NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

"The series of Napoleon's successes is absolutely the most marvellous in

history. No one can question that he leaves far behind the Turennes,

Marlboroughs, and Fredericks; but when we bring him up for comparison an

Alexander, a Hannibal, a Cæsar, a Charles, we find in the single point

of marvellousness Napoleon surpassing them all....

"Every one of those heroes was born to a position of exceptional

advantage. Two of them inherited thrones; Hannibal inherited a position

royal in all but the name; Cæsar inherited an eminent position in a

great empire. But Napoleon, who rose as high as any of them, began life

as an obscure provincial, almost as a man without a country. It is this

marvellousness which paralyzes our judgment. We seem to see at once a

genius beyond all estimate, a unique character, and a fortune utterly

unaccountable."

Thus wrote John Robert Seeley, Professor of Modern History in the

University of Cambridge, of the man whom he regarded as the greatest

enemy England has ever known.

Napoleon has been more praised and villified, probably, than any man in

history. Lanfrey, though careful as to facts, and Taine, are bitter,

always ready to impute sinister motives. John S. C. Abbott is adulatory;

Walter Scott cannot be impartial; and Bourrienne, the discarded private

secretary, Madame de Rémusat, and the Duchess d'Abrantès, must be read

with allowance for prejudice. Thiers, in his twenty volumes on "The

Consulate and the Empire," gives a most valuable picture of the times,

friendly to the great leader; John Codman Ropes's "First Napoleon" is

able; and the life by William O'Connor Morris of Oxford is generally

fair and interesting.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio, in the Island of Corsica, Aug.

15, 1769. This date has been disputed by some authors, who claim that

Napoleon was born Jan, 7, 1768. Colonel Jung, in "Bonaparte et son

Temps," thinks the dates of birth of Napoleon and his brother Joseph

were exchanged by the parents, who wished, in 1778, to send Napoleon to

a military school at Brienne supported by the State, and he must needs

be under ten years of age.

As Corsica became subject to France in June, 1769, some persons believe

that Napoleon himself changed the date of his birth from 1768 to 1769,

that he might appear to the French nation as a French subject; but the

date, Aug. 15, 1769, is usually accepted as correct.

The Bonaparte family were originally from the nobility of Florence,

where they had taken a somewhat prominent part in politics and

literature. They had lost their fortune; and Charles Bonaparte, the

father of Napoleon, earned his living by the law. He was an eloquent

man, and an adjutant under Pasquale Paoli, a patriot of Corsica. This

island, in the fourteenth century, was under Genoa. When it gained its

independence under Paoli, such rights as Genoa still possessed she sold

to France. As a result, in 1769 a French army of twenty-two thousand

subjugated the island, and Paoli fled to England, where he lived for

twenty years.

Charles Bonaparte, at eighteen, married a girl not yet fifteen, Letizia

Ramolini, descended from a noble family of Naples, a person of unusual

beauty and strength of character. Although so young, she entered

heartily into the warfare for Corsican independence, and shared the

perils of her husband at the front.

Napoleon was the fourth of her thirteen children, the eldest, a son, and

the second, a daughter, both dying young. He was born in the midst of

war. He wrote Paoli, in 1789, when he was twenty years old, "I was born

when my country was sinking; the cries of the dying, the groans of the

oppressed, and the tears of despair surrounded my cradle from my birth."

The Duchess d'Abrantès tells this story of Napoleon's boyhood. When he

was seven years old, being accused by one of his sisters of eating a

basket of grapes and figs, although he denied the offence, he was

whipped and kept on bread and cheese for three days.

On the fourth day a little friend of the family arrived at the home, and

confessed that she and Napoleon's sister, Marianna (afterward Elisa) had

eaten the fruit. The lad was asked why he had not accused his sister,

and replied that he suspected that she was guilty, but said nothing out

of consideration for the friend.

After the submission of Corsica to France in 1769, Count Marboeuf was

appointed viceroy of the island. He became a friend of the Bonapartes;

and Charles, the father, was made king's assessor to the Judicial Court

for Ajaccio. Through Marboeuf's influence three of the Bonaparte

children were placed in fine schools,--Joseph, Marianna, and Napoleon,

the last at the military school of Brienne, near Paris. Here he

remained for five years. He was a quiet, studious lad, devoted to

Plutarch's Lives and Cæsar's Commentaries. He was always trying to find

out what made certain men great. He was easily at the head of his class

in mathematics. His industry and perseverance were astonishing.

"During play-hours," says Bourrienne, "he used to withdraw to the

library, where he read works of history, particularly Polybius and

Plutarch. I often went off to play with my comrades, and left him by

himself in the library."

He was cold in manner, talked very little with his classmates, and felt

keenly his poverty and the submission of his country to France.

Most of the boys at the school were rich, and they often ridiculed

Napoleon and his country. And yet he bore them no ill-will; and, says

Bourrienne, "when he had the supervision of any duty which they

infringed, he would rather go to prison than denounce the criminals."

During the winter of 1783-84, when the fall of snow was unusually heavy,

Napoleon, then fourteen, suggested to his mates that they build a snow

fort, "divide ourselves into sections, form a siege, and I will

undertake to direct the attacks." This sham war was carried on with

great enthusiasm for a fortnight.

Three of the best scholars were sent every year from each of the twelve

provincial military schools of France to the Military College of Paris.

Napoleon was one of the three sent from Brienne.

Here the young men lived so expensively that the youth of fifteen wrote

a letter of protest to the Vice-Principal Berton of Brienne. He urged

that, instead of so many attendants, and two-course dinners, they

should wait upon themselves, clean their own boots, and eat the coarse

bread made for soldiers. Temperance and activity would fit them, he

said, for the hardships of war.

Napoleon won the admiration of his teachers. The professor in history,

M. de l'Eguille, said: "A Corsican by birth and character, he will do

something great if circumstances favor him."

After a year at this school, he was made second lieutenant of artillery

in the regiment of La Fère, in 1785. The next five years he passed at

different military stations in France. He was always studying. He pored

over maps and plans of fortresses. He read with avidity books on law,

philosophy, theology, political economy, and various forms of

government. He wrote an essay on the question, "What are the

institutions most likely to contribute to human happiness?" He also

wrote a history of Corsica and her wrongs.

Abbott relates that on a day of public festivity at Marseilles, Napoleon

was criticised because he did not join in the amusements. He replied,

"It is not by playing and dancing that a _man_ is to be formed."

At Auxonne, Napoleon and some other officers boarded with a plain

barber. The wife of the barber did not like the taciturn young Napoleon,

who stayed in his room and devoured his books, while the other officers

pleased her from their social ways, and enjoyment of the gossip of the

town.

Years after, Napoleon, who had won several victories, passed that way.

He asked the barber's wife if she remembered an officer by the name of

Bonaparte in her home. "Indeed I do," was the reply, "and a very

disagreeable inmate he was. He was always either shut up in his room,

or, if he walked out, he never condescended to speak to any one."

"Ah, my good woman," said Napoleon, "had I passed my time as you wished

to have me, I should not now have been in command of the army of Italy."

Napoleon was at this time very slight in physique, five feet six and a

half inches tall, with a very large head, pale face, piercing eyes of

grayish blue, brown hair, a smile that could be sweet and captivating,

and beautiful hands.

In 1791, when he was twenty-two years old, Napoleon, now first

lieutenant, visited Corsica on furlough. Remaining too long, his name

was struck off the army lists. He returned to Paris, and anxiously

looked about for some way to earn a living. He met his schoolmate,

Bourrienne, who usually paid for any meal they took together at a

restaurant, as, although poor, he was richer than Napoleon. Each day

they had projects for earning money. They found some houses building,

and desired to rent them, and then underlet them, but the owners asked

too much to realize any profit. Napoleon solicited employment at the war

office. "Everything failed," says Bourrienne.

Bonaparte's mother, left a widow with eight children in 1785, was, of

course, powerless to help Napoleon. Her husband had gone on business to

Montpellier in the south of France, and died of a cancerous ulcer in the

stomach in the thirty-ninth year of his age. His wife was only

thirty-five. Madame Bonaparte was possessed of wonderful energy, great

strength of will, and excellent judgment. These her son Napoleon

inherited in a marked degree.

She proved equal to the care of her fatherless children. "She managed

everything," said Napoleon, "provided for everything with a prudence

which could neither have been expected from her sex nor from her age.

Ah, what a woman! Where shall we look for her equal? She watched over us

with a solicitude unexampled. Every low sentiment, every ungenerous

affection, was discouraged and discarded. She suffered nothing but that

which was grand and elevated to take root in our youthful

understandings. She abhorred falsehood, and would not tolerate the

slightest act of disobedience. None of our faults were overlooked.

Losses, privations, fatigue, had no effect upon her. She endured all,

braved all. She had the energy of a man, combined with the gentleness

and delicacy of a woman."

When Bonaparte was waiting in Paris for some position to open, the

French Revolution had begun. On June 20, 1792, a ragged mob of five or

six thousand men surrounded the Tuileries, put a red cap on the head of

Louis XVI., and made him show himself at the windows to the crowd in the

garden. Napoleon was indignant, and said to Bourrienne, "Why have they

let in all that rabble? They should sweep off four or five hundred of

them with the cannon; the rest would then set off fast enough."

Napoleon also witnessed the storming of the Tuileries on Aug. 10, when

the Swiss guards were massacred. Although a Republican in sentiment, he

had no sympathy with the extreme democracy of the Jacobins, and said:

"If I were compelled to choose between the old monarchy and Jacobin

misrule, I should infinitely prefer the former."

Years later, when Napoleon was Emperor, when asked to allow a person to

return to France who had been prominent in the downfall of the Bourbon

dynasty, he said, "Let him know that I am not powerful enough to protect

the wretches who voted for the death of Louis XVI. from the contempt and

indignation of the public."

Corsica and Paoli (who had returned and become her governor) were

shocked at the excesses of the French Revolution, and hoped and planned

once more for independence. Finding themselves unable to achieve it

alone, they sought the aid of England. Bonaparte and his family favored

adherence to France, and were banished from the island, their home

plundered, and they made their escape at midnight to Marseilles. Here

they were for some time in extreme poverty. Joseph, the eldest son,

found employment as a clerk in an office, and in August, 1794, married

Julia Clari, the daughter of one of the richest merchants of Marseilles.

