396 



NAPOLEON III. 



NAPOLEON 



He whom Victor Hugo has satirically called 

 Napoleon- le- Petit fatuously chose tlio anniversary 

 of tin- battle oi Austerlitz and of Napoleon l.'s 

 coronation to rid himself by arms of the National 

 Assembly, to make himself absolute ruler with the 

 help of tin- military, ami to muzzle all parliament- 

 ary opposition (2d December 1851). Imprison 

 HI-MI, banishment, deportation, the bloody repres- 

 sion of po|iiil:ir rcl>ellion marked this black clay's 

 work, in which the president was assisted 1>y 

 Muniy. Maupas, and St Arnanld. France, whether 

 wearied of the inconi|>etent Democrats, or (as 

 Kinglake supposes ) ' cowed ' by the terrible audacity 

 of the president, appeared to acquiesce in his act; 

 for when the vote was taken upon it on the 20th 

 and 21st of the same month, he was re elected for 

 ten years, with all the powers he demanded, by 

 mote than 7,000,000 suffrages. The imperial title 

 was assumed exactly a year after the coup d'etat, 

 in accordance with another plebiscitary expression 

 of the people's will. 



An unlawful empire was now legally established. 

 Men of astuteness and mediocrity took the helm 

 of the state. The parliamentary trappings of the 

 first empire were brought out. Resting on such 

 artificial props as the army and police. Napoleon 

 III. boasied that he was the upholder of law 



and order. Political parties were either de r- 



uli-i-.l or broken. He gagged the press, awed the 

 bourgeoisie, and courted the clergy to win the 

 peasantry. Liberals accepted him for fear of the 

 Socialists ; the Socialists applauded his plunder 

 of the Orleans family ; his duly-rewarded parasitic 

 supporters, such a* Jean Fialin, made Vicomte de 

 IVi-igny, clung to him as to the fount of all honour 

 and profit ; foreign monarchies accepted him as a 

 welcome ally in the struggle against liberalism. 

 But unlike "his uncle he did not seek matri- 

 monial alliance with the old royal houses. He 

 liked to profess himself the Caar of the people, 

 and led to the altar Eugenie de Mont i jo, a Spanish 

 countess of ordinary blue blood. He endeavoured 

 to gain international acceptance for the just, but 

 in his mouth sophistical, doctrine as to the right of 

 peoples to choose their own masters, availing him- 

 self of it in the annexation of Savoy and Nice to 

 France, in his Mexican intervention, and in his 

 handling of the Italian question. At home he kept 

 the people well in hand by an active economic 

 jHilicy. The price of bread was regulated, public 

 works occupied and enriched the working-men in 

 towns, while others were undertaken to protect and 

 enhance in value the property of the peasantry. 

 The complete remodelling of Paris under the direc- 

 tion of Baron Hanssmann raised considerably the 

 value of house-property, and by the opening of 

 a network of thoroughfares suitable for the 

 manoeuvres of artillery and cavalry reduced to 

 a minimum the risk arising from insurrectionary 

 movements. The holding of international ex- 

 hibitions and the signing of treaties of commerce 

 with foreign states acted as a further inducement 

 to internal peace; but the formation of unscrupu- 

 lous financial, court, and clergy cliques was an ugly 

 blot on this picture of a purely' material prosperity. 

 To the blandishments of work and wealth at home 

 Napoleon III. added the charm of a brilliant foreign 

 policy. We need not dwell on the Crimean war, 

 tin- campaign iii Lomhardy against Austria, to 

 which Na|K>leon was somewhat paradoxically en- 

 couraged by the murderous attack of Orsini on his 

 person, the expeditions to Mexico and to China. 

 In all those undertakings Napoleon enjoyed the 

 Hiipport if not always the actual co-operation of 

 Great Britain. To Prussia his relations were of a 

 very different kind, a mixture of jealousy and 

 patronage which boiled ill for France in the event of 

 an actual conflict. 



