The revolution of the 18th of Brumaire had placed supreme power in the hands of Bonaparte; that power was speedily legalised and defined in the Constitution of the Year VIII. The chief political problem was once more how to regulate the relation between the legislative and executive authorities. The Constitution of 1791, and still more that of 1793, had entirely subordinated the executive to the legislative authority; the Constitution of the Year III. (1795) had endeavoured to co-ordinate them; the Constitution of the Year VIII. (1799) entirely subordinated the legislative to the executive. It fell once more to SieyÈs, one of the principal authors of the Constitutions of 1791 and 1795, as Second Provisional Consul, to define the new arrangements. His attempt at co-ordinating the two powers in the State in 1795 had failed in its operation: as was inevitable, the two authorities declined to preserve their legal relations to each other. On the 18th of Fructidor, Year V. (4th September 1797), the executive in the form of the Directory had usurped and partially destroyed the power of the Legislature, and on the 30th of Prairial, Year VII. (18th of June 1799) the Legislature had acted in the same way towards the executive. By the Constitution of the Year VIII., therefore, the executive power was frankly acknowledged to be supreme. In its details it was entirely the work of SieyÈs, though his main idea—the appointment of a Grand Elector who should nominate to fill all offices, but should exercise no power—was rejected by Bonaparte. The new Constitution was soon ready; it was submitted to the primary assemblies of the people on the 14th December 1799, and was accepted by them by 3,011,107 votes against 1567, and was officially proclaimed on the 24th of December.

The key-stone of the new Constitution was the Consulate. There were to be three Consuls nominated for ten years, but these officials were not to be equal in authority, as had been the case with the Directors. On the contrary, the First Consul was to be perpetual president and perpetual representative of the governing triumvirate. All administrative power was placed in his hands, and the Second and Third Consuls were little more than his chief assistants. The Consuls acting together nominated the Ministers, and also the Council of State, which was intended to be at the same time an administrative tribunal of appeal, and the originating source in matters of legislation.

In the work of legislation the Council of State was supplemented by the Tribunate and the Legislative Body. All laws prepared by the Council of State were first submitted to the Tribunate, which was composed of one hundred members. The Tribunate could neither reject nor amend a law, but decided whether to support or oppose the project before the Legislative Body. The Legislative Body consisted of three hundred deputies chosen by certain electoral assemblies formed by a complicated scheme out of the taxpayers of the departments. By this scheme, after three series of elections, what was termed a ‘National List’ was drawn up. From this national list the Senate chose the members both of the Legislative Body and the Tribunate. The Legislative Body alone voted the taxes. In legislative matters it played the part of a national jury, listening to the arguments for or against brought forward by the Tribunate on every project prepared by the Council of State, and deciding in every case without discussion. The Legislative Body alone could give a project of the Council of State the character of a law. The Senate was composed of eighty members nominated for life by the Consuls. Its duties were to choose the members of the Tribunate and Legislative Body from the National List, and to decide whether any law or measure of the government was contrary to the Constitution. If it decided that such law or measure was unconstitutional it had the authority to annul it.

The Consulate was composed of Bonaparte as First Consul, with CambacÉrÈs and Le Brun, both famous jurists, as his associates. Their policy was one of general reconciliation. The individuals deported after the revolution of the 18th of Fructidor were allowed to return to France if they had not, like Pichegru, become declared royalists. They were even taken into favour; while Carnot was appointed Minister of War, Portalis and BarbÉ-Marbois were nominated to the Council of State. The lists of emigration were closed; no longer could persons be declared to have emigrated on mere suspicion, and the First Consul, as an administrative measure, annulled the decrees excluding relations of ÉmigrÉs and former nobles from filling executive offices. More than 150,000 ÉmigrÉs were also allowed to return, mostly priests, who were no longer regarded as rebels, and who, whether they had taken the oath to observe the Civil Constitution of the Clergy or not, were allowed to resume their sacred functions on simply promising to obey the new Constitution of the State. The Consulate did even more than this for the cause of religion; many churches which had been appropriated for civil purposes were restored to their original uses. Brigandage was sternly put down, and Bonaparte, at last, pacified La VendÉe by negotiating a treaty of amnesty with the remaining VendÉan leaders at MontluÇon, on the 17th of January 1800. A special effort was made to put the finances in order, and Gaudin, who held office as Minister of the Finances throughout the Consulate and the Empire, first proved his extraordinary powers. His financial reforms may be roughly summed up by the mention of his two most important measures. The decrees of the Directory in favour of forced loans from the rich, which had been arbitrarily and unfairly carried out, were abrogated and replaced by a general income tax of twenty-five per cent. This established some justice in the collection, which partly compensated for the heaviness of the tax. The second measure was the appointment of receivers-general of taxes in every department. These men had to give heavy security, and were allowed a fair measure of profit in the form of a percentage on what they collected. They were strictly supervised, and the scandalous dilapidations which had signalised the period of the Directory were made impossible for the future. Further, in order to secure the support of the capitalists, the Bank of France was founded under the guarantee of the State. Finally, the First Consul decided to carry into effect the projects of the legal reformers of the Constituent Assembly and the Convention. Their labours had made possible the formation of a uniform code of law for France. Bonaparte appointed a Commission, consisting of Tronchet, Portalis, and Bigot de PrÉameneu, to examine the labours of their predecessors, and with their help to draw up the admirable civil code, which was afterwards known as the Code NapolÉon.

