the hand of a young German enthusiast, named Stabbs. During this war, Rome was annexed to France, as the second city of the empire; and the pope, thus entirely stripped of his temporal dominions, was soon after removed to Fontainebleau, where he was confined as a prisoner. Desirous of an heir to succeed to his vast empire, Napoleon, on his return from Schoenbrun, divorced his empress, and, in accordance with one of the articles of the late treaty, married Maria Louisa, daughter of the Emperor of Austria, in March, 1810. This marriage was followed, in 1811, by the birth of a son, who was styled King of Rome. Although Napoleon remained in Paris in attendance on his new consort, his plans of ambition suffered no interruption. In 1810, he deposed his brother Louis, who thought too much of the welfare of his own subjects; and annexed Holland, together with the Hanse Towns and the whole sea-coast of Germany, to the French empire. The election of the French Marshal Bernadotte to the crown of Sweden seemed to place all Europe, except England, Russia, and the Peninsula, in the power of France. On the departure of Napoleon from Spain, in 1809, England again attempt ed to deliver the Peninsula; and, during the two succeeding years, Welling. ton did much towards effecting this object. The Emperor of Russia, who, at the treaty of Tilsit, was supposed to have agreed with Napoleon on the division of the European world, now found the power of the latter danger ous to his own kingdom, which also suffered greatly from the prohibition of commerce with England. Napoleon, perceiving that his brother emperor designed to avail himself of the reverses in the Peninsula to insist on a more liberal course of policy, and security against future aggression, determined on war. In 1812, he invaded Russia, with the largest army that had ever been assembled under one European leader. After beating the Russians at Smolensko and Borodino, he took possession of Moscow, September 14th. But the approach of winter, the burning of the city, and the consequent want of food and shelter, rendered it impossible to remain there; and the Czar refusing to listen to proposals for peace, Napoleon, after five weeks' residence at Moscow, was obliged to withdraw. In the celebrated retreat which followed, the French army was utterly destroyed, more by the climate than by the enemy; the emperor himself escaped with difficulty. The spirit of the French people was roused by this disaster, and Napoleon speedily found himself at the head of another vast army. But Prussia and Sweden now joined the league against him, and experience had made his enemies more fit to cope with him; and though, in 1813, he won the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen in Saxony, he derived no material advantage from them. Having refused to accede to the terms proposed through the mediation of Austria, which would have restricted France to her ancient power and boundaries, this state also took part with the allies against him. After gaining the battle of Dresden, in August, Napoleon was compelled, by the successive defeat of four of his marshals, to abandon his position on the Elbe, and retire on Leipsic. In October was fought the great battle of Leipsic, where, in three days, the French lost upwards of fifty thousand men. The emperor then retreated across the Rhine. The Rhenish Confederacy was forthwith dissolved, and the pope and Ferdinand were permitted to return to their respective dominions. Napoleon having thus lost all his allies and foreign possessions, still refused the reasonable terms of peace which were offered to him, and prepared to defend France against invasion. Wellington crossed the Pyrenees in 1814, and about the same time the Russian and German armies passed the Rhine. During this campaign Napoleon showed wonderful energy in encountering his numerous enemies, but still adhered, with obstinate arrogance, to what he considered due to his own personal glory, and refused to treat for peace. After losing the battles of Brienne and La Rothière, in February, he entered on a negotiation with the allies; during the discussion of which he attacked and defeated the Prussians on the Marne; and, on the 17th and 18th, with a perfect knowledge that his minister had signed the preliminaries of peace, he assaulted the Austrians and defeated them at Nangis and Montereau. These successes were useless, and only served to exasperate his foes. In March he was beaten at the battles of Craonne and Laon, and finding the allies getting the superiority, he skilfully marched on their rear with the view of inclosing them between his own army and the capital. But the allies obtained possession of Paris, and finding the people alienated by the tyranny of the emperor, declared they would no more treat with Napoleon Bonaparte. The weakened state of his army, and the defection of most of his ministers and generals, left him without resources. On the 11th of April, Napoleon renounced, for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and Italy. The allies having left Napoleon the choice of his retreat, he chose the island of Elba, near to his native Corsica, and set out, accompanied by four commissioners, one from each of the great allied powers. He was allowed to retain the title of Emperor, and to take along with him a small number of those veteran soldiers who had accompanied him in so many dangers and whose attachment was not shaken by his misfortunes. On the 4th of May he landed in Elba, wherein, being separated from his wife and son, and without any projects for the future, he seemed to regard himself as politically dead to Europe, with no other task remaining for him to perform but that of writing the history of the rise and fall of his power. Napoleon anxiously watched the progress of events, which outran his expectations; he was also well informed as to what passed at the congress of Vienna; and having learned in time that the ministers of Louis XVIII. had proposed to the congress to remove him from Elba, in order to send him in exile to St. Helena, he conceived a project which circumstances indicated as the only reasonable course to be followed. He resolved to return to France. His preparations were not long; he brought nothing with him but arms, and trusted that France would provide the rest. After a passage of five days, he landed without opposition at Cannes, near the spot where, fifteen years before, he had disembarked on his return from Egypt. This memorable event took place on the 1st of March, 1815. He had no determinate plan, because he wanted particular data as to the state of affairs; his intention was to be guided by events, making provision only for probable contingencies. Nor was he at all embarrassed as to the route he should take; for he required a point of support, and as Grenoble was the nearest fortress, he lost no time in directing his march on that place, which opened its gates to receive him. The enthusiasm of the troops knew no bounds, and the reception which he everywhere met with confirmed him in his project. In fact, his march to Paris was throughout a triumphal procession. In twenty days this new revolution was terminated without