Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/64

40 to settle down in England as he wished, as a country gentleman, would this have satisfied him? Even if he had made no attempt to recover the throne of France for himself, might he not have put forth efforts to have his son acknowledged Emperor? At the time of his father's downfall, the little King of Rome was hardly more than a baby, but as years passed on he could never have lived contentedly with his grandfather, the Austrian Emperor, knowing that his father was as near as England. In the name of the young Napoleon, Europe might again have been plunged into a great war.

Yet, without looking toward the future, Great Britain was only too sure that the time had come to punish one who had always been the avowed enemy of England. It is true that England had suffered less than any other of the Powers at the hands of Napoleon, because he had never invaded her territory, but in no country was Napoleon so hated. Thousands of Englishmen had shed their blood in the wars carried on against him by the Allies, and by the mass of the English people he was regarded as a monster. Although the so-called