A revolution scarcely deserving the name had made France a second time
a republic. The Second French Republic was the creation of no
particular party. In fact, it seemed to have sprung into being
spontaneously out of the soil of discontent.
Its immediate cause was the forbidding of a banquet which was arranged
to take place in Paris on Washington's birthday, February 22d, 1848.
M. Guizot, who had succeeded M. Thiers as head of the ministry, knowing
the political purpose for which it was intended, and that it was a part
of an impending demonstration in the hands of dangerous agitators,
would not permit the banquet to take place.
This was the signal for an insurrection by a Paris mob, which
immediately led to a change in the form of government--a crisis which
the nation had taken no part in inaugurating. Revolution had been
written in French history in very large Roman capitals! But when the
smoke from this smallest of revolutions had curled away, there stood
Louis Napoleon--son of the great Bonaparte's brother Louis and Hortense
de Beauharnais--who had been elected president by vote of the nation.
France did not know whether she was pleased or not. Inexperienced in
the art of government, she only knew that she wanted prosperity, and
conditions which would give opportunity to the genius of her people.
Any form of government, or any ruler who could produce these, would be
accepted. She had suffered much, and was bewildered by fears of
anarchy on one side and of tyranny on the other. If she looked
doubtfully at this dark, mysterious, unmagnetic man, she remembered it
was only for four years, and was as safe as any other experiment; and
the author of those two ridiculous attempts at a restoration of the
empire, made at Strasbourg and at Boulogne, was not a man to be feared.
The overthrow of monarchy in France had, however, been taken more
seriously in other countries than at home. It had kindled anew the
fires of republicanism all over Europe: Kossuth leading a revolution in
Hungary, and Garibaldi and Mazzini in Italy, where Victor Emmanuel, the
young King of Sardinia, was at the moment in deadly struggle with
Austria over the possession of Milan, and dreaming of the day when a
united Italy would be freed from the Austrian yoke.
The man at the head of the French Republic was surveying all these
conditions with an intelligence, strong and even subtle, of which no
one suspected him, and viewed with satisfaction the extinguishment of
the revolutionary fires in Europe, which had been kindled by the one in
France to which he owed his own elevation!
The Assembly soon realized that in this prince-president it had no
automaton to deal with. A deep antagonism grew, and the cunningly
devised issue could not fail to secure popular support to Louis
Napoleon. When an assembly is at war with the president because _it_
desires to restrict the suffrage, and _he_ to make it universal, can
anyone doubt the result? He was safe in appealing to the people on
such an issue, and sure of being sustained in his proclamation
dissolving the Assembly.
The Assembly refused to be dissolved. Then, on the morning of December
2, 1851, there occurred the famous _coup d'état_, when all the leading
members were arrested at their homes, and Louis Napoleon, relying
absolutely upon their suffrages, stood before the French nation, with a
constitution already prepared, which actually bestowed imperial powers
upon himself. And the suddenness and the audacious spirit with which
it was done really pleased a people wearied by incompetency in their
rulers; and so, just one year later, in 1852, the nation ratified the
_coup d'état_ by voluntarily offering to Louis Napoleon the title,
Napoleon III., Emperor of the French.
His Mephistophelian face did not look as classic under the laurel
wreath as had his uncle's, nor had his work the blinding splendor nor
the fineness of texture of his great model. But then, an imitation
never has. It was a marble masterpiece, done in plaster! But what a
clever reproduction it was! And how, by sheer audacity, it compelled
recognition and homage, and at last even adulation in Europe!--and what
a clever stroke it was, for this heavy, unsympathetic man to bring up
to his throne from the people a radiant empress, who would capture
romantic and aesthetic France!
It was a far cry from cheap lodgings in New York to a seat upon the
imperial throne of France; but human ambition is not easily satisfied.
A Pelion always rises beyond an Ossa. It was not enough to feel that
he had re-established the prosperity and prestige of France, that fresh
glory had been added to the Napoleonic name. Was there not, after all,
a certain irritating reserve in the homage paid him? was there not a
touch of condescension in the friendship of his royal neighbors? And
had he not always a Mordecai at his gate--while the _Faubourg St.
