雙語+MP3|美國學(xué)生世界歷史77 矮小的巨人

77
A Little Giant
矮小的巨人

     AT last the Revolution was stopped.
     It was stopped by a young soldier only about twenty years old and sixty inches tall.
     The Government was holding a meeting in the palace while an angry mob in the streets outside were trying to attack the palace. A young soldier had been given a few men and told to keep the mob away. The young soldier pointed cannons down each street that led to the palace, and no one dared to show himself. The young soldier was named Napoleon Bonaparte. He made such a fine record that people wanted to know who he was and where he came from.
     Napoleon had been born on a little island called Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea. He was born just in time to be a Frenchman, for the island of Corsica had belonged to Italy and had only just been given to France a few weeks before he was born. As soon as he was old enough, he was sent off to a military school in France. There, his French schoolmates looked upon him as a foreigner and didn't have much to do with him. But Napoleon made high marks in arithmetic, and he loved hard problems. Once he shut himself up in his room to work over a hard problem, and there he stayed for three days and nights until he had found the answer.
     Napoleon showed early in his career that he was going to be a fine soldier, and when he was only twenty-six years old he was made a general.
     Now, at this time all the other countries of Europe had kings. France had caught the fever of revolution from the Americans all the way across the ocean and had got rid of her kings. The kings of these other countries were afraid their people might catch the fever of revolution, too. All of these other countries became enemies of France because France had put an end to her kings. Besides that, the French army was invading France's neighbors to help them get rid of their kings. So, once again, war was on.
     Napoleon was sent off to fight Italy. He had to cross the Alps, which Hannibal in the Punic Wars had crossed long before. But Hannibal had no heavy cannons when he crossed; it seemed impossible for Napoleon's army to cross with cannons. Napoleon asked his engineers, the men who were supposed to know about such things, if it could be done. They said they thought it was impossible.
     "Impossible," Napoleon angrily replied, "is a word found only in the dictionary of fools." Then he shouted:
     "There shall be no Alps!" and went ahead and crossed them. His army won in Italy, and when he returned to France he was greeted by the people as a conquering hero. But the men who were then governing France were afraid of him. They feared he might try to make himself king because he was so popular with the people. Napoleon, however, asked to be sent to conquer Egypt because he had an idea he could get the better of the English there. He thought he might then cut England off from India, the colony that they had won in the reign of James I. England had lost America and didn't want to lose India, too.
     The French Government was very glad to get rid of Napoleon, and so they sent him off to Egypt as he asked. He quickly conquered Egypt as Julius Caesar had done, but there was no Cleopatra to upset his plans. While he was conquering Egypt, his fleet, which was waiting for him at the mouth of the Nile, was caught and destroyed by the English fleet under a great admiral, if not the greatest that ever lived. His name was Lord Nelson.

Europe in 1815（1815年的歐洲）
     Napoleon had no way to take his army back to France. He left his army in Egypt under command of another. He himself, however, managed to find a ship to take him back home. When he reached France, he found that the men who were supposed to be governing were quarreling among themselves, and, seeing his chance, he had himself made one of three men chosen to rule France. He was called first consul; and there were supposed to be two assistant consuls but the assistants were little more than clerks to do Napoleon's bidding. It was only a very short time before he was next made first consul for life. Then, not long after that, he became emperor of France and also king of Italy.
     The other countries of Europe began to fear that Napoleon would conquer them, too, and make them also a part of France. All the other countries joined together to beat him. Napoleon planned to conquer England first, and he got ready a fleet to cross over to England. But his fleet was caught off Spain near a point called Trafalgar by the same English admiral, Lord Nelson, who had beaten him in Egypt. Before this battle, Nelson said to his sailors, "England expects every man to do his duty," and they did it. Napoleon's fleet was utterly destroyed, though Nelson himself was killed.
     Napoleon then gave up the idea of conquering England, and he turned his attention in the opposite direction. He had beaten Spain and Prussia and Austria. Almost all Europe either belonged to him or had to do what he said. He then attacked Russia. It was a great mistake he made, for Russia was far off and very large, and it was wintertime and very cold. Still, he managed to reach Moscow way off in the center of Russia with his army. But the Russians burned the city and destroyed all the food, so that Napoleon had nothing with which to feed his army. It was terribly cold; there were deep snows; and, in retreating, his army suffered enormous losses. Napoleon himself soon made a beeline to Paris, leaving his soldiers to get back the best way they could. Men and horses died of cold and hunger by the thousands. Napoleon reached Paris, but his fortune had turned. All of Europe was getting ready to put an end to the tyrant, and it was not long after this that he was hemmed in and beaten by his enemies.
     When Napoleon saw that he was beaten, he signed a paper saying that he would give up and leave France. This he did, sailing away to a little island called Elba, just off the coast of Italy, not far from the island where he was born.
     But Napoleon, on the island of Elba, got an idea that all was not lost and that he might return to France and get back his power again. All of a sudden, to the surprise of France and the rest of the world, he landed on the coast of France. The French government at Paris sent an army of his old soldiers against him with orders to meet him and bring him to Paris in an iron cage. But when his old soldiers met their old general, they went over to his side, and so with them he marched on to Paris. The English and German armies were north of France and preparing to fight. Napoleon quickly got together an army and went forth to meet them. At a little town called Waterloo, Napoleon fought his last battle, for there he was utterly beaten by an English general named Wellington. This was the year 1815. We still speak and probably always will speak of any great defeat as a Waterloo.
     There is a peculiar sentence which reads backward the same as forward. It is what Napoleon might have said after all was over. It is

ABLE WAS I ERE I SAW ELBA

Napoleon at St. Helena （拿破侖在圣赫勒拿島）
     After Napoleon was beaten at Waterloo, the English took him away and put him on a little island far off in the ocean where he could not possibly escape. It was a lonely spot named St. Helena after the mother of Constantine. Here he lived for six years before he died.
     Napoleon was probably the greatest general that ever lived, but that does not mean that he was the greatest man. Some say he was the worst, for just to make himself great, he killed hundreds of thousands of people and brought destruction and ruin to the whole of Europe wherever he fought his battles.
     This brings us up into the nineteenth century, for Napoleon died in 1821. How long ago is that?