The final transgression led to his
resignation; but its effects on our relations with France remained.
Meanwhile the Emperor's consistent and probably sincere display of
goodwill towards England, the apparent complacency with which the
French nation acquiesced in his rule, and the outward prosperity
accompanying it, did their natural work in conciliating approval, and
in making men willing to forget the obscure and tortuous steps by
which he had climbed to power. One day he and France were to pay for
these things; but meanwhile he was a popular ruler, accepted and
approved by the nation he governed, anxious for its prosperity, and
earnest in keeping it friendly with Great Britain, which he had found
a hospitable home in the days of his obscurity, which was again to
offer an asylum to him in a day of utter disaster and overthrow, and
where his life, chequered by vicissitudes stranger than any known to
romance, was to come to a quiet close. It has been the singular
fortune of Her Majesty to receive into the sacred shelter of her
realm two dethroned monarchs, two fallen fortunes, two dynasties cast
out from sovereign power, while her own throne, "broad-based upon her
people's will, and compassed by the inviolate sea," has stood firm
and unshaken, even by a breath.
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