The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-10-12 00:00:00

n order to brine

He loves finery, trin-
spangles, grand words, and

the ilittering, all the glass-
ty of cousin to the battle of

terlitz, he dresses himself up as a general.
" He cares little about being despised ; he contents
himself with the appearance of respect. _ __ _

" This man would tarnish the background of history;
he absolutely sullies its foreground. Europe smiled
when, thinking of Haiti, she saw this white Soulouque
appear. But there is now in Europe, in every intelligent
mind, abroad as at home, a profound stupor, a feeling,
as it were, of personal insult ; for the European continent,
whether it will or no, is a bound guarantee for France,
and that which abases France humiliates Europe.
" Before the 2nd December, the leaders of the Right
used habitually to say of Louis Bonaparte, 'Tis an idiot.

They were mistaken. Questionless, that brain of his is
perturbed, and has lar;,e gaps in it, but you can discern
here and there in it, thoughts consecutive and concate-
nate. 'Tis a book whence pages have been torn. Louis
Napoleon has a fixed idea, but afixed idea is not idiotcy ;

he knows what he wants, and he goes straight on to it
through justice, through law, through reason, through
honesty, through humanity, no doubt, but still straight on.
"He is not an idiot. He is a man of another age than
our own. He seems absurd and mad, because he is out
of his place and time. Transport him in the 16th century
to Spain, and Philip 11. would recognise him; to Eng-
land, and Henry VIII. would smile on him ; to Italy,
and Cae3ar Birgia would embrace him. Or even, taking
care to place him beyond the pale of European civiliza-
tion, place him, in ISI7, at Janina, and Ali-Tepeleni
would grasp him by the hand
" He is of t

xeS, and of the Lower Empire.
That which he does would have seemed perfectly simple
and natural to Michael Ducas, to Romanus Diogenes, to
Nicephorus Botoniates, to the Eunuch Narses, to the
Vandal Stilico, to Mahomet to Alexander VI., to
Ezzelino of Padua, as it seems perfectly simple and natu-
ral to himself. The only thing is that he forgets, or
knows not, that in the age wherein we live, his actions
will have to traverse the grand courses of human morality,
chastened by three ages of literature and by the French
revolution ; and that, in this medium, his actions will
wear their true aspect, and appear what they really are—
bideous. _

Le entdciU

" His partisans—he has some—complaisantly parallel
him with his uncle, the first Bonaparte. They say,
" The one accomplished the 18th Brumaire, the other the
2nd December : they are two men of ambition." The
first Bonaparte aimed to reconstruct the empire of the
West ; to make Europe his vassal; to dominate over the
Continent by his power, and to dazzle it by his grandeur ;
to take an arm-chair himself, and give footstools to kings;
to create his place in history ; Nimrod, Cyrus, Alexander,
Hannibal, Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon ; to be master
of the world. He was so. To be so, he accomplished
the 18th Brumaire. The other man aims to have horses
ed Monseigneur, and to live luxu-
riously. To this end, he brought about the 2nd Decem-
ber. Yes, they are two men of ambition : the comparison
is just.
4` Let us add, that, like the first Bonaparte, the second
also aims to be Emperor.
" The great talent of M. Louis Bonaparte is silence.
" Before the 2nd December, he bad a council of minis-
ters who, being responsible, imagined they were some-
thing. The President presided. Never, or scarcely ever,
did he take part in their discussions. While MM. Odil-
lon Barrot, Passy, Toequeville, Dufaure, or Faucher was
speaking, he occupied himself, says one of these ministers,
in constructing, with intense earnestness, paper figures,
or in drawing men's heads on the documents before him.
"To feign death, that is his art. He lies mute and

and women

to be c

motionless, looking in the opposite direction to his object,
until the hour for action comes ; then he turns his bead,
and leaps upon his prey. His policy starts out on you
abruptly, at some unheeded turning, pistol in hand, ut
fur. Up to that point, there is the least possible move-
ment: For one moment, in the course of three years that
have. just passed away, he was seen face to face with Chan-
gartuer, who, himself, on his nart, meditated an enter-
prise. ' Thant obscuri,' as Virgil says. France observed,
with a certain anxiety, these two men. What was in
their minds ? Was not the one, in thought, Cromwell ;
the other Monk ? Men asked one another these questions
as they looked on the two men. In both of them there
was the same attitude of mystery, the same tactics of im-
mobility. Bonaparte said not a word, Changarnier made
rot a gesture; this did not stir, that did not breathe;
they seemed competing which should be the most sta-

tuesque.
" This silence of his, Louis Bonaparte sometimes
breaks ; but then he does not speak, he lies. This man
lies as other men breathe. He announces an honest in-
tention ; be on your guard : he affirms; distrust him : he
takes an oath ; tremble for your safety.
" Machiavel has made small men ; Louis Bonaparte is
one of them.
" You are of his familiar circle; he hints a project,
which seems to you—not immoral, that in nothing, but—
.
dangerous, dangerous to himself; you raise
objections, he listens, makes no reply,—sometimes gives
way for a day or two.—then resumes his project, and car-
ries out his will. There is in his study, at the Elysee, a
drawer, frequently half open. He takes thence a paper ;
reads it to a minister. It is a decree. The minister as-
sents or dissents. If he dissents, Louis Napoleon throws
the paper back into the drawer, where there are many
other papers, bundles of papers,—the dreams of an all-
potent man,—shuts the drawer, takes out the keys, and
leaves the room without saying a word. The minister
bows, and retires, delighted with the deference which has
been paid to his opinion. Next morning the decree is in
the Moniteur.
" He draws back sometimes, not before the moral effect
of his acts, but before the material effect. The decree of
expulsion of eighty-four representatives of the people,
Published, on the 9th of January, in the Moniteur, re-
volted the public sentiment. There was a shudder,—and,
Closely knit as is all France,— the shudder was universal.
The 2nd December was not long past ; there might be
danger in popular emotion. Louis Bonaparte quite com-
prehended day,
this. Next the 10th, a second decree of
expulsion was to have appeared, containing eight hundred
names. Louis Bonaparte had the proof brought to him
from the
Moniteur; the list occupied fourteen columns
of the official journal. He' rumpled up the proof, threw
to the fire, and the decree did not appear. The pro-
roceeded without a decree.

;lotions
"M. Louis Bonaparte has succeeded. He has with
aim money, the Stocks, the Exchange, the Bank, the
counter. the strong-box, and all those men who pass so
side to the other, when all they have to
..me. He made of M. Changarnier a dupe ;
a stop-gap •, of M. de Montalembert an ac-
complice ;of power a den ;of the Budget a farm. He has
stabbed the Republic with his stiletto : but the Republic
is like the goddesses of Homer, she bleeds, but dies not.
They coined at the Mint a medal, called the medal of the
2d December, in honour of the manner in which he keeps
his oaths. The frigate La Constitution has been re-bap-
tised, and is now called L'Elvsea. He can, when he
chooses, be crowned by M. Sihour, and exchange the
couch of the Elysda for the bed of the Tuileries. Mean-
'"a. for the last seven months, he has been displaying
-Tongued, triumphised, presided at ban-
'anced, paraded, turned himself about
'-ectio as ; he has gloated, in all his
-a ; he has had himself called
'stributed standards to the

readily from on

pass over is s

of M. T

frets, given balls, d
In all ways and all d
Thgliness, in a box at the ope
Prince-president; he has d
army, and crosses of honour to the commissioners of po-
lice. When it was considered expedient to select a sym-
bol, he drew himself back, and put forward the eagle.
Modest sparrow-hawk !"