TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE IMPERIAL.
THE destiny of the Bonapartes presses them hard. The House rose by war alone, and through the consequences of war every successive chief of the race has died in
exile, amidst strangers and ingloriously. The First Napoleon died a prisoner at St. Helena ; the Second, a quasi-prisoner at Schonbrunn ; the Third, a defeated exile at Chislehurst ; the Fourth, an English volunteer, in a war against an African savage with whom he had no quarrel. Never was there a fate at once so picturesque, so full of the elements of tragedy, and yet so blurred. What had the Prince Imperial to do in Zulu- land ? Nevertheless, though that question must be asked, the fate of a lad born to so lofty a prospect, so relentlessly pursued by misfortune, and himself so blameless, saddens even the Englishmen who would have regarded the realisation of his dreams as one of the greatest of disasters for, the world. He died in the wrong place, but fighting, and against the enemies of England. The little known of him by the country he had adopted was very favourable ; the old animosity against his House has utterly died away ; and his mother is regarded with a respect which makes the whole people sympathise in her incurable pain. Once more the Empress Eugenie has to repeat, " I have been too favourable to war." Regarded through all her womanhood as one of the most fortunate among manin 1, respected and even liked by her husband's deadliest enemies, she has suffered blow after blow ; has lost her husband, her throne, her country ; and now her last hope, her only child, has suffered a violent death from enemies who never heard of him, and in a cause which was not his own. The Heir of the Napoleons, the child of the " baptism of fire," assegaied by Zulus in South Africa! Scarcely in history or in fiction has there been a life like that of the Empress Eugenie, for even Josephine, the woman most like her, was not stripped of her children, the very lad whose untimely death is now mourned having been her descendant. She, of all living women, is the greatest example of the in- stability of earthly grandeur, and the vanity of human hope or expectation.
The political effect of the blow is still in the future, but it may possibly be very great. For the moment it scatters the Bonapartist party into atoms, deprives it at once of its repre- sentative and its leader—for M. Rouher was leader, by this boy's appointment—and reduces it to a party without an organisation. Under the second Statute which governs the succession of the Napoleons—for the first one included only the children of Louis and Joseph, Kings of Holland and Spain —the headship of the party now passes to Napoleon, the son of Jerome and Sophia of Wurtemburg, the husband of Princess Clotilde of Savoy ; the Prince who played Jacobin during his cousin's reign, and who is best known in Paris by the nick-name "Plon - Plon." It is very doubtful whether the Bonapartists will accept him, quite certain that the people on whom his chances depend regard him with no favour. A man of unusual and separate ability, a statesman, if a Jacobin can be one, an orator of extraordinary power, with a trace in him of the Napoleon genius as strong as his likeness to the founder, his character has alienated French- men even of his own faction to an unprecedented and almost inexplicable degree. France has tolerated or liked volup- tuaries like Henry IV; cynics like Louis XVIII. ; kings in- tolerant of campaigning, like Louis XIV. ; but somehow, she detests the present representative of the Napoleons. Im- perialists do not like the " Philippe d'Orleans of the Empire ;" the Republicans will not trust any Bonaparte, the Army has no belief in the General who never fought, and the Church recognises in its assailant not only a deadly but a dangerous foe. He has, perhaps, as bitter personal enemies as any man living, and though the son and husband of royal women, and for years Heir Presumptive to a great throne, his position in Europe has never been a dignified one. He is, moreover, deeply committed to the Republic, which he has declared the best form of government now attainable in France ; and thpugh his cousin did that before him, and broke an oath which we believe he himself has not taken, and though Bourbons take Republican commissions, and though the family theory of the supremacy of plebiscites over morality shows a road out of his position, still the fact deepens the thousand difficulties which bar his way to the representation of his House. It is always disagreeable to recant, when recantation pays. If the prize, as we believe will be the case, proves too temuting for him to, surrender, and he renounces his adhesion to the Republic, the chances of the Bonapartists may be considered over for the term of his life, more especially as their clerical supporters will all seize the opportunity of ranging themselves behind their natural chiefs, the Legitimists. The party is just in the position when its head must be popular or unknown. It is, however, possible that Prince Jerome may recognise the futility of making any personal claim, and by a family arrangement, common enough on the Continent, recognise his son—now, we believe, seventeen years old—as representative of the Napoleons. In that case, there is no reason why this lad, already a Prince of the House of Savoy, should not assume among the Bonapartists the position occupied by the Prince Imperial, that is, the position of the man in whose name, if the coup (Mat is ever struck successfully, the plebiscite will be taken by the General of the hour. It must not be forgotten. that under the Constitution of the Second Empire, though hereditary succession was acknowledged, it was provided that each accession must be ratified by a plebiscite, and that the Bonapartists declare themselves devoted to universal suffrage, as expressed in a mass-vote, as well as to the Democratic Empire.
These, however, till the chiefs of the party have met, and Prince Jerome has declared himself, are speculations, interesting, indeed, but somewhat in the air. For the present, it cannot be doubted that the Imperialists have sustained, in the loss of their Prince, an almost crushing calamity. He was recognised as leader by them all. He had among them all the immense advantage which attaches in revolutionary times to the unknown. His sanction was the strength of their actual leaders. It was in his name that they issued all their addresses. It is his portrait which they have so carefully cir- culated over France. He was known, by name at least, to the peasantry, who, moreover, were familiar with the name and face of the Empress, always associated with his own. To re- place him, the Bonapartist camerilla must accept either an un- popular man, whom the cure' in every parish will describe as a monster of iniquity,or a totally unknown lad, more Italian than French, for whom all the work will have to be done over again, and who may be by training, by prejudices, or by convictions utterly unsuited to the Cresarist rule. It will be hard work for them, harder almost than to manufacture a new idol out of unconsecrated wood, and for a time, at all events, they must remain a weary and stricken party, fighting the Re- public without an alternative which the people can un- derstand. An Empire implies an Emperor, and who is he ? A Savoyard. It is a strange example of the irony of fate which has made the hatred of an African chief and the outrecuidance of a retired Anglo-Indian, important factors in the political destiny of the two greatest countries in the civilised world. Cetewayo has only to overthrow Prince Bismarck to make his career complete, and that feat would hardly be stranger than the things he has already accidentally done.
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