Alvinzi at Arcole on the 15th of November, and at Rivoli on the 14th of January, 1797; concluded the peace of Tolentino, in which the pope yielded Avignon to France, and Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna to the Cisalpine republic, on the 19th of February; and defeated the archduke Charles at Lesonzo; and signed preliminaries of peace with Austria at Leoben on the 16th of April, 1797, which formed the peace of Campe Formio, by which alone the Austrian capital was saved from destruction. This treaty led to a congress to be held for the adjustment of claims, and to bring about that desirable blessing, peace. Radstadt was the place appointed for the meeting of the ministers of the different powers who were to assist. Fifteen months elapsed in negotiation, which terminated in delusion; and the French plenipotentiaries, Bonnier and Roberjot, were assassinated by some German soldiers on their return to France. Both parties having in the interim recruited their strength, renewed the war.

During the above-mentioned negotiation, a plan was laid in France for the conquest of Egypt. They accordingly fitted out a formidable flcet at Toulon, on board of which were embarked 42,000 troops, the flower of Bo. naparte's victorious Italian army. All Europe was interested in the destination of so formidable an armament, but more particularly England. Bonaparte it was generally understood, was to have the command; but the great secrecy with which everything relating thereto was conducted, baffled all the efforts at the discovery of his real designs. It left Toulon in May, 1798, under the command of Brieux as admiral, and Bonaparte as commander-in-chief of the troops, and steered to the eastward. In June, Malta submitted; and on the 2d of July, it reached Alexandria, in Egypt; having had the good fortune to escape the vigilance of Admiral Nelson, who had been dispatched in search of it as soon as it was known for a certainty that it had gone to the eastward. Alexandria was taken on the 3d; and the beys and Mamelukes were defeated in several actions. Egypt, including its capital, Grand Cairo, was in the possession of the French in twenty-one days from their landing. Bonaparte had landed his forces but a short time before the English fleet appeared on the coast of Egypt. The French fleet lay in the bay of Aboukir, moored in the greatest security; Nelson attacked it on the 1st of August, and gained a victory as complete as any in the naval annals of the country. Bonaparte having brought Egypt under his power, his next object was Syria, for the invasion of which he was in readiness early in February, 1799. He marched from Grand Cairo across the desert. He took El Arish, Joppa, and Jerusalem, and penetrated the country as far as Acre, which place he besieged. Here he met with an unexpected foe, in the captains and crews of a small English fleet, commanded by Sir Sydney Smith, which had come to the assistance of the pacha; and after many most daring attempts to take that city, during forty days and upwards, he retired with considerable loss.

It was during the siege of Acre that Bonaparte first heard of the reverses of the French, and the loss of the greater part of his conquests in Italy. He soon afterwards defeated the army of the pacha of Natolia at Aboukir, and his departure from Egypt followed immediately on that event. He left the government of his new conquest under General Kleber, and, embarking on board a small vessel, with a few of his principal officers, had the good fortune to escape the numerous English cruisers, and arrived at Frejus on the 13th of October. He was received in Paris on the 16th, amid the acclamations of the people, and was soon made acquainted with the external and internal situation of France. He deplored the loss of those conquests which had acquired to him immortal fame, but he further deplored the state of the country, torn into a variety of factions. An army unclothed, unfed, and unpaid; a part of the interior of the republic in rebellion; a host of foes from without pressing it on all sides; the finances in the utmost possible state of derangement; and the resources drained

almost to the last livre. The quick discernment of Bonaparte told him that nothing short of a grand effort could save France from ruin. He soon made up his mind to the action, and, assisted by a few friends, his generals, and his army, actually assumed the government on the 9th of November, abolishing, at the same time, the constitution of the third year. He was soon after elected first consul, with extraordinary powers.