At the death of Moray in lH(i"> the soothing effect 

 of Napoleon's measures and also his |M>WCI to con- 

 trol the nation were well nigh spent. Again the 

 spirit of France stirred abroad. Napoleon's book, 

 La Vie de Cesar, which he wrote to extol his own 

 methods of government under the guise of honour- 

 ing Cnar, met with loud protests. Forewarned, 

 Napoleon reorganised his army, set himself up more 

 proudly as an arbiter in Kuropc in order to Hatter 

 his subjects, and took a more conciliatory attitude 

 to liliciali.-m. His concessions at home were taken 

 advantage of to set up a regular journalistic and 



Sarliamcntai v opposition. In I860 the l.ilicial 

 eputy Ollhier w;us granted a personal interview 

 that he might explain to the emperor the w Mies 

 of the people, and Kouher, .Napoleon's prime- 

 ininister, an advocate of absolutism, was dismissed 

 from otlice. New men were called into power with 

 Ollivicr to lilieralisethe constitution. Some wrong- 

 headed Bonapartists suggested another coit/i i/'ilnt 

 against the Legislative Assembly.now leavened with 

 opposition. Napoleon was firm enough to resist 

 such nefarious counsels, and app-urs to have been 

 fairly sincere in his latter-day liberalism. That it 

 was not yet too late to stem the tide of discontent 

 was shown by the result of another plebiscite (the 

 fourth), by which Napoleon's new parliamentary 

 scheme was sanctioned by 7J million votes (8th 

 May 1870). But burdened as he was by a new 

 policy at home, by financial embarrassments and 

 worries in his own family, in ignorance of the 

 corruption that existed in his ministry of war, he 

 sought in foreign affairs a diversion to his troubles, 

 and thus brought himself all of a sudden to the 

 edge of the abyss. For the Franco-German war, 

 see FRANCE (Vol. IV. p. 782). 



Napoleon III. surrendered himself a prisoner at 

 Sedan in September. Till the conclusion of peace 

 he was confined at \Vilhelmsh6he. In March Is71 

 he joined the empress at Chisclhurst, Kent, and 

 resided there till his death on 9th Janiiiiiy 1S73. 

 His son, Eugene Louis .lean Joseph. Prince Im- 

 perial of France, was born Kith March 1856. He 

 was in the field with his father in 1870, but after 

 the fall of Sedan escaped to England, where 

 he entered the Woolwich Military Academy, 

 and in 1875 completed with distinction a regular 

 course of study. Volunteering to serve with the 

 English artillery in the Zulu campaign of 1879, he 

 was killed on 1st June, when reconnoitring, by a 

 party of Zulus in ambush. 



See the a|x>logetic Lift by Blanchard Jerrold ( 3 vols. 

 1874-77), and that by Archibald Forbes ( 1SW ) ; Delord, 

 Hittoire du Second Empire ( 6 vols. Paris, 18(y-75 ) ; Siin- 

 son. Die Bezieh'wngen Napoltimt III. zu Preutten ( 1K~ 

 C. E. de Maupas, Story of the Coup d'Stat ( Eng. trans. 

 2 vols. 1884); Hugo's Hitt. rf'un Crime (1877); E. 

 Harlces, Life of the Prince Imperial (18NO); and the 

 Mi in 'Hi's of the Duke of Coburg, rols. iii. and iv. (1890). 



>:i|lll-OII. PlilNCE. See BONAPARTE. 



Napoleon (a20-franc piece). See Louis D'Oa. 



Napoleon, a round game at cards. Five cards 

 arc dealt to each player by one at a time, as at 

 whist. Each player in rotation to the dealer's left 

 looks at his hand and declares the number of tricks 

 he will stand for, or whether he will pass. If all 

 pass, the first player must stand for one trick. 

 \Vhen a declaration is made subsequent players 

 must stand for uiore tricks or pass. If S<i(> (all 

 five tricks) is declared, no further declaration is 

 made. The stand-hum! leads; the card he first 

 leads makes the trump suit. The other players 

 follow suit in rotation, as at whist, the winner of 

 the trick leading to the next. The cards rank as 

 at whist. A player not able to follow suit may 

 plav any card. No one is obliged in head the trick. 

 If the stand hand wins the number of tricks he stood 

 for, he receives so much for each trick from each of 



