Chapter II: I. the Snow-Shoes (2)

Ellen was the only person who had any influence over Rodolphus, and she had not a great deal. She was, however, herself a great help and a great source of comfort to her mother. As soon as she came home, she began in a very modest and unassuming manner, to introduce the system and order which had prevailed in her aunt's household, into that of her mother. She began with Annie's and Rodolphus' playthings, which, when she first came home, were scattered all over the house in disorder and confusion. She collected these playthings all together, repaired the books which were damaged, mended the broken toys, and arranged them all neatly upon a shelf which her mother allowed her to use for the purpose. Then she gradually put the rooms in the house in order, one after another. She drove up nails in convenient places, to hang implements and utensils upon. She induced Rodolphus to put the yard and the grounds about the house in order. Every useless thing that would burn, was put upon the wood-pile, and all other rubbish cleared away. She planted the seeds of climbing plants about the gateways, and near the windows of the house, and in one corner she made a very pretty trellis, by tying poles together with a kind of very flexible wire called binding wire. Antonio showed her how to do it. In fact, by means of what Ellen did, the house was in a very few months entirely transformed, and became one of the neatest and pleasantest cottages in all the town; and she and her mother and Annie would have lived together very happily in it, had it not been for the anxiety and trouble which Rodolphus gave them.

One day Antonio, who often came to Mrs. Linn's to see if there was any thing he could do for the family, and who had often talked with Rodolphus about the evil of his ways, drove up to the gate in a wagon, and proposed to Rodolphus to go and take a ride with him.

"Yes," said Rodolphus, "I will go."

"Go and ask your mother first," said Antonio.

"Oh, she will let me go, I know," said Rodolphus, coming at the same time toward the wagon.

"Go and ask her," said Antonio.

So Rodolphus went and asked his mother, and she gave him leave. He then ran back to the wagon, climbed up into it, and took his seat by the side of Antonio.

In the course of this ride, Antonio had a long and plain conversation with Rodolphus about his evil course of life, and the sorrows and sufferings to which it would lead him, and in which it would involve his mother and sister, if he went on as he had begun. He told him, however, that if on the other hand he would make a change, if he would obey his mother, and go regularly to school, and keep away from bad company, and become industrious and honest, he would grow up to be a useful and respectable man, and would make himself and all around him happy.

Rodolphus heard what Antonio said, patiently and attentively through to the end, and then said,

"Yes, Beechnut, my sister Ellen told me that very same thing, and I have tried to be a better boy, very hard indeed, but I can't."

However, notwithstanding this, Rodolphus promised Antonio that he would try once more, and for several days after this conversation he was a much better boy. He went to school regularly and was more willing to help his mother and Ellen about the house. This lasted for about a week.

At the end of that time he was one evening working with Ellen in the garden, about sunset, when he heard a sound near him by a wall. There was an old stone wall on that side of the garden, with bushes which grew upon the outside rising above it. Rodolphus looked up when he heard the noise, and saw a boy's head just over the wall at an opening among the bushes. The boy held his finger to his lips in token of silence and secrecy, pointing very quickly to Ellen, whose face at that instant was turned the other way, so that she did not see him; he then dropped down behind the wall out of sight again.

Rodolphus knew that the boy wished to speak to him, and that he was prevented from doing so because Ellen was there.

Accordingly a moment afterward, Rodolphus told Ellen that she had better go in, and that he would finish the rest of the work and come in presently with the tools. Ellen thanked Rodolphus for what she supposed was his disinterested kindness, and went in.

As soon as Rodolphus was alone, the boy's head appeared above the wall again.

"She's gone at last," said he. "I thought she never _would_ go." The boy then seemed to rise higher, as if he were stepping up upon a stone outside the wall. He held out his hand toward Rodolphus, saying, "See there!"

Rodolphus looked, and saw that he had three half dollars in his hand.

"Where did you get that money?" said Rodolphus.

"Ah!" said the boy, winking, and looking very mysterious, "don't you wish you knew! You'd like to find the nest that has such eggs as those in it, wouldn't you? Well, I'll tell you all about it to-night. Come out here after nine o'clock. I will be here to meet you. We have got plenty of money and we're going to have a good time."

Soon after this Rodolphus carried his tools to the shed, and went in to his supper. About eight o'clock it became dark, and at half-past eight, Rodolphus said that he felt rather tired and he believed that he would go to bed. Feeling guilty and self-condemned as he did, he appeared absent-minded and dejected, and Ellen was anxious about him. She was afraid that he was going to be sick. She lighted the lamp for him, and went up with him to his room and did all that she could to make him comfortable. At length she bade him good-night and went away.

The place where Rodolphus slept was in a little corner of an attic by a great chimney. The place had been partitioned off, and there was a door leading into it. This door had a hasp on the inside. There was also a small window which opened out upon the roof of a shed. It was a pretty long step from the window down to the roof of the shed, but yet Rodolphus had often got down there, although his mother had repeatedly forbidden him ever to do so.