he scene that took place on this memorable occasion is well worth transcribing: The legislature met at St. Cloud; the council of elders in the great gallery, and that of five hundred, of whom Lucien Bonaparte was president, in the orangery. Bonaparte entered the council of elders, and, in an animated address, described the dangers that menaced the republic, and conjured them to associate their wisdom with the force which surrounded him. A member using the word "constitution," Bonaparte exclaimed, "The constitution! It has been trodden under foot, and used as a cloak for all manner of tyranny." Meanwhile a violent debate was going on in the orangery, several members insisting upon knowing why the place of sitting had been changed. The president endeavoured to allay the storm; but the removal had created great heat, and the cry was, "Down with the dictator! No dictator!" At that moment Bonaparte himself entered, bare-headed, followed by four grenadiers, on which several members exclaimed, "Who is that? No sabres here! No armed men!" While others descending into the hall, collared him, calling him "Outlaw," and pushed him towards the door. One member aimed a blow at him with a dagger, which was parried by a grenadier Disconcerted at this rough treatment, General Lefevre came to his aid; and Bonaparte retiring, mounted his horse, and addressed the troops outside. His brother Lucien also made a forcible appeal to the military, and the result was, that a picket of grenadiers entered the hall, and the drums beating the pas de charge, cleared it at the point of the bayonet. This truly Cromwellian argument decided the affair, and in the evening it was declared that the directory had ceased to exist; that a provisional consular commission should be appointed, composed of citizens Sieyes, Ducos, and Bonaparte; and that the two councils should name committees, of 25 members each, to prepare a new constitution. In the interval between the abolition of one constitution and the creation of another, the consuls were invested with a dictatorship. Lucien Bonaparte was made minister of the interior; Talleyrand, of foreign affairs; Carnot, of war; and Fouché, of police.

The Consular Government.

A. D. 1809.-The new constitution consisted of an executive composed of three consuls, one bearing the title of chief, and in fact possessing all the authority; of a conservative senate, composed of 80 members, appointed for life, the first 60 to be nominated by the consuls, and the number to be completed by adding two, annually, for ten years, and a legislative body of 300 members, and a tribunate of 100. Bonaparte was nominated the first consul, for ten years; Cambacères and Lebrun, second and third consuls, for five years. Sieyes, who had taken an active part in bringing about the revolution, and in framing the new constitution, was rewarded by the grant of an estate worth 15,000 francs per annum. One of the first acts of the consulate was a direct overture from Bonaparte to the king of England for peace; which was replied to by the English minister, who adverted to the origin of the war, and intimated that "the restoration of the ancient line of princes, under whom France had enjoyed so many centuries of prosperity," would afford the best guarantee for the maintenance of peace between the two countries. This was of course construed, as it was meant, a rejection of the offer. The strength and energy of the new government made itself visible in the immediate union of the best

leaders of all parties; in the return of many thousand emigrants in the humbler ranks of life, and in the activity which was displayed by all who held office under the consular government. Bonaparte soon put himself at the head of the army of Italy, and by the rapidity of his operations outgeneralled his opponents. Having made himself acquainted with the position of the Austrian army, encamped in a valley at the foot of Mount St. Bernard, he formed the bold design of surprising them by crossing that part of the Alps which was before considered inaccessible to a regularly equipped army. It was, in truth, a most difficult and daring exploit, exceeding anything that had occurred since the days of Hannibal; but in proportion to the peril of the undertaking, was the glory that awaited it. The battle of Marengo, which was fought on the 14th of June, 1800, decided the fate of Italy. Moreau, who was at this time commanding the army of the Rhine, gained the battle of Hohenlinden, December 3d, and threatened Vienna. These great victories were followed by the conclusion of a treaty with Austria, in its own name, and that of the German empire, but without the concurrence of England, on the 9th of February, 1801. In this peace, the course of the Rhine was fixed as the limit between France and Germany. Those German princes who lost their territories beyond the Rhine by this new arrangement, were to be indemnified by additional possessions on the right bank of that river. In Italy the course of the Adige was fixed as the boundary between Austria and the Cisalpine republic, and the former power gave the Briesgau and Ortenau to the duke of Modena. The territories of the grand duke of Tuscany were erected into the kingdom of Etruria, which was given to the hereditary prince of Parma, according to a treaty between France and Spain, the grand duke to be indemnified in Germany for the loss of his territories. peace was the prelude to others. On the 29th of September, 1801, Portugal concluded a treaty with France, and Russia and Turkey on the 8th and 9th of October.

