Albert Thomas

“ But the same persistent idea underlay all his efforts. “The more closely the body is confined,” he wrote, “the more the mind is disposed to indulge in flights of imagination, and to consider the possibility of executing projects of which a more active existence would never perhaps have left it the leisure to think.” ”

“ The war was from the first doomed to disaster. It might perhaps have been averted if France had had any allies. But Austria, a possible ally, could only join France if satisfied as regards Italy; and since Garibaldi had threatened Rome (Mentana, 1867) , Napoleon III., yielding to the anger of the Catholics, had again sent troops to Rome. Negotiations had taken place in 1869. The emperor, bound by the Catholics, had refused to withdraw his troops. ”

“ But the Catholics feared that the Italian national movement, when once started, would entail the downfall of the papacy; and in opposition to the emperor's Italian advisers, Arese and Prince Jerome Napoleon, they pitted the empress, who was frivolous and capricious, but an ardent Catholic. ”

“ From the Elysée by means of the mass of officials whom they had at their command, the conspirators extended their activities throughout the whole country.
He next entered upon that struggle with the Assembly, now discredited, which was to reveal to all the necessity for a change, and a change in his favour. In January 1851 he deprived Changarnier of his command of the garrison of Paris. “The Empire has come,” said Thiers. The pretender would have preferred, however, that it should be brought about legally, the first step being his re-election in 1852. ”

“ In the interior the industrial and socialist movement, born of the new industrial development, added fresh strength to the Republican and Liberal opposition. The moderate Imperialists felt that some concessions must be made to public opinion. In opposition to the absolutist “vice-emperor” Rouher, whose influence over Napoleon had become stronger and stronger since the death of Morny, Émile Ollivier grouped the Third Party. ”

“ The proposition was rejected (November 17) , but Louis-Napoleon saw that it was time to act. On the 2nd of December he carried out his coup d'état.
But affairs developed in a way which disappointed him. By dismissing the Assembly, by offering the people “a strong government,” and re-establishing “a France regenerated by the Revolution of '89 and organized by the emperor,” he had hoped for universal applause. But both in Paris and the provinces he met with the resistance of the Republicans, who had reorganized in view of the elections of 1852. ”

“ To carry out his conviction, he had still only a timid will, working through petty expedients; but here again his confidence in the future made him bold. In a people politically decimated and wearied, he was able to develop freely all the Napoleonic ideals. Rarely has a man been able to carry out his system so completely, though perhaps in these first years he had to take more disciplinary measures than he had intended against the Reds, and granted more favours than was fitting to the Catholics, his allies in December 1848 and December 1858. ”

“ He felt that he could only rally the people to him by procuring them the satisfaction of their national pride. Hence the mishaps and imprudences of which Bismarck made such an insulting use. Hence the negotiations of Nikolsburg, the “note d'aubergiste” (innkeeper's bill) claiming the left bank of the Rhine, which was so scornfully rejected; hence the plan for the invasion of Belgium (August 1866) , the Luxemburg affair (March 1867) , from which M. de Moustier's diplomacy effected such a skilful retreat; hence the final folly which led this government into the war with Prussia (July 1870) . ”

“ He endeavoured to define his ideas, and in 1833 published his Rêveries politiques, suivies d’un projet de constitution, and Considérations politiques et militaires sur la Suisse; in 1836, as a captain, in the Swiss service, he published a Manuel d’artillerie, in order to win popularity with the French army. A phrase of Montesquieu, placed at the head of this work, sums up the views of the young theorist: “The people, possessing the supreme power, should do for itself all that it is able to do; what it cannot do well, it must do through its elected representatives.” ”

“ All the conspirators were at their posts — Maupas at the prefecture of police, Magnan at the head of the troops in Paris. At the Elysée, Morny, adulterine son of Hortense, a hero of the Bourse and successful gambler, supported his half-brother by his energy and counsels. The ministry proposed to abrogate the electoral law of 1850, and restore universal suffrage; the Assembly by refusing made itself still more unpopular. ”

“ It may be noted that, true to his ideas, he did not attempt to throw upon others the responsibility which he had always claimed for himself. He dreamed of his son's future. But he no longer occupied himself with any definite plans. He interested himself in pensions for workmen and economical stoves. At the end of 1872 his disease became more acute, and a surgical operation became necessary. He died on the 9th of January 1873, leaving his son in the charge of the empress and of Rouher. ”

“ H. Thirria, Napoléon III. avant l’Empire (1895) ; Sylvain-Blot, Napoléon III. (1899) ; Giraudeau, Napoléon III. intime (1895) ; Sir W. A. Fraser, Napoleon III. (London, 1895) ; A. Forbes, Life of Napoleon III. (1898) A. Lebey, Les Trois coups d’état de Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (1906) ; Louis Napoléon Bonaparte et la révolution de 1848 (1908) ; and F. A. Simpson, The Rise of Louis Napoleon (1909) . General works which may be consulted are Taxile-Delord, Histoire du second Empire (1868–1875) ; P. de La Gorce, Histoire du second Empire (1894–1905) ; Thomas, Le Second Empire (1907) ”