As soon as Ellen was gone, Rodolphus fastened the door and then waited a little while till all was still. Then he opened the window very gently and crept out. He put out his light the last thing before he got out of the window, and crept down upon the roof of the shed. He stopped here to listen. All was still. He walked softly, with his shoes in his hand, down to the lower edge of the roof, and there he got down to the ground by means of a fence which joined the shed at one corner there.

Rodolphus found the boys waiting for him beyond the garden wall. He went away with them and spent the night in carousals and wickedness, under a barn in a solitary place. About one o'clock he came back to the house. He climbed up the fence and got upon the shed. He crept along the shed softly, with his shoes in his hand as before, and got into his window. When in, he shut down the window, undressed himself, and went to bed.

And this was the end of all Rodolphus's resolutions to reform.

IV. CRIME.

Rodolphus went on in the evil way which we described, for some time, and at length he became so disorderly in his conduct and so troublesome, and caused his mother so much anxiety and care, that she finally concluded to follow the advice which all the neighbors had very frequently given her, and bind the boy out to some master to learn a trade. As soon as she had decided upon this course, she asked the assistance of Mr. Randon, to find a good place. Mr. Randon made a great many inquiries but he could not find any place that would do, in Franconia; all the persons to whom he applied in the village declined taking Rodolphus, giving various reasons for their refusals. Some did not want any new apprentice, some had other boys in view that they were going to apply to. Some said that Rodolphus was too old, others that he was too young. Mr. Randon thought that the real reason probably was, in a great many of these cases, that the men did not like Rodolphus's character. In fact, one man to whom he made application, after listening attentively to Mr. Randon, until he came to mention the name of the boy, said,

"What! Rodolphus Linn. Is it Rodolphus Linn?"

"Yes," said Mr. Randon.

"Hoh!" said the man. "I would not have Rodolphus Linn in my shop for a hundred dollars a year."

At last, however, Mr. Randon found in another town, about twenty-five miles from Franconia, a man who kept a livery stable, that said he wanted a boy. This man's name was Kerber. Mr. Kerber said that if Rodolphus was a stout and able-bodied boy, he would take him. Mr. Randon said that Rodolphus was stout enough, but he frankly told Mr. Kerber that the boy was rather rude and unmanageable. "I'll take care of that," said Mr. Kerber. "All I want is to have him _able_ to do his duty. If he is only able to do it, you need not fear but that I'll find ways and means of seeing that it is done."

Mr. Randon thought from this conversation, and from other indications, that Mr. Kerber was a very harsh man, and he thought that Rodolphus might be likely to have a hard time if apprenticed to him. He concluded, therefore, that before making his report to Mrs. Linn, he would make some further inquiry. He found at last another man in the same town with Mr. Kerber, who was willing to take Rodolphus. This man was a carpenter. The carpenter was a man of quiet and gentle spirit, and he bore a most excellent character among his neighbors. At first, the carpenter was unwilling to take Rodolphus when he heard what his character was, but when Mr. Randon told him about the circumstances of the family, and explained to him that it would be a deed of great benevolence to save the boy from ruin, the carpenter said he would take him for three months upon trial, and then if he found that he should probably succeed in making him a good boy, he would take him regularly as his apprentice. So Mr. Randon went back to report the result of his inquiries to Rodolphus's mother.

Mrs. Linn was very anxious to have Rodolphus go to the carpenter's, but Rodolphus himself insisted on going to Mr. Kerber's. The reason why he wished to go there was, because Mr. Kerber kept a stable and horses. He supposed that his chief business would be to tend the horses, and to ride about. This would be much better, he thought, than to work hard all day with planes, and saws, and chisels.

Ellen joined her mother in begging Rodolphus to go to the carpenter's, but he could not be persuaded to consent, and so it was finally settled that he should be bound apprentice to Mr. Kerber. Mrs. Linn, however, made an express stipulation that while Rodolphus remained at Mr. Kerber's he was never on any account to be whipped. If he neglected his duty or behaved badly, Mr. Kerber was to find out some other way to punish him beside whipping.

Mr. Kerber made no objection to this arrangement. He said to Mr. Randon, when Mr. Randon proposed this condition to him, that he would make any agreement of that kind that his mother desired. "I have learned," said he, "that there are various contrivances for breaking refractory colts besides silk snappers."

When a boy is bound apprentice to a master, a certain paper is executed between the master on the one part, and the parent or guardian of the boy on the other, which is called the Indentures. The indentures specify the name and age of the boy, and state the time for which he is bound to the master. During that time the boy is bound to work for the master, and to obey his orders. The master is bound to provide food and clothing for the boy, and to teach him the trade. He has a right to compel the boy to attend industriously to his work, and to punish him for any idleness, or disobedience, or insubordination that he may be guilty of. In a word, the master acquires, for the time that the apprenticeship continues, the same rights that the father, if the boy has a father, possessed before.

