Napoleon: A Sketch of His Life, Character, Struggles, and Achievements

Many visitors, passengers in English vessels, called to see him. Generally, but not always, he received them. Generally, but not always, visitors so received went away converted...

At this period (1807) Napoleon was a strikingly handsome man. The “wan and livid complexion, bowed shoulders, and weak, sickly appearance” of the Vendémiaire period were things...

It must have been a sadly disappointed young man who rejoined his family, now at Marseilles, in the spring of 1795. Gone was the Toulon glory; gone the prestige of the confident...

“My taskmaster has no bowels; it is the nature of things.” This remark, made by Napoleon long prior to the divorce, was now to be verified with results calamitous to Europe and...

During the years of the peace (1801–1804), French influence upon the Continent kept marching on. Napoleon’s diplomacy was as effective as his cannon. Holland became a subject st...

“From St. Charles Street you enter on a very small square. An elm tree stands before a yellowish gray plastered house, with a flat roof and a projecting balcony. It has six fron...

To Mayence the Empress Maria Louisa came, to spend a few days pending the peace negotiations. If Napoleon cherished the belief that her presence would have any bearing upon her...

To say that the French were pleased with the consular government, would convey no idea of the facts. France was delighted, France was in raptures. Excepting the inevitable few,-...

After the French defeat at Aspern (May 22, 1809), and while they were shut up in the island of Lobau, it had seemed that Napoleon’s position was almost desperate. The Tyrolese w...

On Sunday evening, Brumaire 19, Napoleon had been a desperate political gambler, staking fortune and life upon a throw; on Monday morning following he calmly seated himself in t...

There had been riots in France and the clash of faction; there had been massacre of Catholic by Protestant and of Protestant by Catholic; there had been civil war in La Vendée....

Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, has an extreme width of 52 miles and length of 116. It is within easy reach of Italy, France, Spain, Sardinia, and the African coast...

When Napoleon finally awoke on the 17th, he spent the morning talking politics to Gérard and Grouchy. It was midday when he gave the latter some thirty-three thousand men, and s...

Even Austria could now see that Beaulieu was no match for Napoleon. In his place the Emperor sent the aged Wurmser, another officer excellent in the old leisurely cut-and-dried...

The ink was hardly dry upon the Charter before Louis XVIII. began to break its conditions. It had served its purpose, he had ridden into office upon it: what further use had he...

The French revolutionists had overturned the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons, but they themselves had split into factions. The Moderates who favored constitutional monarchy ha...

Whatever legal right Great Britain had to treat the French Emperor as prisoner of war, must necessarily have grown out of the manner in which she got possession of his person. I...

Nothing but memories now remains to France, or to the human race, of the splendors of Marengo, of Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram; but the work which Napoleon did while Europe allo...

On December 5, 1797, Napoleon returned to Paris. With studious eye for effect, he adopted that line of conduct most calculated, as he thought, to preserve his reputation and to...

When the Emperor reached Paris, he was in one of his worst moods. Many causes had combined to mar his serenity. His brother Joseph had violently found fault with him because he,...

The Count of Provence was living in England when Napoleon’s Senate called him to the throne. He was one of those who had “digged the pit” for his brother, Louis XVI.; and who, w...

The final resurrection and triumph of Napoleon no one could foresee on March 31, 1814, when he lay in a stupor of weariness and soul-sickness at Fontainebleau, while the Allies...

Had Napoleon promptly accepted the Frankfort Proposal as they were made, would he have secured peace? Manifestly not, for Metternich had put two conditions to his offer which do...

There were in Paris at this time certain battalions which had served under Napoleon in Italy; also the directorial, legislative, and national guards, which he had organized. Nat...

After allowing his army a brief rest, Napoleon set out against the Russians. His troops entered Poland, and on November 28, 1806, Murat took possession of Warsaw. The Poles rece...

From the Rhine to the Vistula the retreat of the French caused an outburst of joy. Nationalities and dynasties drew a mighty breath of relief. Peoples, as well as kings, had war...

