ic by an immense majority.

Although he was regarded as possessing a rather dull intellect, and as
being, partly for that reason, a "safe" man for the presidential office,
Napoleon soon proved his capacity for intrigue and for cajoling the
people. By intervening in behalf of Pope Pius IX, whom revolutionists
had driven from Rome, he gained the support of the clergy. Napoleon's
troops restored Pius IX (1850) to the papal throne. The President's aims
at supremacy were approved by the French monarchists, and he used all
means to increase his popularity, placing only his adherents in office.

When the Assembly, composed of seven hundred sixty members, undertook to
restrict the suffrage, which was "universal," Napoleon opposed the
change. He thus appeared to be the champion of the people against the
legislative body. As his term was to expire on May 2, 1852, and as he
was ineligible for a second term, although he knew that a majority of
the people favored his continuance in office, he saw no way to
accomplish that except by force. He therefore determined to use force,
and the method he adopted was that of the _coup d'etat_. The success of
that stroke insured all that he aimed at. In December, 1851, by an
almost unanimous vote he was elected President for ten years. All his
"ideas" and purposes were embodied in a new constitution, and before the
end of 1852 the question of restoring the empire was submitted to the
people; and by the plebiscite of November, in that year, an enormous
majority of the voters elected him Emperor.

No account of the _coup d'etat_,--the most striking and effective in
this series of dramatic events--surpasses in authenticity or interest
that of De Tocqueville. The famous author of _Democracy in America_, and
of equally celebrated works of French history, became Vice-President of
the National Assembly in 1849. As a member of that body he was justified
in saying of his story of the _coup d'etat_, "I merely relate, as an
actual witness, the things I saw with my eyes and heard with my ears."
The first step taken by Napoleon in this affair was the arrest of the
opposition leaders of the Assembly in their beds, on the pretext of a
conspiracy against him in that body. De Tocqueville describes what
followed.

When the representatives of the people learned on the morning of
December 2, 1851, that several of their colleagues were arrested, they
ran to the Assembly. The doors were guarded by the Chasseurs de