This was a great pecuniary benefit to the whole family.

Napoleon had finally been reinstated in the army; for with the Reign of

Terror at home, and wars with monarchies abroad, all fearful of the

growth of republican sentiments and consequent revolutions, the French

army was in need of all its able young men.

Napoleon's first important work was at the siege of Toulon. This was the

great naval depot and arsenal of France. The Royalists, or followers of

the Bourbon king, Louis XVI., had centred here, and, opposed to the

republic, had surrendered the city, with its forts and ships, to

England.

The place must be retaken; and the Republic sent out an army under

Carteaux, a portrait painter. For some months the siege was carried on,

but almost nothing was accomplished. Sixty thousand men were needed, and

Carteaux had but twenty-five thousand.

Napoleon, on his way from Avignon to Nice, passed through Toulon,

stopping to see a friend who introduced him to Carteaux. The young

officer saw at once the mistakes of the campaign. "Instead of attacking

the town," said Napoleon, "try and establish batteries which shall sweep

the harbor and the roadstead. If you can only drive away the ships, the

troops will not remain."

Cape l'Eguillette separates the two harbors, and here batteries were

placed to sweep the sea; for Napoleon had said, putting his finger on

the map, at the cape, "Toulon is there!"

As he predicted, the English ships were driven off after a terrible

bombardment; fifteen thousand of the inhabitants of Toulon in dismay

fled to the ships of the allies; the plan of Napoleon had proved a great

success.

He was not responsible for the horrors which followed. The Royalists set

fire to the arsenal and ships before their departure; while the town was

in flames, cannon from the shore sunk boat-loads of fugitives, and

hundreds in the city who could not escape were deliberately shot in the

streets and in their homes, so desperate had become the hate between

Royalists and Republicans, or really Jacobins.

Fouché, afterwards prominent under the Empire, wrote to a friend, Dec.

23: "We have only one way of celebrating victory. This evening we shoot

two hundred and thirteen rebels. Adieu, my friend; tears of joy run down

my cheeks, and my heart is overflowing."

"It was," says Walter Scott, concerning this taking of Toulon, Dec. 17,

1793, "upon this night of terror, conflagration, tears, and blood, that

the star of Napoleon first ascended the horizon; and, though it gleamed

over many a scene of horror ere it set, it may be doubted whether its

light was ever blended with that of one more dreadful."

For this brilliant undertaking Napoleon was made General of Artillery.

General Dugommier, who commanded at Toulon, said, "Promote this young

officer, or he will promote himself." Napoleon was wounded in his thigh

by a bayonet thrust in one of the charges. He was at this time but

twenty-four years of age, poor, ambitious, and with little prospect of

his future wonderful career.

He was sent to defend the coast of Provence, and was denounced by the

Jacobins, who said he was building a bastile at Marseilles to enslave

the people. In March, 1794, he rejoined the army of Italy at Nice, and

was so useful that the commander-in-chief wrote: "I am indebted to the

comprehensive talents of General Bonaparte for the plans which have

insured our victory."

In July, 1794, he was sent on a mission to Genoa, to examine the

fortresses and the neighboring country. Meantime, one set of French

leaders had been superseded by a set equally bad. Through jealousy, and

as a friend of the younger Robespierre, Napoleon was arrested as a

"suspected person," was two weeks in prison, and nearly lost his life.

He seems to have been spared for the selfish reason, "the possible

utility of the military and local knowledge of the said Bonaparte." He

addressed an eloquent letter to his accusers, quoted by Lanfrey, in

which he says: "Remove the oppression which surrounds me; give me back

the esteem of patriots. An hour afterwards, if bad men wish for my life,

I care so little for it, I have so often counted it for nothing.... Yes,

nothing but the idea that it may be of use to the country gives me

courage to bear its weight."

Soon after this, to scatter such officers as himself, who were supposed

to be Jacobin in tendency, Napoleon was ordered to La Vendée to put down

civil dissensions. He rebelled against being separated from the army of

Italy. "You are too young," said Aubrey, the Girondist deputy, "to be

commander-in-chief of artillery."

"Men age fast on a field of battle," said Napoleon, "and I am no

exception."

For refusing to proceed to his post, Napoleon's name was struck off the

army lists, and again he was in Paris, out of employment. When he and

Bourrienne took a stroll at evening on the Boulevards, and saw the rich

young men on horseback, apparently living a life of ease and luxury,

"dandies with their whiskers," says Madame Junot (Duchess d'Abrantès),

Napoleon would exclaim bitterly, "And it is on such beings as these that

Fortune confers her favors. How contemptible is human nature!"

He told Count Montholon, when in exile at St. Helena, that at this time

he came near committing suicide by throwing himself into the river. With

head down, and meditating upon his determination, he ran against a

plainly dressed man, who proved to be Démasis, a former comrade in the

artillery.

"What is the matter?" he said to Napoleon. "You do not listen to me! You

do not seem glad to see me! What misfortune threatens you? You look to

me like a madman about to kill himself."

Napoleon told him his needs, and his mother's poverty. "Is that all?"

said Démasis. "Here are six thousand dollars in gold, which I can spare

without any inconvenience. Take them, and relieve your mother."

Hardly aware of what he was doing, Napoleon grasped the money, and sent

it to his mother. Afterwards he could find nothing of Démasis. Fifteen

years later, when the Empire was near its fall, Napoleon met him, made

him accept sixty thousand dollars to repay the loan of six thousand, and

appointed him director-general of the crown gardens, at a salary of six

thousand dollars a year, and the honors of an officer in the household.

He also provided a good situation for Démasis' brother.

He never forgot a kindness. A humble shoemaker, who worked for him in

these days of poverty, and waited for his pay, was always employed by

Napoleon after he became Emperor, though he was urged to go to some one

more fashionable. A jeweller, who once trusted him, was remembered in

Napoleon's days of prosperity, and thus made his fortune. To a lady, a

stranger to him, who once was kind to him in sickness in these early

years, he sent two thousand dollars, hearing that her circumstances had

changed. To an old man in Jersey, who had once loaned his father

twenty-five louis, he sent ten times that sum.

Reverses began to attend the army of Italy. Whenever it was convenient

to use his services, it seemed always to be remembered that he had

knowledge and sagacity. Napoleon was asked by the director of military

affairs to draw up a plan of operations for the army. It was sent to

Kellermann, commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, who rejected it,

saving, "The author is a fit inmate for a lunatic asylum." Lanfrey and

other historians consider the plan altogether brilliant and admirable.

Napoleon, by years of study, had made himself a master in the science of

war, as well as along other lines. He had made himself ready for a great

opportunity, and a great opportunity came to him.

France, in her struggle for self-government, had adopted a new

constitution, under a Directory of five persons, with a Council of two

hundred and fifty Ancients, and a Council of Five Hundred, somewhat like

our House of Representatives. The new government, though acceptable to

the provinces, did not please either the Royalists or Jacobins of Paris,

and the people, now so used to bloodshed, resorted to force to destroy

the Directory.

Barras, one of the Directors, who knew Napoleon, immediately thought of

him as a young man who could quell a mob. "It is that little Corsican

officer," he said, "who will not stand upon ceremony!" The Directory had

but about eight thousand soldiers; the National Guard numbered forty

thousand. Napoleon spent the whole night in turning the Louvre and the

Tuileries into a sort of camp, with artillery posted at all the outlets.

He armed all the members of the government, that they might defend

themselves if the necessity arose, and he took care to leave a way of

retreat open to St. Cloud.

The National Guards appeared on the morning of Oct. 5, 1795 (13th

Vendémiaire, as the month was called by the Revolutionary Calendar), in

front of Napoleon's troops. All day the two armies were within fifteen

paces of each other. At four o'clock in the afternoon, General Danican

of the National Guards gave the signal for attack. Napoleon mounted his

horse, and the fight began at several places.

The cannon swept them down at every point. At six o'clock the battle was

over, and order was restored in Paris. About eighty only were killed,

and three or four hundred wounded, as the guns were loaded with powder

after two discharges. Napoleon was, as he deserved to be, the hero of

the hour. With the utmost self-possession, with a clear brain and

never-failing courage, he had been equal to the emergency.

Napoleon was made General of the Interior, with the command of Paris.

The days of poverty were over. He found places for several of his

family, and was much sought after by those in high position. He was

especially good to the poor, and the Duchess d'Abrantès tells how he

climbed to attics and went down into cellars to feed the hungry. As he

was stepping out of his carriage one day at the home of the Duchess, a

woman held her dead child before him. It had died from want. She had

come to ask him to save her other children. "If nobody will give me

anything," she said, "I must even take them all five and drown myself

with them." Napoleon remembered how near he had been to drowning himself

only a little time before. He obtained the wages due to her husband, who

had been killed while at work on the roof of the Tuileries, and a

pension was granted her.

Soon after this an attractive boy about fourteen years of age came to

Napoleon and asked for the sword of his father, who was a general of the

Republic, and had been put to death by the Jacobins, because he was a

Girondist, or moderate Republican.

"I was so touched by this affectionate request," said Napoleon, "that I

ordered it to be given to him. This boy was Eugène Beauharnais. On

seeing the sword he burst into tears. I felt so affected by his conduct,

that I noticed and praised him much. A few days afterwards his mother

came to return me a visit of thanks. I was struck with her appearance,

and still more with her _esprit_."

The young general of twenty-six became thoroughly in love with the

graceful and lovable widow of thirty-two. Josephine Tascher, the only

child of French parents, had been born in the Island of Martinique, Jan.

24, 1763. She was married when sixteen to Viscount de Beauharnais, a

major in the army, who introduced her to the court of Marie Antoinette,

but who, with all his wealth and position, did not make her life a happy

one. After four years of marriage and the birth of two children,

Hortense and Eugène, to whom she was most tenderly attached, she and

Beauharnais separated, and she returned to Martinique, but at his

persistent request she came back to him after three years.

On his imprisonment during the Reign of Terror she attempted to save him

and was thrown into prison, where she narrowly escaped the guillotine.

He was beheaded July 23, 1794.

