was biding his time, the Chinese and the brutes out in Africa, the
Moors and what-not, awkward customers all of them, were so convinced
that he was something more than mortal, that they respected his flag,
saying that God would be displeased if any one meddled with it. So he
reigned over all the rest of the world, although the doors of his own
France had been closed upon him.

Then he goes on board the same nutshell of a skiff that he sailed in
from Egypt, passes under the noses of the English vessels, and sets
foot in France. France recognizes her Emperor, the cuckoo flits from
steeple to steeple; France cries with one voice, "Long live the
Emperor!" The enthusiasm for that Wonder of the Ages was thoroughly
genuine in these parts. Dauphine behaved handsomely; and I was
uncommonly pleased to learn that people here shed tears of joy on
seeing his gray overcoat once more.

It was on March 1st that Napoleon set out with two hundred men to
conquer the kingdom of France and Navarre, which by March 20th had
become the French Empire again. On that day he found himself in Paris,
and a clean sweep had been made of everything; he had won back his
beloved France, and had called all his soldiers about him again, and
three words of his had done it all--"Here am I!" 'Twas the greatest
miracle God ever worked! Was it ever known in the world before that a
man should do nothing but show his hat, and a whole Empire became his?
They fancied that France was crushed, did they? Never a bit of it. A
National Army springs up again at the sight of the Eagle, and we all
march to Waterloo. There the Guard fall all as one man. Napoleon in
his despair heads the rest, and flings himself three times on the
enemy's guns without finding the death he sought; we all saw him do
it, we soldiers, and the day was lost! That night the Emperor calls