THE CONSULATE.—In the provisional government set up by the remnant of the council, Napoleon only gradually assumed the chief role. He was later enabled to take and to hold supreme power, because of the mutual fear of royalists and republicans, their common dread of Jacobinism, and a prevailing conviction that safety must be sought in the sway of an individual, representing neither extreme, and strong enough to hold all in check. Yet the event evinced the supremacy now gained by the military power. Napoleon immediately made excellent financial reforms, and repealed or softened the laws against the "emigrants" and the priests. By such mild and conservative measures, the prosperity of France began to be renewed. The constitution of the year VIII., as planned by Sieyes and modified by Bonaparte, kept up the semblance, without much of the reality, of democracy. The checks on the power of the First Consul were more nominal than real. The mass of the people had power only to vote for lists of citizens, out of whom all the higher officers were to be selected by successive steps. All legislation was initiated by the Council of State; the Tribunate of a hundred members could discuss proposals made thus, but could not act; the Legislative Chamber of three hundred could vote, but not discuss; and the Senate of eighty was chosen for life, with little to do. This constitution of 1799, in opposition to the communal system of 1789 and 1791, established a centralized administration which destroyed local liberty and self-government. France no longer represented in other countries the cause of liberty. In this character its armies had been hailed in Italy, where a yearning for national unity was awakened. Equality, not liberty, was all that the cause of France now represented.

Napoleon could not have expected that his overtures of peace would be accepted by Austria. The rough, impolitic response made by England, helped him by rousing resentment in France.

MARENGO: PEACE OF LUNGVILLE.—If Sieyes and others expected that Napoleon would merely direct military operations from Paris, they were soon undeceived. Massena was at the head of the army in Italy, and found it most difficult to hold Genoa against the Austrians. Moreau was at the head of the army in Germany. Apart from other reasons for taking the field in person, it would not have been safe for the new ruler of France to allow himself to be eclipsed in military fame by Moreau. Napoleon, as usual veiling his purpose, gradually collected a large army, and between May 16 and 19, 1800, led his troops, and dragged his cannon, over the Great St. Bernard Pass into Italy, threw himself in the rear of Melas, the Austrian general, and entered Milan. He appears, however, to have used less than his usual caution, probably from fear that Melas might escape; so that he was attacked at Marengo (June 14), by that general, at a moment when the French forces were not sufficiently concentrated. What threatened to be a disastrous defeat for the French, however, was turned into a signal victory by the timely arrival of Desaix; and the name of Marengo rang through Europe. In December, Moreau won the great victory of Hohenlinden over the Archduke John. In February, 1801, the peace of Luneville was concluded. France kept its "natural boundaries," Belgium and the west of the Rhine. The Italian republics, except Rome and Naples, were restored. Tuscany was to be given to a prince of Spain, a country now dependent on France. The German princes who lost territory were to be indemnified by "secularizing" German ecclesiastical states, and vied with one another in imploring favors of the conqueror.

THE NORTHERN ALLIANCE: THE PEACE OF AMIENS.—England now stood alone against France. Her navies were supreme, and had captured most of the Dutch as well as French colonies. The French army in Egypt had been driven to capitulate on the condition that it should be transported in English vessels to France. Russia, Sweden, and Denmark made (1800) a defensive alliance of armed neutrality on the sea, to maintain the right of neutrals to trade with belligerents, and the doctrine that the neutral ship protects its freight (not being munitions of war) against seizure. England succeeded in ruining this alliance. Pitt now retired from office. He had accomplished the legislative union of England and Ireland, by which the separate Irish Parliament had ceased to exist (1800). But he had encouraged the Irish Catholics to expect that they would be delivered from the restrictions which excluded them from the House of Commons and from many other offices. When the king refused to consent to the fulfillment of these expectations, Pitt resigned (1801). Addington became prime minister. England was tired of the war. Peace was concluded at Amiens (March, 1802). France was to retain all her conquests on the Continent. England surrendered to France and her allies all conquests except Trinidad and Ceylon. Malta was to be given back by England to the Knights of Malta. A third great civil triumph of Napoleon, added to Luneville and Amiens, was the Concordat with the Pope.

REFORMS OF NAPOLEON.—Napoleon now was free to give his attention to internal reforms in France. He called into his counsels the ablest men in all departments of knowledge. In the reconstruction of political and social order, his own clear perceptions and energy were everywhere seen. He brought back from the old institutions whatever was good and valuable which the tempest of revolution had swept away. He reformed the judicial system. He caused to be framed the famous Code which bears his name, and which still forms the basis of law in several European countries. He reduced the power of the communes, and centralized the administration of government by the system of prefects and sub-prefects. Through the Concordat, he renewed the connection of the Catholic Church of France with Rome, reserving, however, to the executive the nomination of archbishops and bishops, whom the government was to support, and guarding, in the spirit of the Gallican theory, the supremacy of the civil authority. Full toleration was secured for non-Catholics. Napoleon personally participated in the religious ceremonies which attended the formal restoration of the old system of worship where "the Goddess of Reason" had been enthroned during the Terror. The ultimate effect of the Concordat was to build up the ultramontane, or papal, theory and sway within the church of France. Education was organized by the establishment of the university, the comprehensive name for the entire educational system of the country. All branches of technical instruction were carefully fostered. The devotees of science were encouraged with an enlightened sympathy and liberal aid. A better organization and discipline were brought into the army.

CHARACTER OF THE CHANGES.—The changes made by Napoleon, while they secured the equality of all Frenchmen before the law, did nothing to rescue civil liberty, such as the republicans had aimed to secure. They were all in the direction of monarchy. Distinctions, like the Legion of Honor, were invented; titles were instituted; a new aristocracy, made up of relics of the old noblesse and of fresh recruits, was created; Napoleon was declared to be consul for life, and the mechanism of the government was converted into a practical dictatorship. Unsparing in his treatment of Jacobins, he aimed still to moderate the passions of party. His activity was seen in an excellent system of public works, such as canals and noble highways, in new towns, and in magnificent buildings which he erected in Paris. At the same time, he went as far as it was safe to go in bringing in monarchical manners and luxuries. He himself adopted a regal way of living. He had no faith in democracy, and spoke with unaffected scorn of "ideology," or the theoretical statesmanship which based itself on ideas of "human rights" in the matter of exercising government. The press was placed under stringent police regulation. Napoleon's family began to contend, with "Corsican shamelessness," for high honors. A feud soon came to exist between them and the Beauharnais,—the family of Josephine. Was the principle of heredity to come back?

RENEWED WAR WITH ENGLAND.—In 1803 the war was renewed with England. That Napoleon was resolved to dictate in European affairs, as he was practical dictator in the French Republic, was plain. He controlled the republics dependent on France. He annexed Piedmont. He made the Spanish Bourbons do his bidding. He intervened in Germany; among other things, offending Austria by enlarging the bounds of Prussia. He exercised over the minor German states the influence of which Austria had been robbed. He complained of the strictures of the English press, and of the asylum granted in England to conspirators against his rule. He was angry that Malta was not given up, which England refused to do on account of an aggrandizement of France not consistent with the Peace of Amiens. There were provocations on both sides, and war was inevitable.

PLAN OF INVADING ENGLAND.—Napoleon seized Hanover. He talked of making a descent on England. He gathered a vast army near Boulogne, and constructed an immense flotilla for the transportation of it across the Channel. His design was to decoy away the British fleet, and then to concentrate enough ships of his own in the Channel to protect the passage of his forces.



CHAPTER IV. FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE EMPIBE TO THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN (1804-1812).

THE EMPIRE (1804).—Various attempts had been made against Napoleon's life. An "infernal machine" was exploded near his carriage. On that occasion, only the swift driving of the coachman saved him from death (1800). There were now royalist plots against his life, of which Count d'Artois was cognizant. Pichegru was an accomplice; and Moreau, although not favoring the restoration of the Bourbons, was not entirely innocent. The former died in prison; Moreau escaped to America. Napoleon, exasperated by these plots, caused the Duke d'Enghien, a young prince of the Conde branch of the Bourbons, to be seized on German territory,—in Baden,—and dragged away into France, where, at Vincennes, after a hurried military examination, he was shot, and buried in a grave that had been dug for him before the sentence was pronounced. Of this act of Napoleon, it was said by Fouche, "It was worse than a crime: it was a blunder." The young prince was really innocent. He was a victim of the natural, but violent, wrath of Napoleon, who wanted to strike a blow that his enemies would feel. The event opened the way for him—as it was perhaps intended that it should—to the object of his ambition, the imperial title and throne. He was authorized to adopt a successor. This, the different parties felt, would make his government stable and secure. He was proclaimed emperor, the election being ratified by popular vote. The crown was to be handed down in his family. In imitation of Charlemagne, whom he affected to consider a Frenchman and a predecessor, he was crowned, with splendid pomp, by Pope Pius VII. (Dec. 2, 1804), in Notre Dame. He took the crown from the Pope's hands, and placed it on his own head.

