s 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'etat_, 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'etat_ 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