might have taught a lesson to Napoleon of the uncertainty of success, had he been sufficiently master of himself to receive it.

JENA, EYLAU, FRIEDLAND, TILSIT.

In the year 1806, after these great victories. Napoleon had chiefly to deal with Prussia. This state had played an unworthy part during the struggle; consenting to stand aloof, lured by the promise of receiving Hanover. When, however, Austria had been vanquished, and Prussia put out of the field for a time, Napoleon showed no alacrity to cultivate the friendship of Prussia, whose weak, vacillating king he cordially despised. The defeat of Austerlitz and the consequent destruction of the coalition had broken the heart of Pitt, who came to London to die in February, 1806; and his great rival, destined to follow him to the grave in a few months, once more applied himself to the task of endeavouring to bring about peace with France. When, in the negotiations which ensued, Prussia found France ready to give back Hanover to England, her eyes were at length opened; and the national party, which had been for some time gathering strength, at length procured the declaration of war. England, ready to take part with any power against France, became reconciled to Prussia, with whom and Sweden she formed the fourth coalition.

The Prussian army, strong in numbers, was badly officered, and led by men of a bygone school, at whose antiquated notions Napoleon laughed. "Ils se tromperont furieusement, ces perruques" (they'll find themselves horribly mistaken, these old fogies), was his sarcastic remark, on discovering their expectation of his basis of attack. Even of Blucher, perhaps the best of them, Napoleon said, "He is a very brave soldier, a good fighter (un bon sabreur). He is like a bull who shuts his eyes and rushes forward, and sces no danger. As a general, he is without talent." On the 14th October, two battles were gained, one by Napoleon at Jena, the other by Davoust at Auerstadt. On that day of misfortune Prussia lost 50,000 men; and even this was not the worst. A wretched panic, favoured perhaps by the disaffection that existed towards the Government, seized upon the whole country. Strong fortresses yielded to the French without even a show of resistance; large army corps surrendered with suspicious alacrity. Napoleon entered Berlin as a conqueror, and had now only Russia to contend with. Thus 1806 closed with increased glory to the Empire; and the French people, intoxicated with glory, did not as yet

murmur at the cost of these victories, though there was wailing in many a home over fathers, brothers, and sons whom the war had devoured. It is told how at this period Napoleon, during one of his progresses, having alighted with the Empress to walk a short distance on foot, met a peasant woman, who, being interrogated, said she was going to see the Emperor, who was to pass that way. "Why do you wish to see him?" asked Napoleon; 'what have you done, but exchange one tyrant for another? You have had the Bourbons, now you have Napoleon." "No matter," rejoined the woman, Napoleon is our king; but the Bourbons were the kings of the nobles." "This," said Napoleon, afterwards relating the anecdote, "comprehends the whole matter."

Russia had by this time recovered from the injuries of Austerlitz; and the campaign of 1807. which began with the new year on the plains of East Prussia, was directed against the armies of the Czar Alexander. The stubborn valour of the Russian foe was proved in two days' desperate fighting at Eylau, in which 30,000 men were slain and 50,000 prisoners taken. A panic of exhaustion followed this tremendous conflict; but on the 14th June, the seventh anniversary of Marengo, victory declared once more for Napo leon, and Alexander now made proposals for peace. The treaty of Tilsit degraded Prussia to the rank of a third-rate power, while it left Russia almost untouched. Napoleon thought it to his advantage to cultivate the friendship of the Emperor of Russia, who might aid him in carrying out colossal schemes of conquest, espe cially towards the East; for the King of Prussia he had a very hearty contempt, which he took no pains to disguise. He at once perceived the strong point of the Russian soldiers, their stolid obedience to orders, and their imperturbable coolness. "My soldiers," he said to Alexander, are as brave as it is possible to be, but they are too much addicted to reasoning on their position. If they had the impassable firmness and docility of the Russians, the world would be too small for their exploits."

NAPOLEON AT HIS ZENITH; HIS ERRORS.

