Some few years ago, seven or eight perhaps, a certain sensation was created among artists, and journalists, and literary men, and connoisseurs, and critics, by one of Flandrin's best portraits. Undoubtedly, the portrait was an admirable likeness; no one who had ever seen the original could deny or question that; but yet there was an air, a character, a certain depth of idealized expression about it which seemed to present the subject in a new light, and threw one into a kind of doubt as to whether he had ever truly understood the original before. Either the painter had unduly glorified his sitter, or the sitter had impressed upon the artist a true idea of his character and intellect which had never before been revealed to the public at large. The portrait was that of a man of middle age, with a smooth, broad, thoughtful brow, a character of command about the finely-formed, somewhat sensuous lips; chin and nose beautifully moulded, in fact what ladies who write novels would call "chiselled;" a face degenerating a little into mere flesh, but still dignified and imposing. Everywhere over the face there was a tone of dissatisfaction, of disappointment, of sullenness mingling strangely with the sensuous characteristics, and conveying somehow the idea of great power and daring ambition unduly repressed by outward conditions, or rendered barren by inward defects, or actually frustrated by failure and fate. "A CÆsar out of employment!" exclaimed a celebrated French author and critic. So much there was of the CÆsar in the face that no school-boy, no Miss in her teens could have even glanced at it without saying, "That is the face of a Bonaparte!" Were not the features a little too massive, it might have passed for an admirable likeness of the victor of Austerlitz; or, at all events, of the Napoleon of Leipzig or the Hundred Days. Probably any ordinary observer would at once have set it down as a portrait of the great Napoleon, and never thought there could be any doubt about the matter. It was, in fact, the likeness of Napoleon-Jerome, son of the rattle-pate King of Westphalia—Prince Napoleon, as he is ordinarily called, the Plon-plon whom soldiers jeer at, the "Red Prince" whom priests and Legitimists denounce, the cousin of the Emperor of the French, the son-in-law of the King of Italy.

It was only somewhere about, or a little before the time of the Flandrin portrait, that Prince Napoleon had the honor of becoming a mystery in the eyes of the public. Up to 1860, his character was quite settled in public estimation, just as that of Louis Napoleon had been up to the time of the coup d'etat. Public opinion generally settles the characters of conspicuous men at first by the intuitive process—the most delightful and easy method possible, dispensing, as it does, with any necessity for studying the subject, or even knowing anything at all about it. When the intuitive process has once adjusted a man's character, it is not easy to get people to believe in any other adjustment. Still, there are some remarkable instances of a change in popular opinion. The case of Louis Napoleon, the Emperor, is one illustration; that of Prince Napoleon, his cousin, is another, not so remarkable, certainly, but still quite worthy of some attention.

Prince Napoleon had been before the world more or less since he appeared as representative of Corsica, in the Constituent Assembly of 1848. He was made conspicuous, in a negative sort of way, by having had no hand in the coup d'etat, or having even opposed it, although he did not scruple to profit by its success and enjoy its golden advantages. He had a command in the Crimean war; he was sent into Tuscany during the Italian campaign. All that time public opinion in Europe was unanimous about him. He was a sensualist, a coward, an imbecile, and a blockhead. He was a fat, stupid, muddle-headed Heliogabalus. Dulness, cowardice, and profligacy were his principal, perhaps his only characteristics. When the young Clotilde, of Savoy, was given to him for a wife, a positive cry of wonder and disgust went up from every country of Europe. In good truth, it was a scandalous thing to marry a young and innocent girl to a man nearly as old as her father; and who, undoubtedly, had been a mauvais sujet, and had led a life of dissipation so far. But Europe cried aloud as if three out of every four princely alliances were not made on the same principle and endowed with the same character. Had the Princess Clotilde been affianced to a hog or a gorilla, there could hardly have been greater wonder and horror expressed, so clear was the public mind about the stupidity and brutality of Prince Napoleon.

