Mont St. Jean to Brussels, six months ago, and it has not yet got further than Waterloo."

The error of sending Napoleon to Elba was not repeated, St. Helena was chosen, as the spot in which he could enjoy the largest portion of personal liberty without hazarding an escape, which might inflame France again: and in that island he continued until he died. Much as this fate of such a man must be regretted, it was indispensable to the peace of Europe. Napoleon at large would have been a firebrand; and the lives of thousands or of millions might have paid the forfeit of a second display of clemency. In St. Helena he lingered out six dreary years in indolent restlessness and impatient resigna tion; talking loftily of his scorn for all things human, and quarrelling with Sir Hudson Lowe upon every subject under heaven; sometimes writing memoirs, which he generally burned; sometimes rearing cabbages, and shooting the buffaloes that intruded on his crop; sometimes taking obvious pleasure in the homage naturally paid to him by the visiters to the island; and, at others, shutting himself up in imperial solitude, and declaring that he would not be "made a wild beast of," to please the "barbarian English:" at intervals reviving the recollections of his high estate, and speaking with all his former intenseness and brilliancy; then silent for days to gether; constant in nothing but his hatred of Sir Hudson Lowe, his wrath against Marmont, and his contempt for every being that bore the name of Bourbon.

Those caprices were the natural results of a change so total; from the most active and engrossing career of man, to the most shapeless and monotonous inaction. In the beginning of 1821, the last year of his life, he complained of some inward distemper; for which his physicians found every name, and administered every remedy, but the right one. He tried to direct them to it, by saying that his father had died

of an ulcerated stomach, and that the complaint had probably descended to himself. But the physicians persevered, with the vigour of science, until their patient refused to take their medicines any longer. From the 17th of March his illness confined him to his room. He had an old contempt for medicine. "Our body is a watch," said he, "intended to go for a given time. The doctor is a watchmaker who cannot open the watch; he must therefore work by accident; and for once that he mends it with his crooked instruments, he injures it ten times, until he destroys it altogether." In April, his Italian physician, Antommarchi, called in Dr. Arnot, an Englishman. Still his patient said, with the Turk, "What is written is written; man's hours are marked. None can live beyond their time."

In this absurd idea, which might have proceeded from the growing feebleness of his mind in the progress of his disease, he continued to refuse the alleviation which the skill of his English attendant might have afforded, for cure was impossible. He now drew up his will, and directed that his body should be opened, and its state described to his son. "Of all my organs," said he," the stomach is the most diseased. I believe that the disease is scirrhus of the pylorus. The physicians at Montpellier predicted that it would be hereditary in our family." Tumultuous and fierce as his life had been, he died with some sentiments of religion. He had sent for two Italian priests some time before, and he calmly desired that the usual ceremonies of the Romish church should be complied with. In his last hours, he made this summary confession of his faith. "I am neither physicien nor philosophe.* I believe in God, and am of the religion of my father. I was born a Catholic, and will fulfil all the duties of that church, and receive the assistance which she administers."

* Infidel.

His complaint

His hours were now numbered. was cancer of the stomach. From the 3d of May, he seemed to be in a continued heavy sleep. The fifth was a day of unexampled tempest in the island; trees were every where torn up by the roots, the sea lashed and rent the shores, the clouds poured down torrents, the wind burst through the hills with the loudness of thunder. In this roar of the elements, Napoleon perhaps heard the old echoes of battle; the last words on his lips were of war; "tête d'armée" was uttered in his dream,—and he died. The fiery spirit passed away, like Cromwell's, in storm! The coup d'œil of his rise and fall exhibits the most various, vivid, and dazzling career ever known; the mightiest events and most singular vicissitudes ever crowded into the history of one man.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON.

1769-August 15. Born at Ajaccio, in Corsica. 1779-Placed at the military school of Brienne.

1793-An officer of artillery at the siege of Toulon, and appointed general of brigade.

1794-Commands the conventional troops, and defeats the Parisians. 1796-Appointed to the command of the army of Italy-Battle of Lodi Battle of Castiglione-Battle of Arcola.

1797-Surrender of Mantua and Trieste. April 18. Preliminaries with Austria signed at Leoben-French take possession of VeniceTreaty of Campo Formio, with Austria.

1798-Sails for Egypt-Battle of Embade, or the Pyramids.

1799-May. Siege of Acre-Sails to France. Oct. 7. Lands at Fre jus. Nov. 9. Dissolves the conventional government. Nov. 10. De

clared first consul.

1800-Peace made with the Chouans-Crosses Mont St. Bernard. June 16. Battle of Marengo-Preliminaries with Austria signed at Paris. Dec. 24. Explosion of the infernal machine.

1801-Treaty of Luneville with Austria-Preliminaries signed with England.

1802-The Cisalpine Republic placed under his jurisdiction. March 27. Definitive treaty with England-Legion of Honour instituted. Au gust 2. Declared consul for life-Swiss form of government changed by him.

