3. Histoire du Second Empire. By PIERRE DE LA GORCE. Paris. 1894—1905. 4. The Second Empire. By PHILIP GUEDALLA. 1922.

5. The Life and Times of Count Cavour. By W. R. THAYER. 1911. 6. Revolution and Reaction in Modern France. By G. Lowes DICKINSON. 1892.

7. Histoire du France contemporaine. By CH. SEIGNOBOS. Paris. 1921.

FOR

OR ten years Louis Napoleon was the foremost figure on the political stage of Europe. During the succeeding decade his reputation rapidly waned. For a quarter of a century after the débacle of 1870 it suffered almost complete eclipse. Only in the last few years have impartial historians begun to judge it fairly, and to place in something like accurate perspective one of the most remarkable and romantic careers in modern history.

To a verdict which will probably be final, many voices have made some contribution. Émile Ollivier devoted the last fourteen years of a life, which ended only at eighty-four, to an attempt to vindicate the later and more liberal phase of the second Napoleonic Empire. But L'Empire Libéral, though containing eight thousand discursively eloquent pages, distributed in seventeen volumes, is hardly more than a party pamphlet. Particular episodes in Louis Napoleon's life and special aspects of his policy have been illustrated by M. Lebey and M. Bourgeois. Mr. H. A. L. Fisher threw out some suggestive hints in his lectures on 'Bonapartism,' and Mr. Lowes Dickinson made a somewhat more substantial contribution in his brilliant little book, 'Revolution ' and Reaction in Modern France.' Only a few months ago Mr. Guedalla painted a very striking but essentially impressionist portrait of Napoleon III. Unfortunately the execution is marred by mannerisms which, though they might escape notice in a short article, become painfully obtrusive and proportionately irritating in a work which extends to more than four hundred pages. These, however, are works of minor importance. For an adequate comprehension of Louis Napoleon, the man, and for a critical judgment on his career and policy, we must go to two

recent historians, the one French, the other English: M. Pierre de la Gorce and Mr. F. A. Simpson.

The former published in 1887 his 'Histoire de la Seconde République,' in two volumes, and followed it up between 1894 and 1905 with a work in seven volumes, the 'Histoire du Second 'Empire,' which may truly be described not merely as big, but as great. A Clerical and a Conservative, he yet continued to do full justice, save only in the matter of his Italian policy, to the vulpine knave (of Garibaldi's imagining), the cutpurse of the Empire,' to whom so stately and seemly a monument is now in course of erection at the hands of Mr. F. A. Simpson.

Fourteen years ago Mr. Simpson published a substantial volume on The Rise of Louis Napoleon,' evidently intended to provide an introduction to a critical study of the Second Empire on an extended scale, and incidentally to supply a curious gap in historical literature. Ollivier, as Mr. Simpson pointed out, devoted only one chapter, and M. Pierre de la Gorce no more than four pages to the first forty years of Louis Napoleon's life. By all serious students of this period, whether in France or England, Mr. Simpson's earlier volume was cordially welcomed as a really important contribution to our appreciation of the character of one of the most elusive figures on the modern political stage, and to our knowledge of the scene in which his part was played. In 'Louis Napoleon and the Recovery of France' the promise of this earlier work is more than abundantly redeemed. Erudite in method, systematic in plan, and brilliant in execution, the book will make a powerful appeal alike to the specialised student of history and to the general reader. Beyond the Treaty of Paris, Mr. Simpson does not as yet carry us; but it is permissible to hope that further instalments of the work will be given to the world at no distant date.

A more interesting subject no portrait painter could desire: one more difficult few can ever have had. Is there, indeed, in recent history a career more romantic or a personality more baffling than that of the President of the Second Republic and the founder of the Second Empire? Nephew of the first Napoleon, grandson of the vivacious but slighted Josephine, Louis Napoleon was born in Paris on April 20, 1808. His uncle the Emperor was, at Bayonne, just opening by his attack upon the Spanish Bourbons a new, and as it proved, a fatal chapter in his career. His father

then occupied, none too comfortably, the throne of Holland. To him Louis Napoleon owed little; and after the separation of his parents he shared the home of his mother, Hortense Beauharnais. To her he owed much, and repaid the debt with affectionate devotion.

When the allies, in 1814, advanced on Paris, Hortense and her children took refuge with her mother, the ex-Empress Josephine, at Navarre; but in the course of the Allied occupation she returned, and was treated with consideration by the Allied sovereigns. Frederick William of Prussia even brought his children to play with hers. Fifty-six years later two of the playfellows met again at Sédan. After Waterloo the presence of Napoleonic ladies was no longer welcomed in Paris, and Hortense and her children were escorted from France. Regarded with suspicion by the Allies they were for several years harried from place to place until at last, in 1821, they were permitted to settle on the Lake of Constance in Thurgau. A nomadic life is not favourable to systematic education, but the young Louis attended for some time the Augsburg Gymnasium where he acquired the usual accomplishments of a German schoolboy. In Switzerland he lived the life of a country gentleman, and became a good shot, a fine horseman and a strong swimmer. The rudiments of a military education he picked up in the Swiss volunteer artillery.

