2. Sailors passing the island sixty or seventy
years ago, might have seen a solitary figure
standing on one of its highest points, and look-
ing wistfully over the sea. That was the great
Napoleon Bonaparte, once Emperor of the
French, and one of the greatest soldiers the
world has ever seen.
3. Bonaparte was sent to St. Helena as a
prisoner, by the English Government. That
place was chosen because it was hardly possible
for any one to escape from it. The island
has high and steep clifib around it on every
side. Indeed, there is only one spot at which
it is possible for ships to touch.
4. The English wished to put him in a very
safe place, because he had so often broken the
peace of Europe. From being a humble officer
in the French army, he had risen to be Em-
peror ; and he had carried war into nearly every
country that he could reach.
5. He had fought with the Russians, with
the Austrians, with the Prussians, and with the
English. He had made himself King of Italy,
and had put one of his brothers on the throne of

Holland, and another on tiie tlaiowe of Spain.
THE CAPTIVE ON ST. HELENA. Ill

6. Suddenly his great power came to an end.
He led a vast army into Russia, nearly the
whole of which perished, either in battle or on
the snowy plains over which the men had to-
march in winter. About the same time hi&
armies were driven out of Spain by the great
English general, the Duke of Wellington.
7. Finding everything against him on his^
return to Paris, Bonaparte gave up his crown
and retired to the island of Elba, in the Medi-^
terranean.
