from a want of men of ability to uphold him.  He cannot make use of men of independent character, who insist on having their own notions, as the direction of affairs of State must be concentrated in his hands.  Greater liberty ought to be conceded in a regulated state of society, but in the present state of France there must be a strong and single direction, which is, besides, best adapted to the French character.  Freedom of the Press is for the present as impossible here as it would be at the headquarters of an army in the field if the Press wished to discuss the measures taken by the general in command.  Napoleon has shown wisdom, firmness, self-confidence, but also moderation and clemency; and though simple in his dress, he does not forget that the French people like to see their sovereigns surrounded by a brilliant court.”

Of the imperial baby in his nurse’s arms, on whom the father looked with a face radiant with pride and joy, Von Moltke remarks:  “Truly, he seems a strapping fellow.”

The little prince grew up a very promising lad.  He was his father’s idol.  Louis Napoleon never could be brought to give him any sterner reproof than “Louis, don’t be foolish,—­ne fais pas des betises.” Discipline was left to his mother, and it was popularly thought that she was much less wrapped up in the child than his father was.  His especial talent was for drawing and sculpture.  Some of his sketches, of which fac-similes are given in Jerrold’s “Life of Napoleon III.,” are very spirited, and when he could get a lump of wet clay to play with, he made busts of the persons round him which were excellent likenesses.

The emperor’s rooms at the Tuileries were rather low and dark, but he selected them because they communicated with those of the empress in the Pavillon de Flore, by a narrow winding staircase.  Often in the day would she come down to him, or he ascend to her.

His study was filled with Napoleonic relics, and littered with political and historical papers.  He kept a large room with models of new inventions, which were a great delight to him and to his son.  He was fond of wood-turning, and Thelin and he would often make pretty rustic chairs for the park at Saint-Cloud.

For some years before his overthrow he was growing very feeble, and always carried a cane surmounted with a gold eagle.  Commonly too some chosen friend, generally Fleury, gave him his arm, but he always walked in silence.  In the afternoon he would drive out, and sometimes horrify the police by getting out of his carriage and walking alone in distant quarters of the city.

On one occasion he had a difference of opinion with one of his friends, who assured him that if he insisted on planting an open space in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine with flowers, and protected it by no railing, the flowers would very speedily be destroyed.  His pleasure and exultation were very great when he found he had been right, and that not a flower had been plucked or broken.