Confronted by such recollections, the France of Louis Philippe looked degenerate. It offered nothing to thrill at, to brag over; it sinned in having--what it could not help--a stupendous past just behind it. So the Napoleonic legend grew. The body of the great Emperor was brought home from St. Helena, to perform more miracles than the mummy of a mediæval saint. Power and _gloire_ came to be regarded as the products of a Napoleonic régime: to secure them it was only necessary to put a Bonapartist on the throne.
Contemporaneous with the expansion of this spell, Socialism grew up, and taught that, just as the _bourgeoisie_ had overthrown the old privileged classes in the French Revolution, so now the working classes must emancipate themselves from the tyranny of the _bourgeoisie_. Political equality without industrial equality seemed a mockery. In this wise the doctrines of a score of Utopians penetrated society to loosen old bonds and embitter class with class. And besides all this, there was the usual wrangle of political parties. The tide of opposition rose, and on February 24, 1848, swept away Louis Philippe and his minister Guizot. Among the many fortune-seekers whom that tide brought to land was Louis Napoleon.
He was born in Paris, April 20, 1808, his mother being Hortense Beauharnais, who had married Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland. The younger Louis could just remember being petted in the Tuileries by the great Emperor: then, like all the Bonapartes, he had been packed off into exile. His youth was chiefly spent on Lake Constance, at Augsburg, and at Thun. In 1831 he had joined the Carbonari plotters in Italy. The next year, through the death of his elder brother and of the great Napoleon’s son, he became the official Pretender to the Bonapartist hopes. People knew him only as a visionary, who talked much about his “star,” and by writings and deeds tried to persuade the world that he too, like his uncle, was a man of destiny. A few adventurers gathered round him, eager to take the one chance in a thousand of his success. Accompanied by some of these, in 1836, he appeared before the French troops at Strasburg, expecting to be acclaimed Emperor and to march triumphantly to Paris. He did go to Paris, escorted by policemen; but his attempt seemed so foolish that Louis Philippe merely paid his passage to America to be rid of him.