In our own time a single war-cloud is
enough to drive a capable correspondent to the verge of desperation,
but when we consider that Bonaparte was letting loose the clouds of
war in all sections of Europe simultaneously, it is easy to
understand how it has come about that we of to-day, who study history
in the daily press, have the most vague ideas as to the motives of
the quarrelling potentates at the beginning of this century.
For instance, after starting for Berlin, Bonaparte makes a diversion
at Ulm, and ends for the moment by capturing Vienna and taking up his
abode in the castle of Schonbrunn, the home of the Austrian Caesars.
Then the scene of activity is transferred to Cape Trafalgar, where
Nelson routs the French fleet, and Bonaparte is for an instant
discomfited, but above which he rises superior.
"If We had been there ourself We'd have felt worse about it," he
said. "But We were not, and therefore it is none of our funeral--
and, after all, what has it accomplished? The hoard of aldermen of
London have named a square in London after the cape, and stuck up a
monument to Nelson in the middle of it, which is the rendezvous of
all the strikers and socialists of England.
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