13 - Beacon Lights of History - European Leaders by John Lord

Join Dr. Lord in this captivating installment of the European Leaders series, where he delves into the lives and legacies of influential figures such as William IV, Sir Robert Peel, Cavour, Czar Nicholas, Louis Napoleon, Prince Bismarck, and William Ewart Gladstone. Discover the pivotal moments that shaped Europe through the stories of these remarkable leaders. (Summary by KHand)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section thirteen of Beacon Light of History, Volume ten, European
Leaders by John Lord. This LibriVox recording is in the
public domain. Recording by k Hand Loui Napoleon, Part three.
The situation of Louise Napoleon was indeed extremely difficult and critical.
He had to fight against the combined influences of rank,

(00:21):
fashion and intellect, against an enlightened public opinion. For it
could not be forgotten that his power was usurped and
sustained by brute force and the ignorant masses. He would
have been nothing without the army. In some important respects
he showed marvelous astuteness and political sagacity, such for instance,
as in converting England from an enemy to a friend.

(00:44):
But he won England by playing the card of common
interest against Russia. The emperor was afraid to banish the
most eminent men in his empire, so he tolerated them
and hated them, suspending over their heads the sword of Damocles.
This they understood and kept quiet, except among them. But
France was a hot bed of sedition and discontent during

(01:04):
the whole reign of Louis Napoleon, at least among the
old government leaders orleanists, legitimists and republicans alike. Considering the
difficulties and hatreds with which Napoleon the Third had to contend,
I am surprised that his reign lasted as long as
it did, longer than those of Louis the eighteenth and
Charles the tenth combined, longer than that of Louis Philippe,

(01:27):
with the aid of the middle classes and the ablest
statesment of France. An impressive fact which indicates great ability
of some kind on the part of the despot. But
he paid dearly for his passion for power in the
enormous debts entailed by his first War of Prestige, and
in the death of more than one hundred thousand men
in the camps, on the field of battle, and in
the hospitals. If he had any conscience, he would have

(01:50):
been appalled. But he had no conscience any more than
his uncle when anything stood in his way. The gratification
of selfish ambition overmastered patrioti and real fame, and prepared
the way for his fall in the ignominy which accompanied it.
Had either of the monarchs who ruled France since the
Revolution of seventeen ninety one been animated with a sincere

(02:11):
desire for the public good, and been contented to rule
as a constitutional sovereign, as they all alike swore to rule.
I do not see why they might not have transmitted
their thrones to their heirs. Napoleon the First certainly could
have perpetuated his empire in his family had he not
made such awful blunders as the invasion of Spain and Russia,

(02:31):
which made him unable to contend with external enemies. Charles
the tenth might have continued to reign had he not
destroyed all constitutional liberty. Louis Philippe might have transmitted his
power to the House of Orleans had he not sacrificed
public interests to his greediness for money and his dynastic ambition.
And Napoleon the Third might have reigned until he died,

(02:52):
had he fulfilled his promises to the parties who elevated him.
But he could have continued to reign in the violation
of his oaths only so long as his own army
was faithful and successful. When at last hopelessly defeated and captured,
his throne instantly crumbled away. He utterly collapsed and was
nothing but a fugitive. What a lesson this is to
all ambitious monarchs who sacrificed the interests of their country

(03:15):
to personal aggrandizement. So long as the nation sees the
monarch laboring for the aggrandizement and welfare of the country
rather than of himself, it will rally around him and
venerate him, even if he leads his subjects to war
and enrolls them in his gigantic armies, as in the
case of the monarchs of Prussia since Friederic the second,
and even those of Austria. Napoleon the Third was unlike

(03:39):
all these, for with transcendent cunning and duplicity, he stole
his throne and then sacrificed the interests of France to
support his usurpation. That he was an adventurer, as his
enemies called him, is scarcely true, for he was born
in the Tulliers, was the son of a king, a
nephew of the greatest sovereign of modern times. So far