In no respect was the administrative ability of the Consuls better manifested than in the selection they made of their ministers. It has already been noticed that Gaudin, the greatest financier of France, was appointed Minister of the Finances. Talleyrand and FouchÉ once more took possession of the portfolios of Foreign Affairs and of Police, which they held for many years. Their first Minister of the Marine, Forfait, did not remain long in office, but his successor, DecrÈs, held that post from 1801 till 1814. The same may be said with regard to the Ministry of Justice. Abrial, the first occupant of this post, gave way to Regnier in 1802, but he likewise remained in office till 1814. The Ministries of War and of the Interior were more difficult to fill; Carnot soon resented the tone of Bonaparte, and was succeeded by Berthier, afterwards Prince of NeufchÂtel, who had been Chief of the Staff to Bonaparte in Italy. La Place, the great astronomer, had been appointed Minister of the Interior by the Provisional Government in November 1799. He did not show himself very efficient, and was succeeded by Lucien Bonaparte, the First Consul’s ablest brother, in the following month. He too failed to carry out the wishes of the Consuls, and was succeeded in 1800 by one of the most distinguished administrators of the period, Chaptal.

Of foreign affairs Bonaparte, as First Consul, assumed the entire management; in internal matters he laid down the main principles indeed, but he allowed his colleagues some share in the government. He found France once more at war, as she had been before the Treaty of Campo-Formio, with Austria and England. But another redoubtable enemy had been added in Russia. Fortunately for France, for reasons which have already been indicated, the Emperor Paul was profoundly dissatisfied with his allies. From an unreasoning hatred for France, the Russian Emperor had now altered his sentiments to one of profound admiration for the person of the First Consul. Bonaparte was soon notified of this disposition at the Court of St. Petersburg. He sent his most intimate friend, Duroc, on a special mission to Russia, and the idea was already suggested that Russia and France ought to be the arbiters of Europe. He offered to recognise Paul not only as Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, but as the sovereign of that island, and promised in every way to forward Russian interests. In return, Paul, with his usual exaggeration, declared Bonaparte to be his dearest friend, surrounded himself with his portraits, drank publicly to his health, and ordered Louis XVIII. to leave Mittau. The Russian ambassador in Paris, Kolichev, on behalf of his master, proposed that Bonaparte should take the title of King of France, and make the crown hereditary in his family. Next in importance to the commencement of good relations with Russia, was the First Consul’s effort to make the King of Prussia his declared ally. For this purpose he sent Duroc also to Berlin. But Frederick William III. was a different type of monarch from the Emperor Paul; he could not so readily alter his policy. Personally, he too admired the First Consul, and regarded him as the restorer of order and as a monarch in embryo; but, in spite of his admiration, he refused to comply with the wishes of Bonaparte, as he had rejected the propositions of the Directory, and insisted on the maintenance of his consistent attitude of strict neutrality. The last point to be noticed in the foreign policy of Bonaparte was his attitude towards the Pope. He not only allowed the body of Pope Pius VI. to be removed from Valence to be buried at Rome, but he recognised the new Pope, Pius VII., although he had been elected at Venice under Austrian influence: he even offered to restore him to his temporal dominion at Rome, and promised to enter into negotiations with him with regard to the re-establishment of the Catholic Church in France.

With the two great enemies of France, Austria and England, the First Consul had no desire to treat. Though unable to strike at England, owing to the weakness of the French navy, he could yet attack the Austrians in two quarters. Two powerful armies were prepared, the one the Army of the Danube, which was placed under the command of Moreau, and the other the Army of the Interior, soon to become famous as the Second Army of Italy. Of all the conquests in Italy made by the French in 1796 and 1797, only Genoa remained in their possession. MassÉna, fresh from his victories in Switzerland, had taken command of the besieged army. His defence is one of the most famous in history, and does no less honour to the general than his victory at Zurich. Bonaparte desired to relieve Genoa; and he resolved not to advance along the coast, as he had done in 1796, but by crossing the Alps, and descending upon Piedmont, to cut off the Austrian army occupying that province.

In the month of May Bonaparte crossed the Great Saint Bernard Pass at the head of 40,000 men, and fell at once on the Austrian flank. He was too late to relieve Genoa, which surrendered on the 4th of June, when but few of the soldiers were still able to stand, but he was in time to close the retreat of the Austrians upon Lombardy. On the 9th June 1800 General Lannes defeated the Austrian advanced guard at Montebello, and Bonaparte then barred the road from Alessandria to Piacenza. General Melas, though not yet joined by the troops which had taken Genoa, had a larger army than Bonaparte; on June 14 he forced his way out of Alessandria, and drove back the French columns which occupied the village of Marengo. The battle was practically lost by the French, when Desaix, who had been detached to the left with 6000 men, fell upon the Austrian flank. Desaix was killed, but the vigour of his attack practically cut the Austrian army in two. The dragoons of Kellermann completed the victory, and General Melas signed the Convention of Alessandria, by which he surrendered Genoa, Piedmont, and the Milanese to the French, and promised to withdraw the Austrian garrisons from all cities to the west of the Mincio. Bonaparte then attended a Te Deum sung in honour of his victory in the cathedral of Milan, and returned to Paris, leaving the Army of Grisons, under the command of General Macdonald, to follow up the Austrians.

