The man at the head of the French Republic was surveying all these conditions with an intelligence, strong and even subtle, of which no one suspected him, and viewed with satisfaction the extinguishment of the revolutionary fires in Europe, which had been kindled by the one in France to which he owed his own elevation!

The Assembly soon realized that in this prince-president it had no automaton to deal with.  A deep antagonism grew, and the cunningly devised issue could not fail to secure popular support to Louis Napoleon.  When an assembly is at war with the president because it desires to restrict the suffrage, and he to make it universal, can anyone doubt the result?  He was safe in appealing to the people on such an issue, and sure of being sustained in his proclamation dissolving the Assembly.

The Assembly refused to be dissolved.  Then, on the morning of December 2, 1851, there occurred the famous coup d’etat, when all the leading members were arrested at their homes, and Louis Napoleon, relying absolutely upon their suffrages, stood before the French nation, with a constitution already prepared, which actually bestowed imperial powers upon himself.  And the suddenness and the audacious spirit with which it was done really pleased a people wearied by incompetency in their rulers; and so, just one year later, in 1852, the nation ratified the coup d’etat by voluntarily offering to Louis Napoleon the title, Napoleon III., Emperor of the French.

His Mephistophelian face did not look as classic under the laurel wreath as had his uncle’s, nor had his work the blinding splendor nor the fineness of texture of his great model.  But then, an imitation never has.  It was a marble masterpiece, done in plaster!  But what a clever reproduction it was!  And how, by sheer audacity, it compelled recognition and homage, and at last even adulation in Europe!—­and what a clever stroke it was, for this heavy, unsympathetic man to bring up to his throne from the people a radiant empress, who would capture romantic and aesthetic France!

It was a far cry from cheap lodgings in New York to a seat upon the imperial throne of France; but human ambition is not easily satisfied.  A Pelion always rises beyond an Ossa.  It was not enough to feel that he had re-established the prosperity and prestige of France, that fresh glory had been added to the Napoleonic name.  Was there not, after all, a certain irritating reserve in the homage paid him? was there not a touch of condescension in the friendship of his royal neighbors?  And had he not always a Mordecai at his gate—­while the Faubourg St. Germain stood aloof and disdainful, smiling at his brand-new aristocracy?

War is the thing to give solidity to empire and to reputation!  So, when invited to join the allies in a war upon Russia in defence of Turkey, Louis Napoleon accepted with alacrity.  France had no interests to serve in the Crimean War (1854-56); but the newly made emperor did not underestimate the value of this recognition by his royal neighbors, and French soldiers and French gun-boats largely contributed to the success of the allied forces in the East.