You will certainly have been already informed of the secret 
connection between Louis Bonaparte’s recent Italian policy and his 
inveterate dread of Italian assassins. Some days ago you might 
have read in the France Centrale, a provincial paper that 
.unfortunately never crosses the Atlantic, the’ following tale: 

“We alluded to the ball of last Monday at the Tuileries. Letters from Paris 
inform us of an incident that caused no small disturbance at that féte. The crowd 
was great; a lady fainted, we believe, or from some cause of a similar nature, 
confusion ensued, and the 3,000 or 4,000 guests present fancied an accident had 

happened. A tumult was occasioned, several persons hurried toward the throne, 
and the Emperor, in order to calm the agitation, walked through the salons.” 

Now, there were, on the occasion alluded to; about 200 or 300 
persons present in the Salle du Tréne witnessing a scene very 
different from what the France Centrale has been allowed to 
describe. By some accident or other, there had, in fact, taken place 
a sudden rush of the guests throughout the different salons, and 
the throng was pressing against the Salle du Trone, when Louis 
Bonaparte and Eugénie fled at once from the throne, and cut 
their way as precipitately as possible across the salon, the Empress 
gathering up her petticoats with her hands as best she might, and 
looking so pale that her best friends said “it was death-like to look 
at.” 

These cruel tribulations, which the usurper and his friends have 
been tormented by ever since Orsini’s attempt, almost remind one 
of the celebrated passage in Plato’s Republic: 

“Not even his end of being a ruler is attained by the tyrant. Whatever he may 
appear to be, the tyrant is a slave. His heart will be always filled with fears, always 
tortured by terror and pangs. From day to day he will become more and more 
what he was from the beginning, envied and detested, suspicious, friendless, 
unjust, an enemy to everything divine, and a protector and fosterer of all that is 
infamous. Thus he is himself the most unfortunate of men.” 

Bonaparte’s hostile attitude against Austria, while it certainly 
intended holding out to the grumbling army some prospect of 
active employment other than its present police service, is still 
mainly aimed at disarming the Italian dagger, and giving the 
Italian patriots an earnest of the Emperor’s adherence to his old 
Carbonari oath. The marriage of Prince Napoleon—or Gen. 
Plon-Plon, as the Parisians call him—with Princess Clotilde of 
Sardinia was to irretrievably identify, in the eyes of the world, 
France with Italy, thus paying the first installment, as the Tuileries 
people affect to think, of the debts due by the Bonapartes to the 
Italians. But you know the hero of Satory. Obstinate as he has 
always shown himself in the pursuit of a purpose once settled, his 
ways are tortuous, his advances are made by continuous retreats, 
and supreme perplexities seem to paralyze him whenever he has 
crawled up to the crisis. 

In such moments, as at Boulogne, at Strasbourg, and during 
the night of the lst of December, 1851, it is always by some bold, 
sanguine, impetuous desperadoes, standing behind him, that he is 
no longer allowed to put off the execution of his long-hatched 
plans and is forcibly plunged into the Rubicon. Having once 
passed it safely, he again begins to wind his way in his own 
plotting, designing, conspiring, irresolute and lymphatic manner. 
The very falsehood of his mind tempts him to play a double game 
with his own plans. This Sardinian marriage, for instance, was 
designed eight months ago, on the pretext of an Italian crusade, to 
be led by France. After so many baffled attempts at intruding into 
the royal families, would it not be a fine stroke of policy to 
ensnare, on false pretenses, the daughter of the oldest European 
dynasty into the Bonapartist net? 

But Louis Bonaparte had more urgent reasons to resort to a 
reculade,* and try the soothing system after he had blown the war 
trumpet. Never during his whole reign had the middle classes 
shown so unmistakable signs of ill humor, while their alarm at the 
mere rumor of war exploded in tremendous commotions at the 
Bourse, on the produce markets and in the centers of industry. 
The financial magnates remonstrated. The Count de Germiny, 

Governor of the Bank of France, personally informed the 
Emperor of the widespread commercial disasters which persistence 
in the dangerous line of policy pursued was sure to bring about. 

