Speculative Mutiny.

On the eve of his second abdication Napoleon, walking with Lucien and afterwards with Benjamin Constant in the garden of the Elysée, heard the acclamations of the crowd, crying: "long live the Emperor!" and calling for arms. For a while the Emperor gazed at the surging masses in silence, pondering over the suggestion made to him by the tempter, Lucien, of heading the crowd, raising France, and sweeping away both legislature and nobles. To his everlasting honour he put the temptation from him, saying: "I will not be a mob-king. I did not come back from Elba to deluge France with blood." So did Frederick William, in 1848, refuse "a swine-crown" at the hands of the Parliament of Frankfort.

In his abandonment and implacable rage the old Governor, spurned by the Colonial Office and scouted by the colony he had so long ruled, harboured treasonable designs against the Imperial Government. On a memorable occasion, to a single auditor, on the midnight streets, with earnest accents that betrayed not a trace of insincerity, for a space of two hours, he propounded a project of a military rising, by means of which he would gain command of the British army and take possession of all the agencies of government. It would serve no end to detail his plans, which had evidently been carefully elaborated. At no time since the Jacobite rebellion in 1745 has a dynastic revolution in England had a ghost of a chance. At no time since the accession of Elizabeth could an adventurer or an insubordinate noble or official have succeeded in raising a revolt. The design was little better than midsummer madness. Had the narrative been page 203told about him in his lifetime, he would have answered as Bishop Blougram answered Mr. Gigadibs, "the literary man," who playfully threatened to expose the bishop's heresies. Grey would have disavowed the reporter as the victim of a practical joke, the sport of his mocking humour.

It can only be said that he seemed in deadly earnest. The scheme was so comprehensive and coherent, so minute and detailed, that it must have been a subject of thought with him through months and, perhaps, years. It was consistent with his public utterances. "Who is the Secretary for the Colonies?" he scornfully cried in the House of Representatives. "We know absolutely nothing of him; we care absolutely nothing for him,'' he rejoined, answering his own question. It was consistent with his public action. His bills for the election of future Governors of New Zealand, his proposal for the election of the Governor-General of the Commonwealth and the Governors of the States, had no other significance. It was the culmination of a long course of rebellious utterances and actions. Happily, it exhaled in words, and, in charity to his memory, it deserves oblivion. He seemed himself desirous to forget it. He never returned to the subject, and, in his lifetime, his solitary auditor respected the confidence (not given as such) with which he had been so strangely entrusted.