Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder by Honoré de Balzac;Alexander Amphiteatrof
page 46 of 48 (95%)
page 46 of 48 (95%)
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he was more than man: he found himself immortal. As he felt sure of his
business after that, and knew that he was to be Emperor always, he went to a certain island for a while, to study the natures of those people in Paris, who did not fail, of course, to do stupid things without end. While he was standing guard down there, the Chinese and those animals on the coast of Africa--Moors and others, who are not at all easy to get along with--were so sure that he was something more than man that they respected his tent, and said that to touch it would be to offend God. So he reigned over the whole world, although those other fellows had sent him out of France. Well, then, after a while he embarked again in the very same nut-shell of a boat that he had left Egypt in, passed right under the bows of the English vessels, and set foot once more in France. France acknowledged him; the sacred cuckoo flew from spire to spire; and all the people cried, "Long live the Emperor!" In this vicinity the enthusiasm for the Wonder of the Ages was most hearty. Dauphiny behaved well; and it pleased me particularly to know that our own people here wept for joy when they saw again his gray coat. On the 1st of March Napoleon landed, with two hundred men, to conquer the kingdom of France and Navarre; and on the 20th of the same month that kingdom became the French Empire. On that day THE MAN was in Paris. He had made a clean sweep--had reconquered his dear France, and had brought all his old soldiers together again by saying only three words: "Here I am." 'Twas the greatest miracle God had ever worked. Did ever a man, before him, take an empire by merely showing his hat? They thought that France was crushed, did they? Not a bit of it! At sight of the |
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