It is one of the ironies of history that the French Revolution which promulgated ideas of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity that shook the whole civilised world should have been unable to furnish France herself with a democratic republic for well-nigh a hundred years after the overthrow of Louis XVI. For scarcely had the Republic of 1848, with Louis Blanc, Ledru Rollin, Albert, and others as its leaders, been founded than the Buonapartist intrigues were successful. Louis Napoleon, who just before had been the laughing-stock of Europe, with his tame eagle at Boulogne that would persist in perching on a post instead of on his head, with his queer theories of Imperialist democracy and his close association with the Italian Carbonari, was elected President of the French Republic. This was the outcome of an overwhelming plebiscite in his favour. There could be no doubt about the voice of France on this occasion. Paris may possibly have been genuinely Republican at that time. The Provinces, whose antagonism to Paris and the Parisians was very marked, then and later, were undoubtedly Buonapartist. From President to Emperor was no long step. Louis Napoleon, though a man of no great capacity, did at any rate believe in himself, in his democratic Imperialism and his destiny. The set of adventurers and swindlers around him believed only in full purses and ample opportunities for gratifying their taste for luxury and debauchery. Having obtained control of the army by the bribery of some and the imprisonment of others of the Republican generals, all was ready for the infamous butchery of peaceful citizens which cowed Paris and established the Empire at the same time. Once more the plebiscite was resorted to with equal success on the part of the conspirators. The hero of the _coup d'état_, with his familiar coterie of Morny, Flahault, Persigny, Canrobert and other rogues and murderers of less degree, became Napoleon III and master of Paris and of France in December, 1852. The French threw their votes almost solid in favour of the Empire, and thus tacitly condoned the hideous crime committed when it was established. Whenever the Emperor's right to his throne was challenged he could point triumphantly to that crushing vote of the democracy constituting him the duly elected Emperor of the French and hereditary representative--however doubtful his parentage--of that extraordinary Corsican genius who, when Chateaubriand and other detractors sneered at his origin, boldly declared, "_Moi je suis ancêtre._"