which European statesmen have ever found it necessary to maintain at any
cost, since on this balance hang the interests of feeble and
defenceless nations. Ay, Heaven heard,--the God whom he ignored,--and
sent a retribution as signal and as prompt and as awful as his victories
had been overwhelming.

I need not describe Napoleon's fall,--as clear a destiny as his rise; a
lesson to all the future tyrants and conquerors of the world; a moral to
be pondered as long as history shall be written. Hear, ye heavens! and
give ear, O earth! to the voice of eternal justice, as it appealed to
universal consciousness, and pronounced the doom of the greatest sinner
of modern times,--to be defeated by the aroused and indignant nations,
to lose his military prestige, to incur unexampled and bitter
humiliation, to be repudiated by the country he had raised to such a
pitch of greatness, to be dethroned, to be imprisoned at Elba, to be
confined on the rock of St. Helena, to be at last forced to meditate,
and to die with vultures at his heart,--a chained Prometheus, rebellious
and defiant to the last, with a world exultant at his fall; a hopeless
and impressive fall, since it broke for fifty years the charm of
military glory, and showed that imperialism cannot be endured among
nations craving for liberties and rights which are the birthright of
our humanity.

Did Napoleon, then, live in vain? No great man lives in vain. He is
ever, whether good or bad, the instrument of Divine Providence, Gustavus
Adolphus was the instrument of God in giving religious liberty to
Germany. William the Silent was His instrument in achieving the
independence of Holland. Washington was His instrument in giving dignity
and freedom to this American nation, this home of the oppressed, this
glorious theatre for the expansion of unknown energies and the adoption
of unknown experiments. Napoleon was His instrument in freeing France
from external enemies, and for vindicating the substantial benefits of
an honest but uncontrolled Revolution. He was His instrument in arousing
Italy from the sleep of centuries, and taking the first step to secure a
united nation and a constitutional government. He was His instrument in
overthrowing despotism among the petty kings of Germany, and thus
showing the necessity of a national unity,--at length realized by the
genius of Bismarck. Even in his crimes Napoleon stands out on the
sublime pages of history as the instrument of Provide