pal authorities, and of the diplomatic corps surrounded them. All the pomp and splendor of the Catholic service, all the opulence of France's great capital, all the beauty and brilliancy of the court, all the grim majesty of the military; science, art, and lavish luxury,- all were united and exhausted on the incidents and displays of this mo mentous occasion. At last all was over, and to the echoing shouts of "Vive l'Impératrice!" Eugénie de Montijo returned with her imperial consort to the palace of the Tuileries. The career of the great Napoleonic dynasty is without a parallel either in ancient or modern times. Long since, the universal judgment of mankind has decided that its founder, Napoleon I., was in every respect as great a hero, and probably a greater, than Alexander, Cæsar, or Charlemagne, the three most renowned representatives of ambitious daring in the world's history. The variety and extent of Napoleon's abilities, both as a commander, a legislator, and a ruler, place him above all his rivals; while the splendor of his victories, the extent of his conquests, and the grandeur of his elevation, exceeds theirs in an eminent degree. "But in addition to all these elements of superior greatness, the family of Napoleon I. add an unequal attraction to his career. None of his illustrious rivals could boast of a wife as graceful and bewitching as Josephine, or as high-born and nobly descended as Maria Louisa. None could claim brothers as sagacious as Joseph, as gallant as Murat, as capable as Lucien, as romantic as Jerome. None could point to as many relatives who were sovereign princes and princesses, and who owed their lofty elevations to his own powerful arm. And none had a successor equal in talent and in desperate, successful daring, to Napoleon III.” Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, son of Louis Napoleon, king of Holland, and Hortense, daughter of the Empress Josephine and of her first husband, the Viscomte de Beauharnais, was born at Paris, on the 20th of April, 1808. Along the whole line of the grande armée, and throughout the entire extent of the Empire, from Hamburg to Genoa, and from the Danube to the Atlantic, salvos of artillery announced the happy event. This was an honor which fell to the lot of only two members of the imperial family, Louis Napoleon and the king of Rome, for they only were born under the imperial régime. It is not our purpose, in this short sketch of the life of the Empress Eugénie, to trace the career of Napoleon III., except in so much only as it bears upon her own. The Revolution of 1848 was over, and France needed a monarch skilled to rule in a reign of peace. Three very poor specimens of that article had been tried, in the persons of Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Louis Philippe, and had proved miserable failures. They did no great harm, because they did nothing at all. "Providence wrested the useless sceptre from the last, and bestowed it upon Napoleon III." Truly there is nothing so successful as success," and never has it been more clearly illustrated than in the history of Louis Napoleon. All writers who have narrated the events of his life, when in the full plentitude of his power he sat upon his throne at the Tuileries, have extolled him as a demi-god, and praised in most extravagant terms his wonderful abilities; but those who have written since the fall of the Empire denounce him as a cold and selfish conspirator and revolutionist, roué, and libertine: and declare that among the rulers of Christendom in modern times there is not one whose record is so utterly devoid of any redeeming act, so entirely dictated by selfishness, lust, and sordid greed, as that of Charles Louis Napoleon." Between these two extremes lies the truth, and among the defeats and disasters of 1870 we must not forget the glories and triumphs of 1855. This much is certain, that from the time of his attainment of the supreme power, Louis Napoleon exhibited administrative talent of the first order. France was governed with the regularity and system of a gigantic piece of machinery. More vigor, energy, and harmony had never before pervaded the administration. It was said of Augustus, that he found Rome brick and left it marble. That saying would not be exaggerated if applied to Louis Napoleon and Paris. The gay capital of the Empire was the special object of his care, and Paris seemed to have thrown off the dingy and faded habiliments of past ages, which still clung to her, and to have assumed the freshness, beauty, and energy of youth. Public monuments, palaces, temples, and boulevards were, by his orders, embellished, enlarged, renovated, and repaired. Old Paris disappeared, and new Paris started up in its place. Dark, dirty, ill-paved, and worse-drained streets were replaced by noble boulevards full of palaces. He completed the Louvre, reconstructed the Tuileries, regenerated the Palais Royal, and interminably prolonged the Rue de Rivoli. "His acts and deeds speak for themselves, and they prove, on undeniable evidence, that France was never better governed than by him. A people as fickle as the wind, as restless as the sea; a people as whimsical as women, as fanciful as children; a people with whom novelty is a mania and faction a disease; a people brave. intelligent, and generous by fits, and treacherous, frivo lous, and vindictive by starts, such a people could have been governed at that crisis only by such a ruler. And single-handed, by the sheer force of his genius, and the moral power which is the body-guard of genius, he gov erned them wisely and well. In spite of almost invincible opposition, in the face of almost unsurmountable obsta cles, he raised them, step by step, to be regarded as the most enlightened nation of Europe; he unsparingly promoted their national welfare, he perceptibly diminished their national evils; in short, for nearly twenty years he was the glory of France and the wonder of the world." The alliance between France and England having ter minated so gloriously for the arms and diplomacy of both countries, the emperor and empress of the French, in 1855, visited Queen Victoria in her own dominions, proba bly the first instance on record in which a reigning French monarch set foot upon the soil of his hereditary foes. The rejoicings on this occasion were prodigious, and Louis Napoleon, who had once paced the streets of Lon don a penniless wanderer, was received in the same capital with universal greetings, with flying banners, with military salutes, with the congratulations of the sovereign and nobility, and with the joyful acclamations of the mil lions. Albert and Victoria in a short time returned the compliment, and the scene was transferred from London to Paris. "On that memorable occasion France's gay and brilliant capital, that great centre of the world's civilization and luxury, assumed unwonted hues of splendor, exhibited scenes of unusual festivity and rejoicing. and exhausted her varied and infinite resources to impress. delight, and charm her august visitors." The felicity of Louis Napoleon was now about to receive a further augmentation, and his sudden and vigor |