aiser had sent out a
proclamation that he was not at war with the British nation, but with
their King and Government! Suppose he had committed the same act of
arrogance towards the President of the United States, the revulsion of
feeling would be irrepressible in every part of the world.

We recognize at the same time that Napoleon's position was made
insecure by an important element of his own countrymen, composed of
the Bourbons and their supporters, who never ceased to intrigue for
their return. Besides, there was a strong Republican element who never
forgave him for allowing himself to become Emperor. But the most
serious defection was that of some of his most important Generals,
amongst whom were Marmont and Bertheur. The former subsequently
became the military tutor of his son, the King of Rome, who died at
Schonbrunn on the 22nd July, 1832, eleven years after his father's
death at St. Helena.

A notable fact is that there were very few of his common soldiers and
common people who did not stand by him to the last, and who would not
have continued the struggle under his trusted and revered generalship,
had he elected to fight on. He implored the Provisional Government to
give their sanction to this, and had they done so, he has stated that
he could have kept the Allies at bay and would have ultimately made
them sue for peace. Most authorities declare that this would have been
impossible, but his genius as a tactician was so prodigious and
unrivalled, his art of enthusing his soldiers so vastly superior to
that of any general that could be brought against him, his knowledge
of the country on which he might select to give battle so matchless
that one has substantial grounds for believing that his assertion was
more than a mere flash of imagination, and that even with the
shattered, loyal portion of his army, he might have succeeded in
changing defeat into a victory which would have changed the whole
political position of Europe. He frequently reverted to his last
campaign and his last battle at Waterloo, when he was in captivity at
St. Helena, and declared he should never have lost it, as his plan of
battle at every point was never better devised, and that by all the
arts of war he ought to have defeated the Allies; then he would lapse
into sadness and soliloquize, "It must have been fate."

In the effort to crush a cause and a nation which had been brought out
of the depths of anarchy and raised to the zenith of