Page:The Ifs of History (1907).pdf/149

 It is likely that Leipsic and Elba had already taught the emperor wisdom which would have deterred him from attempting to carry the boundaries of his domain once more to the Baltic, or to parcel out the rest of Europe among his relatives and dependents. But within the frontiers I have named, and west of the Rhine, he must have remained impregnable; and all the momentous consequences which resulted from his defeat must have been thwarted and turned aside.

Out of the victory of the Allies at Waterloo came, first, the banishment and early death of Napoleon Bonaparte; the placing of Louis XVIII on the throne of France; the complete subduing of the Revolution; the creation of the joint kingdom of Holland and Belgium (which meant the modern intensely industrialized Belgian state, and Leopold, and the Congo); the aggrandizement and lasting leadership of Prussia in Germany; the foundation of the modern