Certainly, if one looked a little deeper than mere public opinion, he would have found, even then, that here and there some men, not quite incapable of judging, did not accept the popular estimate of the Emperor's cousin. All through the memorable progress of the Congress of Paris—out of which sprang Italy—we find, by the documents subsequently made public, that Cavour was in close and frequent consultation with Prince Napoleon. Once we find Cavour saying that Prince Napoleon complains of his slowness, his too great moderation, and thinks he could serve the cause better by a little more boldness. "Perhaps he is right," says Cavour, in words to that effect; "but I fear I lack his force of character, his daringness of purpose." Richard Cobden makes the acquaintance of Prince Napoleon, and is surprised and delighted with his advanced opinions on the subject of free trade; and deliberately describes him (I heard Cobden use the words) as "one of the best informed, if not the very best informed, of all the public men of Europe." Kinglake observes the Prince during the Crimean campaign—where Napoleon-Jerome got his reputation for cowardice and his nick-name of Plon-plon—and finds in him a genius very like that of his uncle, the great Napoleon, especially a wonderful power of distinguishing at a glance between the essentials and the accidentals of any question or situation—and any one who has ever studied politics and public men will know how rare a faculty that is—and finally declares that he sees no reason to believe him inferior in courage to the conqueror of Marengo! Edmond About, not a very dull personage, and not quite given up to panegyric, bursts into a strain of almost lyrical enthusiasm about the wit, the brilliancy, the culture, the daring ambition of Prince Napoleon, and declares that the Prince is kept as much out of the way as possible, because a man endowed with a soul of such unresting energy, and the face of the great Emperor, is too formidable a personage to be seen hanging about the steps of a throne. To close this string of illustrations, Prince Napoleon is in somewhat frequent and confidential intercourse with Michel Chevalier, a man not likely to cultivate the society of heavy blockheads and dullards, even though these might happen to wear princely coronets. Clearly, public opinion here was even more directly at odds than it often is with the opinion of some whom we may call experts; and the difference was so great that there seemed no possible way of reconciling the two. A man may be a profligate and yet a man of genius, and even a patriot; but one cannot be a profligate blockhead and a man of genius, a Cloten and an Alcibiades, a CÆsar and a Pyrgopolinices at once.

