It was an abyss deep and awful; and from this dark and direful abyss issued forth the horrible reptiles of disappointment, sorrow, and remorse, which thrust their cruel fangs into the quivering heart of the lonely exile at St. Helena. Perchance, in the silent anguish of his agonized but heroic soul, a dumb wail broke forth, “Ah, Josephine! my only love! bright star of my destiny! when I no longer gazed upward to thy heavenly light, but tempted by the demons of false counsel, followed an ignis fatuus o’er the treacherous quicksands of political ambition, then did I find myself ingulfed in sorrows, and my heart was shrouded in the black darkness of a rayless night of hopeless despair. Had I been true to thee, perchance a just and righteous Providence might have been more merciful to me. Thou wert my star of hope and love! Thou wert ordained by heaven, my star of destiny! Bitterly do I remember thy prophetic words upon that memorable night, when the tie which bound us together was shattered by my blind ambition, ‘Bonaparte, behold that bright star; it is mine! and remember, to mine, not to thine, has sovereignty been promised. Separate, then, our fates, and your star fades!’
“Ah, Josephine, you were right! It is to you alone that I owe the only few moments of happiness I have known in the world!”
Yes, Josephine was right; that hour marked the commencement of the downfall of Napoleon. His star, which once blazed forth in matchless splendor in the heavens, was soon to sink forever. The two greatest errors of Napoleon were the conquest of Spain and the invasion of Russia. The first was unjust, the second was unfortunate. We can but give one picture of the Russian campaign. Napoleon and his army had marched in triumph more than two thousand miles from his capital. Victory had accompanied him. He had taken the metropolis of the most powerful nation on the continent, though that nation had been aided by England, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. Moscow was in the possession of the French. Napoleon was established in the Krémlin.
It was the 16th of September, 1812. At midnight the cry of “Fire!” resounded through the streets. Moscow was in flames! Mines were sprung, shells burst, cannons were discharged, wagons of powder exploded; earthquake succeeded earthquake; volcano followed volcano of flame and smoke and burning projectiles, until the whole vast city was wrapped in one wild ocean of flame. Napoleon said of this awful sight: “It was a spectacle of a sea and billows of fire, a sky and clouds of flame; mountains of red rolling flames, like immense waves of the sea, alternately bursting forth and elevating themselves to skies of fire, and then sinking into the ocean of flame below. Oh! it was the most grand, the most sublime, the most terrific sight the world ever beheld.”
Nothing was left of Moscow save the remembrance of its former grandeur. Then followed the terrible retreat of the French army, through the cold and snow and winter storms. During this unfortunate expedition the entire army of Napoleon had been destroyed. “During the Russian campaign France is believed to have lost about three hundred and fifty thousand soldiers: a hundred thousand were killed in the advance and retreat, a hundred and fifty thousand died from hunger, fatigue, and the severity of the climate, and about a hundred thousand remained prisoners in the hands of the Russians, not more than half of whom ever returned to France.”
Still, notwithstanding the enormous wars in which Napoleon had been engaged, he had expended in works of public improvement, for the embellishment of France, in the course of nine years, more than two hundred millions of dollars. “These miracles,” says a French writer, “were all effected by steadiness of purpose, talent armed with power, and finances wisely and economically applied. If a man of the age of the Medici, or of Louis XIV., were to revisit the earth, and at the sight of so many marvels, ask how many ages of peace and glorious reigns had been required to produce them, he would be answered, ‘Twelve years of war, and a single man!’”
But the war was not over. With an army formed of fresh recruits, again Napoleon was forced to meet his foes. Then followed the battle of Lützen, which is regarded as one of the most brilliant proofs of Napoleon’s genius. But now many a Judas appeared in the midst of his supposed friends. General Jomini deserted the staff of Marshal Ney, and went over to the Emperor Alexander. Bernadotte, of Sweden, took up arms against the French; and General Moreau went over to the camp of the Allies.
NAPOLEON AT FONTAINEBLEAU.
After the disaster of Leipsic, and the losses sustained by different divisions of the army in that campaign, and the mortality which thinned so dreadfully the French armies on the Rhine, France felt herself exhausted and weak.