New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1873-01-10

/ The news that came over the wires to us
yesterday afternoon, announcing the sud
| deh death of the ex-Emperor of France, in
his quiet exile home in England, caused lit
tie comment. seareely the death of any
man SO widely known could have occurred
and been received with such feeling of in
difference. Yet, had this news flashed
across the continents q couple of years ago,
1t would have unsettled the money market
Of every metropolitan city, and, perhaps,
have caused a financial panic,
The career of Louis Napoie on has been
an extraordinary and a romantic one, From
poverty to throne, and from throne to
outlawry, is a transition very seldom heard
of outside OF France. Yet the same causes
that made Louis Napoleon Emperor after
ward drove him into exile.
There was nothing 30 remarkable about
Napoleon as q man as there is about the
French as q nation-a restless people, full
of contradictions, impatient at routine and
order.
There is NO reason why the grandchildren
Of those who beheaded the lovely Marie
Aptoinette should not e-erect monarchy in
the person of the nephew of Bonaparte, or
Why they, in another mood, should not
drive that monarch into exile or to death,
as they have done every ruler they ha We
had for hundred years, and then shatter
the Column Vendome to sigRalise the
breaking Of power.
1t was much to Napoleon that he was the
descendant OF great man, and it was as
unfortunate, perhaps, for him that the red
cap is as potent In it's inspirsto in Paris to-
day as it was when the maddened populace
struggled to possess the heads that rolled
down from the guillotine that they nigh
lap the blood that gushed from the dissev-
cred arteries.
UnQuestiOnasly LOUIS Napoleon was a
firm, judicious, discreet ruler of his people,
yet he had more Of fnesse than greatn ess;
he had more knowledge of the weak side
of the French character, and how to con-
troll it, than q conscientious regard for the
good of his people. Thus he fell, as IN any
'other men have lonesome nearer home
through the ambition of others reacting
upon or rejecting from those very traits of
character.
Said Victor Hugo: "Louis Napoleon has
deceived the French people twice-frst,
when they took him for a fool, and again
when they took him for genius" This is
as honest a tribute as could be rendered by
any Rrenchman, though it is the utteranee
of one who has spent third of lifetime
In hating him.
The connection of louis Napoleon with
the late Archduke Macmillan, when it is
written-ss it will be, now that he is dead
Will show the character of the former il no
enviable light, for on his head will rest the
responsibility of the blood Of one who was
nothing else than the victim of his dupl-
city. The diplomacy of St. Cloud was more
infamous than the muskets of Guerra tero
were cruel.
If he had lived Louis Napoleon might
have been recalled to France, in some
changeable mood of her people, and thus
have lived part of his uncle's history ever
again. And the young Prince Imperial,
now rapidly ripening into manhood, may,
without committing any outrage upon pre-
eedent, sit on the throne of his ancestors.
What the future has in store for France
only miracle can determine. But il there
is an unhappy being living to-day it is the
poor little, restless, old, gray haired man
who stands tremblingly at the head of the
French nation in the place of the booted
and spirited exile who died In England yes
teIdaye