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MODERN EUROPE BE, HI 
and in 1840 he had attempted to excite military insurrec- 
tions ; ‘on the first occasion he had merely been deported, 
on the second, he was imprisoned in the castle of Ham, 
whence he had escaped in 1847. In 1848 he was elected to 
the National Assembly by five departments, and a renewed 
Bonapartist movement speedily sprang up. Louis Napoleon 
could appeal to many passions. First and foremost he 
posed as the man of order. Just as his uncle had preserved 
France from anarchy in 1799, so he would conjure away the 
“ zed spectre ” of Socialism which had alarmed every shop- 
keeper and Pont PERS in France, He appealed 
to the Catholics, distrustful df the Republic with its anti- 
clerical traditions inherited from the great Revolution. 
Above all, he appealed to the desire for glory and revenge, 
to hatred of the settlement of 1815, to those vague feelings 
that France had been dragged from its rightful position as 
the mistress of Europe which had helped to undermine the 
throne of Louis Philippe. His very name was one to con- 
jure with in France. The despotism of the Empire and its 
deadly wars were forgotten ; the Emperor had become the 
legendary hero of a national epic. ‘How should I not vote 
[or this gentleman, I whose nose was frozen at Moscow ? ” 
z3aid a survivor of the Grand Army. 
There were strong recasons; personal and political, why 
the President should intervene in ‚Italy. Already aiming 
at supreme power, he desired the support of the powerful 
Catholic party which viewed the overthrow of the Papal 
Government with horror; he must conciliate public opinion 
which would have rebelled against leaving Austria to con- 
trol the situation unchecked; he needed the army, so it 
must be given an opportunity to acquire glory. So, in 
spite of the protests of the National Assembly, Oudinot’s 
expedition was launched against Rome,