"Josephine," says Meneval, the secretary of Napoleon after Bourrienne,

"was irresistibly attractive.... Her temper was always the same. She was

gentle and kind, affable and indulgent with every one, without

difference of persons. She had neither a superior mind nor much

learning; but her exquisite politeness, her full acquaintance with

society, with the court, and with their innocent artifices, made her

always know the best things to say or do."

Napoleon found at the home of Madame de Beauharnais the most noted

persons in Paris, and, what was more important for his happiness, the

one woman whom he ever after loved.

Years later he said, "Josephine was truly a most lovely woman, refined,

affable, and charming.... She was so kind, so humane--she was the most

graceful lady and the best woman in France. I never saw her act

inelegantly during the whole time we lived together. She possessed a

perfect knowledge of the different shades of my character, and evinced

the most exquisite tact in turning this knowledge to the best

account....

"I was the object of her deepest attachment. If I went into my carriage

at midnight for a long journey, there, to my surprise, I found her,

seated before me and awaiting my arrival. If I attempted to dissuade her

from accompanying me, she had so many good and affectionate reasons to

urge, that it was almost always necessary to yield. In a word, she

always proved to me a happy and affectionate wife, and I have preserved

the tenderest recollections of her."

Barras, the ardent friend of Josephine, urged her marriage with

Napoleon, and her children favored it. She admired him, but hesitated.

She wrote a friend, "Barras assures me that if I marry the general, he

will obtain for him the appointment of commander-in-chief of the army of

Italy. Yesterday Bonaparte, speaking to me of this favor, which has

already caused some jealousy among his companions in arms, although it

is not yet granted, said, 'Do they think I need patronage to insure my

success? Some day they will be only too happy if I grant them mine. My

sword is at my side, and that will carry me a long way.'"

They were married March 9, 1796, Napoleon having been appointed to the

command of the army of Italy on the preceding 23d of February. He

remained in Paris but a few days, and then hastened to his army,

reaching Nice towards the last of March.

He found an army of about thirty thousand men, "without pay, without

provisions, without shoes," opposed to about twice their number of

Austrians and Sardinians. He issued an address to them: "Soldiers, you

are poorly fed and half-naked. The government owes you much, but can do

nothing for you. Your patience, your courage, do you honor, but they

bring you no advantage, no glory. I am about to lead you into the most

fertile plains in the world; there you will find larger cities and rich

provinces; there you will find honor, glory, and wealth. Soldiers of

Italy, shall you lack courage?"

His soldiers, who till his death idolized him and would die for him,

were soon to prove on scores of battle-fields that they never lacked

courage.

This slight, boyish-looking general of twenty-six said to his veteran

officers, "We must hurl ourselves on the foe like a thunderbolt, and

smite like it."

And this was done. The first battle was on April 12, at Montenotte. The

Austrians were routed, leaving their colors and cannon with the French,

and three thousand dead and wounded. Napoleon afterwards said to the

Emperor of Austria, "My title of nobility dates from the battle of

Montenotte."

The battles of Millesimo and Mondovi quickly followed. On the heights of

Monte Zemolo, Napoleon looked out upon the fertile plains of Italy, and

exclaimed, "Hannibal crossed the Alps, but we have turned them!"

Then he addressed his enthusiastic soldiers: "In fifteen days," he said,

"you have won six victories; captured twenty-one flags, fifty cannon,

many fortified places; conquered the richest part of Piedmont; you have

captured fifteen thousand prisoners, and killed and wounded ten thousand

men. You lacked everything; you have gained battles without cannon;

crossed rivers without bridges; made forced marches without shoes;

often bivouacked without bread; the Republican phalanxes were alone

capable of such extraordinary deeds. Soldiers, receive your due of

thanks!"

Murat, his aide-de-camp, who afterwards married Napoleon's sister

Caroline, and became King of Naples, was sent to Paris with the

armistice proposed by the King of Sardinia, and Junot with the flags,

which caused the greatest rejoicing. _Fêtes_ were celebrated at the

Champ de Mars, and Napoleon's name was honored as the conqueror of

Italy.

Napoleon writes to his bride: "Your letters are the delight of my days,

and my happy days are not very many. Junot is carrying twenty-two flags

to Paris. You must come back with him; do you understand? It would be

hopeless misery, an inconsolable grief, continual agony, if I should

have the misfortune of seeing him come back alone, my adorable one....

You will be here, by my side, on my heart, in my arms! Take wings, come,

come! But travel slowly; the way is long, bad, and tiresome."

Almost daily he writes to his wife: "My only Josephine, away from you,

there is no happiness; away from you, the world is a desert, in which I

stand alone, with no chance of tasting the delicious joy of pouring out

my heart. You have robbed me of more than my soul; you are the sole

thought of my life. If I am worn out by all the torment of events, and

fear the issue; if men disgust me; if I am ready to curse life, I place

my hand on my heart,--your image is beating there."

She is not well, and does not come to him, and again he writes: "My

dear, do remember to tell me that you are certain that I love you more

than can be imagined; ... that no hour passes that I do not think of

you; that it has never entered my mind to think of any other woman; ...

that you, as I see you, as you are, can please me and absorb my whole

soul; that you have wholly filled it; that my heart has no corner that

you do not see, no thoughts that are not subordinate to you; that my

strength, my arms, my intelligence, are all yours; ... and that the day

when you shall have changed, or shall have ceased to live, will be the

day of my death; that nature, the earth, is beautiful, in my eyes, only

because you live on it."

General Marmont says in his memoirs: "Bonaparte, however occupied he may

have been with his greatness, the interests intrusted to him, and with

his future, had, nevertheless, time to devote to feelings of another

sort; he was continually thinking of his wife.... He often spoke to me

of her, and of his love, with all the frankness, fire, and illusion of a

very young man.... During a trip we made together at this time, to

inspect the places in Piedmont that had fallen into our hands, one

morning, at Tortona, the glass in front of his wife's portrait, which he

always carried with him, broke in his hands. He grew frightfully pale,

and suffered the keenest alarm."

Again he says, "Never did a purer, truer, or more exclusive love fill a

man's heart, or the heart of so extraordinary a man."

Lanfrey says, "In this love, which has been said to be the only one that

touched his heart, all the fire and flame of his masterful nature showed

itself."

Napoleon pushed on his troops to conquer the Austrian Beaulieu, crossed

the river Po at Piacenza, and overtook the enemy at the town of Lodi on

the Adda River. The town was taken by the French; nut, to cross the

Adda and reach Beaulieu, it was necessary to storm a narrow wooden

bridge, which was defended by artillery and by from twelve to sixteen

thousand Austrians. Napoleon immediately placed a battery on his own

side of the river, sent a detachment of cavalry to ford the river and

attack the enemy's rear, and then, at the head of several thousand men,

bade them force a passage across the bridge.

The French were mowed down by the Austrian cannon. They wavered, when

Napoleon seized a standard, and, with Lannes and one or two other

officers, rushed among the troops and inspired them to gain a complete

victory. Lannes was the first to cross the bridge and reach the Austrian

gunners, who were sabred at their guns, and Napoleon the second. Lannes

was promoted on the spot for his valor. So proud were the troops that

their general should fight in the ranks, that they ever after called him

their "Little Corporal." The conflict was a bloody one. The Austrian

loss was much heavier than the French.

Napoleon said, "It was not till after the _terrible passage of the

bridge of Lodi_ that the idea shot across my mind that I might become a

decisive actor in the political arena. Then arose, for the first time,

the spark of great ambition."

He said to his aide-de-camp, Marmont, "In our time, no one has devised

anything great; I must set an example."

On May 15, 1796, Napoleon entered Milan in triumph. The people hated the

rule of Austria, and hoped for liberty under the French Republic. A

triumphal arch was erected in the city, and flowers were scattered in

the path of the French. To his soldiers, "who had rushed," he said,

"like a torrent from the height of the Apennines," Napoleon gave all the

glory.

In accordance with the wishes of the Directory in France, he levied

twenty million francs on Milan, and took some of her best art works to

Paris. The army was supported by the countries through which it passed,

as was Sherman's in our Civil War.

Late in June, Josephine reached Milan, and for a brief period they were

happy; but Napoleon was obliged very soon to be at the front. The war

now centred about Mantua, which was strongly fortified. Seven or eight

thousand French troops were besieging it, when it was ascertained that

Würmser, the Austrian general, was marching against the French with

seventy thousand men, in three armies, while Napoleon had but about

forty-five thousand.

At once the siege of Mantua was raised, the gun-carriages burned, the

powder thrown into the river, the cannon spiked, and the French forces

were led against Würmser.

Napoleon, with his usual celerity and tact,--he used to say, "War, like

government, is mainly decided by tact,"--managed to defeat each of the

three Austrian armies in turn.

At Lonato the Austrians lost ten thousand in killed, wounded, and

prisoners. The day after the battle, one of the Austrian divisions,

reduced to four thousand men, wandered into Lonato, and demanded the

surrender of the garrison of twelve hundred. Napoleon called his staff

together; and when the bandage was removed from the eyes of the officer,

he said with authority, "Go and tell your general that I give him eight

minutes to lay down his arms!" The Austrians surrendered, and were soon

chagrined to find that four thousand had succumbed to twelve hundred

Frenchmen.

Napoleon said at Lonato, "I was at ease; the Thirty-second was there!"

So rejoiced were the men at these words that they had them embroidered

on their regimental flag.

In this short campaign twenty thousand Austrians had been killed and

wounded, fifteen thousand taken prisoners, with seventy pieces of

artillery, and twenty-two stands of colors. The latter were sent to

Paris.

Early in September, Napoleon again defeated Würmser at Bassano. After

the battle, at midnight Napoleon rode over the battle-field by

moonlight, the quiet broken only by the moans of the wounded and dying.

Suddenly a dog sprang from beneath the cloak of his dead master, rushed

to Napoleon as though asking aid, and then back to the body, licking the

face and hands of the dead, and howling piteously.

Napoleon was strongly moved, and said years afterward, "I know not how

it was, but no incident upon any field of battle ever produced so deep

an impression upon my feelings. 'This man,' thought I, 'must have had

among his comrades friends, and yet here he lies forsaken by all except

his faithful dog.' ... Certainly, in that moment, I should have been

unable to refuse any request to a suppliant enemy."

