NAPOLEON AND HIS CONNECTION WITH THE WORLD-WAR (1914-1918)

NAPOLEON’S FAREWELL FROM THE FRENCH

    Farewell to the Land, where the gloom of my Glory
    Arose and o’ershadowed the earth with her name—­
    She abandons me now—­but the page of her story,
    The brightest or blackest, is fill’d with my fame. 
    I have warred with a world which vanquished me only
    When the meteor of conquest allured me too far;
    I have coped with the nations which dread me thus lonely,
    The last single Captive to millions in war.

    Farewell to thee, France! when thy diadem crown’d me,
    I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth,
    But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee,
    Decay’d in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth. 
    Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted
    In strife with the storm, when their battles were won—­
    Then the Eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted,
    Had still soar’d with eyes fixed on victory’s sun!

    Farewell to thee, France!—­but when Liberty rallies
    Once more in thy regions, remember me then,—­
    The violet still grows in the depths of thy valleys;
    Though wither’d, thy tears will unfold it again—­
    Yet, yet, I may baffle the hosts that surround us,
    And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice—­
    There are links which must break in the chain that has bound us,
    Then turn thee and call on the Chief of thy choice!

I

Napoleon, when at the height of his fame, was looked upon by the European Powers as a man whose lust of conquest was a terrible menace to all constituted authority.  The oligarchies thought themselves bound to combine against him in order to reseat the Bourbons on the throne of France and restore law and order to that distracted country.  What a travesty of the actual facts!

The people of France had risen against the tyranny and oppression of the French kings and nobles, and out of the welter of the Revolution Napoleon rose to power and, by his magnetic personality, welded the chaotic elements into unity, framed laws which are still in operation, and led his country to wonderful heights of glory.

Well may the crowned heads of Europe have feared this man, whose genius put all their mediocre and unenlightened achievements in the shade.  Had they been blessed with the same vision as he, they would not have opposed but co-operated with him, by introducing into their own constitutions saner laws such as some of those in the Code Napoleon.  But instead of this, they began a campaign of Press vilification, and Napoleon’s every act was held up as the deed of a monster of iniquity.  Plots, open and secret, to dethrone him were continually in progress, only to be frustrated by the genius of the man of the people.