This

A. D. 1802.-England was also now disposed to enter into negotiations for peace, and the terms of the treaty of Amiens were soon arranged. France retained her acquisitions in Germany and the Netherlands, and her supremacy in Holland, Switzerland, and Italy. England consented to resign Malta to the knights of St. John, to make the Ionian islands an independent republic, and to restore all the colonies she had taken from France, except Ceylon and Trinidad. France, on the other hand, guarantied the existence of the kingdoms of Naples and Portugal. The treaty was signed on the 27th of March, 1802, and for a short time the inhabi tants of Europe were flattered with the prospect of continued tranquillity. In May, Bonaparte founded the legion of honour, and soon after, he was chosen first consul for life. He had just before concluded with the newlyelected pope a concordat for the Gallican church, the articles of which were the establishment of the free exercise of the catholic religion; a new division of the French dioceses, the bishops to be nominated by the first consul, and to take an oath of fidelity to the republic. He also put an end to the proscription of the emigrants, and numbers returned to end their days in the land of their birth. But his extraordinary successes, the adulation of the army, and his elevation, intoxicated the chief consul; so much so, indeed, that it was not long before he took an opportunity of openly insulting the English ambassador. A renewal of hostilities was the natural result, and to such an extent did Bonaparte carry his animosity towards England, that on the ground that two French ships had been captured prior to the formal declaration of war, he issued a decree for the detention of all the English in France, and under this infringement of international law, the number of British subjects detained in France amount. ed to 11,000, and in Holland to 1,300.

A. D. 1804.-In February a plot was discovered in Paris for the assas

Eination of Bonaparte and the overthrow of the consular government. The principals in this conspiracy were General Pichegru, Georges, an enthusiastic loyalist, and Lajolais, a friend of General Moreau, who also was charged with disaffection to the consular government. Pending the trials Pichegru was found strangled in prison; Georges and some of his accomplices were publicly executed, and Moreau was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, which was commuted to banishment to America. One of the foulest atrocities of modern times was next perpetrated by the order of Bonaparte. The duke d'Enghien, eldest son of the duke of Bourbon, was seized in the neutral territory of Baden, and taken first to Strasburgh, thence to Paris, and afterwards to the castle of Vincennes, where a military commission met on the night of his arrival, to try him, on the charges of having served in the emigrant armies against France, and of being privy to the conspiracy of Georges. It, however, signified little what the charges were; he was destined for immediate execution; and, in defiance of every barrier of international law, he was taken out and shot in the castle ditch, almost immediately after his midnight trial was concluded. The prince had the reputation of being a brave soldier and a virtuous man, hence he was the more obnoxious! The ambition of Bonaparte to obtain the imperial dignity, and his denunciations against England, seemed to occupy all his thoughts; and, truly, these were objects of no little magnitude. At length, on the first of May, a motion was made in the tribunate for conferring on Napoleon the rank of emperor, with hereditary succession in his family. The decree of the tribunate was adopted by the senate, and power given to Bonaparte, if he had no male issue, to adopt an heir from the children of his brothers. The titles of prince, princess, and imperial highness, were conferred on all members of the Bonaparte family. Thus ended the French republic, under all its phases. It had lasted eleven years and four months, almost the exact duration of the English commonwealth from the death of Charles I.

Pope Pius VII. now proceeded to Paris, and on the 2d of December solemnly anointed the new emperor, who himself placed the imperial crown upon his own head. The Italian republic followed the example of France; and on the 15th of March, 1805, having named their president king of Italy, Napoleon, on the 26th of May, with his own hands also placed the new crown of the Lombardian kings upon his own head, and was anointed by the archbishop of Milan. During his presence in Italy, the senate of the Ligurian republic demanded and obtained the incorporation of the Genoese state with the French empire, on the 4th of June; and the small republic of Lucca was transformed in the same year into an hereditary principality for Bonaparte's sister, the princess Eliza. He was already, also, preparing thrones to establish his brothers. The threatened invasion of Britain had long been the theme of every tongue, and the people of France had been diverted from all other thoughts during the moment ous changes which, with a magician's wand, had taken place in the system of government, for the attainment of which the blood of Frenchmen nad flowed with such reckless prodigality. A third coalition against France was concluded at Petersburgh, between England and Russia, April 11. Austria joined the confederacy in August; and Sweden likewise was made a party to it, and received a subsidy. But the Emperor Napoleon felt assured that, while he could detach Prussia from the alliance, which ne did by promising Hanover to the king, he had no great reason to apprehend any serious injury from the other powers. In Italy, the archduke Charles was opposed to Marshal Massena; at the same time twenty-five thousand French marched under St. Cyr from Naples into Upper Italy after a treaty of neutrality had been concluded between France and Naples The Austrian army in Germany was commanded by the archduke Ferdi nand and General Mack. This army penetrated into Bavaria in Septem

