to Ferrol, instead of proceeding to Brest, where Admiral Gantheaume was ready with twenty-one sail of the line to join him. Then he sailed still further out of the way and turned to Cadiz. Lord Nelson defeated him off Cape Trafalgar, October 21, 1805, capturing nineteen ships out of thirty-three. This victory, however, cost England the life of Nelson, who fell, mortally wounded, during the action. Thenceforward the maritime war was at an end, and Napoleon had to trust solely to Continental victories to subdue England.

Russia had joined Austria, and the army of the latter, 80,000 strong, had advanced to Ulm, in Bavaria. Crossing France and the north of Germany with incredible rapidity, Napoleon defeated the Austrians in several actions, and at length shut up 30,000 in Ulm, where they were forced to capitulate the very day before the battle of Trafalgar. Advancing, on the 2d of December, 1805, Napoleon defeated at Austerlitz the combined forces of Russia and Austria, under the command of their respective emperors. This fight is known as "the battle of the Three Emperors." The French army amounted to 70,000 men; the allied army to 95,000. Russia lost 21,000 killed and wounded, Austria 6,000, and France 6,800. This catastrophe drove Austria to a separate peace, which she only purchased by great cessions of territory; and the Russians, weakened by their great loss, withdrew to their own dominions.

Next year the Prussians, with infatuated hardihood, rushed into the field. Napoleon encountered them at Jena, 14th of October, 1806. Jena is applied as a collective name to two distinct engagements; one being fought at Jena, and the other at Auerstadt. In the former, Napoleon led 90,000 men in person, and defeated 70,000 Prussians under the Prince of Hohenlohe. At Auerstadt, 30,000 French, under Davoust, routed 48,000 Prussians, led by the Duke of Brunswick. Prussia was now speedily overrun, Berlin taken, and the remnant of their armies driven back to the Vistula, where they were supported by the Russians, who now came up in great strength. Several sanguinary actions took place during the depth of winter. On the 8th of February, the great bat

tle of Eylau was fought between the two grand armies. General Benningsen commanded the Russians. The French made repeated and furious attacks on the Russian infantry, which stood like walls of brass, and Napoleon was at last obliged to desist. The loss on both sides was dreadful, and has been roughly estimated at 50,000 men. But ere long he had his revenge. Having gathered up all his reserves, and collected 150,000 men round his standard, he attacked the Russians in June, 1807, and, after several bloody actions, defeated them in a pitched battle at Friedland, on July 14th. The result of this triumph was the treaty of Tilsit, which, virtually destroying all lesser powers, in effect divided the whole continent of Europe between Napoleon and Alexander.

Insatiable in ambition, Napoleon had no sooner achieved that great victory over his Northern enemies than he turned his eyes to the Spanish Peninsula, seized on Portugal, without a shadow of a pretext, and decoyed the king, queen and heir apparent of Spain to Bayonne, where, between threats, treachery and cajolery, he succeeded in extracting from them all a renunciation of the throne of Spain, upon which he immediately placed his own brother, Joseph, while he gave the throne of Naples to his brother-in-law, Murat. About the same time were promulgated the famous Berlin and Milan decrees, intended to exclude the English permanently from the whole trade of Continental Europe. The treachery to the Spanish royal family kindled a frightful war in the Peninsula, which at first was attended with surprising success for the Spaniards. Dupont surrendered with 25,000 men to Castanos, in Andalusia. Portugal was recovered by Wellington, and the French were obliged to retire behind the Ebro.

But Napoleon was at hand to repair the disaster. Summoning his whole reserves from Germany to Spain, he entered Navarre at the head of 200,000 men, defeated the Spaniards in several battles, retook Madrid, and pursued the English, under Sir John Moore, into Galicia. The English here gained a victory at Corunna, over Soult and Ney; but Sir John Moore was killed in the battle, and they were forced to embark and return to England, weakened by a third of their number, and having lost the whole object of the campaign.

Austria deemed the moment favorable, when the chief forces of Napoleon were employed in the Peninsula, to endeavor to regain some of her lost provinces. She declared war accordingly in May, 1809, and advanced with 100,000 men into Bavaria, when the Archduke Charles at first gained considerable success. Napoleon hastened to the spot, defeated the Austrians in three pitched battles, and treacherously obtaining possession of the bridge of Vienna, made himself master of that capital. He sustained, however, a severe check soon after from the Archduke Charles at the battle of Aspern, May 21 and 22, 1809. In this engagement the French lost 30,000 men, and the Austrians 24,000. Napoleon recovered himself, and having collected 150,000 men in Vienna, threw six bridges in one night over the Danube, and defeated, on July 6th, the Austrians in a pitched battle which lasted two days, on the field of Wagram.

