ll not conquer long. He is
altogether too brave; because he fears neither others nor himself. He
thinks he will keep from pity, and does not know that pity, in the
human heart, is stronger than all else, and that not a man living is
wholly without it."

"But," the archangels say, "he is not a man; he is made of sand."

The Lord God replies: "Then you think he didn't receive a soul when my
water of life fell on his head?"

Napoleonder at once gathered together a great army speaking twelve
languages, and went forth to war. He conquered the Germans, he conquered
the Turks, he subdued the Swedes and the Poles. He reaped as he marched,
and left bare the country through which he passed. And all the time he
remembers the condition of success--pity for none. He cuts off heads,
burns villages, outrages women, and tramples children under his horses'
hoofs. He desolates the whole Mohammedan kingdom--and still he is not
sated. Finally he marches on a Christian country--on Holy Russia.

In Russia then the Tsar was Alexander the Blessed--the same Tsar who
stands now on the top of the column in Petersburg-town and blesses the
people with a cross, and that's why he is called "the Blessed."

When he saw Napoleonder marching against him with twelve languages,
Alexander the Blessed felt that the end of Russia was near. He called
together his generals and field-marshals, and said to them: "Messrs.
Generals and Field-marshals, how can I check this Napoleonder? He is
pressing us terribly hard."

The generals and field-marshals reply: "We can't do anything, your
Majesty, to stop Napoleonder, because God has given him a word."

"What kind of a word?"

"This kind: 'Bonaparty.'"

"But what does 'Bonaparty' mean, and why is a single word so terrible?"

"It means, your Majesty, six hundred and sixty-six--the number of the
Beast [Footnote 3: A reference to the Beast of the Apocalypse. "The
number of the beast is the number of a man: and his number is Six
hundred threescore and six" (Rev. xiii. 18).]; and it is terrible
because when Napoleonder sees, in a battle, that the enemy is very
brave, that his own strength is not enough, and that his own men are
falling fast [Footnote 4: Literally, "lying down with their bones."], he
immediately conjures with this same word, 'Bonaparty,' and at that
instant--as soon as the word is pronounced--all the soldiers that have
ever served under him and have died for him on the field of battle come
back f