But he!--not even despair could prompt him to one noble thought, or rouse him to one deed of desperate valour. He fled--as at Egypt, at Moscow, and at Leipsic he had fled--while his faithful veterans were still fighting with enthusiastic gallantry, and shedding the last drop of their blood in his cause! Was this the conduct of a hero? Was this the conduct of a general? Was this the conduct of a great mind? No! He had set his "life upon a cast, and he should have stood the hazard of the die." And for what did he abandon his army, and basely fly in the hour of danger? That he might be humiliated, pursued, and taken--that he might become a suppliant to that hated enemy whose ruin he had pursued with implacable hostility, and be indebted to their faith and generosity for life and safety--that he might live to hear his name execrated, and linger out a few years of miserable existence in exile, obscurity, and degradation. It has been said by his advocates and admirers, that he was not only a great man, but the greatest man who ever lived--and that his only fault was ambition. Yes! Napoleon Buonaparte had, indeed, ambition; but it was selfish ambition; it was for power, not for glory; for unbounded empire and unlimited dominion, not for the welfare of his subjects and the prosperity of his country. He used the talents, the opportunities, and the power, with which he was gifted, and such as perhaps no mortal ever before enjoyed, not to save, but to destroy, not to bless, but to desolate, the world.