NAPOLEON 



NAPOLEON 111 



countermined by him and his 

 police ; and the result was the cap- 

 ture of the chief plotters. The 

 obsequious senate begged him to 

 re-establish hereditary rule, in order 

 " to defend public liberty, and 

 maintain equality." In Aug., 1802, 

 he had secured the consulate for 

 life, with power to name his suc- 

 cessor. On May 1 8, 1 804, he became 

 emperor of the French, and the 

 coronation ceremony at Notre 

 Dame on Dec. 2, at which the pope 

 poured on the holy oil, showed that 

 all the splendour and prestige of 

 the old monarchy was to reappear. 

 The last traces of the republican 

 constitution soon vanished. These 

 last successes of the autocrat were 

 due to his military triumphs in 

 the war which broke out, first with 

 England, in May, 1803, and with 

 Austria and Russia in the summer 

 of 1805. The struggle with Britain 

 in 1803-5 was entirely naval, end- 

 ing at Trafalgar. 



The years between 1805 and 1815 

 were passed mainly in warfare. 

 Having received the surrender of 

 Mack and 70,000 Austrians at Ulm, 

 Napoleon occupied Vienna, and 

 gained his greatest victory at 

 Austerlitz. He then bestowed the 

 title of king on some of his South 

 German allies, declared the Holy 

 Roman Empire at an end, and 

 formed the confederation of the 

 Rhine. Prussia rushed to arms in 

 Sept., 1806, only to be utterly over- 

 thrown at Jena and Auerstadt, 

 Oct. 14, 1806. When the tsar 

 Alexander I came to her assist- 

 ance, the Allies were completely 

 routed at Friedland, June 14, 1807. 

 The Disaster of 1812 



Master of Central and Western 

 Europe, Napoleon now imposed 

 his brother, Joseph, on the throne 

 of Spain ; Britain espoused the 

 cause of the Portuguese and 

 Spanish patriots, and, in the cam- 

 paigns of 1808-13, Wellington 

 struggled bravely against the 

 armies hurled at him by Napoleon. 

 Thenceforth the Russians and 

 Germans took hope ; and in 1812 

 Napoleon met with his great disas- 

 ter in Russia. 



The remainder of his story must 

 be briefly told. In succession 

 Prussia and Austria rose up 

 against him, and the campaign of 

 1813 resulted in his expulsion 

 from Germany. Wellington, with 

 British, Spanish, and Portuguese 

 troops, made swift progress in the 

 S., while in the E. the masses of the 

 Allies closed in on Paris. They 

 occupied Paris, and his own mar- 

 shals and generals finally compelled 

 him to abdicate in favour of his 

 son, Napoleon II, who never 

 reigned. While the fallen emperor 

 retired to Elba, the child and his 



mother, Marie Louise of Austria, 

 married to him after he had 

 divorced Josephine at the close of 

 1810, came under the influence of 

 the Hapsburg court. 



The disputes of the powers over 

 the spoils of conquest gave to 

 Napoleon one more chance. He 

 escaped from Elba in Feb., 1815, 

 landed at Antibes, and in a few 

 days entered Paris in triumph ; his 

 rival, Louis XVIII, fled into 

 Belgium. But France was resolved 

 to accept Napoleon only as a 

 constitutional monarch, and the 

 powers declared him an outlaw for 

 disturbing the peace of Europe. 

 The emperor's abdication followed 

 Waterloo within a week, and, his 

 effort to escape to America having 

 failed, he surrendered to the British 

 government, which sent him to 

 St. Helena. 



His last years were spent there 

 with a few chosen comrades, whom 

 he entertained with his unfailing 

 flow of conversation, often captious 

 and querulous, but always brilliant. 

 He also compiled Memoirs and 

 Notes of much interest but of 

 doubtful veracity. Quarrels with Sir 

 Hudson Lowe were often pushed to 

 unreal and undignified extremes. 