While Bonaparte was winning the battle of Marengo, and reconquering Italy by a single blow, Moreau was again face to face with his old opponent, the Archduke Charles. The French advance was very slow. Fierce battles were fought at Engen, Moeskirchen, and Biberach in May 1800, and by the close of the summer Moreau had his headquarters at Augsburg, and his advanced guard at Munich. The slowness of Moreau’s progress dissatisfied the First Consul, as did the want of success of the Archduke Charles dissatisfy the court of Vienna. Augereau was sent with 20,000 men to the assistance of Moreau, who was ordered, in spite of the severity of the winter, to continue his advance; and the Archduke John was appointed to succeed his brother, and ordered to take the offensive. The crowning event of this winter campaign was the great victory of Hohenlinden, which was won by Moreau on the 3d of December 1800. The Austrians lost the whole of their baggage and artillery and 12,000 prisoners.

The First Consul from Paris ordered Moreau and Macdonald to advance into the home districts of the House of Austria. Moreau accordingly pushed along the Inn, the Salz, the Traun, and the Ens, driving the disorganised and discouraged Austrians before him until he was within twenty leagues of Vienna. Macdonald, at the same time, crossed the SplÜgen Pass in spite of the avalanches, and penetrated into the Tyrol, thus turning the Austrian forces on the Mincio and the Adige. On arriving at Trent, Macdonald turned to the right and was joined by Brune, who had occupied the territory of Venice, and the united French army marched upon Vienna. Under these circumstances, with Italy lost, and Vienna threatened from two quarters, the Emperor Francis sued for peace, which was concluded at LunÉville on the 9th of February 1801.

The Treaty of LunÉville was more important from its destruction of the old Holy Roman Empire than as the treaty of peace between France and Austria. From the latter point of view the Emperor Francis once more, as in the Treaty of Campo-Formio, recognised the Rhine as the limit of France. In Italy the Cisalpine Republic was once more constituted with the Adige as its frontier, Modena was to be compensated with the Breisgau, and Venice was again left to the House of Austria. Tuscany was taken from its Austrian Grand Duke, and erected into a kingdom of Etruria in favour of the Prince of Parma, a relative of the King of Spain, and Piedmont was annexed to France; but the King of the Two Sicilies was allowed to retain his dominions, and the Pope was restored to all his possessions except the Legations of Bologna and Ferrara. The Cisalpine Republic was reorganised, and granted a Constitution on the model of that of the Year VIII., in which Bonaparte was appointed First Consul. The Ligurian Republic was maintained, with the alteration that its Doge was nominated by France instead of being elected. The result of the new arrangements in Northern Italy was that both France and Austria had a foothold by their occupation of Piedmont and Venice, with the Cisalpine Republic as a buffer between them. The principle of secularising the German bishoprics was also again recognised in the Treaty of LunÉville, and the actual manner in which it should be carried out was referred to a special commission, whose conclusions were not adopted till 1803. The principal result of the treaty in Austria was the retirement of the minister Thugut, who was succeeded as State Chancellor by Count Louis Cobenzl, the diplomatist, who had negotiated the treaties both of Campo-Formio and of LunÉville.

The admiration of the Emperor Paul for Bonaparte increased daily, and it was the Russian Czar, not the French First Consul, who proposed an invasion of India across Asia, in order to strike a blow at the English power in the East. Indeed, the English had taken the place of the French in the mind of Paul, who, not satisfied with forming once again the Neutral League of the North, determined to send his best troops against them. The Emperor’s proposition was that one expedition should consist of 35,000 Frenchmen and 35,000 Russians, under the command of MassÉna. This column was to go down the Danube, and then up the Don to a point whence it would be but a short march to the Volga. It was then to proceed down the Volga to Astrakhan, thence across the Caspian Sea to Astrabad, and then to march by Herat and Kandahar to the Punjab. Another column was to move by Khiva and Bokhara, and to invade India by the north of Afghanistan. These grandiose plans were not entirely accepted by Bonaparte, and the death of the Emperor prevented an attempt being made to see if they were practicable. The madness of Paul had steadily increased during his short reign. His nobility disapproved heartily of his war policy, both against France and later against England; his adoption of the Neutral League and its policy had done much to ruin the wealthy nobles of Northern Russia by forbidding the exportation of Russian commodities on English ships. To the discontent of the nobility, of the politicians, and of the capitalists must be added the fears of the courtiers. Even the heir to the throne, his eldest son Alexander, perceived that the rule of the maniac could not be borne much longer. It is hardly necessary to particularise all the causes of his unpopularity; it is enough to say that his behaviour was that of a madman. Certain courtiers, of whom the leaders were Count Pahlen, a Livonian nobleman; Benningsen, a Hanoverian general; Plato Zubov, the last favourite of the Empress Catherine, and his brother Nicholas, and the Prince Jachvill, determined to put an end to the tyranny of the Czar. In the night of the 23d of March 1801 he was attacked by these conspirators and ordered to sign an act of abdication; he refused; the lamp went out, and the Emperor was struck down and strangled by an unknown hand among his assailants.

