niversal France, I am become the legitimate head
of this great nation, I cannot pride myself on a captivity which was
occasioned by _an attack upon a regular government_.

"When one has observed the enormous evils which even the most righteous
revolutions bring in their train, one can scarcely comprehend one's
_audacity in having chosen to take upon one's self the terrible
responsibility of a change_; I do not, therefore, complain of having
_expiated_ here, by an imprisonment of six years, my _rash defiance of
the laws of my country_, and it is with joy that, in the very scene of
my sufferings, I propose to you a toast in honour of those who,
notwithstanding their convictions, are resolute to _respect the
institutions of their country_."

All the while he was saying this, he retained in the depths of his
heart, as he has since proved, after his fashion, that thought which he
had written in that same prison of Ham: "Great enterprises seldom
succeed at the first attempt."[2]

[2] _Historical Fragments._

Towards the middle of November, 1851, Representative F----, a
frequenter of the Elysee, was dining with M. Bonaparte.

"What do they say in Paris, and in the Assembly?" asked the President
of the representative.

"Oh, prince!"

"Well?"

"They are still talking."

"About what?"

"About the _coup d'etat_."

"And the Assembly believes in it?"

"A little, prince."

"And you?"

"I--oh, not at all."

Louis Bonaparte earnestly grasped M. F----'s hands, and said to him
with feeling:

"I thank you, M. F----, you, at least, do not think me a scoundrel."

This happened a fortnight before December 2. At that time, and indeed,
at that very moment, according to the admission of Maupas the
confederate, Mazas was being made ready.

Cash: that is M. Bonaparte's other source of strength.

Let us take the facts, judicially proved by the trials at Strasburg and
Boulogne.

At Strasburg, on October 30, 1836, Colonel Vaudrey, an accomplice of M.
Bonaparte, commissioned the quartermasters of the 4th Regiment of
artillery, "to distribute among the cannoneers of each battery, two
pieces of gold."

On the 5th of August, 1840, in the steamboat he had freighted, the
_Ville d'Edimbourg_, while at sea, M. Bonaparte called about him
the sixty poor devils, his domestics, whom he had deceived into
accompanying him by telling them he was going to Hamburg on a pleasure
excursion, harangued them from the roof of one of hi