tant and to the French nation his great
scheme of renewing the heart of things. He knew it would take time,
and he foresaw also that a combination of forces was putting forth
supreme efforts to destroy him. They were out for blood, and _he_ was
in too great a hurry.

In one of his day-dreams at St. Helena he exclaimed, "Ah! if I could
have governed France for forty years I would have made her the most
splendid empire that ever existed!"

His demand on fortune was too great, and notwithstanding the knowledge
he had of human nature, he could not check the torrent of treason that
had been sedulously nursed against him by his enemies until it ignited
the imagination of those whom he had a right to expect would stand
loyally by him in an hour of tribulation such as no other man had ever
experienced.

It is true that he made history (brilliant history if you like) in
those latter days, but oh! the anguish and the baseness of it all.

Caesar made history too; neither did _this_ ruler succeed altogether.
Brutus, his friend, forsook and dispatched him, and possibly that was
the most enviable finish to a great career. Did Napoleon fare better
than his prototype, inasmuch as he was not the victim of the
assassin's dagger? Intoxicated with the spirit of charity, his
conquerors decreed that he should be deported to a secluded place of
abode on a barren and unhealthy rock, there to be maintained at a cost
to the nation of L12,000 a year, and succumb as quickly as possible
like a good Christian gentleman.

The presumption of Lord Keith in observing to Napoleon that it was
preferable for him to be sent to St. Helena than to be confined in a
smaller space in England or sent to France or Russia, and the
Emperor's supposed reply--"Russia! God preserve me from it!"--is
almost unbelievable, and in the light of what he constantly asserted
while England's captive, this expression may be regarded as a
fabrication.

Whether it was an innate belief that Alexander of Russia was his
friend, or the fact that Francis of Austria was his father-in-law, he
certainly avowed--according to the St. Helena chroniclers--that if he
had surrendered to either of them he would have been treated, not only
with kindness, but with a proper regard as befitted a monarch who had
governed eighty-three millions of people, or more than the half of
Europe. But even if he were merely soliloquising, or wished to
convince himself and those he expressed this opinion t