When Bonaparte first entered office he recognised that England was a more formidable, because a less approachable, enemy than Austria. Knowing that the French navy was unable to meet the English, he hoped to counterbalance the maritime preponderance of England by a league against her commerce. Owing to the long period of war, nothing was to be gained by solemn decrees forbidding the importation of goods into France, it was necessary to strike through the neutral nations. The three great commercial seats of English trade were the Levant, the Baltic, and Portugal. The failure of the expedition to Egypt proved that it was impossible to destroy the English trade in the Levant, and Bonaparte therefore resolved to strike in the other two directions. Acting mainly through the Emperor Paul, the Armed Neutrality of the North, or the Neutral League of 1780, was re-established between the Baltic powers of Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark. The real intention of Paul and of Bonaparte was to exclude English commerce entirely from the Baltic; but for the second time the Baltic powers nominally made themselves the guarantors of the rights of neutrals. They protested against the right assumed by England to search neutral ships, and to confiscate as contraband of war all the goods of belligerent powers found in them, and also against the prohibition against neutral ships trading between different enemies’ ports. The Emperor Paul, like the Empress Catherine twenty years before, made himself the patron of the Neutral League.

The English government naturally refused to accede to the demands of the Neutral League, and when the Baltic was closed to them an English fleet was ordered to force the blockade. This fleet was placed under the command of Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson as second in command. On the 30th of March 1801 the fleet sailed down the Sound, in spite of the Danish batteries at Elsinore, and on the 2d of April Copenhagen was bombarded and a large part of the Danish fleet destroyed. This victory, and still more the death of the Emperor Paul, caused the dissolution of the Neutral League of the North, and Bonaparte had to adjourn for some years his schemes for the annihilation of English commerce.

In the Iberian peninsula the designs of Bonaparte against English trade were more successful. Spain still remained the ally of France in spite of the sufferings that alliance had brought upon her, but Portugal had hitherto continued the faithful friend of England. Through Portugal English goods entered Spain and the south of France, and Bonaparte resolved to put an end to the neutrality of Portugal. For this purpose, in the year 1800, he despatched his ablest brother, Lucien Bonaparte, as ambassador to Madrid, with orders to negotiate with the Prince Regent of Portugal. The terms offered were that the Portuguese ports were to be closed to English trade, that special commercial advantages were to be given to French merchants, that French Guiana was to be extended to the river Amazon, and that a portion of Portuguese territory was to be ceded to Spain until Trinidad and Minorca were recovered by the latter power. The Prince Regent of Portugal rejected these hard terms; Spain declared war in the beginning of 1801, and 22,000 veteran French soldiers, under the command of General Leclerc, Bonaparte’s brother-in-law, were sent to the assistance of Spain. The campaign was a very short one. The French troops never came into action; but the Portuguese were twice defeated in pitched battles, and lost some of their fortresses. The Prince Regent sued for peace, and a treaty was signed between Spain and Portugal at Badajoz on the 6th of June 1801. By this treaty the city and district of Olivenza were ceded to Spain, and, by a subsequent arrangement, the limits of French Guiana were extended to the river Amazon. Bonaparte was much disgusted with these treaties, and especially with the continued refusal of Portugal to close her ports to English commerce, and it was many months before he consented to ratify them. England refused to recognise Portugal as an enemy; but an English force occupied the island of Madeira, and the East India Company’s troops garrisoned Goa.

When Bonaparte left Egypt he was unable, owing to the stringency of the blockade maintained by the English fleet, to take more than a few companions with him. KlÉber, who, as has been said, succeeded him in the command of the French army, soon found himself confronted by a powerful Turkish and Mameluke army. This army he defeated at the battle of Heliopolis on the 20th of March 1800, after which success Egypt again submitted to French rule. On the 14th of June 1800, the very day on which his former comrade Desaix met a soldier’s death at the battle of Marengo, KlÉber was assassinated by a Muhammadan fanatic in Cairo. Menou, the new French general in Egypt, was in every way KlÉber’s inferior, and concentrated the French troops in the two cities of Cairo and Alexandria. Isolated entirely from the mother country, and unable to receive reinforcements or ammunition, the English government regarded the French in Egypt as an easy prey. On the 19th of March 1801 a powerful English army disembarked at Aboukir, under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby, and defeated the French before Alexandria two days later in a pitched battle, in which Abercromby was killed. Siege was then laid to Alexandria and Cairo, and both cities surrendered to the English general, Lord Hutchinson, before the arrival of a division from India, which, under the command of Sir David Baird, had sailed up the Red Sea, marched across the Soudan desert, and descended the Nile to Cairo in boats. As a result of these operations, a convention was signed between the French and English generals in Egypt on the 2d of September 1801, by which the French garrisons evacuated all remaining posts, and were conveyed to France in English ships.