THE NEW ROYALTY.—The emperor surrounded himself with the insignia and ceremonies of royalty. The members of his family became princes and princesses. A new nobility, with the various ancient titles, was called into being. He made his generals—eighteen in number, most of whom had sprung from the ranks—marshals. He first diminished the number of the Tribunate, then (1807) abolished it. The republic of 1789 had now passed into an absolute military monarchy.

THIRD COALITION AGAINST FRANCE (1805).—Napoleon turned the Italian Republic into a vassal monarchy, with himself for its ruler (1805). He incorporated Genoa with France. His step-son, Eugene Beauharnais, he made viceroy of Italy. Pitt had come back to office. Events since the death of the Duke d'Enghien made it possible for him to create the third coalition of England (in union with Austria, Russia, and Sweden) for restoring the balance of power in Europe. Paul I. of Russia had been won over from the previous coalition by the adroit efforts of Napoleon, and by the Czar's hostility to England on account of Malta (1800), he being grand master of the knights. His ordinary state of mind bordered on derangement, so that he was not fit to reign. Refusing to abdicate, he was assassinated by nobles (1801), and his son Alexander I. (1801-24) succeeded him. Russia was now reconciled to England, and the Northern Neutrality Convention against her maritime oppression was dissolved.

POSITION OF PRUSSIA.—The king of Prussia, Frederick William III. (1797-1840), and the ministers whom he trusted, refused to listen to his spirited queen, Louisa, and the more earnest, patriotic party, by which he was urged to unite with the coalition. He clung to his policy of neutrality, and was to be bribed by the gift of Hanover. The attitude of Prussia, which had been governed by selfish considerations, was long the pivot on which the success of Napoleon's aggressions hung.

FAILURE OF VILLENEUVE.—If Napoleon ever seriously projected an invasion of England he abandoned the scheme before 1805, although he retained an army at Boulogne to alarm the English. Villeneuve, whose fleet was to command the Channel, had escaped from Nelson and was on his way back from the West Indies. The admiralty were warned of his movement by a vessel of light draught which Nelson, when he could not find his foe, dispatched to inform them of the danger. Villeneuve, after an indecisive action against the force sent to meet him under Sir Robert Calder, put first into the harbor of Ferrol, and then repaired to Cadiz. Nelson came back with his fleet to the Channel.

ULM AND TRAFALGAR.—The allies marked out four lines of invasion. The second and principal advance was to be up the valley of the Danube, and to be pursued by the Russians and Austrians. Napoleon did not wait for them to unite. He now made use of the army collected for the proposed invasion of England. He suddenly broke up his camp at Boulogne, and swiftly led his splendid and thoroughly drilled army across the Rhine, to the rear of the Austrian forces, of which Mack was the commander. Other detachments from Hanover and Holland came down the Main to take part in the movement. The Austrians were surrounded in Ulm, and gave themselves up, thirty thousand in number, as prisoners of war (Oct. 17, 1805). The strategy was like that pursued in the campaign of Marengo: the result was even more astonishing. It was not long, however, before news came to him of a great disaster to the French on the sea. Four days after the surrender at Ulm, Nelson achieved a grand victory off Cape Trafalgar, over the French and Spanish fleets. Before Villeneuve decided to leave the shelter of Cadiz, he had been obliged to weaken himself by sending away a number of his ships. The watchword sent from the flag-ship just before the encounter—"England expects every man to do his duty"—called forth shouts of enthusiasm from the decks of the British fleet. Two-thirds of the French ships were captured or ruined. Nelson himself was struck by a bullet, and died the same night. His private life was not free from grave faults, but he was the greatest naval hero England has ever produced.

AUSTERLITZ: CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE.—On the land, the career of Napoleon was triumphant. The "Grand Army," with its system of corps and reserves, marched on Vienna, which was occupied on the 13th of November. The Russians were still to be encountered. The army of Alexander was a very powerful one; but he made, instead of awaiting, the attack, and, on the 2d of December, was utterly defeated on the memorable field of Austerlitz. The Peace of Pressburg followed (Dec. 26, 1805). Austria gave up Venice, which was annexed to the new Italian kingdom, of which Napoleon was the head. The Tyrol went to Bavaria, whose elector was recognized as a king, as was also the elector of Wuertemberg. Soon after, the Bourbons were dethroned at Naples, and Napoleon's brother Joseph took that kingdom. Bavaria, Baden, Wuertemberg, and other smaller states were united into a Confederation of the Rhine (1806), with Napoleon for its protector. The Holy Roman Empire from that time had no longer even the shadow of a reality. Francis I. was simply emperor of Austria, and Austria was greatly reduced in power.

FALL OF PRUSSIA.—Prussia now stood by herself. Out of alarm at the progress of the French arms, and anger because French troops had been led across her territory without her consent, she had preferred to join the coalition. Austerlitz moved her to retrace her steps. She received Hanover as the price of a renewed alliance. England now declared war against Prussia. But Fox, who was an advocate of peace, had come into power in England (Jan. 23, 1806); and Prussia discovered that Napoleon, who was friendly to him, was negotiating for the surrender of Hanover to that country. This crowning indignity moved Prussia, at this inopportune moment, to take up arms against him. Prussia had no ally but Russia. The Prussian army was full of pride and hope; but its organization and method of warfare were after the old, traditional fashion which had come down from the days of Frederick the Great, and its commander, the Duke of Brunswick, though brave, was superannuated. In the two battles of Jena and Auersfadt, fought on the same day (Oct. 14, 1806), the Prussian forces were routed, and either captured or dispersed. A fortnight later (Oct. 27), Napoleon was in Berlin. Fortress after fortress was surrendered, and corps after corps captured by his troops. The royal family, including the Queen Louisa, were treated personally with harshness and disdain. The Prussian monarchy, to all appearance, was in ruins. Its museums and picture-galleries were robbed of their treasures, which went away as trophies to Paris. The Saxon Elector, made a king, joined the Rhenish Confederacy.

Fox died on Sept. 13, 1806. In 1807 (March 31), the Duke of Portland became prime minister; the rival and rising statesmen, Castlereagh and Canning, being both in the cabinet.

TO THE PEACE OF TILSIT.—It remained for the conqueror to deal with Russia. He had intended to prosecute a winter campaign in Poland, but the severity of the winter and the lack of supplies obliged him to fall back from Pultusk to the Vistula. The Russians now took the initiative. A terrible battle at Eylau (Feb. 7 and 8, 1807) was indecisive. Napoleon drew additional troops from all parts of his empire to supply the losses of the grand army. Benningsen, the Russian general, was incautious, and at Friedland (June 14) was routed. Dantzic and the still unconquered provinces of Prussia fell into the hands of the French. This series of wonderful successes made the revolution in the art of war, which Napoleon had introduced, obvious to the dullest eyes. His peculiar method of rapid movement, and subsistence on the country, and the obstacles to its uniform success, were likewise evident. The Emperor Alexander and Napoleon met on the Niemen. Alexander was won by Napoleon's gracious and friendly demeanor. At Tilsit, on the North-Prussian frontier, peace was concluded (July 7 and 9, 1807). Prussia fared the hardest. She lost half of her territory. She had to close her ports and lands to British trade, to limit her army to forty-two thousand men, and to consent to the erection of a duchy of Warsaw out of her Polish territory. Out of the Elbe provinces, a kingdom of Westphalia was constructed, of which Jerome Bonaparte received the crown. Russia also recognized Louis Bonaparte, another brother of Napoleon, as king of Holland. Alexander promised to go to war with England in case England rejected the offer of peace which he was to make as mediator. Alexander and Napoleon were to be fast friends and allies. Russia was to expand on the north and east, but not to have Constantinople. Napoleon had no better apology for the dismemberment of Prussia than a reference to the intemperate manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick in 1792, on the occasion of the first invasion of France. His real object was thoroughly to divide and disable Germany, and to take away the last obstacle to his complete control within its borders.

POWER OF NAPOLEON.—No ruler since Charlemagne had held such power as was now wielded by Napoleon. "Sovereign of France from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees, and of Italy from the Alps to the Tiber," he had given the throne of Holland to his brother Louis, that of Naples to Joseph, and made Jerome king of Westphalia. Spain was content to do his will, and Germany was under his feet. He was the leader of mighty armies, with no military rival to endanger his supremacy over them. His conquests, it was impossible to deny, carried with them the abolition of numerous time-worn abuses, and the introduction of important material improvements. France was in many respects prosperous under the despotism established over it.

