Sentimental Tyrant
Democratic Despot. By T. A. B. Corley. (Barrie and Rockliff, 42s.) TOWARDS the end of this interesting, intelligent and, in some ways, valuable book, Mr. Corley quotes Walter Bagehot. Napoleon III was 'per- haps the most reflective and insighted, not far- sighted, of the modern statesmen of France.' Bagehot always had a soft spot for Louis- Napoleon (and for his rather gimcrack court), but there was more in his judgment than a wish to speak kindly of a man who had died in exile and in what we may call political disgrace. For the more the history of France in the nineteenth century is studied, the more interesting the Second Empire becomes and the more it is seen as the turning point in post-revolutionary history, the entry of France into the harsh realities of the modern world. And presiding over that entry, fostering it, in many ways directing it, was the `Man of December,' Prince Hohenstiel-Schwan- gau,"Napoleon the Little,' Badinguet'—the list of pejorative names is almost endless.
Napoleon III himself suffered from feelings of guilt, suffered the need for expiation for the blood shed during the coup d'etat, suffered from the bad foreign press, suffered from Les Chati- merits, suffered from the fact that he was a sentimental 'liberal,' even a republican, with none of the toughness of his uncle, not to speak of our modern dictators, as incapable of re- pentance as of shame. The want of toughness which made him reluctant to dismiss incom- petent or troublesome ministers made him, in the not very long run, a not very effective dic- tator. And lack of self-confidence and good health, perhaps, led to the catastrophe of not exploiting, in a decorous manner, the diplomatic victory Bismarck unintentionally presented him with in 1870. So it all ended at Sedan, and until this century it was axiomatic that Napoleon was either a fool or a knave—or both—and that the Second Empire was doomed because of the moral turpitude of its origins.
In dismissing this legend, Mr. Corley has most modern scholarship on his side. His Napoleon, if not exactly a hero, is a man of good will, of intelligence, of knowledge of some aspects of the world. Compared with Louis-Philippe or the detestable Thiers, he was amiable and could see the real needs of France, especially in the eco- nomic field. And for a great part of the French people, even after 1870, the Second Empire was the real belle epoque. Indeed, a great deal of the France we still know, in Paris, in Lyons or Mar- seilles, is the work of Napoleon III, and if the most magnificent of his monuments, the Opera, was finished under the Third Republic, it is most decidedly a Second Empire building. For a time, too, Napoleon III looked as if he was the arbiter of Europe and he was the chief maker of United Italy. And on all of these topics, especially on the economic theories and practices, Mr. Corley is clear, often entertaining and, as a rule, sagacious.
But there are some serious defects. Far too little attention is paid to the internal political history of the reign. Napoleon III never, not even in the period of greatest authority (1852-60), was a dictator as his uncle was. He had to temporise, dodge, cut corners. The rise of legal opposition is inadequately chronicled. So is the importance of the alliance with and the quarrel with the Church. (The ambiguity of the reference to the work of the late M. Maurain is, 'perhaps, sig- nificant.) The account of the Mexican folly is too tolerant and, since whatever chance it had was based on the assumption of the success of the South, the account of the Emperor's policy towards the American Civil War is not even inadequate; it is null. And, on the credit side of the regime, Napoleon's genuine intellectual interests are dismissed too easily. For French archeologists, anyway, he is still 'Notre Em- pereur,' and surely the choice of Victor Duruy to reform French education deserves serious treatment? But this is a book that was worth writing and is worth reading. Its account of the relationship between Napoleon and Eugdnie is sympathetic and just. (Has Mr. Corley come across the rumour that Eugenie went incognito to Germany to pour out her woes as a wronged —one can hardly say deceived—wife to the old King of Prussia, who had his own troubles?) Lastly, it is to be hoped that Napoleon III had not such foolish ideas on the overwhelming im- portance of French naval power as Mr. Corley attributes to him! But on so many things—on. Algeria, for instance—the luckless Emperor had better ideas than had his republican succes- sors. But he had not the will, perhaps he had not the power, to impose them. Mr. Corley begins with an unfortunate parallel with General de Gaulle. I don't believe in the parallel, but I did murmur, absit omen!
D. W. BROGAN
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