"It is indeed true that there are but few gleams of happiness to be met in this life. The least unfortunate have still their storms. There are but few privileged men. How many there are whom we must admit to be more unhappy than we are. And we do not sufficiently take into account the sufferings of dishonored men, whose conscience will at times awake and react upon those who have done it violence. Those who have borne arms against their country, against their benefactor, who have sold their services to foreigners, think you they can be happy? The consciousness of not having merited the abandonment of which you speak, is not that a happy sentiment? It is necessary then for us to perceive what we are in this life, and not what we could wish to be. Being men, we are destined to live, that is to say, to suffer. But we can preserve our own self-respect, and the esteem of the friends who appreciate us. So long as that continues, one is not absolutely unhappy. In that point of view, no person ought to be more satisfied than yourself, my dear Louis. All other evils over which we have no control are hard to endure, undoubtedly. But their necessity, in spite of ourselves, should lead us to bear them. We ought to submit to that which we can not prevent. "Still, I can say nothing upon this subject which you do not know as well as I do. But I am not writing a dissertation. I recount my sensations and my sentiments as they flow from my pen. The consciousness of not meriting the evil which one suffers greatly mitigates that evil. Adieu, my dear Louis. I love you as ever. We have not known any revolutions in our affections." Soon after Joseph had established himself in London, he called his brothers Lucien and Jerome, and his nephew, Prince Louis Napoleon, to join him there. The acts of the Government of Louis Philippe and the intense opposition they encountered engrossed his meditations. Fully satisfied that the Government could not maintain itself in the course it was pursuing, Joseph deemed it important for the triumph of what he called the popular cause, to effect a cordial union between the Republican and Imperial parties. The Government thwarted this union by sending spies into the clubs, who, joining those associations, assumed to be earnest democrats, and strove in every way to promote discord, while they extolled in most extravagant terms the brutal deeds of Marat, St. Just, and Robespierre. Joseph could not act in harmony with such men, and the projected alliance was abandoned.[AM] [Footnote AM: Oeuvres de Napoleon III., tome deuxieme, p. 449.]