It was in the early part of 1861 that Prince Napoleon contributed something of his own spontaneous motion to help in the solution of the enigma. That was the year when the Emperor removed the restriction which prevented both Chambers of the Legislature from freely debating the address, and the press from fully reporting the discussions. There was a remarkable debate in the Senate, ranging over a great variety of domestic and foreign questions, and one most memorable event of the debate was the brilliant, powerful and exhaustive oration delivered, with splendid energy and rhetorical effect, by Prince Napoleon. Mon Âne parle et mÊme il parle bien, declares the astonished Joan, in Voltaire's scandalous poem, "La Pucelle." Perhaps there was something of a similar wonder mingled with the burst of genuine admiration which went up first from Paris, then from France, and finally from Europe and America, when that magnificent democratic manifesto came to be read. Certainly, I remember no single speech which, during my time, created anything like the same sensation in Europe. For it took the outer world wholly by surprise. It was not a case like that of the sensation lately created by the florid and fervid eloquence of the young Spanish orator, Castellar. In this latter case the public were surprised and delighted to find that there was a master of thrilling rhetoric alive, and arrayed on the side of democratic freedom, of whose very existence most persons had been previously ignorant. But, in the case of Prince Napoleon, the surprise was, that a man whom the public had long known, and always set down as a stupid sensualist, should suddenly, and without any previous warning, turn out a great orator, whose eloquence had in it something so fresh, and genuine, and forcible that it recalled the memory of the most glorious days of the French Tribune. I write of this celebrated oration now only from recollection; and, of course, I did not hear it spoken. I say "of course," because the rules of the French Senate, unlike those of the Corps Legislatif, forbid the presence of any strangers during the debates. But those who heard it spoke enthusiastically of the force and freedom with which it was delivered; the sudden, impulsive fervor of occasional outbursts; and the wonderful readiness with which the speaker, when interrupted, as he was very frequently, passed from one topic to another in order to dispose of the interruption, and replied to sudden challenge with even prompter repartee. No one could read the speech without admiring the extent and variety of the political knowledge it displayed; the prodigality of illustration it flung over every argument; the thrilling power of some of its rhetorical "phrases;" the tone of sustained and passionate eloquence which made itself heard all throughout; and, perhaps above all, that flexible, spontaneous readiness of language and resource to which every interruption, every interjected question only acted like a spur to a generous horse, calling forth new and greater, and wholly unexpected efforts. In the French Senate I need, perhaps, hardly tell my readers, it is the habit to allow the utmost license of interruption, and Prince Napoleon's audacious onslaught on the reactionists and the parti prÊtre called out even an unusual amount of impatient utterance. Those who interrupted took little by their motion. The energetic Prince tossed off his assailants as a bull flings the dogs away on the points of his horns. "Our principles are not yours," scornfully exclaims a Legitimist nobleman—the late Marquis de la Rochejaquelein, if I remember rightly. "Your principles are not ours!" vehemently replies the orator. "No, nor are your antecedents ours. Our pride is that our fathers fell on the battle-field resisting the foreign invaders whom your fathers brought in for the subjugation of France!" The speech is studded with sudden replies equally fervid and telling. Indeed, the whole material of the oration is rich, strong, and genuine. There seems to be in the eloquence of the French Chambers, of late, a certain want of freshness and natural power. I do not speak of Berryer—he had no such want. But Thiers—by far the ablest living debater who speaks only from preparation—with all his wonderful science and skill as an artist in debate, appears to be always somewhat artificial and elaborate. Jules Favre, with his exquisitely modulated tones, and his unrivalled choice of words, hardly ever appears to me to rise to that height where the orator, lost in his subject, compels his hearers to lose themselves also in it. Now, I cannot help thinking that the two or three really great speeches made by Prince Napoleon had in them more of the native fibre, force and passion of oratory than those of almost any Frenchman since the days of Mirabeau.

However that may be, the effect wrought on the public mind was unmistakable. Plon-plon had startled Europe. He entered the palace of the Luxembourg on that memorable day without any repute but that of a dullard and a sensualist; he came out of it a recognized orator. I have been told that he lay back in his open carriage and smoked his cigar, as he drove home from the Senate, to all appearance the same indolent, sullen, heavy apathetic personage whom all Paris had previously known and despised.

One notable effect of this famous speech was the reply which a certain passage in it drew from Louis Philippe's son, the Duc d'Aumale. Prince Napoleon had indulged in a bitter sneer or two against former dynasties, and the Duc d'Aumale, a man of great culture and ability, took up the quarrel fiercely. The Duke assailed Prince Napoleon in one of the keenest, most biting pamphlets which the political controversy of our day has produced. Among other things, the Duke replied to a supposed imputation on the weakness of Louis Philippe by admitting, frankly, that the bourgeois King had not dealt with enemies, when in his power, as a Bonaparte would have done. "Et tenez, Prince," wrote the Duke, "the only time when the word of a Bonaparte may be believed is when he avows that he will never spare a defenceless enemy." The pamphlet bristled with points equally sharp and envenomed. But the Duc d'Aumale was not content with written rejoinder. He sent a challenge to the Prince, and in serious earnest. The Prince, it need hardly be said, did not accept the challenge.

Our CÆsar, though not "high-battled," was by no means likely to consent to be "staged against a sworder." The Emperor hastened to prevent any disastrous consequences, by insisting that the Prince must not accept the challenge—and there was no duel. People winked and sneered a good deal. It is said that the martial King Victor Emmanuel grumbled and chafed at his son-in-law; but there was no fight. Let me say, for my own part, that I think Prince Napoleon was quite right in not accepting the challenge, and that I do not believe him to be wanting in personal courage.

