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09 - Story of Napoleon by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall · Story of Napoleon

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nine of the Story of Napoleon the Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
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  Speaker 1: Patrick Seville. Chapter nine, Napoleon, Emperor of Elba. It should
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  Speaker 1: not be forgotten that of all the Grand army, scarcely
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  Speaker 1: a sixth were French, and of those the best officers
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  Speaker 1: and men returned, so almost at once Napoleon was able
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  Speaker 1: to raise a new army. True, most of the new
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  Speaker 1: recruits were boys under twenty, but the magic of his
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  Speaker 1: name was still so great that they were eager to
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  Speaker 1: fight for him. And as he had need of all
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  Speaker 1: this eagerness for Prussia, following the example of Spain, and
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  Speaker 1: encouraged by the news of Napoleon's awful defeat in Russia,
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  Speaker 1: resolved to fight once more for freedom. Men rich and poor,
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  Speaker 1: old and young, flocked to the standard, ladies their jewels,
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  Speaker 1: and the Tsar of Russia marched to meet his old friend,
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  Speaker 1: whom it is true he had forsaken and almost betrayed.
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  Speaker 1: At Tilsit. Tears came into the eyes of the old
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  Speaker 1: king as he greeted Alexander. Wipe them, said he. They
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  Speaker 1: are the last tears that Napoleon will ever cause you
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  Speaker 1: to shed. The Prussian leader was Blucher, a rough old man,
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  Speaker 1: but brave and loving his country well, and loved by
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  Speaker 1: his men, who called him martial forwards. It was he who,
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  Speaker 1: after Yenna, held out longest against Napoleon, only surrendering when
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  Speaker 1: resistance was useless and hopeless. War lasted from April to October,
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  Speaker 1: but now Napoleon no longer won victory after victory as
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  Speaker 1: he used to do, and at last, at the Battle
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  Speaker 1: of Leipzig he was defeated on the sixteenth of October.
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  Speaker 1: The battle began on the nineteenth. Napoleon and his beaten
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  Speaker 1: army were streaming across the Elba, leaving behind them thousands dead,
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  Speaker 1: thousands more prisoners, besides hundreds of cannon stores and ammunition,
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  Speaker 1: and greatest of all, a mighty empire shattered and crumbling
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  Speaker 1: into dust without an army. Napoleon could not hold his
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  Speaker 1: vast conquests. Without an army, he could only be King
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  Speaker 1: of the French, and of all his great forces, only
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  Speaker 1: about forty thousand men hurried towards the borders of France.
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  Speaker 1: All over Europe, the nations now began to throw off
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  Speaker 1: French yoke. The Dutch and Germans tore the tricolor down,
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  Speaker 1: and once more their own standards floated out on the
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  Speaker 1: breeze everywhere. The German fortresses, which were held by French
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  Speaker 1: soldiers surrendered or were taken. On the nineteenth of November,
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  Speaker 1: Napoleon reached Paris, and here the Allies sent to him
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  Speaker 1: conditions of peace. Much that he had conquered was to
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  Speaker 1: be given back, but not all. The Rhine was still
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  Speaker 1: to be the boundary of France, Belgium, Savoy and Nice
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  Speaker 1: also were left to him. But Napoleon did not yet
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  Speaker 1: believe in his defeat. He would not give up any
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  Speaker 1: of his conquests. So the Allies marched into France, and
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  Speaker 1: another war began. The Allies fought not with France, they said,
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  Speaker 1: but with Napoleon. We thought to find peace before we
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  Speaker 1: touched your borders. Now we come to find it here.
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  Speaker 1: Many of the people of France had been weary of
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  Speaker 1: Napoleon and his wars, but now that the foe had
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  Speaker 1: marched into their beloved land, they rose to defend it.
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  Speaker 1: Napoleon once more prepared to take the field. On Sunday,
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  Speaker 1: twenty third January, he held a last and splendid reception
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  Speaker 1: and the tell us of the tuillery. When the courtiers
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  Speaker 1: were gathered, Napoleon walked into the hall with the Empress
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  Speaker 1: Marie Louise and his little son, now just three years old,
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  Speaker 1: Holding one by either hand. He turned to his court gentlemen.
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  Speaker 1: He said, France is invaded. I go to put myself
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  Speaker 1: at the head of the army. I leave to you
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  Speaker 1: that which I hold dearest, my wife and son. Two
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  Speaker 1: days later Napoleon said good bye to Marie Luis. They
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  Speaker 1: never saw each other again, for when Napoleon returned to Paris,
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  Speaker 1: his power was broken, and Marie Luis refused to share
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  Speaker 1: the fortunes of a fallen king. Never perhaps, and all
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  Speaker 1: his triumphant campaigns had Napoleon shown more his great genius
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  Speaker 1: as a soldier than he did now. Nearly always he
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  Speaker 1: had fought against armies smaller in numbers or less well
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  Speaker 1: drilled than his own. Now he had to fight agains
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  Speaker 1: against far greater numbers, and his soldiers were for the
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  Speaker 1: most part young and untrained. Yet still he wrung victories
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  Speaker 1: and triumphs from the foe. But at last, after the
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  Speaker 1: war had been flung this way and that, after marches
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  Speaker 1: and counter marches. After taking of towns and burning of villages,
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  Speaker 1: until some of the fairest provinces of France had become
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  Speaker 1: a desert, the allies began to march on Paris, round
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  Speaker 1: that fair city, which never since the days of the
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  Speaker 1: Maid of Orleans, had heard the shouts of a foreign foe.
