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Be it as it may, the Legitimist party, taken as a whole, entertained no
horror of the coup d'état. It feared nothing. In truth, should the
Royalists fear Louis Bonaparte? Why?
Indifference does not inspire fear. Louis Bonaparte was indifferent. He
only recognized one thing, his object. To break through the road in order
to reach it, that was quite plain; the rest might be left alone. There
lay the whole of his policy, to crush the Republicans, to disdain the
Royalists.
Louis Bonaparte had no passion. He who writes these lines, talking one
day about Louis Bonaparte with the ex-king of Westphalia, remarked, "In
him the Dutchman tones down the Corsican."--"If there be any Corsican,"
answered Jérome.
Louis Bonaparte has never been other than a man who has lain wait for
fortune, a spy trying to dupe God. He had that livid dreaminess of the
gambler who cheats. Cheating admits audacity, but excludes anger. In his
prison at Ham he only read one book, "The Prince." He belonged to no
family, as he could hesitate between Bonaparte and Verhuell; he had no
country, as he could hesitate between France and Holland.
This Napoleon had taken St. Helena in good part. He admired England.
Resentment! To what purpose? For him on earth there only existed his
interests. He pardoned, because he speculated; he forgot everything,
because he calculated upon everything. What did his uncle matter to him?
He did not serve him; he made use of him. He rested his shabby enterprise
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