THE SCRAP BOOK.

THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON.

By ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon—a magnificenttomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a deity dead—and gazed upon thesarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes ofthat restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about thecareer of the greatest soldier of the modern world.

I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine contemplating suicide. I sawhim at Toulon. I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris. Isaw him at the head of the army in Italy. I saw him crossing the bridge atLodi with the tricolor in his hand. I saw him in Egypt, in the shadow ofthe Pyramids. I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of Francewith the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo, at Ulm, and atAusterlitz. I saw him in Russia, when the infantry of the snow and thecavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's witheredleaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by a millionbayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to Elba. Isaw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw himupon the frightful field of Waterloo, where chance and fate combined towreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, withhis hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea.

I thought of the widows and orphans he had made, of the tears that hadbeen shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushedfrom his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would ratherhave been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I would rather havelived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growingpurple in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun; I would rather have beenthat poor peasant, with my wife by my side knitting as the day died out ofthe sky, with my children upon my knees and their arms about me; I wouldrather have been this man and gone down to the tongueless silence of thedreamless dust, than to have been that imperial personation of force andmurder known as Napoleon the Great.