Napoleon's plan was to collect all his forces into one mass, and boldly to place them between the English and Prussians, and attack them separately. He had under his command one hundred and twenty thousand veteran troops, and therefore, not unreasonably, expected to combat successfully the one hundred and ninety thousand of the enemy. He forgot, however, that he had to oppose Wellington and Blucher.
On the 18th of June was performed the last sad act of the great tragedy which had for twenty years convulsed Europe with blood and tears. All the combatants on that eventful day understood the nature of the contest, and the importance of the battle. At Battle of Waterloo. Waterloo, Napoleon staked his last throw in the desperate game he had hazarded, and lost it; and was ruined, irrevocably and forever.
Little signified his rapid flight, his attempt to defend Paris, or his readiness to abdicate in favor of his son. The allied powers again, on the 7th of July, entered Paris, and the Bourbon dynasty was restored.
Napoleon retired to Rochefort, hoping to escape his enemies and reach America. It was impossible. He then resolved to throw himself upon the generosity of the English. He was removed to St. Helena, where he no longer stood a chance to become the scourge of the nations. And there, on that lonely island, in the middle of the ocean, guarded most effectually by his enemies, his schemes of conquest ended. He supported his hopeless captivity with tolerable equanimity, showing no signs of remorse for the injuries he had inflicted, but meditating profoundly on the mistakes he had committed, and conjecturing vainly on the course he might have adopted for the preservation of his power.
How idle were all his conjectures and meditations! His fall was decreed in the councils of Heaven, and no mortal strength could have prevented his overthrow. His mission of blood was ended; and his nation, after its bitter humiliation, was again to enjoy repose. But he did not live in vain. He lived as a messenger of divine vengeance to chastise the objects of divine indignation. He lived to show to the world what a splendid prize human energy could win; and yet to show how vain, after all, was military glory, and how worthless is the enjoyment of any victory purchased by the sufferings of mankind. He lived to point the melancholy moral, that war, for its own sake, is a delusion, a mockery, and a snare, and that the greater the elevation to which unlawful ambition can raise a man, the greater will be his subsequent humiliation; that "pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."
The Reflections on Napoleon's Fall. allied sovereigns of Europe insisted on the restoration of the works of art which Napoleon had pillaged. "The bronzed horses, brought from Corinth to Rome, again resumed their old station in the front of the Church of St. Mark; the Transfiguration was restored to the Vatican; the Apollo and the Laocoon again adorned St. Peter's; the Venus was enshrined with new beauty at Florence; and the Descent from the Cross was replaced in the Cathedral of Antwerp." By the treaty which restored peace to Europe for a generation, the old dominions of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Holland, and Italy were restored, and the Bourbons again reigned over the ancient provinces of France. Popular liberty on the continent of Europe was entombed, and the dreams of revolutionists were unrealized; but suffering proved a beneficial ordeal, and prepared the nations of Europe to appreciate, more than ever, the benefits and blessings of peace.
References.—The most complete work, on the whole, though full of faults, and very heavy and prosaic, is Alison's History of the French Revolution. Scott's Life of Napoleon was too hastily written, and has many mistakes. No English author has done full justice to Napoleon. Thiers's Histories are invaluable. Napier's History of the Peninsula War is masterly. Wellington's Despatches are indispensable only to a student. Botta's History of Italy under Napoleon. Dodsley's Annual Register. Labaume's Russian Campaign. Southey's Peninsular War. Liborne's Waterloo Campaign. Southey's Life of Nelson. Sherer's Life of the Duke of Wellington. Gifford's Life of Pitt. Moore's Life of Sir John Moore. James's Naval History. Memoirs of the Duchess d'Abrantes. Berthier's Histoire de l'Expédition d'Égypte. Schlosser's Modern History. The above works are the most accessible, but form but a small part of those which have appeared concerning the French Revolution and the career of Napoleon. For a complete list of original authorities, see the preface of Alison, and the references of Thiers.[(Back to Contents)]