The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-11-06
Louis Napoleon and the moral OF Ms
Career,..OId Age a. "a Grown of
.rhorn. upon a HIIs.spent Life

Louis Napoleon and the Moral OF hiE
C,areer.-.OId Age a. Crown OF
Thorus upon a MIs-spent Life
E5o11 ne London Saturday Reuset0.
sorrows seldom fail to come, but they
seldom come in the way that seems be
forehand most natural and most easily
to he expected. His enemies long ago
prophesied that Louis Napoleon would
meet the fate he deserved. He would
be properly punished for his atrocious
coup d'etdt, for all the miseries he has
inflicted on private families and limo
cent men, and all the woes he has
brought on France. he would perish
yield TO another revolution, or at best
would lead the gloomy, anxious life OF
a military tyrant, hated by his people
and afraid OF them. These prophecies
may still come true, for any prophe-
cies may come true about any man
who is not actually dead. But, AT any
rate, they have not come true yet, and
there appears no sign oil tnelr cotnlhs
true soon. The Emperor has had, on
the whole, a very successful reign; no
party in France desires his downfall;
the Bourse trembles with aSi-
taLion when so precious man
is even falsely reported to have n head
ache; and his wife and his
son are personally very popular, mix
Oh Iut ulOSl pltdSduN anu 5'IlAO AN
terms with Frenchmen and French
women of all ranks, and are the object
of quite as much general interest at
BinritZ or Compigne as our Queen is at
BalmoTal or Osborne. And yet Louis
Napoleon is a man on whom dark
cloud of care and anxiety is obviously
settling. But his SORROWS come not
from his failure, but from his success.
He has invented the burden that is
In HI ETn < "a hn VyighnH
TO be, the Emperor, the sole responsible
manager OF French affairs, the one au-
thority TO whom all bow, the one judge
of what is to be done aud borne and at
tempted by one OF the richest, bravest
and most powerful nations in the
world. This sounds grand and ad-
mirable position enough 10 satisfy the
am bition, and give scope to the genius,
of any man who ever lived. Undoubt-
eddy it is wonderfully great thing 10
be what Louis Napoleon is. But then,
having so much power and so much re-
sponsibility, he also has load OF care
very much beyond what fall to the
share of most men. This, again,
is not in itself anything so very
terrible. II man is great
ruler, he must rule; II he governs forty
millions of men, he must go through
the trouble OF governing. But the ill
luck OF Louis Napoleon-or, as his en-
emies would say, his puuishment-is OF
n more serious kind. 1t SO happens
that now, after fifteen years of tolerable
prosperity, he finds himself in the pres
ence of very peculiar difficulties. The
weight of this whole system of person
nj government appears to be coming on
him all at once, and he is so situated
that, whatever course he takes, it seems
as IT, for the rest of his lite, he must
henceforward have the gravest and
most wearing cares beseIting him.
Surely this IL most unenvia BILE lot.
AS age is coming on him. he finds that
he has earned by all his eXerEions, not
repose, or "A quiet, stable dignity, but a
lot OF increasing strife and WEAKNESS
and uncertainty. To find health de-
caying, and hopes vanishing, and the
interest in affairs fading away, and yet
TO be obliged TO call on the spirits and
energies for new and uuceasing efforts,
to be always struggling when the pow
er and wish to struggle are dying out,
seems in a quiet transformations way to
be one of the greatest miseries that man
can be called on TO endure, and the sor
| rows il entails threatens to be the sOr-
rows of Louis Napoleon.