I HAVE seldom known a boy who was not interested in the history of
Napoleon. To me his story is like a novel, and no character ever
charmed me more than that of his wife, the Empress Josephine. But I
cannot find it in my heart to admire a man who so ruthlessly shed human
blood. He stopped at nothing for his own personal advancement. Never
has any conqueror fought more battles perhaps than he.
All Europe seemed draped in the weeds of mourning during the years of
his power and greatness. I have often thought his reflections must have
been sad indeed, when, during the last five years of his life, he was
a weary exile on the little gum-tree island of St. Helena, with only
a few friends around him, and subjected to great unkindness from the
governor of the island.
[Illustration: ON ST. HELENA.]
St. Helena is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean, belonging to the
British. It acquired celebrity from being the place of Napoleon's
banishment. From the ocean it has the appearance of a lofty pyramidal
mass of a dark-gray color, rising abruptly from out its depths.
[Illustration: EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.]
But on approaching, a number of openings are discovered, forming the
mouths of narrow valleys or ravines, leading gradually up to a central
plateau. On these, at all openings where a landing might be effected,
military works have been erected for the purpose of making it secure.
What a contrast does his life there present, to the time when great
continents trembled before the power of his triumphant armies.
Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica, 1769, and died at St. Helena,
1821, where he was buried beneath a weeping willow, for nineteen years,
when France demanded his remains, and gave such a funeral as few
perhaps have ever witnessed.