Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1879-08-13
From Our Regular Correspondent
Paris Letter.
PARIs. July 9th. 1879.

solved to strive his utmost 10 crown the
edifice of his long and splendidly useful
life by carrying out that Panama canal
scheme which, to all practical intents and
purposes, he has made his own. He can
didly told his hearers that, as in the con-
struction of the Suez canal, he himself
would be solely responsible to the public.
He asks for a capital of one hundred mill
lions of francs, or four millions sterling,
to begin with; just the sum asked for
thirty years ago by the imperial pretender
temporarily residing in King street, St.
James. The caution money of two mill
lions required by the government of
Venezuela-for to the territory of that
republic has the venue of the projected
canal been shifted-has already been paid;
and NJ. de Lesseps thinks that the total
cost of making the canal will not exceed
seven hundred and fifty millions of francs,
and that it can be completed in eight
years. M. de Lesseps mentioned Incl
dentally in recent address to the French
geographical society that Prince Louis
Napoleon, during his imprisonment in the
fortress of Ham, had thought much of
Panama canal, and had sent an officer de-
voted to the Bonapartist cause to explore
the sthmus. The officers report being
favorable, he Qhe PRINCE wrote the French
ministry asking to be set at liberty in
order that he might devote himself to the
realization of his scheme, and promising
never to NEEDLE with politics again. No
reply was given to his petition, and he
Afterwards escaped and went to London
with view TO carrying out his project. :.
He was just preparing to start fol
America when the Revolution of 1913
caused him to alter his Intentions Two
years later the prisoner of Ham was en-
peror of France, and the Canal Napoleon
de Nicaragua " was relegated to the
limbo of the things that might have been.
Yes that might have been. The history
of the Bonaparte family has been a chain
of such unexpected, such astonishing, and
such incongruous events that speculation
may be permissible in what might have
been, historically, had the prisoner of
1876, had the exile in London in 1S47,
been able to carry oat his project of a
Nicaraguan canal. Anything and all
things may be expected from u family
which, from the small beginnings of
petty advocate and wine-grower S
daughter in Corsica, has, in the course of
seventy-iive years, allied itself with almost
every imperial house in Europe, which
has counted among its members two
actual and two potential emperors, kings
and queens by the halfdozen, and princes
and princesses by the score, who, in three
generations, have undergone the most ex-
traordinary vicissitudes-this princess
keeping boarding school in the United
States; that prince marrying a milliner;
such side branch us the Bonaparte- Pat
tersons becoming American citizens,
wealthy country gentlemen, Or prosperous
lawyers in Pennsylvania; this grand
nephew of Napoleon I.wearing the uniform
of a cadet at Woolwich; that DOMINIC the
purple of prince of the church. What
things might have been had N Napoleon III.
become managing director of the Near
aguan canal. The magic of his name
might have raised him to the presidency
of vast federation of Spanish-speaking
republics; or, quite as foasibly, he might
have met with Walkers and Lopez's fate
the qarote VII. The ex-emperor might
have read at Chiselhurst, in the columns
Of morning paper, that according to
the latest intelligence from the Isthmus of
Panama, new hopes are entertained of
making a ship canal across that obstruc-
ton. After failing to discover promising
line for excavation in the narrower portion
Of the neck, United States surveyors,
have gone back to Nicaragua, and now
report u feasible place towards the north
of the isthmus." Why did not this para
graph, if he read it, recall the grand
scheme of the Canal Napoleon de Mic
aragua TO the eXile's mind? Why did he
not think of it in connection with his
young son,even then studying engineering
at Woolwich? Had he done so, the Door
prince imperial and his friend, Ferdinand
de Lesseps, might have journeyed to-
gether to the isthmus; the prince might
have been, at this moment, safe and
sound, devoting his talents and his ener-
gies to the conduct Of an undertaking
which, thirty years before, his father had
not deemed beneath his princely rank. II
might have been; but it was not to be-
Fate forbade it; and There is no armor
against fate.'