The fact is, the political mind was whirling and permeated with the idea of his ambition only, and the human aversion to the introduction of new and improved conditions of life.  The ruling classes were seized with alarm lest the spirit of the French Revolution would become popular in this country, and that not only their possessions might be confiscated, but that their lives would be in peril if the doctrines he stood for were to take hold of the public imagination.  They were afraid, as they are now, of the despotism of democracy, and so they kept the conflict raging for over twenty years.  Then came the fall of the greatest genius and most generous warrior-statesman who has ever figured in the world’s history; he had staggered creation with his formidable power, and the instruments of his downfall flattered themselves that the day of Divine vengeance had arrived.

III

Only a few short months had elapsed when the indomitable hero, well informed of the Allies’ squabbling deliberations, at the seat of Conference over the division of their conquest, and their vindictive intentions towards himself, startled them by the news of his landing and uninterrupted march on Paris, and was everywhere acclaimed by the cheers of the Army and the civilian population.  Louis XVIII, whom the conquerors had set on the throne, flew in panic when he heard that the man of destiny was swiftly nearing his palace to take his place again as the idol and chief of a great people.  Meanwhile, the Allies had somewhat recovered from their apoplectic dismay, and one and all solemnly resolved to “make war against Napoleon Bonaparte,” the disturber of the peace, though he was the welcomed Emperor of the French.  It was they who were the disturbers of the peace, and especially Great Britain, who headed the Coalition which was to drench again the Continent with human blood.  Napoleon offered to negotiate, and never was there a more humane opportunity given to the nations to settle their affairs in a way that would have assured a lasting peace, but here again the ruling classes, with their usual impudent assumption of power to use the populations for the purpose of killing each other and creating unspeakable suffering in all the hideous phases of warfare, refused to negotiate, and at their bidding soldiers were plunged into the last Napoleonic conflict though many other conflicts have followed in consequence.  Nothing so deadly has ever happened.  The French were defeated and their Emperor sent to St. Helena with the beneficent Sir Hudson Lowe as his jailer.