Southport telegraph. [volume] (Southport, W.T. [i.e. Kenosha, Wis.]) 1840-1850, 1849-06-22
Louis NAPOLEON.


From the valuable history of the Bonaparte
family, contained in the last North British Re-
view we copy that portion of it which relates to
the present President of France; who as is ge-
morally known, is a son of Louis, brother to Ma
poleon, and Hortonse, daughter of Josephine
Beauharnas:
Naturally of restless, hare-brained character.
no one member OF the dispersed Bonaparte fam
lily seems to have retained in exile such a con-
centrated amount of Napoleonc spirit as the
young half Swiss son of the melancholy Louis.
From his earliest years, he seems 10 have real
Used the position in which his birth and name
placed him, never forgetting that he was Be-
naparte, and that, as such, he had duties to full
fill, more important than those of ordinary peo-
pie. This egotsm, however,-this innate con-
victlon of the existence of secret relations be-
tween himself and all Europe, was a more heal
thy thing to be felt among Swiss mountains than
in the confined air of an Austrian palace: and
hence that, which in the Poor Duke of Reich
stadt, was but morbid pining after activity.
showed itself in his more fortunate cousin, as a
frank, daring self-conceit. Even before the
death of the Duke of Raichstadt, Louis Napole-
on was virtually his senior and superior in all
claims; and after the death of the Duke this virtual
precedence was converted into sense of legal
right. BY the terms of the Senatus-Consultnm
in 1904, Louis Napoleon now assumed the first
place in the second generation of Bonapartes;
the lawful heir, after his uncle Joseph, and his
father Louis, to all that could be recovered of
the Imperial fortunes. This consideration was
not lost on the young exile of Arenenberg. He
became, after 1882, the declared imiator and
executor of his uncle, the acknowledged chief
OF the younger Napoleonidae Yet, in many re-
spects he was little fitted for this post of honor
In person he was the least like the Emperor of
all the surviving Bonapartes; the Beauharnais
features of his mother predominating in his hea-
w sombre countenance over whatever of the
Napoleonic he may have derived from his father
Nor could he claim the precedence on the score
of talent, Judging at least from such intellectual
exhibitions of himself as he has subsequently
made,-exhibtions which present him as an eX-
ceedingly rambling, incoberent, commonplace
person, with hardly clear idea in his head But
his courage; his halt-stupid selrconfdence: and
certain solderIy good nature, and kindly sem
sibility, that people liked him for, made up for
these defects, and were, perhaps. the only quail
ifcation necessary ia the leader of an enterprise
that all the world thought absurd.
After his share in the brief Italian movement
of 1881. and an attempt, when it was too late, to
take part in the Polish movement of the same
year. Louis Napoleon was obliged for five years
to lay aside all hope of elfGctiug the opening he
desired to make for himself in the sphere of Eu-
ropean politics. During this time, however, he
was not idle. By the composition and publca-
ton of three works, entitled respectively, Rere-
rieS P0litiqueeS, Considerations MiLIaireS sur
la Suisse and Manuel dArtiljeris, he was able
secretly to nurse himself in the Napoleonic am
bition, at the same that he acquired by their
means that consequence in the public eye that is
always accorded TO a man that has used the
printing press, whether for rubbish or sense.
One of the results of his book on Swift
zerand, and his Manual of Artillery Practice,
was his appointment, in 1884, to a captaincy of
artillery in a Swiss regiment at Bernie.
1t was in the autumn OF 1886, during visit to
the Baths of Baden, that the half Swiss adven-
turer. then in his twenty-ninth year, planned the
first of those two mad enterprises that, till the
other dav. were his sole title to historic notice.
France, he conceived, was at that time ripe for
a new revolution. Disguised with the reaction
airy policy of Louis Philippe, and, in particular,
still smarting under the infection of the laws OF
September, all the liberal spirits in the country
were eager for some decisive change, and all the
people. with the exception of the Bourgeoisle,
were willing to support them. knowing. as LOUIS
Blanc says, that in times OF uncertainty, reyOlu-
tons accomplish themselves according to the
programme that is laid down fer them, and adopt
whatever fac is offered, Louis Napoleon did not
doubt that successful rising effected in his ia
vor. il some frontier town, and the neighboring
district, would be the signal for general explo-
sion, which would result in the expulsion OF the