~ STORY OF

om LOUIS NAPOLEON.
MES,

rN early morning in Paris—the
roar of cannon announcing some
glad tidings, general rejoicing,
- not only in the gay city but
throughout the length and
breadth of France.

A January day in England
—a group of silent, weeping
mourners, standing round the
dying bed of one who was an
exile from the land of his birth,
the land which he had so long
governed.

Such was the opening and such the closing scene of
the life of Louis Napoleon—son of the much-beloved
Hortense and Louis Bonaparte, who was born.at the
Palace of Fontainebleau on the 20th April, 1808.

From his earliest childhood the boy was remark-
ably attached to his uncle, the Emperor, who delighted
in the young Prince’s intelligence.

Not long after the birth of Louis Napoleon his
father resigned the throne of Holland, which had
been his for some years, living first in Styria, and
afterwards in Italy, as a private gentleman.

Hortense resided chiefly in Paris, where she was
known by the title of the Duchesse de St. Leu.
When the Emperor escaped from Elba to appear
again for the ‘ Hundred. Days,’ his Empress had fled
from France to the protection of her father, and it
was Hortense and her children who were with
Napoleon then, taking part in the gay scene of his
departure for Waterloo.

When the unfortunate Emperor said farewell be-
fore starting on the journey which ended in his
captivity at St. Helena, the little Louis Napoleon
climbed on his knees and implored him to stay at
home. ‘ Your enemies will take you, and we shall see

ou no more,’ he cried. The Emperor embraced

im, and then put him in his mother’s arms. ‘ Look
well to your son Hortense,’ replied he. ‘Perhaps
after all he is the hope of my race.’

But the Bonapartes had to retire from Paris, and
the ex-King of Holland took his wife and children to
Bavaria, where Louis studied at the Gymnasium of
Augsburg ; but they were soon forced to seek another
shelter, and after a short stay in Switzerland they
went to Rome.

At length Hortense found it possible to fix her
abode at the Castle of Arenenberg, looking down
upon the Lake of Constance, and here she devoted
herself to care for her children’s education.

Louis Napoleon early became remarkably skilled
in mathematics and fortification ; he loved the study of
both ancient and modern history, and if he read much,
he thought more.

It was in the military camp at Thun that the son
of Hortense learned the duties of a private soldier,
carrying his knapsack on his back, using the pickaxe
and the barrow, scaling the mountain heights, eating
soldier’s fare, and sleeping in a soldier’s tent. It was
by his mothei’s wish that Louis accustomed himself
thus to toil and hardship, so that if Providence should
call him to a high position he might be fitted to com-

     

mand all the better because he had first learned to
obey.

When in 1830 the news of the Revolution reached
the Castle of Arenenberg, it seemed as if the quiet
life he had been leading would no longer satisfy
Louis Napoleon ; he burned with desire to return to
his native land, and both he and his mother thought
that the necessity for their exile would be at an end.

For a time they were to be disappointed: by an
order from the Tuileries the Prince was conducted
by a military escort beyond the Papal territory ;
but when a revolution broke out in Italy also, both
he and his brother took part with the people, although
they were afterwards deprived of their command and
banished. It was at this time that the elder son of
Hortense died, and Louis was left her only surviving
child. :

His was a dangerous position, for he was surrounded
by enemies; the Austrian soldiers were seeking to
capture him, but his mother helped him to escape in
the disguise of a servant, and together they landed at
Cannes and made their way to Paris.

Outlawed and proscribed as the Bonapartists were,
the Prince resolved to implore Louis Philippe, to let
his mother live on French soil and himself to serve
as a private soldier; but the only answer to the
appeal was an order to leave France at once.

‘There was no choice, therefore, but for Louis to
retire to Switzerland, and about this time he became
known as an author, and put forth a work in which
he declared his firm belief that the restoration of
France would be found in combining the Empire and
the Republic.

In 1536 the Prince arranged measures with a few
of his friends, and upon the.80th October he presented
himself with a small party of officers at Strasburg,
and displaying the Imperial Eagle, called upon the
soldiers to follow his standard. They obeyed, and
Louis would probably have been successful in his

great Napoleon’s nephew, and not even a Bonaparte
—the result was that he was made a prisoner, and
conveyed to Paris under the charge of treason.

Not permitted to have a trial, he was found guilty ;
and though his life was spared he was ordered to
America, for Louis Philippe deemed his residence in
Europe to be a source of constant danger.

seized and ‘deported’ to America, where for a few
months he remained, carefully noting the practical
working of the Republican system. Returning to
Europe the following year, Louis Napoleon was just
in time to take leave of his mother before she died,
and he then remained in Switzérland until the publi-
cation of some statement by one of his friends as
to the affair of Strasburg brought him once more
under the suspicion of the King. It was then that
the princely exile resolved to exchange his retreat at
Arenenberg for England, where he lived for more
than a year in King Street, St. James’s Square.

Though Louis Napoleon did not appear at Court,
he mixed a good deal in society during his residence
in London, and found many friends who admired his
energetic and dauntless character.

In August, 1840, the Prince crossed to Boulogne
j and landed in France. His little company: of ad-

 

 

plan if a report had not spread that he was not the *

In vain. he protested against this sentence—he was »

 

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