ELEMENTS OF WEAKNESS.—But there were certain elements of weakness which Napoleon did not sufficiently discern. The feeling of nationality and patriotism in the subject countries was certain to awake with a strength which he did not at all anticipate. Old Rome had extinguished this feeling in most of her provinces, but there were countries whose spirit even Rome could not break. Napoleon undertook a task to which no man was equal. Meantime, he was exhausting the military resources of France. If its male population continued to be willing to follow him to the slaughter, where were the men to be found to fill the places of the multitudes that fell? The time must come when the hunger of the French for military glory would be sated, and dazzling victories would cease to hide the fearful cost at which they were purchased.

THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM.—The Treaty of Tilsit was followed by acts on the part of Napoleon which show the presumptuous confidence and arrogant spirit of domination, which, however natural on the pinnacle of might to which he had raised himself, proved disastrous, and, in the end, fatal. One of these acts was the "Continental System," ordained in the Berlin and Milan Decrees.

A Prussian decree (1806), Prussia being then a vassal of Napoleon, undertook to close the ports and rivers of the North Sea to English shipping. In retaliation, there was issued a British "Order in Council," declaring the coast from the Elbe to Brest in a state of blockade; the portion from Ostend to the Seine being declared to be under a rigorous blockade. This led to the Berlin Decree of Napoleon (Nov. 21, 1806). Then second "Orders in Council" (Nov. 11, 1807), prohibiting trade with France, her allies and colonies, as if they were blockaded, called out the Milan Decree of Napoleon (Dec. 17, 1807).

The continental system thus originated undertook to cut off trade between the entire Continent and England, by ordering all the merchandise of England and her colonies to be seized and confiscated, wherever it might be found,—even ships which touched at English ports. The design was to inflict injury on England. It had this effect, but it had the same effect on France, and still more in the other countries which profited by English trade. Wide-spread disaffection at the attempts to enforce this system was the inevitable consequence. Moreover, one result of it was to stimulate Napoleon to further conquests to keep up and to extend his commercial policy. Another motive was added to his growing and insatiable ambition for universal dominion.

INVASION OF SPAIN: WAGRAM.—Russia had declared war against Great Britain, according to the promise of Alexander at Tilsit. The British seized the Danish fleet in the harbor of Copenhagen, to prevent it from falling into the hands of Russia and France (Sept., 1807). Napoleon made this act a partial excuse for invading the Spanish peninsula, under the pretense of guarding the coasts against the English. His army entered Lisbon, and he declared that the house of Braganza had ceased to reign. His forces advanced into Spain beyond Madrid. Dissensions between Charles IV. and his son Ferdinand enabled Napoleon to get himself chosen as arbiter; and having enticed the two contestants to Bayonne, he set them both aside, and gave the crown of Spain to his brother Joseph,—Murat, who had married Napoleon's sister Caroline, taking the throne of Naples. This high-handed proceeding roused the Spanish people to revolt. The officers of Napoleon were several times defeated. A British force under Wellington—then Sir Arthur Wellesley—appeared in Portugal to lend help to the national movement. A French fleet in Cadiz was destroyed. Napoleon invaded Spain with an overwhelming force, and established his brother at Madrid (Dec. 2, 1808). But the people still kept up a harassing guerilla war. From Spain Napoleon was called away by the rising of Austria, which the events in Spain had once more moved to begin hostilities. Within a month from the beginning of the campaign, he again entered Vienna as a victor (May 11, 1809). He suffered a reverse at Aspern; but in the desperate battle of Wagram, in which not far from three hundred thousand men took part, he was triumphant. Austria purchased peace by further cessions of territory, and by joining the Continental System. The brave Tyrolese kept up the struggle with an heroic spirit; but at last Hofer, their leader, was captured and shot at Mantua (1810).

PIUS VII.—As Pius VII. refused to close his ports against England, and to ally himself with France, Napoleon proclaimed (May, 1809) that the Papal States were annexed to his empire. The Pope, who had steadfastly resisted his attempts at coercion, excommunicated him. The pontiff was arrested, and conveyed to Savona, and afterwards to France.

SWEDEN: BERNADOTTE.—Another ally in upholding the "Continental System" against England, Napoleon gained in Sweden, where one of his marshals, Bernadotte, had been chosen Crown Prince.

Under Adolf Frederic (1751-1771), a council of nobles usurped many of the functions of the king. A combined Russian and French party in Sweden was against him. His son, Gustavus III. (1771-1792), being supported by France, invaded Russian Finland, and, by the help of the Estates, reduced the power of the nobles, giving, however, to the Estates in the new constitution, the right to veto a project for offensive war. He was murdered in 1792. His son Gustavus IV., who became of age in 1808, was a bitter opponent of Napoleon, whom he considered to be the beast of the Apocalypse (Rev. xiii. 1). After the Peace of Tilsit, he made war on Russia, and on Denmark, from which he sought to wrest Norway. The nobles and the army rose against him, and obliged him to abdicate (1809). His uncle, Charles XIII., became king. Finland was surrendered to Russia. The king having no children, Bernadotte (1764-1844), a French marshal, made by Napoleon Prince of Pontecorno, but who often showed himself independent in his relations to him, was elected Crown Prince of Sweden (1810). Sweden joined the Continental System.

NAPOLEON'S DIVORCE AND MARRIAGE.—Napoleon, who was childless, in the hope of founding a dynasty on a sure basis procured a divorce from Josephine, and married Maria Louisa, the daughter of Francis I. of Austria. To the son who was born of this marriage he gave the sounding title of King of Rome, the old designation of the emperors-elect before their coronation.

TORRES VEDRAS.—The first successful stand against the military supremacy of Bonaparte was made in Spain. Wellington divined the secret of the French victories, and devised the means of effectual resistance. In Portugal, between the Tagus and the sea he fortified the position called Torres Vedras, which could be defended against superior forces. This he held against all the efforts of Massena to conquer and dislodge him. Deprived of the means of subsistence, the French suffered great losses and privations, and were obliged to retreat (May, 1811). Their method depended for success on the attaining of the desired result in a short time by swift operations.

REACTION AGAINST NAPOLEON.—The campaign of Wellington produced a strong moral effect in other parts of Europe. While France was beginning to show signs of weariness with the endless war, and with the despotic government under which it was kept up, in Germany a new spirit of patriotism was stirring in the hearts of the people. Under Stein, a great and patriotic minister, the Prussian system of civil administration was reorganized on a sound basis. The army was likewise reconstructed on the basis of universal military service. Serfdom was abolished and the old caste system, with its restrictions on land-holding, abandoned. A new Germany was slowly waking to life, and collecting its energies for the combat for freedom. The "Continental System" caused increasing irritation. Louis Bonaparte abdicated his throne in Holland, rather than enforce its odious requirements (July, 1810). The quarrel of Napoleon with the Pope, and the indignities suffered by the pontiff, who lived for three years upon alms, added to the discontent which the emperor's commercial policy provoked, even in France.



CHAPTER V. FROM THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN (1812) TO THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA (1814-15).

THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN—The circumstances narrated above did not prevent Napoleon from the fatal mistake of invading Russia. The czar would not enforce the commercial restrictions. Napoleon refused to promise not to restore the kingdom of Poland. There were various other causes of mutual jealousy and coolness. Sweden, under Bernadotte, which had been forced to declare war against England (1810), now joined Russia. Austria and Prussia, in their state of practical vassalage, had to furnish military help to Napoleon. In June, 1812, when he crossed the Niemen, he had brought together a force of five hundred and fifty thousand men. He had reinforcements from Poland, and might have had more had he not, from deference to Austria and Prussia, refused to restore the Polish kingdom. The Russians retreated as he advanced. Barclay, the Russian general, declined a battle, and destroyed whatever places could afford an advantage to the invader. At length, Kutusoff took the command, and was compelled by the Russian feeling, against his will, to give battle. At Borodino, where there was immense slaughter on both sides, the Russians retired, but without disorder. When the French arrived at Moscow, they found an empty town, which was set on fire by accident or by Russians. The Czar refused to treat for peace. There was no alternative but to retreat (Oct. 19, 1812). The sufferings of the soldiers from cold and famine were terrible. The Russians availed themselves of every opportunity to harass the retreating force. When it reached the ruins of Smolensk, only forty thousand were left of more than a hundred thousand that had left Moscow. The army continued to dwindle. At Smorgoni, Napoleon left Murat in command, and hastened in disguise to Paris. The expedition cost the lives of not less than three hundred thousand men. This gigantic failure was due to the foiling by the Russians of Napoleon's habitual plan of forcing decisive battles by movements so rapid that his troops could subsist upon the country which they overran, and to the unexpected destruction of Moscow.

