for the uses of the Elysée there was no press. Even the printing and distributing of negative voting. tickets was made penal; and during the ceremony which was called an 'election,' several persons were actually arrested, and charged with the offence of distributing negative voting-tickets, or persuading others to vote against the President."[1]
Who would suppose that a man of Mr. Cobden's abilities should have had nothing more than what has been quoted to say about Louis Napoleon Bonaparte? For though Louis Bonaparte did not possess the abilities and force of character which made the Roman Emperor so terrible a tyrant, there was a certain parallel in the two situations; for Louis Bonaparte stood somewhat in the relation to the first Bonaparte which Tiberius stood to the first Caesar. Louis Bonaparte was probably a more humane man by nature than the first Bonaparte—which could not be said of Tiberius as compared with Julius Cæsar; and yet, though Louis Bonaparte might not be naturally blood-thirsty, I fear the records of historical truth will show him to have had more blood on his hands than Tiberius—that he was, in fact, as blood-stained a man as Sulla.
The career of Prince Louis Bonaparte, known in French history as Napoleon the Third, is indeed
- ↑ Kinglake's Invasion of the Crimea, 5th edit., i., pp. 300-302.
