"you are going to the war. Don't go—
oh don't go, mon oncle."

"And why not?" replied the emperor,
softening at the child's tenderness. "This
is not the first time that I leave you to go
to war. Don't be afraid, mon enfant, I
shall soon return."

"Oh, my dear uncle," said the child,
"these wicked Allies wish to kill you! At
least, then, let me go with you."

Napoleon embraced him tenderly, and
seeing tears in the eyes of the old marshal,
said, "Embrace the child also; he will have
a good heart and a fine nature. He is,
perhaps, the hope of my race."

A week after, when the defeated
emperor came for the last time to Malmaison
to embrace his nephews, Louis clung to his
knees, crying, that he wanted to go and
help drag his cannon. Driven from France,
the Queen Hortense first lived at Augsburg,
then at Ahrenenberg, a pretty house on the
shore of the lake of Constance. There she
devoted herself entirely to the education of
her youngest son, the eldest having
rejoined his father in Italy. Admitted as a
citizen of Switzerland, and a soldier in a
free army, the young exile, Louis, studied
gunnery at the camp at Thun, where the
Swiss engineers and artillery officers meet
every year. He took part in every
manoeuvre, and knapsack on back, and musket
in hand, shared the ammunition bread at
the soldiers' bivouacs. He became a good
shot and an excellent horseman, and was
indefatigable on the Alps after the
chamois. It was at this camp he heard of the
Revolution of July. Hoping that it would
open his country to him and his family,
Louis at once applied for permission to
return to France, but the request was
refused, nor was he even allowed to serve
as a common soldier in the French army.

The jealous Orleans government, dreading
the magic name of Bonaparte, only
answered the meek petition by renewing the
decree of banishment. This stern response
soured the youth into a conspirator; he
turned his thoughts to the revolutionary
party, and, in 1831, he and his brother
left Switzerland for Tuscany, and joined
the Carbonari in the futile revolution at
Bologna. At the head of some of the
most daring of the armed volunteers, the
two Napoleons were on the point of dashing
at Civita Castellaria, when the Provisional
Government, afraid of such audacity,
recalled them, and soon afterwards
succumbed to the Austrian bayonets. The
elder brother died in the arms of his
brother at Forli, and Louis, fighting
stubbornly, retreated to Ancona, at the
reiterated orders of the Insurrectionary
Government. The leaders at last fled, for
the most part to Greece, but Louis Napoleon,
exhausted by sorrow and fatigue,
fell ill, and lay in hiding at Ancona.
Hortense arrived to find her eldest son
dead, and the younger one apparently
dying. Louis was hidden in the château of
Prince Eugène, in a room next that of
the Austrian commandant, General
Neuberg. When Louis somewhat recovered,
he and his mother passed through Italy
with English passports; and, as it was
impossible for him to pass through
Piedmont, they resolved to risk the danger of
traversing France. Arrived in Paris,
Hortense herself wrote to Louis Philippe,
announcing their arrival at the very
moment that General Sebastiani was telling a
cabinet council that the fugitives had just
disembarked at Malta. The chivalrous
adventure of the young princes, the death
of one, and the daring flight of the other,
had interested the French people: it was,
moreover, the 5th of May, and the idolaters
of the dead emperor had just heaped
the foot of the Vendôme Column with
garlands of immortelles. The young prince
was lodging close by, the government
afraid; although a strong fever was still
upon him, he was forced to depart for
England, where, on his recovery, he studied
our trade and manufactures with great
industry and intelligence. On Louis's return,
in August, 1831, to the Castle of Ahrenenberg,
he was chosen captain of the artillery
regiment of Berne. It was at this
time that a deputation of Polish generals
came to beg him to put himself at the head
of the insurrection. While he hesitated
to yield to their request, fearing that the
French government would make his fatal
name an excuse for sacrificing the Polish
cause, Warsaw fell, and all was over.
Ambition thus for a time quenched, Louis
Napoleon's mind seems to have turned to
literature.

From 1831 to 1835, he thought and
wrote much. He now published Considerations
Politiques et Militaires sur la Suisse,
and above all his Manuel sur l'Artillerie,
a book of five hundred pages, illustrated
by sixty lithographs, and displaying
progressive and enlightened views which were
well received in the military journals. The
National of May, 1836, said: "While it has
taken our best authorities on artillery seven
years to produce a volume of five hundred