Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder by Honoré de Balzac;Alexander Amphiteatrof
page 47 of 48 (97%)
Eagle a national army sprang up, and we all marched to Waterloo. There
the Guard perished, as if stricken down at a single blow. Napoleon, in
despair, threw himself three times, at the head of his troops, on the
enemy's cannon, without being able to find death. The battle was lost.

That evening the Emperor called his old soldiers together, and, on the
field wet with our blood, burned his eagles and his flags. The poor
eagles, who had always been victorious, who had cried "Forward!" in all
our battles, and who had flown over all Europe, were saved from the
disgrace of falling into the hands of their enemies. All the treasure of
England couldn't buy the tail of one of them. They were no more!

The rest of the story is well known to everybody. The Red Man went over
to the Bourbons, like the scoundrel that he is; France was crushed; and
the old soldiers, who were no longer of any account, were deprived of
their dues and sent back to their homes, in order that their places
might be given to a lot of nobles who couldn't even march--it was
pitiful to see them try! Then Napoleon was seized, through treachery,
and the English nailed him to a rock, ten thousand feet above the earth,
on a desert island in the great ocean. There he must stay until the Red
Man, for the good of France, gives him back his power. It is said by
some that he is dead. Oh, yes! Dead! That shows how little they know
him! They only tell that lie to cheat the people and keep peace in their
shanty of a government. The truth of the matter is that his friends have
left him there in the desert to fulfil a prophecy that was made about
him--for I have forgotten to tell you that the name Napoleon really
means "Lion of the Desert."

This that I have told you is gospel truth; and all the other things that
you hear about the Emperor are foolish stories with no human likeliness.
DigitalOcean Referral Badge