The Russian campaign against the Turks, in 1829, tempted him to apply for permission to enrol as a volunteer under the banner of the Tsar; but his father vetoed the project. In 1830, however, he found himself in Rome, where he was strongly attracted to the policy of Mazzini. Whether he actually joined the Carbonari is a moot point; but his sympathies with the policy they proclaimed were so pronounced that he was expelled from Rome. In the following year (1831) he and his elder brother were induced by Menotti, despite the entreaties of their mother, to put themselves at the head of the anti-papal insurrection at Bologna. When, however, the insurgents invoked French assistance against the threatened intervention of Austria, the presence of the Napoleonic princes proved embarrassing to their friends, and the young men were politely dismissed. Fever supervened on exposure: the elder brother died, and the life of the younger was saved only by his mother's devotion. While still barely convalescent the young Louis was hurried out of Italy

and with difficulty mother and son made their way across France to England.

The journey across France left a deep impression on the mind of the romantic young man. His talks with peasants, his peeps into printsellers' windows, convinced him that the Napoleonic tradition was still alive and vigorous. St. Helena had served only to strengthen it. Meanwhile, France had once dismissed the Legitimists; but although Louis Philippe reigned he did not rule-an Anglican compromise which no Gallic mind could comprehend. Deliberately self-deprived of the Divine Right of Monarchy the Orleanists made no direct appeal to the Divine Right of Democracy. Unblessed by the priests, their rule was not broad-based upon the people's will.' Even at the age of twenty-three Louis Napoleon did not lack political penetration. These things were not hidden from him as he passed through France, and all he heard or saw he noted.

Early in 1832 he published his 'Rêveries Politiques,' a brochure justly described by Mr. Simpson as the first public assertion of his position as a possible candidate for the Imperial heritage. That position was appreciably improved when (July 1832) the feeble life of his cousin Napoleon II' flickered out. The publication (1833) of Considérations Politiques et Militaires 'sur la Suisse' earned for the future emperor the honorary citizenship of the Helvetic Republic and a captain's commission in the Berne artillery (1834). A year later he gave proof of the seriousness of his military studies in a Manuel d'Artillerie,' which was widely distributed among French officers. Plainly, the young man lacked neither application nor astuteness, though his next adventure might serve to afford evidence that he possessed the rashness which, in political leaders unhampered by the responsibilities of office, is perhaps only another name for prudence.

The proximity of Strasburg to the German frontier, coupled with the fact that it was garrisoned by the most strongly Bonapartist regiment in the French army-the 4th artillery-suggested that famous fortress as the locale of Louis' first bid for the French crown. Within three hours of the initial attempt to raise the garrison in his favour, the young 'Prince' found himself under arrest. Though privately perturbed, King Louis Philippe wisely attempted to render the fiasco ridiculous by refusing to prosecute

the pretender, who was summarily transported to the United States. His comrades were tried by a Strasburg jury, but acquitted. The enthusiasm with which the verdict was greeted must be noted as a significant stage in the young Pretender's progress. The Strasburg failure was a cheap advertisement.

The advertisement was accentuated by the prosecution (in 1838) of Lieut. Laity, one of the Strasburg conspirators, for publishing a eulogistic account of the affair. The pamphlet was confiscated, its sale prohibited, and its author condemned to a fine of 10,000 francs, with five years' imprisonment and police surveillance for life. France was interested to learn that the government regarded the matter so seriously. Meanwhile the Pretender had been recalled to Switzerland to his mother's deathbed, and the French Government formally demanded his expulsion. As the Swiss Government demurred and delayed, French troops were concentrated on the frontier. With this fresh advertisement to his credit, Louis thought it well to relieve his hosts of embarrassment, and made his way through Germany and Holland to London.

The death of the ex-Queen Hortense put her only (legitimate) son in possession of a fortune, which though considerable was hardly commensurate with the state in which he wisely lived in London. For this period of his career Disraeli's 'Endymion 'is a vivid and not unreliable authority. The curiosity (to put it no higher) of his own countrymen was well sustained by the publication (in 1839) of 'Des Idées Napoléoniennes,' a little book which not only obtained an immediate and genuine circulation in France, but made the author and his views for the first time well-known to readers of English, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Portuguese. In France the Bonapartist temperature was rising so rapidly that Mr. Fisher can write without hyperbole : 'There was only one subject which inflamed the imagination of 'France... It was the theme of poetry from the pens of Lamartine and Hugo; of innumerable memoirs, and histories and anecdotes: it was Napoleon.' The fever was fed by Persigny's elaborate vindication of Louis Napoleon's claim to his uncle's inheritance ('Lettres de Londres,' 1840), and, more wonderful to relate, was not sensibly diminished by the Pretender's ignominious failure at Boulogne (August 6, 1840).

This was a repetition on a more elaborate scale, but with