The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1897-09-04

historian, gives the following summing
UP OF the character and achievements
OF Napoleon III, which conveys a close
estimate of that remarkable man:
Whatever judgment posterity may
pass upon the second emperor, it is an
incontestibls fact that for nearly %
years he was che most conspicuous per
sonage in all the world. No figure in
the latter half of the nineteenth CEN
fury has So obtruded itself into his
tory.
One of the most singular characters
that has evsr been examined is certain
ly that of the victor of Solferino, the
vanquished of Sedan; more cosmopoli-
tan than French. at once a dreamer
and man of action, by turns and even
| sometimes simultaneously democrat
and autocrat, tormented now by the
prejudices of the past, and now by new
ideas, the representative of Caesarism
and at the end of his reign the cham
pion for popular liberties, taking for
councillors men thoroughly antipodaI
their antecedents and their doc
! trines, looking like a sphinx and not
always able to guess his own riddle,
active beneath an indolent appearance,
impassioned despite an imperturbable
Indifference, energetic yet with an air
of extreme moderation, loving human
ity while contemning it, kind to the
humble and compassionate to the poor,
very seriously occupied with the idea
of lettering the material and spiritual
condition of the majority, victim of the
faults of others still more than Of hls
| own, and better than his destiny.
The republic will always reprOach
the second emperor with having made
the coup d'etat and interfered with lib
erty. The frightful disasters which
| concluded his reign cannot be forgot
ten. A grudge is borne him for not
remaining true to his Bordeaux pro-
gram-"The empire is peace"-a truly
fecund program which would have per-
mitted him to realize his dream of ex-
tinguishing pauperism.
But on the other hand people remem-
Der that he took part in every great
affair in all quarters of the globe, that
he preached all problems, raised all
questions, that his eagles scared viCto-
rious from Pekin to Mexico that he
strengthened universal suffrage, pro-
claimed the principle of national SOW
ereignty and the principle of NATIONAL
tiles, realized in Italy, perhaps,
alas! to the detriment of France the
dream of Dante and of Machiyelli,
emancipated the petty nations of the
Balkan peninsula, inaugurated the sys-
tenn of commercial liberty sought ev-
cry means which might bring together
and unite peoples, and borrowed more
than one useful reform from social
ism.
1t is remembered in fine that he de-
clared nations should be the arbiters
| of their own destinies. and that he
! tried to substitute for the ancient sys-
! TEN of conquests the maxim, Right be-
| for night The ideas of this mod
| ern and revolutionary sovereign, this
| fore might The ideas of this mod
archy and the republic, were developed
! in an imperfect manner only, and for
! tune, whose favorite he had been SO
long, ended by being pitiless in his re-
gard But his work, though inter-
rupted, had a certain grandeur. 9th
ers will perhaps accomplish what he
vainly dreamed, and democracy may
some day do that wherein a Caesar
| failed"
Already nine-tenths of the trade OF
| pauUlyOlr is IN ITpul{sb bap6S