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destruction are wont to be improved in a world lying in wickedness. And in modern times, in which atheism has taken to itself the name of philosophy, science was not slack to devote its energies to the work of slaughter; and men, thus far wiser than their fathers, failed not to improve the evil art of war. The French revolution, which promised to fraternize the world, made war its trade. And having seen, and traced in his progress, "the little Corsican officer," who longed for a lieutenancy in the Turkish service, and who was called from the streets of Paris to clear them of an insurrectionary mob, till power was given him over a fourth part of the earth, to shine like the sun, and to scorch with fire, and till he scarcely found a compeer in Alexander, Attila, Tamerlane or Charlemagne, we may not only contemplate the splendour of his course and the scorching glare of his brilliancy, but we may look again on the mighty conqueror to see how soon his glory came to nought, or how the vial of wrath was poured upon that very sun to which such power of scorching was given.

The fated year approached when Fortune, hitherto unwearied in her partiality towards Napoleon, turned first upon himself personally a clouded and stormy aspect, or, in other words, not less significative and expressive, the vial of wrath was poured out upon the sun, even upon him to whom power was given to scorch men with fire. And, as under the former vial, the French were in the same place the victims of the wrath of which they had been the executioners, so Bonaparte himself, or the imperial power identified with his person, though before “ the child of destiny,” whose path was not to be crossed, nor his arms to be arrested, while his work remained to be done, was fated to destruction, even as he himself had destroyed. The fourth part of the earth was his allotted sphere. The judgment as yet was sitting on the papacy, or

the kingdoms where it once had prevailed. Whenever Russia came to the aid of other continental powers, within the range of Bonaparte's commission, its aid was ultimately ineffective. Italy, Austria, and Prussia fell in defiance of its helping hand; and though, the British excepted, by far the most stubborn of his foes, the soldiers of Russia were repulsed by Bonaparte, not only from Germany, but even from the Catholic kingdom of Poland. The "fated year" was that in which, passing his bounds, Napoleon invaded Russia, and quenched the scorching beams of his sun amidst its snows. Till that fatal moment it shone more brilliantly than ever.

The Emperor of Russia refused to acknowledge Joseph Bonaparte as king of Spain; and an edict issued by the emperor of Austria (no longer emperor of Germany, or head of the empire) for the free passage of the armies of Napoleon through his territories, gave token of an approaching war with Russia..

"Napoleon omitted nothing as to the preparation of the military forces of his own empire. Before yet all hopes of an accommodation with St. Peterburgh were at an end, he demanded, and obtained, two new conscriptions in France; and, moreover, established a law, by which he was enabled to call out 100,000 men at a time, or those whom the conscriptions had spared, for service at home. This limitation of their service he soon disregarded; and in effect-the new system-that of the Ban, as he affected to call it,became a mere extension of the old scheme. The amount of the French army at the period in question (exclusive of the Ban) is calculated at 850,000 men; the army of the kingdom of Italy mustered 50,000; that of Naples 30,000; that of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw 60,000; the Bavarian 40,000; the Westphalian 30,000; the Saxon 30,000; Wirtemberg 15,000; Baden 9,000; Saxony 30,000; and the

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minor powers of the Rhenish league 23,000. Of these armies Napoleon had the entire control. addition, Austria was bound to furnish him with 30,000, and Prussia with 20,000 auxiliaries. The total sum is 1,187,000. Deducting 387,000,-a large allowance for hospitals, furloughs, and incomplete regiments, there remained 800,000 effective men at his immediate command. The Spanish peninsula might perhaps occupy, even now, 150,000; but still Napoleon could bring into the field, against Russia, in case all negotiation failed, an army of 650,000 men; numbers such as Alexander could have no chance of equalling; numbers such as had never before followed an European banner.”*