From that moment, Prince Napoleon became a conspicuous figure in European politics, and when any great question arose, men turned anxiously toward him, curious to know what he would do or say. In three or four successive sessions he spoke in the Senate, and even with the impression of the first surprise still strong on the public mind, the speeches preserved abundantly the reputation which the earliest of them had so suddenly created. He might be the enfant terrible of the Bonaparte family; he might be utterly wanting in statesmanship; he might be insincere; he might be physically a coward; but all the world now admitted him to be an orator, and, in his way, a man of genius.

Then it became known to the public, all at once, that the Prince, whatever his failings, had some rare gifts besides that of eloquence. He was undoubtedly a man of exquisite taste in all things artistic; he had an intelligent and liberal knowledge of practical science; he had a great faculty of organization; he was a keen humorist and wit. He loved the society of artists, and journalists, and literary men; he associated with them en bon camarade, and he could talk with each upon his own subject; his bon mots soon began to circulate far and wide. He was a patron of Revolution. In the innermost privacy of the Palais Royal men like Mieroslawski, the Polish Red Revolutionist, men like General TÜrr, unfolded and discussed their plans. Prince Gortschakoff, in his despatches at the time of the Polish Rebellion, distinctly pointed to the palace of Prince Napoleon as the headquarters of the insurrection. The "Red Prince" grew to be one of the mysterious figures in European policy. Was he in league with his cousin, the Emperor—or was he his cousin's enemy? Did he hope, on the strength of that Bonaparte face, and his secret league with Democracy, to mount one day from the steps of the throne to the throne itself? Between him and the succession to that throne intervened only the life of one frail boy. Was Prince Napoleon preparing for the day when he might play the part of a Gloster (without the smothering), and, pushing the boy aside, succeed to the crown of the great Emperor whom in face he so strikingly resembled?

At last came the celebrated Ajaccio speech. The Emperor had gone to visit Algeria; the Prince went to deliver an oration at the inauguration of a monument to Napoleon I., at Ajaccio. The speech was, in brief, a powerful, passionate denunciation of Austria, and the principles which Austria represented before Sadowa taught her a lesson of tardy wisdom. Viewed as the exposition of a professor of history, one might fairly acknowledge the Prince's speech to have illustrated eloquently some solid and stern truths, which Europe would have done well even then to consider deeply. Subsequent events have justified and illuminated many of what then seemed the most startling utterances of the orator. Austria, for example, practically admits, by her present policy, the justice of much that Prince Napoleon pleaded against her. But as the speech of the Emperor's cousin; of one who stood in near order of succession to the throne; of one who had only just been raised to an office in the State so high that in the absence of the sovereign it made him seem the sovereign's proper representative, it was undoubtedly a piece of marvellous indiscretion. Europe stood amazed at its outspoken audacity. The Emperor could not overlook it; and he publicly repudiated it. Prince Napoleon resigned his public offices—including that of President of the Commissioners of the International Exhibition, which undertaking suffered sadly from lack of his organizing capacity and his admirable taste and judgment—and the Imperial orator of Democracy disappeared from the public stage as suddenly, and amid as much tumult, as he had entered upon it.

Prince Napoleon has, indeed, been taken into favor since by his Imperial cousin, and has been sent on one or two missions, more or less important or mysterious; but he has never, from the date of the Ajaccio speech up to the present moment, played any important part as a public man. He is not, however, "played out." His energy, his ambition, his ability, will assuredly bring him prominently before the public again. Let us, meanwhile, endeavor to set before the readers of The Galaxy a fair and true picture of the man, free alike from the exaggerated proportions which wondering quid nuncs or parasites attribute to him, and from the distortions of unfriendly painters. Exaggeration of both kinds apart, Prince Napoleon is really one of the most remarkable figures on the present stage of French history. He is, at least, a man of great possibilities. Let us try to ascertain fairly what he is, and what are his chances for the future.

