village chief and surrounded by his men. The usual altercation ensued; Livingstone refusing to give up his blanket-the last article he possessed except his watch and instruments and Sekeletu's tusks, which had been faithfully guarded—until on board the canoes in which they were to cross. "I was trying to persuade my people to move on to the bank in spite of them, when a young half-caste Portuguese sergeant of militia, Cypriano di Abren, who had come across in search of beeswax, made his appearance and gave the same advice." They marched to the bank -the chief's men opening fire on them, but without doing any damage-made terms with the ferrymen, with Cypriano's help, crossed the Quango, and were at the end of their troubles.

Four days they stopped with Cypriano, who treated them royally, killing an ox and stripping his garden to feast them, and sending them on to Cassange with provisions of meal ground by his mother and her maids. "I carried letters from the Chevalier du Prat of Cape Town, but I am inclined to believe that my friend Cypriano was influenced by feelings of genuine kindness excited by my wretched appearance."

At Cassange they were again most hospitably treated, and here, before starting for Loanda, three hundred miles, they disposed of Sekeletu's tusks, which sold for much higher prices than those given by Cape traders. "Two muskets, three small barrels of powder, and English calico and baize enough to clothe my whole party, with large bunches of beads, were given for one tusk, to the great delight of my Makololos, who had been used to get only one gun for two tusks. With another tusk we purchased calico-the chief currency here-to pay our way to the coast. The remaining two were sold for money to purchase a horse for Sekeletu at Loanda." Livingstone was much struck both by the country he passed through and the terms on which the Portuguese lived with the natives. Most of them had families by native. women, who were treated as European children and provided for by their fathers. Half-caste clerks sat at table with the whites, and he came to the conclusion that "nowhere in Africa is there so much good-will between Europeans and natives as here."

The dizziness produced by his twenty-seven attacks of fever on the road made it all he could do to stick on Sindbad, who managed to give him a last ducking in the Lombe. "The weak

ening effects of the fever were most extraordinary. For instance, in attempting to take lunar observations I could not avoid confusion of time and distance, neither could I hold the instrument steady, nor perform a simple calculation." He rallied a little in crossing a mountain range. As they drew near Loanda the hearts of his men began to fail, and they hinted their doubts to him. "If you suspect me you can return," he told them, "for I am as ignorant of Loanda as you; but nothing will happen to you but what happens to me. We have stood by one another hitherto, and will do so till the last."

The first view of the sea staggered the Makololo. "We were marching along with our father," they said, "believing what the ancients had told us, that the world had no end; but all at once the world said to us: 'I am finished; there is no more for me.'

The fever had produced chronic dysentery, which was so depressing that Livingstone entered Loanda in deep melancholy, doubting the reception he might get from the one English gentleman, Mr. Gabriel, the commissioner for the suppression of the slave-trade. He was soon undeceived. Mr. Gabriel received him most kindly, and, seeing the condition he was in, gave up to him his own bed. "Never shall I forget the luxurious pleasure I enjoyed in feeling myself again on a good English bed after six months' sleeping on the ground. I was soon asleep; and Mr. Gabriel coming in almost immediately after, rejoiced in the soundness of my repose."

THE COUP D'ÉTAT OF LOUIS NAPOLEON

A.D. 1851

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

By his astounding act of December 2, 1851, known as the coup d'état, Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, commonly called Louis Napoleon, practically assumed imperial power, and on the first anniversary of that coup d'état he was officially proclaimed Emperor of the French under the title of Napoleon III. He was the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland-a brother of Napoleon I-and was born in Paris, April 20, 1808. From 1815 to 1830 he lived in exile. In 1836 he made an unsuccessful attempt to organize a revolution among the French soldiers at Strasburg. Four years later he tried to seize the throne of France; but failing in this attempt, he was imprisoned in the fortress of Ham until 1846, when he escaped to England. During his confinement he continued in his writings a Bonapartist propaganda. He had addressed himself particularly to the workingmen, and this class won a victory in the Revolution of February, 1848. After the fall of Louis Philippe in that year, Napoleon was elected to the National Assembly, largely by the votes of the working classes, and on June 13, 1848, took his seat. In December he was elected President of the Republic by an immense majority.

Although he was regarded as possessing a rather dull intellect, and as being, partly for that reason, a safe" man for the presidential office, Napoleon soon proved his capacity for intrigue and for cajoling the people. By intervening in behalf of Pope Pius IX, whom revolutionists had driven from Rome, he gained the support of the clergy. Napoleon's troops restored Pius IX (1850) to the papal throne. The President's aims at supremacy were approved by the French monarchists, and he used all means to increase his popularity, placing only his adherents in office.