The armies of mortals are powerless before the word of God, as the host of Sennacherib before the breath of an angel. Bonaparte's fall was more rapid, and not less marvellous than his rise. He crossed the Niemen" at the head of at least 470,000 men,' He passed the bounds of his conquests. The Russians, instead of advancing to meet him, retired at his approach, burned their villages, and laid waste their country. Their continued retreat lured him on to destruction. A thrice repeated attack on Smolensko was thrice resisted and repelled. But the garrison abandoned the city they had defended; and left it in flames to the invaders. The conflagration, (the houses being chiefly of wood, and the season being dry,) according to the French bulletin, "resembled, in its fury, an eruption of Vesuvius." On the 7th September, the hostile armies, of nearly equal numbers, encountered each other at Borodino, where a thousand cannon were in the field. "In no contest, by many degrees so desperate, had Bonaparte hitherto been engaged. Night found either army on the ground they had occupied at day-break. The number of

Hist. of Napoleon, vol. ii. p. 113.

guns and prisoners taken by the French and Russians was about equal; and of either host there had fallen not less than forty thousand men. Some accounts raise the gross number of the slain to one hundred thousand." The French entered the old capital of the Czars, and found it a deserted city. It was but for one day a prey to the enemy; on the next, it was enveloped in flames. The conflagration of Smolensko was rekindled in Moscow: and the burning of Moscow would have been the saving of Europe if men, from judgments, would have learned righteousness. The high ambition of Napoleon had placed the Kremlin in proud vision before him: and when he looked from its battlements he saw nothing but “the raging sea of fire which swept the capital, east, west, north, and south. Palaces and temples," says the Russian author, Karamsin, monuments of art and miracles of luxury, the remains of ages long since past, and the creations of yesterday, the tombs of ancestors and the cradles of children, were indiscriminately destroyed. Nothing was left of Moscow save the memory of her people, and their deep resolution to avenge her fall.' During two days Napoleon witnessed from the Kremlin this fearful devastation." No triumphal arch awaited his entrance into the metropolis of Muscovy; but when the Kremlin itself, on the third night, took fire, "Napoleon at length rode out of Moscow, through streets in many parts arched over with flames.” He who had scorched men with fire, felt, by more than an emblem, that he now was the victim rather than the Scourge, that wrath was prepared for himself, and that the destruction of his power was begun. "He could not withdraw his eyes from the rueful spectacle which the burning city presented, and from time to + Ibid. p. 136.

Hist. of Napoleon, vol. ii. p. 131.

time repeated the same words; this bodes great misfortune.""*

The retreat of the French from Moscow, perhaps unparalleled in its miseries, of which the horrible details beggar description, is fresh in the recollection of Europe, and pertains to the history of the world. The reflection might have been repeated at each step, how are the mighty fallen! In the first encounter with the Russians, the French lost 4000 men, and were compelled to retreat through the desolated country which they had passed through.

In strict accordance with the prophetic word, Bonaparte in his wrath threatened to be an Attila, and in his pride proclaimed himself a second Charlemagne; but when snow-heaps marked where his soldiers had ingloriously fallen, when he heard that his allies began to withdraw, when cities were taken by his enemies in his rear, and when he who had been a terror to kingdoms, and whose rapid movements and fierce assaults had often astounded the most cautious of his foes, was threatened on every side, in the bitterness of his heart he exclaimed, Thus it befalls when we commit faults upon faults:' And when doubting of his next movement, he heard that positions essential to his security were in possession of the Russians, ❝IS IT THEN WRITTEN," he said, looking upwards, and striking the earth with his cane, "Is it written that we shall commit nothing but errors !" All, but one word, that was written concerning him had been fulfilled. He had acted the part of an Attila, and occupied the seat of Charlemagne. And it was written also that the vial of WRATH had to be poured upon sun, although the power of scorching men with fire had been given him, and though men, by his in

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Hist. of Napoleon, vol. ii. p. 137.

Sir W. Scott's Life of Nap. vol. vii. pp. 369, 370.

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