1803-May 18. English declaration of war. quered.

June 5. Hanover con

1804-Feb. Moreau arrested. March 20. Death of the Duc d'Enghien -Pichegru dies in prison. May 18. He is declared Emperor. Nov. 19. Crowned by the Pope.

1805-Writes a pacific letter to the King of England. April 11. Treaty of Petersburg, between England, Russia, Austria, aud Sweden-He is

declared King of Italy-Mack's army surrenders at Ulm-French enter Vienna Battle of Austerlitz-Treaty of Vienna with Prussia-and of Presburg with Austria.

1806-March 30. Joseph Buonaparte declared King of Naples. Junt 5. Louis Buonaparte declared King of Holland-Confederation of the Rhine-Marches against Prussia-Battle of Auerstadt or Jena-Enters Berlin. Nov. 19. Hamburgh taken.

1807-Battle of Eylau-of Friedland-Treaty of Tilsit.

1808-July 7. Joseph Buonaparte declared King of Spain-20. Surrender of Dupont's army at Baylen-29. Joseph evacuates Madrid. Aug. 21. Battle of Vimiera. Nov. 5. Buonaparte arriver a Vittoria. Dec. 4. Surrender of Madrid.

1809-January Battle of Corunna-Returns to Paris. April. War declared by Austria-Heads his army against Austria. May 10. French enter Vienna Battle of Asperne. July 5. Battle of Wagram-Flushing taken by the English-Treaty of Vienna with Austria. Dec. Lucien Buonaparte arrives in England-Marriage with Josephine dissolvedWalcheren evacuated by the English.

1810-March. Marries Maria Louisa, daughter of Francis II. July. Holland and the Hanse Towns annexed to the French empire. August. Bernadotte elected Crown-Prince of Sweden.

1811-January 1. Hamburgh annexed to the empire. April 20. The empress delivered of a son, who is styled King of Rome.

1812-January. Swedish Pomerania seized by France. May. Heads the army against Russia. June 11. Arrives at Konigsberg. 28. Enters Wilna. Aug. 18. Smolensko taken. Sept. 7. Battle of the Moskwa, or Borodino. 14. French enter Moscow. Oct. 22. Evacuate it. Nov. 9. Arrives at Smolensko. Dec. 5. Quits the army. 18. Arrives at Paris. 1813-April. Takes the command of the army on the Elbe. May 1. Battle of Lutzen. 20. Of Bautzen. June 4. Armistice agreed on. 21. Battle of Vittoria. Aug. 17. Hostilities recommence. 28. Battle of Dresden. Sept. 7. English enter France. 28. French evacuate Dresden. Oct. 18. Battle of Leipsic. Nov. 15. Revolution in Holland. Dec. 8. English army crosses the Nieve.

1814-Jan. 1. Allies cross the Rhine. March 30. Battle of Montmartre. 31. Allies enter Paris. April 11. Napoleon abdicates the throne. May 8. Arrives at Elba.

1815-March 1. Relands in France at Cannes. 20. Resumes the throne. June 1. Holds the Champ-de-Mai. 11. Leaves Paris for Belgium. 15. Attacks the Prussians on the Sambre. 16. Attacks Blucher at Ligny-and Wellington at Quatre Bras. 18. Defeated at Waterloo. 22. Resigns the throne, finishing the hundred days. 29. Leaves Malmaison. July 15. Received on board the Bellerophon. 24. At Torbay, Aug. 8. Sails in the Northumberland for St. Helena. Oct. 15. Lands at St. Helena.

1821-March 17. Confined by illness, May 5. Dies,

CHAPTER XIX.

The Reign.

In his earlier years the king had never passed the limits of England. Etiquette and financial reasons were the cause. But he suffered little by the restriction. He spoke with sufficient ease all the foreign languages required at court; and if he lost some indulgence of rational curiosity, and some knowledge of the actual aspect of the continent; he gained much more than an equivalent, in escaping those foreign follies which are so irreconcilably repulsive to the tastes of England. The hussar passion was not strong upon him; and though commanding a cavalry regiment, and fond of the allowable decoration of the soldier, it was to more travelled propensities that we owed the frippery which, for so many years, turned some of the finest portions of the British service into a paltry imitation of the worst of the foreign; disguised brave men in the trappings of mountebanks, and made a British parade the rival of a rehearsal at Astley's-a triumph of tailors. He never appeared before his people disfigured with the German barbarism of a pipe in the mouth, nor with the human face divine metamorphosed into the bear's or the baboon's. He was an English gentleman; and, conscious that the character placed him above the grossness of foreign indulgences, or the theatric fopperies of foreign costumes, he adhered to the manners of his country.

But, immediately on his accession to the throne, he visited Ireland,* Hanover,† and Scotland,‡ and in

* August, 1821.

† September, 1821
Ff

+ August, 1822