When at St. Helena, Madame Montholon, seeming to be afraid of a dog,

Napoleon said, "He who does not love a dog has never known what real

fidelity means."

Austria soon put another general in the field with over sixty thousand

men. She was determined not to lose Italy. At first the French army lost

some battles, the general-in-chief not being with them. When he came to

his army, he said to some regiments, "Soldiers, I am not satisfied with

you. You have shown neither discipline, constancy, nor courage.... Let

it be written on the colors, 'They are not of the army of Italy.'"

The men seemed heart-broken. "Place us in the van of the army," they

said, "and you shall then judge whether we do not belong to the army of

Italy."

They were soon put to the test. Napoleon marched out of Verona on the

night of Nov. 14, descended the Adige river, and fell upon the rear of

Alvinzi, the Austrian general, at Arcola. The village is surrounded by

marshes, crossed by causeways or bridges.

When the French rushed upon the bridges, they were repulsed by the guns

of the Austrians. Napoleon sprang from his horse, seized a standard, and

shouted, "Follow your general!" but he was borne by the struggling

soldiers off the bridge into the marsh.

Frenzied at the probable loss of their general, the French fought

desperately. Muiron, who had saved Napoleon at Toulon when he was

wounded in the thigh, covered his general with his own body, and

received his death wound from a shell. Lannes received three wounds in

endeavoring to protect Napoleon, who was finally extricated, and was

again at the head of the column. After three days of battle, the French

were victorious. It is estimated that twenty thousand men perished in

the swamps of Arcola.

Napoleon wrote a letter of sympathy to the young widow of Muiron, who in

a few weeks died at the birth of a lifeless child.

To the Directory he wrote: "Never was a field of battle more valiantly

disputed than the conflict at Arcola. I have scarcely any generals left.

Their bravery and their patriotic enthusiasm are without example."

In the midst of this toil and carnage, Napoleon could find time to write

to Josephine. She had followed him for a while after coming to Milan,

but her dangers were so great that it was soon found to be impossible.

After Arcola he writes her: "At length, my adored Josephine, I live

again. Death is no longer before me, and glory and honor are still in my

breast.... Soon Mantua will be ours, and then thy husband will fold thee

in his arms, and give thee a thousand proofs of his ardent affection. I

shall proceed to Milan as soon as I can; I am a little fatigued. I have

received letters from Eugène and Hortense. I am delighted with the

children.... Adieu, my adorable Josephine. Think of me often. Death

alone can break the union which sympathy, love, and sentiment have

formed. Let me have news of your health. A thousand and a thousand

kisses."

If she does not write often he is distressed; "Three days without a word

from you," he writes, "and I have written you several times. This

absence is horrible; the nights are long, tiresome, dull; the days are

monotonous.... I don't really live away from you; my life's happiness is

only to be with my sweet Josephine. Think of me! write to me often, very

often; it is the only balm in absence which is cruel, but I hope will be

short.... Day before yesterday I was in the field all day. Yesterday I

stayed in bed. A fever and a raging headache prevented me from writing

to my dear one; but I received her letters. I pressed them to my heart

and my lips; and the pang of absence, a hundred miles apart, vanished."

Yet, with all this intensity of feeling, Napoleon had wonderful

self-command. He said, "Nature seems to have calculated that I should

endure great reverses. She has given me a mind of marble. Thunder cannot

ruffle it. The shaft merely glides along."

Austria made another desperate effort to overcome Napoleon and save

Würmser, shut up in Mantua. At four o'clock in the morning, Jan. 14,

1797, the battle of Rivoli began. For twelve hours Napoleon was in the

hottest of the fight. Three horses were shot under him.

After a desperate but victorious battle, the troops marched all night,

conquered Provera before Mantua the next day, and La Favorita on the

third day. The Austrian army had lost thirty thousand men in three days,

of whom twenty thousand were taken prisoners. Napoleon, in his report of

the battle of Favorita, spoke of the terrible Fifty-seventh. Thereafter

the Fifty-seventh adopted the name of "The Terrible," proud of this

distinction of their chief.

Massena's men had marched and fought incessantly for four days and

nights. No wonder the Austrians said, "The French do not march, they

fly." Napoleon wrote, "The Roman legions used to make twenty-four miles

a day; our men make thirty, and fight in the intervals." ...

Würmser surrendered Mantua Feb. 3, 1797. Twenty-seven thousand men had

died of wounds or sickness since the commencement of the siege. The

horses had all been eaten, and the city could sustain itself no longer.

Würmser had declared that he could hold out for a year. But Napoleon

knew that so brave a marshal as Würmser would not surrender unless

reduced to the last extremity.

He therefore allowed Würmser to retire with all his staff and two

thousand cavalry. He surrendered to France eighteen thousand prisoners.

Würmser wished to salute the young conqueror of twenty-seven; but

Napoleon had gone to Bologna, not liking to subject the marshal of

seventy to humiliation. Lanfrey thinks this was done for effect, but

there seems no good reason for always imputing bad motives to Napoleon.

A man so worshipped by his soldiers, and, indeed, by the nation, had

much that was noble and refined in his nature.

Würmser, out of gratitude to Napoleon, saved his life at Bologna, by

making known to him a plot to poison him.

Napoleon now turned his attention towards the Papal States. The Pope had

no love for the "godless Republic." Thousands of priests had fled from

France to Rome. Austria and Rome were closely allied, and both ready to

sustain war against France whenever an opportunity offered.

The Directory had written to Napoleon "that the Roman Catholic religion

would always be the irreconcilable enemy of the Republic," but Napoleon

bore no ill-will towards his mother's faith and the faith in which he

himself died.

He issued a proclamation in which he said, "The French soldier carries

in one hand the bayonet, the guaranty of victory, and in the other an

olive branch, the symbol of peace and pledge of his protection."

When within three days' march of Rome, the Pope sued for peace, and the

treaty of Tolentino was signed Feb. 19, 1797.

Napoleon writes to Josephine on the same day: "Peace has just been

signed with Rome. Bologna, Ferrara, the Romagna, are ceded to the

Republic. The Pope gives us shortly thirty million [francs] and many

works of art....

"My dear, I beg of you think of me often, and write me every day....

You, to whom nature has given intelligence, gentleness, and beauty, you,

who rule alone over my heart, you, who doubtless know only too well the

absolute power you exercise over my heart, write to me, think of me, and

love me. Ever yours."

Austria was not yet humbled. Napoleon determined to march against

Vienna. The young Archduke Charles, brother of the ruler of Austria, was

in command of the Austrian army. "He is a man," said Napoleon, "whose

conduct can never attract blame.... More than all, he is a good man, and

that includes everything when said of a prince."

Charles had beaten Napoleon's generals on the Rhine, but he could not

beat the "Little Corporal." His fifty thousand men melted away as they

fled, wounded and distracted, over the Alps.

When within sight of Vienna, Napoleon proposed peace; and Austria, tired

of war for a time at least, accepted the conditions.

Early in May, France declared war against the Venetian Republic. The

latter had been neutral, although both Austrians and French had crossed

her territory. Her aristocracy had no sympathy with the French Republic,

and preferred Austria. Perhaps to guard herself from both nations, she

raised an army of sixty thousand men, and put herself in the attitude of

armed neutrality. She refused to ally herself to France. "Be neutral,

then," said Napoleon; "but remember, if you violate your neutrality, if

you harass my troops, if you cut off my supplies, I will take ample

vengeance.... The hour that witnesses the treachery of Venice shall

terminate her independence."

Whether or not her government desired to keep the peace, insurrections

arose among the people in Verona and elsewhere, French soldiers were

killed, Napoleon took "ample vengeance," and in the treaty of Campo

Formio, Oct. 17, 1797, Venice was handed over to Austria. The Republic

ceased to exist. In taking the hated oath of allegiance to Austria, the

ex-Doge of Venice became insensible, and died soon after.

Napoleon now returned to Milan, and for a time lived in peace and

happiness at the Serbelloni Palace. Josephine won every heart by her

grace and her kindness. Napoleon said, "I conquer provinces, but

Josephine wins hearts."

Madame de Rémusat wrote: "Love seemed to come every day to place at her

feet a new conquest over a people entranced with its conqueror."

The people waited to see Napoleon pass in and out of his palace. They

did him honor as though he were a king. He had sent for his mother, his

brothers Joseph and Louis, and his beautiful sister Pauline, sixteen

years of age, of whom Arnault, the poet, said, "if she was the prettiest

person in the world, she was also the most frivolous."

Imbert de Saint-Amand, in his "Citizeness Bonaparte," quotes this

incident to show Josephine's power over her husband. "He was absolutely

faithful to her," says Saint-Amand, "and this at a time when there was

not a beauty in Milan who was not setting her cap for him."

Josephine owned a pug dog, Fortuné, which, when she was imprisoned in

the Reign of Terror, was brought to her cell with a letter concealed in

his collar. Ever since she had been extremely fond of him. They were

all at the Castle of Montebello, a few leagues from Milan, during the

warm weather. "You see that fellow there?" said Napoleon to Arnault,

pointing to the dog who lay on the sofa beside his mistress, "he is my

rival. When I married I wanted to put him out of my wife's room, but I

was given to understand that I might go away myself or share it with

him. I was annoyed; but it was to take or to leave, and I yielded. The

favorite was not so accommodating, and he left his mark on my leg."

Fortuné barked at everything, and used to bite other dogs. The cook's

dog, a mastiff, returned the bite one day, and killed Fortuné. Josephine

was in despair; but the mischief was done, and there was no help for it.

Nov. 17 Napoleon left Milan, and, after a continued ovation along the

route, reached Paris Dec. 5, where, a change having taken place in the

government, he thought it wise to be for a time. Though the Directory

was jealous of the rising power of Napoleon, the people demanded a

magnificent reception for him, which was prepared in the Luxembourg.

Napoleon made an address which was eagerly listened to, and the people

were wild with enthusiasm. Thiers says, "All heads were overcome with

the intoxication." Talleyrand gave a great ball costing over twelve

thousand francs. Bourrienne, his secretary, remarked that it must be

agreeable to "see his fellow-citizens so eagerly running after him."