THE GERMAN WAR OF LIBERATION: LEIPSIC.—In Germany, there now began the great War of Liberation. York—the commander of the Prussian contingent reluctantly furnished to Napoleon—went over to the Russians (Dec. 1812). During the first three months of 1813, all North Germany rose in arms. Heart-stirring appeals were issued by Frederick William III. to his people. He called for the formation of volunteer corps, and all young men capable of bearing arms responded with alacrity to the summons. Russia and Prussia formed a defensive alliance. Sweden made a treaty with England, and agreed to assist the allies. Napoleon's wonted success attended him at first in the encounter with the Russian and Prussian forces. He gained a victory at Luetzen (May 2), and another at Bautzen (May 20, 21). Austria sought to mediate, but Napoleon unwisely preferred war. Austria now, disregarding the family tie with Napoleon, was drawn by the current of German patriotism, as well as by self-interest, into the alliance against him. His imperious and arrogant domination was felt to be insupportable. But the circumstance that determined the course of Austria was the victory gained by Wellington at Vittoria, in Spain, over the French under Jourdan (June 21). The news of it turned the scale in the Austrian councils. The odds against Napoleon were now fearful, especially as his own army was largely composed of recruits who were hardly above the age of boys. He won one more triumph at Dresden (Aug. 27), but this was his last victory on German soil. The allies avoided the errors which he had taught them to avoid, and succeeded in bringing their forces together, and in compelling Napoleon to fight at Leipsic. The allied armies numbered three hundred thousand, while the French force did not exceed a hundred and eighty thousand. The "battle of the nations" lasted for three days (Oct. 16, 18, 19), although the fighting was chiefly on the first and third. On the last day it continued for nine hours. The Saxon contingent abandoned the French on the field, and went over to the allies. The defeat of the French, as night approached, became a rout. Napoleon, with the remnant of his army, was driven to the Rhine. The battle of Leipsic was really the decisive contest in the wars of Europe against Napoleon. From the defeat there, it was impossible for him to recover.

FALL OF NAPOLEON: ELBA.—The members of the Confederacy of the Rhine joined the allies. Holland rose in revolt, and drove out the French officials. Even France was exhausted and full of discontent. Meantime Wellington defeated Soult in the Pyrenees, and invaded France from that side. Napoleon was bent on resistance, and by his superior skill succeeded in ousting the brave Prussian soldier, but inexpert strategist, Bluecher, as well as the Austrian general Schwartzenberg (Jan. and Feb. 1814). But the preponderance of numbers on the side of the allies was too great. Their bold decision to march on Paris secured their triumph. The city surrendered (March 30). Napoleon had lost his hold on the ruling bodies. The senate, through the influence of the astute Talleyrand, once his minister, declared that he and his family had forfeited the throne. At Fontainebleau, he signed his abdication in favor of his son (April 6), but this condition was rejected. The small island of Elba was given to him by the allies as a sovereign principality. After a pathetic farewell to his veteran Guard, he betook himself to his small dominion. Louis XVIII., the brother of Louis XVI., was placed on the throne of France. France, by the Peace of Paris (May 30), was left with its ancient boundaries as they were before the Revolution slightly increased.

THE CHARTER.—According to a promise which the king had given, he (June 4, 1814) promulgated a constitutional CHARTER, a name borrowed from the Middle Ages when charters were granted to vassals. There was to be a legislature, with a house of peers or lords appointed by the king, and a chamber of deputies chosen by limited suffrage; the electors to be owners of property to a certain amount, and to be thirty years old. The king was to have the initiative in legislation. The Roman Catholic religion was declared to be the religion of the state, but liberty was given to dissenters. The right to make peace and war was given to the king, and also the right to issue ordinances necessary for the execution of the laws and the safety of the state. This last provision opened a door for arbitrary government, and paved the way for the downfall of the dynasty. The points of resemblance in the constitution to the English system were adapted to provoke a constant contrast with it, in respect to the degree of liberty actually secured and exercised by the people. The charter was dated from the nineteenth year of Louis XVIII., as if there had been no Republic or Empire.

PIUS VII.—Pope Pius VII., who, after 1809, was a virtual prisoner at Savona, refused to comply with Napoleon's demands. He could not be moved to invest the bishops whom the emperor had appointed. This was a principal point in the dispute. Napoleon called a national council of French bishops (1811). In 1812 the Pope was taken to Fontainebleau, and treated by him with harshness. When the pontiff refused to give a full and final sanction to the proposed agreement, until he should be free to confer with his cardinals, he was treated with still greater severity. The fall of Napoleon set him free, and he entered Rome, May 24, 1814.

CONGRESS OF VIENNA.—In September, 1814, the congress of Vienna met to readjust the map of Europe after the whirlwind of change and revolution. There were present the emperors of Russia and Austria, the kings of Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria, and Wuertemberg, and a great number of German princes. Castlereagh, and later Wellington, represented England, and Talleyrand was one of the representatives of France. The conferences were far from being harmonious. In particular, the claims of Russia upon Poland, and the claims of Prussia on Germany, threatened another war. While the debates, alternating with gay festivities, were still proceeding, the participants were startled by the news of the reappearance of Napoleon in France.

RETURN OF NAPOLEON FROM ELBA.—The new Bourbon rule was unpopular with the French. It was felt to be the effect and sign of national humiliation. The offensive conduct of the returned emigrant nobility, and measures looking towards a restoration of bygone abuses in government, fomented the disaffection. Napoleon, while apparently busy in laying out roads and canals, and regulating the affairs of his little kingdom, which was only sixty miles in circumference, kept himself well informed as to the state of public opinion in France. With a few hundred men of the Imperial Guard, he landed at Cannes (March I, 1815), and was joined by one regiment after another which were sent out to crush him. Ney, one of the best of his marshals, was carried away by the common feeling, and went over to the side of his old commander. Louis XVIII. fled from Paris; and, on March 20, Napoleon was again installed in the Tuileries.

WATERLOO.—Napoleon offered to the country a more liberal constitution, but the Bourbons were more hated than he was trusted. He professed to the great powers his desire for peace, but they did not listen to these assurances. Each agreed to furnish an army of one hundred and eighty thousand men to serve against him. He put forth prodigious exertions to gather a force with which to meet the host of his enemies; and although he could appeal to no warm national feeling, such as had called into being the armies of the Revolution, he succeeded in bringing together a force of over one hundred thousand men. He decided not to wait for the attack, but to assail the two armies of Bluecher and Wellington in Belgium. His plan was to attack them separately. Bluecher so far fell into the trap, that, in his eagerness to meet the detested foe, he offered battle to Napoleon at Ligny (June 16), and, after a desperate contest, was forced to retire from the field. On the same day, Wellington so far checked Ney in his attack at Quatre Bras, that he could not strike the Prussians on the flank, as Napoleon had designed. Napoleon thought that the Prussians would not be able, after their defeat, at once to aid Wellington. He sent Grouchy, however, with thirty-four thousand men, to observe them and inflict on them a final blow. On the forenoon of June 18, he himself attacked the British forces at Waterloo. The French got possession of La Haye Sainte, a farmhouse in front of Wellington's center, the scene of a bloody contest; but all their charges on Wellington's main line were met and repelled by the immovable squares of the British infantry. In the afternoon Napoleon's right began to be assailed by the Prussians; and finding, at seven o'clock, that they were coming in great force, he ordered a charge of the Imperial Guard on Wellington's forces. After a fierce struggle, the Guard was compelled to recoil and retire. The Prussians, piercing the right flank of the French army, turned its defeat into a rout. Grouchy was at Wavre, fighting the Prussian corps of Thielmann, which he seems to have mistaken for the entire Prussian army.

ABDICATION OF NAPOLEON: ST. HELENA.—On the 22nd of June Napoleon again abdicated in favor of his son. Carnot was for a dictatorship. The French Assembly, with La Fayette at its head, insisted on the abdication. On July 7 Bluecher and Wellington entered Paris. Napoleon fled to Rochefort, and, finding himself unable to escape to America, surrendered to the British admiral, and was taken on board the war-ship Bellerophon. Louis XVIII. was brought back to Paris. Napoleon, by the agreement of the allies, was conveyed to the island of St. Helena, where he remained, a fretful captive, until his death (May 5, 1821). Ney escaped, but was captured, condemned, and shot (Dec. 7, 1815). France engaged to pay a war indemnity of seven hundred million francs. Its boundaries were fixed as at 1790.

CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON.—Respecting certain traits of Napoleon, there is no dispute. His military genius all allow, although his daring was sometimes over-daring; and there are critics who profess to discern, after the beginning of the Russian campaign, and especially in the last contest in Belgium, signs of a decline in his almost superhuman vigilance and energy. Yet all must admit "that transcendent geometrical faculty," as Sainte-Beuve calls it, "which characterized Napoleon, and which that powerful genius applied to war with the same ease and the same aptitude that Monge [a great French mathematician] applied it to other subjects." No general ever had greater power to fascinate soldiers, and secure their devotion to him. One reason was, that he recognized and rewarded merit wherever he saw it. His intellectual movements were as much swifter than the ordinary as his marches were more rapid than those to which armies had been accustomed. For civil organization and administration he had rare talents, and in many directions enlightened views. Europe owes much to his innovations in this sphere. He was not incapable of warm personal attachments; as was manifested, for example, in his grief over Duroc, the favorite general, who fell at Bautzen. But an insatiable appetite for war, and, still more, a conviction, which he sometimes confessed, that he could retain and fortify his authority only by dazzling France, and continuing to astonish mankind by brilliant achievements, drove him forward on a path of aggression and bloodshed. He had an unpitying nature: he was careless of human suffering. Early in his career, in Italy, he ordered a needless and useless attack on the outposts of the enemy, "to treat a lady to a sight of real war." He did not shrink from ordering two thousand prisoners at Jaffa to be shot. He shocked all Germany by causing Palm, a bookseller of Nuremberg, to be shot for refusing to tell the name of the author of a publication offensive to him. He frequently displayed a petty rancor,—as, for example, in leaving a legacy in his will to the man who was accused of an attempt to assassinate the Duke of Wellington. His violence of temper, as in the murder of the Duke d'Enghien, hurried him into acts that were not less impolitic than criminal. His tyrannical will would brook no contradiction, even in matters oL trifling importance. He broke away from engagements when he thought it advantageous to do so. It is not an injustice to say, that he was habitually untruthful: his bulletins were disfigured by flagrant falsehoods, as well as gross exaggerations. In a letter to Talleyrand from Italy (Oct. 17, 1797) he says, "This is history: what I say in my proclamations and speeches is a romance." With his wonderful intellectual powers, inexhaustible energy, and amazing achievements, he never quite loses the characteristic spirit of an adventurer. He is haunted by a secret consciousness that this character belongs to him.

The judgment Of an adversary must be taken with allowance; but Wellington spoke at least without passion when he said, "Bonaparte's whole life—civil, political, and military—was a fraud. There was not a transaction, great or small, in which lying and fraud were not introduced." His "foreign policy was force and menace, aided by fraud and corruption."—Croker's Correspondence, etc., vol. ii. p. 86.

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.—The Congress of Vienna was dissolved in June, 1815. Its Acts were finally signed by the five great powers,—Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia,—and by Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. The Austrian and Prussian monarchies were restored. Austria received back Venice with Milan,—forming the subject Lombardo-Venetian kingdom,—besides receiving the Illyrian provinces and the Tyrol. The old possessions of Prussia were restored. She received the Rhenish provinces, a part of the duchy of Warsaw (Posen), and a great part of Saxony, besides other important additions. Holland and Belgium were formed into the one kingdom of the Netherlands, which had also a part of Luxemburg, and was ruled by the stadt-holder William I. The German Confederacy was instituted, with thirty-nine sovereign states, including the four free cities,—Austria being the presiding state. The greater part of the duchy of Warsaw fell to Russia, under the name of the Kingdom of Poland. Sweden retained Norway, which, however, kept its own free constitution; and Denmark acquired Lauenburg. England had vastly enlarged her colonial possessions. The present Swiss Confederation, consisting of twenty-two cantons, was established; three new cantons having been added to the former nineteen. The old dynasties were restored in Spain, in Tuscany, Modena, and the Papal States, in Naples, and in Sardinia. To Sardinia, Genoa, against its will, was annexed.

CHRONOLOGICAL STATEMENT.—The First Coalition was formed in 1793, when all Europe, except Sweden, Denmark, Tuscany, Switzerland, Venice, and Genoa, and Turkey, joined against France. In 1792 France had been at war with Austria and Prussia. In 1795 the coalition was broken: Prussia and Spain made peace with France. In 1797 Austria also concluded peace with France (the Peace of Campo'Formio). In 1798 the Second Coalition was formed, in which Turkey was included. Prussia and Spain were not parties to it. The Peace of Amiens, made with England (1802), ended the contest following it. The Third Coalition was formed in 1805, by England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden. Peace was concluded between Austria and France (Dec. 26, 1805). War followed in 1806-7, between France on one side, and Prussia and Russia on the other. These allies, with England, made a Fourth Coalition. In 1807 France and Russia were allies. The rupture between Austria and France in 1809 gave rise to what is often called the Fifth Coalition. In 1813 the Sixth Coalition, made up, after the accession of Austria, of all the principal powers, was in arms against France. On March 25, 1815, after Napoleon's return from Elba, the powers again declared war against him. As there was a fresh treaty, this may be called a Seventh Coalition.



CHAPTER VI. AMERICAN HISTORY IN THIS PERIOD (1789-1815).

THE TWO PARTIES.—The cabinet of Washington consisted of four members. The secretary of the treasury was Alexander Hamilton of New York. The secretary of state was Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. The seat of government was placed at Philadelphia; but in 1800 it was removed to the District of Columbia, which was ceded for the purpose by Virginia and Maryland. Almost from the beginning, there were two political parties. The Federalists were made up of those who had been most in favor of the new Constitution, and desired to build up a strong central government. Accordingly they advocated a liberal construction of the Constitution as regards the extent of federal authority. They cherished the traditional spirit of the English laws and English political institutions. Washington and John Adams belonged to this class, and Hamilton was their most active leader. The Anti-Federalists, of whom Jefferson was the chief, were for a careful guarding of the rights of the States, and a strict interpretation of the powers allotted to the General Government. They had more sympathy with the political ideas at that time fast coming into vogue in France. They had a warm faith in the capacity of the mass of the people for self-government and for suffrage. They were called Republicans, and were sometimes styled Democrats.

HAMILTON'S MEASURES: THE CONFLICT OF PARTIES.—Hamilton proposed and carried highly important measures for the restoration of public credit and for the revival of industry and commerce. Under his leadership, the debts of the old confederacy, and the debts of the separate States which they had incurred in the common defense, were assumed. To provide revenue, a protective tariff and a system of internal taxation were ordained. A national bank was incorporated (1791), and a mint was established at Philadelphia. These measures had a great effect at home, and made a strong impression favorable to the new government abroad; but they were opposed by the Anti-Federalists as an unwarrantable assumption of power by the General Government. The excise on domestic spirits provoked an insurrection, called "the Whisky Rebellion," in Western Pennsylvania, which was put down by the militia. As the French Revolution advanced from step to step, the division of parties in America became more marked, and their mutual hostility more intense. At first all were in sympathy with France. La Fayette sent the key of the fallen Bastille as a gift to Washington. But the Federalists were determined to maintain a strict neutrality in the conflict between France and England. As the Revolution proceeded, a strong antipathy was awakened in America to the radical theories, as well as to the bloody deeds, of its promoters. This was enhanced by the strenuous efforts of the French Republic, aided by the Anti-Federalists, to induce the United States to take an active part in the war, on the side of France. Genet, the French minister, undertook to fit out privateers in Charleston. Washington issued a proclamation of neutrality (1793), which was followed by a Neutrality Act of Congress (1794). When Genet had the effrontery to appeal from the President to the people, at the demand of Washington he was recalled.

JAY'S TREATY.—The contest of parties reached its climax in connection with Jay's Treaty with Great Britain (1794),—a treaty negotiated by John Jay, chief justice, whom Washington had sent as envoy to London. There were mutual grounds of complaint between the two countries. The British had not surrendered the Western military posts, and were in the habit of "impressing seamen." 'This last practice was founded on the claim that a British subject can never become the subject of another country, and that, moreover, his military service may be always called for by his sovereign. When almost all Europe was at war, the carrying trade naturally fell, to a large extent, into American hands; hence, it was alleged, many English sailors deserted to get employment in American ships. The British claimed and exercised the right to visit foreign vessels, and to take from their decks the sailors who were asserted to be British subjects. The English, on their part, complained that the treaty stipulations as to debts due in America to British subjects had not been observed. Jay's Treaty provided for the giving-up of the Western posts, according to the previous stipulation; but said nothing respecting the right of impressment, which the British at that time would never have consented to relinquish. It was alleged, also, that in other features the treaty favored England unwarrantably, and unfairly in relation to France. It encountered violent opposition from the Republicans; but it was approved by Washington, and the legislative measures for carrying it out were passed in the House of Representatives by a slender majority, obtained through the eloquence of Fisher Ames, a member from Massachusetts.