Born of a hair-brained, eccentric, adventure-seeking, negligent, selfish father, Prince Napoleon had little of the advantages of a home education. His boyhood, his youth, were passed in a vagrant kind of way, ranging from country to country, from court to court. He started in life with great natural talents, a strong tendency to something not very unlike rowdyism, an immense ambition, an almost equally vast indolence, a deep and genuine love of arts, letters, and luxury, an eccentric, fitful temper, and a predominant pride in that relationship to the great Emperor which is so plainly stamped upon his face. Without entering into any questions of current scandal, everybody must know that Napoleon III. has nothing of the Bonaparte in his face, a fact on which Prince Napoleon, in his earlier and wilder days, was not always very slow to comment. Indolence, love of luxury, and a capricious temper have, perhaps, been the chief enemies which have hitherto prevented the latter from fulfilling any high ambition. It would be affectation to ignore the fact that Prince Napoleon flung many years away in mere dissipation. Stories are told in Paris which would represent him almost as a Vitellius or an EgalitÉ in profligacy—stories some of which simply transcend belief by their very monstrosity. Even to this day, to this hour, it is the firm conviction of the general public that the Emperor's cousin is steeped to the lips in sensuality. Now, rejecting, of course, a huge mass of this scandal, it is certain that Prince Napoleon was, for a long time, a downright mauvais sujet; it is by no means certain that he has, even at his present mature age, discarded all his evil habits. His temper is much against him. People habitually contrast the unvarying courtesy and self-control of the Emperor with the occasional brusqueness, and even rudeness, of the Prince. True that Prince Napoleon can be frankly and warmly familiar with his intimates, and even that, like Prince Hal, he sometimes encourages a degree of familiarity which hardly tends to mutual respect. But the outer world cannot always rely on him. He can be undiplomatically rough and hot, and he has a gift of biting jest which is perhaps one of the most dangerous qualities a statesman can cultivate. Then there is a personal restlessness about him which even princes cannot afford safely to indulge. He has hardly ever had any official position assigned to him which he did not sometime or other scornfully abandon on the spur of some sudden impulse. The Madrid embassy in former days, the Algerian administration, the Crimean command—these and other offices he only accepted to resign. He has wandered more widely over the face of the earth than any other living prince—probably than any other prince that ever lived. It used to be humorously said of him that he was qualifying to become a teacher of geography, in the event of fortune once more driving the race of Bonaparte into exile and obscurity. What port is there that has not sheltered his wandering yacht? He has pleasant dwellings enough to induce a man to stay at home. His Palais Royal is one of the most elegant and tasteful abodes belonging to a European prince. The stranger in Paris who is fortunate enough to obtain admission to it—and, indeed, admission is easy to procure—must be sadly wanting in taste if he does not admire the treasures of art and vertu which are laid up there, and the easy, graceful manner of their arrangement. Nothing of the air of the show-place is breathed there; no rules, no conditions, no watchful, dogging lacqueys or sentinels make the visitor uncomfortable. Once admitted, the stranger goes where he will, and admires and examines what he pleases. He finds there curiosities and relics, medals and statues, bronzes and stones from every land in which history or romance takes any interest; he gazes on the latest artistic successes—DorÉ's magnificent lights and shadows, GÉrome's audacious nudities; he observes autograph collections of value inestimable; he notices that on the tables, here and there, lie the newest triumphs or sensations of literature—the poem that every one is just talking of, the play that fills the theatres, George Sand's last novel, RÉnan's new volume, Taine's freshest criticism: he is impressed everywhere with the conviction that he is in the house of a man of high culture and active intellect, who keeps up with the progress of the world in arts, and letters, and politics. Then there was, until lately, the famous Pompeiian Palace, in one of the avenues of the Champs ElysÉes, which ranked among the curiosities of Paris, but which Prince Napoleon has at last chosen, or been compelled, to sell. On the Swiss shore of the lake of Geneva, one of the most remarkable objects that attract the eye of the tourist who steams from Geneva to Lausanne, is La Bergerie, the palace of Prince Napoleon. But the owner of these palaces spends little of his time in them. His wife, the Princess Clotilde, stays at home and delights in her children, and shows them with pride to her visitors, while her restless husband is steaming in and out of the ports of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, or the Baltic. Prince Napoleon has not found his place yet, say Edmond About and other admirers—when he does he will settle firmly to it. He is a restless, unmanageable idler and scamp, say his enemies—unstable as water, he shall not excel. Meanwhile years go by, and Prince Napoleon has long left even the latest verge of youth behind him; and he is only a possibility as yet, and is popular with no political party in France.