"Bah! the people would crowd as fast to see me if I were going to the

scaffold," was Napoleon's reply. So well did he understand human nature.

He said to Bourrienne, "Were I to remain in Paris long, doing nothing, I

should be lost. In this great Babylon one reputation displaces another.

Let me be seen but three times at the theatre and I shall no longer

excite attention; so I shall go there but seldom."

Napoleon was made a member of the Institute, in the class of the

Sciences and Arts. This honor he greatly valued, writing to the

president of the class, "I feel well assured that, before I can be their

equal, I must long be their scholar.... True conquests--the only ones

which leave no regret behind them--are those which are made over

ignorance. The most honorable, as well as the most useful, occupation

for nations is the contributing to the extension of human knowledge."

"He had," says Bourrienne, "an extreme aversion to mediocrity," or to

people who are too indolent to read and improve themselves. "Mankind,"

he said, "are, in the end, always governed by superiority of

intellectual qualities."

The Directory were anxious for an attack upon England, which had joined

the Coalition against France in 1793, and was her most formidable enemy.

"Go there," said Barras, "and capture the giant Corsair that infests the

seas; go punish in London outrages that have too long gone unpunished."

Arnault said to Napoleon, "The Directory wishes to get you away; France

wishes to keep you."

"I am perfectly willing to make a tour of the coast," said Napoleon to

Bourrienne. "Should the expedition to Britain prove too hazardous, as I

much fear that it will, the army of England will become the army of the

East, and we will go to Egypt." He spent a week in looking over the

ground, and said, "I will not hazard it. I would not thus sport with the

fate of France."

He determined to colonize Egypt. He would take with him men of science,

artists, and artisans. He said to Montholon at St. Helena, "Were the

French once established in Egypt, it would be impossible for the English

to maintain themselves long in India. Squadrons constructed on the

shores of the Red Sea, provisioned with the products of the country, and

equipped and manned by the French troops stationed in Egypt, would

infallibly make us masters of India, and at a moment when England least

expected it."

The fleet set sail from Toulon May 19, 1798, with forty thousand men

besides ten thousand sailors. Josephine came to Toulon to say good-by,

and wished to go with her husband, but this would have been most unwise.

The fleet arrived off Malta June 10, which, with almost no opposition,

surrendered to the French its twelve hundred pieces of cannon, its ten

thousand pounds of powder, its ships, and its forty thousand muskets.

On June 30 the fleet appeared before Alexandria, which was soon

captured. Then the army set out to cross the desert towards Cairo.

The heat was intense, they suffered for lack of water, and murmured at

the Directory. Napoleon bivouacked in their midst, and dined on lentils.

On July 21 they came in sight of the Pyramids. The whole army halted.

"Soldiers," said Napoleon, "from the summit of those pyramids forty

centuries look down upon you!"

Before them lay the intrenched camp of Embabeh, with ten thousand

Mameluke horsemen under Mourad Bey. These charged upon the immovable

squares of the French only to be cut to pieces by bayonets.

They fought desperately, but were routed, and many of them driven into

the Nile. Over two thousand perished, while the French did not lose

over one hundred and fifty in killed and wounded. "The banks of the

Nile," says Bourrienne, "were strewed with heaps of bodies, which the

waves were every moment washing into the sea." The soldiers bent their

bayonets into hooks, and for days fished up the bodies of the Mamelukes,

on each of which they found from five to six hundred louis in gold.

Ten days after this battle of the Pyramids, the French fleet was

destroyed by Nelson in the terrible battle of the Nile. Admiral Brueys

was killed, and the bodies of his men seemed to fill the Bay of Aboukir.

Napoleon was virtually a prisoner in Egypt. The blow was irreparable.

The army was despondent, but Napoleon was calm. "Unfortunate Brueys," he

said, "what have you done!"

It was evident that he must organize Egypt as soon as possible. He

established in Cairo an Institute of Arts and Sciences, he built

factories, and he planned two canals, one uniting the Red Sea with the

Mediterranean across the Isthmus of Suez, and the other connecting the

Red Sea with the Nile at Cairo.

Meantime France was threatened with war on every side. Russia and Turkey

had joined hands with England and Austria. They were sweeping over

Italy. Turkey had raised an army in Syria, and Napoleon hastened thither

with thirteen thousand men over a desert of seventy-five leagues.

He took El Arish Feb. 20, 1799, then Gaza; then Jaffa was taken by

assault, as the garrison refused to yield, and beheaded the messenger

sent to them, putting his head on a pole. The massacre which followed

was horrible. Some two thousand prisoners were taken to the seashore

and shot by Napoleon's order. Bourrienne says, Napoleon "yielded only in

the last extremity, and was one of those, perhaps, who beheld the

massacre with the deepest pain."

Napoleon has been greatly blamed for this act. These men would, of

course, have gone back to the enemy, and the Turks themselves give no

quarter; and yet, for humanity's sake, one wishes that they could have

been spared.

After the battle at Jaffa the French began the siege of St. Jean d'Acre,

where Djezzar, which name signifies butcher, the head of the army,

resided. The siege lasted sixty days. Sir Sidney Smith of England, with

two ships of war, assisted the fort, and Phélippeaux, an old schoolmate

of Napoleon at Brienne, directed the artillery. Napoleon's battering

train, sent forward by sea, had been taken by the English. The siege had

to be raised, four thousand of the French being disabled, and the army

retreated to Jaffa. The plague was decimating the ranks; and Napoleon,

to inspire his men, went among the plague-stricken soldiers and often

touched them. The wounded and sick were carried on horses, while

Napoleon and all his officers went on foot. Napoleon said, "Sir Sidney

Smith made me miss my destiny."

Napoleon defeated the Turks at Aboukir, July 25, with a loss to them of

ten thousand men, and then, learning of the perilous condition of France

in her wars with the allied powers, hastened to Paris, leaving General

Kléber in charge in Egypt. Napoleon narrowly missed being captured by

the English cruisers.

France was overjoyed at his return. Bells were rung and bonfires

kindled. He reached Paris Oct. 16, 1799. Josephine had gone to Lyons to

meet him. He had started for Paris by a different route, and she missed

him.

When she returned Napoleon refused to see her. While in Egypt Junot had

foolishly told him some gossip about Josephine, who was obliged to be

courteous to everybody, which had made him jealous. It probably came

from Napoleon's brothers, who disliked her great influence over him.

Josephine was nearly heart-broken. She had not seen Napoleon for a year

and a half. Both Eugène and Hortense begged that Napoleon would take

their mother back into his heart.

Finally he opened his door, and with a stern look at Josephine, said to

Eugène, then eighteen, who had just returned with him from Egypt, "As

for you, you shall not suffer for your mother's misdeeds; I shall keep

you with me."

With commendable spirit, the boy, who idolized his mother, replied, "No,

General; I bid you farewell on the spot."

Seeing his mistake, he pressed Eugène to his heart, folded Josephine in

his arms, and sent for his brother Lucien, to show him how thoroughly he

and Josephine were reconciled to each other.

Napoleon had reached Paris at an opportune moment. The Directory were

disliked, and he had made up his mind to overturn the government. A

dinner was given to Napoleon at the Temple of Victory by five or six

hundred members of the two Councils, the Ancients, and the Five Hundred.

In the evening Josephine did the honors of the drawing-room at their own

house. "She fascinated every one who came near her," says Saint-Amand,

"by her exquisite grace and charming courtesy. All the brusqueness and

violence of Bonaparte's manners were tempered by the soothing and

insinuating gentleness of his amiable and kindly wife."

Only a few persons were in Napoleon's secret. By a provision of the

Constitution, the Council of the Ancients, in case of peril to the

Republic, could convoke the Legislative Body (the two Councils) outside

the capital to avoid the influence of the multitude, and choose a

general to command the troops to defend the legislature.

The 18th Brumaire (Nov. 9) was the day set for this Council at the

Tuileries to vote to change the place of meeting to St. Cloud. It was

given out that he was to take a journey, so his officers and some

cavalry were to be at his house at six o'clock in the morning to go with

him to the Tuileries, that he might review the troops, to be gathered

there at seven.

At six o'clock, Lefebvre, the commander of the military division, had

arrived. Napoleon said to him, "Here is the Turkish sabre which I

carried at the battle of the Pyramids. Do you, who are one of the most

valiant defenders of the country, accept it? Will you let our country

perish in the hands of the pettifoggers who are ruining it?" It was

gladly accepted.

All rode to the Tuileries. The Ancients voted to meet at St. Cloud on

the morrow, and gave Napoleon the command of the troops.

On the 19th Brumaire the way to St. Cloud was crowded with troops and

carriages. All was excitement and confusion. Napoleon's friends said,

"You are marching to the guillotine." "We shall see," was his cool

reply. When Napoleon arrived at St. Cloud he entered the hall of the

Council of the Ancients and made a brief address. Then he went to the

Council of the Five Hundred. It was five in the afternoon. At the sight

of him they shouted, "Down with the Dictator! Down with the tyrant!"

They brandished daggers and threatened his life. His soldiers hastened

to his aid; and one grenadier, Thomé, had his clothes cut by a dagger.

Bourrienne says they were simply torn. Lucien Bonaparte, the president

of the Five Hundred, left his seat in disgust at the tumult. He called

upon the general and the soldiers "to execute the vote of the Ancients."

The drums were beaten, the soldiers entered the hall, the deputies fled

in every direction, and the old government was a thing of the past.

Three consuls were elected, of whom Napoleon was the First Consul. He

rode home at three in the morning. At thirty he had conquered France as

well as Italy.

There is no doubt that a large majority of the people of France were

rejoiced at the change in government. "Napoleon," says Alison in his

History of Europe, "rivalled Cæsar in the clemency with which he used

his victory. No proscriptions or massacres, few arrests or

imprisonments, followed the triumph of order over revolution. On the

contrary, numerous acts of mercy, as wise as they were magnanimous,

illustrated the rise of the consular throne. The elevation of Napoleon

was not only unstained by blood, but not even a single captive long

lamented the ear of the victor."