This triumph won for France the Peace of Presburg, which deprived Austria of a fourth of her dominions. Napoleon himself obtained by this victory the hand of the Archduchess Maria Louisa, daughter of the Emperor of Austria. In the Spring of 1810 he had divorced the Empress Josephine, in order to make way for this splendid alliance. The Empress Josephine had borne him no offspring; and though she had been a devoted wife, he resolved to part with her, in the hope of securing, by another marriage, an heir for himself. The discarded Empress hid her sorrows in a retreat which magnificence, and even affection, could not render happy.

Napoleon's second marriage, however, proved not only the limit of his good fortune, but the direct cause of the commencement of his decline. The Emperor Alexander was personally hurt by the Austrian marriage, for Napoleon had proposed for his own sister, and he never forgave the affront. This, coupled with the rapid strides of the French Emperor in Northern Europe, who had halved Prussia and incorporated Holland, the Hanse towns, and nearly the whole of Northern Germany with his dominions, led to a rupture with Russia in 1812. The whole of 1810 and 1811 was spent by both parties in preparing for the contest, which every one saw was

approaching; and at length, his preparations being complete, Napoleon crossed the Niemen, and invaded Russia in May, 1812, at the head of 500,000 men. The Russians had not half the force, and Napoleon was able speedily to penetrate to the heart of the vast territories of the Czar. Smolensko was stormed by Napoleon in person, and in a desperate battle fought at Borodino, on September 6th, when 30,000 men fell on both sides, the Russians were so far worsted that they were obliged to abandon Moscow to the conqueror.

cess.

This was the supreme point of the French Emperor's sucOn the 14th of September the French entered Moscow, and found it deserted, except by the convicts and some of the lower class, who lingered behind for the sake of plunder. On the evening of this day a fire broke out; but it was extinguished in the night. On the next day Napoleon took up his residence in the Kremlin, the ancient palace of the Czars. On the following night the fire burst out again in different quarters of the city, the wind spread the flames all over the city, and Napoleon had to leave the Kremlin. The fire continued until the 19th, when it abated, after destroying 7,682 houses. Napoleon lingered among the ruins of Moscow for five weeks; but on the 19th of October his retreat began. In the history of the world there is nothing more appalling than the narrative of this retreat. His army dwindled away apace through fatigue, privations and the constant attacks of the Russians and Cossacks. The bitter frosts of the nights killed thousands. When the winter snow melted, the bones of 400,000 men lay white from Moscow to the Niemen. Those who did escape across this river were in the last stage of exhaustion and misery. Napoleon left these in charge of Murat, and himself made his escape to Paris on a sledge, accompanied only by a single attendant.

This terrible and unexampled reverse was strongly contrasted with the victorious career of the Duke of Wellington, during the same year, in Spain. The British General had defeated the French in a pitched battle at Salamanca, recovered Madrid, and liberated all the Southern provinces of Spain from their oppressors. These startling events produced a general agitation in Europe. Prussia took up arms together

with Alexander; the allies advanced as far as the Elbe. On the 2d of May, 1813, Napoleon fought and won the battle of Lützen from the Russians and Prussians united. On the 21st he attacked them again at Baützen, and obliged them to retire. But these victories led to no decisive results. A series of battles raged around Dresden on the 24th, 25th and 27th of August, wherein the French had the advantage. Napoleon now made a last stand at Leipsic. This has been called "the battle of the Giants." It began on the 18th of October, 1813. The Germans and Russians, numbering 300,000, commenced the attack, which 100,000 French resisted. slaughter was terrible, and after a sanguinary conflict of two days' duration, Napoleon was totally defeated with the loss of 40,000 men and 250 guns, and with difficulty brought back about 70,000 men of his vast army across the Rhine.

The

Wellington, who had totally defeated King Joseph in person at Vittoria, crossed the Pyrenees, and was now besieging Bayonne, so that the French Empire was threatened on all sides. Early in the following spring the allies invaded France along the whole course of the Rhine, while Wellington pursued his career of success in the south of France. Driven to extremities, Napoleon exerted himself to the utmost, and displayed his astonishing genius for military combinations, fertility of resources and quickness of movements. For more than two months he held at bay the various armies of the allies, now beating one corps and then flying to attack another. But the odds against him were too great. Paris capitulated, and the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia entered the French capital on the 31st of March, 1814.

Napoleon met, near Fontainebleau, the columns of the garrison, which were evacuating the city. His old generals told him that he ought now to abdicate. After much reluctance

he signed the act of abdication at Fontainebleau on the 4th of April, 1814. The Emperor Alexander generously proposed that he should retain the title of Emperor, with the sovereignty of the island of Elba, and a revenue of 6,000,000 francs, to be paid by France. This was agreed to by Prussia and Austria; and England, though no party to the treaty, after