Strange that this avowed and ostentatious Democrat, this eloquent, powerful spokesman of French Radicalism, is not popular even with Democrats and Red Republicans. They do not trust him. They cannot understand how he can honestly extend one hand to Democracy, while in the other he receives the magnificent revenues assigned to him by Despotism. One might have thought that nothing would be more easy than for this man, with his daring, his ambition, his brilliant talents, his commanding eloquence, his democratic principles, and his Napoleon face, to make himself the idol of French Democracy. Yet he has utterly failed to do so. As a politician, he has almost invariably upheld the rightful cause, and accurately foretold the course of events. He believed in the possibility of Italy's resurrection long before there was any idea of his becoming son-in-law to a King of Italy; he has been one of the most earnest friends of the cause of Poland; he saw long ago what every one sees now, that the fall of the Austrian system was an absolute necessity to the progress of Europe; he was a steady supporter of the American Union, and when it was the fashion in France, as in England, to regard the independence of the Southern Confederacy as all but an accomplished fact, he remained firm in the conviction that the North was destined to triumph. With all his characteristic recklessness and impetuosity, he has many times shown a cool and penetrating judgment, hardly surpassed by that of any other European statesman. Yet the undeniable fact remains, that his opinion carries with it comparatively little weight, and that no party recognizes him as a leader.

Is he insincere? Most people say he is. They say that, with all his professions of democratic faith, he delights in his princely rank and his princely revenues; that he is selfish, grasping, luxurious, arrogant and deceitful. The army despises him; the populace do not trust him. Now, for myself, I do not accept this view of the character of Prince Napoleon. I think he is a sincere Democrat, a genuine lover of liberty and progress. But I think, at the same time, that he is cursed with some of the vices of Alcibiades, and some of the vices of Mirabeau; that he has the habitual indolence almost of a VendÔme, with VendÔme's occasional outbursts of sudden energy; that a love of luxury, and a restlessness of character, and fretfulness of temper stand in his way, and are his enemies. I doubt whether he will ever play a great historical part, whether he ever will do much more than he has done. His character wants that backbone of earnest, strong simplicity and faith, without which even the most brilliant talents can hardly achieve political greatness. He will probably rank in history among the Might-Have-Beens. Assuredly, he has in him the capacity to play a great part. In knowledge and culture, he is far, indeed, superior to his uncle, Napoleon I.; in justice of political conviction, he is a long way in advance of his cousin, Napoleon III. Taken for all in all, he is the most lavishly gifted of the race of the Bonapartes—and what a part in the cause of civilization and liberty might not be played by a Bonaparte endowed with genius and culture, and faithful to high and true convictions! But the time seems going by, if not gone by, when even admirers could expect to see Prince Napoleon play such a part. Probably the disturbing, distracting vein of unconquerable levity so conspicuous in the character of his father, is the marplot of the son's career, too. After all, Prince Napoleon is perhaps more of an Antony than a CÆsar—was not Antony, too, an orator, a wit, a lover of art and letters, a lover of luxury and free companionship, and woman? Doubtless Prince Napoleon will emerge again, some time and somehow, from his present condition of comparative obscurity. Any day, any crisis, any sudden impulse may bring him up to the front again. But I doubt whether the dynasty of the Bonapartes, the cause of democratic freedom, the destinies of France, will be influenced much for good or evil, by this man of rare and varied gifts—of almost measureless possibilities—the restless, reckless, eloquent, brilliant Imperial Democrat of the Palais Royal, and Red Republican of the Empire—the long misunderstood and yet scarcely comprehended Prince Napoleon.