Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/344

 302 ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1853 CHAP. — this queen of great renown, was delivered bound XIV " into the hands of Prince Louis Bonaparte, and Morny, and Maupas or De Manpas, and St Ar- naud formerly Le Roy. And the benefit which Prince Louis derived from the massacre was not transitory. It is a maxim of French politics that, happen what may, a man seeking to be a ruler of France must not be ridiculous. From 1836 until uron their 184S Prince Louis had never ceased to be obscure r'idicuHng except by bringing upon himself the laughter of Nayoieon. the world ; and his election into the chair of the Presidency had only served to bring upon him a more constant outpouring of the scorn and sar- casm which Paris knows how to bestow.* Even the suddenness and perfect success of the blow struck in the night between the 1st and the 2d of December had failed to make Paris think of him with gravity. But it was otherwise after three o'clock on the -ith of December; and it happened that the most strenuous adversaries of this oddly- fated Prince were those who, in one respect, best served his cause ; for the more they strove to show that he, and he alone, of his own design and malice had planned and ordered the massacre,! the more completely they relieved him from the disqualification which had hitherto made it im- possible for him to become the supreme ruler of months of '51, would verify this statement. The stopping of the ' Charivari ' was one of the very first exertions of absolute power which followed the night of the 2d of December. f It will be seen (see post) that I question the truth of this charge against him.
 * A glance at the ' Charivari ' for '49, '50, and the first eleven