Though neither Bonaparte nor the leaders of English political opinion believed it possible for a permanent peace to be agreed to in the interests of their respective countries, the outcry of both the English and the French people against the prolonged war made it necessary for their rulers to conclude some kind of a truce. Pitt had in 1801 gone out of office, and his successor Addington, afterwards Lord Sidmouth, declared in favour of a peace policy. The treaty, which is known as the Peace of Amiens, was really nothing more than a truce. Only a very general agreement was come to, and many essential points were left undecided. Both nations needed a rest, and neither government looked upon the Peace of Amiens as affording a permanent solution of their differences. Many loopholes were left, which were certain to afford pretexts for renewing the war to both contracting powers, and of these the most notable was the question of the possession of Malta.

Far more important than the temporary Peace of Amiens was the reconstitution of Germany, which was finally accepted by the Diet at Ratisbon on the 25th of February 1803. The Holy Roman Empire which had lasted so many centuries ceased to exist. The ancient division of the Empire into circles was abolished, and the three colleges which formed the Diet were profoundly affected. Instead of the eight electors, three ecclesiastical and five lay, that formerly existed, ten electors, one ecclesiastical and nine lay, were created. The Archbishops of Cologne and TrÈves, whose states being on the left bank of the Rhine were absorbed into France, lost their electoral dignity. The Archbishop-Elector of Mayence was retained as Arch-Chancellor of the Empire, and he received as his dominions the Bishopric of Ratisbon, the Principality of Aschaffenburg, and the County of Wetzlar. The nine lay electors were the five princes who had formerly enjoyed the dignity, namely, the Electors of Bohemia, Brandenburg, Saxony, Bavaria, and Hanover, and four new Electors, the Margrave of Baden, the Duke of WÜrtemburg, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and the Grand Duke Ferdinand, brother of the Emperor, and former Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was appointed Elector of Salzburg. By this new arrangement, and by the abolition of two-thirds of the ecclesiastical electorate, the majority in the College of Electors passed from the Catholics to the Protestants. In the College of Princes there was the same result, for by the secularisation of the Catholic bishoprics the majority passed to the Protestant rulers. More sweeping still was the alteration in the third College—that of the Free Cities. Instead of fifty-two constituent members of this College only six were retained, and their maintenance was due to the intervention of France. These six cities were Augsburg, Bremen, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Hamburg, LÜbeck, and Nuremberg. By these changes the constitution of the Empire was entirely altered; but still more notable was the change in the position of the various princes in Germany, for the tendency of the secularisation of the ecclesiastical states was to diminish the number of ruling princes and to increase the extent of their dominions.

The great war with France had shown the weakness of the Empire as an organisation, and had also proved the advantages to the inhabitants of the existence of large and powerful states. It was, therefore, the already existing kingdoms which received the greatest addition of territory under the new arrangements. Nominally, the secularised bishoprics were intended to compensate those German princes whose territories on the left bank of the Rhine had been ceded to France; practically, the powerful states only were increased. Austria, whose new possession of Venice in place of the Milanese had been reaffirmed by the Treaty of LunÉville, only acquired in Germany the Bishoprics of Brixen and Trent, but two Austrian princes received independent states, namely, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand, who, as has been said, was given the Archbishopric of Salzburg, with the title of Elector, and the Duke of Modena, who received the Breisgau. Nevertheless, the power of Austria was greatly weakened, for under the old arrangement the ecclesiastical electors and the Catholic bishops had always been partisans of Austria. Prussia was the country which profited the most, though she had suffered the least in the war against France. In exchange for part of the Duchy of Cleves, the Duchy of Guelders, and the County of Moers, Prussia received the large and wealthy Bishoprics of Hildesheim, Paderborn, Erfurt, and part of MÜnster, together with a number of abbeys, of which the largest were Herford, Quedlinburg, Elten, Essen, and Werden, and several free cities. Hanover received the Bishopric of OsnabrÜck, to which the King of England, as Elector of Hanover, had previously possessed the alternate nomination. Bavaria was made into a powerful and concentrated state. In exchange for the Palatinate, the Duchy of Deux-Ponts (ZweibrÜcken), the Principalities of Juliers, Simmern and Lautern, she received the Bishoprics of WÜrtzburg, Bamberg, Augsburg, Freisingen, and part of Passau, together with a large number of abbeys and free cities. Baden received the portion of the Bishoprics of Spires, Strasbourg, and Basle, situated on the right bank of the Rhine, the Bishopric of Constance, the cities of Heidelberg and Mannheim, and many abbeys and free cities. Finally, the Duchy of WÜrtemburg, in exchange for the Principality of MontbÉliard, received abbeys and free towns, which increased its population by a hundred thousand inhabitants. It is not necessary to describe the various accessions granted to the Princes of Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, and the rest; but, it may be noted that the Prince of Orange, the former Stadtholder of Holland, received the Bishopric of Fulda. These changes remodelled Germany, and in the result were most prejudicial to France; for instead of there existing a series of buffers in the shape of small and weak states, France was brought almost directly into contact with Prussia and Austria.

