h a
reflection of the years of glory.

Unconsciously we listen for an echo of the clash of arms and the words
of command. We seem to see a blue-eyed boy playing at his mother's knee
at Ajaccio in Corsica; we seem to hear a youthful revolutionist, burning
with enthusiasm, making fiery speeches at secret clubs in Paris. Pale
and solemn, the shade of the twenty-six-year-old general floats before
our mind's eye as he returns from a series of victories in northern
Italy, where he rushed like a storm over the plains of Lombardy, made a
triumphal entry into Milan, and for ever removed the ancient republic of
Venice from the list of independent States.

We recall the campaign of the French army against Egypt and the Holy
Land. Napoleon takes his fleet out from the harbour of Toulon, escapes
Nelson's ships of the line and frigates, seizes Malta, sails to the
north of Crete and west of Cyprus, and lands 40,000 men at Alexandria.
The soldiers languish in the desert sands on the way to Cairo, they
approach the Nile to give battle to the Egyptian army, and at the foot
of the pyramids the East is defeated by the West. The march is continued
eastwards to Syria. Five centuries have passed since the crusaders
attempted to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of unbelievers. Now
again the weapons of Western lands clash in the valley of the Jordan
and at the foot of Mount Tabor, and now the French General obtains a
victory over the Turks outside Nazareth. In the meantime, however,
Nelson has annihilated his fleet. The flower of the republican army is
doomed to perish, and Napoleon's dream of an oriental dominion has
vanished with the smoke of the last camp fire. He leaves Egypt with two
frigates, sails along the coasts of Tripoli and Tunis, and passes at
night with extinguished lights through the channel between Africa and
Sicily.

Again our eyes turn to the dim light under the cupola of the Invalides,
and the marble columns and statues look white as snow. Then our thoughts
wander off to the Alps, the Great St. Bernard, the St. Gotthard, Mont
Cenis, and the Simplon, where the First Consul, like Hannibal before
him, with four army corps bids defiance to the loftiest mountains of
Europe. We seem to see the soldiers dragging the cannon through the
frozen drifts and collecting together again on the Italian side. At
Marengo, south of the Po, a new victory is added to the French laurels,
and the most powerful man in France has the fate of