This may be looked upon as the highest period of the Emperor's power. In three successive years he had compelled the three greatest continental powers-Austria, Russia, and Prussia-to sue for peace. His will was paramount over the Continent of Europe. Not only had he raised himself to a position such as no soldier of fortune had ever attained; he had absolutely put his nearest relatives on thrones, where they sat

of its composition showed the supremacy its leader had attained in Europe. Five hundred and seventy-five thousand warriors, with 1,200 pieces of artillery, crossed the Russian frontier at the end of June, 1812; and each of the vassal states had been obliged to contribute its quota. Prussia sent 20,000, Austria 30,000, Poland 60,000 men to swell the French forces, and the monarchs of Austria and Prussia, with a number of vassal princes, attended the levee of the master of the grande armée in Dresden, where he held his court before starting on the expedition which was to be his ruin. Never had the monarchs been so subservient to him. Some time before he had invited his former friend, Talma, the actor, to come to Erfurt, and play before a pit-full of kings (un parterre de rois). He could have repeated the invitation here, for never had the monarchs of Europe appeared so completely his obedient humble servants.

The plan of the Emperor was to advance with all speed, to bring the enemy to a general engagement as quickly as possible, and then to dictate a peace in the Russian, as he had done in the Austrian and Prussian capitals. The Russian plan, on the contrary, was to avoid a battle as long as possible; to retreat before the advancing foe, and draw him into the interior of a country whose barren and desolate wastes would yield but little provision or forage to that mighty host; and then the winter would come on; and as the Czar Nicholas said in after years, Russia had two leaders on whom she could rely-grim Generals January and February. Accordingly, as the French pressed forward, their foes fell back; and, compelled as they were to advance by different routes, their numbers were rather a hindrance than an advantage to the invaders.

The Russian soldiers, however, not understanding the Fabian tactics of their commanders, loudly demanded to be led against the foe, and were at length in a state of mutiny, refusing the "hourra" or salutations of welcome with which they were accustomed to receive their officers. Accordingly, a stand was made at Smolensk, when the victory was gained by the French, but with great loss; and again the enemy retreated, and the French followed them up. On the 7th September, the fierce General Kutusoff having taken the command from Barclay de Tolly, a final stand was made at Borodino, to protect the capital; and a contest more obstinate than that of Eylau was maintained all day on the banks of the Moskwa. With the loss of more than 20,000 men, the enemy having lost 30,000, Napoleon advanced towards the ancient capital. When

the gilded cupolas of Moscow were seen in the distance, the soldiers burst forth in shouts of triumph. Napoleon himself rejoiced at the sight of what appeared to be the goal of their enter. prise. "It was high time," he observed.

The conquerors entered a deserted city. The streets were empty; in the houses costly goods and furniture were found in abundance, with none to claim them. Only tattered wretches were seen slinking about at street-corners, fleeing before the advancing soldiery. Napoleon took up his quar ters in the Kremlin, and the army bivouacked in the streets. That night various fires broke out, At first they were attributed to accident; but the capture of some incendiaries, who boldly declared that they had been ordered by the governor, Rostopchin, to set the city on fire. showed to what lengths a fanatical people could go in their desire to destroy an enemy. Moscow, the ancient capital, the depository of the chief treasures of the Empire for centuries, the dwell. ing-place of 300,000 Russians, was to be sacrificed to ensure the destruction of the invaders who had dared to profane the soil of Holy Russia. Four-fifths of the city were reduced to ashes. The Emperor himself was obliged to flee from the Kremlin, and was in imminent danger of being suffocated by the smoke. When the fire had burnt itself out, the soldiers once more returned to encamp among the ruins. Discon ragement and doubt had already begun to spread among them. Napoleon wrote to Alexander, reminding him that he was still his friend, and evidently anxious for peace; but the war party, in whose hands the weak, vacillating Czar was, sternly replied that no negotiations could be begun while a single French soldier remained on Russian soil.

The position was growing critical. For some time no news had reached the Emperor from Paris, and he dreaded, not without reason, as the sequel proved, that his enemies might endeavour, in his absence, to overturn his government. His troops were unprovided with winter clothing, and provisions were very hard to get; so, after a period of indecision, Napoleon resolved to retreat. "This war resembles no other," said the Emperor gloomily. "At Eylau, at Friedland, we had to contend only with soldiers; here we have to conquer a whole nation."

