The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-02-04


final chapter Of the life of Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte commonly called Napoleon Ill.,.
Emperor of the French. We have said SO
much upon the career and destiny of this
extraordinary man that return to the subject
may be read as an old, old story. But it is
not fair to one who has filled SO vast space
in the history of the world to dismiss him,
especially in the chapter which records the
last circumstances in his career, without con-
sidering what place he will occupy in the
worlds Pantheon.
Of the men who have governed Europe for
a generation, he who lies so quietly in the
dingy chapel of Chiselhurst was the young
est With Pope and the rulers of France
and Prussia verging upon eighty, we cannot
call him an old man who dies at sixty-t three.
And yet in incident and circumstance, and
opportunity and achievement, he was an
older man than Plus TX, or the Kaiser or
President Theirs. The Revolution of 184S
was the wave that washed Napoleon to fortune
and it was the wave that washed the Pope to
defeat, the Kaiser to exile and Theirs to ap-
parent obscurity. And yet Napoleon dies an
many and the banished Theirs master of France.
So truly do we learn in every phase of histori-
cal teaching that every statesman and every
party has tomorrow, no matter how dark
the day may be- Nor has any party more
need of the consolation which this lesson
brings than the followers of Napoleon. 1t is
the custom to think that with the Empire dies
his party. So it seems to us. Not because we
feel that the death of any mere man will of
necessity overthrow party, but because there
was that in Napoleonism as system which did
violence to the moral sense of this generation.
We cannot understand how system like Ma
poleonism can be endured by any nation. 1t
certainly could not be endured by France I'M
less there was as great man as the First Napo
leon for the master and ruler. If France is to
be ruled as an empire, and so wills it, it will
little matter whether the Emperor is the son
of Napoleon III. or one Of his cousins. But
| she does not so will it. The last Empire
reigned through terror, and fell in night, or,
rather vanished. Twenty years of Napoleon
ism, under the lead of one of the most patient
and skilful princes of that house, were oblite-
rated by few resoute men like Gambetta.
Surely if France had felt the Empire neces-
sary to her salvation no crowd of pavement
orators could have driven the Emperor into
| exile.
While, therefore, we regard him as the last
of the Napoleons let US see what place he
will hold in history. Those do him wrong
who see simply the contriver of the coup d Fiat
driven to empire by gang of adventures
like St. Arnaud and compelled into courses
foreign to his nature by resolute young army
officer named Fleury. Those do him wrong
who fancied that he was after Solferino the
great ruler of Europe-a second Cesar
greater in many ways than the first. He was
something more than the midnight conspirator
Of the Elysee, who strangled the Republic in
night and did massacre on the boulevards, and
he was very far from being even an imitator of
Caesar. While the coup dftat must ever be
regarded as the dark and damning stain upon
his memory, and even as political expedient
for which there was no real necessity, his
friends can say that France, by electing him
Emperor, endorsed the act. The coup dftat
was peculiarly Napoleonic crime. If Napo-
leon was necessary to France, then
it was right that he who bore that
name should take France, bride and curb her
and bid her do his bidding, even if he was
compelled to spur her until the blood began to
flow. We cannot accept this principle as be-
fitting any nation, and especially France.
Franco was great before Napoleon. She will
be great under any ruler so long as her people
are worthy of their history The world shares
this opinion. When France was PROSTATE and
Germany held the sword ut her breast de-
handing severe indemnity; when even
Frenchmen themselves, with their sanguine,
hopeful temperament feared their country had
been overwhelmed and seemed to be in the
Niagara whirl of irremediable destruction,
Europe came to her aid and gave her money to
pay the indemnity. If this had been done
under the Empire it would have been hailed
as triumph of Napoleonism But Europe
simply said:-"We believe France to be
greater than Napoleon, as we have found her
to be greater than Orleans and Bourbon, and
it is France that we thus trust and know
The ruling principle in the policy of the
Emperor, and what has been to his great ad-
vantage in the public opinion of the world,
was his devotion to England. This is the
more singular because, during the Empire,
England never wholly trusted him. He
seemed to feel that the rock upon which his
uncle ruined the Empire might be made
tower of strength to himself. And so it was.
In the whole alliance England regarded
Napoleon as dependent, tributary power.
When anything was to be done for the interest
of the British Empire-a war with China to
insure her supremacy against advancing
Russia, a war with Russia to protect her route
to the Indies-Napoleon was ready with his