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ANONYMOUS.

THE VICTOR OF MARENGO

Based on an account of the battle of Marengo, by J. T. Headley, in " Napoleon and His Marshals," Vol. I, published, in 1846, by Baker & Scribner, New York, N. Y.

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Napoleon was sitting in his tent; before him lay a map of Italy. He took four pins and stuck them up; measured, moved the pins, and measured again. 'Now," said he, "that is right; I will capture him there! Who, sir? said an officer. 'Milas, the old fox of Austria. He will retire from Genoa, pass Turin, and fall back on Alexandria. I shall cross the Po, meet him on the plains of Laconia, and conquer him there,' and the finger of the child of destiny" pointed to Marengo.

So

Two months later the memorable campaign of 1800 began. The 20th of May saw Napoleon on the heights of St. Bernard. The 22d, Larmes, with the army of Genoa, held Padua. far, all had been well with Napoleon. He had compelled the Austrians to take the position he desired; reduced the army from one hundred and twenty to forty thousand men; dispatched Murat to the right, and June 14th moved forward to consummate his masterly plan.

But God threatened to overthrow his scheme! A little rain had fallen in the Alps, and the Po could not be crossed in time. The battle was begun. Milas, pushed to the wall, resolved to cut his way out; and Napoleon reached the field to see Larmes beaten-Champeaux dead Desaix still charging old Milas, with his Austrian phalanx at Marengo, till the consular guard gave way, and the well-planned victory was a terrible defeat. Just as the day was lost, Desaix, the boy general, sweeping across the field at the head of his cavalry, halted on the eminence where stood Napoleon. There was in the corps a drummer-boy, a gamin whom Desaix had picked up in the streets of Paris. He had fol

lowed the victorious eagles of France in the campaigns of Egypt and Austria.

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"Beat

As the columns halted, Napoleon shouted to him: a retreat!" The boy did not stir. Gamin, beat a retreat! The boy stopped, grasped his drumsticks, and said: 'Sir, I do not know how to beat a retreat. Desaix never taught me that. But I can beat a charge. Oh! I can beat a charge that would make the dead fall into line. I beat that charge at the Pyramids; I beat that charge at Mount Tabor; I beat it again at the bridge of Lodi. I beat it here?"

May

Napoleon turned to Desaix, and said: "We are beaten; what shall we do?" "Do? Beat them! It is only three o'clock, and there is time to win a victory yet. Up! gamin, the charge! Beat the old charge of Mount Tabor and Lodi!" A moment later the corps, following the swordgleam of Desaix, and keeping step to the furious roll of the gamin's drum, swept down on the host of Austria. They drove the first line back on the second, both on the third, and there they died. Desaix fell at the first volley, but the line never faltered. And as the smoke cleared away, the gamin was seen in front of his line marching right on and still beating the furious charge. Over the dead and wounded, over breastworks and fallen foe, over cannon belching forth their fire of death, he led the way to victory, and the fifteen days in Italy were ended.

To-day men point to Marengo in wonder. They admire the power and foresight that so skillfully planned the battle; but they forget that Napoleon failed, and that a general only thirty years of age made a victory of a defeat. They forget that a gamin of Paris put to shame “the child of destiny."

THE PROTECTION OF AMERICANS IN ARMENIA

By WILLIAM PIERCE FRYE, Lawyer; Member of Congress from Maine, 1871-81; Senator, 1881-. Born in Lewiston, Maine, 1831.

From a speech made in the Senate, January 24, 1896; the Senate having under consideration resolutions relative to the massacre of Christians in Armenia.

The good people of the United States have planted in Turkey over six million dollars for a single purpose, to improve and better the condition of the people of that country. They have erected as fine colleges as there are in the world. They have been maintained by American money. They have educated thousands and hundreds of thousands of Turks, or Armenians who are subject to Turkey. It has been a work of wonderful beneficence, a work which has had marvelous success, and yet it is stopped absolutely to-day. That American capital is now held up; it cannot do an ounce of work. At Harpoot the American colleges were burned down and the Americans themselves were compelled to flee for their lives.

