Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-07-06

sumcd in debates about technicalities. The real issue was how the Past might be set up again in Europe and the Future prevented. This profound business, so mediaeval and in. ane, was still on at the end of February, 1915, when the startling news was borne to the Con. gross that Napoleon Bonaparte, quitting Elba, had landed at Cannes.
 The intelligence flashed north, south, east and west. The cowardly and pallid Past en- throned ill Paris smiled a ghastly smile The Court newspaper chronicled the landing at Cannes thus: ''The information comes to us that that miserable adventurer and brigand Bonapartc has left the island of Elba and again polluted tho soil of Franco with his bloody feet" The next notice of news from the south was given in the same organ thus: "Our intel igonce is that the man Bonaparte has set out from Cannes to Lyons, and that certain turbu- lent adVrnturerS have joined him on the way" On the following day the same paper said: "It is now certain that General Bonaparte at the head of a great and enthusiastic force is ap- proaching the city, on the Lyons road" On the next morning the paragraph read thus: ''His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon entered the city last night, and slept at the Tuileries!"
 This journalistic transcript of events, ab- surd as it seelss, was in striking conformity to the facts. On tho 1st of March the "man Bonaparte" did land at Cannes. On the way out from Elba the ship Zephyr, on which he sailed, had been accostcd by tho barque In- constant, whose officer called out through his speaking trumpet, saying, "How is General Bonaparte?" Napoleon, being on deck and hearing tho call, himself took the trumpet of the Zephyr and answered, "The Emperor is quite well, thank you!" At tho landing, when an enthusiastic peasant came up in salutation, Napoleon said to Bertrand: "Hero is one re- cruit alrcady!"
 The spectacle that ensued haa no parallel in history. Tho old soldiers of the, Republic and the Empire rose as if from the earth to greet their commander. His progress en route to Paris became triumph At Grenoble the off TOY and SE,lfl fli,NI,S Lyons the forces of the Duke of Orleans went over to the Emperor. Ncy, who had accepted the Restoration and become a peer of France, had promised the King to put Napoleon in dn iron cage and bring him to Paris With di- vision of tho army he mot his old commander at Auxerre, forgot all his hateful oaths of all lcgiance to tho BourbonS, and rushed into the EmpcrOr's arms.
 For eighteen days tho gathering tumult swelled and broke into tempest of enthu- sias1n. On the 18th of March, Napoleon enter ed Paris, and tho Restoration was blown like n thistlo-dOwn out of the city. Louis fled to Belgium, and his Royalist followers returned to England. Tho Congress of Vienna rose sud denly from the consideration of court etiquette and rCEalia to find that their card board house ill Paris was gone, and that the Imperial Re ality Was there again with the gray coat, and thrcc-cornerod hat, and marble face, just as of old.
 From the 1st of March to Waterloo was pe riod of hundred and ten days. History calls it the Hundred Days. Tho iron purpose of Ma poleon, his tirelesS energy, and omniscient perception, were never seen in such prodigiouS eruption and glare us in this period of his fate. The allies had become desperate. Tho whole world perceived that the Imperial re- pubhcanism of France, impcrsonated in Bona parte and springing in tho wind of hls sword, must now triumph to the borders of Europe @R perish misCrably under the heels of banded kings The two ideas which tho parties of the past and the future represented wore irrecon- cilable; they could no longor coexist Either must Napoleon and his dynasty be stamped into the earth, the old system of political society in Europe disappear forever
 The French people Sprang to the call. In a few weeks 307, 900 mon, volunteers and con scripts, were thrown into the field. It was the last call to arms and France was drained from her mountains to tho sea-drained not only of men and horses. but of that moral force and enthusiasm which constitute the soul of war. Napoleon declared that with Q few additional weeks in April and May of lSl5 he would have drawn around his Empire a rim of brass and fire that no human power could penetrate.
 But he was obliged to take the field with in- complete preparation. The allied armies of England and Prussia, under Wellington and Butcher, came on, the one from Flanders, and the other from the Rhine. 1t was the policy of Napoleon to prevent the union of his ene- mies The 18th of June found him on the Bel
 
 day he defeated Butcher at Ligny. The attack of Ney on the English at Quatre Bras was un- successful. The impetuous marshal, who was now the Emperors right arm, fell back on the village of Waterloo. The place was about nine miles from Brussels. It was skirted by the forest of Soignes. There the allied command CTS had agreed to form junction. Napoleon ordered Marshal Grouchy with his division of 34, 900 to follow up Butcher on his retreat from Ligny to Waterloo. Tho plain purpose was that if Butcher should join Wellington, then Grouchy should unite his division with that of Ney. The failure of Grouehy to do this-to hang upon Butchers rear-was 8 fatal cir cumstance of the final catastrophe.
 On the night of June l7th the British and French armies encamped only short distance apart. A modern piece could easily throw a shell from La Belle Alliance over La Haie the forest During the afternoon of the 17th and the greater part of the night. there was a heavy rainfall-another fact in the catastro- phe. On the following morning the Emperor, viewing the situation from his headquarters at tho farm of La Belle Alliance, was unwill- ing to preeipitate the battlo until his artillery might deploy over a dry field.
 Hugo has made the place and tho scene im- mortal in the greatest battle-piece since Ho- mer. The field of Waterloo is an undulatinR plain. Strategically, it has the shape of an im- mense harrow. The clovis is on the height called Mont St. Jean. Behind that is tho will lage of Waterloo, The right leg of the harrow terminates at the hamlet of La Belle Alliance. The left leg is the road from Brussels to Mi
 -'.--- HA- --e''-''Ar inteTaects the right leg