it explains their attitude towards the great struggle.

The condition of French politics was strangely complex. The Emperor had
always professed that he was the elect of France, and would ultimately
crown his political edifice with the corner-stone of constitutional
liberty. Had he done so in the successful years 1855-61, possibly his
dynasty might have taken root. He deferred action, however, until the
darker years that came after 1866. In 1868 greater freedom was allowed
to the Press and in the case of public meetings. The General Election of
the spring of 1869 showed large gains to the Opposition, and decided the
Emperor to grant to the Corps Législatif the right of initiating laws
concurrently with himself, and he declared that Ministers should be
responsible to it (September 1869).

These and a few other changes marked the transition from autocracy to
the "Liberal Empire." One of the champions of constitutional principles,
M. Emile Ollivier, formed a Cabinet to give effect to the new policy,
and the Emperor, deeming the time ripe for consolidating his power on a
democratic basis, consulted the country in a _plébiscite_, or mass vote,
primarily as to their judgment on the recent changes, but implicitly as
to their confidence in the imperial system as a whole. His skill in
joining together two topics that were really distinct, gained him a
tactical victory. More than 7,350,000 affirmative votes were given, as
against 1,572,000 negatives; while 1,900,000 voters registered no vote.
This success at the polls emboldened the supporters of the Empire; and
very many of them, especially, it is thought, the Empress Eugénie,
believed that only one thing remained in order to place the Napoleonic
dynasty on a lasting basis--that was, a successful war.

Champions of autocracy pointed out that the growth of Radicalism