Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1886-12-10
He fought. and half the world was his;

And borrowed from his enemies
Six foot of ground to lie upon.
And this, observe. not when he was
old and iniirm, and had lost his brain
! power, his tai energy, and his grip,
but in the prime Of his manhood. Yet
there are those who still persist in
! thinking that he was a great man.
He was nothing of the kind. He was
great specialist. As such his perform
ances were amazing and his career Is
study. But he had neither the forecast
TO see into the future, nor the wisdom
to adapt himself TO circumstances, quail
tiles that belong to the statesman art.
All his successes were the offspring of
h s soldiership. and all his failures and
his final overthrow may be traced TO
his laundering diplomacy. carried away
by his aware BUSINESS and his vanity. Ii
on record. and made perfectly clear
by the statements and documents left
BY Prince Metternicht. that during the
hundred days he could have completed
lasting peace, confirming his dynasty
and his power, and obta ming France
greater than he had found. No really
sagacious. no truly great man would
have dccl ned such an opportunity. or
could have failed TO see the inevitable
which lay before him. Even if he had
gained the battle of Waterloo. il would
have only delayed the day of final reck-
oning and judgment. Mankind was
pledged against him. 1t was beyond
reason and nature that he should carry
out his scheme of universal subiugation,
and had he been any other than mad
man, drunk upon excess of the pecu-
Of i, m
partisuns called glory, he would have
recognized the memorable truths of the
situation. He rushed upon his doom
= like lunatic, aud after making
and unmaking Kingdoms began
the forty-siXth year of his age a
helpless. hopeless prisoner of war on Il
lone isle in far-off sea, where he
spent the rest of his life talking about
himself and constructing prophecies
which never came TO pass.
1t is not an edifying, or an elevatng
though it is an instructive story. Great
men usually keep somcth ne of their
acquisitions. or. if they lose all, they
bequcath some blessing to their coun-
try, some heritage for posterity. Sue
cess. indeed, is not an indispensable
mark of greatness. There have been
many great men who did not succeed
during their own time. But the world
/, produced one soldier, with whom Ma
polean must ALWAYS be compared.
whose career furnishes very striking
contrast TO that OF the Corsican. whose
, ashes repoSe in the hotel drs lnval des.
The nquests he made. and the obsta-
cles he overcame were as great rs those
of BOnaparte But he was never beaten
or ovorthrown He lived TO be 63 wears
old, and died by the hands of assassins.
leaving an imperial policy and dynasty
to come after HIM and TO rule through
ages. He was both warrior and q
statesman, and two thousand wears
after his death he remains a fam laI
figure to living men, and his name
grows brighter as the waves of time
, pass over.
There is no rule of measurement
/, which can be applied to julius Caesar
, and Napoleon Bonaparte which will not
result to the disadvantage of the latter
The one was Il king of men; the other
was a desperate gamestcr The one
raised Rome TO the height Of human
grandeur; the other left France "A prey
: to human vultures and sowed seeds
whose evil growth may still be seen.
The grave of Caesar is unknown and
unmarked; but two thousand wears
; hence the New Ieaander. who has sat
upon parapet of London bridge and
surveyed the ruins of St. Paul's cathc-
dral. may find sOmeth NJ TO interest and
amusc him among the debris Of the
once famous city of Paris. and, stand
ing amid the excavations of this Hotel
/. dies lnvalds and beholdng few frag-
ments of this noble monument. NAV
ask: And who was Napoleon Bona
parte?'
The philosophy of history, taking a
hint from the practical wisdom of the
financiers, will rcqusc something more
than an empty ana broken series of
brilliant performances of its immortals.
ANY man can make money saws the
adage, "but few know how TO keep it.
What would be thought in Wall street
of a pennileSs young Cuban. Gho nav
inc discovered that certain condition,
at cards would work certain vim NJ
combinations. had turned up in New
York. and communicated this circum-
stance TO the mistress OF an acquaint-
ance; had inspired her interest and con-
idencc. and received from her stake
to play upon; with this aud his ny steri-
Gus system had won half the fortunes of
the GouldS, the VanderbllS. and the
Astors at n single sitting; had gotten
intoxicated. had exposed his play. had
lost his last dollar. and had been X icked
down stairs and locked up by the pol ce
before midnight. To such narrative let
it be added tuat the hero. before his
summary eiectment and incarcerat on,
had baSelv and brutally abandoned the
woman TO whom he owed his epheme-
raj success. and we have the whole his
tory of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Omit Nnu, NInpryinO