Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1884-03-28

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rHIE FRANico-c ER1IAN WAR,
sIrteresting "Reminiscences &c the 0r1at
ons-1idsd Conn lot.
.Aiehibald Fo1bes ID The English Illustrated
fagazine.
Perhaps ia all history there ii no
episode SO barren of touches Of nature
al was the Second i Empire From first
stoslast it was mere scaffo ling 81 mere
trtcious artifciality There was tho
sham Caesar, faced person with q knack
OF uttering obscurities conveying d
vague favor Of .,nino usness at which
the nations pricked their sensitive ears.
The inner line Of the empire Was q
strange mixture Of rottenness and gim-
crs.ckery. What . cor1rtl The atmos-
phere Of Compiegne had confused
aroma Of bastardy, the demi- monde,
the bourse, bogus nobility journalism
in the degradation Of prostitution, mill
taryism, half bravo, half gallant; Of in
trigue, Of dissoluteness Of insin-
cerity, Of CHASTITY hollowness, It
is among the most humiliating
problems Of modern times how long
this nasty gaudy caricature Of empire
was able to impose on the world. It is
a poor consolation for the worlds long
self-delusion that when the windbag
was once resolutely pricked, it should
have collapsed with such headlong
swiftness. The humiliating memory
cannot out Of that eighteen year-long
imposition. 4 Vii. 49, ..E##5.#
s T have seen Napoleon LII at the PIN
naole Of hishollow splendor. From the
German picket line on the I'd Of August,
1870, HEARD the distant cheering on
the Snicherenberg that greeted him and
the lad whom he had brought from Metz
to receive his baptism of fire." Again
I saw him on the morning after Sedan,
as the broken man-broken in power,
in prestige, in health, in spirits sat
with Bismarck on the grass plot in
front of the weaver's cottage on the
Donchery road. Next morning, he wit
messed his departure into his Wilhelms-
hohe captivity. [ have seen him dod-
dering about Brighton and strolling IN
der the Beech trees that encircle Chisle-
hurst Common. And for the last time
of all I saw that stolid careworn face, as
itlay on the raised pillow Of the beir in
the broad corridor Of Camden Place;
and when the face was no more visible
I witnessed the coffin laid down in the
little chapel among the Chislehurst elm
trees. I knew the boy Of the empire
when the shack1es of the empire had
fallen from his limbs, and he was no
longer buckram creature, but lively,
natural lad. My acquaintance endured
into his manhood. When the twilight
was falling on the rolling veldt of Zulu
land, and his days work in the staff tent
was done, he liked, as it seemed to me,
to gossip with one who knew the, other
side of the picture, about the early days
of the Franco G ermans war-a war that
had wrought at once his ruin and his
emancipation. And finally, poor gal
liant lad! Isaw dimly through tears the
very last of him, as he lay there dead
on the blood-stained sward by the
Ityotyosi river, with calm proud smile
on his face, and his body pierced by.
countless assegai stabs. Men. have
called his death ignoble. Petty as was
the quarrel, wretched as was the de-
sertion that wrought his fate i call him,
rather, happy in the opportunity Of his
death. Had he lived, what of artificial
ity, what of hollow unreality might
there not have been in store for him !!
AS it was, he had moved in the world q
live ghost. Better than; this, surely,
to be dead hero:--tos end the Ma
poleonic sero- comedy with his young face
gallantly to his essailants, and his life
blood drawn by the cold steel!
I do not know how the palace Of St.
Cloud looks now, but when I saw it last
it was CHASTITY tire-blackened wreck.
A German picket of infantry men were
quartered in the roo1ess salon, where
they had built themselves shelter of q
kind Of scyrched tapestrie, and singed
carpet scraps. A troop of Uhlan re-
cruits were practicing the manege on
the little bend bordered by the stream
q spot that had been the empress
flower garden. Six months earlier who,
in the widest speculation Of fancy,
could have imagined the possibility of
such fate as this for the beautiful
chateau? There was the gaunt frame
work of a bow window whose outlook
was up the Seine in the direc-
ton Of Paris; q this ). was the
chief window, L was told,
of the room that had been the private
bureau--the ( study" as We should per-
haps call it--of the Emperor Napoleon.
At that window he sat late ON the after
noon Of 10th July, 1870. It was a fair
scene that lay before him. Out on the
lawn close under his eye. wac the toy
track that had been one Of the
rare play things of his boy. But it was
hardly time for admiring scenery or
thinking about toys The dreamy eyed
man with his head on his chest had more
serious food for reflection. War had
been declared. The Germans were
like clock work; The French
were trying to mobilize, and finding
that the attempt produced chaos. Oh
LIVER had proclaimed his ightness of
neart in taking the arbitrement Of war.
It was in the. council chamber next
door where LIE Bmuf had pro-
claimed the army ready to the
last button On the last soldiers CATER.
But the gloomy breeding man shared
none Of Olliyier's insouciance;; and he
knew too we'll how hollow had been lie
Bnufs swagger. Ever 8 uppet whose
wires men with stouter win pulled, lie
was never a. stupid man. His inteli-
gence was 50 keen as to impair his hap-
piness; had he been q duller man, he
would have had q much better time d
his spell Of empire. He saw himself
poised between the oil but certainty q