his uncle, that the government of the empire belonged to him as a right, and that he would ultimately acquire it by the will of the people.  Had Thiers or Guizot or Changarnier seized the reins, they would have been adventurers.  All men are apt to be called adventurers by their detractors when they reach a transcendent position.  Even such men as Napoleon I., Cromwell, and Canning were stigmatized as adventurers by their enemies.  A poor artist who succeeds in winning a rich heiress is often regarded as an adventurer, even though his ancestors have been respectable and influential for four generations.  Most successful men owe their elevation to genius or patience or persistent industry rather than to accidents or tricks.  Louis Napoleon plodded and studied and wrote for years with the ultimate aim of ruling France, even though he “waded through slaughter to a throne;” and he would have deserved his throne had he continued true to the principles he professed.  What a name he might have left had he been contented only to be President of a great republic; for his elevation to the Presidency was legitimate, and even after he became a despot he continued to be a high-bred gentleman in the English sense, which is more than can be said of his uncle.  No one has ever denied that from first to last Louis Napoleon was courteous, affable, gentle, patient, and kind, with a control over his feelings and thoughts absolutely marvellous and unprecedented in a public man,—­if we except Disraeli.  Nothing disturbed his serenity; very rarely was he seen in a rage; he stooped and coaxed and flattered, even when he sent his enemies to Cayenne.

The share taken by Napoleon III. in the affairs of Italy has already been treated of, yet a look from that point of view may find place here.  The interference of Austria with the Italian States—­not only her own subjects there, but the independent States as well—­has been called “a standing menace to Europe.”  It was finally brought to a crisis of conflict by the King of Sardinia, who had already provided himself with a friend and ally in the French emperor; and when, on the 29th of April, 1859, Austria crossed the river Ticino in hostile array, the combined French and Sardinian troops were ready to do battle.  The campaign was short, and everywhere disastrous to the Austrians; so that on July 6 an armistice was concluded, and on July 12 the peace of Villa Franca ended the war, with Lombardy ceded to Sardinia, while Nice and Savoy were the reward of the French,—­justifying by this addition to the territory and glory of France the emperor’s second war of prestige.