According to this custom indentures of apprenticeship were regularly drawn up, binding Rodolphus to Mr. Kerber till he was twenty-one years of age. He was then nearly twelve. The indentures were signed, and Rodolphus went to live with his new master.

He, however, soon began to have a pretty hard life of it. He found that his business was not to ride the horses about, but to perform the most disagreeable and servile work in the stable. He could not even ride the horses to water, for there was a great trough in one corner of the stable with a stream of water always running into it, and the horses were all watered there. Rodolphus was employed in harnessing and unharnessing the horses, and rubbing them down when they came in; and in pitching down hay, and measuring out oats and corn for them. He had to work also a great deal at the house, splitting wood and carrying it in, and in bringing water for the washing. He was kept hard at work all the time, except in the evening, when he was generally allowed to roam about the streets wherever he pleased.

Rodolphus did not have much open difficulty with Mr. Kerber, for he found out very soon that it was a very dangerous business to disobey him. The first lesson that he had on that subject was as follows:

One afternoon when he had been at work at the house, and had had some difficulty with Mrs. Kerber, he undertook to make her agree to some of his demands by threatening, as he had been accustomed to do with his mother, that if she did not let him do what he wished, he would go and jump into the pond. This pond was a small mill pond which came up to the foot of Mr. Kerber's garden, where the garden was bounded by a high wall. Mrs. Kerber took no notice of this threat at the time, but when her husband came home she told him about it at the supper table.

"Ah," said Mr. Kerber, when his wife had finished her statement; "he threatened to drown himself, then? I am afraid he does not know exactly what drowning is. I will enlighten him a little upon the subject after supper."

Accordingly, after supper, Mr. Kerber commanded Rodolphus to follow him. Mr. Kerber led the way down to the bottom of the garden, and there he tied a rope round Rodolphus's waist, and threw him off into the water, and kept him there until he was half strangled. He would pull him up a moment to recover his breath, and then plunge him in again and again, until the poor boy was half dead with exhaustion and terror. Then, pulling him out upon the bank, he left him to come to himself, and to return to the house at his leisure.

Rodolphus, after this, was very careful not to come into any open collision with Mr. Kerber, or with his wife, but this kind of severity did him, after all, no real good. When a boy has grown to such an age as that of Rodolphus, in habits of self-indulgence, disobedience, and insubordination, it is almost impossible to save him by any means whatever----but heartless severity like this only makes him worse. Rodolphus hated his master, and he determined to do as little for him as he possibly could. Mr. Kerber, accordingly, was continually finding fault with his apprentice for his idleness and his neglect of duty, and he used often to punish him by putting him in what he called his _prison_.

This prison was a stall in one corner of the stable, near a little room which Mr. Kerber used for his office and counting-room. The stall had been boarded up in front, some years before, and used to shut up a small colt in. It was half full of boxes and barrels, and there was a heap of straw in one corner of it. There was a door in front, with a great wooden button outside. When Mr. Kerber got out of patience with Rodolphus, he used to put him into this old colt-pen and button him in, and sometimes keep him there without any thing to eat, till he was half starved. At one time Mr. Kerber kept him there all night.

After the first half dozen times that Rodolphus was shut up there, he did not suffer from hunger, for he made an arrangement with another stable boy, older than himself, to supply him with food at such times. The stable boy would get bread from the house by stealth, when Rodolphus was in his prison, and bring it out to the stable in his pocket. Then, watching his opportunity, when Mr. Kerber was not looking, he would throw it over to Rodolphus. Rodolphus was thus saved from suffering much through hunger, but yet he would always in such cases, when he was finally let out, _pretend_ to be half starved, in order to prevent Mr. Kerber's suspecting that he had been stealthily supplied with food.

The prison, as Mr. Kerber called it, was adjoining the stable office, which was a very small room, partitioned off from the stable itself. This office had two doors, one on each side of it. One door led out into the stable, and was the one ordinarily used. The other led to a shed at one side of the stable, where the wood was kept for the office fire, which was made in a small stove that stood in one corner of the office. There was a desk in another corner of the office, and in this desk Mr. Kerber kept his papers and his money.

One day when Rodolphus was shut up in his prison, after having been there several hours, he became very tired of having nothing to do, and so, to amuse himself, he took his knife out from his pocket and began to cut into the partition which separated the colt-pen from the office. The partition was made of boards, and as Rodolphus's knife was pretty sharp, he could cut into it quite easily. He heard voices in the office, and he thought that if he should cut a small hole quite through the partition he could hear what the men were saying, and see what they were doing. So he cut away very diligently for half an hour, working very slowly and carefully all the time, so as not to make a noise.