(03:59):
as his use us patient can be palliated, for it
never can be excused. It must be by his deep
seated conviction that he was the heir of his uncle.
That the government of the empire belonged to him as
a right, and that he would ultimately acquire it by
the will of the people. Had Tiers or Guiseaux or
Changarnier seized the reins, they would have been adventurers. All

(04:22):
men are apt to be called adventurers by their detractors
when they reach a transcendent position. Even such men as Napoleon,
the First, Cromwell and Canning were stigmatized as adventurers by
their enemies. A poor artist who succeeds in winning a
rich heiress is often regarded as an adventurer, even though
his ancestors have been respectable and influential for generations. Most

(04:46):
successful men owe their elevation to genius or patience or
persistent industry, rather than to accidents or tricks. Louis Napoleon
plotted and studied and wrote for years with the ultimate
aim of ruling France, though he waded through slaughter to
a throne, and he would have deserved his throne had
he continued true to the principles he professed. What a

(05:07):
name he might have left had he been contented only
to be president of a great republic. For his elevation
to the presidency was legitimate, and even after he became
a despot, he continued to be a high bred gentleman
in the English sense, which is more than can be
said of his uncle. No one has ever denied that,
from first to last, Louis Napoleon was courteous, affable, gentle,

(05:30):
patient and kind, with a control over his feelings and thoughts,
absolutely marvelous and unprecedented in a public man, if we
accept Disraeli, nothing disturbed his serenity. Very rarely was he
seen in rage. He stooped and coaxed and flattered, even
when he sent his enemies to Cayenne. The share taken

(05:50):
by Napoleon the Third and the affairs of Italy has
already been treated of. Yet a look from that point
of view may find place here. The interference of Austria
with the Italian states, not only her own subjects there,
but the independent states as well, has been called a
standing menace to Europe. It was finally brought to a
crisis of conflict by the King of Sardinia, who had

(06:10):
already provided himself with a friend and ally in the
French Emperor, and when on the twenty ninth of April
eighteen fifty nine, Austria crossed the river to Chino in
a hostile array. The combined French and Sardinian troops were
ready to do battle. The campaign was short and everywhere
disastrous to the Austrians, so that on July sixth and
armistice was concluded, and on July twelfth the Peace of

(06:33):
Via Franca ended the war, with Lombardy ceded to Sardinia,
while Nice and Savoy were the reward of the French,
justifying by this addition to the territory and glory of
France the Emperor's second War of Prestige, Louis Napoleon reached
the culmination of his fame and of real or supposed greatness,
I mean his external power and grandeur, for I see

(06:55):
no evidence of real greatness, except such as may be
won by astuteness, tact, cunning, and dissimulation. When he returned
to Paris as the conqueror of the Austrian armies, he
was then generally supposed to be great, both as a
general and as an administrator, when he was neither a
general nor an administrator, as subsequent events proved, but his

(07:17):
court was splendid. Distinguished foreigners came to do him homage.
Even monarchs sought his friendship, and a nod of his
head was ominous. He had delivered Italy as he had
humiliated Russia. He had made France a great political power.
He had made Paris the most magnificent city of the world,
though at boundless expense, and everybody extolled the genius of housemen,

(07:37):
his engineer, who had created such material glories. His fetes
were beyond all precedent. His wife gave the law to
fashions and dresses, and was universally extolled for her beauty
and graces. The Great Industrial Exhibition in eighteen fifty five,
which surpassed in attractiveness that of London in eighteen fifty one,
drew strangers to his capital and gave a stimulus to

(07:59):
art and industry. Certainly, he seemed to be a most
fortunate man, for the murmurs and intrigues of that constellation
of statesmen which grew up with the restoration of the Bourbones,
and the antipathies of editors and literary men, were not
generally known. The army especially gloried in the deeds of
a man whose successes reminded them of his immortal uncle.

