At last it became necessary to sacrifice King Charles in order to secure the victory for Parliament, which stood for the freedom of Englishmen against the tyranny of kings. So a court set up by Parliament voted to put the king to death, and Oliver Cromwell was one of the signers of the death-warrant. As James, the king’s father, had driven the Pilgrims out of the country, so now the Puritans in Parliament forced the king’s sons to leave the country for their country’s good.
During the few years in which Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector of England, he did much to strengthen the nation and to repair the great harm brought upon it by the foolish whims of its extravagant kings. It was then that England learned the terrible lesson which Europe had to be taught almost three hundred years later—that no king has a divine right to do wrong to the people.
NAPOLEON, THE CORSICAN BOY WHO RULED EUROPE
THOUGH Napoleon Bonaparte was the greatest soldier of his time, he was small in body. His fullest height was a little above five feet. The story of his strange career shows how a poor, puny little lad made himself emperor of France and master of Europe, so that kings, generals, and prime ministers bowed, like so many servants, to his imperial will.
He began, while he wore petticoats, to wish to be a soldier. He threw away his baby rattle for a brass cannon, and his first playthings were little iron soldiers. When he was old enough to play with other boys, he always chose to be a soldier and, small as he was, he was the one who told the bigger boys just what to do. Even then, if his mother gave him a piece of cake, he would go out to the edge of the little town and trade it to an old soldier for some coarse, black army bread. As he grew older, this soldier-longing became his ambition. His health was never very good. He was often nervous, wilful, and hard to manage. But he had a keen sense of honor, and always despised a coward.
Napoleon’s home was the rugged island of Corsica. While he was still a little boy, he found, between some rocks, near the shore, a cave which he claimed for his own. This is still pointed out to thousands who come to visit the boy’s birthplace, as “Napoleon’s Grotto.”
At that time there was a feud between the boys of the town and the shepherd lads on the hills around. Little Napoleon told the other town boys that if they would do as he said, he would make those big country boys stop throwing stones at them whenever they met. The town lads agreed to this; so Napoleon told them to gather stones and pile them in a row a little distance below the fortress which the shepherds had chosen behind some rocks on top of their hill.
The pale Bonaparte boy led his young army up till the country youths fired a volley of stones at them. Then he turned and ran down the hill followed by his company. The enemy came out and gave chase, pell-mell. This was just what Napoleon expected. When the little leader got down to the piles of stones he shouted—“Halt!”
“Stones!”