On the 19th of February, 1800, Napoleon took up his residence in the

Tuileries. His salary was five hundred thousand francs a year. Ten days

before his removal to the Tuileries, Feb. 9, when the seventy-two flags

taken from the Turks at Aboukir were placed in the Hôtel des Invalides,

a funeral oration was pronounced on Washington, who had died Dec. 14,

1799. Napoleon issued this order to his army: "Washington is dead! That

great man fought against tyranny. He established the liberty of his

country. His memory will be ever dear to the freemen of both

hemispheres, and especially to the French soldiers, who, like him and

the American troops, have fought for liberty and equality. As a mark of

respect, the First Consul orders that, for ten days, black crape be

suspended from all the standards and banners of the Republic."

Feb. 20 he received a letter from Louis XVIII., in which the Bourbon

King said, "Save France from her own violence, and you will fulfil the

first wish of my heart. Restore her king to her, and future generations

will bless your memory." But Napoleon knew that the French did not want

the House of Bourbon. They had put Louis XVI. to death, and still

celebrated that anniversary.

Napoleon devoted all his time to the improvement of the state. He drew

around him the ablest persons. "The men whom he most disliked," says

Bourrienne, "were those whom he called _babblers_, who are continually

prating of everything and on everything." He often said, "I want more

head and less tongue."

He gave France a new constitution, which was accepted by the votes of

the people almost unanimously, over 3,000,000 in the affirmative, and a

few hundreds in the negative. He abolished the annual festival

celebrating the death of Louis XVI. He opened the prisons where those

opposed to the state were confined; hundreds of exiles returned to

France. The country was bankrupt; but now that confidence was restored,

with the help of the best financiers, the Bank of France was

established, a sinking fund provided, judicious taxation adopted, and

an era of prosperity began. Napoleon built canals, roads, and bridges,

and splendid monuments. He restored Sunday as a day of rest, which had

been set aside when the Goddess of Reason was worshipped during the

Revolution.

A little later, duly 15, 1801,--by the Concordat,--he recognized the

Roman Catholic religion as the religion of France. He said, "I am

convinced that a part of France would become Protestant, were I to favor

that disposition. I am also certain that the much greater portion would

continue Catholic, and that they would oppose, with the greatest zeal,

the division among their fellow-citizens. We should then have the

Huguenot wars over again, and interminable conflicts. But by reviving a

religion which has always prevailed in the country, and by giving

perfect liberty of conscience to the minority, all will be satisfied."

He did not like numerous festival days. "A saint's day," he said, "is a

day of idleness, and I do not wish for that. People must labor in order

to live."

Nobody labored harder than Napoleon. He kept several secretaries busy.

Writing fatigued him, and he wrote so hurriedly that the last half of

the word was usually a dash, or omitted. He could go without sleep,

snatching a few minutes in his chair, or in his saddle before a battle.

He seldom took over twenty minutes for dinner, even when he was Emperor,

and rose from the table as soon as he had finished. His time was too

precious to wait long for others. He was very prompt, and required

others to be so.

He said, "Occupation is my element.... I have seen the extent to which I

could use my eyes, but I have never known any bounds to my capacity for

application."

Lanfrey says he "had a prodigious power of work," and "a rapidity of

conception that no other man has probably ever possessed to the same

extent." He used often to say, "Succeed! I judge men only by results."

Nobody knew better the value of time. "I worked all day," said a person

to him, in apology for not having completed some duty. "But had you not

the night also?" was the reply.

"Ask me for whatever you please except _time_," he said to another;

"that is the only thing which is beyond my power."

While taking his bath, Bourrienne read to him. While being shaved, he

read, or somebody read to him. He ate fast, and was irregular at his

meals, sometimes passing a whole day without eating. He always walked up

and down the room, with his arms folded behind him, when dictating to

his secretaries. "He was exceedingly temperate," says Bourrienne, "and

averse to all excess."

"The institutions of modern France date not, as is often said, from the

Revolution, but from the Consulate," says Professor Seeley. "The work of

reconstruction which distinguishes the Consulate, though it was

continued under the Empire, is the most enduring of all the achievements

of Napoleon."

"The institutions now created," says Seeley, "and which form the

organization of modern France, are, 1. The Restored Church, resting on

the Concordat; 2. the University; 3. the judicial system; 4. the Codes:

_Code Civil_, called _Code Napoléon_ Sept. 3, 1807, _Code de Commerce_,

_Code Pénal_, _Code d'Instruction Criminelle_; 5. the system of local

government; 6. the Bank of France; 7. the Legion of Honor."

"My code will outlive my victories," said Napoleon, truly. He put the

best minds of France upon the codification and improvement of her laws,

and he carefully watched every detail.

"Bourrienne," Napoleon used to say, "it is for France I am doing all

this! All I wish, all I desire, the end of all my labors, is, that my

name should be indissolubly connected with that of France!"

Now that France was prosperous and settled, Napoleon wrote to George

III., King of England, proposing peace. Lord Grenville, for his nation,

which had grown more confident since the battle of the Nile and the

successes in Egypt, declined to treat with the Consular Government of

France. Canning spoke of this "new usurper, who, like a spectre, wears

on his head a something that has a phantom resemblance to a crown." Who

would have prophesied then that young Napoleon IV. would have died

fighting the battles of England in Zululand?

He proposed peace to Austria, but she decided like her ally, England.

Napoleon said bitterly, "England wants war. She shall have it. Yes! yes!

war to the death."

He immediately sent General Moreau with one hundred and thirty thousand

men against the Austrian army on the Rhine, and took forty thousand

himself to Italy, crossing the Alps over the Great St. Bernard. The

carriages and wheels were slung on poles; the ammunition boxes were

borne on mules; the cannon were carried in trees hollowed out, each

dragged up the heights by a hundred men; the soldiers crept up the icy

steeps each with sixty or seventy pounds upon his back. At the

well-known Hospice kept by the monks, Napoleon had sent forward supplies

for his men, who, cold and exhausted, were overjoyed at the repast.

The story is told that the young guide who led Napoleon's mule over the

Alps confided to the sympathetic stranger his poverty, his desire to

marry the girl of his choice, and his inability to provide her a home.

The small man in a gray overcoat gave him a note to the head of the

convent. To his astonishment, it provided him with a house and a piece

of ground.

The army then swept down upon Italy. The First Consul entered Milan June

2; Lannes was victorious at Montebello June 9, and on the morning of

June 14 forty thousand Austrians were opposed to a much smaller number

of French on the plain of Marengo. The battle was hotly contested for

twelve hours. At first the Austrians seemed victorious, till Desaix, who

had just come back from Egypt, rushed upon the field with his reserves.

He was shot dead, but his columns were soon avenged.

Six thousand Austrians threw down their arms, a panic spread through

their troops, the cavalry plunged over the infantry to be first in

crossing the Bormida, and thousands perished in the dreadful confusion.

Marengo is regarded by many as Napoleon's most masterful battle.

Desaix's death was a sad blow to Napoleon. Savary found his body

stripped of clothing, wrapped it in a cloak, laid it across a horse, and

Napoleon had it carried to Milan to be embalmed. He said, "Victory at

such a price is dear." Kléber was killed in Egypt on the same day. At

St. Helena, Napoleon said, "Of all the generals I ever had under my

command, Desaix and Kléber possessed the greatest talent--in particular

Desaix.... Kléber and Desaix were irreparable losses to France."

Napoleon returned to Milan and went in state to the Cathedral to the _Te

Deum_, four days after the battle of Marengo. The people everywhere gave

him an ovation. "Bourrienne," he said, "do you hear the acclamations

still resounding? That noise is as sweet to me as the sound of

Josephine's voice." Napoleon reached Paris late in June.

Dec. 3 of this same year, 1800, Moreau fought the famous battle of

Hohenlinden, in the black forests of Germany, at midnight. In the

blinding snowstorm both armies got entangled in the forests. The

Austrians left ten thousand in dead and wounded on the field, with seven

thousand prisoners. The poem of Campbell is well known:--

"On Linden, when the sun was low,

All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,

And dark as winter was the flow

Of Iser rolling rapidly."

Finally a treaty of peace between France and Austria was signed at

Lunéville, Feb. 9, 1801, followed March 27, 1802, by the treaty of

Amiens, between France and England.

Both countries rejoiced in the cessation of hostilities. Fox came over

from England and was received with great cordiality. Napoleon said, "I

considered him an ornament to mankind, and was very much attached to

him."

Four months later, Aug. 4, 1802, by an overwhelming majority of the

votes of the people, over three and a half millions in favor to about

eight thousand against it, Napoleon was declared Consul for life. La

Fayette could not conscientiously favor it, unless liberty of the press

were guaranteed. He said to Napoleon, "A free government, and you at its

head--that comprehends all my desires."

Napoleon said, "He thinks he is still in the United States--as if the

French were Americans. He has no conception of what is required for this

country." Napoleon felt, no doubt sincerely, that France was more stable

under an Emperor than a President. And yet since the fall of Napoleon

III. France has shown that she can live and prosper as a republic.

All through these years the Royalists were plotting to return to the

throne; for when did ever a king reign who did not think it was by

"Divine right"?

Louis XVIII. wrote another letter to Napoleon: "You must have long since

been convinced, General, that you possess my esteem.... We may insure

the glory of France. I say _we_, because I require the aid of Bonaparte,

and he can do nothing without me. General, Europe observes you; glory

awaits you; I am impatient to restore peace to my people." In answer to

this letter, Napoleon wrote, "You must not seek to return to France. To

do so, you must trample over a hundred thousand dead bodies."

Several attempts were made to assassinate Napoleon. Possibly some of

these were the work of Jacobins, who feared that the republic was

slipping into an empire; but they were for the most part traced to

Royalists, the leaders of whom lived in England, and were receiving

yearly pensions, because they had aided her in former wars.

On the evening of Dec. 24, 1800, as Napoleon was going to the opera to

hear Haydn's Oratorio of "The Creation," he was obliged to pass through

the Rue Saint-Nicaise, where an upturned cart covered a barrel of

gunpowder, grape-shot, and pieces of iron. The "infernal machine"

exploded two seconds after he had passed in his carriage. The carriage

was uplifted from the ground, four persons were killed, sixty wounded,

of whom several died, and forty-six houses were badly damaged. One of

the horses of Napoleon's escort was wounded.