At last the light began to shine through. Then Rodolphus worked more carefully than ever. He, however, soon had a small hole opened, and putting his eye close to it, he could see a whip hanging up against the opposite wall of the office. Rodolphus gradually enlarged his hole, until he could see more. He made the hole very large on the side toward his prison, and yet kept it very small toward the office, and by this means he could change the position of his eye and so see almost all over the office, without, however, having made the opening large enough to attract attention on the inside.

Rodolphus saw Mr. Kerber and another man sitting by the desk. It was summer, and there was no fire in the stove. There were a great many whips hanging up on one side of the room, and a hammer, together with an instrument called a nut-wrench, on a shelf over the desk. The door leading out into the shed was fastened with a hasp. Rodolphus, as he looked at it, thought that it would be easy for a thief, if he wished to break into the office, to go into the shed and bore into the door of the office just above the hasp, and then by putting in a slender iron rod, the hasp might be lifted up out of the staple, and the door opened.

Rodolphus listened to the conversation between Mr. Kerber and his visitor, but he could not understand it very well. It was all about business. At last the man took a large leather purse out of his pocket, and prepared to pay Mr. Kerber some money. Mr. Kerber unlocked his desk. The man counted out the money upon a small table which was there. Mr. Kerber counted it after him, and then took from his desk a small box, made of iron, which he called his strong box. He unlocked the strong box with a key that he took from his pocket, and put the money into it. He then locked the strong box and put it back into the desk, and finally shut down the lid of the desk, locked it, and put the key in his pocket.

Mr. Kerber kept Rodolphus confined in his prison much longer than usual that day, so long, in fact, that Rodolphus became at last very impatient and very angry. At length, however, Mr. Kerber let him out, and sent him home to supper.

That evening about nine o'clock, as Rodolphus was talking with some of the bad boys with whom he was accustomed to spend his evenings, and telling them how he hated his tyrannical and cruel master, he said, among other things, that he wished he knew some thief or robber. The boys asked him why.

"Why, I would tell him," said Rodolphus, "how he might rob old Kerber, and get as much money as he wanted."

Among the boys who were with Rodolphus at this time, was one named Gilpin. Gilpin was a very bad boy indeed, and considerably older than Rodolphus. He was about fourteen years old. When Gilpin heard Rodolphus say this, he gave him a little jog with his elbow, as an intimation not to say any thing more. Very soon Gilpin took Rodolphus away, and walked on with him alone, along a wall which extended down toward the water from the place where the boys had been playing. As soon as he had drawn Rodolphus away from the other boys, he asked him what he meant by what he had said about a good chance to get some money. So Rodolphus explained to Gilpin how his master had shut him up in the stall, and how he had cut a hole through the partition, and what he had seen in the office. He also explained to him how the back door of the little office was fastened by a hasp, which it would be easy to open by boring a hole through the door, if the robber only had a bit and a bit-stock.

"Oh, we can get a bit and bit-stock, easily enough," said Gilpin.

"Well," said Rodolphus, "shall we do it?"

"Certainly," said Gilpin, "why not we as well as any body else. I want money too much to leave any good chance for getting it to other people. You and I will get it, and go shares."

"No," said Rodolphus, "I don't dare to. And, besides, if we should get into the office, we could not open the desk. He keeps the desk locked."

"We can pry it open with a chisel," said Gilpin, "as easy as a man would open on oyster."

"But then we can't open the strong box," said Rodolphus. "The strong box is made of iron."

"We'll carry away the strong box and all," said Gilpin, "and get it open at our leisure afterward."

Rodolphus was at first strongly disinclined to enter into this plot, and it was in fact several days before he concluded to join in it. At length, however, he consented, and immediately commenced aiding Gilpin in making the necessary preparations. He found a bit and bit-stock in an old shop belonging to Mr. Kerber, near his house, and also a chisel, which Gilpin said would do for forcing open the desk. There was another boy almost as old as Gilpin, who joined in the plan. He was a coarse and rough boy, and was generally called Griff. His real name was Christopher.

Gilpin and Griff gave Rodolphus a very large share of the work of making the necessary preparations for the theft. Their plan was to make the attempt on Saturday night They thought that by this means a whole day would intervene before the discovery would be made that the money was gone, since Mr. Kerber would not be likely to go to his office on Sunday. They would thus, they thought, have ample time to take all the necessary means for concealing their booty. Rodolphus was to go to bed as usual, and then to get up about ten o'clock, and come out of his window, over the roofs, as he used to do at home, and as he had very often done since he came to Mr. Kerber's. The bit and bit-stock, and the chisel were to be all ready in the shed, beforehand. Rodolphus was to carry them there some time in the course of the afternoon. On descending from the roofs, Rodolphus was to go to meet the other boys at a certain corn-barn, which belonged to a house which had once been a farm-house in the village.

A corn-barn is a small square building, standing upon high posts at the four corners. These posts are usually about four or five feet high. The building is raised in this manner above the ground, to prevent mice and other animals from getting into it and eating the corn.

