World history; World history -- Juvenile literature
of December the first of the survivors began to be seen in the German
cities of the East.
Then there were many rumours of an impending revolt. "The time
has come," the people of Europe said, "to free ourselves from this
insufferable yoke." And they began to look for old shotguns which had
escaped the eye of the ever-present French spies. But ere they knew
what had happened, Napoleon was back with a new army. He had left his
defeated soldiers and in his little sleigh had rushed ahead to Paris,
making a final appeal for more troops that he might defend the sacred
soil of France against foreign invasion.
Children of sixteen and seventeen followed him when he moved eastward to
meet the allied powers. On October 16, 18, and 19 of the year 1813, the
terrible battle of Leipzig took place where for three days boys in green
and boys in blue fought each other until the Elbe ran red with blood.
On the afternoon of the 17th of October, the massed reserves of Russian
infantry broke through the French lines and Napoleon fled.
Back to Paris he went. He abdicated in favour of his small son, but the
allied powers insisted that Louis XVIII, the brother of the late king
Louis XVI, should occupy the French throne, and surrounded by Cossacks
and Uhlans, the dull-eyed Bourbon prince made his triumphal entry into
Paris.
As for Napoleon he was made the sovereign ruler of the little island
of Elba in the Mediterranean where he organised his stable boys into a
miniature army and fought battles on a chess board.
But no sooner had he left France than the people began to realise what
they had lost. The last twenty years, however costly, had been a period
of great glory. Paris had been the capital of the world. The fat Bourbon
king who had learned nothing and had forgotten nothing during the days
of his exile disgusted everybody by his indolence.
On the first of March of the year 1815, when the representatives of the
allies were ready to begin the work of unscrambling the map of Europe,
Napoleon suddenly landed near Cannes. In less than a week the French
army had deserted the Bourbons and had rushed southward to offer their
swords and bayonets to the "little Corporal." Napoleon marched straight
to Paris where he arrived on the twentieth of March. This time he was
more cautious. He offered peace, but the allies insisted upon war. The
whole of Europe arose against the "perfidious Corsican." Rapidly the
Emperor marched northward that he might crush his enemies before they
should be able to unite their forces. But Napoleon was no longer his old
self. He felt sick. He got tired easily. He slept when he ought to have
been up directing the attack of his advance-guard. Besides, he missed
many of his faithful old generals. They were dead.
Early in June his armies entered Belgium. On the 16th of that month he
defeated the Prussians under Blucher. But a subordinate commander failed
to destroy the retreating army as he had been ordered to do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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