ber, 1805, and demanded that the elector should either unite his forces with the Austrians or disband them; upon which the elector joined Napoleon; and a similar course was adopted by the dukes of Wirtemberg and Baden.

Forsaking the camp of Boulogne, where he had been preparing the "army of England" for the projected invasion, Napoleon hastened towards Wirtemberg, and issued a declaration of war. The corps of Bernadotte and the Bavarians having marched towards the Danube, through the neutral province of Anspach, belonging to Prussia, the latter power, which had assembled its armies in the neighbourhood of the Russian frontier, renounced its obligations to France; and by the treaty of Potsdam, concluded on on the 3d of November, during the stay of the emperor Alexander at Berlin, promised to join the enemies of Napoleon. The Prussian armies, in conjunction with the Saxons and Hessians, took up a hostile position extending between the frontiers of Silesia and the Danube. But the Austrian armies in Suabia had been rapidly turned and defeated by the French, in a series of operations extending from the 6th to the 13th of October, upon which Mack, in the infamous capitulation of Ulm, surrendered with thirty thousand men, but the archduke Ferdinand, by constant fighting, reached Bohemia. The French now penetrated through Bavaria and Austria into Moravia, and after having obtained possession, in November, of the defiles of the Tyrol, and driven back several Russian corps in a series of skirmishes, they occupied Vienna on the 13th of November, and afterwards took possession of Presburg. The next great battle, fought a Austerlitz on the 2d of December, decided the war, although it had only lasted two months; and the archduke Charles, having received information of the event in Suabia, retired through the German provinces, after having fought a dreadful battle upon the Adige, which lasted three days. The battle of Austerlitz, in which Napoleon so signally defeated the allies, was well contested by the troops on both sides. The Austro-Russian armies amounted to eighty thousand men, commanded by General Kutusoff and Prince Lichenstein; one hundred pieces of cannon, and thirty thousand killed, wounded, and prisoners on the side of the allies, was an irresistible proof of the desperate nature of the conflict, as well as the good fortune of Napoleon. An immense number perished in a lake by the ice giving way. Davoust, Soult, Lannes, Berthier, and Murat most distinguished themselves among the French marshals.

An interview between Napoleon and Francis II. immediately followed, and an armistice was concluded on the 6th. By the treaty of peace of Presburg, Austria yielded its Venetian possessions to the kingdom of Italy; the Tyrol and several German countries to Bavaria; Briesgau to Baden, and other Suabian possessions to Wirtemberg. She also recognized the electors of Bavaria and Wirtemberg as kings, and the elector of Baden as sovereign elector. These and other concessions Austria was compelled to make. But during the victorious course of the armies of France by land, she suffered deeply from the naval power of England, the united fleets of France and Spain, under Villeneuve and Gravina, being nearly annihilated by Nelson in the battle of Trafalgar. This took place on the 21st of October. On the 15th of December the emperor con cluded a treaty with Prussia, at Vienna, in which the alliance between both these powers was renewed, and a reciprocal guarantee of the ancient and newly-acquired states exchanged. France pretended to give Hanover to Prussia; and, on the other hand, Prussia yielded to France, Anspach, Cleve, and Neufchatel. Prussia was now obliged to act offensively against England, as well by taking possession of Hanover as by excluding English vessels from the ports under her control. Joseph, the elder brother of Napoleon, was by an imperial decree named king of Naples and Sicily, which had been conquered by Marshal Massena, who marched