 Why Napoleon Failed 



We are now able to see that 

 amidst transcendent qualities there 

 were mingled pettier traits a 

 devouring egotism, a hard view of 

 lite as a series of calculations and 

 chances ; above all a profound 

 contempt for the average man, and 

 a disbelief both in religion and in 

 the higher possibilities of progress 

 of the human race. His mechanical 

 view of life, abundantly proved in 

 Gourgaud's Journal, reveals the 

 inner reason why he failed to rise 

 to the full height of that unparal- 

 leled opportunity offered by the 

 years that followed the French 

 Revolution. On May 5, 1821, 

 Napoleon died at St. Helena. In 

 1840 his remains were taken to 

 France and laid in a magnificent 

 tomb in the Hotel des Invalides. 

 See Arcola ; Art , Caricature ; 

 Cenis ; Invalides ; Longwood, etc. 



Bibliography. Napoleon at St. 

 Helena, 2 vols., B. E. O'Meara.1888 ; 

 Histoire de Napoleon, 5 vols., P. 

 Lanfrey, Eng. trans. 1894; Studies 

 in Napoleonic Statesmanship, H. A. 

 L. Fisher, 1903 ; Napoleon, the 

 Last Phase, Lord Rosebery, 1904 ; 

 Life of Napoleon, J. H. Rose, 1907 ; 

 Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, W. M. 

 Sloane, 1910 ; Life of Napoleon 

 Bonaparte, I. M. Tarbell, 1911 ; 

 Personality of Napoleon, J. H. Rose, 

 1912 ; Napoleon Bonaparte, H. A. 

 L. Fisher, 1913; The Man Napoleon, 

 W. H. Hudson, 1914; Napoleon and 

 Waterloo, 2 vols., A. F. Becke, 

 1914 ; Napoleon I, A. Fournier, new 

 ed. 1915 ; Napoleon, H. F. B. 

 Wheeler, new ed. 1921. 



Napoleon III, 

 French emperor 



Napoleon II. Title given by 

 French imperialists to the only 

 son of Napoleon I, better known 

 as the duke of Reichstadt (q.v.). 



Napoleon III (1808-73). Em- 

 peror of the French. Charles Louis 

 Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 

 Paris, April 20, 

 1808, the third 

 son of Louis 

 Bonaparte, by 

 Mortens e, 

 daughter o f 

 Josephine, and 

 was thus 

 nephew to 

 Napoleon I. 

 On the fall of 

 the empire 

 Hortense took her sons into exile. 

 His elder brothers' having died, 

 the death of the duke of Reich- 

 stadt in 1832 made Charles Louis, 

 or Louis Napoleon as he was now 

 styled, head of the Bonapartes. 

 Fostering the Napoleonic legend 

 in France by a series of pamphlets 

 and secret machinations, he or- 

 ganized a mutiny at Strasbourg in 

 1836, on the failure of which he 

 fled to New York, only to return 

 the following year to Switzerland. 

 In 1838 he moved to London, find 

 in 1840 risked a landing at Bou- 

 logne, but was arrested and sent 

 to the fortress of Ham. 



Making his escape from Ham 

 in 1846, Louis Napoleon went to 

 London, where he remained until 

 the revolution of 1848. He then 

 began to reap the fruits of his long 

 years of conspiracy and propa- 

 ganda. Elected a member of the 

 republican assembly in June, he 

 was elected president on Dec. 10 by 

 a majority of five to one. On Dec. 

 2, 1851, he effected the coup d'etat. 

 From the 10 years' presidency con- 

 ferred on him by plebiscite, it was 

 an easy step to the imperial throne, 

 which he ascended Dec. 1, 1852. 



The following year Napoleon 

 married Eugenie de Montijo, and es- 

 tablished a court which has seldom 

 been surpassed for its splendour 

 and extravagance. He joined Eng- 

 land hi the Crimean War, 1854-56 ; 

 he assisted Piedmont to turn the 

 Austrians out of N. Italy in 1859, 

 and gratified French ambition by 

 obtaining Savoy and Nice. Mean- 

 while things were going from 

 bad to worse. The enmity of the 

 Roman Catholics after his inter- 

 ference in Italy, his failure to 

 establish a Latin empire in Mexico, 

 the increasing hostility of Bis- 

 marck, and the necessity of es- 

 tablishing the empire on a firmer 

 foundation than that of popular 

 applause, perplexed Napoleon, who 

 behind his mask of inscrutability 

 was weak and undecided. It was 

 with half-hearted desperation that 