Germain_ stood aloof and disdainful, smiling at his brand-new
aristocracy?
War is the thing to give solidity to empire and to reputation! So,
when invited to join the allies in a war upon Russia in defence of
Turkey, Louis Napoleon accepted with alacrity. France had no interests
to serve in the Crimean War (1854-56); but the newly made emperor did
not underestimate the value of this recognition by his royal neighbors,
and French soldiers and French gun-boats largely contributed to the
success of the allied forces in the East.
The little Kingdom of Sardinia, as the nucleus of the new Italy was
called, had also joined the allies in this war; and thus a slender tie
had been created between her and France at a time when Austria was
savagely attacking her possessions in the north of Italy.
When Napoleon was privately sounded by Count Cavour, he named as his
price for intervention in Italy two things: the cession to France of
the Duchy of Savoy, and the marriage of his cousin, Jerome Bonaparte,
with Clotilde, the young daughter of Victor Emmanuel. Savoy was the
ancestral home of the king, and the only thing he loved more than Savoy
was his daughter Clotilde, just fifteen years old. The terms were
hard, but they were accepted.
When Louis Napoleon entered Italy with his army in 1859, it was as a
liberator--dramatically declaring that he came to "give Italy to
herself"; that she was to be "free, from the Alps to the Adriatic"!
The victory at Magenta was the first step toward the realization of
this glorious promise; quickly followed by another at Solferino. Milan
was restored, Lombardy was free, and as the news sped toward the south
the Austrian dukes of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma fled in dismay, and
these rejoicing states offered their allegiance, not to the King of
Sardinia, now, but to the King of Italy. There were only two more
states to be freed, only Venetia and the papal state of Rome, and a
"United Italy" would indeed be "free from the Alps to the Adriatic."
Then the unexpected happened. The dramatic pledge was not to be kept.
Venetia was not to be liberated. The Peace of Villafranca was signed.
Austria relinquished Lombardy, but was permitted to retain Venice.
Cavour, white with rage, said, "Cut loose from the traitor! Refuse
Lombardy!" But Victor Emmanuel saw more clearly the path of wisdom;
and so, after only two months of warfare, Napoleon was taking back to
France Savoy and Nice as trophies of his brilliant expedition.
This liberator of an Italy which was _not_ liberated, would have liked
to restore the fleeing Austrian dukes to their respective thrones in
Florence, Modena, and Parma; but he did what was more effectual and
pleasing to the enemies of a united Italy: he garrisoned Rome with
French troops, and promised Pius IX. any needed protection for the
papal throne.
One can imagine how Garibaldi's heart was wrung when he exclaimed,
"That man has made me a foreigner in my own city!" And so might have
said the king himself.
The emperor and the empire had been immensely strengthened by the
Italian campaign. France was rejoicing in a phenomenal prosperity,
reaching every part of the land. There was a new France and a new
Paris; new boulevards were made, gardens and walks and drives laid out,
and a renewed and magnificent city extended from the Bois de Vincennes
on one side to the Bois de Boulogne on the other. With the building of
public works there was occupation for all, resulting in the repose for
which France had longed.
The Empress Eugénie was beautiful and gracious, and her court at
Versailles, Fontainebleau, and the Tuileries compared well in splendor
with the traditions of the past.
The emperor's ambitions began to take on a larger form. Under the
auspices of the government, M. Lesseps commenced a transisthmian canal,
which would open communication between the Mediterranean Sea and the
Red Sea. Then, in 1862, a less peaceful scheme developed. An
expedition was planned to Mexico, against which country France had a
small grievance.
The United States was at this time fighting for its life in a civil war
of gigantic proportions. The time was favorable for a plan conceived
by the emperor to convert Mexico into an empire under a French
protectorate. The principle known as the Monroe Doctrine forbade the
establishment of any European power upon the Western hemisphere; but
the United States was powerless at the moment to defend it, and by the
time her hands were free, even if she were not disrupted, an Empire of
Mexico would be established, and French troops could defend it.
In a few months the French army was in the city of Mexico, and an
Austrian prince was proclaimed emperor of a Mexican empire.
