"Vive Napoleon!" had been on every lip this week, and it was an easy step from a phrase to a man.
The Cure spoke with pensive dignity of Napoleon's past career, his work for France, his too proud ambition, behind which was his great love of country; and how, for chastening, God turned upon him violently and tossed him like a ball into the wide land of exile, from which he came out no more.
"But," continued the calm voice, "his spirit, stripped of the rubbish of this quarrelsome world, and freed from the spite of foes, comes out from exile and lives in our France to-day--for she is still ours, though we find peace and bread to eat, under another flag.

And in these troubled times, when France needs a man, even as a barren woman a child to be the token of her womanhood, it may be that one sprung from the loins of the Great Napoleon may again give life to the principle which some have sought to make into a legend.

Even as the deliverer came out of obscure Corsica, so from some outpost of France, where the old watchwords still are called, may rise another Napoleon, whose mission will be civic glory and peace alone, the champion of the spirit of France, defending it against the unjust.

He shall be fastened as a nail in a sure place, as a glorious throne to his father's house." He leaned over the pulpit, and, pausing, looked down at his congregation.

Then, all at once, he was aware that he had created a profound impression.