e nations,
but the hope is broken to the lips. In this crisis Josephine goes down
in the shadows, and the daughter of Austria is led to the imperial
chamber--this from the necessity of establishing a dynasty. The
relations between France and Russia are strained to breaking. The
fatal year 1812 comes, and there is a congress of kings. Alexander
gives his ultimatum, and the invasion of Russia is begun. There is an
indescribable struggle on the Moskwa, and then the flames of Moscow
are seen across the deserts of Russian snow.

The fourth and last volume begins with the return of the allied armies
from Russia. Then follows the universal revolt of the nations.
Insurrection breaks out on every horizon, and treachery, as might have
been expected, is added to the combinations that are rapidly formed
against the imperial Corsican. The borders of France are broken in.
There is a narrowing rim of fire bursting into battle flame here and
there; and then the catastrophe of the capture of Paris. There is an
ambiguous abdication and an equivocal exile of a few months' duration
to Elba. It was much like the establishment of a live lion on
Governor's Island!

The lion got away. Then came an instantaneous upheaval of old
revolutionary France, which had now become imperial France. The
Emperor was welcomed home as a returning god. The country was drained
to the last drop of its resources, and everything was staked on the
final strategy of the Hundred Days and the hazard of the
ever-memorable battle.

"There was a sound of revelry by night,"

and then the imperial eagle was seen stretched upon the plain, pierced
through with the shafts of banded nations. He was caged and
transported to that far rock which in his school-essay at Autun he had
described thus: "St. Helena is a _small_ island!" He found it so. For
nearly six years his captivity continued until his stormy career ended
in a May hurricane that might well have shaken the desolate
foundations of his ocean-girt prison. Then the historical tide rolled
on without him. France was transformed into the old image, but her
soul was still imperial. At last the bones of her great dead were
recovered, to be placed at rest in that red-black sarcophagus over
which the world looks down and wonders.

Such is the fiery but fruitful chaos through which the life-line of
Napoleon is drawn with a master hand by Professor William Milligan
Sloane. My judgment is that, on the whole, he has produ