3-039-189 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

At Camden Place, Chiselhurst, 1871. 'A gentleman sixty-three years of age, with a lady and a boy of fifteen, resting in the pleasure-grounds of an English rural mansion - that is the subject of our Engraving...this gentleman is he who a twelvemonth since was Emperor of the French nation and the most powerful monarch in Europe...Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, lately reigning as Napoleon III...sought to improve the condition both of France and of the neighbouring nations...he withheld the French Government and people from doing some evil things, which might have been perpetrated without him. He preserved peace with Great Britain; he helped to check the encroachments of Russia; he delivered Italy from Austrian dominion...he repressed, at home, both the restless war-spirit and the fury of the Red Communist faction. He...encouraged trade, the arts, manufactures, agriculture, freedom of international commerce;...He behaved with dignity and civility, though not with perfect honesty, to the Governments of foreign States...He is...a private gentleman, with his wife and child, living in retirement...in England...We heartily wish him that enjoyment of health and peace and of freedom, ease, and comfort, which every one of us would desire for himself'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.