At the same time that the ancient federal Holy Roman Empire was reconstituted, the ancient federal Republic of Switzerland was likewise reorganised. The reasons which had induced the Directory to intervene in Swiss affairs still existed; the revolutionary party which opposed the federal idea, and desired to form a united Switzerland, remained in direct opposition to the supporters of the former government of the cantons. It was essentially the question of government which divided the two parties, and there was no suggestion of restoring the feudal system, or the privileges of certain towns and certain cantons over others. The breath of the French Revolution had swept away political inequalities as completely in Switzerland as in France. Soon after the Treaty of Amiens, Bonaparte withdrew the French troops from the new Helvetic Republic. Civil war, as he expected, recommenced, and the Helvetic Government was driven from Berne by the federalists. Bonaparte therefore despatched an army to restore order, and summoned the leading Swiss statesmen to Paris. To them he propounded a new scheme of federal government, which was accepted, and the Act of Mediation, which was promulgated on the 19th of February 1803, established the new Constitution, and recognised the First Consul as Mediator. By the Act of Mediation Switzerland was divided into nineteen cantons, each of which had its own local government and special laws and taxes. The thirteen old cantons were maintained; six of them were democratic—Appenzell, Glarus, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Uri, and Zug; seven were oligarchical—Basle, Berne, Friburg, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, Soleure, and ZÜrich. The six new cantons added by Bonaparte comprised five territories which had formerly been subject; the Pays de Vaud and Aargau were made independent of Berne; Thurgau was separated from Schaffhausen, and Ticino from Uri and Unterwalden, and the canton of Saint-Gall was formed out of certain districts formerly belonging to Appenzell, Glarus, and Schwyz; finally, the Grisons, which had hitherto been an independent mountain republic, was declared a canton of Switzerland. Geneva had some years before been added to France as the Department of the Leman, and the Valais was now declared independent—a preliminary step to its ultimate annexation by France. The Federal Diet was to consist of twenty-five deputies, two from the six largest cantons, Aargau, Berne, the Grisons, Saint-Gall, the Pays de Vaud, and Zurich, and one from each of the others. The Diet was to meet every year in the capital of a different canton, and the Landamman of that canton was for that year the President of the Confederation. The Federal Act once more declared the entire abolition of feudalism, and of all privileges of birth, etc., and forbade for the future all internal customs duties. Bonaparte proclaimed that he would not allow the interference of any other power in Switzerland, and took the title of Mediator of the Confederation of Switzerland.

It has already been stated that Bonaparte desired to stand well with the Catholic Church, and had recognised the advantages of a state religion. One of his most important measures during the Consulate was to put an end to the schism which had lasted since the promulgation of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790, with the assistance of the Pope, Pius VII. All the bishops elected under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and most of those who had emigrated, sooner than take the oath of allegiance to it, resigned, and the leaders of both sections were nominated and instituted to different dioceses. A new circumscription of sees was agreed to, and France was divided into fifty bishoprics and ten archbishoprics. It was agreed by the Concordat, which was signed between the Pope and the First Consul on the 15th of July 1801, and solemnly proclaimed on the 18th of April 1802, after being sanctioned by the Legislative Body, that the First Consul should nominate all bishops, and the Pope should institute. The government of the Consulate recognised the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion as that of the majority of the French people, and ordained that its public worship should be carried on freely so long as the police regulations were observed. All ecclesiastics were to swear fidelity to the government, which promised to pay a suitable salary to all bishops and curÉs. In return, the Pope promised that neither he nor his successors would lay any claim to the ecclesiastical estates which had been alienated, and that all such property should be held the indisputable possession of its purchaser.

The recognition of the frontier of the Rhine by the Treaty of LunÉville and the Diet of Ratisbon largely increased the territory of France. The First Consul proceeded to organise the additions on the bases laid down by the Constituent Assembly, Convention, and Directory. Belgium was divided into nine departments. The Rhenish territories, including the Palatinate, the Diocese of TrÈves, etc., were divided into four departments, of which the headquarters were Aix-la-Chapelle, Coblentz, Mayence, and TrÈves. Further south, the Department of the Mont-Terrible, which had been formed by the Convention out of the Republic of Mulhouse and the District of Porentruy, was merged into the Department of the Haut-Rhin, and the Principality of MontbÉliard was united to the Department of the Doubs. The Republic of Geneva, as has been said, formed the Department of the Leman. Savoy was constituted as the Department of Mont-Blanc, and the County of Nice that of the Alpes-Maritimes. These were the recognised limits of France in 1801, and were defensible on geographical grounds; but, on the 11th of September 1802, Bonaparte went further, and declared the union of Piedmont with France. Instead of being amalgamated with the Cisalpine Republic, Piedmont was divided into six departments, and the island of Elba was detached from Tuscany and declared, like Corsica, to be a French island. At the head of each department a PrÉfet was appointed, to take the place of the national agents maintained by the Directory. At the head of each subdivision, now called an arrondissement instead of a district, was placed a Sous-PrÉfet, also nominated by the supreme executive, and at the head of each commune was the Maire, who was also nominated and not elected. PrÉfets, Sous-PrÉfets, and Maires were assisted by nominated councils in administrative matters, and appeals from their decisions lay to the Council of State.

