The lawmakers of an infirm Third Republic in 1886 were more than usually jittery about the future of popular rule in France. The tubby nephew of Emperor Napoléeon I was spending many an evening plastering Paris with posters denouncing the republican government and advocating a prompt return to empire. At his Rue de Varenne mansion the grandson of King Louis Philippe was holding miniature courts and receiving ambassadors from abroad, for all the world as though the Bourbons still reigned. To stem the monarchist tide, France's legislature passed a law ordering from France's soil forever all heads of those...
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