Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/239

Rh NAPOLEON 227 second restoration of the Bourbons was not effected in so gentle a spirit as the first. The family of the Bonapartes was banished from France. Hortense who, like the rest of her kindred, had enriched herself out of public property retired to Switzerland, and purchased the chateau of Arenenberg, overlooking the Lake of Constance. The next fifteen years were passed by the young Louis partly at Arenenberg and partly at Augsburg, which his mother chose as the place of his education. He grew up a gentle, studious, brooding youth, and the influence of his Augsburg schooling remained both in his habits of thought and in his German-like pronunciation, which was noticeable long afterwards. Until 1830 he attracted little attention from those around him, and none at all from the world, for he was as yet only one among several cadets of the Napoleonic house, Napoleon s own son, the duke of Reichstadt, being still alive. He seems, however, to have had dreams of a great future at an early age; and the instinct that some knowledge of military affairs would be useful to him led him to serve as an artillery volunteer in the Swiss camp of Thun under Colonel Dufour. The revolution of 1830, which dethroned the Bourbons and awoke insurrectionary movements in so many countries, first launched Louis Napoleon upon his eventful career. Along with his elder brother he joined the Italian bands who were in revolt against the rule of the pope in Eomagna. This revolt was put down by Austrian soldiers. The elder of the two brothers fell ill and died at Forli; Hortense, setting out to rescue her sons from their danger, found one dead and the other ill with fever, and on the point of falling into the hands of the Austrians at Ancona. After nursing Louis through his illness she succeeded in carrying him away in disguise, and the mother and son, after a most perilous journey, reached France, which they had not seen for sixteen years. They arrived in Paris in April 1831 : but the law banishing the Bonapartes was still in force, and the Government of Louis Philippe did not allow them to remain there more than twelve days. They were sent on, like other exiles, to England, and stayed for some weeks in London, from which they returned to Arenen berg. Louis, now twenty-three years old, was beginning to form the political theories which the memory of the first empire and the actual state of affairs in France under Louis Philippe naturally suggested to a thoughtful and ambitious mind. A pamphlet called Political Reveries, containing the draft of a constitution for France, and an Essay on Switzerland, Political and Military, were written by him in 1832-33. The first of these contains in a crude and superficial form the ideas elaborated by the author in his later works ; the second gained for him the complimentary rank of captain of artillery from the authorities of Bern. Louis remained quiet for some years in Switzerland, but the death of the duke of Reichstadt in 1832 had made him presumptive head of the house of Bonaparte, his uncle Joseph, the actual head, having no sons ; and, in company with some adventurous friends, he formed the design of overthrowing Louis Philippe s Government by presenting himself to the army. On the 28th October 1836 he came to Strasburg, and, after passing the next day in consultations with Colonel Vaudrey and a few officers who were in the plot, appeared at the quarters of the 4th artillery regiment, which Vaudrey commanded. This regiment welcomed him, and Louis then went on to the infantry barracks, where, however, the enterprise ended disastrously. He was arrested and imprisoned, and, after a short interval, sent to America by Louis Philippe without trial. He had not long been in the United States when he received a letter from his mother stating that she was about to undergo a dangerous operation. He returned to Switzerland in time to see her before her death (October 5, 1837), denying, prob ably with truth, that he had made any promise to Louis Philippe to remain absent from Europe. A pamphlet on the _ Strasburg affair, which was now published at his insti gation by one of his companions, Lieutenant Laity, led the French ministry to demand his expulsion from Switzerland. The Swiss Government declining to expel him, and, diffi culties with France becoming imminent, Louis voluntarily withdrew from the country and went to England. He lived there for the next two years, renting a house in Carlton Terrace, leading the life of a man of fashion, and associating with persons of prominence in society and on the turf. Among the gaieties of the time in which he took a part was Lord Eglinton s famous tournament. His real interests, however, were of a more serious char acter, and in the autumn of 1839 he published the treatise Des Idfas Napoleoniennes, a vigorous but sophistical account of Napoleon s work as an administrator and organizer, and of his foreign policy. He idealized the emperor, contrasting his internal government with that of his successors in a series of questions addressed to the existing rulers of France, and he exhibited his wars of conquest as struggles forced upon him by the English and other Governments in consequence of his efforts to spread civilization, and to unite the peoples of Europe in a federal tie. This work was intended by its author to prepare the way for a new attempt against Louis Philippe ; and in August 1840, while the body of Napoleon was being brought back from St Helena, he made his second descent upon France. Above fifty persons assisted him on this occasion, the best-known being Count Montholon, a com panion of Napoleon I. in his exile. A ship was chartered, and the conspirators landed at Boulogne, carrying with them a tame eagle. The enterprise had not even the gleam of success which attended the expedition to Strasburg. No one joined them, and within an hour or two those of the party who were not shot or drowned in attempting to escape were lodged in prison. Louis was now brought to trial before the Chamber of Peers, where he was defended by Berryer. He was condemned to perpetual imprison ment, and the castle of Ham, on the Somme, was chosen as the place of his captivity. For the next six years Louis remained in confinement. He had the qualities which enable a man to bear imprisonment well, patience,- calm ness, a low vitality and sluggish temperament, and the power of absorbing himself in work. The fortitude with which, during these six dreary years, he pursued the occupations which he had marked out for himself, and retained, with intervals of depression, the belief in his own future, had certainly something of nobility in it. &quot; Happi ness,&quot; he wrote, &quot; lies much more in the imagination than in the real world ; and as I carry my imaginary world with me, composed of memories and hopes, I feel as strong in solitude as in the crowd.&quot; In later life he described the prison of Ham as the university where he had taken his honours; and it was no doubt within this prison that he made himself, so far as literary study and discipline ever made him, a statesman. He published at intervals during his confinement, besides numerous occasional papers, an essay on the sugar question, in which he advocated a policy of protection ; a treatise on the Extinction of Pauperism, in which he proposed the colonization of waste lands, and the establishment of communities organized on a somewhat socialistic basis ; a scheme for cutting through the isthmus of Panama; and historical fragments on the English Revolu tion of 1688. He was working also at a History of Artillery, which was never finished. At the end of six years, after asking in vain for permission to visit his father, who was dying, Louis effected his escape, disguising him self with the aid of his faithful friend and fellow-prisoner,