NEW STATES: INVENTIONS.—According to the census of 1790, there were somewhat less than four millions of people in the United States. Virginia was the most populous State; next to Virginia stood Pennsylvania, then North Carolina, and, fourth in order, Massachusetts. A little more than one-fifth of the population were negro slaves. Vermont, the territory of which had been claimed by both New York and New Hampshire, was the first new State admitted to the Union (1791). A genius for mechanical invention early manifested itself in the country. Eli Whitney invented the cotton-gin (1792), for separating the seed from the fiber of the cotton-plant,—a machine which indirectly lent a powerful impulse to the production of cotton. In 1788 John Fitch was running a steamboat on the Delaware River; but the construction of a steamboat with side-paddles was due to the inventive talent of Robert Fulton (1807). Emigration from the Atlantic border to the West took three principal routes,—one from New England and New York, through the valley of the Mohawk; the second, through the passes of the Alleghanies; and the third, across the Blue Ridge to the rivers flowing from the south into the Ohio. In 1792 Kentucky, settled mainly by emigrants over the last-mentioned path, was made a State. The next State to be admitted was Tennessee (1796). The new settlers carried into the West the spirit and institutions of the several communities which they had left. South of the Ohio, negro slavery was introduced. A treaty with Spain (in 1795) secured the free navigation of the Mississippi.

WASHINGTON'S RETIREMENT AND DEATH.—Washington himself was not exempt from bitter partisan attack in public prints. On his retirement from office, he prepared, with the assistance of Hamilton, a Farewell Address to the people, in which he exhorted them to maintain the Union as the only safeguard of liberty, and warned them against "entangling alliances" with European powers. The deep and universal sorrow which was felt when he died (1799) was a tribute as exalted as any nation ever paid to a fallen hero and benefactor.

ADAMS: RUPTURE OF THE FEDERAL PARTY.—John Adams, a Federalist, succeeded Washington as president; and Jefferson became vice-president (1797). The French had seized a large number of American vessels, on the pretense that they were affording aid to England. In order, if possible, to prevent war, the President sent out a special mission to France; but the commissioners—Pinckney, Gerry, and Marshall—were told by the Directory that they must pay money as a bribe before they could be received, and were finally ordered to quit the country (1797). The phrase of Pinckney, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute," expressed the universal feeling. The report of the insulted envoys roused the indignation of the American people, and moved Congress to prepare for war. Washington was made general of all the forces to be raised, and he appointed Hamilton to be second in command. Hostilities had really commenced; the Federalists were eager for a declaration of war; but President Adams, without the knowledge of his cabinet, suddenly nominated to the senate another ambassador to France. He had previously become assured that such a messenger would be well received. Napoleon having come into power, a treaty was concluded with him (1800). The course of the President, however, gave mortal offense to the adherents of Hamilton, and fatally divided the Federal party. Hamilton and his supporters became wholly alienated from Adams, so that the triumph of the Republicans was rendered certain.

"RESOLUTIONS OF '98."—The violence of the attacks upon the administration, which were made partly by foreign emissaries, had caused the Federalists (1798) to pass the alien and sedition laws. The first authorized the President to order out of the country aliens who were conspiring against its peace. Its operation was limited to two years. The second punished seditious libels upon the government with fine and imprisonment. These acts provoked a storm of opposition. Under the auspices of Jefferson, and of Madison, who was now one of his supporters, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-99 were passed by the Legislatures of those States. These resolves affirmed the right of a State to judge of the constitutionality and validity of an Act of Congress. They were interpreted as an assertion of the extreme doctrine of State rights.

PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA.—In 1800 Jefferson was elected to the presidency, and Aaron Burr, a scheming politician of the Republican school, was made vice-president.

At that time, and until the amendment of the Constitution (1804), the electors voted for two persons, without designating either for the presidency or the vice-presidency. The candidate having the highest number of votes became president. As Jefferson and Burr had an equal number, the choice between them for the highest office was made by the House of Representatives.

The obnoxious laws of the preceding administration disappeared with it. One of the most important events under Jefferson's administration was the purchase of Louisiana from France, which had acquired it from Spain. Napoleon knew that he could not keep it from falling into the hands of England, and readily sold it for fifteen millions of dollars. Thereby the territory of the United States was doubled in its extent. The whole region between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, with New Orleans, was added to the country, together with whatever claim France had to West Florida, Texas, and the district west of the Rocky Mountains. Ohio, composed of the south-eastern portion of the northwest territory, was admitted to the Union in 1803.

In the first fifteen years after the government was organized, there are four things that affected powerfully the character and career of the United States. The first was the influence of Washington in inspiring attachment to the Union. The second was the genius of Hamilton in creating an efficient administration of the new civil polity. The third was the democratic political tendency fostered by Jefferson. The fourth was the vast expansion of the national territory by the Louisiana Purchase, insuring the extension of the Union, and preventing the rise of rival political communities in its neighborhood.

WAR WITH THE ALGERINES.—The pirates of Algiers, Morocco, and the other Barbary States, demanded tribute of American vessels on the Mediterranean. The first exploits of the navy of the United States were in combats with these marauders (1801-5). Decatur performed the exploit of burning in the harbor of Tripoli the American ship Philadelphia, which the Tripolitans had captured (1804). Derne was captured, and Tripoli bombarded. Finally a treaty put an end to the exaction of tribute (1805).

An event that deeply moved the whole country was the killing of Hamilton by Burr in a duel (1804). Burr was afterwards charged with an intention to form a new government on the south-western borders of the United States. He was tried for treason (1807), and not convicted, although many have believed him to be guilty.

CAUSES OF THE WAR OF 18l2-15.—The great European wars brought the United States into serious difficulties, principally in regard to questions relating to commerce. Attempts were made by the European nations to establish blockades by mere enactment, without actual and sufficient occupation of the ports which were declared to be closed. The tendency of the British Orders in council, and of Napoleon's Berlin and Milan Decrees (p. 528), was "to grind to pieces the few remaining neutral powers." These were in effect cut off from trade with both Continental and English ports by the ordinances of one or the other of the two belligerents, the penalty being the confiscation of the vessels employed in such traffic. Such were the restrictions upon neutrals, that a great number of American ships were seized and confiscated by English and French cruisers. In addition to these grievances, the Leander, a British ship, exercised the pretended right of impressment by firing on an American trading-sloop (1806); and in like manner another British vessel, the Leopard, fired on the frigate Chesapeake, which was not prepared for resistance, and took four men from its crew (June 22, 1807). In retaliation, Jefferson ordered all British ships of war to leave the coast of the United States. Then followed the Embargo, embracing a succession of enactments of Congress, which forbade American vessels to leave the harbors of the United States for Europe, and forbade European vessels to land cargoes in American ports. The result of this measure was to smite American commerce with an utter paralysis. The ships rotted at the wharves. The unpopularity of the Embargo, especially in the Eastern commercial States, was such that in Jefferson's second term it was repealed. It was followed (1809) by the Non-Intercourse Act, prohibiting commerce with France and England. The British Orders in Council were then, in a measure, relaxed, as was the practical enforcement against our vessels of the Berlin Decree. In 1812, the French rescinded their obnoxious decrees; and the English immediately took the same step, but not soon enough to prevent a war with the United States.

EVENTS OF THE WAR IN 1812 AND 1813.-James Madison, a wise and moderate statesman of the Republican party, became president in 1809. He was personally averse to engaging in war with Great Britain; but the exasperation of a large part of the country, and the pressure of the younger leaders of his party,—Calhoun, Clay, and Lowndes,—moved him to a reluctant consent. The war, which was declared in 1812, was bitterly opposed in the New-England States, where the strength of the Federalists chiefly lay. By them the real motive of it was considered to be partiality for France. The treasury was nearly empty; there were but few ships of war, and only a small land force of about ten thousand men, made up in part of raw recruits. Before this time, the North-western Indians, under Tecumseh, whom the British were suspected of inciting to war, had been defeated at Tippecanoe (1811), by William Henry Harrison, governor of Indiana. The war with England opened inauspiciously with the surrender of Detroit by Gen. William Hull to Gen. Brock (Aug. 16, 1812), and an unsuccessful attempt to invade Canada at Queenstown. On the sea, however, the Americans had successes which filled them with pride and exultation. Captain Isaac Hull, of the frigate eConstitution, captured the British frigate Guerriere, and brought his prisoners to Boston. Decatur, captain of the United States, brought the Macedonian as a prize into the harbor of New York. The Constitution destroyed the Java; but the Chesapeake, whose captain was killed, surrendered to the Shannon. Privateers were fitted out, which captured several hundreds of British ships and several thousands of prisoners. In 1813 Perry defeated the English fleet on Lake Erie. His victory gave the Americans the command of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. Harrison defeated the British and Indians,—who had been driven to abandon Michigan,—near the River Thames in Canada. Except on the Lakes the navy was successful only in single ship actions. The Americans had taken possession of Mobile, which they as well as the Spanish claimed; but the Creek Indians were incited by the Spaniards to engage in hostilities. Forces from Tennessee, under Andrew Jackson, and troops from Georgia and Mississippi, fought the Creeks with success.

