But then came the days of failing health and tottering prestige--of financial scandals, of the Mexican blunder, of the humiliation before the rising power of Prussia.

To retrieve matters he toyed with democracy in France, and finally allowed his Ministers to throw down a challenge to Prussia; for, in the words of a French historian, the conditions on which he held power "condemned him to be brilliant[52]." [Footnote 52: Said in 1852 by an eminent Frenchman to our countryman, Nassau Senior (_Journals_, ii.

_ad fin_).] Failing at Sedan, he lost all; and he knew it.

His reign, in fact, was one long disaster for France.

The canker of moral corruption began to weaken her public life when the creatures of whom he made use in the _coup d'etat _of 1851 crept into place and power.