Few could have dared to think that it was to mount far higher into unknown depths of space, blazing as a baleful portent to kings and peoples; still less was there any Cassandra shriek of doom as to its final headlong fall into the wastes of ocean.

All was joy and jubilation over a career that had even now surpassed the records of antique heroism, that blended the romance of oriental prowess with the beneficent toils of the legislator, and prospered alike in war and peace.
And yet black care cast one shadow over that jubilant festival.

There was a void in the First Consul's life such as saddened but few of the millions of peasants who looked up to him as their saviour.

His wife had borne him no heir: and there seemed no prospect that a child of his own would ever succeed to his glorious heritage.

Family joys, it seemed, were not for him.