was full of daggers." And few men knew so well as this old Jacobin and plotter that assassinations were no rarities, and that there were real conspiracies as well as imaginary conspiracies. On every side people were looking for plots, or making fictitious ones. Men, not in the State secret, apprehended a speedy return of the executions and horrors of 1793, when Robespierre gave the law to Paris and all France. It was intended to frighten the nation into a demand for a stronger Government; the Napoleonic Empire was to be established in terror, as the Republic had been before it. With the majority of the French, liberty was now but an old song.

The Senate, in an address to the First Consul, called upon him to complete his own work; the Council of State, by twenty votes against seven, affirmed that the basis of the Government of France ought to be hereditary succession. The Senate, the Tribunate, the legislative body, were advised, confidentially, to hasten to declare themselves, or they would be forestalled by the army. In the Tribunate, one solitary member spoke against the proposed change : it was Carnot. The Senate passed the project with only three dissentient votes. The legislative body was equally subservient and ready for the change.

"During these transactions," says Thibaudeau in his "Memoirs," "the First Consul held private councils, to which he summoned several members of the great bodies of the Government, each of whom stipulated for himself and his friends. The Tribunes wanted to lengthen the period of their functions to ten years instead of five, with a salary of 25,000 francs instead of 15,000; the members of the legislative body wished also an increase of salary as well as of the duration of their office. The Senators wished their dignity to be made hereditary in their families, and to have an absolute veto on the projects of law, and other privileges besides. The Council of State alone asked for nothing. Bonaparte, whilst listening to everybody, matured his own plans, fixed the extent of his own power, and granted as little as possible of it to others."

On the 18th of May, 1804, at St. Cloud, the Senate, in a body, presented to Napoleon the Senatus Consultum which proclaimed him Emperor of the French, and made the Imperial dignity heredi

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tary in his family. Without waiting for that farce which was called the "sanction of the people," he forthwith assumed the title of "Emperor by the grace of God and the Constitutions of the Republic." Soon, however, the word Republic (never pleasant to his ear) was suppressed, and he styled himself Emperor "by the Constitutions of the Empire." When this was done the people were appealed to, and three millions of them were said to approve of it all, by their free votes taken in the communal assemblies. Then followed a deluge of congratulatory addresses from all quarters, the clergy, army, judges, public functionaries, &c. The army, however, could not have been unanimous, as several officers of the republican stamp resigned their commissions.

Shortly after the assumption of the imperial dignity by Bonaparte, the trials of Georges, Moreau, and the others accused with them of conspiracy, began before a special court of twelve judges. The law established by the Republic was set aside, no jury being allowed. In other cases, and throughout the proceedings, law and justice were outraged. Four of the judges were for the capital conviction of Moreau; but we do not believe that the new Emperor ever really wished to take the life of his military rival. In the end, Moreau was found guilty only of a misdemeanour, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Napoleon arbitrarily changed this sentence into one of perpetual banishment, and Moreau soon sailed for the United States of America. Georges and about twenty others were condemned to death, but only twelve were executed. Georges died like a true enthusiast and hero of the Vendée. "That man,” said the new Emperor, was as hard as iron and as brave as steel! If he would only have come round to me, I would have made him one of my aides-de-camp." But there were yet men in France not to be won by such promotion, or dazzled by all the splendour of what Paul Louis Courier called la Troupe Dorée.

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NAPOLEON would be crowned by the Pope. The quiet, virtuous, amiable Pontiff, Pius VII., attempted to excuse himself on account of his age, the length of the journey, and the rigour of the season; but, after having consulted with the cardinals, he found himself obliged to comply. He set out from Rome on the 5th of November, and reached Fontainbleau on the 25th of the same month.

The coronation took place in the church of Notre Dame, the ancient cathedral of Paris, on the 2nd of December. There was a very brilliant attendance: princes and palatines from the Rhine; princes, dukes, marquises, and counts, from Italy; a thin sprinkling

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of Spanish grandees; and no inconsiderable number of the ancient noblesse of France, mixed with the new noblesse of Bonaparte's creation, with his marshals, generals, dignitaries of the Legion of Honour, &c. The crown having been blessed by the Pope, Napoleon took it himself from the altar and placed it on his head; after which, with his own hands, he crowned his wife Josephine as Empress. He was determined to show that he held nothing except of himself. The Pope then accompanied the Emperor to an elevated throne, kissed him on the cheek, and cried, with a feeble inarticulate voice, "Vivat Imperator in æternum!" And then all present in that crowded cathedral shouted, "Long live the Emperor! long live the Empress !"

To the imperial crown was soon added a crown royal. Following the example of the French, some of the people beyond the Alps requested Napoleon to accept the ancient iron Lombard crown, the crown of Upper Italy. On the 26th of May, 1805, the ceremony was performed in the splendid but unfinished cathedral of Milan. This time the Pope was not troubled: the Archbishop of Milan officiated. Napoleon was even less reverential or ceremonious than he had been at Notre Dame: he seized the iron crown and placed it on his brow, exclaiming, "God has given it me, woe to him who attempts to touch it!" The fair Italian lady to whom only six years before he had said, "We are all republicans," was present, beholding with wonder this his second coronation.

In the month of June, the old Genoese Republic was united not to the Italian kingdom, but to France, and the Republic of Lucca was transformed into a Principality, and given to Elisa, one of Napoleon's sisters, and her husband Baciocchi, to be held as a fief of the French Empire. The military Republic of San Marino, with its two old cannons, and a population of about a thousand souls, was the only one now left in the Italian peninsula.

Returning to France, the Emperor resumed, on the coast near Boulogne-where a great army was assembled his demonstrations for the invasion of England. He calculated that 100.000 men, and one pitched battle, would carry him to London, that he could excite the democratic element against the aristocracy, and revolutionize

all England. Some yet doubt whether he ever really and seriously entertained this project; but if he did, his attention was very soon distracted from it, and other occupation found for his arms. His ambitions, his extensive annexations of territory in violation of treaties, roused the best part of Europe against him. In the summer of 1805, a new coalition was formed between England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden. Prussia was urged to join it; she hesitated, but she augmented her armies, and remained neutral, looking forward to the events of the war, and hoping meanly, basely, stupidly, to profit by them, and to gratify her old animosity against Austria.

Without waiting for the arrival of the Russians, the Austrians marched into the Electorate of Bavaria, and as that Elector refused to join the coalition, and was suspected of a leaning to France, they took possession of Munich his capital. The notorious General Mack, who had given repeated proofs of incapacity in the field, was, by some intrigue or strange influence, placed at the head of the grand Austrian army in Germany. The Archduke Charles, already the hero of many battles, commanded the Austrian forces on the side of Italy. Napoleon's so-called Army of England was rapidly moved from the Straits of Dover to the Rhine, whither also were directed troops from Holland, Hanover, and the interior of France. Massena was appointed to the command of the French army in Italy. Napoleon soon repaired to Mainz, on the Rhine, where he took the command of the Grand Army, a name which afterwards was always applied to the forces which he commanded in person.

In this war, the Emperor of the French was indisputably more aided by the blunders and short-comings of his adversary than by his own undoubted military genius. Mack behaved like a fool or traitor, or both. He allowed himself to be surrounded at Ulm, in Bavaria, and there, on the 17th of October, without fighting-without attempting a blow for the honour of arms--he surrendered with more than 20,000 men (excellent troops), and all his staff and artillery.

By this time, the Russian army, led on by the young Emperor Alexander himself, was getting close to hand, having assembled in Moravia. With the addition of some Austrian divisions, it amounted to 80,000 combatants. Napoleon was far, very far indeed, from en