It was with his ally, Russia, that the first break came. That Napoleon was startled by the idea of war with Alexander and sought to prevent it, is certain; but Alexander refused to yield to his demand that the embargo against English goods be enforced. The embargo he had set down as the “fundamental law of the Empire.” There was nothing to do but settle it by arms, and in the summer of 1812, with an army of over half a million men, he began a reluctant and hesitating march against Russia. It was a campaign of terrible disasters. The Russians retreated before him, letting cold and hunger do the work of battles. So effectively did they work that the French army was practically destroyed. The Russian campaign is one of the most appalling in history. It was but the beginning of his overthrow. Alexander raised the cry “Deliver Europe!” Stein and other liberal minds rallied the youth of the German states into a league, pledged to fight for national freedom. His allies and dependences began to demand the return of lost territories as a price of loyalty. France revolted at the prospects of continued bloodshed. The campaigns thrust upon him by all these forces were fought; but frequently without his old genius. It was June of 1812 when Napoleon began the Russian campaign. Twenty-one months later Paris capitulated to his allied enemies, and a few weeks later he had lost the greatest empire modern Europe had seen gathered under one man, and was an exile in the little island of Elba. [Illustration: LONGWOOD Napoleon’s residence during his captivity at St. Helena. AN EXILE’S GRAVE The spot where Napoleon was buried in May, 1821. His body was removed to Paris in 1840.] WATERLOO AND ST. HELENA His dramatic escape from Elba; the scurry out of France at news of his arrival of all who had opposed him, leaving the coast practically clear for him; the rally of the army and people to him; the immediate attack upon him by the allied powers of Europe; his defeat at Waterloo and speedy exile to St. Helena,--these make perhaps the most dramatic succession of events in all history, and it was not he who lost by the record of them, though it ended in his captivity. Napoleon a prisoner on an island six hundred miles from land was Napoleon still. He was there because of his conquerors’ fear of him. No greater tribute to one man’s power was ever paid than that of Europe when under English leadership she consented to confine Napoleon Bonaparte on the island of St. Helena. It was all that was needed to impress him forever on the world as one of heroic mold. SUPPLEMENTARY READING.--“Short Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,” Ida M. Tarbell; “The First Napoleon,” John C. Ropes; “Napoleon Bonaparte, First Campaign,” H. H. Sargent; “Life of Napoleon,” Las Casas; “Napoleon, the Last Phase,” Lord Rosebery; “Letters and Papers of Napoleon”; “Napoleana,” Frédéric Masson. THE MENTOR ISSUED SEMI-MONTHLY BY The Mentor Association, Inc.