One fine morning in October, 1836, Louis took leave of his mother at Arenenberg, telling her that he was going to visit his cousins at Baden. Stéphanie de Beauharnais in the days of the Empire had been married to the Grand Duke of that little country. Queen Hortense knew her son's real destination, no doubt, for she took leave of him with great emotion, and hung around his neck a relic which Napoleon had taken from the corpse of the Emperor Charlemagne when his tomb was opened at Aix-la-Chapelle. It was a tiny fragment of wood, said to be from the True Cross, set beneath a brilliant emerald. It seems possible that this may have been the little ornament found on the neck of the Prince Imperial after his corpse was stripped by savages in Zululand. With this talisman against evil, and with the wedding-ring with which Napoleon had married Josephine, upon his finger, Prince Louis Napoleon set out upon an expedition so rash that we can hardly bring ourselves to associate it with the character popularly ascribed to the Third Emperor Napoleon. His plan was to overturn the government of Louis Philippe, and then appeal to the people by a _plébiscite_,--_i. e._, a question to be answered yes or no by universal suffrage. This same plan he carried out successfully several times during his reign. He went from Arenenberg to Baden-Baden,[1] where he made his final arrangements. Strasburg was to be the scene of his first attempt, and at Baden-Baden he had an interview with Colonel Vambéry, who commanded the Fourth Regiment of Artillery, part of the Strasburg garrison. [Footnote 1: Louis Blanc, Dix Ans.] Louis Blanc, the republican and socialist historian, writing in 1843, speaks thus of Louis Napoleon:-- "Brought up in exile, unfamiliar with France, Louis Bonaparte had assumed that the _bourgeoisie_ remembered only that the Empire had curbed the Revolution, established social order, and given France the Code Napoléon. He fancied that the working-classes would follow the eagle with enthusiasm the moment it appeared, borne, as of old, at the head of regiments, and heralded by the sound of trumpets. A twofold error! The things the _bourgeoisie_ in 1836 remembered most distinctly about Napoleon were his despotism and his taste for war; and the most lasting impression of him amongst the most intelligent in the working-classes was that whilst sowing the seeds of democratic aspiration throughout Europe, he had carefully weeded out all democratic tendencies in his own dominions."