Europe in his hands.

Then various episodes of his marvellous career pass before us. Our eyes
fall on the name Austerlitz down in the mosaic of the crypt. The Emperor
of France has marched into Moravia and drawn up his legions under the
golden eagles. A distant echo seems to sound round the crypt--it is
Napoleon's cavalry riding down the Russian guards, it is the "grand
army" annihilating the Austrian and Russian forces, it is the French
artillery pounding the ice on the lake and drowning the fugitives, their
guns and horses.

A murmur passes through the crypt, an echo from the battle of Jena,
where Prussia was crushed, its territory devastated from the Elbe to the
Oder, and its fortresses surrendered, Erfurt, Magdeburg, Stettin,
Luebeck, while the victor made his entry into Frederick the Great's
capital, Berlin. We hear the tread of the columns and the tramp of
horses through the mud on the roads in Poland, and we see the bloody
battlefields of Pultusk, east of the Vistula, and Eylau in West Prussia,
where heaps of bodies lie scattered over the deep snow. We see Napoleon
on his white horse after the battle of Friedland in East Prussia, where
the Russians were defeated. The guards and hussars rode through them
with drawn swords. Their enthusiastic cry of "Long live the Emperor"
still vibrates under the standards round the sarcophagus; and above the
shouts of victory the beat of horse hoofs is heard on the roads of
Europe; it is the courier between the headquarters of the army and
Paris.

The conqueror marches to Vienna, and threatens to crush Austria. He
gains the bloody battle of Wagram, north-east of Vienna, he wipes out
states and makes them dependencies of France and their rulers his
obedient vassals, and he gives away royal crowns to his relations and
generals. His dominion extends from Danzig to Cadiz, from the mouth of
the Elbe to the Tiber; he has risen to a height of power and glory never
attained since the golden age of Rome.

Bayonets and sabres, cuirasses and helmets flash in the sunlight as the
invincible army camps with band and music and song above the Niemen.
Half a million of soldiers are on their way to the old capital of
Russia, Moscow. The Russian roads from Vilna to Vitebsk are full of
endless lines of troops, squadrons of cavalry in close formation, and
enormous baggage trains. The Russians know that their freedom is in
danger; they burn their own towns and villages, devastate their own
provi