When the Assembly, composed of seven hundred sixty members, undertook to restrict the suffrage, which was "universal," Napoleon opposed the change. He thus appeared to be the champion of the people against the legislative body. As his term was to expire on May 2, 1852, and as he was ineligible for a second term, although he knew that a majority of the people favored his continuance in office, he saw no way to accomplish that except by force. He therefore determined to use force, and the method he adopted was that of the coup d'état. The success of that stroke insured all that he aimed at. In December, 1851, by an almost unanimous vote he was elected President for ten years. All his "ideas" and purposes were embodied in a new constitution, and

before the end of 1852 the question of restoring the empire was submitted to the people; and by the plebiscite of November, in that year, an enormous majority of the voters elected him Emperor.

No account of the coup d'état-the most striking and effective in this series of dramatic events-surpasses in authenticity or interest that of De Tocqueville. The famous author of Democracy in America, and of equally celebrated works of French history, became Vice-President of the National Assembly in 1849. As a member of that body he was justified in saying of his story of the coup d'état, "I merely relate, as an actual witness, the things I saw with my eyes and heard with my ears.” The first step taken by Napoleon in this affair was the arrest of the opposition leaders of the Assembly in their beds, on the pretext of a conspiracy against him in that body. De Tocqueville describes what followed.

WHEN the representatives of the people learned on the morn

ing of December 2, 1851, that several of their colleagues were arrested, they ran to the Assembly. The doors were guarded by the Chasseurs de Vincennes, a corps of troops recently returned from Africa and long accustomed to the violence of Algerine dominion, and, moreover, stimulated by a donation of five francs distributed to every soldier who was in Paris that day. The Representatives, nevertheless, presented themselves to go in, having at their head one of their Vice-Presidents, M. Daru. This gentleman was violently struck by the soldiers, and the Representatives who accompanied him were driven back at the point of the bayonet. Three of them, M. de Talhouet, Étienne, and Duparc, were slightly wounded. Several others had their clothes pierced. Such was the beginning.

Driven from the doors of the Assembly, the Deputies retired to the mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement. They were already assembled to the number of about three hundred when the troops arrived, blocked up the approaches, and prevented a greater number of Representatives from entering the apartment, though no one at that time was prevented from leaving it.

Who then were those Representatives assembled at the mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, and what did they do there? Every shade of opinion was represented in this extemporaneous Assembly. But four-fifths of its members belonged to the different conservative parties which had constituted the majority. This Assembly was presided over by two of its Vice-Presidents, M. Vitet and M. Benoist d'Azy. M. Daru was arrested in his

own house; the Fourth Vice-President, the illustrious General Bedeau, had been seized that morning in his bed, and handcuffed like a robber. As for the President, M. Dupin, he was absent, which surprised no one. Besides its Vice-Presidents, the Assembly was accompanied by its secretaries, its ushers, and even its phonographer who preserved for posterity the records of this last and memorable sitting. The Assembly, thus constituted, began by voting a decree in the following terms:

"In pursuance of article sixty-eight of the constitution, viz., the President of the Republic, the ministers, the agents, and depositaries of public authority are responsible, each in what concerns himself respectively, for all the acts of the Government and the Administration: any measure by which the President of the Republic dissolves the National Assembly, prorogues it, or places obstacles in the exercise of its powers is a crime of high

treason.

"By this act alone, the President is deprived of all authority; the citizens are bound to withhold their obedience, the executive power passes in full right to the National Assembly. The judges of the High Court of Justice will meet immediately, under pain of forfeiture; they will convoke the juries in the place which they will select to proceed to the judgment of the President and his accomplices; they will nominate the magistrates charged to fulfil the duties of public ministers.

"And seeing that the National Assembly is prevented by violence from exercising its powers, it decrees as follows, viz.: Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is deprived of all authority as President of the Republic. The citizens are enjoined to withhold their obedience. The executive power has passed in full right to the National Assembly. The judges of the High Court of Justice are enjoined to meet immediately, under pain of forfeiture, to proceed to the judgment of the President and his accomplices; consequently, all the officers and functionaries of power and of public authority are bound to obey all requisitions made in the name of the National Assembly, under pain of forfeiture and of high

treason.

"Done and decreed unanimously in public sitting, this second day of December, 1851."

After this first decree was voted, another was unanimously