the English, who were blockading the
coast with ships of the line, frigates, and every sort of craft that
could carry sail, and in the twinkling of an eye he was in France;
because he had the ability to cross the sea as if with a single stride.
Was that natural? Bah! The very minute he reached Frejus, he had his
foot, so to speak, in Paris. There, of course, everybody worships him.
But the first thing he does is to summon the government. "What have you
been doing with my children the soldiers?" he said to the lawyers. "You
are nothing but a lot of poll-parrots, who fool the people with your
gabble, and feather your own nests at the expense of France. It is not
right; and I speak in the name of all who are dissatisfied."

They thought, at first, that they could get rid of him by talking him
to death; but it didn't work. He shut 'em up in the very barrack where
they did their talking, and those who didn't jump out of the windows he
enrolled in his suite, where they soon became mute as fish and pliable
as a tobacco-pouch. This coup made him consul; and as he wasn't one to
doubt the Supreme Being who had kept good faith with him, he hastened to
fulfil his own promise by restoring the churches and reestablishing
religion; whereupon the bells all rang out in his honor and in honor of
the good God.

Everybody then was satisfied: first, the priests, because they were
protected from persecution; second, the merchants, because they could do
business without fearing the "we-grab-it-all" of the law; and finally
the nobles, because the people were forbidden to put them to death, as
they had formerly had the unfortunate habit of doing.

But Napoleon still had his enemies to clear away, and he was not a man
to drop asleep over his porringer. His eye took in the whole world--as
if it were no bigger than a soldier's head. The first thing he did was
to turn up in Italy--as suddenly as if he had poked his head through a
window; and one look from him was enough. The Austrians were swallowed
up at Marengo as gudgeons are swallowed by a whale. Then the French
VICTORY sang a song of triumph that all the world could hear, and it was
enough. "We won't play any more!" declared the Germans.

"Nor we either," said the others.

Sum total: Europe is cowed; England knuckles down; and there is
universal peace, with all the kings and people pretending to embrace one
another.

It was then that Napoleon established the Legion of Honor; and a fine