Of that fatal retreat the story has been told s hundred times by men who themselves experienced its horrors. Nothing in the world's chronicle of human woe exceeds in horror the miseries of that fearful journey through the endless snow-covered plains, amid the aggravated

terrors of a pursuing army, hot for vengeance, and plandering skirmishers, with lance and Iatel, hovering on the outskirts of the retreatng mases, cutting off, with cruel pertinacity, every unhappy straggler whom famine or exhanston compelled to lag behind his comrades. Haggard, famine-stricken, and in rags, afraid to Leep by night for the deadly frost, afraid to bat by day for needful rest, for the murderous Cossacks hovering around them, they stumbled

like overdriven cattle, until all bonds of Liplice were loosed, and in brutal selfishness, gendered of misery, the soldier thrust his er away from the camp-fire, and the famished wr:bes fought for the loathsome scraps with which they strove to keep themselves alive. At

pamage of the river Berisina, where the Sarang army of Kutusoff came up with them, Lands perished in the half-frozen river. De the 3th December, Napoleon himself quitted

msins of the army; and, accompanied by *w of his marshals, set out for Paris, by way of Ter, Dresden, and Mayence. The miserable

of the army arrived at Wilna, where they we enabled to take some rest, and thence they taries on to recross the Niemen. Talleyrand, the archtraitor, who served each party in turn, betrayed them all round, marked the extent of the disaster, and declared it to be "the ting of the end."

1813; EUROPE AGAINST FRANCE. The subservient senate readily agreed that the Ts were to be raised, for the campaign of 1-13, to a strength of 800,000 men. A conscripiz, verer than any former levy, provided the

ry numbers; but the soldiers of 1813 were ate the veterans of former years. Brave they were, those poor conscripts, even to temerity,

to encounter any danger, and inspired a patriotism truly heroic; but many of were mere boys, utterly wanting in the teral strength necessary for a long campaign. we had become impossible, and hardly any man who eculd carry a musket escaped enrolent Meanwhile, Europe had marked the mature of the great soldier until then dered invincible. The Prussian and Austrian rary corps bastened to effect an accommotation with the enemy; and in Prussia a general ang and revolt took place. The young men came by thousands to enrol themselves as volunteers, to fight for the freedom of their country. Cerbations of money, and even of jewels and Taables, for the equipment of troops, poured in. A general enthusiasm had seized the country.

"Das Volk steht auf, der Sturm bricht los!" "The people rise-the storm's unchained," sang Theodore Körner, the Tyrtous of the camp, himself destined to fall for his country in the struggle. A sixth coalition was formed against France, England again bearing a great part of the financial burden.

Napoleon showed all his former energy and resolution in the face of this great danger. He signalized the beginning of the campaign by gaining the three victories of Lützen, Wurtzen, and Bautzen, in Saxony; and then he occupied Dresden, and the King of Saxony renewed his treaty with him. This startling evidence that the great soldier still knew how to conquer made his foes pause. An armistice, and a congress at Prague, ostensibly for arranging a peace, gave them time to recover from their discomfiture, and to gain a most important ally in the person of Austria. When, on the breaking off of the conference and the renewal of the war, Austria declared on the side of the allies, it was felt that only exceptional good fortune, combined with consummate skill, could save Napoleon from ruin. Once again he inflicted defeat on his foes at Dresden; and here perished Moreau, who to his shame had taken service with Russia against his own country. But meanwhile Napoleon's marshals were blundering. Macdonald and Ney were separately defeated, and Vandamme, with 8,000 men, was taken prisoner. Retreat or a general battle formed the only alternative. Napoleon chose the latter, and at Leipsic, in the great Völkerschlacht, or battle of the nations, he encountered, with 170,000 men, the armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sweden, and their allies, amounting to 300,000 men. From the 14th to the 18th, in a series of tremendous conflicts, the French struggled for victory; but on the 19th, Napoleon was obliged to retreat, with a loss of 80,000 men. One more gleam of success illumined the campaign for him. The Bavarians tried, at Hanau, to intercept his retreat, and he inflicted a crushing defeat upon them. But the end was near.

1814; USELESS STRUGGLE AND ABDICATION.

