Napoleon III reigned only yesterday, but his picture is already painted
in different tints. My entire youth was passed in his reign and my
recollections represent him neither as the monster depicted by Victor
Hugo nor the kind sympathetic sovereign of present-day stories.

There has been a great deal of discussion of the causes which brought on
the War of 1870. We know all that was said and done during the last days
of that crisis, but will anyone ever know what was hidden in the minds
of the sovereigns, the ministers, and the ambassadors? Will it ever be
known whether the Emperor provoked Gramont or Gramont the Emperor? Did
they even know themselves? There is one thing the most discerning
historian can never reach--the depths of the human soul.

We may, however, learn the secrets of the tomb. It was asserted for a
long time that the remains of Voltaire and Rousseau had been exhumed,
desecrated, and thrown into the sewers. Victor Hugo wrote a wonderful
account of this--an account such as only he could write. One fine day
doubt about this occurrence popped up unexpectedly. After waiting a long
time it was decided to get to the heart of the matter, and they finally
opened the coffins of the two great men. They were peacefully sleeping
their last sleep. The deed never took place; its history was a myth.

In this connection Victor Hugo's credulity may be mentioned, for it was
astonishing in a man of such colossal genius. He believed in the most
incredible things, as the "Man in the Iron Mask," the twin brother of
Louis XIV; in the octopus that has no mouth and feeds itself through its
arms; and in the reality of the Japanese sirens which the Japanese were
said to make out of an ape and a fish. He had some excuse for the sirens
as the Académie des Sciences believed in them for a short time.