having cost a single drop of blood. Amidst the acclamations of all France, Napoleon was reinstated on the throne. The grandeur of his enterprise had effaced the recollection of his misfortunes; it had restored to him the confidence of the French people; and he was once more the man of their choice. In a proclamation published by the Congress of Vienna to all Europe, it was declared that Napoleon, "by appearing again in France, had deprived himself of the protection of the law, and manifested to the world that there could neither be peace nor truce with him." Nothing remained, therefore, but to commit the future destiny of Europe to the arbitrament of arms. Various attempts were made to open a negotiation with the allies, but all proved abortive; and as Napoleon had no intention to await the onset of his enemies, he resolved to fall upon the Anglo-Prussians, before the troops of Austria or Russia could be in a condition to take part in the conflict. By the end of May he had about 180,000 men ready to take the field, and by the middle of July this number would have been increased to 300,000; but by transporting the seat of war into Belgium, he would save France from invasion, and perhaps take the enemy unprepared. These considerations decided him to become the assailant. On the 12th of June he set out from Paris, and on the 14th he established his head-quarters at Beaumont, where, in order to profit by the dissemination of the enemy, he judged it necessary to open the campaign without a moment's delay. Accordingly, he passed the frontier of Belgium on the 15th, and on the following day advanced to Fleurus, where he discovered the Prussian army ranged in order of battle between St. Amand and Sombref. Ney had receiv ed orders to push forward with 42,000 men by the Brussels road as far as Quatre Bras, an important point situated at the intersection of the roads leading to Brussels, Neville, Charleroi, and .Namur, and there to keep the English in check and prevent them from advancing to the aid of the Prussians, whom Napoleon proposed to attack with the 72,000 men that remain ed under his command. The battle of time, he was compelled to sign a second abdication. He then decided to retire to America, and at first proposed to embark at Bordeaux, where his brother Joseph had hired a merchantvessel for the purpose. But he afterwards changed his purpose, and set out for Rochefort, where he arrived on the 3d of July. Finding it impossible, however, to put to sea, and nearly equally perilous to return to the interior, he took the resolution of throw Ligny followed, in which the Prussians were defeated; and so complete was the rout, that, of 70,000 men, their generals were never afterwards able to assemble more than about 30,000. A night pursuit would have annihilated them. But Ney had been much less fortunate at Quatre Bras, where he displayed great infirmity, neither bring ing his whole force to bear on the Eng. lish, nor throwing himself back on Bry to act on the rear of the Prussians. The Prussian army being thus defeat-ing himself upon the generosity of the ed, Grouchy was detached in pursuit of it with 35,000 men, whilst Napoleon proceeded to turn his efforts against Wellington. In the great battle of Waterloo, the fate of Bonaparte was decided, and with it that of Europe. The result, more fatal to France than that of either Agincourt or Poictiers, is known to every one. By the timely arrival of the Prussians, who had given the slip to Grouchy, and their junction with the English, the French army was not only defeated, but total ly dispersed. prince regent of England; and, on the 15th, embarked on board of the Bellerophon, in Aix Roads. By a formal decision of the English government, he was sent as a prisoner of war to St. Helena, where he pined away in hope. less exile, until death put an end to his existence on the 3d of May, 1821. In his will he had expressed a desire that his body should be conveyed to France and buried on the banks of the Seine, "amongst the French people whom he had loved so well;" but this request could not, it seems, be complied with until 1840, when, at the request of the government of Louis Philippe, Britain permitted the removal of his remains to France. The body was accordingly deposited with unparalleled pomp and display in the Hotel des Invalides, on the 15th December, 1840.* Napoleon returned to Paris, in the hope that the national spirit might be roused, and that all good Frenchmen would unite in defending their country against another foreign invasion. But he soon found that he had deceived himself. Misfortune had deprived him of all consideration; he experienced opposition where he least expected it; the chambers rose in a state of in- and the "Gallery of Portraits" of the Society surrection against him; and, in a short * Abridged from the Encyclopedia Britannica for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. ROBERT FULTON. HIS distinguished mechanician and original inventor was a genuine product of the American soil. The genius, indeed, of the men whom America produced in various departments of science in the last century, the Franklins, the Rittenhouses, the Kinnersleys, the Whitneys, should be more highly estimated than the parallel attainments of our own day. At present thousands of instructors and thousands of new influences are paving the way to fresh inventions. Common schools and academies furnish the pupil with profound elementary knowledge; libraries disclose the myriad achievements of the past; special newspapers and magazines carry knowledge to every hamlet; kindred sciences welcome and assist one another; social organizations encourage new discovery; government offers its prizes; accumu. lated commercial and manufacturing wealth rewards the inventor on the instant. How different this splendid triumphal procession, from the first elements of science to fame and fortune, from the groping into light of the heaven-sown genius in the infant society of America a hundred years ago! It must needs have been a plant of no common hardihood, fully predestined to growth and vitality, which could then penetrate the crust of the world in our western wilderness. It has been remarked as a notewor thy coincidence, that Benjamin West and Robert Fulton came into the world in the same vicinity, in what was, at the time of their birth, a wild and uncultivated portion of the country, more remote from the seaboard in means of access and culture, than Arkansas is at present. It is owing to one of these men that the distance has been diminished, and that we are enabled to make this truthful comparison. West was born at Springfield, Pa., in 1738. Robert Fulton first saw the light in a township of Lancaster County, Pa., then called Little Britain, but now bearing the name of Fulton, in the year 1765. His father, of the same name, was an emigrant from Ireland. He was at one time, we are told, a tailor, but at his son's birth was the occupant of a farm. He died too early to influence the child's education, which was picked up mainly by himself, though we hear of his being at school, and, as is not uncommon with boys of genius, of being accounted a dull fellow. This, |