Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1870 — Downfall of Napoleon III. [ARTICLE]

Downfall of Napoleon III.

“The Empire hi peace.” It* |wace i* Ok peaces of death. . . j Lew than eicht weeks have passed since Napoleon 111. declared %«r against Frueaia and boastfully said that fro led his armies against the German frontiers never to return to Faris unless victorious.— To-day he is a prisoner in the hands of the Prussian soldiery, having surrendered to King William on the third instant, together with about 100,t)00 mt*n and their equipage and munitions of war; his Ktii-

presß has been eompelled to leave ' Paris by flight; his son is an exile, ! tick in a foreign country; one-third us his gin’ll At- army killed; wound* i d or pnsoncrs;:McMalioii, one of his ablest generals, lying at the poiulof dcetß-—Wounded by a fragment of a shell —.ll the hands of his captors; another distinguished commander, Bazaino, with a large army of Hravt*, well diHciplincd and iqdvndidlv equipped men, shut up within the walls ot Metz at the mercy of a vigorous and enterprising foe; his throne overturned and a Republic erected upon its ruins. These are the prominent results of Napoleon's fnrtv-days madness. It has been but few years since bonis Napoleon Bonaparte lauded upon the shores of France from America, where he had been an exile and wanderer, and proclaimed Ins sympathy With democratic principles and his preference for a republican form of government- It was not difficult for this bold man to convince his credulous and impulsive countrymen that he had become imbued with these noble sentiments while living in the United States, and they elected him President of the llepublic of France.— Immediately after taking a solemn oath (administered to those who were elected to this high position) to advance the interests of the people, to defend and preserve the honor, glory, integrity and pnrity of the Ilopublic, he began intrigticing its overthrow. By bribes, corruption of all kinds, and the terror of the bayonet the French people were compelled to vote to extend his term of office from seven years to a life term. Dismissing from his cabinet, imprisoning and drivfroiu France the influential republicans, lie filled their vacancies with, and drew around him, a class of adventurers as unscrupulous as himself; drove from his arms the woman he bad seduced and kept as his mistress; became acquainted with, courted and married his present wife, Eugenia, who was the daughter of a Spanish noble; proclaimed the Republic at an end and an Empire established with himself its Emperor.

Proclaiming himself an apostle of Freedom, be trammeled the press, imprisoned its editors and suppressed free discussions; the adopted child and “eldest son of the t'fiurch,” he invested the Holy City with his soldiery, deserted the Tope in his deeripitude and day ol sore trial, and attempted to barter his temporal dominions to an excommunicated sovereign for the price of a few florins; professing to 'Vesjk’ct the social virtues, lie was a companion of prostitutes and debauchees and the seducer of chastity; the professed friend of the poor, he levied enormous taxes upon the helpless peasantry and feloniously appropriated the money to fill his private coffers, to manlain _an extravagant household and corrupt court, and to squander upon licentious men ana lewd women; in the sacred name of Patriotism he separated husbands from their wives, fathers from their families, children from aged and decripit j arents, and sacrificed their lives in unnecessary wars—murdered them to gratify ail insatiable lust for power—they died, not in defence of their government, not for the protection of their homes, these were not assailed, but to establish the succession of a feeble, peevish and effeminate boy to the throne of an infamous father; the pretended advocate of Peace, ho was continually quarreling with neighboring sovereigns, domineering towards weaker powers, was meddlesome and aggressive in policy, and finally plunged his people into a war the most bloody of civilized times, as eruel as unnecessary, as unnecessary as wicked, and the end of which is still in the unknown future; frequently boasting his relationship to the Great Napoleon, he resembles him in nothing but despstie selfishness, imitates only tke example of.bis vices,, and as the fitting conclusion to an infamous pubme Career, is compelled te surrender

hit sword into the hand* ot King William the son of Louisa who was tho cruelly treated wife of that boasted uncle. Such is a short outline of the public life of Louis Napoleon lloimparte, the perjurer, traitor, usurper and tyrant,.