(08:20):
While the lavish expenditures of government in every direction, concealed
from the eyes of the people the boundless corruption by
which the services of his officials were secured. But this
splendid exterior was deceptive, and a turn came to the
fortunes of Napoleon the Third, long predicted yet unexpected. Constantly
on the watch for opportunities to aggrandize his name and influence,

(08:43):
the Emperor allowed the disorders of civil war in Mexico,
resulting in many acts of injustice to foreigners there, to
lead him into a combination with England and Spain to interfere.
This was in eighteen sixty one, when the United States
were entering upon the trific struggles of their own civil
war and were not able to prevent this European interference,
although regarding it as most unfriendly to republican institutions. Within

(09:07):
a year, England and Spain withdrew France remained sent more troops,
declared war on the government of President Juarez, bought some battles,
entered the city of Mexico, convened the Assembly of notables,
and on their declaring for a limited hereditary monarchy, the
French Emperor proposed for their monarch, the Archduke Maximilian, younger

(09:28):
brother of Francis Joseph, the Austrian Emperor. Maximilian accepted, and
in June eighteen sixty four arrived upheld, however most feebly
by the notables, and relying chiefly on French bayonets, which
had driven Juarez to the northern part of the country.
But against the expectation of Napoleon the Third, the Great
Rebellion in the United States collapsed, and this country became

(09:51):
a military power which Europe was compelled to respect. A
nation that could keep in the field over a million
of soldiers was not to be despised. While the Civil
War or was in progress, the United States government was
compelled to ignore the attempt to establish a French monarchy
on its southern borders. But no sooner was the war
ended than it refused to acknowledge any government in Mexico
except that of President Juarez, which Louis Napoleon had overthrown,

(10:15):
so that although the French Emperor had bound himself with
solemn treaties to maintain twenty five thousand French troops in Mexico,
he was compelled to withdraw these forces and leave Maximilian
to his fate. He advised the young Austrian to save
himself by abdication and to leave Mexico with the troops,
but Maximilian felt constrained by his sense of honour to
remain and refuse. In March eighteen sixty seven, this unfortunate

(10:40):
prince was made prisoner by the Republicans and was unscrupulously shot.
His calamities and death excited the compassion of Europe, and
with it was added a profound indignation for the man
who had unwittingly lured him on to his ruin. Loui
Napoleon's military prestige received a serious blow, and his reputation
as a statesman likewise, and although the splendor of his

(11:01):
government enthrone was as great as ever, his fall in
the eyes of the discerning was near at hand. By
this time, Louis Napoleon had become prematurely old. He suffered
from acute diseases, His constitution was undermined. He was no
longer capable of carrying the burdens he had assumed. His
spirits began to fail. He lost interest in the pleasures

(11:22):
which had at first amused him. He found delight in nothing,
not even in his reviews and fetes. He was completely unweed.
His failing health seemed to affect his mind. He became
vacillating and irresolute. He lost his former energies. He saw
the gulf opening which was to swallow him up. He
knew that his situation was desperate and that something must

(11:43):
be done to retrieve his fortunes. His temporary popularity with
his own people was breaking too. The Mexico fiasco humiliated them.
The internal affairs of the Empire were more and more
interfered with and controlled by the Catholic Church through the
intrigues and influences of the Empress, a bigoted Spanish Catholic,
and this was another source of unpopularity, for France was

(12:06):
not a priest ridden country, and the Emperor was blamed
for the growing ecclesiastical power in civil affairs. He had
invoked war to interest the people, and war had saved
him for a time, but the consequences of war pursued him.
As he was still an overrated man and known to
be restless and unscrupulous. Germany feared him and quietly armed,

(12:26):
making preparations for an attack which seemed only too probable.
His negotiation with the King of Holland for the Session
of the Duchy of Luxembourg, by which acquisition he hoped
to offset the disgrace which his Mexican enterprise had caused,
excited the jealousy of Prussia, for by the Treaties of
eighteen fifteen, Prussia obtained the right to garrison the fortress,
the strongest in Europe next to Gibraltar, and had no

