Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert PeelAnonymous
History
Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert Peel
Anonymous
Great Britain -- History
Such were the circumstances of France in every quarter of the globe,
except on the Continent of Europe; and there already, notwithstanding
the vast space over which Buonaparte ruled by the terror of his arms,
there were many symptoms of the coming disruption of this empire of
arms, which sprang up like a tempest and dispersed like one. Spain and
Portugal, at one end of the Continent, were draining the very life's
blood from France, and turning all eyes in liveliest interest to the
spectacle of a successful resistance, by a small British army, to this
Power so long deemed invincible. In the North lowered a dark storm, the
force and fate of which were yet unsuspected, but which was gathering
into its mass the elements of a ruin to the Napoleonic ambition as
sublime as it was to be decisive. In France itself never had the
despotic power and glory of Buonaparte appeared more transcendent.
Everything seemed to live but at his beck: a magnificent Court,
Parliament the slave of his will, made up of the sham representatives
of subjected nations, the country literally covered with armies, and
nearly all surrounding nations governed by kings and princes who were
but his satraps. Such was the outward aspect of things; and now came
the long-desired event, which was to cement his throne with the blood
of kindred kings, and link it fast to posterity--the birth of a son.
On the 20th of March it was announced that the Empress Maria Louisa
was delivered of a son, who was named Napoleon Francis Charles Joseph,
Prince of the French Empire, and King of Rome.
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