Before this man kings have trembled, innumerable thousands have cheerfully given their blood, their lives; this man has been adored like a God and cursed like a devil. He has been the fate of the world until his hour struck. Many say providence had selected him to castigate the universe and its enslaved peoples. A great German historian, Gervinus, has said: “He was the greatest benefactor of Germany who removed the gloriole from the heads crowned by the grace of God.” He accomplished great things because he had great power, he committed great faults because he was so powerful. Without his unrestricted power he could not have accomplished one nor committed the other.
History is logic. Whenever great wrongs prevail, some mighty men appear and arouse the people, and these extraordinary men are like the storm in winter which shatters and breaks what is rotten, preparing for spring.
The German school boy, when he learns of the greatest warriors and conquerors, of Alexander the Great, of Julius Caesar, is most fascinated when he hears the history of the greatest of all the warriors of the world, the history of Napoleon, and he is spellbound reading the awfully beautiful histories concerning his unheard of deeds, his rise without example, and his sudden downfall.
And he, the great man, the soldier-emperor, he rides on his white horse in the boy’s dreams, just as depicted on the engravings upon which the boys look with a kind of holy awe.
The son of a Corsican lawyer, becoming in early manhood the master of the world, what could inflame youthful fiction more than this wonderful career?
All great conquerors come to a barrier. Alexander, when he planned to subdue India, found the barrier at the Indus. Caesar found it at the Thames and at the Rhine. Our hero’s fate was to be fulfilled at Moscow. His insatiable thirst to rule had led him into Russia. He stood at the height of his power and glory. Holland, Italy, a part of Germany, were French, and Germany especially groaned under the heel of severe xenocraty. The old German Empire had broken down, nothing of it was left but a ridiculous name, “Römisches Reich deutscher Nation.” The crowned heads of Germany held their thrones merely by the grace of Napoleon. Only Spain, united with England, dared him yet. Since Napoleon could not attack the English directly, on account of their power at sea, he tried to hit them where they were most sensitive, at their pocket. He instituted the continental blocus. Russia with the other lands of Continental Europe had to close her ports and markets against England, but Russia soon became tired of this pressure and preferred a new war with Napoleon to French domination.
In giving this sketch of the popularity of Napoleon’s memory in Germany, I have availed myself of a German calendar for the year 1913, called Der Lahrer hinkende Bote.
Except the English translation of Beaupré’s book I have taken from French and German writings only.
I desire to thank Mr. S. Simonis, of New York, who has revised the entire manuscript and read the proofs; next to him I am under obligations to Reichs Archiv Rat Dr. Striedinger, of Munich, and Mr. Franz Herrmann, of New York, who have loaned me most valuable books and pointed out important literature, and finally to Miss F. de Cerkez, who has aided me in the translation of some of the chapters.