a sign.
So were the new secret policemen assigned by Louis-Napoleon to monitor both the prefecture and the palace of the government.
President Louis-Napoleon assembled a team to carry out his coup. On the first of the month, he gave each member half a million francs. Early the next morning, de Maupas, the prefect, and his police arrested the eighty legislators who Louis-Napoleon feared could most effectively oppose him. They were held in the prison at Mazas. They would not have been legislators anymore, in any event, for what Louis-Napoleon did next was to dissolve the assembly, meanwhile seizing printing presses and sending his army to kill the leaders of the Red Republicans as soon as they showed themselves in the streets. Other opponents, mostly those of fine old French families, were immediately exiled from the country.
It was all rather quick.
Louis-Napoleon declared France an empire again. It was remembered that Louis-Napoleon as a boy was reported to have pleaded with his uncle, the first emperor of France, not to go off to Waterloo, at which the emperor commented: "He will be a good soul, and perhaps the hope of my race."
On my way to the courthouse each morning I read more news of the political affairs in France. It was said that Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte of Baltimore (called "Bo"), cousin of the new emperor-the man I had met flanked by two costume swords, the man never acknowledged by his now deceased uncle Napoleon Bonaparte because of his American mother-was to travel to Paris and meet with Emperor Napoleon III to repair the lengthy breach.
Americans were entranced with these stories from Paris, perhaps because the coup seemed so different from any upheaval that could take place here. My interest was slightly more narrow or, rather, more pertinent.
I wrote several cards to the various Bonaparte homes, hoping to find out that Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte had not yet left for Paris and would speak with me, even though I presumed he would not remember our brief meeting at the dress ball with Monsieur Montor. I had questions. Though they might not do me any good in particular, I wanted the answers anyway.
Meanwhile, many onlookers came to court to see the continuation of my earlier humiliations. It seemed unfortunate to them, I suppose, that my previous appearances in the press had been inconclusive and had not reached an appropriate climax. Fortunately, many spectators were eventually driven away by the tedium of the technical matters that filled most of the opening days of the trial. It was around this time that I was surprised to receive a note with the Bonaparte seal, assigning me a time to come to one of their residences.
It was a larger house than the one I had seen the rogues in; it was more secluded, surrounded by wild trees and uncultivated grassy hills. I was ushered inside by a very willing servant, and on the grand stairway met at least two other servants (it was a long stairway), whose shared trait was their nervousness undertaking some task or another. The mansion was grand and in no way subdued or timid in its grandeur-showing the most marvelous chandeliers and gold-bordered tapestries, which always kept the eye looking up.
I was surprised to find seated in a massive chair burnished with silver not Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte-the leading male of the Baltimore branch of the family-but his mother, Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte. As a young girl she had captured the heart of Napoleon's brother and was married to him for two years before Napoleon, through various machinations, including calling in the pope to annul it, ended the relationship. Though she was not now costumed as a queen, as the first time I'd met her, the regal attitude remained.
This matron, now in her sixties, had bare arms with the most luminous bracelets, too many to count, spiraling up and down her wrists. Upon her head she wore a black velvet bonnet from which orange feathers jutted out, giving her a frightening and wild aspect. Several tables of jewels and garish garments surrounded her. On the other side of her chambers, a girl I took to be a servant rocked in a chair like an invalid.
"Madame Bonaparte." I bowed, feeling for a moment that I should lean down on one knee. "You would not remember meeting me, but I was at a ball where you were dressed as a queen and I was not in a costume."
"You are right, young man. I do not remember meeting you. But it