Barthélemy was a Frenchman, and in the early part of the nineteenth century he took part in many revolutions in France. Louis XVIII, who had been restored to his kingdom by the victory of Waterloo, was finding it difficult to maintain his dynasty, and Barthélemy was one of those who objected to his reign. His objection took the extreme form of shooting dead an unfortunate gendarme in cold blood. This was Barthélemy's first big venture, and he was sentenced to the galleys for life as a punishment, being lucky to escape with his life. But the murderer did not serve his sentence. In 1830 the political party he favoured succeeded in gaining the upper-hand, and Barthélemy's callous crime was duly considered to be a "political offence," and accordingly he was released, along with thousands of genuine victims of the ruthlessness of the Bourbons.
This was, indeed, a matter for much satisfaction and enjoyment, and Barthélemy, nothing daunted, threw himself into the fray again. He became a sort of unofficial police spy, and for years haunted the cafés where out-at-elbow politicians talked treason and other things.
When a new Chief of Police was appointed the spy lost his situation, and was compelled to join an active organization which was opposed to the ambitions of Louis Napoleon, but in 1848 there was again a revolution, and Louis Napoleon became Napoleon III. The new emperor treated his defeated opponents with ferocious cruelty, and with hundreds of other refugees Barthélemy fled to England to live in exile for the remainder of his life.
From the moment of his arrival in London he took a leading part in the counsels of the French colony. The refugees never abandoned their hope that Napoleon III would be driven from the throne of France. Day after day in poverty they fed on hope and ambition, and Barthélemy was ever the loudest and most swashbuckling of the optimists. It was observed that he was never without funds, although he came of a poor and humble family, but he was so outspoken against the new order of things in his native country that those who whispered that he was a paid spy in Napoleon's service were laughed to scorn.
In the course of time some of the refugees formed a small colony near Englefield Green, Egham, Middlesex, where they established a sort of country-house for the more respectable of the French exiles--men who really desired to serve their country, and who believed that Napoleon III was ruining it.