NAPOLEON III
1302
NARCISSUS
land. His wife bearing him no children, he divorced her and married Maria Louisa of Austria, by whom he had a son.
His persistency against England brought him into conflict with Russia, and Napoleon determined to invade that country. So, with 600,000 men, he crossed the continent, being greeted by the king of Prussia and emperor of Austria, and entered Russian soil on June 24' I^i2. He defeated the Russians at Borodino and entered Moscow on Sept. 14, on which a great fire broke out and lasted until the 2oth. He resolved upon a retreat on Oct. 18, and upon reaching the frontier had but 100,000 men left. He returned to France to raise new armies, while Russia joined with Prussia and Saxony to withstand his attack. They met, in a victory for Napoleon, May 2, 1813, at Lutzen, and Austria was appointed a mediating power to effect peace or declare war in case of refusal. Napoleon paid no attention to the ultimatum, so on Aug. n he found himself at war, with 400,000 men, with all the powers of Europe. He was terribly defeated at Leipsic between Oct. 14 and 19, and retired to Mainz with only 70,000 men. The allied armies separated and, after the defeat of Bliicher four times in four days by Napoleon, they joined forces, marched upon Paris and took it on March 30, 1814. Wellington then came from Portugal and entered French soil. Napoleon offered to abdicate in favor of his son, but this was refused, and he retired unconditionally on April u, 1814, being given the sovereignty of Elba, a tiny Italian island.
The accession of the Bourbons was unpopular and Napoleon thought he could save France from ruin. So, on March 20, 1815, he again entered Paris at the head of the army. He had, however, become old and sick, and while his conceptions and plans were as brilliant as ever, the execution of the campaign of Waterloo failed. The English under Wellington and the Prussians under Blticher were against him. On the 16th of June he defeated Bliicher at Ligny, but failed to follow up the victory. When he turned against Wellington, the Prussians, unknown to him, were in the rear, and this caused the defeat at Waterloo on June 18. He fled to Paris, and finally abdicated, June 22. Finding escape impossible he surrendered on July 15, and was sent a prisoner to St. Helena, where he died of cancer of the stomach on May 5, 1821. See Seeley's Short Life; Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte by Bourrienne; and the Correspondence of Napoleon I. Carlyle's picture in Heroes, Emerson's Napoleon in Representative Men and Channing's Napoleon repay reading.
Napoleon III or Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the second French emperor, was born at Paris on April 20, 1808. His father was king of Holland and brother of the first emperor, and his mother was the step-
daughter of Napoleon I. He was educated by his mother in exile in Switzerland and at the gymnasium at Augsburg, but until 1836, during his life in Switzerland, he essentially was a student and writer. Nevertheless, the prestige of the institutions of Napoleon I cast some reflected light on Charles Louis, who looked with longing eyes toward the throne of France, then occupied by Louis Philippe. Indeed, he went so far in 1836 as to appear among the military at Strass-burg and endeavor to win them, but he failed, and was taken and brought to the United States without trial. He, however, again returned to Switzerland, of which government France demanded his expulsion, but it was refused. To avert trouble he went to England, and in 1840 made his second attempt to gain the throne by landing at Boulogne, but was this time taken prisoner and sentenced to imprisonment for life at the fortress of Ham. Here he remained, writing many books and editing the French Dictionaire de la Conversation, until he made his escape to Belgium, May 25, 1846. Immediately upon the success of the workingmen in the Revolution of 1848 he returned to France and was elected to the constituent assembly from Paris and three other districts, but resigned his seat two days after taking it and left France. In September, 1848, he was recalled by his election from five districts and immediately began the canvass for the election to the presidency, which he received by an overwhelming vote. For a while he lived up to his oath of allegiance to the republic, but only as a cloak to place the military under control of his friends and lay plans for the revival of the empire. On Dec. 2, 1851, by force of arms he routed the national assembly and in that month was re-elected for ten years, only to assume the imperial title within a year. The empire being now established, he broke up the political parties, courted the clergy, and adopted a showy foreign policy. This led to the Crimean War and the difficulty with Austria in Lombardy. Though in these operations he enjoyed the support of Great Britain, his relations to Prussia were affected by jealousies which finally led to the Franco-Prussian War, which proved the end of Napoleon's power. He surrendered in September, 1870, and was held a prisoner until the declaration of peace, after which he joined the empress at Chiselhurst, near London, where he died on Jan. 9, 1873. In 1865 he had published a History of Julius C&sar, which was never finished. See Blanchard Jerrold's Life of Napoleon III and Napoleon the Little by Hugo.
Narcis'sus, genus of flowering plants with bulbous, perennial roots; leaves and flower-stalks annual. The name is from a Greek word meaning torpor, and has reference to the narcotic properties of the plants. There