The corn-barn, however, at which the boys were to meet, was not now used for the storage of grain, but as a sort of lumber-room for a tavern that stood near by. It was behind the tavern, and almost out of sight of it, at the end of a narrow lane. It was in a very secluded position. The space beneath the building where the posts were, had been boarded up on three sides, and there were various old boxes and barrels underneath it. Rodolphus and the other bad boys of the village had often used this place as a rendezvous, and had carried there the various things which they had pilfered from time to time; and in summer nights they would often meet there and stay half the night, spending the time in eating and drinking, and in gambling with cards or coppers, and in other wicked amusements. There was no floor but the ground, but the boys had carried straw into the place, and spread it down where they were accustomed to sit and lie, and this made the place very comfortable.

The boys were to meet at this place at ten o'clock. Griff was to bring a dark lantern. This lantern was one which the boys had made themselves. It was formed of a round block of wood for the base, with a hole or socket in the middle of it, for the admission of the end of the candle. Around this block there had been rolled a strip of pasteboard, so as to make of it a sort of round box, with a wooden bottom and no top. The pasteboard was kept in its place by a string, which was wound several times around it. There was a long hole cut in the pasteboard on one side, for the light to shine out of. There was another pasteboard roll which went over the whole, and closed this opening when the boys wanted the lantern to be perfectly dark.

The boys met at the place of rendezvous at the time appointed. They then proceeded to the stable. They got into the shed, and there struck a light, and lighted a short candle which one of the boys had in his pocket. Rodolphus held this candle, while Gilpin, who was taller and stronger than either of the other boys, bored the hole in the door, in the place which Rodolphus indicated. When the hole was bored, the boys inserted an iron rod into it, and running this rod under the hasp, they pried the hasp up and unfastened the door. They opened the door, and then, to their great joy, found themselves all safe in the office.

They put the dark lantern down upon the table, and covered it with its screen, and then listened, perfectly whist, a minute or two, to be sure that nobody was coming.

"You go and watch at the shed-door," said Gilpin to Rodolphus, "while we open the desk."

So Rodolphus went to the shed-door. He peeped out, and looked up and down the village-street, but all was still.

Presently he heard a sort of splitting sound within the office, which he knew was made by the forcing open of the lid of the desk. Very soon afterward the boys came out, in a hurried manner----Griff had the lantern and Gilpin the box.

"Have you got it?" said Rodolphus.

"Yes," said Griff.

"Let's see," said Rodolphus.

Griff held out the box to Rodolphus. It was very heavy and they could hear the sound of the money within. All three of the boys seemed almost wild with trepidation and excitement. Griff however immediately began to hurry them away, pulling the box from them and saying, "Come, come, boys, we must not stay fooling here."

"Wait a minute till I hide the tools again?" said Rodolphus, "and then we'll run."

Rodolphus hid the tools behind the wood-pile, in the shed, where they had been before, and then the boys sallied forth into the street. They crept along stealthily in the shadows of the houses and in the most dark and obscure places, until they came to the tavern, where they were to turn down the lane to the corn-barn. As soon as they got safely to this lane, they felt relieved, and they walked on in a more unconcerned manner; and when at length they got fairly in under the corn-barn they felt perfectly secure.

"There," said Griff, "was not that well done?"

"Yes," said Rodolphus, "and now all that we have got to do is to get the box open."

"We can break it open with stones," said Griff.

"No," said Gilpin, "that will make too much noise. We will bury it under this straw for a few days, and open it somehow or other by-and-by, when they have given up looking for the box. You can get the real key of it for us, Rodolphus, can't you?"

"How can I get it?" asked Rodolphus.

"Oh, you can contrive some way to get it from old Kerber, I've no doubt. At any rate the best thing is to bury it now."

To this plan the boys all agreed. They pulled away the straw, which was spread under the corn-barn, and dug a hole in the ground beneath, working partly with sticks and partly with their fingers. When they had got the hole deep enough, they put the box in and covered it up. Then they spread the straw over the place as before.

During all this time the lantern had been standing upon a box pretty near by, having been put there by the boys, in order that the light might shine down upon the place where they had been digging. As soon as their work was done, the boys went softly outside to see if the way was clear for them to go home, leaving the lantern on the box; and while they were standing at the corner of the barn outside, looking up the lane, and whispering together, they saw suddenly a light beginning to gleam up from within. They ran in and found that the lantern had fallen down, and that the straw was all in a blaze. They immediately began to tread upon the fire and try to put it out, but the instant that they did so they were all thunderstruck by the appearance of a fourth person, who came rushing in among them from the outside. They all screamed out with terror and ran. Rodolphus separated from the rest and crouched down a moment behind the stone wall, but immediately afterward, feeling that there would be no safety for him here, he set off again and ran across some back fields and gardens, in the direction toward Mr. Kerber's. He looked back occasionally and found that the light was rapidly increasing. Presently he began to hear cries of fire. He ran on till he reached the house; he scrambled over the fences into the back yard, climbed up upon a shed, crept along under the chimneys to the window of his room, got in as fast as he could, undressed himself and went to bed, and had just drawn the clothes up over him, when he heard a loud knocking at the door, and Mrs. Kerber's voice outside, calling out to him, that there was a cry of fire in the village, and that he must get up quick as possible and help put it out.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.[2]

BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.

