World history; World history -- Juvenile literature
On the 15th of July he went on board the “_Bellerophon_” and
surrendered his sword to Admiral Hotham. At Plymouth he was transferred
to the “Northumberland” which carried him to St. Helena. There he spent
the last seven years of his life. He tried to write his memoirs, he
quarrelled with his keepers and he dreamed of past times. Curiously
enough he returned (at least in his imagination) to his original point
of departure. He remembered the days when he had fought the battles
of the Revolution. He tried to convince himself that he had always
been the true friend of those great principles of “Liberty, Fraternity
and Equality” which the ragged soldiers of the convention had carried
to the ends of the earth. He liked to dwell upon his career as
Commander-in-Chief and Consul. He rarely spoke of the Empire. Sometimes
he thought of his son, the Duke of Reichstadt, the little eagle, who
lived in Vienna, where he was treated as a “poor relation” by his young
Habsburg cousins, whose fathers had trembled at the very mention of the
name of Him. When the end came, he was leading his troops to victory.
He ordered Ney to attack with the guards. Then he died.
But if you want an explanation of this strange career, if you really
wish to know how one man could possibly rule so many people for so
many years by the sheer force of his will, do not read the books that
have been written about him. Their authors either hated the Emperor or
loved him. You will learn many facts, but it is more important to “feel
history” than to know it. Don’t read, but wait until you have a chance
to hear a good artist sing the song called “The Two Grenadiers.” The
words were written by Heine, the great German poet who lived through
the Napoleonic era. The music was composed by Schumann, a German who
saw the Emperor, the enemy of his country, whenever he came to visit
his imperial father-in-law. The song therefore is the work of two men
who had every reason to hate the tyrant.
Go and hear it. Then you will understand what a thousand volumes could
not possibly tell you.
THE HOLY ALLIANCE
AS SOON AS NAPOLEON HAD BEEN SENT TO ST. HELENA THE RULERS WHO SO
OFTEN HAD BEEN DEFEATED BY THE HATED “CORSICAN” MET AT VIENNA AND
TRIED TO UNDO THE MANY CHANGES THAT HAD BEEN BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION
The Imperial Highnesses, the Royal Highnesses, their Graces the
Dukes, the Ministers Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, together with
the plain Excellencies and their army of secretaries, servants and
hangers-on, whose labours had been so rudely interrupted by the sudden
return of the terrible Corsican (now sweltering under the hot sun of
St. Helena) went back to their jobs. The victory was duly celebrated
with dinners, garden parties and balls at which the new and very
shocking “waltz” was danced to the great scandal of the ladies and
gentlemen who remembered the minuet of the old Régime.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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