Louis Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoleon, was the third son of Louis, the ex-King of Holland, and his wife Hortense Beauharnais. He was born in 1808, recollected having seen his illustrious uncle before the Battle of Waterloo, and was carefully educated in the Napoleonic cult. Lord Malmesbury, meeting him at his mother’s house in Rome in 1829, found him already persuaded that it was his destiny to rule over France. He was then twenty-one years of age, a finished but reckless horseman, giving...