THE RETURN FROM EGYPT.

[Footnote 2: Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.]

The Expedition to Egypt was one of the most magnificent enterprises which human ambition ever conceived. The Return to France combines still more, if possible, of the elements of the moral sublime. But for the disastrous destruction of the French fleet the plans of Napoleon, in reference to the East, would probably have been triumphantly successful. At least it can not be doubted that a vast change would have been effected throughout the Eastern world. Those plans were now hopeless. The army was isolated, and cut off from all reinforcements and all supplies. The best thing which Napoleon could do for his troops in Egypt was to return to France, and exert his personal influence in sending them succor. His return involved the continuance of the most honorable devotion to those soldiers whom he necessarily left behind him. The secrecy of his departure was essential to its success. Had the bold attempt been suspected, it would certainly have been frustrated by the increased vigilance of the English cruisers. The intrepidity of the enterprise must elicit universal admiration.

Contemplate, for a moment, the moral aspects of this undertaking. A nation of thirty millions of people, had been for ten years agitated by the most terrible convulsions. There is no atrocity, which the tongue can name, which had not desolated the doomed land. Every passion which can degrade the heart of fallen man, had swept with simoom blast over the cities and the villages of France. Conflagrations had laid the palaces of the wealthy in ruins, and the green lawns where their children had played, had been crimsoned with the blood of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. A gigantic system of robbery had seized upon houses and lands and every species of property and had turned thousands of the opulent out into destitution, beggary, and death. Pollution had been legalized by the voice of God-defying lust, and France, _la belle France_, had been converted into a disgusting warehouse of infamy. Law, with suicidal hand, had destroyed itself, and the decisions of the legislature swayed to and fro, in accordance with the hideous clamors of the mob. The guillotine, with gutters ever clotted with human gore, was the only argument which anarchy condescended to use. Effectually it silenced every remonstrating tongue. Constitution after constitution had risen, like mushrooms, in a night, and like mushrooms had perished in a day. Civil war was raging with bloodhound fury in France, Monarchists and Jacobins grappling each other infuriate with despair. The allied kings of Europe, who by their alliance had fanned these flames of rage and ruin, were gazing with terror upon the portentous prodigy, and were surrounding France with their navies and their armies.

The people had been enslaved for centuries by the king and the nobles. Their oppression had been execrable, and it had become absolutely unendurable. "We, the millions," they exclaimed in their rage, "will no longer minister to your voluptuousness, and pride, and lust." "You shall, you insolent dogs," exclaimed king and nobles, "we heed not your barking." "You shall," reiterated the Pope, in the portentous thunderings of the Vatican. "You shall," came echoed back from the palaces of Vienna, from the dome of the Kremlin, from the seraglio of the Turk, and, in tones deeper, stronger, more resolute, from constitutional, liberty-loving, happy England. Then was France a volcano, and its lava-streams deluged Europe. The people were desperate. In the blind fury of their frenzied self-defense they lost all consideration. The castles of the nobles were but the monuments of past taxation and servitude. With yells of hatred the infuriated populace razed them to the ground. The palaces of the kings, where, for uncounted centuries, dissolute monarchs had reveled in enervating and heaven-forbidden pleasures, were but national badges of the bondage of the people. The indignant throng swept through them, like a Mississippi inundation, leaving upon marble floors, and cartooned walls and ceilings, the impress of their rage. At one bound France had passed from despotism to anarchy. The kingly tyrant, with golden crown and iron sceptre, surrounded by wealthy nobles and dissolute beauties, had disappeared, and a many-headed monster, rapacious and blood-thirsty, vulgar and revolting, had emerged from mines and workshops and the cellars of vice and penury, like one of the spectres of fairy tales to fill his place. France had passed from Monarchy, not to healthy Republicanism, but to Jacobinism, to the reign of the mob. Napoleon utterly abhorred the tyranny of the king. He also utterly abhorred the despotism of vulgar, violent, sanguinary Jacobin misrule. The latter he regarded with even far deeper repugnance than the former. "I frankly confess," said Napoleon, again and again, "that if I must choose between Bourbon oppression, and mob violence, I infinitely prefer the former."

Such had been the state of France, essentially, for nearly ten years. The great mass of the people were exhausted with suffering, and longed for repose. The land was filled with plots and counterplots. But there was no one man of sufficient prominence to carry with him the nation. The government was despised and disregarded. France was in a state of chaotic ruin. Many voices here and there, began to inquire "Where is Bonaparte, the conqueror of Italy, the conqueror of Egypt? He alone can save us." His world-wide renown turned the eyes of the nation to him as their only hope.

