voice of your time, nor imagine that you precede your generation because
you stand alone. He dreamed of far-away glory, and his flatterers told
him his dreams were prophetic. He saw across the seas the mirage of a
great Latin empire in the West, and beheld the Muse of history
inscribing his name beside that of his great kinsman as the restorer of
the political and commercial equilibrium of the world, as well as the
benefactor who had thrown El Dorado open to civilization. With the faith
of ignorance, he proposed to share with an Austrian archduke these
imaginary possessions, and to lay for him, as was popularly said in
1862-63, "a bed of roses in a gold-mine." Unmindful of warnings, he
pushed onward for two years, apparently incapable of grasping the fact
that the mirage was receding before him; and finally found his fool's
errand saved from ridicule only by the holocaust of many lives, and
raised to dignity only by the tragedy of Queretaro.

All this we now know, but in 1861-62 the Napoleonic star shone
brilliantly with the full luster cast upon it by the Crimean war and the
result of the Italian campaign. It is true that occasionally some strong
discordant note issuing from the popular depths would strike the ear and
for the time mar the paeans of applause which always greet successful
power. For instance, at the Odeon one night, during the war with
Austria, I was present when the Empress Eugenie entered. The Odeon is in
the Latin Quarter, and medical and law students filled the upper tiers
of the house. As the sovereign took her seat in a box a mighty chorus
suddenly arose, and hundreds of voices sang, "Corbleu, madame, que
faites vous ici?" quoting the then popular song, "Le Sire de Franboisy."

The incident, so insulting to the poor woman, gave rise to some
disturbance; and although the boys were quieted, the Empress soon left
the theater, choking with mortification. M. Rochefort, who refers to