Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-05-08


and the more he courted them. | had an
odd proof in myself of his fondness for
mere titles. l had been at German
court, where they proposed to make me a
dame dhoaneur. q Impossible" | answer
ed. .sfor | am not noble. "But," they
replied, sswe will make you noble" When
told this to Louis Napoleon he said :
"Why did you not accept? You might
have afterwards given up the office and
kept your nobility" could not make
him understand my contempt for such arti-
fetal nobility. The great progress in po-
litical knowledge made by the higher
classes of the French between 1915 and
lS4S was lost to him. When we met in
1926, after three years of absence, | was
struck with his backwardness as to all po-
litical matters. While | had been learn
ing he had been stationary. The works OF
his uncle, and the conversation OF his
mother and her friends, all old Imperial
lists, formed his political education. He
learned something in Italy which was bad,
and in Switzerland which was good, and
more in England-the country that he
likes best. During his adult life he has
taken little from every country in which
he has resided except from France. In
France he has never lived, except as a
child, prisoner, or sovereign. 1t will
seem a paradox to you that it is to bis want
of sympathy with the feelings of the
higher classes in France, and to dislike or
ignorance of their opinions, that attribute
much of his success. His opinions and
feelings are those of the French people
from 1899 to 1872, as they were fashioned
by Napoleon during his thirteen years of
despotism, war and victory. Now, those
opinions and feelings, all modified or
abandoned by our higher classes, are still
those of the multitude. They despise par
liamentary government, despise the Pope,
despise the priests, delight in profuse ex-
penditure, delight in war, hold the Rhine
to be our rightful frontier, and that it is
our duty to seize all that is within it, and
have no notion of any foreign policy except
one of aggression and domination. The
people and he, therefore, perfectly agree
1t is not that he has learned their senti-
ments-how could he in prison or in exile ?
but that they are his own.
Lord Clyde-When was returning from
India the Emperor wished to see me. His
manner is very good, but perhaps not
quite frank. His voice is low and pleasing,
but somewhat artificial. We got on sub
ject on which military man can seldom
keep his temper. | called baggage lie diabte
He said that in Italy, marching on the
chaussees raised high above the flooded
Fields, his advance had sometimes been
separated from his rear by baggage wagons,
which it was impossible to pass, or to get
rid of in any way, unless they had been
thrown off the chaussee into the water. He
got almost excited by the recollection, and
certainly his voice differed much from the
suhdued, equable tone with which he began
Lord Clyde outstaid the rest of the
party.
Lord Clyde-My military friends tell me
that the Emperor is popular in the army
He has done much for them, and only the
higher officers know that he made great
blunders and exposed the army to great
risks.
Senior-I am told that he never was
really under fire.
Lord Clyde-That is not true. At
Magenta he was under fire for some time.
Viennois tells me that when, for want Of
the Piedmontese, on whom he reckoned,
he was outnumbered, he was more calm
than those around him. Sat the worst, :"
he said, "no1s momTons en- Soidat." The
danger, perhaps, was still greater at Sole
rino.
I spent the evening at Montalembert's
(April %, 1861.
Montalembert-I still find among your
countrymen men who trust in the honor,
or in the friendship, or at least in the good
intentions, of CeiUi-ci, who still think that
Queen Victoria and the Emperor Napoleon
can be permanently allied. | hope that
they may remain at peace, for peace de-
ponds on mutual fear; but allies. except
for some one special enterprise such as the
Russian war, they cannot be. An alliance
supposes some community of feelings and
of purposes, and nothing can be more OPP
posed to all your sentiments than his are.
You are sober, pacific, traditional, legal,
honest. He hates all law, all tradition, all
established power, even all established
opinions all that is sober, and all that is
honest The world is governed by two
classes of motives. One class is yours.
1t contains reason, habit, honor, truth,
fidelity, affection, generosity. The other
class is his. 1t contains passion, desire
VI NohAi1 IdtiCb. oSIl4ciuScoJ ftliI-
bition, rapacity. His success is mainly
owing to lis absolute indifference to the
first class of motives, and therefore his alb
solute freedom from the restraints which
they impose, and the intensity with which
the second class impel him, almost possess
him. Between him, therefore, and the
vast majority of his countrymen there is
perfect sympathy. They have the same
prejudices, the same hates, and the same
desires. But what sympathy can there be
between him and you, except, indeed, your
common dislike of the Pope? The Popes
is the oldest sovereignty in Europe. When
Celai-ci has destroyed that, he will try to
finish the destruction of the next oldest,
the Roman Empire. Surely your country
men cannot intend to be his allies in that
(April, 1862 At Theirs l found st.
Hilaire, Duvergier, Mason and three or
four others.
l asked Theirs if he shared the general
opinion that Louis Napoleon's prestige was
diminishing.
Thiers-It is gone his reign as an abso-
lutte monarch is over. l told you six years
ago that the amount of liberty which be
LETT in the Constitution, like young tree
that has rooted itself in an old wall, would
grow and extend until it burst the obsta-
Giles by which he thought he had confined
it. His wars, one just, the other, though
absurd, successful, diverted public atten-
ton, but now it is fixed on him. We have
long seen the folly and weakness of his for
eign policy. Now, he has himself told US
that his domestic policy has been as mis-
chievous, that he has ruined our manufac-
lures, aud, with a revenue twice as great
as that of his unc'e, has incurred a debt
that will weigh us down until we shake it
off by bankruptcy. All this he has pro-
claimed to Europe from the tribunes of the
Senate and of the Corps Legislatif.
Senior-Will he silence these tribunes
Thiers-If he does he must give us some
thing in their place--le droa dmterpella-
ton, for instance.
Senior-That seems to me to be the last
thing he will give. For man who gener-
ally has no plan, and, when he has one,
conceals it, and plays the statesman en-
conspirate,r, nothing could be more Often
siye than to be required to state precisely