Francis became the prisoner of Charles the Fifth, and was conveyed to Madrid, where, after a year of captivity, he was at length released, crying out, as he crossed the French frontier, “Behold me King again!”[200] Is not the fate of Louis Napoleon prefigured in the exile and death of his royal predecessor John, rather than in the return of Francis with his delighted cry? LOUIS NAPOLEON. The fall of Louis Napoleon is natural. It is hard to see how it could be otherwise, so long as we continue to “assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men.”[201] Had he remained successful to the end, and died peacefully on the throne, his name would have been a perpetual encouragement to dishonesty and crime. By treachery without parallel, breaking repeated promises and his oath of office, he was able to trample on the Republic. Taking his place in the National Assembly after long exile, the adventurer made haste to declare exultation in regaining his country and all his rights as citizen, with the ejaculation, “The Republic has given me this happiness: let the Republic receive my oath of gratitude, my oath of devotion!”--and next he proclaimed that there was nobody to surpass him in determined consecration “to the defence of order and to the establishment of the Republic.”[202] Good words these. Then again, when candidate for the Presidency, in a manifesto to the electors he gave another pledge, announcing that he “would devote himself altogether, without mental reservation, to the establishment of a Republic, wise in its laws, honest in its intentions, great and strong in its acts”; and he volunteered further words, binding him in special loyalty, saying that he “should make it _a point of honor_ to leave to his successor, at the end of four years, power strengthened, liberty intact, real progress accomplished.”[203] How these plain and unequivocal engagements were openly broken you shall see.