ope.
Ney, at the head of the National Guards, ever before victorious, was
compelled to beat a hasty retreat, glad to escape with the smallest
remnant of his host. Napoleon failed here because God had given him no
mission to perform in that territory.

Concerning his ambition, the Encyclopaedia Britannica says: "With a frame
of iron, Napoleon could endure any hardships; and in war, in artillery
especially and engineering, he stands unrivalled in the world's
history.... He could not rest, and knew not when he had achieved
success.... He succeeded in alienating the peoples of Europe, in whose
behalf he pretended to be acting. And when they learned by bitter
experience that he had absolutely no love for liberty, and encouraged
equality only so long as it was an equality of subjects under his rule,
they soon began to war against what was in fact a world-destroying
military despotism." He was inspired with the most unbounded ambition,
which was nothing short of despotism over all Europe, if not the world.
Universal empire was his grand object, or, as it has been expressed by
historians, a desire to concentrate "the world in Europe--Europe in
France--France in Paris--Paris in _himself_." Says Wickes: "The empire
which he actually reared in Europe was a vast, oppressive, centralized
despotism.... To build it up, he desolated France through his terrible
conscriptions, requiring the whole strength and flower of the nation to
supply his armies. It is stated that after the wars of Napoleon there
were three times the number of women in France that there were of men.
The fathers, the husbands, the sons, the brothers, had fallen upon the
battle-field, and thus desolated almost every household in the kingdom.
Similar desolation also he carried by his wars into the other kingdoms."

The dread of Napoleon settled down upon all the nations of Europe. They
could not cope with his mighty genius, and therefore his presence was a
terror to them. When the allied powers secured his first abdication, in
1814, and sent him to the island of Elba, the desolating results of his
long career were shown in the work that the Congress of Vienna was
called upon to perform when it assembled in the fall of 1814. While the
representatives of the powers were laboring to repair the damage that
had been wrought and to adjust the territorial limitations of the
various nations that had been altered or entirely demolished, the
assemblage was suddenly surprised th