THE WAR IN 1814-15.—In 1814 a third attempt of the Americans under Gen. Brown, to invade Canada, produced no decisive result. There was hard fighting. The British were routed at Chippewa; and they were repulsed at Lundy's Lane, opposite Niagara Falls, by Lieut. (afterwards General) Winfield Scott. Napoleon had now been defeated; and the English sent twelve thousand troops, who had served under Wellington in Spain, to Canada, to invade the United States from the north, while another army was to make an invasion by way of New Orleans. A fleet under Admiral Cockburn sailed up the Potomac, and burned the Capitol and other public buildings at Washington (Aug. 24, 1814). An attack was made on Baltimore by a British fleet, but was bravely repelled. The defeat of the British fleet near Plattsburg, on Lake Champlain, by Commodore Macdonough (Sept. 11, 1814), resulted in the retreat of the British army, which was besieging that place, to Canada. New Orleans was defended by General Jackson. The British under Pakenham and Gibbs attacked his works, but were defeated and withdrew (Jan. 8, 1815). The town was protected from the approach of the English fleet by the fort. Before the battle, peace had been concluded, but the news had not reached this country.

THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.—The antagonism to the war in the New England States found expression in the call of a convention at Hartford, where their delegates met (Dec. 15, 1814). These States complained, that while their commerce and fisheries were ruined, there was no protection afforded to their sea-coast. Stonington in Connecticut had been bombarded, and Castine in Maine had been captured. They denied, also, that the General Government had the power over the State militia which it claimed. For these and other grievances, they sought for a remedy "not repugnant to their obligations as members of the Union." They declared that measures of the General Government which are palpable violations of the Constitution are void, and that the States injuriously affected might severally protect their citizens from the operation of them, by such means as the several States should judge it wise to adopt; but they disavowed the right or intent to break up the Union. The effect of the convention was to bring great popular discredit on the Federalists, and to seal their doom as a distinct party.

TREATY OF PEACE: ALGIERS.—In the Treaty of Ghent (Dec. 24, 1814), provisions were made for defining boundaries as settled by previous treaties, and an engagement was made on both sides to suppress the slave-trade; but no mention was made of maritime rights and the impressment of seamen. This last practice was, however, discontinued, although it was never renounced. The war left the disputes that caused it just where they were. Many then and since have regarded it as really undertaken by the dominant party in the United States, in order to help one of the belligerents in the great struggle then going forward between England and France. Whether this view be just, or not, it is certain that the war imparted to Americans the consciousness of power and nationality. The connection between America and Great Britain was broken off at the Revolution, because, as Turgot once said, colonies are like fruits which only stay on the tree until they are ripe. But the conflict was not over at the conclusion of the Peace of 1783. Bancroft has called the war of 1812-15 "the second war of independence." Nothing lent it this character so much as the naval victories won by the United States, which gave them a standing among the nations. In 1815 a squadron under Decatur was sent to Algiers, and the Barbary States were compelled to give up by treaties all their demands.



CHAPTER VII. LITERATURE, ART, AND SCIENCE (1789-1815).

NEW SPIRIT IN LITERATURE.—In the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries, literature broke away from the artificial rules and the one-sided intellectual tone of the "classical" school,—that school which had prevailed through the influence of the French writers of the age of Louis XIV. The new era was marked by more spontaneity, and a return to nature, and by a more free rein given to imagination and feeling. "Romanticism," a general designation of the results of this new movement as contrasted with the "classical" period, sometimes ran out into extravagances of sentiment, and an exaggerated relish for the mediaeval spirit.

WRITERS IN ITALY AND IN FRANCE.—In Italy, there were few writers of distinction. Monti (1754-1828) was a poet full of harmony and elegance, a follower, but with unequal steps, of Alfieri. Another of the same school is the patriotic poet, Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), a master of his native tongue. The poems of Pindemonte (1753-1828) are graceful and pathetic. Leopardi (1798-1837) mingles sublimity with pathos. Of the Italian historians of this period, Botta (1766-1837), who published a history of the American Revolution, and histories of Italy, is a clear writer, with a talent for vivid description. In France, Chateaubriand (1768-1848), who figured both in political life and as a prolific and brilliant author, by his Genius of Christianity and many other productions gained great celebrity,—more, however, by charms of style and sentiment, than by weight of matter. Madame de Stael (1766-1817) was the daughter of Necker. Between her and Napoleon there was a mutual hostility. She wrote Corinne, Delphine,—"in which she idealizes herself,"—a work on Germany, and various other productions. She was versatile, vigorous in thought, and humane in her temper and spirit. In philosophy, a believing and spiritual school, in opposition to materialism, was founded by Maine de Biran (1766-1824), Royer-Collard (1763-1846), and Benjamin Constant. De Maistre (1754-1821) wrote ably on the side of authority and of the Catholic Church.

ENGLISH POETRY.—Literature in England, especially in the department of poetry, casting off the trammels of the classical school, in which Dryden and Pope were foremost, entered on a new and splendid era. Whether it dwelt on external nature or human passions and experiences, it appealed to sensibility. It was no more exclusively, or in the main, an address to the understanding. Cowper (1731-1800) set the example of genuine naturalness, and of interest in nature and in every-day life. Robert Burns, a Scottish peasant (1759-1796), by his wonderful union of tenderness, passion, and humor, with poetic fancy and simplicity of diction, was more than the poet of a single nation. Wordsworth (1770-1850) blended in his poems a delight in rural and mountain scenery, with a deep vein of pensive thought and sentiment. If he wrote dull pages, even the severest critics allow that in The Excursion there are most beautiful "oases in the desert;" while in such poems as the Ode on the Power of Sound, the Intimations of Immortality from the Recollections of Childhood, and Laodamia, there are passages not excelled since Milton. A more sustained fervor of feeling and imagination belonged to Byron (1788-1824), who, notwithstanding his morbid egotism and offenses against morality, combined passion with beauty, and was never dull. Walter Scott (1771-1832) exhibited in his narrative poems the spirit of the romantic school, with none of its sentimentality or extravagance. Coleridge (1772-1834), the author of Christabel and The Ancient Mariner, was a highly original poet, as well as a philosopher. Southey (1774-1843), with less genius, was a man of letters, prolific both in verse and in prose. Shelley and Keats had a much higher gift of imagination. Campbell, Rogers, and Moore are names of distinction, although less illustrious than those of Wordsworth and Coleridge, Scott and Byron. Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), a poet and the author of Imaginary Conversations, and other prose writings, was master of a style of extraordinary power and purity.

ENGLISH PROSE WRITERS.—In novel-writing, Miss Austen, Miss Porter, and Miss Edgeworth preceded Walter Scott. Waverley, the first in the series of Scott's novels, appeared anonymously in 1814. In 1802 the Edinburgh Review, the first of the noted critical quarterlies, began its existence, under the editorship of Francis Jeffrey, and numbered among its writers Brougham, Sydney Smith, and Sir James Mackintosh. In 1809 the Quarterly Review, the organ of the Tories as the Edinburgh Review represented the Whigs, began, with Gifford for its editor. Among the essayists of that time, in a lighter vein, were John Wilson ("Christopher North"), poet and critic in one; and the genial humorist, the friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge, Charles Lamb. John Foster (1770-1843) was an original essayist on grave themes. In philosophy, Dugald Stewart (1753-1828), a clear and fluent expositor, and Thomas Brown (1778-1821), kept up the reputation of the Scottish school founded by Reid. Burke, Alison, and Jeffrey wrote on beauty, and on the taste for the beautiful. Mackintosh, a statesman of liberal opinions, wrote on ethics. Coleridge, inspired by the German thinkers Kant and Schelling, through his philosophical fragments and theological essays did much to create a new current in English philosophical and religious thought. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was less eminent as a metaphysician than as a contributor, through his writings, to legislative reform.

AMERICAN WRITERS.—In America, the political writings of Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Marshall, and Ames, have a permanent value. Their letters and the letters of Washington are written in clear and manly English. Lindley Murray (1745-1826) published (1795) an English Grammar, which superseded all others. In theology, there were a number of vigorous thinkers and writers, such as the younger President Edwards, Samuel Hopkins, Bellamy, Emmons, J. M. Mason, and Dwight. Dwight's System of Theology was much read in England and Scotland. Belles-lettres literature in America was in its infancy. There was a triad of poets,—Trumbull, a humorous writer (1750-1831), Joel Barlow (1755-1812), and Dwight (1752-1817); all of them survivors of the school of Pope. Their patriotic feeling was their chief merit, but Barlow and Dwight each wrote one excellent hymn.

