NAPOLEON THE LITTLE.

NZ Truth, Issue 118, 21 September 1907, Page 3

NAPOLEON THE LITTLE.

WAS HE LEGITIMATE? "No," says "the Little Red Man." Louis Bonaparte Repudiates Louis Napoleon.

Napoleon the Little may not, after all, have been of the blood of Napoleon the First. A recent writer,, who calls himself ''Le Petit Homme Rouge," discusses the matter, and quotes a letter from Louis Napoleon's father to Pope Gregory XVI., m which the former terms his reputed son one who usurps his name. There is much secret history m this book by "Le Petit Homme Rouge" (which means "The Little Red Man"), and it seems to be well worth reading. It is thus reviewed m a recent issue of London "Truth" :— »

A book of unusual interest and accuracy I have just been reading, "The Court of the Tuileries. " by "Le Petit Homme Rouge," has set me wondering at the prestige of legitimacy, even

OF PRESUMED/LEGITIMACY, In a letter addressed to Pope Gregory XVI., after his second son's death, Louis Bonaparte writes : "As for the other (the future Napoleon 111- >, who usurps my name, he, as you know, Holy Father, is nothing to me, thanks be to God." At other times, no doubt, Louis Bonaparte acknowledged Louis Napoleon as his son, but ill? amours of Hortense, his mother, justify ths occasional misgivings of his reputed father as to his legitimacy- As therefore, Hortense was no better morally that the m-other of Count Wdlewski, and as. this count was the son— and not the mere nephew or supposed nephew— of the great Napoleon, why should not the French, m their infatuation with that great name, have [preferred him to Napoleon 111.? At present, indeed, there is m France morfe than one in~

. disputable great-grandson of Napo- ; leon the First who might pose as an j Imperialist pretender with more i right than Napoleon 111. could claim, if hlood counted for as much as it counts m the pedigree of any other animal than man. There were two characteristics, however, which Napoleon lili

SEEMED TO HAVE INHERITED from Louis Bonaparte— his courage) and his dreaminess. In a hook a - bout Queen Hortense, which I recently called to your notice, Louis Bonaparte, like his brother Napoleon, showed himself absolutely fearless m battle ; and Louis Napoleon, unlike his cousin Pi on-Pi on, wa s imperturbable m circumstances which- might well have shaken the most iron nerve.; Take, e.g., his bearing after Orsini's attempt to assassinate him outside the Opera House. By the way, how curiously ominous was the programme of the performance that evening ! First on the bill was a conspiracy—the third act of ''Guillaume Tell" ; next a revolution— the third act of "Masaniello" ; next a political murder— the execution scene of "Maria Stuarda"; and, finally, the assassination act of "Gustavus III." In the middle of the great scene of "Guillaume Tell," where Arnold von Melcmthal swears to avenge his country, the house is startled by the sound of . _■.-..'. A TREMENDOUS EXPLOSION, followed by the ominous cry of a Commissary of Police, who shouted imperatively "On demande des raedicins a l'instant !"

Everybody now realised that something dreadful had happened. Women sob-bed, some even fainted. The Emperor—was he killed ? The Empress —what of her ? There was yet another moment of suspense. Then all who were not overcome by their feelings sprang excitedly from their seats, turned towards the Imperial box and burst into acclamations. Before them stood ihe Emperor and Empress acknowledging their plaudits. "The Man of Mystery," a s Napoleon 111. was then so often styled, looked as composed as ever— neither paler nor redder than was his wont. Not a quiver either of any facial muscle or of , hand, not a sparkle m his side-glancing eyes was to be detected. As somebody said at the time if there were any man m the world who could bear being blown Up with gunpowder without a change of countenance, it was Napoleon 111.

With all this courage m the face of danger, Napoleon 111., dreamy as Louis Bonaparte, would never have maue the bold bid of the Coup d'Etat for Empire, but for the insistence of his desperate confederates. He hesitated and hung hack, just as Caesar did : at the Rubicon and as- the great Napoleon did at the Coup d'Etat of Brumaire, but the hesitation was no more due m Napoleon Ill's, case than m theirs, to failure of nerve. . _ AS FOR THIS CRIME

of the Coup d'Etat, Le Petit Homme Rouge holds that it was Greek meeting Greek. If Louis Napoleon had not deposed the Assembly, ' the Assembly would have deposed him, "and the case was simply one of Coup d'Etat against Coup d'Etat." It was Greek meeting Greek, too, m the matter of the provocation of the war of 1870, whioh is usually supposed to he ths Machiavellian work of Prince Bismarck. In 1869 Napoleon 111. sent his aide-de-camp, General Lebrun, to Vienna, to confer there with Archduke Albert, and the result of the .conference was an agreement that Germany should he invaded by the entire forces of France and Austria, with the support of 100,000 Italians. But the Hungarian Ministers, the Hohenzollern candidature which ■bc-brayed tbe secret of the negotiation to Bismarck, who then deliberately hurled at France, for the second time, the Hohenzollern c andidature, which appeared to have bee» definitely shelved the previous year. Indeed, as Le Petit Homme Rouge

PROVES INDISPUTABLY, this candidature was originally an exclusively Prussian idea. Spain had made no spontaneous offer of the crown, but Primee Bismarck contrived, through negotiations, with certain Spanish agents, to bring the offer about for his own purposes. By precipitating the war with unprepared France and by winning through) Moltke's . genius a succession of crushing victories, Bismarck knocked the bottom out of the coalition. Italy and Austria both broke away andi. left France to her fate. No other took that I have read gives you anything like the detailed, ' minute, accurate, and interesting account of "the ceremonial, splendour, foibles, lapses, and downfall of the Second Empire," or such • vivid pictures of its chief personages as you find m this Court of th e Tuileries."