But the hour had already sounded for the total ruin of the tyrant. He who had trodden Europe under foot, now discovered Europe armed to meet him. With Germany consumed by a superhuman resolve to be free; with his old generals weary of fighting and struggling for the glory of a single man; with even his own relative, Murat, a partial traitor; with murmurings and threats resounding on all sides, Napoleon was not slow to perceive that his fortunes were in a precarious state. The year went by and battles were fought; some gained, some lost. The great campaign against Russia, with its consequent humiliating retreat had given the signal. The great Conqueror, who had once claimed a kind of sovereignty over a large part of Europe, now found France hardly able to uphold his imperial authority. In his desire to repair some of the wrongs he had perpetrated he liberated the Holy Father, in the beginning of the year 1814. But the repentance came too late. Already the enemy stood before the gates of Paris, and Napoleon learned that the day of his imperial domination was at an end. In his despair he fled to Fontainebleau, and there, in the very same chamber wherein he had confined his spiritual superior, he signed the articles of his abdication (April 6, 1814). His fate was soon sealed by those triumphant powers against which he had so long contended, and he retired a humbler man to his place of exile upon the island of Elba. [Illustration: RETURN OF PIUS VII.] Meanwhile Pius VII., who was by this time far on his way to Rome, was waiting at Imola for the final ending of the great tragedy which was taking place in France, and hearing of the downfall of his old-time foe, he hurried on with all dispatch to Rome. He arrived there on May 24, 1814, and made a solemn entrance into the Eternal City, whence five years before, he had been dragged away with so much violence. The joy and enthusiasm of the people, augmented by the memories of recent usurpation and tyranny, were unbounded. It was not alone that Rome had regained her sovereign but the Church also had again her beloved head, and all the Catholic world took part in the triumph of Religion over the unbridled ambition of her enemies. It is true the storm had not entirely subsided. Napoleon again broke forth from captivity, and the Holy See for a moment trembled lest new outrages might yet be perpetrated against the Church. But before the danger could have been brought to its accomplishment, the newly arisen Napoleon was again overthrown at Waterloo, June 18, 1815, after which he was exiled beyond all hope of return, to the lonely island of St. Helena, where he died on May 5, 1821, after six years of penance.