United States or Saint Kitts and Nevis ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Hamblin." "Are you, indeed?" sneered the professor, so wrathy that it was impossible for him to keep his seat, and he began to stride up and down the cabin. "I am, indeed. About a dozen of us were going to write letters to Mr. Hamblin from all the big bugs, including Louis Napoleon, the King of Holland, the King of Belgium, and all the Ministers of State whose names we could find out."
Both parties, however, conscious of their want of power, sought aid from Napoleon, who flattered each in turn, with a view of rendering the one a tool for the destruction of the other. The Prince of Peace was overthrown by a popular tumult; Ferdinand VII. was proclaimed king, and his father, Charles IV., was compelled to abdicate.
Erfurt, his own birthplace, was still under French rule, and were he to communicate his plan in writing and the letter should be opened in the "black room," with other suspicious mail matter, it might cost the life of the man whose son was preparing to commit high-treason by fighting against the ruler of his country Napoleon, the Emperor of France.
On the 11th of December the march began, and for the next ten days the army advanced farther and farther into the country. So far Moore had only Soult's army opposing his advance towards Burgos, and it might be possible to strike a heavy blow at that general before Napoleon, who was convinced that the British must fall back into Portugal if they had not already begun to do so, should come up.
As he was walking in this almost deserted island, he noticed a wretched hut in which a poor woman was lamenting that her son had been drafted. "Console yourself," said Napoleon, without letting her know who he was, and giving her an assumed name: "Come to Mayence to-morrow and ask for me; I have some influence with the ministers and I will try to help you." The poor woman appeared punctually.
Napoleon had renounced les ideas Napoleoniennes. He was passing into the category of constitutional sovereigns, and reigning, not by his old undivided prestige, but by the grace of party. The press was free to circulate complaints as to the past and demands as to the future, beneath which the present reeled, ominous of earthquake.
The Colonel was silent, aware that in this disaster, now irremediable, and in which every one had occasion for all his energies, the Emperor was afraid of complaints, which could have no other effect but to discourage both him who indulged in, and him who listened to them. He remarked the attitude of Napoleon, the same which he retained throughout the whole of this retreat.
And bravely the soldiers followed him a brilliant victory was the result. Elevated by this deed, the grandest and most glorious of his heroic career, Napoleon returned to Verona on the 19th November. The whole city all Lombardy sang to his praise their inspired hymns, and greeted with enthusiasm the conqueror of Arcola.
Napoleon was evidently embraced by this uncertainty of their guilty, and was not willing that they should be denounced as contrivers of the infernal machine. "We believe ," said he, "that they are guilty. But we do not know it. They must be transported for the crimes which they have committed, the massacres and the conspiracies already proved against them." The decree was passed.
Ney and his division of cuirassiers and grenadiers of the Old Guard had just obeyed the Emperor's last orders which had been to take La Haye Sainte at all costs: and the intrepid Maréchal now, flushed with victory, had sent his urgent message to Napoleon: "More troops! and I can yet break through the English centre before the arrival of the Prussians."
Word Of The Day