On the right of the emperor, in the costume of a Russian admiral, rides the Grand Duke Constantine, and on his left the Prince Napoleon and the Duke of Nassau, while behind them, in a sumptuous carriage, arrayed in the most gorgeous and elegant of toilettes, the very picture of loveliness and beauty, comes the Empress Eugénie.
Three times the splendid cortège passes through the field; after which the emperor, the empress, and the grand duke take up their positions under the central pavilion of the École Militaire, and the defile begins. During three hours seventy thousand men, composed of seventy-four battalions of foot, sixty squadrons of cavalry, and a hundred and fifty pieces of artillery, all arrayed in new uniforms, with untarnished arms and accoutrements, march by to the inspiring notes of martial melody, and beneath a bright and propitious sky. “Many of the regiments bear immortal names upon their banners, which must forcibly remind the Grand Duke Constantine of those far-famed and bloody struggles in which the colossal power of the First Empire strove with desperate energy and effort to crush forever the throne of the Muscovite kings. Nevertheless, the grand duke looks on complacently, and utters nothing but polite phrases of praise and commendation.”
With such pageantries Louis Napoleon regaled and impressed the splendor-loving Parisians. All the pacific splendors of the First Empire were restored, and he neglected no means of impressing upon his subjects and upon the world the greatness of his power and the security with which he sat upon his throne.
In the early part of the month of January, 1858, as the carriage of the emperor and empress was approaching the Italian Opera House, three bombs were aimed at their persons, and exploded beneath the wheels. Many persons were wounded, and some of those forming the imperial escort were killed; but Napoleon and Eugénie escaped unharmed.
The chief conspirators were Italian refugees, some of whom suffered the well-merited penalty of death for their sanguinary but unsuccessful purpose.
In an address, soon after, to the legislature, the emperor mentioned the event. “I thank Heaven,” he said, “for the visible protection which it has granted to the empress and myself; and I deeply deplore that a plan for destroying one life should have ended in the loss of so many. Yet this thwarted scheme can teach us some useful lessons. The recourse to such desperate means is but a proof of the feebleness and impotence of the conspirators.
“And again, there never was an assassination which served the interests of the men who armed the murderer. Neither the party who struck Cæsar, nor that which slew Henry IV., profited by their overthrow. God sometimes permits the death of the just, but he never allows the triumph of the evil agent. Thus these attempts neither disturb my security in the present nor my trust in the future. If I live, the Empire lives with me; if I fall, the Empire will be strengthened by my death, for the indignation of the people and of the army will be a new support for the throne of my son. Let us, then, face the future with confidence, and calmly devote ourselves to the welfare and to the honor of our country. Dieu protege la France!”
Alas! that Louis Napoleon, the prudent and sagacious administrator of 1858, and the wise and powerful monarch of 1867, should have become the short-sighted and inefficient general of 1870.
And when, upon the ensanguined field of Sedan, the star of the Second Empire fell to rise no more, and the bloody demons of the Commune were carrying destruction and death through the streets of beautiful Paris, Europe and America—in short, the civilized world—re-echoed the sentiment, exclaiming in the fulness of their anxious minds, “Dieu protege la France!”
The year 1867 was a memorable one in the annals of the Second Empire, for in it was held the Exposition Universelle, in which the arts, the sciences, and industries of the whole world were displayed with unequalled magnificence.