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  Speaker 1: The horrors of war raged for one long day. Prussians,
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  Speaker 1: filled with bitter hate against their conqueror. Half savage Russians, Austrians, Dutch,
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  Speaker 1: people of every country which Napoleon had enslaved, surged in
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  Speaker 1: a red circle of fire and death about the city.
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  Speaker 1: Then it yielded. On the thirty first of March eighteen fourteen,
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  Speaker 1: the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia rode
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  Speaker 1: side by side into the city and passed through streets
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  Speaker 1: filled with people, some sullen and angry, others rejoicing as
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  Speaker 1: at a great deliverance and shouting, long live the Emperor Alexander,
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  Speaker 1: Long live the King of Prussia. Marie Louise had already fled,
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  Speaker 1: taking her little son with her. Napoleon, hurrying from the
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  Speaker 1: battlefields of Champagne, heard that the fight was over. On
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  Speaker 1: to Paris. He cried sire, it is too late, replied
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  Speaker 1: an officer. Paris has yielded. Napoleon had been emperor of
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  Speaker 1: half Europe. He had been made a king of kings,
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  Speaker 1: making and unmaking them at will. And a few years
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  Speaker 1: he had built up his mighty empire, and a few
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  Speaker 1: months he had lost it bit by bit, until now
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  Speaker 1: not even his own capital remained to him. There the
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  Speaker 1: Allies ruled, and on the second April eighteen fourteen, the
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  Speaker 1: Senate declared that Napoleon had ceased to reign. But still
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  Speaker 1: Napoleon did not believe that all was lost. At Fontainebleau,
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  Speaker 1: he reviewed his troops. His old guard men, who had
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  Speaker 1: been with him through every campaign, were still eager to
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  Speaker 1: fight for him. To Paris, To Paris, they shouted. But
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  Speaker 1: the officers were weary of at all. We have had
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  Speaker 1: enough of war, said one. Let us not begin a
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  Speaker 1: civil war. So at length, seeing no help for it,
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  Speaker 1: Napoleon wrote out and signed his abdication, that is the
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  Speaker 1: paper by which he gave up all claim to the
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  Speaker 1: crown of France. The Allied powers having been declared that
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  Speaker 1: the Emperor Napoleon is the only cause which py events.
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  Speaker 1: Peace being brought back to Europe. He faithful to his oaths,
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  Speaker 1: is ready to descend from the throne, to leave France,
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  Speaker 1: and even give up his life for the good of
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  Speaker 1: his country. On the twentieth of April, Napoleon said good
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  Speaker 1: bye to his troops in the courtyard of Fontainbleau. His
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  Speaker 1: men loved and admired him. Still, tears rolled down their
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  Speaker 1: bronze cheeks. Sobs choked them. I cannot embrace you all,
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  Speaker 1: he cried, But I embrace you in your general in
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  Speaker 1: putting his arms around him, he kissed him. He kissed
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  Speaker 1: the standard, too, the splendid Eagle of France, which had
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  Speaker 1: led them so often under the burning suns or cloudy skies,
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  Speaker 1: through parching heat of summer or the snows of winter.
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  Speaker 1: Then the fallen emperor stepped into his carriage and was
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  Speaker 1: whirled away southwards. He was an emperor still, for the
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  Speaker 1: Allies allowed him to keep his title, but his empire
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  Speaker 1: was only the little island of Elba. At first, as
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  Speaker 1: Napoleon drove through France, the people cheered him on his way.
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  Speaker 1: But as he went farther and farther south, where the
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  Speaker 1: people had never loved him and where they now hated him,
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  Speaker 1: he was greeted with curses fierce and loud. The peasants
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  Speaker 1: cared little for glory. They only knew that their sons
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  Speaker 1: and brothers and fathers had been taken from them, never
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  Speaker 1: to return. They knew that the vineyards were unfilled, and
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  Speaker 1: the fields of a barren waste, for the workers lay dead,
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  Speaker 1: and many a distant land. So they cursed the man
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  Speaker 1: whose pride had brought such sorrow and poverty upon them.
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  Speaker 1: At last, the anger and hatred of the people grew
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  Speaker 1: so great that Napoleon was forced to disguise himself as
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  Speaker 1: an Austrian officer to save himself from their fury. And
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  Speaker 1: thus he fled southwards until he reached the shore, and
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  Speaker 1: there set sail for Elba. Although the peasants of France
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  Speaker 1: had cursed Napoleon as he passed, the people of Velba
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  Speaker 1: welcomed him gladly. And here for a little time the
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  Speaker 1: great Emperor played at empire. His empire was not more
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  Speaker 1: than ninety square miles in extent, but here Napoleon had
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  Speaker 1: his little army of a few hundred men. Here he
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  Speaker 1: held court with as great state and ceremony as in
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  Speaker 1: the Tuillery. Even though his palace was little more than
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  Speaker 1: an ordinary country house. End of Chapter nine.