cruisers were instantly on the alert to attend their motions.— The undertaking was finally abandoned; but Napoleon himself continued to affirm that he was serious in the attempt, and that the scheme was practicable, by assembling such a fleet as would have given him the temporary command of the Channel.

CHAP. XI.

Conspiracy against Napoleon. General Moreau sent into exile. Buonaparte crowned Emperor of the French. Crowned King of Italy.Genoa united to the Empire

IN February, 1803, the Paris papers announced the discovery of a conspiracy of the most extensive and complicated nature. It was said that one hundred and fifty men, who were to assume the uniform of the consular guards, were to assemble and seize Buonaparte at Malmaison, where he was expected to be hunting, or wherever else he might be found, and carry him off. One of the conspiraters disclosed the plot, and the sign of the conspirators, which was an English piece of gold. According to the information given, the police officers repaired to the mistress of an inn, and ordering her to draw off her glove, discovered a similar piece of English gold, and opening a draw they found a letter directing her to carry on a specified day to a certain house, twenty bottles of wine and to ring a certain number of times at the door. The officers went to the house, and having rang as specified, they discovered a number of persons who defended themselves in a desperate manner. Among those arrested were Mairn, an intimate of Georges, the Vendean royalist, and one Victor, the cook of Georges, who had been in a former plot. General Moreau was charged with being in the plot and arrested.

The subject was laid before the legislative authorities, which appointed Regnier grand judge, who, in his report stated, that a band of assassins, headed by Georges, and in the pay of England, were still dispersed in La Vendee, and that papers were found which criminated Moreau and Pichegru

When this report was read in the tribune, General Moreau's brother made an energetic and indignant speech, declaring the whole an infamous calumny, and demanding that his brother might be instantly brought to trial.

The senate transmitted an address to Buonaparte, congratu lating him on his escape from so deep a plot. In his answer he has the following remarkable sentence, which may be considered as prophetic: "I have long since renounced the hope of enjoying the pleasures of private life; all my days are empoyed in fulfilling the duties which my fate, and the will of the French people have imposed on me. Heaven will watch over France, and defeat the plots of the wicked. The citizens may be without alarm; my life will last as long as it will be useful to the nation; but I wish the French people to understand that existence, without their confidence and affection, would be to me without consolation, and would, for them, have no object."

In March, Buonaparte receiving information that a number of hostile emigrants said to be in the pay of England, were at Ettingheim within the Electorate of Baden, he dispatched Caulincourt, his aid-de-camp, who succeeded in arresting fifteen of them, of whom, the duke d'Enghien, one of the royal family of France, was one. The royal prisoner was conducted to Paris by an escort of fifty gens d'arms, where he was tried by a military commission, condemned and shot. General Moreau was declared guilty, but not to the extent of a capital crime. He was subjected to imprisonment for two yeras; but the soldiers continuing to interest themselves in his fate, his doom of imprisonment was exchanged for that of exile.

On the 18th of May, 1804, Napoleon Buonaparte was proclaimed EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH; a motion to this purpose having been previously brought forward, was passed by the Tribune and Senate.-Measures were taken to obtain the opinion of the people on this radical change of their system; and the number of votes collected in the departments amounted to upwards of three million five hundred thousand, of whom only about three thousand five hundred dec ared against the proposition. This was declared "the unbiassed expression of the people's choice,-no government could plead a more authentic title."

The Emperor accompained by his Empress, who bore her honors both gracefully and meekly, visited Aix-la-Chapelle, and the frontiers of Germany. Tey received the con

gratulations of all the powers of Europe, excepting England, Russia and Sweden, upon their new exaltation; and the German princes, who had every thing to hope and fear from so powerful a neighbor, hastened to pay their compliments to Buonaparte in person, which more distant sovereigns offered by their ambassadors.

