FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EMPIRE, 1804-1814
Character of the empire--Change of the republics created by the directory into kingdoms--Third coalition; capture of Vienna; victories of Ulm and Austerlitz; peace of Pressburg; erection of the two kingdoms of Bavaria and Wurtemberg against Austria--Confederation of the Rhine--Joseph Napoleon appointed king of Naples; Louis Napoleon, king of Holland--Fourth coalition; battle of Jena; capture of Berlin; victories of Eylau and Friedland; peace of Tilsit; the Prussian monarchy is reduced by one half; the kingdoms of Saxony and Westphalia are instituted against it; that of Westphalia given to Jerome Napoleon--The grand empire rises with its secondary kingdoms, its confederation of the Rhine, its Swiss mediation, its great fiefs; it is modelled on that of Charlemagne--Blockade of the continent--Napoleon employs the cessation of commerce to reduce England, as he had employed arms to subdue the continent--Invasion of Spain and Portugal; Joseph Napoleon appointed to the throne of Spain; Murat replaces him on the throne of Naples--New order of events: national insurrection of the peninsula; religious contest with the pope--Commercial opposition of Holland--Fifth coalition--Victory of Wagram; peace of Vienna; marriage of Napoleon with the archduchess Marie Louise--Failure of the attempt at resistance; the pope is dethroned; Holland is again united to the empire, and the war in Spain prosecuted with vigour--Russia renounces the continental system; campaign of 1812; capture of Moscow; disastrous retreat--Reaction against the power of Napoleon; campaign of 1813; general defection--Coalition of all Europe; exhaustion of France; marvellous campaign of 1814--The allied powers at Paris; abdication at Fontainbleau; character of Napoleon; his part in the French revolution--Conclusion.
I am about to take a rapid review of the history of the French revolution, which began the era of new societies in Europe, as the English revolution had begun the era of new governments. This revolution not only modified the political power, but it entirely changed the internal existence of the nation. The forms of the society of the middle ages still remained. The land was divided into hostile provinces, the population into rival classes. The nobility had lost all their powers, but still retained all their distinctions: the people had no rights, royalty no limits; France was in an utter confusion of arbitrary administration, of class legislation and special privileges to special bodies. For these abuses the revolution substituted a system more conformable with justice, and better suited to our times. It substituted law in the place of arbitrary will, equality in that of privilege; delivered men from the distinctions of classes, the land from the barriers of provinces, trade from the shackles of corporations and fellowships, agriculture from feudal subjection and the oppression of tithes, property from the impediment of entails, and brought everything to the condition of one state, one system of law, one people.