passed the Niemen at Kowno; and the Russians did not pursue them into the Prussian territory. At the time when they escaped finally from Poland, there were about a thousand in arms, perhaps 20,000 more, utterly broken, dispersed and disorganised"even of these many were garrison troops or part of a detached corps which had not passed the Beresina.

"Thus ended the invasion of Russia. There had been slain in battle, on the side of Napoleon, 125,000 men. Fatigue, hunger, and cold had caused the death of 132,000, and the Russians had taken of prisoners 193,000, including forty-eight_generals and three thousand regimental officers. The total

loss was therefore 450,000 men. The eagles and standards left in the enemy's hands were seventy-five in number, and the pieces of cannon nearly one thousand."* As such numbers had never before followed an European standard, so "such a calamity in such an extent never before DARKENED the pages of history." The sun was smitten in its zenith, and when its radiance was the brightest it was darkened in a moment, whenever its rays were shot beyond its proper hemisphere. Power was given unto Bonaparte when he had none, and, at the time when he possessed unrivalled authority and unequalled splendour, the withering wrath of heaven fell on his imperial power, fortune, so to speak, "hitherto unwearied in her partiality towards Napoleon, turned first upon himself personally a clouded and stormy aspect;" the mighty host was dissipated like a vapour, and thousands and tens of thousands of the soldiers that formed his glory, his pride, and his strength, lay stiffened on the gory snow, or raised the whitened surface into graves, or were frozen in the ice, or were bleached in the blasts of heaven. The

* Hist. of Napoleon, vol. ii. pp. 165, 166.

toil of the enemies they had gone to destroy was to gather and to burn them. And a thousand cannon, piled into a pyramid, left a monument unto future ages, that the fire that had scorched the nations began there to be quenched.

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. But Bonaparte's power was not based in righteousness, and there was nothing stable to uphold it. The imperial eagle, winged with ambition and watching for the prey, fell benumbed upon the earth, and first screamed beneath the paw of the bear. The fate of Napoleon was an illustration of the saying most rife upon his lips, immediately after his flight from Smorgoni, that there is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. He passed the Niemen at the head of half a million; he recrossed the frontier of Russia slouching in a sledge, beside a single companion, whose name he adopted at Dresden. On his way to Russia he kept a court of kings, and assumed "a style of splendour and dignity becoming one who might, if any earthly sovereign ever could, have assumed the title of king of kings. The city was crowded with princes of the most ancient birth, as well as with others who claimed a higher rank, as belonging to the family of Napoleon. It was appointed as a mutual rendezvous for all the kings, dominations, princes, dukes, and dependant royalties of every description who were subordinate to Napoleon, or hoped for good or evil at his hands." The emperor of Austria and king of Prussia were among the number. "Amidst all these dignitaries no one terested the public so much as he for whom and by whom the assembly was collected; the wonderful being who could have governed the world, but could not rule his own restless mind. Napoleon was the

66

in

principal figure in the group. It was the last but brightest glare of the dazzling sun, before it was clouded or darkened. While thus encircled by kings and princes, he commanded the attendance of the diplomatist, De Pradt, whom he appointed ambassador at Warsaw. But the gold soon became dim, the scene and the sight were soon changed, and the sun was seen as smitten. "After narrowly escaping being taken by the Russians, Napoleon reached Warsaw upon the 10th December. Here the Abbe de Pradt, then minister of France to the diet of Poland, was in the act of endeavouring to reconcile the various rumours which poured in from every quarter, when a figure, like a spectre, wrapped in furs, which were stiffened by hoar frost, stalked into his apartments supported by a domestic, and was with dif ficulty recognised by the ambassador as the duke of Vicenza. You here, Caulincourt?' said the astonished prelate; and where is the emperor? At the hotel d'Angleterre, waiting for you.' • Where is the army? It no longer exists.' The abbe hastened to the hotel. In the yard stood three sledges in a dilapidated condition. One for the emperor and Caulincourt, the second for two officers of rank, the third for the Mameluke Rustan and another domestic. He was introduced with some mystery into a bad inn's bad room, where a poor female servant was blowing a fire made of green wood. Here was the emperor, whom the Abbe de Pradt had last seen when he played king of kings among the assembled sovereigns of Dresden. He was dressed in a green pelisse, covered with lace and lined with furs, and by walking briskly about the apartment was endeavouring to obtain the warmth which the chimney refused."+" He saluted Monsieur l'Ambassadeur,"

* Sir W. Scott's Life of Napoleon, vol. vii. p. 1. † Ibid. 390, 392.

as he termed him, with gaiety. The abbe felt a movement of sensibility to which he was disposed to give way, but as he says, The poor man did not understand me.' He limited his expression of devotion, therefore, to helping Napoleon off with his cloak."* Such now was the great Napoleon,-a bad inn's bad room his only council chamber, the humblest menial his only attendant-three shattered sledges his vehieles for flight, without any appurtenances of war,seeking by quick motion to excite the warmth which the cheerless green wood, the only fuel, could not impart, and needing help to strip him of his cloak. From Smorgoni to Warsaw a few Cossacks might anywhere have staid and taken prisoner the captain of the age, who six months before held a million of soldiers at his command, and had invaded Russia at the head of five hundred thousand. And now when he had reached again the capital of one of his dependant kingdoms, which he would not make free, he who had cast kings from their thrones and raised others in their place, who held Italy his own, Rome his second city, and the pope his prisoner, stood as a poor man" before an abbe. Xerxes repassing the Hellespont in an open boat was not a more humiliating sight for human pride to profit by.

66

Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar, says Solomon, yet will not his folly depart from him. And Bonaparte, though fallen, had still high thoughts of earthly glory. He hastened incognito to Paris, to rouse again the energies of his empire. "New conscriptions were called for and yielded. Regiments arrived from Spain and from Italy. Every arsenal resounded with the preparation of new artillery, thousands of horses were impressed in every province. Ere Ere many weeks had elapsed, Napoleon found himself once more in a condition to take the

* Sir Walter Scott's Life of Napoleon, pp. 390, 392.

field with not less than 350,000 soldiers."* The sun burst forth from the midst of clouds to dazzle the world with its lustre, once and again, before it should be blotted from the heavens, or, rather, the imperial power of Bonaparte was renovated, that on it the vial of wrath might be yet more fully poured out. A brief glance at his downward course may suffice.

Among the nations which he had subdued, the fancied charm of his irresistible power was broken, the magic of his terrible name was gone; but the memory of deep injuries remained, the wrathful nations were roused to vengeance, Europe was free to reckon with the tyrant, and Bonaparte at length had to fight for the existence of his empire.

The campaign of Saxony succeeded the invasion of Russia. The allies now stood the shock of Napoleon. After great carnage from the morning till seven in the evening, on the 2d May 1813, the allies kept the field of Lutzen. At the town of Bautzen the whole army of Napoleon bivouacked in presence of the allies; who, after a terrible battle, retired "with all the deliberate coolness of a parade, halting at every favourable spot and renewing their cannonade." The French lost 15,000 men; the allies 10,000-"What," exclaimed Napoleon, "no results after so much carnage! not a gun! not a prisoner?-these people will not leave me so much as a nail. Fortune has a spite at us this day." was not" says Sir Walter Scott rightly-" it was not yet exhausted." The empire of Napoleon existed-his sun was not yet black, and the vial of wrath, called in ungodliness the spite of fortune, was not yet exhausted. At Dresden, fortune revisited her ancient favourite with a momentary gleam of sunshine;" but, after repeated defeats, the battle of Leipsic, in

* Hist. of Napoleon, vol. i. p. 169.

"It