The prefects of Marseilles, Bordeaux and other great commer- 
cial towns, while reporting on the unprecedented panic prevalent 
among the mercantile classes, gave strange hints as to the marks of 
disaffection on the part of those “friends of property and order.” 
Mr. Thiers thought the opportunity fit for breaking his long 
silence and openly attacking in salons, interspersed with Govern- 
ment spies, the “insane policy” of the Tuileries. Entering into an 
elaborate political and strategical review of the chances of war, he 
showed how impossible it would be for France to escape defeat 
unless she could begin the contest with 400,000 soldiers, beside 
those she must keep in Algeria and those she must retain at home. 
The Governmental Constitutionnel itself, though in affected tones 
of indignation, could not but avow that the spirit of France was 
gone, and that, like a coward, she stood aghast at the mere notion 
of a serious war.’ 

On the other hand, the spies of inferior rank unanimously 
reported the sneers current among the populace, at the mere idea 
of the despot of France playing the liberator of Italy, along with 
most irreverent couplets sung in honor of the Sardinian marriage. 
One of those couplets begins with the words: 

“So this time, it is Plon-Plon who is to be the husband of Marie Louise.” oe 

Despite the soothing instructions sent to all the prefects, and the 
strictly official denials of any danger threatening the status quo, the 
general panic is far from having yet subsided. In the first instance, 
it is known here that the demi-god of the Tuileries has been 
pushed farther than he intended going. It is rumored that the 
Princess Clotilde, who, despite her young years, is very strong- 
minded, accepted Plon-Plon’s offer with the words: “I marry you 
in order to insure the support of France to papa. If it were not 
quite certain of securing that, I would not marry you.” She 
refused to agree to the betrothal until “positive guaranties” were 
given her father of the active assistance of France. Thus, Louis 
Bonaparte had to sign a defensive and offensive alliance '*' with 
Victor Emmanuel, a fact which the agents of Plon-Plon took good 
care to have immediately communicated to all Europe, through 
the columns of the Indépendance belge.” This Plon-Plon, in fact, and 

No. 25, January 25, 1859.— Ed. 
b No. 22, January 22, 1859.— Ed. 

his suite, pretend to play the same part at this moment which 
Persigny had to act during the expedition of Boulogne, Morny, 
Fleury and St. Arnaud during the night of the Ist of December, 
viz.: that of plunging Louis Bonaparte into the Rubicon. Plon- 
Plon, you know, is not renowned for his military prowess. He cut a 
very sorry figure during the Crimean campaign, and, lacking even 
the pluck necessary for a common rider, knows not how to 
preserve the proper balance on horseback. Yet he is now the very 
Mars of the Bonaparte dynasty. To become Viceroy of Lombardy 
he considers the next step leading him to the throne of France. So 
indiscreet have grown his friends, that their chief, M. Emile de 
Girardin, dared to utter before some twenty people, discussing the 
Emperor’s intentions: “Which Emperor do you mean?” “The one 
at the Palais Royal’? is the only real Emperor.” While the 
Government papers affect to preach peace, Plon-Plon’s Moniteur, 
the Presse, in the coolest way announces day by day the 
preparations for war. While Louis Bonaparte ostensibly ad- 
monishes Victor Emmanuel to moderate the Mazzinians, Plon-Plon 
is pushing the King “to excite them.” While Bonaparte has 
composed the suite following his cousin to Turin of the most 
conservative men, such as Gen. Niel, Plon-Plon refused to start, 
save on the condition that Mr. Bixio, the ex-Minister of the 
French Republic of 1848, was to accompany him, in order to 
imbue his entourage with a revolutionary perfume. Now, what 
people say is this: “Unless Louis Napoleon is prepared to go all 
lengths, nothing can be more dangerous than the airs assumed by 
Plon-Plon, and the articles published by his friends.” Hence the 
apprehensions still prevailing. On the other hand, it is generally 
understood that Louis Napoleon would commit suicide if, intimi- 
dated by the cry of the French middle class, and the frowns of the 
European dynasties, he should now draw back, after Victor 
Emmanuel has been compromised, and the hopes of the French 
army have been raised to the highest pitch. To give the latter a 
quid pro quo, he intends, as rumor says, to dispatch them on some 
transmarine expedition against Morocco, Madagascar, or some 
other out-of-the-way place, not known to the Treaty of Vienna. 
Still, any unforeseen event may bring about a war with Austria, 
despite the Imperial blackleg. 

Written on January 28, 1859 Reproduced from the newspaper 
Tribune, No. 5563, February 18, 1859