Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/838

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NARES.

821

Prince Napoleon was defeated on the second ballot, but the Chamber invalidated the election of his ad- versary, and on May 14 the Prince was elected. He took his seat on the benches of the Left, though he did not identify himself with any particular group. On Dec. 24, 1876, he delivered a speech in which he made a violent attack on the clerical party. He was listened to in silence by .the Left, while he was violently interrupted by the Bonapartists. After the act of May 16, 1877, he was one of the 363 deputies of the reunited sections of the Left who refused a vote of confidence to the De Broglie Cabinet. At the elec- tion of Oct. 14, he was defeated in the arrondissement of Ajaccio by Baron Hausmann. From this period he held aloof from party politics until the unexpected death of the Prince Imperial again brought him into prominence. He was recog- nised as head of the family of Bona- parte and of the Imperialist party by the majority of the adherents of the party of the "Appeal to the People," though not wittiout the op- position of M. Amigues and M. Paul Granier de Cassagnac, who, after having in his journal denounced him as a "Communiird" (May 24, 1876), proposed as the head of the party, his son Victor, a "young man with an ardent heart," who, in point of fact, had been designated by the Prince Imperial, in his last will and testament, as his successor. Prince Napoleon was present at the funeral of his cousin at Chislehurst, but he returned to Paris imme- diately afterwards without having had an interview with the Em- press. Thenceforward he main- tained an attitude of absolute re- serve until shortly after the pro- mulgation of the decrees of March 29, 1880, respecting the religious congregations. In a letter pub- lished by the Ordre and the Esta- fette, he applauded that measure, as being a " renewal of the prescrip- tions, too long neglected^ of the

Concordat," and he treated as a "fiction" the Conservative union, and declared that he and his friends could not be supporters "of a retro- grade policy, hostile to civilization, to science, and to true liberty" (April 5, 1880). On Jan. 16, 1883 a manifesto by the Prince appeared in the Figaro, and was extensively placarded on the walls of Paris. In this doctuuent, which was an indictment against the Eepublic, he posed as champion of the Church, and advised the nation to have re- course to a pUbiscite. A meeting of the Cabinet was immediately con- vened, and the Prince was arrested and imprisoned. The Chambre des Mises en Accusation unanimously decided, however, that the Prince had in reality committed no offence, and accordingly after a month's illegal detention he was set at liberty,

NARES, Sir- Oeoboe Strong, K.C.B., P.R.S., is a son of the late Captain William Henry Nares, R.N., of Danestown, Aberdeen, by his marriage with a daughter of Mr. E. G. Dodd, and a great grand- son of Sir George Nares, formerly one of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas. He was born in 1831, and was educated at the Royal Naval College, New Cross, where he gained the naval cadet- ship which is given annually to the most promising pupil by the Lords of the Admiralty. He saw some service in H.M.S. Canons, forming part of the Channel squadron, and afterwards in H.M.S. Savannah, on the Australian station. He was a mate on board the Reiolute in the Arctic Expedition of 1862-54, when he took an active share in the win- ter amusements, and did his part manfully as a sledge-traveller. He acted in the t&eatricals, and gave a series of lectures to the men on winds and on the laws of mechanics. In the travelling he was away 25 days in the autunm of 1852, and travelled over 184 miles. In the spring of 1853 he was auxiliary to

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