The allies had now 400,000 troops in Holland and along the banks of the Rhine; and the crows could now venture to attack the eagle in his nest. The commencement of 1814 saw foreign armies once more encamped on the soil of France. Never had Napoleon's military genius shone more brightly than now, and never had the French shown more clearly how much their success in war depends on a great leader. Like

a hunted lion, he strove desperately to break the net which his enemies were drawing around him. Prussians, Russians, and Austrians were in turn overthrown at Champeaubert, Montmirail, Joinville, Nangis, and Montereau. But his generals deserted him, to make terms for themselves; the Senate, once so servile, declared against him; Talleyrand the archtraitor matured a scheme for the restoration of the Bourbons; while Napoleon was engaged near the frontier against one army of the allies, another made its way to the capital; and at length, while he was hastening to relieve the beleaguered city, he received the news at Fontainebleau, that Paris had surrendered, and he knew that the game was lost.

The island of Elba for an empire. four hundred of his old guard for an army, the retention of his title as emperor, and a large pension (which was not paid) for the maintenance of his little court-such were the terms offered to the fallen Cæsar by the allies, and perforce accepted by him. Napoleon quitted France, and Louis XVIII. ruled in the Tuileries. Louis was a good-natured, fat, indolent gentleman enough, strongly resembling his elder brother, the unhappy Louis XVI.,

in person and in character. Il ny a rien de

changé; il n'y a qu'un français de plus," he said; and would have been content to let things remain much as they were. But the men around him were far more royalist than the king;" they insulted and disgusted the army; they cashiered the old officers who had fought against the invader, and put in their places the emigrants who had intrigued in safety beyond the frontiers, and who now returned in swarms, hungry as locusts, for pensions and places. Such a wonderful amount of misrule and blundering did they concentrate into a few months, that before a year had fully gone, Napoleon was back again to strike once more for crown and empire.

THE LAST EFFORT; FAILURE AND RUIN.

The year 1815 will always be memorable for the famous Waterloo campaign. It was a desperate venture; and in view of the determination of the allies to stand together, and to enter into no treaty with Napoleon, could hardly succeed. Even if the French army had not suffered that crushing defeat on the 18th June, if the Emperor had succeeded in defeating the English and the Prussians, he would still have had to reckon with the enormous hosts of Austria and Prussia, aided by the large contingents, the states of Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands would have been called on to supply. Exhausted as she was, through the enormous warlike drain on

her population for years. France would have been quite unequal to such a tremendous task. Napoleon in former days had been the king of the people; but he had betrayed his trust, and was, in 1815, only the king of the army.

It would have been well for him bal he died at Waterloo; for those six years of captivity at St. Helena are miserable to look back upon, and reflect no honour on the petulant captive anxious to parade his grievances, or on the great English government who surrounded him with infinitely petty restrictions, or the military governor who treated him like a conviet. To guard with jealous care the man who had returned from Elba was necessary, and right but to refuse to address him except as General Bonaparte" was petty; and the refusal to allow the single word Napoleon" as an inscription on the tomb of the dead lion, showed a meanness of spirit worthy of the ministry who sent the imperative orders" that no words should appear on the stone but the obnoxious name "General Bonaparte." During that long agony the captive had one thing that had been denied him during the greater part of his heated, busy, toilsome career -time for reflection. Already at Elba he had begun to distinguish causes and effects more clearly, when the false glare thrown upon events by conquest and success had passed away. "I committed three great political faults," he said.

I ought to have made peace with England by abandoning Spain. I ought to have restored the kingdom of Poland, and not have gone to Moscow. I ought to have made peace at Dresden (in 1813), giving up Hamburgh and some other countries that were useless to me."

The most convincing proof that his long captivity gave him time for profitable reflection is found in his remarks to Bertrand on the Christian religion. Dimly, and afar off, the captive seems to have seen the great fault in his own character, the devouring egotism which had made him look upon all things as revolving round him, in contrast with the love that forms the essence of gospel teaching. "The soul can never go astray," he said, solemnly laying his hand on the Bible, "with this book for its guide."

On the 5th May, 1821, Napoleon died. From the broken words that escaped him, the faithful watchers round his bed could gather that his last thoughts wandered to the land of France, to the son who had been his pride and hope, to the army he had led so often to victory. But mingled with these trembled on his dying lips the name of Him before whom the glory of the kings of the earth passes away as a tale that is told. H. W. D.