CHAPTER XXIIL
THE PANIC oF 1853.

1852,
Ar. 48.

Some have noticed it as an odd coincidence that the voting
for the Second Empire took place three days after the
funeral of the Duke of Wellington. We might picture t0
ourselves, said Cobden, the third Napoleon rising from the
yet open tomb of the vanquisher of the first, That event
of sinister omen for France naturally roused considerable
disquiet in England, But what had been a natural disquiet
Was exaggerated by the press and a certain influential cla98
of politicians into a fit of angry and violent alarm. The
massacre of unarmed citizens on the boulevards with which
Louis Napoleon had cowed Paris and sealed his usurpation,
had filled England with a just and righteous horror, But from
reprobation of this deed of bloodshed to an invasion panic
there ought to have been a long step. Statesmen at leasts
whether journalists or actors in politics, might have been
expected to abstain from flogging the public mind into 8
state of furious apprehension, Especially is this true of
statesmen who, like Lord Palmerston, had been the first in
the Days of December to appland the President for tearing
up the Constitution and throwing the national representatives
 into prison. Lord Palmerston, however, Whe
notwithstanding his astuteness and his high spirits had &
strong dash of honest stupidity in his composition, had go
it into his head that steam-ghips had thrown a bridge scrosd