The year 1796 found the Republic in sorry plight. The treasury was empty, labor unemployed, business at a standstill. So much paper money, genuine and counterfeit, had been issu...

The hope of Austria was now the Archduke Charles, who had so brilliantly forced the two French armies on the Rhine to retreat. He was a young man, younger even than Napoleon, be...

Tilsit is generally considered the high-water mark of Napoleon’s power. Not yet forty years of age, he was lord of lords and king of kings. With Russia for an ally, Continental...

The French Revolution was no longer guided by the men of ideals. With the downfall of Robespierre had come the triumph of those who bothered themselves with no dreams of social...

Soon after Napoleon reached home, the rich uncle, the archdeacon, died, and the Bonapartes got his money. The bulk of it was invested in the confiscated lands of the Church. Som...

The seas were infested with hostile ships, and a more perilous voyage than Napoleon’s from Egypt few men ever risked. His little sailing vessels had but one element of security-...

While it is true that the return of the Emperor had not pleased the nobles, the ultramontane priests, the capitalists, and the intriguers who had been working for the Duke of Or...

After his defeat at La Rothière, the Emperor authorized Bassano to make peace, giving to Caulaincourt unlimited powers. But before the necessary papers could be signed, Blücher...

There is no convincing evidence that the Russian war of 1812 was generally unpopular in France. There is no proof whatever that any national calamity growing out of it was expec...

The French Revolution was now (1789–90) getting under full headway. The States-General had met on May 5, 1789; the Third Estate had asserted and made good its supremacy. The Kin...

Throughout Italy the principles of the French Revolution had made considerable progress, and in every province there were intelligent men who welcomed the advent of Napoleon as...

Encumbered by a vast amount of booty, a host of camp-followers, and a huge train of vehicles of all sorts, the Grand Army left Moscow, upward of one hundred thousand strong and...

Carefully as Napoleon had cultivated the native authorities, deferred to prejudice and custom, and maintained discipline, native opposition to French rule seems to have been int...

All had been done that could be done--all that it was in his nature to do. He had equipped two hundred thousand men in arms, and had filled them with martial fire. He had called...

When Captain Marbot, bearing despatches from Murat announcing the riot in Madrid, reached the château of Marrac, he found the Emperor in the park, taking his after-dinner walk,...

Napoleon carried with him to his new home a letter of introduction from the Bishop of Autun to the ex-Abbot of St. Ruffe, and with this leverage he made his way into the best so...

There is no doubt that Napoleon had more personal feeling against Prussia than against any foe he had heretofore met, England excepted. In fact, the manner in which Prussia had...

The guiding hand of Austrian diplomacy at this time being Metternich’s, and that astute person having left behind him certain _Memoirs_ which his family have arranged and publis...

With the first coming of the armies of revolutionary France to Italy, the establishment of republics in the peninsula, and the talk of Italian unity, even Rome and Naples began...

The Mediterranean coast of France being almost at the mercy of the English fleet, Napoleon was sent, immediately after the fall of Toulon, to inspect the defences and put them i...

Military critics agree that the Italian campaign was a masterpiece; and many say that Napoleon himself never surpassed it. At no other time was he perhaps quite the man he was a...

After the treaty of Presburg the Archduke Charles, in paying off the Austrian troops, said to them, “Go and rest yourselves until we begin again.” Even at that early date the Eu...

During the voyage from Elba to France, Napoleon had been in the best of spirits, moving about familiarly among his men, and chatting freely upon all subjects. He had not told th...

the harvest of their crimes. Not himself capable of political theft, he countenanced the political thief, approved his success, and as a receiver of stolen goods, knowing them t...

In England the wonderful triumph of Napoleon spread consternation and bitter disappointment. So much hard cash had been wasted, so many well-laid plans smashed, so much blind ha...

The young Republic found itself beset by the old governments of Europe. Because the Revolution proclaimed a new gospel, because it asserted the divine right of the people to gov...