(12:50):
idea of permitting it to fall into the hands of France.
The irresistible current which was then setting in for the
union of the German States under the rule of Prussia,
and for which Bismarck had had long been laboring, as
had cavour for the unity of Italy, caused a great
outcry among the noisy but shallow politicians of Paris, who
deluded themselves with the idea that France was again invincible,

(13:11):
and not only they, but the French people generally fancied
that France was strong enough to conquer half of Europe.
The politicians saw in a war with Prussia the aggrandizement
of French interests, and did all they could to hasten it.
On It was popular with the nation at large, who
saw only one side, and especially so with the generals
of the army who aspired to new laurels. Napoleon the

(13:31):
Third blustered and bullied and threatened, which pleased his people,
but in his heart he had his doubts and had
no desire to attack Pruscius so long as the independence
of the southern states of Germany was maintained. But when
the designs of Bismarck became more and more apparent to
cement a united Germany and thus to raise up a
formidable military power, Louis Napoleon sought alliances in the anticipation

(13:52):
of a conflict which could not be much longer delayed. First,
the French Emperor turned to Austria, whom he had humiliated
at Sulfarino and incensed by the aid which he had
given to Victor Emmanuel to break the Austrian domination in Italy,
as well as outraged as sympathies by his desertion of
Maximilian in Mexico. No cordial alliance could be expected from

(14:13):
this power unless he calculated on its hostility to Prussia
for the victory she had lately won. Count Boast, the
Austrian Chancellor was a bitter enemy to Prussia and hoped
to regain the ascendancy which Austria had once enjoyed under Metternich.
So promises were made to the French Emperor, but they
were never kept, and Austria really remained neutral in the
approaching contrast to the great disappointment of Napoleon the third,

(14:36):
he also sought the aid of Italy, which he had
reason to expect from the service he had rendered to Piedmont.
But the Garibaldians had embroiled France with the Italian people
in their attempt to overthrow the papal government, which was
protected by French troops, and Loui Napoleon by the reoccupation
of Rome, seemed to bar the union of the Italian people,
passionately striving for national unity. Thus, the Italians also stood

(14:58):
aloof from France. Although Victor Emmanuel personally was disposed to
aid her. In eighteen seventy, France found herself isolated and
compelled in case of war with Prussia to fight single handed.
If Napoleon the Third had exercised the abilities he had
shown at the beginning of his career, he would have
found means to delay a conflict for which he was
not prepared or avoided altogether. But in eighteen seventy his

(15:21):
intellect was shattered, and he felt himself powerless to resist
the current which was bearing him away to his destruction.
He showed the most singular incapacity as an administrator. He
did not really know the condition of his army. He
supposed he had four hundred and fifty thousand effective troops,
but really possessed a little over three hundred thousand, while
Prussia had over one third more than this, completely equipped

(15:42):
and disciplined and with improved weapons. He was deceived by
the reports of his own generals, to whom he had
delegated everything, instead of looking into the actual state of
affairs himself, as his uncle would have done, and as
Thiers did under Louis Philippe. More than a third of
his regiments were on paper alone or dwindled in sight.
The monstrous coruptions of his reign had permeated every part

(16:03):
of the country. The necessary arms, ammunition, and material of
war in general were deplorably deficient. No official reports could
be replied upon, and few of his generals could be
implicitly trusted. If ever, infatuation blinded a nation to its
fate it most signally marked France in eighteen seventy. Nothing
was now wanting but the spark to kindle the conflagration,

(16:24):
and this was supplied by the interference of the French
government with the nomination of a German prince to the
vacant throne of Spain. The Prussian King gave way in
the matter of Prince Leopold, but refused further concessions. Leopold
was sufficiently magnanimous to withdraw his claims, and here French's
interference should have ended. But France demanded guarantees that no
future candidate should be proposed without her consent. Of course,

