Uncle Bernac, Arthur Conan Doyle [read the beginning after the end novel TXT] 📗

rth of Italylike the plague; Venice and Genoa withered at the touch of this swarthyill-nourished boy. He cowed the soldiers in the field, and he outwittedthe statesmen in the council chamber. With a frenzy of energy he rushedto the east, and then, while men were still marvelling at the way inwhich he had converted Egypt into a French department, he was back againin Italy and had beaten Austria for the second time to the earth. Hetravelled as quickly as the rumour of his coming; and where he camethere were new victories, new combinations, the crackling of old systemsand the blurring of ancient lines of frontier. Holland, Savoy,Switzerland--they were become mere names upon the map. France waseating into Europe in every direction. They had made him Emperor, thisbeardless artillery officer, and without an effort he had crushed downthose Republicans before whom the oldest king and the proudest nobilityof Europe had been helpless. So it came about that we, who watched himdart from place to pla