Napoleon Bonaparte - John S. C. Abbott (book club reads .txt) 📗

alighted from their canoes, upon a small island in the Seine, and there reared their huts. They were called the Parisii. The slow lapse of centuries rolled over them, and there were wars and woes, bridals and burials, and still they increased in numbers and in strength, and fortified their little isle against the invasions of their enemies; for man, whether civilized or savage, has ever been the most ferocious wild beast man has had to encounter. But soon the tramp of the Roman legions was heard upon the banks of the Seine, and all Gaul with its sixty tribes, came under the power of the Caesars. Extensive marshes and gloomy forests surrounded the barbarian village; but, gradually, Roman laws and institutions were introduced; and Roman energy changed the aspect of the country.

Immediately the proud conquerors commenced rearing a palace for the provincial governor. The Palace of Warm Baths rose, with its massive walls and in imposing grandeur. Roman spears drove the people to the work; and Roman ingenuity knew well how to extort from the populace the revenue which was required. Large remains of that palace continue to the present day. It is the most interesting memorial of the past which can now be found in France. The magnificence of its proportions still strike the beholder with awe. “Behold,” says a writer, who trod its marble floors nearly a thousand years ago: “Behold the Palace of the Kings, whose turrets pierce the skies, and whose foundations penetrate even to the empire of the dead.”

Julius Caesar gazed proudly upon those turrets; and here the shouts of Roman legions, fifteen hundred years ago proclaimed Julian emperor; and Roman maidens, with throbbing hearts, trod these floors in the mazy dance. No one can enter the grand hall of the haths, without being deeply impressed with the majestic aspect of the edifice, and with the grandeur of its gigantic proportions. The decay of nearly two thousand years has left its venerable impress upon those walls.

Here Roman generals proudly strode, encased in brass and steel, and the clatter of their arms resounded through these arches. In these mouldering, crumbling tubs of stone, they laved their sinewy limbs. But where are those fierce warriors now? In what employments have their turbulent spirits been engaged, while generation after generation has passed on earth, in the enactment of the comedies and the tragedies of life? Did their rough tutelage in the camp, and their proud hearing in the court, prepare them for the love, the kindness, the gentleness, the devotion of Heaven? In fields of outrage, clamor, and blood, madly rushing to the assault, shouting in frenzy, dealing, with iron hand, every where around, destruction and death, did they acquire a taste for the “green pastures and the still waters?” Alas! for the mystery of our being! They are gone, and gone forever! Their name has perished—their language is forgotten.

 

“The storm which wrecks the wintry sky. No more disturbs their deep repose, Than summer evening’s gentlest sign, Which shuts the rose.”

 

Upon a part of the rums of this old palace of Caesars, there has been reared by more modern ancients , still another palace, where mirth and revelry have resounded, where pride has elevated her haughty head, and vanity displayed her costly robes—but over all those scenes of splendor, death has rolled its oblivious waves. About four hundred years ago, upon a portion of the crumbling walls of this old Roman mansion, the Palace of Cluny was reared. For three centuries, this palace was one of the abodes of the kings of France.

The tide of regal life ebbed and flowed through those saloons, and along those corridors. There is the chamber where Mary of England, sister of Henry VIII., and widow of Louis XII., passed the weary years of her widowhood. It is still called the chamber of the “white queen,” from the custom of the queens of France to wear white mourning. Three hundred years ago, these Gothic turrets, and gorgeously ornamented lucarne windows, gleamed with illuminations, as the young King of Scotland, James V., led Madeleine, the blooming daughter of Francis I., to the bridal altar. Here the haughty family of the Guises ostentatiously displayed their regal retinue—vying with the Kings of France in splendor, and outvying them in power.

These two palaces, now blended by the nuptails of decay into one, are converted into a museum of antiquities—silent despositories of memorials of the dead. Sadly one loiters through their deserted halls. They present one of the most interesting sights of Paris.

In the reflective mind they awaken emotions which the pen can not describe.

 

2. The Lourre .—When Paris consisted only of the little island in the Seine, and kings and feudal lords, with wine and wassail were reveling in the saloons of China, a hunting-seat was reared in the the dense forest which spread itself along the banks of the river.

As the city extended, and the forest disappeared, the hunting-seat was enlarged, strengthened, and became a fortress and a state-prison Thus it continued for three hundred years. In its gloomy dungeons prisoners of state, and the victims of crime, groaned and died; and countless tragedies of despotic power there transpired, which the Day of Judgment alone can reveal. Three hundred years ago, Francis I, tore down the dilapidated walls of this old castle, and commerces the magnificent Palace of the Louver upon their foundations.

But its construction has required candle, while Gilpin, who was taller and stronger than either of the other boys, bored the hole in the door, in the place which Rodolphus indicated. When the hole was bored, the boys inserted an iron rod into it. and running this rod under the hasp, they pried the hasp up and unfastened the door.

