ity into a constitutional government. He might live long enough,
he thought, to make the new plan work, and if, by a successful war
with Germany, a war impending and perhaps inevitable, he could
gain brilliant military glory; if he could restore to France that
frontier of the Rhine which had been wrested from her by Europe
after the downfall of his uncle,--his dynasty would be covered
with glory, and all might go on right for a few years, till his
boy should be old enough to replace him.

Both these expedients he tried. In 1869 he announced that he was
about to grant France liberal institutions. He put the empress
forward whenever it was possible, and he made up his mind that as
war with Germany was sure to come, the sooner it came, the better,
that he might reap its fruits while some measure of life and strength
was left him. Long before, Prince Albert had assured him that his
policy, which made his ministers mere heads of bureaux, which never
called them together for common action as members of one cabinet,
which compelled each to report only to his master, who took on
trust the accuracy of the reports made to him, was a very dangerous
mode of governing. It was indeed very unlike his uncle's _practice_,
though it might have been theoretically his _system_. Both uncle
and nephew came into power by a _coup d'etat_,--the one on the
18th Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799), the other on Dec. 2, 1851. Both were
undoubtedly the real choice of the people; both really desired
the prosperity of France: but the younger man was more genuine,
more kindly, more human than the elder one. The uncle surrounded
himself with "mighty men, men of renown,"--great marshals, great
diplomatists, great statesmen. Louis Napoleon had not one man about
him whom he could trust, either for honesty, ability, or personal
devotion, unless, indeed, we except Count Walewski. All his life
he had cherished his early ideas of the liberation of Italy, which
he accomplished; of the resurrection of Poland, which he never
found himself in a position to attempt; of the rectification of the
frontier of France, which he in part accomplished by the attainment
of Nice and Savoy; and, finally, his dream included the restoration
to France of self-government, with order reconciled to liberty.

As early as January, 1867, the emperor was consulting, not only his
friends, but his political opponents as to his scheme of transforming
despotism into a parliamentary government. He wr