ed adventurer--this man who, through a hundred years, has remained
at once the marvel and the puzzle of history. There came days of
preparation and leave-taking, of war and battle, of defeat and disgrace.
When the days of war and struggle came, the old-time fire and dash and
courage of the conqueror seemed to have left him; his hopes were with
his boy and that boy's future rather than in the rush and grapple of
armies.

So Napoleon's star set fast. With all Europe arrayed against him for his
overthrow, the great Corsican suddenly became little, and everything
went wrong.

On the 25th of January, 1814, the father saw his son for the last time.
Holding by the hand the boy, then nearly three years old, the Emperor
presented himself before the eight hundred officers of the National
Guard of Paris, assembled in the gorgeous Hall of the Marshals.
"Officers of the National Guard," he said, "I go to take my place at the
head of the army. To your protection I confide my wife and my son, upon
whom rest so many hopes. In your care I leave what is next to
France--the dearest thing I have in the world."

But disaster overwhelmed both the Emperor and the nation. The guards
were powerless to guard. The armies of Napoleon were defeated; he
himself was banished to Elba; and the little Napoleon with his mother
escaped to the court of his grandfather, the Emperor of Austria.

With a final burst of courage Napoleon escaped from Elba and roused
France once again to war. It was in vain. His power and his luck were
gone. Waterloo gave him his death-blow, and the lonely island of St.
Helena became his prison and his grave.

Four days after Waterloo, on the 22d of June, 1815, Napoleon issued his
last proclamation. "I offer myself in sacrifice to the hatred of the
enemies of France," he announced. "My political life is ended, and I
proclaim my son, under the title of Napoleon II., Emperor of the
French.... Let all unite for the public safety, and in order to remain
an independent nation. NAPOLEON."

But the nation was paralyzed by disaster. Union was impossible. The boy
thus proclaimed Emperor was far from France, held by the enemy. He was
never to see his native land again, never to see his father, never to
reign Emperor of the French.

For seventeen years the boy lived at the Austrian court, practically a
prisoner. His mother cared little for him, and for years did not see
him; his name of Napoleon was denied him; his titles of Emperor