(16:48):
the Prussian King, seeing with the keen eyes of Bismarck,
and armed to the teeth under the supervision of molt Key,
the greatest general of the age, who could direct with
the precision of a steam engine on a track, the
movements of the Prussian army itself a mechanism, treated with
disdain this imperious demand from a power which he knew
to be inferior to his own count Bismarck craftily lured

(17:09):
on his prey, who was already goaded forward by his
home war party, with the Empress at their head. Negotiations ceased,
and Napoleon the Third made his fatal declaration of hostilities,
to the grief of the few statesmen who foresaw the end.
Even then, the condition of France was not desperate if
the government had shown capacity, but conceit, vanity, and ignorance
blinded the nation. Louis Napoleon should have known, and probably

(17:33):
did know, that the contending forces were uneven, that he
had no generals equal to Moltke, that his enemies could
crush him in the open field, that his only hope
was in a well organized defense. But his generals rushed
madly on to destruction against irresistible forces incapable of forming
a combination, while the armies they led were smaller than
anybody supposed. Napoleon the Third hoped that by rapidity of movement,

(17:57):
he could enter southern Germany before the Prussian armies could
be massed against him. But here he dreamed, for his
forces were not ready at the time appointed, and the
Prussians crossed the Rhine without obstruction. Then followed the Battle
of Wirth on the sixth of August, when Marshal McMahon,
with only forty five thousand men ventured to resist the
Prussian crown Prince with a hundred thousand and lost consequently

(18:20):
a large part of his army and opened a passage
through the northern Vosages to the German troops. On the
same day, Fassard's corps was defeated by Prince Frederick Charles
near Sarbrucan, while the French emperor remained at Metz, irresolute,
infatuated and helpless. On the twelfth of August, he threw
up the direction of his armies altogether and appointed Marshal

(18:41):
Bazaine commander in chief, thus proclaiming his own incapacity as
a general. Bazain still had more than two hundred thousand
men under his command and might have taken up a
strong position on the Moselle or retreated in safety to Charon,
but he fell back on Grevalla. When being defeated on
the eighteenth, he withdrew within the defenses of Metz. He

(19:03):
was now surrounded by two hundred and fifty thousand men,
and he made no effort to escape. McMahon attempted to
relieve him, but was ordered by the government at Paris
to march to the defense of that city. On this line, however,
he got no farther than Sedan, where all was lost
on September first, the entire army and the Emperor himself
surrendering as prisoners of war. The French had fought gallantly,

(19:25):
but were outnumbered at every point. Nothing now remained to
the conquerors but to advance to the siege of Paris.
The throne of Napoleon the Third was overturned, and few
felt sympathy for his misfortunes, since he was responsible for
the overwhelming calamities which overtook his country and which his
country never forgave. In less than a month, he fell
from what seemed to be the proudest position in Europe,

(19:48):
and stood out to the eye of the world in
all the hateful deformity of a defeated despot who deserved
to fall. The suddenness and completeness of his destruction has
been paralleled only by the defeat of the armies of
Darius by ass Alexander the Great. All delusions as to
Louis Napoleon's abilities vanished forever. All his former grandeur, even
his services, were at once forgotten. He paid even a

(20:11):
sadder penalty than his uncle, who never lost the affections
of his subjects, while the nephew destroyed all rational hopes
of the future restoration of his family and became accursed.
It is possible that the popular verdict in reference to
Louis Napoleon on his fall may be too severe. This
world sees only success or failure as the test of greatness.

