Little Falls weekly transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.) 1894-19??, 1895-07-26

firing had ceased with the forty-ninth
gu,,? That would have meant daugt-
ter. p 81.
In May of 1910 it could be said Of
Napoleon that he had had bis way. In
a few instances his prodigious dreams
had dissipated into naught; but only in
few. His great scheme Of planting
French civilization in Northeastern
Africa and Of carrying thence the tri.
color to Damascus, Aleppo and Bagdad,
had failed. His project Of making Con-
stantinople the outpost Of France in the
East had vanished like chimera. His
hope of beating England on the soa end.
ed with Trafalgar. But for all the rest,
what was left unfulfilled to the Dream
or and Iconoclast? Out of the mulberry
patch in Ajaccio he had risen to the
supreme seat Of power in the most
splendid capital of the world. And he
was not yet forty-one!
As for war, that had sunk into NUT
tering and growing Oh the horizon.
During the year no great battle was
fought in Europe. Napoleon had the
land; and the sea was England's, In the
Spanish peninsula, the English and
French armies advanced or receded by
strategic movements. In that country,
General Wellesley had struggled hard
to uphold the fortunes CT Ferdinand VII.
In 1909 the allies had suffered great
hardships and rcverses. Wellesley had
to get himself behind the line of the
Torres Vedras, only a short distance
from Lisbon; there he lay at bay.
The reign Of King Joseph was estab-
lishAA III the greater part Of Spain. At
one vine the British arm hardly reach
I'd rut forty miles from Lisbon. On
July 27th and 2Sth, Wellington (for he
was now Lord Wellington) won the
bloody battle of Talavera. Solut was
not nble to Withstand him; but Napo-
leon sent more than $50, 900 men across
the Pyrenees, and the British with their
allies were obliged to find safety again
behind the Torres Vedras. Massena
with his six hundred guns could not
dislodge or drive his enemy further. He
could not tempt Wellington into the
field During the whole year 1910 the
nearest approach to a battle was that of
Busaco, where on the 27th of September
the French suffered an unimportant re-
verse. Not until the 9Th of May, 1911,
were the British able in the open field
to capture Almeida; not until the 10th
of January, 1912, did Ciudad Rodrigo
yield to Wellington. On the 9Th Of
April he captured Badajoz
Twice already Joseph Bonaparte had
been driven from the throne; and twice
had he been replaced by the Emperor.
His third flight from his precarious
Kingdom did not occur till 1918, when
he left Cadiz never to return.
In 1909 Louis was, urged by Napoleon
to suppress tho British sympathies Of
his SUBJECTS cut off intercourse with
England, and build a navy for France.
Just after Wagram there was a stormy
interview between the brothers at Paris.
The Emperor, not trusting Louis, sent
French troops to occupy Amsterdam.
Matters went to such pitch that on
the 1st of July, 1910, Louis was obliged
to abdicate. The Emperor's threat to
annex Holland to France was carried
out; and the ex-king retired into Aus
fria. ~
Napoleon s system of ruling by subor-
dinate kings did not work we'll. In such
q system there were more wills than
one; and there must be but One. The
One more and more declared himself.
The absorption of Holland was followed.
in December of 1910, with the annexa.
tion of the Hanse towns and the whole
northern coast of Germany. If, on New
Years Day, 1871, the status in quo
could have been Acknowledgements it
was ready to be by all the Powers ex-
cept Great Britain - the dream Of
Charlemagne II. for European Empire
might be regarded as fulfilled. s...s,
From the Pyrenees to the Baltic and
eastward to the limits of the Continent
there was nominal peace; but on all seas
the war-feets and merohant-ships OF
England terrorized and tempted the ma
tions. The need Of Europe for the prod
nets Of Great Britain was an argument
that tantalized all harbors from Riga to
Sevastopol. Europe was hungry for
goods, and the Continental blockade for
babe it In 1901 the i.French
party in St Petersburg was reinforced
BY the commercial classes demanding
intercourse with England. The Gear,
though he had ratified the treaty OF
Sohonbrunn, looked with ever-inoreas-
ing jealousy ON the unappeased ambition
OF his friend Bonaparte. He saw the
Duchy Of Warsaw growing on his Dor
ders. He saw Oldenburg. f1ef OF the
Romanoffs, annexed to the French EN-
pira He saw the wellnigh successful At
| tempt to construct q Northern Confed: