They knew that it was the oligarchy that feared and detested him.  It has been said that even His Royal Highness would have granted hospitality, and it would have saved the nation over which he ruled the blight of eternal execrations had he been strong enough to stand against the blundering decision of a revengeful Ministry.

No impartial student of the part played by Napoleon during twenty years of warfare will deny that the institutions he founded, the laws that he made, and his mode of government wherever established, were beneficent, and entirely aimed at the adjustment of inequalities that had culminated in a great national uprising.  His dictatorship was wielded with a wholesome discipline without unnecessarily using the lash.  He had no cut-and-dried maxim of dealing with unruly people, but his awful power made them feel that he distinguished between eternal justice and tyranny.  He knew, and he made everybody else know, that under the circumstances too much liberty would be like poison to some people.  When he said, “No more of this,” the aggressors realised that the doctrine of fraternity as they understood it must not be stretched further.

Notwithstanding his methods of reproof and restraint, he was idolised by the masses, even by those he led his armies against and so often conquered.  Even in our own country, where enmity against him was assiduously nursed by the press and other agencies, there was an important section who believed we were putting our money on the wrong horse.  This idea was not confined to the poorer classes.  Many of our best and wisest statesmen were strongly opposed to this policy of hostility against him.

He had starved in the streets of Paris, sold his precious books and other belongings to provide the means of buying bread to sustain himself and his much beloved brother Louis, who in after years behaved to him with base ingratitude.  He suffered dreadful privations during the keen frosty nights, owing to the want of fire, light, and sometimes sufficient clothing.  No wonder that he thought of ending his woes by plunging into the Seine.

But a glimmering of light came and lifted him out of a numbing despair.  He was made to see in his hour of trial that lassitude must cease, and that he was meant for other things, and in order to accomplish them he must be strong and audacious.  Fate, fortune, and a mysterious Providence found in him an indomitable chief whose genius was intended to change the face of Europe.  Like all big men who spring from obscurity and the deadliness of poverty, and are launched on the scene to create order out of tumult and chaos, his enemies, in the nature of things, were both numerous and prolific.  At the outset he adopted the method he so often thundered into his soldiers when on the eve of battle, viz.:  “You must not fear Death, my lads.  Defy him, and you drive him into the enemy’s ranks.”