They opened the door, and then, to their great joy, found themselves all safe in the office.

 

They put the dark lantern down upon the table, and covered it with its screen, and then listened, perfectly whist, a minute or two, to be sure that nobody was coming.

 

“You go and watch at the shed-door,” said Gilpin to Rodolphus, “while we open the desk.”

 

So Rodolphus went to the shed-door. He peeped out, and looked up and down the village-street, but all was still.

 

Presently he heard a sort of splitting sound within the office, which he knew was made by the forcing open of the lid of the desk.

Very soon afterward the boys came out, in a hurried manner—Griff had the lantern and Gilpin the box.

 

“Have you got it!” said Rodolphus.

 

“Yes,” said Griff.

 

“Let’s see,” said Rodolphus.

 

Griff held out the box to Rodolphus. It was very heavy and they could hear the sound of the money within. All three of the boys seemed almost wild with trepidation and excitement. Griff however immediately began to hurry them away, pulling the box from them and saying, “Come, come, boys, we must not stay fooling here.”

 

“Wait a minute till I hide the tools again!” said Rodolphus, “and then we’ll run.”

 

Rodolphus hid the tools behind the wood-pile, in the shed, where they had been before, and then the boys sallied forth into the street. They crept along stealthily in the shadows of the houses and the most dark and obscure places, until they came to the tavern, where they were to turn down the lane to the corn-barn. As soon as they got safely to this lane, they felt relieved, and they walked on in a more unconcerned manner; and when at length they got fairly in under the corn-barn they felt perfectly secure.

 

“There,” said Griff, “was not that well done!”

 

“Yes,” said Rodolphus, “and now all that we have got to do is to get the box open.”

 

“We can break it open with stones,” said Griff.

 

“No,” said Gilpin, “that will make too much noise. We will bury it under this straw for a few days, and open it somehow or other by-and-by, when they have given up looking for the box. You can get the real key of it for us, Rodolphus, can’t you!”

 

“How can I get it?” asked Rodolphus.

 

“Oh, you can contrive some way to get it from old Kerber, I’ve no doubt. At any rate the best thing is to bury it now.’

 

To this plan the boys all agreed. They pulled away the straw, which was spread under the corn-barn, and dug a hole in the ground beneath, working partly with sticks and partly with their fingers.

When they had got the hole deep enough, they put the box in and covered it up. Then they covered it up. Then they spread the straw over the place as before.

 

During all this time the lantern had been standing upon a box pretty near by, having been put there by the boys, in order that the light might shine down upon the place where they had been digging. As soon as their work was done, the boys went softly outside to see if the way was clear for them to go home, leaving the lantern on the box; and while they were standing at the corner of the barn outside, looking up the lane, and whispering together, they saw suddenly a light beginning to gleam up from within. They ran in and found that the lantern had fallen down, and that the straw was all in a blaze. They immediately began to tread upon the fire and try to put it out, but the instant that they did so they were all thunderstruck by the appearance of a fourth person, who came rushing in among them from the outside. They all screamed out with terror and ran. Rodolphus separated from the rest and crouched down a moment behind the stone wall, but immediately afterward, feeling that there would be no safety for him here, he set off again and ran across some back fields and gardens, in the direction toward Mr. Kerber’s. He looked back occasionally and found that the light was rapidly increasing. Presently he began to hear cries of fire.

He ran on till he reached the house; he scrambled over the fences into the back yard, climbed up upon a shed, crept along under the chimneys to the window of his room, got in as fast as he could, undressed himself and went to bed, and had just drawn the clothes up over him, when he heard a loud knocking at the door, and Mrs.

Kerber’s voice outside, calling out to him, that there was a cry of fire in the village, and that he must get up quick as possible and help put it out.

 

The Expedition to Egypt was one of the most magnificent enterprises which human ambition ever conceived. The Return to France combines still more, if possible, of the elements of the moral sublime.

But for the disastrous destruction of the French fleet the plans of Napoleon, in reference to the East, would probably have been triumphantly successful. At least it can not be doubted that a vast change would have been effected throughout the Eastern world.

Those plans were now hopeless. The army was isolated, and cut off from all reinforcements and all supplies. the best thing which Napoleon could do for his troops in Egypt was to return to France, and exert his personal influence in sending them succor. His return involved the continuance of the most honorable devotion to those soldiers whom he necessarily left behind him. The secrecy of his departure was essential to its success. Had the bold attempt been suspected, it would certainly have been frustrated by the increased vigilance of the English cruisers. The intrepidity of the enterprise must elicit universal admiration.

 

Contemplate, for a moment, the moral aspects of this undertaking.

A nation