The Prince went away alone, and the following quatrain was circulated:
En vain l’empire met du fard,
On baisse ses yeux et sa robe.
Et Berryer-Joseph so derobe
A Napoléon-Putiphar.
February, 1849.
Although he is animated with the best intentions in the world and has a very visible quantity of intelligence and aptitude, I fear that Louis Bonaparte will find his task too much for him. To him, France, the century, the new spirit, the instincts peculiar to the soil and the period are so many closed books. He looks without understanding them at minds that are working, Paris, events, men, things and ideas. He belongs to that class of ignorant persons who are called princes and to that category of foreigners who are called êmigrês. To those who examine him closely he has the air of a patient rather than of a governing man.
There is nothing of the Bonapartes about him, either in his face or manner. He probably is not a Bonaparte. The free and easy ways of Queen Hortense are remembered. “He is a memento of Holland!” said Alexis de Saint Priest to me yesterday. Louis Bonaparte certainly possesses the cold manner of the Dutch.
Louis Bonaparte knows so little about Paris that the first time I saw him he said to me:
“I have been hunting for you. I went to your former residence. What is this Place des Vosges?”
“It is the Place Royale,” I said.
“Ah!” he continued, “is it an old place?”