Napoleon III. was unlike all these, for with transcendent cunning and duplicity he stole his throne, and then sacrificed the interests of France to support his usurpation. That he was an adventurer--as his enemies called him--is scarcely true; for he was born in the Tuileries, was the son of a king, and nephew of the greatest sovereign of modern times. So far as his usurpation can be palliated,--for it never can be excused,--it must be by his deep-seated conviction that he was the heir of his uncle, that the government of the empire belonged to him as a right, and that he would ultimately acquire it by the will of the people. Had Thiers or Guizot or Changarnier seized the reins, they would have been adventurers. All men are apt to be called adventurers by their detractors when they reach a transcendent position. Even such men as Napoleon I., Cromwell, and Canning were stigmatized as adventurers by their enemies. A poor artist who succeeds in winning a rich heiress is often regarded as an adventurer, even though his ancestors have been respectable and influential for four generations. Most successful men owe their elevation to genius or patience or persistent industry rather than to accidents or tricks. Louis Napoleon plodded and studied and wrote for years with the ultimate aim of ruling France, even though he "waded through slaughter to a throne;" and he would have deserved his throne had he continued true to the principles he professed. What a name he might have left had he been contented only to be President of a great republic; for his elevation to the Presidency was legitimate, and even after he became a despot he continued to be a high-bred gentleman in the English sense, which is more than can be said of his uncle. No one has ever denied that from first to last Louis Napoleon was courteous, affable, gentle, patient, and kind, with a control over his feelings and thoughts absolutely marvellous and unprecedented in a public man,--if we except Disraeli. Nothing disturbed his serenity; very rarely was he seen in a rage; he stooped and coaxed and flattered, even when he sent his enemies to Cayenne.