I do not know how far the United States of America can interfere in Turkey. I am in favor of these resolutions as an expression of our opinion upon the awful tragedies there; but if I had my way, after the powers of Europe have waited now a solid year looking each other in the face with suspicious eyes and neither one daring to make a move lest the other shall receive a benefit-I say if I had my way, I would have Congress memorialize Russia and say to her: Take Armenia into your possession, protect the lives of those Christians there, and the United States of America will stand behind you with all of its power." That, sir, is the memorial and resolution I would have passed.

Sir, American citizens are suffering there. American lives and American property are being interfered with day by day. in the interior of Armenia. I know that Americans are compelled to flee for their lives. I know that they do not receive the protection of the Turkish Government there.

THE PROTECTION OF AMERICANS IN ARMENIA 295

Now, so far as American citizens are concerned, I would protect them at any cost. We never agreed that the Dardanelles should be closed to us. There cannot be found a line in the policy of the United States of America which ever permitted any great navigable water to be closed to our ships; not one. On the contrary, we have been ready to go to war at any time to keep navigable waters open to our ships. We have given no assent to the agreement of the concerting nations over there that the Dardanelles shall be closed. If it was necessary to protect American citizens and their property, I would order United States war-ships, in spite of foreign agreements, to sail up the Dardanelles and plant themselves before Constantinople, and there demand that American citizens should have the protection they are entitled to.

I

Mr. President, I think one of the grandest things in the history of Great Britain, and one thing for which I admire her, is that she does protect her citizens anywhere and everywhere, under all circumstances. Her mighty power is put forth for their relief and protection, and it is admirable. do not wonder that a British citizen loves his country. Why, that little incident, which all of you are familiar with, is a marvelous illustration of that. The King of Abyssinia took a British citizen by the name of Campbell, about twenty years ago, carried him up into the fortress of Magdala, on the heights of a lofty mountain, and put him into a dungeon without cause. It took six months for Great Britain to find that out, and then she demanded his immediate release. King Theodore refused to release him. In less than ten days after the refusal was received, three thousand British soldiers and five thousand sepoys were on board ships of war sailing for the coast. When they arrived they were disembarked, were marched seven hundred miles over swamp and morass under a burning sun, then up the mountain to the very heights, in front of the frowning dungeon, and then they gave battle. They battered down the iron gates, the stone

walls. King Theodore had killed himself with his own pistol. Then they reached down into the dungeon with that English hand, lifted out from it that one British citizen, carried him down the mountain heights, across the same swamps and morass, landed him on the white-winged ships and sped him away to his home in safety. That cost Great Britain twenty-five million dollars and made General Napier Lord Napier of Magdala.

Now, sir, that was a great thing for a country to do. A country that has an eye that can see away across an ocean, away across the many miles of land, up into the mountain heights, down into a darksome dungeon, one, just one of her thirty-eight million people, and then has an arm long enough and strong enough to reach across the same ocean, across the same swamps and marshes, up the same mountain heights, down into the same dungeon and pluck him out and carry him home to his own country a free man—in God's name who will not die for a country that will do that?

Well, Mr. President, our country will do it, and our country ought to do it. All that I ask of this grand Republic of ours is that it shall model itself after Great Britain, if it pleases, in this one thing, that the life of an American citizen shall be protected wherever he may be, whether in Great Britain or in Turkey, and in no other thing whatsoever.

NOT GUILTY
(Adapted)

It was a sultry noon, and in the Jeffersonville court-house a murder trial was in progress. The prisoner, a strongly built and middle-aged negro, was evidently not impressed by any sense of peril, though already a clear case of murder had been proved against him, and only his statement and the argument remained. No testimony had been offered for the prisoner. A man had been stabbed; had fallen dead, his hands clasped over the wound. From beneath this hand, when convulsively opened, a knife had fallen, which the

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