Immediately after his election the prince president found it very difficult to form a cabinet.  After being repulsed in various quarters, he sent a confidential messenger to Lamartine, asking him to meet him by night on horseback in a dark alley in the Bois de Boulogne.  After listening to his rival’s appeal for assistance in this emergency, Lamartine frankly told him that for various reasons he felt himself to be not only the most useless, but the most dangerous minister a new Government could select.  He said, “I should ruin myself without serving you.”  The prince seemed grieved.  “With regard to popularity,” he answered, with a smile, “I have enough for both of us.”  “I know it,” replied Lamartine; “but having, as I think, given you unanswerable reasons for my refusal, I give you my word of honor that if by to-morrow you have not been able to win over and to rally to you the men I will name, I will accept the post of prime minister in default of others.”

Before morning the prince president had succeeded elsewhere; but he retained a sincere respect and regard for Lamartine, who after this incident fades out of the page of history.  He lived a few years longer; but he was oppressed by pecuniary difficulties, from which neither his literary industry, nor the assistance of the Government, nor the subscriptions of his friends, seemed able to extricate him.  Several times Milly, the dear home of his childhood, was put up for sale by his creditors.  It was more than once rescued on his behalf, but in the end was sold.

Lamartine was buried with national honors; but among all the chances and changes that have distracted the attention of his countrymen from his career, he does not seem to have received from the world or the French nation all the honor, praise, and gratitude that his memory deserves.

Louis Napoleon, who had all his life dreamed of being the French emperor, though he took care to repudiate such an idea in all his public speeches, had not been president of the Republic six weeks before he read a plan for a coup d’etat to General Changarnier, who utterly refused to listen to it.

We need not here dwell on the struggles that went on between the prince president and the Assembly, from December, 1848, to November, 1851.  It is enough to say that the Chamber, from being the governing power in France, found itself reduced to a mere legislative body much hampered by the mistrust and contempt of the Executive.  Its members of course hated “the Man at the Elysee,” or “Celui-ci,” as they called him.  The Socialists hated the Assembly even more than they hated the president.  The army was all for him.  The bourgeoisie were thankful that under his rule they might at least find protection from Socialism and anarchy.

From the election of Prince Louis to the coup d’etat in December, 1851, there were four serious emeutes in Paris, and once the city was in a state of siege.  It was estimated that to put down the smallest of these revolts cost two hundred thousand dollars.