Under these circumstances Napoleon, then a young man but twenty-nine years of age, and who, but three years before, had been unknown to fame or to fortune, resolved to return to France, to overthrow the miserable government, by which the country was disgraced, to subdue anarchy at home and aggression from abroad, and to rescue thirty millions of people from ruin. The enterprise was undeniably magnificent in its grandeur and noble in its object. He had two foes to encounter, each formidable, the royalists of combined Europe and the mob of Paris. The quiet and undoubting self-confidence with which he entered upon this enterprise, is one of the most remarkable events in the whole of his extraordinary career. He took with him no armies to hew down opposition. He engaged in no deep-laid and wide-spread conspiracy. Relying upon the energies of his own mind, and upon the sympathies of the great mass of the people, he went alone, with but one or two companions, to whom he revealed not his thoughts, to gather into his hands the scattered reins of power. Never did he encounter more fearful peril. The cruisers of England, Russia, Turkey, of allied Europe in arms against France, thronged the Mediterranean. How could he hope to escape them? The guillotine was red with blood. Every one who had dared to oppose the mob had perished upon it. How could Napoleon venture, single-handed, to beard this terrible lion in his den?

It was ten o'clock at night, the 22d of August, 1799, when Napoleon ascended the sides of the frigate Muiron, to sail for France. A few of his faithful Guards, and eight companions, either officers in the army or members of the scientific corps, accompanied him. There were five hundred soldiers on board the ships. The stars shone brightly in the Syrian sky, and under their soft light the blue waves of the Mediterranean lay spread out most peacefully before them. The frigates unfurled their sails. Napoleon, silent and lost in thought, for a long time walked the quarter deck of the ship, gazing upon the low outline of Egypt as, in the dim starlight, it faded away. His companions were intoxicated with delight, in view of again returning to France. Napoleon was neither elated nor depressed. Serene and silent he communed with himself, and whenever we can catch a glimpse of those secret communings we find them always bearing the impress of grandeur. Though Napoleon was in the habit of visiting the soldiers at their camp fires, of sitting down and conversing with them with the greatest freedom and familiarity, the majesty of his character overawed his officers, and adoration and reserve blended with their love. Though there was no haughtiness in his demeanor, he habitually dwelt in a region of elevation above them all. Their talk was of cards, of wine, of pretty women. Napoleon's thoughts were of empire, of renown, of moulding the destinies of nations. They regarded him not as a companion, but as a master, whose wishes they loved to anticipate; for he would surely guide them to wealth, and fame, and fortune. He contemplated them, not as equals and confiding friends, but as efficient and valuable instruments for the accomplishment of his purposes. Murat was to Napoleon a body of ten thousand horse-men, ever ready for a resistless charge. Lannes was a phalanx of infantry, bristling with bayonets, which neither artillery nor cavalry could batter down or break. Augereau was an armed column of invincible troops, black, dense, massy, impetuous, resistless, moving with gigantic tread wherever the finger of the conqueror pointed. These were but the members of Napoleon's body, the limbs obedient to the mighty soul which swayed them. They were not the companions of his thoughts, they were only the servants of his will. The number to be found with whom the soul of Napoleon could dwell in sympathetic friendship was few--very few.

Napoleon had formed a very low estimate of human nature, and consequently made great allowance for the infirmities incident to humanity. Bourrienne reports him as saying, "Friendship is but a name. I love no one; no, not even my brothers. Joseph perhaps a little. And if I do love him, it is from habit, and because he is my elder. Duroc! Ah, yes! I love him too. But why? His character pleases me. He is cold, reserved, and resolute, and I really believe that he never shed a tear. As to myself, I know well that I have not one true friend. As long as I continue what I am, I may have as many pretended friends as I please. We must leave sensibility to the women. It is their business. Men should be firm in heart and in purpose, or they should have nothing to do with war or government. I am not amiable. No; I am not amiable I never have been. But I am just."

In another mood of mind, more tender, more subdued, he remarked, at St. Helena, in reply to Las Casas, who with great severity was condemning those who abandoned Napoleon in his hour of adversity: "You are not acquainted with men. They are difficult to comprehend if one wishes to be strictly just. Can they understand or explain even their own characters? Almost all those who abandoned me would, had I continued to be prosperous, never perhaps have dreamed of their own defection. There are vices and virtues which depend upon circumstances. Our last trials were beyond all human strength! Besides I was forsaken rather than betrayed; there was more of weakness than of perfidy around me. _It was the denial of St. Peter._ Tears and penitence are probably at hand, And where will you find in the page of history any one possessing a greater number of friends and partisans? Who was ever more popular and more beloved? Who was ever more ardently and deeply regretted? Here, from this very rock, on viewing the present disorders in France, who would not be tempted to say that I still reign there? No; human nature might have appeared in a more odious light."

