravagant terms his wonderful abilities; but those who have written since the fall of the Empire denounce him as a cold and selfish conspirator and revolutionist, roué, and libertine; and declare “that among the rulers of Christendom in modern times there is not one whose record is so utterly devoid of any redeeming act, so entirely dictated by selfishness, lust, and sordid greed, as that of Charles Louis Napoleon.”
Between these two extremes lies the truth, and among the defeats and disasters of 1870 we must not forget the glories and triumphs of 1855. This much is certain, that from the time of his attainment of the supreme power, Louis Napoleon exhibited administrative talent of the first order. France was governed with the regularity and system of a gigantic piece of machinery. More vigor, energy, and harmony had never before pervaded the administration. It was said of Augustus, that he found Rome brick and left it marble. That saying would not be exaggerated if applied to Louis Napoleon and Paris. The gay capital of the Empire was the special object of his care, and Paris seemed to have thrown off the dingy and faded habiliments of past ages, which still clung to her, and to have assumed the freshness, beauty, and energy of youth. Public monuments, palaces, temples, and boulevards were, by his orders, embellished, enlarged, renovated, and repaired. Old Paris disappeared, and new Paris started up in its place. Dark, dirty, ill-paved, and worse-drained streets were replaced by noble boulevards full of palaces. He completed the Louvre, reconstructed the Tuileries, regenerated the Palais Royal, and interminably prolonged the Rue de Rivoli.
“His acts and deeds speak for themselves, and they prove, on undeniable evidence, that France was never better governed than by him. A people as fickle as the wind, as restless as the sea; a people as whimsical as women, as fanciful as children; a people with whom novelty is a mania and faction a disease; a people brave, intelligent, and generous by fits, and treacherous, frivolous, and vindictive by starts,—such a people could have been governed at that crisis only by such a ruler. And single-handed, by the sheer force of his genius, and the moral power which is the body-guard of genius, he governed them wisely and well. In spite of almost invincible opposition, in the face of almost unsurmountable obstacles, he raised them, step by step, to be regarded as the most enlightened nation of Europe; he unsparingly promoted their national welfare, he perceptibly diminished their national evils; in short, for nearly twenty years he was the glory of France and the wonder of the world.”
The alliance between France and England having terminated so gloriously for the arms and diplomacy of both countries, the emperor and empress of the French, in 1855, visited Queen Victoria in her own dominions, probably the first instance on record in which a reigning French monarch set foot upon the soil of his hereditary foes. The rejoicings on this occasion were prodigious, and Louis Napoleon, who had once paced the streets of London a penniless wanderer, was received in the same capital with universal greetings, with flying banners, with military salutes, with the congratulations of the sovereign and nobility, and with the joyful acclamations of the millions. Albert and Victoria in a short time returned the compliment, and the scene was transferred from London to Paris. “On that memorable occasion France’s gay and brilliant capital, that great centre of the world’s civilization and luxury, assumed unwonted hues of splendor, exhibited scenes of unusual festivity and rejoicing, and exhausted her varied and infinite resources to impress, delight, and charm her august visitors.”
The felicity of Louis Napoleon was now about to receive a further augmentation, and his sudden and vigorous empire to be strengthened by an additional element of perpetuity and power. On the 16th of March, 1856, a son was born at the palace of the Tuileries. On that occasion, the emperor thus addressed the Senate: “The Senate has participated in my joy on hearing that Heaven has given me a son, and you have hailed as a happy event the birth of a child of France. I intentionally make use of that expression. In fact, the Emperor Napoleon, my uncle, who had applied to the new system created by the Revolution all that was great and elevated in the old régime, had resumed that ancient denomination of the children of France. The reason is, gentlemen, that when an heir is born who is destined to perpetuate a national system, that child is not only the scion of a family, but also in truth the son of the whole country, and that appellation points out to him his duties. If this were true under the old monarchy, which represented exclusively the privileged class, how much more so is it now, when the sovereign is the elect of the nation, the first citizen of the country, and the representative of the interests of all? I thank you for the kind wishes which you have expressed for this child of France and for the empress.”
The birth of the Prince Imperial realized national hopes long deferred. And never was title more perfectly representative of truth and fact, than that of “Fils de France.” The son of France,—the son of the nation,—the gift of Providence to the people. It was in this sense that the title was bestowed, and in this sense that it was interpreted by the country. Throughout France the joy manifested was excessive, and the municipal authorities and public bodies of all kinds came forward with affectionate eagerness to manifest their sympathy in the happiness of their sovereign. What prophet could then have foretold that Napoleon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph, Prince Imperial, and Fils de France, whose birth was now so proudly hailed, whose future seemed so brilliant, and who was heir to the grandest throne in Europe, would, in a few years, be an exile in a foreign land, and that ultimately, at the early age of twenty-three, the javelins of hostile savages would terminate his career amid the wilds of Africa?
It is a bright May afternoon in the year 1857, and every avenue leading to the vast area of the Champ de Mars is crowded with endless masses of troops, marching with stately tread and martial music to the grand rendezvous. For his Majesty Napoleon III. is to hold, in honor of the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, one of those public reviews by which he exhibits, to such great advantage, the strength and majesty of his army. As far as the eye can reach, along both banks of the Seine, and through the immense perspective of the adjacent boulevards, glittering arms of cavalry and infantry flash brightly in the rays of the refulgent sun. As the hour of two tolls from the lofty towers of the Invalides, seventy thousand men, disposed so as to produce the most sublime and impressive effect, stand motionless in military array, awaiting the approach of that single man who has so heroically grasped and maintained the sceptre of dominion in France.
The noble façade of the École Militaire, the splendid dome of the Hotel des Invalides, the towering mass of the Arc de Triomphe, and a hundred other monuments of architectural beauty and historic celebrity, are within the view, combining, with the majesty of military power assembled in their centre, a coup d’œil of unrivalled magnificence.
At length the graceful waving of red and white plumes, and the gleam of polished silver helmets on the Pont de Jena, the roll of a thousand drums and the music of a thousand trumpets indicate the approach of Louis Napoleon and his illustrious guest.
Surrounded by his magnificent État Major, composed of the chief officers of all the regiments, the emperor rides with military precision into the centre of the gorgeous array. The Champ de Mars, familiar as it has been with the glories of the First Empire, has never seen the conqueror of Marengo and Austerlitz surrounded with a halo of greater martial grandeur than this which now encompasses this man who has never seen a solitary conflict of arms or commanded a single battalion in the field.