At any other time this attempt would have covered its author with ridicule Such, at least, was the opinion of the whole of the family of Bonaparte. But his confidence was unshaken, and in the woods of Arenenberg the romantic-minded friends who re mained faithful to him still honoured him as emperor. And now the government of Louis Philippe, by an evil inspiration, began to act in such a way as to make him popular. In 1838 it caused his partisan Lieutenant Laity to be condemned by the Court of Peers to five years' imprisonment for a pamphlet which he had written to justify the Strasbourg affair; then it demanded the expulsion of the prince from Switzerland, and when the Swiss government resisted, threatened war. Having allowed the July monarch to commit himself, Louis-Napoleon at the last moment left Switzer land voluntarily. All this served to encourage the mystical adven turer. In London, where he had taken up his abode, together with Arese, Fialin (says Persigny), Doctor Conneau and Vaudrey, he was at first well received in society, being on friendly terms with Count d'Orsay and Disraeli, and frequenting the salon of Lady Blessington. He was evolving his programme of govern ment, and in 1839 wrote and published his book: Des Idees napoleoniennes, a curious mixture of Bonapartism, socialism and pacificism, which he represented as the tradition of the First Empire. He also noted the fluctuations of French opinion.
The pretender, again thinking that the moment had come, formed a fresh conspiracy in 1840. With a little band of fifty-six followers he attempted to provoke a rising of the 42nd regiment of the line at Boulogne, hoping afterwards to draw General Magnan to Lille and march upon Paris. The attempt was made on Aug. 6, but failed; he saw several of his supporters fall on the shore of Boulogne, and was arrested together with Montholon, Persigny and Conneau. This time he was brought before the Court of Peers with his accomplices; he en trusted his defence to Berryer and Marie, and took advantage of his trial to appeal to the supremacy of the people, which he alleged, had been disregarded, even after 1830. He was condemned to detention for life in a fortress, his friend Aladenize being deported, and Montholon, Parquin, Lombard and Fialin being each con demned to detention for twenty years. On Dec. 15, the very day that Napoleon's ashes were deposited at the Invalides, he was taken to the fortress of Ham. On the whole the regime imposed upon him was mild. He corresponded with Louis Blanc, George Sand and Proudhon, and collaborated with the journalists of the Left, Degorge, Peauger and Souplet. For six years he worked very hard "at his University of Ham," as he said. He wrote some Fragments historiques, studies on the sugar-question, on the con struction of a canal through Nicaragua, and on the recruiting of the army, and finally, in the Progres du Pas-de-Calais, a series of articles on social questions which were later embodied in his Extinction du pauperisme (1844). But the same persistent idea
underlay all his efforts. On May 25, 1846, he escaped to London, giving as the reason for his decision the dangerous illness of his father. On July 27 his father died.
He was again well received in London and he "made up for his six years of isolation by a furious pur suit of pleasure." The duke of Brunswick and the banker Ferrere interested themselves in his future, and gave him money, as did also Miss Howard, whom he later made comtesse de Beauregard, after restoring to her several millions. At the first symptoms of revolutionary disturbance he returned to France; on Feb. 25, he offered his services to the Provisional Government, but, on being requested by it to depart at once, resigned himself to this course. But Persigny, Mocquard and all his friends devoted themselves to an energetic propaganda in the press, by pictures and by songs. After May 15 had already shaken the strength of the young republic, he was elected in June 1848 by four depart ments, Seine, Yonne, Charente-Inferieure and Corsica. In spite of the opposition of the executive committee, the Assembly rati fied his election. But he had learnt to wait. He sent in his resig nation from London, merely hazarding this appeal : "If the people impose duties on me, I shall know how to fulfil them." This time events worked in his favour; the industrial insurrection of June made the middle classes and the mass of the rural population look for a saviour, while it turned the industrial population towards Bonapartism, out of hatred for the republican bourgeois.
Sept. 26 he was re-elected by the same departments ; on Oct. 11 the law decreeing the banish ment of the Bonapartes was abrogated ; on the 26th he made a speech in the Assembly defending his position as a pretender, and cut such a sorry figure that Antony Thouret contemptuously withdrew the amendment by which he had intended to bar him from rising to the presidency. Thus he was able to be a candidate for this formidable power. The former rebel of the Romagna, the Liberal Carbonaro, was henceforth to be the tool of the priests. In his very triumph appeared the ultimate cause of his downfall. On Dec. io he was elected president of the Republic by
votes against 1,448,107 given to Cavaignac. On Dec. 20, he took the oath "to remain faithful to the democratic Republic . . . to regard as enemies of the nation all those who may attempt by illegal means to change the form of the established government." From this time onward his history is inseparable from that of France. But, having attained to power, he still endeavoured to realize his cherished project. All his efforts (Dec. io, 1848 to Dec. 2, 1852) tended towards the acquisition of absolute authority, which he wished to obtain, ostensibly from the people.