Las Casas, who shared with Napoleon his weary years of imprisonment at St. Helena, says of him: "He views the complicated circumstances of his fall from so high a point that individuals escape his notice. He never evinces the least symptom of virulence toward those of whom it might be supposed he has the greatest reason to complain. His strongest mark of reprobation, and I have had frequent occasions to notice it, is to preserve silence with respect to them whenever they are mentioned in his presence. But how often has he been heard to restrain the violent and less reserved expressions of those about him?"

"And here I must observe," says Las Casas, "that since I have become acquainted with the Emperor's character, I have never known him to evince, for a single moment, the least feeling of anger or animosity against those who had most deeply injured him. He speaks of them coolly and without resentment, attributing their conduct, in some measure, to the perplexing circumstances in which they were placed, and throwing the rest to the account of human weakness."

Marmont, who surrendered Paris to the allies, was severely condemned by Las Casas. Napoleon replied: "Vanity was his ruin. Posterity will justly cast a shade upon his character, yet his heart will be more valued than the memory of his career." "Your attachment for Berthier," said Las Casas, "surprised us. He was full of pretensions and pride." "Berthier was not without talent," Napoleon replied, "and I am far from wishing to disavow his merit, or my partiality; but he was so undecided!" "He was very harsh and overbearing," Las Casas rejoined. "And what, my dear Las Casas," Napoleon replied, "is more overbearing than weakness which feels itself protected by strength? Look at women, for example." This Berthier had, with the utmost meanness, abandoned his benefactor, and took his place in front of the carriage of Louis XVIII. as he rode triumphantly into Paris. "The only revenge I wish on this poor Berthier," said Napoleon at the time, "would be to see him in his costume of captain of the body-guard of Louis."

Says Bourrienne, Napoleon's rejected secretary, "The character of Napoleon was not a cruel one. He was neither rancorous nor vindictive. None but those who are blinded by fury, could have given him the name of Nero or Caligula. I think that I have stated his real faults with sufficient sincerity to be believed upon my word. I can assert that Bonaparte, apart from politics, was feeling, kind, and accessible to pity. He was very fond of children, and a bad man has seldom that disposition. In the habits of private life he had, and the expression is not too strong, much benevolence and great indulgence for human weakness. A contrary opinion is too firmly fixed in some minds for me to hope to remove it. I shall, I fear, have opposers; but I address myself to those who are in search of truth. I lived in the most unreserved confidence with Napoleon until the age of thirty-four years, and I advance nothing lightly." This is the admission of one who had been ejected from office by Napoleon, and who had become a courtier of the reinstated Bourbons. It is a candid admission of an enemy.

The ships weighed anchor in the darkness of the night, hoping before the day should dawn to escape the English cruisers which were hovering about Alexandria. Unfortunately, at midnight, the wind died away, and it became almost perfectly calm. Fearful of being captured, some were anxious to seek again the shore. "Be quiet," said Napoleon, "we shall pass in safety."

Admiral Gantheaume wished to take the shortest route to France. Napoleon, however, directed the admiral to sail along as near as possible to the coast of Africa, and to continue that unfrequented route, till the ships should pass the Island of Sardinia. "In the mean while," said he, "should an English fleet present itself, we will run ashore upon the sands, and march, with the handful of brave men and the few pieces of artillery we have with us, to Oran or Tunis, and there find means to re-embark." Thus Napoleon, in this hazardous enterprise, braved every peril. The most imminent and the most to be dreaded of all, was captivity in an English prison. For twenty days the wind was so invariably adverse, that the ships did not advance three hundred miles. Many were so discouraged and so apprehensive of capture that it was even proposed to return to Alexandria. Napoleon was much in the habit of peaceful submission to that which he could not remedy. During all these trying weeks he appeared perfectly serene and contented. To the murmuring of his companions he replied, "We shall arrive in France in safety. I am determined to proceed at all hazards. Fortune will not abandon us." "People frequently speak," says Bourrienne, who accompanied Napoleon upon this voyage, "of the good fortune which attaches to an individual, and even attends him through life. Without professing to believe in this sort of predestination, yet, when I call to mind the numerous dangers which Bonaparte escaped in so many enterprises, the hazards he encountered, the chances he ran, I can conceive that others may have this faith. But having for a length of time studied the 'man of destiny,' I have remarked that what was called his fortune was, in reality, his genius; that his success was the consequence of his admirable foresight--of his calculations, rapid as lightning, and of the conviction that boldness is often the truest wisdom. If, for example, during our voyage from Egypt to France, he had not imperiously insisted upon pursuing a course different from that usually taken, and which usual course was recommended by the admiral, would he have escaped the perils which beset his path? Probably not. And was all this the effect of chance? Certainly not."