Louis NAPOLEON AND THE SECOND EMPIRE (342 pp.] — J. M. Thompson —Noonday Press ($4.50).
A resolute exile named Louis Napoleon, nephew of the great Bonaparte, crossed the Rhine into Strasbourg one day in 1836 and waved one of his uncle's aigles (eagle standards) at the French garrison.
"Soldiers! A new destiny awaits you," he cried. "March with me ... !" A whole regiment obeyed, and Louis (no soldier) marched them stoutly into a blind alley; immediately, loyal officers put the pint-sized pretender in the guardroom. French authorities bundled Louis off to the U.S., with a warning not to behave like a damn fool again. But after four years Louis was back in France, up to his old tricks. This time the authorities sentenced him to life imprisonment in the fortress of Ham.
Louis stuck Ham for almost six years, then walked out, disguised as a carpenter with a plank on his shoulder, and was snug in Britain by next day.
Winning Ways. Now he changed his tactics, decided to win his place "constitutionally." Rightly confident that there was voters' magic in the name Napoleon, Louis ran for the French presidency in 1848, won by comfortable millions. After swearing to uphold the Republic and constitution, he proceeded to ditch both, and in 1852 declared himself Emperor Napoleon III.
The course of French history can only be traced with a seismograph. It is never more in need of one than through the 81 years which began with the French Revolution (1789) and ended, with another revolution, in the unseating of Napoleon III (1870). In the course of those years, France was twice a republic, twice an empire, thrice a kingdom (Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis Philippe). Napoleon III, creator of the Second Empire, spent 18 years trying to impose on France an order resembling that created by his notorious uncle.
Louis' chief handicaps were two: 1) his eyes were in the back of his head, i.e., he dreamed too much of his uncle's example; 2) he had hardly a vestige of his uncle's genius. Of all the Bonapartes, probably none looked so unlike the family hero as Louis, from under whose spiky mustaches the French language emerged in Teutonic gutturals (he was raised in Switzerland).
But his winning ways won the heart of Queen Victoria and strengthened the foundations of the Entente Cordiale. His muddled pursuit of one of his uncle's favorite foreign-policy dreams led to the unification of Italy. He gave France its first legal trade unions and old-age pensions. Above all, his determination to give Paris a Napoleonic splendor resulted in the city's spacious boulevards.