GERMAN AUTHORS.—One of the most versatile and stimulating of German writers was Herder (1744-1803). Full of imagination and spirit, he made his quickening influence felt as a theologian, critic, philosopher, and philologist. His name is in some measure eclipsed by the fame of his two great associates at Weimar, Goethe (1749-1832) and Schiller (1759-1805). By the universality of his genius, which was equally exalted in the sphere of criticism and of original production, Goethe is, by common consent, the foremost of German authors. His dramas, especially Tasso, Egmont, and Faust, and his pastoral epic, Hermann and Dorothea, are the most celebrated of his poems; but many of his minor pieces are marked by exquisite harmony and beauty. Schiller, with less repose and a less profound artistic feeling, yet from his humane impulses and fire of emotion stands closer to the popular heart. Koerner (1791-1813), and Arndt (1769-1860), the author of the song, "Where is the German's Fatherland," were patriotic lyrists of high merit. Uhland (1787-1862) is a ballad-writer, not surpassed in this species of composition by any of his contemporaries. The "Romantic School," with its predilection for the Middle Ages, included Novalis, Tieck, and also the two brothers Schlegel, who were critics rather than poets. One of the most unique and original of the German writers was Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825), essentially a philosopher and moralist, yet with a pervading element of humor and pathos.

GERMAN PHILOSOPHY.—In philosophy, the first name in the order of time and of merit is that of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The Critique of Pure Reason is the most important of his productions. He showed, against Hume, that the ideas of cause, substance, self, etc., are not products of imagination, or due to a mere custom of thought, but are from within, and are necessary and universal. In the Critique of the Practical Reason he found the real basis of faith in God, free-will, and immortality, in our moral nature. On all the topics which he treated, he was both earnest and profound. On the basis of a portion of his teaching, subsequent speculative philosophers reared a system of idealism and pantheism. Of these, the most celebrated are Fichte (1762-1814), who held that the world external to the mind has no existence; Schelling (1775-1854), who taught that nature and mind are at bottom one and the same substance, in different manifestations; and Hegel (1770-1831), who resolved all being into a realm of ideas, a self-existent and self-developing thought-world.

Among the numerous writers in other departments in this period, the brothers Alexander von Humboldt and William von Humboldt were eminent,—the former in natural science and as an explorer; the latter in political sciences, criticism and philology.

PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.—In Italy, a great sculptor—the greatest since Michael Angelo—appeared in the person of Canova (1757-1822); who, however, was equaled by an Englishman, John Flaxman (1755-1826). An eminent follower of Canova was Thorwaldsen (1770-1844), a Dane. Dannecker, a German sculptor (1758-1844), excelled in portrait statues. Another German sculptor, the founder of a school, was Rauch (1774-1857), whose statues are faithful, yet idealized, likenesses. A famous French painter in this period was David, whose pictures, in the classic style, lack force and warmth. Many of his scholars attained to high proficiency in the art. Horace Vernet (1789-1863) and Paul Delaroche (1797-1856) chose their subjects from modern European history. The modern German school of painting was founded by Overbeck, Von Schadow, and Cornelius. The greatest English painter after Hogarth was Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), whose portraits have seldom, if ever, been surpassed. Almost or quite on a level with him was Gainsborough (1727-1788). Benjamin West (1738-1820) was by birth an American, as was Copley, an artist of superior talents (1739-1815). Lawrence (1769-1830) was a British painter whose portraits have a high historical value. The greatest of the English landscape painters was Turner (1775-1851).

John Trumbull (1756-1843), an American, painted spirited battle-pieces, and miniature portraits of decided artistic merit. Washington Allston (1779-1843), another American painter, produced works admired for their warmth of color, and for the refined feeling expressed in them.

MUSIC.—The great German musicians Haydn and Mozart were followed by an equal or greater genius in music, Beethoven (1770-1827). At the head of the school of German song-writers is Schubert (1797-1828). One of the most popular of the German composers was Weber (1786-1826).

PHYSICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCE.—The most brilliant discoveries in astronomy were made by the French philosopher Laplace, whose Mecanique Celeste made an epoch in that science. Dr. Thomas Young (1773-1829) did much to explain the true theory of the tides, and to confirm the undulatory theory of light. Others eminent in the progress of optics are Fresnel (1788-1827), Biot, Arago,—all French physicists,—and Sir David Brewster. Lavoisier (1743-1794) infused a new spirit into chemical science. Priestley (1733-1804) discovered oxygen and other gases. Dalton (1766-1844) is the author of the atomic theory of the composition of matter. Sir Humphry Davy added to chemical knowledge, and, simultaneously with George Stephenson, invented the safety-lamp for miners. Berzelius (1779-1848), a Swedish chemist, and Gay-Lussac (1778-1850), a Frenchman, are great names in the history of this science. Galvani, the discoverer of animal electricity, and Volta, the inventor of the galvanic pile, stimulated others to fruitful experiments in this branch of study. Lamarck (1744-1829) was one of the first of the modern advocates of the origin of species by development. Cuvier (1769-1832), the greatest naturalist of modern times, made most important observations in comparative anatomy, and "established many of the positive laws of geology and paleontology." Geology first assumed the place of a science through the labors of Werner (1750-1817), a German mineralogist. There were two classes of geologists,—the Neptunians, or Wernerians, who ascribed rocks to aqueous deposition exclusively; and the Vulcanians, or Huttonists,—adherents of the view of Dr. Hutton (1726-1797) of Edinburgh,—who attributed many of them to the action of fire. The Geological Society of London was founded in 1807. Among discoveries of practical utility in science, the discovery of vaccination for the prevention of small-pox, by Jenner (1749-1823), an English physician, is one of the most remarkable.

LITERATURE: See the lists on pp. 16, 359, 497; also President A. D. White's list, with critical notes, attached to Morris's The French Revolution and First Empire (in "Epochs of history"), and Adams's Manual: the Histories of Alison (Tory), Louis Blanc, Carlyle, Jomini, Fyffe, Stephens, Mahan, Chuquet. Aulard, Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale VIII., IX. Michelet (7 vols.), Mignet, Morris, Von Sybel (4 vols.), Thiers, Taine, L. Hauesser; Madame de Remusat's Memoirs; Metternich's Memoirs (5 vols.), Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I. (3 vols.); Seeley, Life of Stein; Lowell, Eve of the French Revolution; on Napoleon, Rose, Lanfrey, Sloane.

De Tocqueville's L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution; P. Janet's Philosophie de la Revolution Francaise; Quinet, La Revolution; The Essays on the Revolution, by Burke, Mackintosh, Croker; Macaulay's Essays on Mirabeau and Barere; Lamartine's The Girondists; A. Young's Travels in France in 1787-88-89 (London, 1794); Oncken, Das Zeitalter der Revolution des Kaiserreiches (2 vols.); Sorel, L'Europe et la Revolution Francaise (5 vols.); Debidour, Rapports de l'Eglise et de l'Etat en France; Vandal, Napoleon et Alexandre 1st. Treitschke Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten Fahrhundert (4 vols.).

Taine, History of English Literature; Mrs. Oliphant, Literary History of England in the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries; Allibone, Dictionary of British and American Authors; Wendell, A Literary History of America.



PERIOD V. FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA (1815) TO THE PRESENT TIME.

INTRODUCTION.

POLITICAL CHANGES IN EUROPE.—The aspiration of the peoples of Europe after constitutional freedom and national unity, after the yoke of Napoleon had been thrown off, was for a long season baffled. This was owing partly to the lassitude natural after the protracted and exhausting wars, and more to the combination of the principal sovereigns, instigated by the love of power and the dread of revolution, for the purpose of preventing the popular yearning from being gratified. But in 1830—when half of the lifetime of a generation had passed by—the overthrow of the old Bourbon line of kings in France was the signal for disturbances and changes elsewhere on the Continent. In England, at about the same time, there began an era of constitutional and legislative reforms which effected a wider diffusion of political power. In 1848—after a second interval of about equal length—another revolutionary crisis occurred. At the same time, movements in favor of communism and socialism brought in a new peril. Alarm felt on this account, by the middle class in France, was one important aid to the third Napoleon in reviving the empire in France. The condition of Europe—in particular, the divided state of Germany—enabled him to maintain a leading influence for a score of years in European politics. The unification of Germany, which began in the triumph of Prussia over Austria, was completed in Napoleon's downfall through the Franco-German war. The unification of Italy, to which Louis Napoleon had contributed by the French alliance with Sardinia against Austria, was consummated under Victor Emmanuel, after his cooperation with Prussia in her great struggle with Austria. Thus Germany and Italy reached the goal to which they had looked with desire and hope at the close of the Napoleonic wars in 1815.

AMERICA.—On the Western Continent, Mexico and the South-American dependencies of Spain and Portugal gained their independence in connection with political revolutions in the European countries to which they had been attached. The United States, in the enjoyment of peace, and favored by great material advantages, advanced with marvelous rapidity in population and in wealth. Discord, growing out of the existence of negro slavery in the South, brought on at last the Civil War, which terminated in the conquest of the Confederate States and their restoration to the Union, in the freedom of the slaves, and in the prohibition of slavery by Constitutional amendment.