(20:32):
With the support of the army and the police, the
heads of which were simply his creatures, whom he had
bought or from selfish purposes, had pushed him on in
his hours of irresolution and guided him. The coup d'etas
was not a difficult thing any more than any bold robbery,
and with the control of the vast machinery of government,
that machinery which is one of the triumphs of civilization

(20:53):
and irresistible power, it is not marvelous that he retained
his position in spite of the sneers or hostilities of
states men out of place, were of editors, whose journals
were muzzled or suppressed, especially when the people saw great
public improvements going on, had both bread and occupation, read
false accounts of military successes, and were bewildered by fetes

(21:14):
and outward grandeur. But when the army was a sham,
and corruption had pervaded every office under government, when the
expenses of living had nearly doubled from taxation, extravagance, bad example,
and wrong ideas of life, when trusted servants were turned
into secret enemies, incapable and false, when such absurd mistakes
were made, as the expedition to Mexico and the crowning

(21:36):
folly of the war with Prussia, proving the incapacity and
folly of the master hand. The machinery which directed the
armies and the bureaus and all affairs of state itself
broke down, and the catastrophe was inevitable. Louis Napoleon certainly
was not the same man in eighteen seventy that he
was in eighteen fifty. His burdens had proved too great

(21:56):
for his intellect. He fell and disappeared from history in
a storm of wrath and shame, which also hid from
the eyes of the people the undoubted services he had
rendered to the cause of order and law, and to
that of a material prosperity, which was at one time
the pride of his country and the admiration of the
whole world. But a nation is greater than any individual,
even if he be a miracle of genius. When the

(22:19):
imperial cause was lost and the armies of France were
dispersed or shut up in citadels, and the hosts of
Germany were converging upon the capital, Paris, resolved on sustaining
a siege apparently hopeless, rather than yield to a conqueror
before the last necessity should open its gates. These self sacrifices,
which its whole population supposed to be frivolous and enervated,

(22:40):
made to preserve their homes and their works of art,
their unparalleled sufferings, their patience and self reliance under the
most humiliating circumstances, their fertility of resources, their cheerfulness under
hunger and privation, and above everything else, their submission to
law with every temptation to break It proved that the
spirit of the nation was broken, that their passive virtues

(23:02):
rivaled their most glorious deeds of heroism. That if light
headed in prosperity, they knew how to meet adversity, and
that they had not lost faith in the greatness of
their future, perhaps they would not have made so stubborn
a resistance to destiny if they had realized their true situation,
but would have opened their gates at once to overwhelming foes,
as they did on the fall of the First Napoleon.

(23:24):
They probably calculated that Bazaine would make his escape from
Metz with his two hundred thousand men, find his way
to the banks of the war, rally all the military
forces of the south of France, and then marched with
his additional soldiers to relieve Paris and drive the Germans
back to the Rhine. But this was not to be,
and it is idle to speculate on what might have
been done, either to raise the siege of Paris one

(23:47):
of the most memorable in the whole history of the world,
or to prevent the advance of the Germans upon the
capital itself. It is remarkable that the Parisians were able
to hold out so long, thanks to the genius and
precaution of tiers who had erected the formidable forts outside
the walls of Paris in the reign of Louis Philippe.
And still more remarkable was the rapid recovery of the
French nation after such immense losses of men and treasure,

(24:10):
After one of the most signal and humiliating overthrows which
history records. Probably France was never stronger than she is
today in her national resources, in her readiness for war,
and in the apparent stability of her republican government which
ensued after the collapse of the Second Empire. She has
been steady, persevering, and even patient for one hundred years

(24:30):
in her struggles for political freedom. Whatever mistakes she has
made and crimes, she has committed to secure this highest
boon which modern civilization confers. A great hero may fall,
a great nation may be enslaved, but the cause of
human freedom will in time triumph over all despots, over
all national inertness, and all national mistakes. Authorities Abbot M. Baxter, S. P. Day,

(24:56):
Victor HUGO MacRae, S. M. Smuck, F. M. Whitehurst have
written more or less on Louis Napoleon. See Justin McCarthy's
Modern Leaders, King Lake's Crimean War, History of the Franco
German War, Lives of Bismarck, Moltke Cavour, Life of Lord Palmerston,

(25:17):
Life of Nicholas, Life of Tiers, Harriet Martineau's biographical sketches. W. R.
Gregg's Life of Tottle ben end of Section thirteen,