Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/405

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Napoleon's Last Voyages.
389

causing indescribable misery not only here, but everywhere throughout France, Happy indeed were these poor people at seeing us among them, the harbinger of peace, which many of them had so long and ardently desired. That this was the prevailing feeling among them their whole demeanour amply testified, as with loud vociferations of 'Vive les Anglais!' they plainly told us that we were not unwelcome visitors."

It is well to always bring into relief the terrible consequences of Napoleon's campaigns in the decimation of the French population. People who, in despair at the divisions, the squalors, and the helplessness of French political life, sigh for the return of a great autocrat, always ignore this feature in the career of Napoleon. When somebody said that the picture of Napoleon still occupied a place in every cottage in the land, the obvious and just retort was made that if it had not been for Napoleon the place would have been occupied by the picture of the eldest son of the family, whom Napoleon had sent to premature and awful death.

III.

THE FALLEN EMPEROR.

From Marseilles Admiral Ussher went on to Fréjus, from which Napoleon was to embark for Elba. He found the fallen Emperor in "Le