Other plans were soon discovered, concocted by Georges Cadoudal, General

Pichegru, and others, all in the confidence of the Comte d'Artois,

afterwards Charles X., the brother of Louis XVIII. He lived in or near

London.

Cadoudal, or Georges as he is usually called, was to meet Napoleon in

the streets, and, with a band of thirty or forty followers, kill him and

his staff. When all was ready, the Bourbon princes were to be near at

hand to head the revolt of the people. Georges was arrested and executed

with eleven of his companions.

The Duke d'Enghien, Louis Antoine, Henri de Bourbon, son of the Duke of

Bourbon, and a descendant of the great Condé who had done so much for

France in her wars, was living at Ettenheim, under the protection of the

Margrave of Baden, to be near the lady whom he loved, the Princess

Charlotte de Rohan, and "to be ready," says Walter Scott, "to put

himself at the head of the royalists in the east of France," if

opportunity offered.

It was reported to Napoleon that the duke came over into France probably

on political errands, and that he was corresponding with disaffected

persons in France.

Napoleon sent some officers to seize the duke on the night of March 15,

1804; he was carried to Strasburg, and thence to the Castle of

Vincennes, near Paris, arriving on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 20.

He was aroused from sleep a little before six on the morning of the

21st, and innocently asked if he were to be imprisoned. He was conducted

outside the castle; by the light of a lantern his sentence was read to

him. He denied any complicity in the conspiracy against the life of the

First Consul, which was doubtless true; requested to see Napoleon, which

was refused; asked an officer to take a ring, a lock of hair, and a

letter to his beloved, and was shot at six in the morning, by his open

grave, his devoted dog by his side. Bourrienne says, "This faithful

animal returned incessantly to the fatal spot.... The fidelity of the

poor dog excited so much interest that the police prevented any one from

visiting the fatal spot, and the dog was no longer heard to howl over

his master's grave."

Josephine had heard of Napoleon's intention to send terror among the

Bourbon conspirators, and had begged him, on her knees and with tears,

to save the life of the young prince. It would have been well for him

had he listened to her entreaties.

France, and Europe as well, were shocked at this death. The Russian

court went into mourning for the Bourbon prince. No doubt Napoleon was

incensed by the Bourbon plots, and after this death these ceased; but

Las Cases, at St. Helena, said Napoleon always regretted it, saying,

"Undoubtedly, if I had been informed in time of certain circumstances

respecting the opinions of the prince, and his disposition, if, above

all, I had seen the letter which he wrote to me, and which, God knows

for what reason, was only delivered to me after his death, I should

certainly have forgiven him."

Napoleon has been blamed for another matter,--the taking of Saint

Domingo, and the imprisonment of Toussaint L'Ouverture. This remarkable

colored man, who had been a slave, had acquired the control of the

island by driving the French and Spanish troops out, and making it a

republic, with a nominal dependence upon France. Napoleon, with a

desire unfortunately shown and carried out by other nations, wished to

enlarge his colonies and also to settle some dissensions in the island,

and sent Dec. 14, 1801, General Leclerc, who had married his pretty

sister Pauline, with 25,000 men to Saint Domingo to re-establish French

sovereignty. He was to send back to France any who rebelled. Toussaint

L'Ouverture, who was among them, was imprisoned in the fortress of Joux,

near Besançon, in Normandy, and died in ten months, away from his own

people, the victim of the spirit of conquest, which is not dead even in

the nineteenth century. The climate destroyed the French army. Only two

or three thousand ever returned. General Leclerc died, like the rest, of

yellow fever.

Napoleon said at St. Helena, "I ought to have been satisfied with

governing it [Saint Domingo] through the medium of Toussaint.... The

design of reducing it by force was a great error."

Only a year after the treaty of Amiens was concluded, it became evident

that it would not last. It was said that Napoleon's power was becoming

too great for the security of Europe. England had determined not to give

up Malta to the Knights as she had promised. Under Pitt's guidance she

was arming and making herself ready for a great combat. The Royalists

were using their pens in their English homes, to abuse the head of the

French nation, held there by the votes of the French people. It was, of

course, exasperating, and tended to produce revolt. Napoleon called

attention to the terms of the treaty, which stipulated that neither of

the two nations should give _any protection_ to those who were injuring

the other. Commercial tariffs bred dislike. English pride was stirred

because Napoleon said, "England, single-handed, is unable to cope with

France."

Finally in May, 1803, the war began. Alison says, and Scott agrees with

him, "Upon coolly reviewing the circumstances under which the contest

was renewed, it is impossible to deny that the British government

manifested a feverish desire to come to a rupture, and that, as far as

the transactions between the two countries are concerned, they are the

aggressors."

Napoleon was determined to invade England,--Bourrienne thinks it was

only a feint, and that his real motive "was to invade Germany and

repulse the Russian troops,"--and he gathered an army of 150,000 in and

around Boulogne, and an immense flotilla which should be able to

transport these men ten leagues across the channel to the English coast.

While these preparations were going on, the French Senate, undoubtedly

in accord with the views of the First Consul, suggested publicly the

idea of an empire over which Napoleon should be the hereditary ruler.

The people were tired of Bourbon plottings, and, if Napoleon were

killed, the scenes of the Revolution might again be witnessed in the

streets of Paris. Napoleon was declared Emperor of the French, May 18,

1804, and publicly crowned by Pope Pius VII., at Notre Dame, Dec. 2 of

the same year.

Paris was thronged with people on the day of the coronation. At

half-past ten in the morning Napoleon and Josephine drove to the

cathedral in a carriage largely of glass, surmounted by a golden crown

upheld by four eagles with outstretched wings, drawn by eight superb

horses. Twenty squadrons of cavalry led the procession, Marshal Murat at

the head. Eighteen carriages, each drawn by six horses, followed.

Napoleon wore a coat of crimson velvet faced with white velvet, white

velvet boots, a short cloak of crimson lined with white satin, and a

black velvet cap with two aigrettes and several diamonds.

At the Archbishop's Palace, Napoleon put on his coronation robes. These

were a tight-fitting gown of white satin, a crimson mantle covered with

golden bees, having an embroidered border with the letter N, and a crown

above each letter, the lining and cape of ermine, the whole weighing

eighty pounds, and held up by four persons. His crown was of golden

laurel; his sword at his left side was in a scabbard of blue enamel,

covered with eagles and bees.

Josephine wore a white satin gown, with a train of silver brocade

covered with bees, a girdle of very expensive diamonds, necklace,

bracelets, and earrings of precious stones and antique cameos, and a

diadem of four rows of pearls with clusters of diamonds. The Emperor was

much struck with Josephine's beauty, and said to his brother Joseph, "If

father could see us!"

As Napoleon entered the cathedral, which was draped in crimson and gold,

twenty thousand spectators shouted, "Long live the Emperor!"

The Emperor and Empress knelt on blue velvet cushions before the Pope,

who anointed Napoleon on the head and hands, and the Empress in the same

way. Then high mass began with three hundred performers. When the moment

came for the Pope to crown the Emperor, Napoleon took the crown from his

hands and placed it upon his own head, and then crowned Josephine. Her

crown was formed of eight branches set in diamonds, emeralds, and

amethysts, under a gold globe surmounted by a cross. Then they proceeded

to the great throne reached by twenty-four steps, Josephine sitting one

step lower than her husband. France had placed her all in the hands of

one man; and Lanfrey justly remarks, "A nation that carries love of ease

so far as to thrust the whole burden of duties and responsibility on a

single man is always punished for it."

After the gorgeous ceremony was over, Napoleon and the Empress dined

alone, and were happy. He said to David, who had painted the coronation

scene at the moment when Napoleon was placing the crown upon the head of

the lovely Josephine, "I thank you for transmitting to ages to come the

proof of affection I wanted to give to her who shares with me the pains

of government." Then he raised his hat to the artist, and said, "David,

I salute you." Josephine had opposed Napoleon's becoming Emperor,

because it meant hereditary succession, and she had no child by

Napoleon. His brothers had for some years urged a divorce, so that

Josephine's life had been one of much sorrow.

Napoleon had said to Bourrienne, "It is the torment of my life not to

have a child. I plainly perceive that my power will never be firmly

established until I have one. If I die without an heir, not one of my

brothers is capable of supplying my place. All is begun, but nothing is

ended. God knows what will happen!"

Josephine had urged her young daughter Hortense into a marriage with

Louis, the brother of Napoleon, Jan. 2, 1802, with the hope that their

child might be the heir to the empire. Each loved another person before

marriage, and their married life was one of constant misery.

Their first child, Charles Napoleon, born Oct. 10, 1802, whom Napoleon

would have adopted, a beautiful and most intelligent boy, died when he

was four years and a half old, of croup, May 5, 1807. "Sometimes when

his parents were quarrelling," says Saint-Amand, "he succeeded in

reconciling them. He used to take his father by the hand, who gladly let

himself be led by this little angel, and then he would say in a

caressing tone: 'Kiss her, papa, I beg of you;' then he was perfectly

happy when his father and mother exchanged a kiss of peace."

Hortense, the mother, was so prostrated with grief, that it was feared

she would lose her reason. Madame de Rémusat says of her, "The Queen has

but one thought, the loss she has suffered; she speaks of only one

thing, of _him_. Not a tear, but a cold, calm, and almost absolute

silence about everything, and when she speaks she wrings every one's

heart. If she sees any one whom she has ever seen with her son, she

looks at him with kindliness and interest, and says, 'You know he is

dead.' When she first saw her mother, she said to her, 'It's not long

since he was here with me. I held him on my knees thus.' ... She heard

ten o'clock strike; she turned to one of the ladies and said, 'You know

it was at ten that he died.' That is the only way she breaks her almost

continual silence."

Josephine was doubly crushed by the blow. She saw her hopes for the

future blighted. The Emperor wrote to her from the seat of war; "I can

well imagine the grief which Napoleon's death must cause. You can

understand what I suffer. I should like to be with you, that you might

be moderate and discreet in your grief.... Let me hear that you are calm

and well! Do you want to add to my regret? Good-by, my dear."

