, gave such a stimulus to trade,
adorned his capital with such magnificent works of art, and increased so
manifestly the material prosperity of France, that his reign was
regarded as benignant and fortunate by most people, until the whole
edifice which he had built to dazzle the world tumbled down in a single
day after his disastrous defeat at Sedan,--the most humiliating fall
which any French dynasty ever experienced.

Louis Napoleon offers in his own person an example of those extremes of
fortune which constitute the essence of romantic conditions and appeal
to the imagination. The third son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland
(brother of Napoleon), and Hortense Beauharnais, daughter of the Empress
Josephine by her first marriage, he was born in Paris, in the palace of
the Tuileries, April 20, 1808. Living in Switzerland, with his mother
and brother (Napoleon Louis), he was well-educated, expert in all
athletic sports,--especially in riding and fencing,--and trained to the
study and practice of artillery and military engineering. The two
brothers engaged in an Italian revolt in 1830; both fell ill, and while
one died the other was saved by the mother's devotion. In 1831 the Poles
made an insurrection, and offered Louis Napoleon their chief command and
the crown of Poland; but the death, in 1832, of the only son of his
uncle aroused Louis's ambition for a larger place, and the sovereignty
of France became his "fixed idea." He studied hard, wrote and published
several political and military works, and in 1836 made a foolish attempt
at a Napoleonic revolt against Louis Philippe. It ended in humiliating
failure, and he was exiled to America, where he lived in obscurity for
about a year; but he returned to Switzerland to see his dying mother,
and then was obliged to flee to England. In 1838 he published his
"Napoleonic Ideas;" in 1840 he made, at Boulogne, another weak
demonstration upon the French throne, and was imprisoned in the
fortress of Ham. Here he did much literary work, but escaped in 1848 to
Belgium, whence he hurried back to Paris when the revolution broke out.
Getting himself elected a deputy in the National Assembly, he took
his seat.

The year 1848, when Louis Napoleon appeared on the stage of history, was
marked by extraordinary political and social agitations, not merely in
France but throughout Europe. It saw the unexpected fall of the
constitutional monarchy in France, which had been during eighteen yea