Just as Bonaparte had built up the new Code of Law on the bases laid by the Legislative Committee of the Convention, so, too, he made use of the labours of its Committee of Public Instruction to establish a scheme of national education. In every commune which could afford the expense, he maintained the primary school established by the Convention; but he feared to burden the National Treasury with the expense of schools in the poorer communes, and preferred to leave their establishment to local endeavour. In secondary education, he suppressed the central schools of the Convention, and replaced them by twenty-nine lycÉes, specially intended for the education of the middle classes. For higher education, he founded ten schools of law and six of medicine; he improved the Polytechnic School, and started a school of mechanics, which became later the famous École des Arts et MÉtiers. The key-stone of the whole educational system, the foundation of the University, was, however, not laid till some years later.

The great administrative reforms of Bonaparte made him as popular among all classes of the population as his victories had made him in the army. Not only in France, but throughout Europe, he was looked upon as the restorer of order and good government. This sentiment appeared most vividly at the time when a plot against his life was discovered on the 24th of September 1800. This plot, which is known as the Conspiracy of the Infernal Machine, is said to have been the work of the Jacobin party; the explosion took place in the Rue Sainte-Nicaise, too late to do him any harm, but it was used as a pretext to exile the most vigorous republicans. So great was his popularity, that rumours were already heard of making him monarch. The first step in this direction was taken in 1802, when the Council of State proposed that the primary assemblies should be summoned to decide whether Bonaparte should not be made First Consul for life. In May 1802 this proposal was laid before the people, and was carried by more than 3,500,000 votes to 8000. Some slight changes were made at the same time, of which the most important were that the First Consul was enabled to nominate his successor, that the lists of candidates for public functions were replaced by electoral colleges appointed for life, and that the Senate was given the right to dissolve the Tribunate and the Legislative Body.

The First Consul clearly understood that the Peace of Amiens was not likely to last, and that war would soon break out again with England. He knew that England derived much of her influence from her navy and her colonies; he therefore spared no efforts to restore the French navy, and to make France once more a colonial power. His first essays in this direction were to obtain Louisiana from Spain in exchange for the kingdom of Etruria, formed in Italy for Prince Louis of Parma, and the extension of the limits of French Guiana to the Amazon extorted from Portugal. But his main project was to restore the French power in the West Indies. Guadeloupe and Martinique and the French Antilles had been restored to France by the Treaty of Amiens, and the First Consul resolved to make them the starting-point for the reconquest of San Domingo. This island had, as a result of the policy of Sonthonax and Polverel, the proconsuls of the Convention, been entirely lost to France; the planters and other whites had fled; and the revolted slaves and mulattoes were masters of the island. Toussaint Louverture, the leader of the negroes, refused to hold any communications with Bonaparte, and the First Consul therefore, as soon as the Peace of Amiens had opened the sea, sent an expedition of 20,000 men against him, commanded by his brother-in-law, General Leclerc. The island was reconquered by May 1802; but the victorious army was practically destroyed by yellow fever. Toussaint Louverture was taken prisoner and sent to France: but nevertheless, as soon as war with England again broke out, and the arrival of reinforcements was prevented by English cruisers, the negroes rose afresh under new leaders and destroyed the remnant of the garrison. It may be added that the French Antilles were recaptured by the English in 1809 and 1810.

It has been said that the Treaty of Amiens was practically only a truce, and that many points of interest to the two nations were left undecided. Of these the most important regarded Malta. The English ministry positively refused to surrender this island to the Knights of Saint John, under the protectorate of the Emperor Alexander, which would leave it at the mercy of France. Bonaparte demanded the evacuation of Malta with much insistance as one of the conditions of the Treaty of Amiens; but the English government in reply pointed to the annexation of Elba, Parma and Piacenza, and Piedmont, and the interference in Switzerland, as also being breaches of the treaty. The First Consul was also very exasperated at the personal attacks made on him in the irresponsible English press. He failed to understand that by the English law the government could not prevent the publication of libels against him, and regarded their refusal to punish the libellers as personal insults to himself. The French ambassador in London prosecuted Peltier, the chief libeller, before the Court of King’s Bench. He was brilliantly defended by Sir J. Mackintosh, and only ordered to pay a small fine. A public subscription was raised to pay his fine and costs, and the First Consul regarded this as adding a further insult to the injuries he had received. In truth, both governments felt that war was inevitable, and in May 1803 the rupture was complete. The English navy began to seize the French trading vessels, and the First Consul, as a reprisal, arrested all the English travellers he could find in France, and ordered Mortier to occupy Hanover.

