e Nemours would have
obtained a fifth of that number. As I have already said, the latter was
disliked by his father's opponents for his suspected legitimist
tendencies, and tacitly blamed by some of the partisans of the Orleanist
regime for his lack of resistance on the 24th of February; the former's
submission "to the will of the nation," as embodied in a manifesto "to
the inhabitants of Algeria," provoked no enthusiasm either among friends
or foes.[49] Perhaps public rumour was not altogether wrong, when it
averred that the D'Orleans were too tight-fisted to spend their money in
electioneering literature. The expense involved in that item was a
terrible obstacle to Louis-Napoleon and his few faithful henchmen; for,
though the Napoleonic idea was pervading all classes of society, there
was, correctly speaking, no Bonapartist party to shape it for the
practical purposes of the moment. The Napoleonic idea was a fond
remembrance of France's glorious past, rather than a hope of its renewal
in the future. Even the greatest number of the most ardent worshippers
of that marvellous soldier of fortune, doubted whether his nephew was
sufficiently popular to obtain an appreciable following, and those who
did not doubt were mostly poor. While Dufaure and Lamoriciere were
scattering money broadcast, and using pressure of the most arbitrary
kind, in order to insure Cavaignac's success, Louis-Napoleon and his
knot of partisans were absolutely reduced to their own personal
resources. Miss Howard--afterwards Comtesse de Beauregard--and Princesse
Mathilde had given all they could; a small loan was obtained from M.
Fould; and some comparatively scanty supplies had been forthcoming from
England--it was said at the time, with how much truth I know not, that
Lords Palmerston and Malmesbury had contributed: but the exchequer was
virtually empty. A stray remittance of a few thousand francs, from an
altogether unexpected quarter, and most frequently from an anonymous
sender, arrived now and then; but it was what the Germans call "a drop
of water in a very hot frying-pan;" it barely sufficed to stop a hole.
Money was imperatively wanted for the printing of millions upon millions
of handbills, thousands and thousands of posters, and their
distribution; for the expenses of canvassers, electioneering agents, and
so forth. The money went to the latter, the rest was obtained on credit.
Prince Louis, confident of success, emptied his pockets of the las