ulchre to the French.

1853

[Sidenote: Empress Eugenie]

[Sidenote: French Royalists reconciled]

On January 30, Louis Napoleon married Eugenie Marie de Montijo de Guzman, a
Spanish beauty. Raised to the rank of Empress, this ambitious lady at once
became a leader of fashion. The Czar of Russia, acting in conformity with
the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia, finally consented to acknowledge
Napoleon III. as Emperor of the French, and Great Britain followed.
Strengthened by this outward recognition, Louis Napoleon deemed it safe to
extend an amnesty to some 4,500 political prisoners and Republican exiles.
On February 5, however, General Saint-Priest, with many other Royalists,
was secretly arrested on charges of communicating with the Comte de
Chambord and of sending false news to foreign newspapers. Not long
afterward a bill was passed restoring capital punishment for attempts to
subvert the imperial government and for plots against the life of the
Emperor. On the recognition of the Empire by Great Britain, application was
made to the English Government for a surrender of the Great Napoleon's last
testament. The request was granted. Louis Napoleon thereupon undertook to
carry out his famous uncle's bequests. Under the stress of adversity, the
two branches of the Bourbon family became reconciled to each other. The
Duke de Nemours, on behalf of the House of Orleans, made his peace with the
Comte de Chambord. Henceforth, the Count of Paris was recognized by the
Royalists of France as the rightful pretender to the crown.

[Sidenote: Gervinus' State trial]

[Sidenote: Death of Tieck]

In Germany, reactionary measures of repression were still in order. An
alleged democratic conspiracy was unearthed at Berlin in March, and another
in April. In Baden, Georg Gervinus, the historian, on charges of high
treason for writing his "Introduction to the History of the Nineteenth
Century," was sentenced to ten months' imprisonment, and his book was
ordered to be burned. The sentence of imprisonment, however, was not
executed. On April 28, Ludwig Tieck, the great German Shakespearian scholar
and romantic poet, died at Berlin. Born in 1778 at Berlin, he entered into
literary activity at the opening of the Nineteenth Century, and joined the
enlightened circle of Weimar. There he issued his great collection of
German medieval romances, and of the works of the Minnesingers. It was he
who drew Goethe into the study of Shakespe