believing in his star?"

I did not meet with Louis-Napoleon until he was a candidate for the
presidency of the Second Republic, and while he was staying at the Hotel
du Rhin in the Place Vendome. Of course, I had heard a great deal about
him, but my informants, to a man, were English. While the latter were
almost unanimous in predicting Louis-Napoleon's eventual advent to the
throne, the French, though in no way denying the influence of the
Napoleonic legend, were apt to shrug their shoulders more or less
contemptuously at the pretensions of Hortense's son; for few ever
designated him by any other name, until later on, when the nickname of
"Badinguet" began to be on every one's lips. Consequently, I was anxious
to catch a glimpse of him; but before noting the impressions produced by
that first meeting, I will devote a few lines to the origin of that
celebrated sobriquet.

Personally, I never heard it in connection with Louis-Napoleon until his
betrothal to Mdlle. Eugenie de Montijo became common "talk;" but I had
heard and seen it in print a good many years before, and even as late as
'48. There was, however, not the slightest attempt at that time to
couple it with the person of the future Emperor. Three solutions have
made the round of the papers at various times: (1) that it was the name
of the stonemason or bricklayer who lent Louis-Napoleon his clothes to
facilitate his escape from Ham in June, 1845; (2) that it was the name
of the soldier who was wounded by the Prince on the 5th of August,
1840, at Boulogne, when the latter fired on Captain Col-Puygellier; (3)
that about the latter end of the forties a pipe-manufacturer introduced
a pipe, the head of which resembled that of Louis-Napoleon, and that the
pipemaker's name was Badinguet.

The latter solution may be dismissed at once as utterly without
foundation. With regard to that having reference to the stonemason, no
stonemason lent Louis-Napoleon his clothes. The disguise was provided by
Dr. Conneau from a source which has never been revealed. There was,
moreover, no stonemason of the name of Badinguet at Ham, and, when
Louis-Napoleon crossed the drawbridge of the castle, his face partially
hidden by a board he was carrying on his shoulder, a workman, who
mistook him for one of his mates, exclaimed, "Hullo, there goes
Bertoux." Bertoux, not Badinguet.

The name of the soldier wounded by Louis-Napoleon was Geoffroy; he was a
grenadier, decorated on the battle-f