This ill-conceived expedition came to a tragic and untimely end in
1867. The civil war ended triumphantly for the Union. Napoleon,
realizing that, with her hands free, the United States would fight for
the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine, promptly withdrew the French
army from Mexico, leaving the emperor to his fate. A republic was at
once established, and the unfortunate Maximilian was ordered to be shot.
The finances of France and the prestige of the emperor had both
suffered from this miserable attempt. At the same time, something had
occurred which changed the entire European problem in a way most
distasteful to Louis Napoleon. Prussia, in a seven weeks' war, had
wrenched herself free from Austria (1866). Instead of a disrupted
United States, which he had expected, there was a disrupted German
Empire which he did not expect!
The triumph of Protestant Prussia was a triumph of liberalism. It
meant a new political power, a rearrangement of the political problem
in Europe, with Austria and despotism deposed. This was a distinct
blow to the Emperor's policy, and to the headship in Europe which was
its aim. Then, too, the Crimea, Magenta, and Solferino looked less
brilliant since this transforming seven-weeks' war, behind which stood
Bismarck with his wide-reaching plans.
His own magnificent scheme of a Hapsburg empire in Mexico under a
French protectorate had failed, and now there had suddenly arisen, as
if out of the ground, a new political Germany which rivalled France in
strength. The thing to do was to recover his waning prestige by a
victory over Prussia.
The Empress Eugénie, devoutly Catholic in her sympathies, saw, in the
ascendancy of Protestant Prussia and the humiliation of Catholic
Austria, an impious blow aimed at the Catholic faith in Europe. So, as
the emperor wanted war, and the empress wanted it, it only remained to
make France want it too; for war it was to be.
Only one obstacle existed: there was nothing to fight about! But that
was overcome. In 1870 the heart of the people of France was fired by
the news that the French Ambassador had been publicly insulted by the
kindly old King William. There had been some diplomatic friction over
the proposed occupancy of a vacant throne in Spain by a member of the
Hohenzollern (Prussian) family.
Whether true or false, the rumor served the desired purpose. France
was in a blaze of indignation, and war was declared.
Not a shadow of doubt existed as to the result as the French army moved
away bearing with it the boy prince imperial, that he might witness the
triumph. Not only would the French soldiers carry everything before
them, but the southern German States would welcome them as deliverers,
and the new confederation would fall in pieces in their hands. The
birthday of Napoleon I., August 15th, must be celebrated in Berlin!
This was the way it looked in France. How was it in Germany? There
was no North and no South German. Men and states sprang together as a
unit, under the command of Moltke and the Crown Prince Frederick
William.
The French troops never got beyond their own frontier. In less than
three weeks they were fighting for their existence on their own soil.
In less than a month the French emperor was a prisoner, and in seven
weeks his empire had ceased to exist.
The surrender of Metz, August 4th, and of Sedan, September 2d, were
monumental disasters. With the news of the latter, and of the capture
of the emperor, the Assembly immediately declared the empire at an end,
and proclaimed a third republic in France.
Two hundred and fifty thousand German troops were marching on Paris.
Fortifications were rapidly thrown about the city, and the siege, which
was to last four months, had commenced.
The capitulation, which was inevitable from the first, took place in
January, 1871. The terms of peace offered by the Germans were
accepted, including the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, and an enormous
war indemnity.
The Germans were in Paris, and King William, the Crown Prince (_Unser
Fritz_), Bismarck, and Von Moltke were quartered at Versailles; and in
that place, saturated with historic memories, there was enacted a
strange and unprecedented scene. On January 18, 1871, in the Hall of
Mirrors, King William of Prussia was formally proclaimed Emperor of a
new German Empire. Ludwig II., that picturesque young King of Bavaria,
in the name of the rest of the German states, laid their united
allegiance at his feet, and begged him to accept the crown of a united
Germany.
Moved by his colossal misfortunes, and perhaps partly in displeasure at
having a French republic once more at her door, England offered asylum
to the deposed emperor. There, from the seclusion of Chiselhurst, he
and his still beautiful Eugénie watched the republic weathering the
first days of storm and stress.