One night in the first week of August, 1840, the walls of Boulogne-sur-Mer were placarded with proclamations signed “Napoleon.” These “posters,” which had been printed in London, were headed respectively, “To the French People,” “To the Army,” and “To the Inhabitants of the Department of the Pas de Calais” (Boulogne, of course, included). The “proclamations,” couched in very lofty terms, aroused no enthusiasm, but much merriment; they were really as amusing as anything in “Charivari.” “Soldats, aux armes! Vive la France!”--so ended the appeal to the troops.
Then, on the same wall, the Boulogne burgesses stared their hardest at a “Decree” which they read without a thrill. “Prince Napoleon, in the name of the French people, decrees as follows: The Dynasty of the Bourbons-d’Orléans has ceased to reign” (excusez du peu!) “The French people has entered into its rights. The troops are relieved from their oath of fidelity;” with much more similar rhodomontade. Without a tremor--doubtless with many a wink--Boulogne read that M. Thiers was appointed President of the Provisional Government, and that all who showed energetically their sympathy for “the national cause” would be recompensed “in a striking manner” in the name of the country! One would like to have seen the faces of the conspirators when the “proofs” of these grandiloquent pronunciamientos were taken to Carlton Terrace. How unenterprising of the _Times_, the _Herald_, and the _Post_ not to have obtained early copies! Nor could those journals have suspected that the Prince between times--between gallivanting at Lady Blessington’s, riding one of his two saddle-horses (there were three others) in the Row, and “beating the town”--the aspiring, talented, and pertinacious Nephew of the Uncle, had devoted himself to the onerous task of “developing his programme”--
1. Alliance of the Empire and the Democracy. 2. Free Trade. 3. The Principle of Nationalities.
All admirable ideas, and all to be carried out one day, but not by entreating Strasburg troops to mutiny, or by “landings” at Boulogne-sur-Mer.
The Boulogne expedition was planned at Carlton Terrace in June, 1840. A steamer, the _Edinburgh Castle_, was purchased for the Prince, ostensibly for the use of “some gentlemen who wanted to cruise on the Scottish coast” (the name of the good ship seemed not altogether inappropriate). Guns were bought at Birmingham. Uniforms were brought over from the “Temple,” in Paris--all but the buttons; these were bought in London, and sewn on by Dr. Conneau! “Servants” were imported from France; they had all served in the army.