, and the day was lost! That night the Emperor calls all his old
soldiers about him, and there on the battlefield, which was soaked with
our blood, he burns his flags and his Eagles--the poor Eagles that had
never been defeated, that had cried, "Forward!" in battle after
battle, and had flown above us all over Europe. That was the end of
the Eagles--all the wealth of England could not purchase for her one
tail-feather. The rest is sufficiently known.

The Red Man went over to the Bourbons like the low scoundrel he is.
France is prostrate, the soldier counts for nothing, they rob him of
his due, send him about his business, and fill his place with nobles who
could not walk, they were so old, so that it made you sorry to see them.
They seize Napoleon by treachery, the English shut him up on a desert
island in the ocean, on a rock ten thousand feet above the rest of the
world. That is the final end of it; there he has to stop till the Red
Man gives him back his power again, for the happiness of France. A lot
of them say that he is dead! Dead? Oh! yes, very likely. They do not
know him, that is plain! They go on telling that fib to deceive the
people, and to keep things quiet for their tumble-down government.
Listen; this is the whole truth of the matter. His friends have left him
alone in the desert to fulfil a prophecy that was made about him, for I
forgot to tell you that his name Napoleon really means the _Lion of the
Desert_. And that is gospel truth. You will hear plenty of other things
said about the Emperor, but they are all monstrous nonsense. Because,
look you, to no man of woman born would God have given the power to
write his name in red, as he did, across the earth, where he will be
remembered for ever!... Long live "Napoleon, the father of the soldier,
the father of the people!"

End of Project Gutenberg's The Napoleon of the People, by Honore de Balzac

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