The First Consul entered upon a fresh war with England with a light heart, for he believed that she would be unable to obtain any allies. Austria was exhausted by the terrible wars she had undergone, and the State Chancellor, Cobenzl, held that she needed time to recuperate. Prussia persisted in her attitude of strict neutrality; Haugwitz was dismissed from the Secretaryship of State for Foreign Affairs as being too French in his sympathies, after the occupation of Hanover, and was succeeded by Hardenberg, the maker of the Treaty of Basle. Spain was Bonaparte’s faithful and hopeful ally; and Russia, the most formidable of the continental powers, inclined to his side. The attitude of the Emperor Alexander at this period was of the greatest importance. Educated by a Swiss publicist who sincerely loved France, La Harpe, the Emperor of Russia was inclined to admire the results of the French Revolution and the French people. His sentiments for the person of Bonaparte were nearly as full of enthusiastic admiration as those of his father, the Emperor Paul. He made the French ambassadors at St. Petersburg, Duroc and Caulaincourt, his personal friends, and wrote letters to Bonaparte expressing his feelings. But the Emperor’s relatives, especially his mother, with his ministers and his courtiers, were opposed to France and in favour of a close alliance with England, or at the very least of the maintenance of strict neutrality. England practically commanded the Russian trade, and war with England meant the loss of the only market for Russian raw material, the consequent impoverishment of the Russian people, and the ruin of the Russian capitalists. Nevertheless the Emperor Alexander was an autocrat, and Bonaparte counted upon his friendship even though he could not secure his alliance.

On the outbreak of war the numerous French exiles in England offered their services to the English Government. It is significant of the change which had come over the state of affairs that, instead of endeavouring to raise a counter-revolution, they proposed to attack the person of the First Consul. The leaders of the new plot were Pichegru, now a declared royalist and partisan of the Bourbons, and Georges Cadoudal, the celebrated Chouan leader. Both had the audacity to go to Paris and to enter into relations with General Moreau. Moreau, though he resented the lofty position of Bonaparte and refused to serve him, would be no party to an assassination, more especially an assassination which would restore the Bourbons, and Cadoudal and Pichegru had to act with the assistance of certain French noblemen and some former Chouans. A plot was formed to murder the First Consul on the road from Malmaison to Paris, but it was discovered by the French police, and Bonaparte in terror ordered the gates of Paris to be closed as in the most terrible days of the Revolution, and proclaimed the pain of death against all who sheltered the conspirators. After some daring adventures the leaders were seized; Georges Cadoudal was executed; Pichegru was strangled in prison; and Moreau, who was condemned to two years’ imprisonment, was allowed to go into exile in the United States. The French noblemen implicated were treated with more leniency, and the lives of their two chiefs, Armand de Polignac and Charles de RiviÈre, were spared.

The discovery of this plot against his life, which was undoubtedly fostered by the Bourbon princes, made the First Consul determined to wreak his vengeance against that unfortunate family. Being unable to seize the persons of the pretender, Louis XVIII., and his brother, the Comte d’Artois, who resided in England, he carried off a young Bourbon prince, the eldest son of the Prince de CondÉ, who was quite innocent of the conspiracy of Pichegru. The Duc d’Enghien was at this time living at Ettenheim in the Grand Duchy of Baden. He was arrested there by French soldiers, contrary to all international law, and taken to Vincennes. He was at once tried by a military commission as an ÉmigrÉ who had borne arms against France, and was condemned to death. The sentence was immediately carried out in spite of the demands of the young prince for an interview with the First Consul. This execution was a great political mistake. Bonaparte expected that it would terrify the Bourbon princes, but it reacted to his own prejudice. The Court of Saint Petersburg went into mourning; the King of Prussia, who had at last almost resolved to make an alliance with France, began to negotiate with Russia; the royal family of Austria looked upon the execution as a pendant to that of Marie Antoinette; and the English Government made use of the horror caused by it to endeavour to form a fresh coalition against France.

Directly after this tragedy, which proved that Bonaparte was practically an absolute monarch, he decided to take upon himself the rank of Emperor of the French. The Senate offered this title to the First Consul at Saint-Cloud on the 18th of May 1804, and the people ratified it by a majority of more than 3,500,000 votes. By the senatus consultum which made him Emperor the office was made hereditary to his direct descendants. As he had no children he was given the power to adopt, a power which it was undoubtedly expected would be used in favour of his step-son, EugÈne de Beauharnais. A few months after the Corsican soldier of fortune was declared Emperor of the French, the last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II., resolved to rid himself of what was now but an empty title. The new Constitution of the Holy Roman Empire had destroyed the imperial authority by depriving it of the votes of the ecclesiastical members in the Diet, and increasing or consolidating the dominions of the principal German states. Francis II. acknowledged the new order of things. On the 11th of August 1804, he erected the Austrian dominions into an hereditary empire, and on the 7th of December following, five days after the coronation of Bonaparte as the Emperor Napoleon by the Pope at Paris, the last Holy Roman Emperor proclaimed himself Emperor of Austria under the title of Francis I. This then was the result of fifteen years of revolution, the disappearance of the ancient figure-head of Europe, and the creation of a new Empire founded on the power of the sword.