Napoleon was not cold-hearted, but believed that only those accomplish

much in life who have self-control. Two of his soldiers having committed

suicide on account of love affairs, Napoleon caused it to be inserted

in the order-book of the guard, that "there is as much true courage in

bearing up against mental sufferings with constancy as in remaining firm

on the wall of a battery."

Nearly six months after the crowning in Notre Dame, the Emperor was

crowned King of Italy in the cathedral of Milan, May 26, 1805, with the

iron crown of Charlemagne. This crown of gold and precious stones covers

an iron ring said to have been made from a spike which pierced the

Saviour's hand at the crucifixion. Napoleon and the Empress were both

gorgeously arrayed. He placed the crown upon his own head, repeating the

words used in ancient times: "God has given it to me--woe to him that

touches it."

Everywhere Napoleon and Josephine were adored by the people. They went

into the cabin of a poor woman, who was anxious and needy because her

husband could not get work. "How much money would make you perfectly

happy?" asked Napoleon. "Ah, sir, a great deal! As much as eighty

dollars."

The Emperor gave her several hundreds, and told her to rent a piece of

ground and buy some goats.

"Josephine," says Saint-Amand, "had all the qualities that are

attractive in a sovereign,--affability, gentleness, kindliness,

generosity. She had a way of convincing every one of her personal

interest. She had an excellent memory, and surprised those with whom she

talked by the exactness with which she recalled the past, even to

details they had themselves nearly forgotten. The sound of her gentle,

penetrating, and sympathetic voice added to the courtesy and charm of

her words. Every one listened to her with pleasure; she spoke with grace

and listened courteously. She always appeared to be doing a kindness,

and thus inspired affection and gratitude."

"Her only fault," says Saint-Amand, "was extravagance." But it must be

remembered that Napoleon wished her to dress elegantly. It seemed as

though everybody came to ask her to buy, and she bought, says

Saint-Amand, "simply to oblige the dealers. There was no limit to her

liberality. She would have liked to own all the treasures of the earth

in order to give them all away." ... Napoleon, economical by nature,

scolded and forgave. "He could refuse Josephine nothing," says the same

writer, "and she was really the only woman who had any influence over

him."

Napoleon made Josephine's son, Eugène, Viceroy of Italy,--he often said,

"Eugène may serve as a model to all the young men of the age,"--returned

to Paris, and then started for his troops at Boulogne. There he waited

for some days for his feet under Villeneuve, who, having been watched by

the English, and in part crippled by them, failed to appear. He dared

not proceed to Brest, which the English blockaded, and so repaired to

Cadiz, to be crushed soon after by that Napoleon of the sea, Horatio

Nelson, at the battle of Trafalgar. Villeneuve afterwards committed

suicide, stabbing himself to the heart. He left a letter for his wife in

which he said, "What a blessing that I have no children to reap my

horrible heritage and bear the weight of my name!"

Meantime, Russia, Austria, and Sweden had joined themselves to England

to defeat Napoleon. The Emperor, with that quickness of decision and

rapidity of execution for which he was phenomenal, managed to separate

the armies of his foes, and beat them in turn. At Ulm, Oct. 20, 1805,

over thirty thousand Austrians under General Mack, led by sixteen

generals, surrendered, laid down their arms, and retired to the rear of

the French army. More than twenty thousand Austrians had been taken

prisoners in the few days preceding, and the Austrian army of eighty

thousand was well-nigh destroyed.

Napoleon wrote to Josephine Oct. 21: "I am very well, my dear. I have

made an army of thirty-three thousand men surrender. I have taken from

sixty to seventy thousand prisoners, more than ninety flags, and more

than two hundred cannon. In the military annals there is no such

defeat."

Napoleon pushed on to Vienna, which he entered Nov. 14, and went to the

palace of Schönbrunn. The Emperor Francis had fled, and joined the Tsar

and the Russian army at Brunn. Thither Napoleon marched at once. On the

night of Dec. 1, 1805, he mounted his horse to reconnoitre the enemy's

lines. As he returned, going on foot from one watch-fire to another, he

fell to the ground over the stump of a tree. A grenadier lighted a torch

of straw, then the whole line did the same and cheered the Emperor. They

remembered that the next day, Dec. 2, was the anniversary of the

coronation. The Russians thought the French were retreating. Then all

slept for a few hours, and awoke to the battle of Austerlitz.

At daybreak there was a heavy mist, then the sun shone out full and

clear, and the French believed they would win a glorious victory. They

were not disappointed. During the terrible conflict the Russians and

Austrians lost over thirty thousand in killed and wounded, treble the

number of the French. The enemy fled across the lakes, the ice of which

being broken by the French batteries, thousands were ingulfed. Their

cries and groans, says Lanfrey, were heard on the following day.

Napoleon said, "I have fought thirty battles like that, but I have never

seen so decisive a victory, or one where the chances were so unevenly

balanced." The Russian and Austrian forces greatly outnumbered the

French. To his soldiers Napoleon said, "I am satisfied with you; you

have covered your eagles with undying glory."

To Josephine he wrote: "The battle of Austerlitz is the greatest I have

won; forty-five flags, more than one hundred and fifty cannon, the

standards of the Russian guards, twenty generals, more than twenty

thousand killed,--a horrid sight! The Emperor Alexander is in despair,

and is leaving for Russia. Yesterday I saw the Emperor of Germany in my

bivouac; we talked for two hours, and agreed on a speedy peace.... I

shall see with pleasure the time that will restore me to you."

The defeat of the allies at Austerlitz hastened the death of William

Pitt of England. He looked long on the map of Europe, and said,

"Henceforth we may close that map for half a century." He died Jan. 23,

1806.

On Napoleon's return to Paris he erected a column in the Place Vendôme

to the Grand Army. It was constructed of cannon taken from the enemy,

and has illustrations upon it of the campaigns of Ulm and Austerlitz. W.

O'Connor Morris calls Austerlitz "the most perfect of battles on land,

as the Nile was the most perfect on sea." Seeley thinks, in its

historical results, Austerlitz "ranks among the great events of the

world."

The peace of Pressburg was effected between France and Austria, Dec. 26,

1805. Charles James Fox, who had succeeded Pitt in England, was

favorable to peace between the nations, but the war party in England

was strong. Fox soon died, and the peace negotiations failed.

Napoleon said at St. Helena, "The death of Fox was one of the fatalities

of my career. Had his life been prolonged, affairs would have taken a

totally different turn. The cause of the people would have triumphed,

and we should have established a new order of things in Europe."

Meantime Napoleon had placed his brother Joseph on the throne of Naples,

Louis on the throne of Holland, and had formed a Confederation of the

Rhine out of several states in the valley of the Rhine, which had

fourteen million people. Napoleon was elected Protector of the

Confederation.

Russia now became an ally of Prussia, and war was declared against

France Oct. 14, 1806. The double battle of Jena and Auerstädt was

fought, and the Prussians were completely defeated. Alison says, "The

loss of the Prussians was prodigious; on the two fields there fell

nearly twenty thousand killed and wounded, besides nearly as many

prisoners.... Ten thousand of the killed and wounded fell at Auerstädt."

Napoleon entered Berlin in triumph Oct. 27, 1806, and established

himself in the king's palace. He did not like the beautiful Queen

Louise, because he felt that she had inspired the soldiers by her

presence, and urged her husband to make war. He was unjust to her in his

bulletins, and Josephine reproached him for "speaking ill of women."

Napoleon visited the palace of Sans Souci to see the room where

Frederick the Great died, still preserved as he left it, and then went

to the church where he is buried. At the tomb, says General de Ségur,

"Napoleon paused at the entrance in a grave and respectful attitude. He

gazed into the shadow enclosing the hero's ashes, and stood thus for

nearly ten minutes, motionless, silent, as if buried in deep thought."

The sword of Frederick he took with him, and gave it to the Hotel des

Invalides in Paris, with the flags carried by his guard in the Seven

Years' War.

Early in November, Prince Hohenlohe surrendered twenty thousand

Prussians to the French; and Blücher, whom Napoleon was to meet again at

Waterloo, surrendered twenty thousand men and over five hundred

officers.

With all this victory, Josephine was not happy. Napoleon wrote her Nov.

1: "Talleyrand has come, and tells me you do nothing but cry." She wrote

to Hortense, more miserable than herself, that she could not be happy so

far from the Emperor.

Napoleon, while at Berlin, issued, Nov. 21, 1806, his famous "Berlin

Decree," wherein he declared the British Islands blockaded. All commerce

with England and her colonies was prohibited; all property belonging to

an English subject confiscated; every native of England found in a

country occupied by French troops to be made prisoner of war.

Napoleon declared that this was a retaliatory measure against England.

Every French port was, in fact, blockaded by English vessels from the

Elbe to Brest, by a decree of the British Government, passed in May,

1806, according to Alison. Some months after the Berlin Decree, England

issued further prohibitory acts, called Orders in Council. The

consequence of all this was that hate between the two nations was

increased.

After the humiliation of Prussia, the war went on with Russia. After

some minor battles, both armies met on the bloody field of Eylau, Feb.

7, 1807. Jomini thinks the forces about equal, though some historians

place the number at eighty thousand Russians, and sixty thousand French.

Part of Feb. 7 and all of Feb. 8, the armies were in deadly conflict. A

blinding snowstorm part of the time prevented the armies from seeing

each other. The snow and ice were so thick that men fought on ponds and

did not know it.

Fifty thousand dead and wounded lay on the snow. Marshal Augereau's

corps was almost destroyed; three thousand only remained out of fifteen

thousand. Napoleon wrote in his bulletins: "Imagine, on a space a league

square, nine or ten thousand corpses; four or five thousand dead horses;

lines of Russian knapsacks; fragments of guns and sabres; the earth

covered with bullets, shells, supplies; twenty-four cannon surrounded by

their artillerymen, slain just as they were trying to take their guns

away; and all that in plainest relief on the stretch of snow."

He said, as he looked upon the ghastly field, "This sight is one to fill

rulers with a love of peace and a horror of war." At three o'clock in

the morning of Feb. 9, he wrote to Josephine: "We had a great battle

yesterday. I was victorious, but our loss was heavy; that of the enemy,

which was even greater, is no consolation for me. I write you these few

lines myself, though I am very tired, to tell you that I am well and

love you.