But the most splendid and public recognition of his new rank was yet to be made, by the formal act of coronation, which, therefore, Buonaparte determined should take place with circumstances of solemnity which had been beyond the reach of any temporal prince, however powerful, for many ages. Pope Leo, he remembered, had placed a golden crown on the head of Charlemagne, and proclaimed him Emperor of the Romans. Pius VII, he determined, should do the same for a successor to much more than the actual power of Charlemagne. But though Charlemagne had repaired to Rome to receive inauguration from the hands of the Pontiff of that day, Buonaparte resolved that he who now owned the proud, and in Protestant eyes, profane, title of Vicar of Christ, should travel to France to perform the coronation of the successful chief, by whom the Sec of Rome had been more than once humbled, pillaged and impoverished, but by whom also her power had been re-erected and restored, not only in Italy but in France itself.

On the 2d December, the ceremony of the coronation took place in the ancient cathedral of Notre Dame, with the addition of every ceremony which could be devised, to add to its solemnity. The Emperor took his coronation oath as usual on such occasions, with his hands upon the Scripture, and in the form repeated to him by the Pope. But in the act of coronation itself, there was a marked deviation from the universal custom, characteristic of the man, the age and the conjuncture. In all other similar solemnities, the crown had been placed on the sovereign's head by the presiding spiritual person, as representing the Deity, by whom princes rule.But not even from the head of the Catholic Church would Buonaparte consent to receive as a boon the golden symbol of sovereignty, which he was sensible he owed solely to hi own unparalleled train of military and civil successes. The crown having been blessed by the Pope, Napoleon took it from the altar with his own hands, and placed it on his brows He then put the diadem on the head of his Empress, as if to show that his authority was the child of his own actions. Deum was sung; the heralds proclaimed "that the thrice

Te

glorious and thrice august Napoleon, Emperor of the French, was crowned and installed." The members of the Imperial Family were declared Princes of the Blood. His late colleagues in the Consulate, Cambaceres and Le Brun, were nominated, the former Arch-chancellor, and the latter Archtreasurer of the empire. Seventeen generals (viz: Berthier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lasnes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, Bessieres, Kellermann, Lefebvre, Perrignon and Serrurier,) were named Marshals of the empire. Duroc, Grand Marshal of the palace; Caulincourt, master of the horse; Berthier, grand huntsnan; and Count Segur, a nobleman of the ancient regime, master of the ceremonies.

A deputation from the Italian Republic, appeared at Paris, declare the absolute necessity which they felt, that their government should assume a monarchical and hereditary form. On the 17th March, they obtained an audience of the Emperor, to whom they intimated the unanimous desire of their countrymen, that Napoleon, founder of the Italian Republic, should be monarch of the Italian kingdom. He was to have power to name his successor, such being always a native of France or Italy.

Upon the 11th of April 1805, Buonaparte with his Empress, set off to go through the form of coronation, as King of Italy. The ceremony almost exactly resembled that by which he had been inaugurated Emperor. The ministry of the Arch-bishop of Milan was held sufficient for the occasion, and it was he who blessed the celebrated iron crown, said to have girded the brows of the ancient Kings of the Lombards. Buonaparte, as in the ceremony at Paris, placed the ancient emblem on his head with his own hands, assuming and repeating aloud the motto attached to it by its ancient owners, "God has given it to me; let him beware who would touch it." The new kingdom was, in all respects, modelled on the, same plan with the French empire. An order, called "of the Iron Crown," was established on the footing of that of the Legion of Honor. A large French force was taken into Italian pay, and Eugene Beauharnois, the son of Josephine by her former marriage, who enjoyed and merited the confidence of his father-in-law, was created viceroy, and appointed to represent, in that character, the dignity of Napoleon

Napoleon did not leave Italy without further extension of his empire. Genoa, once the proud and the powerful, resigned her independence, and her Doge presented to the Emperor

a request that the Ligurian Republic, laying down her separate rights, should be considered in future as a part of the French nation.

CHAP. XII.

Napoleon addresses a letter to the King of England. Alliance of Russia, Austria, England and Sweden against France. Buonaparte heads the army in Germany. Skilful manoeuvres of the French generals and successive losses of the Austrians. Neutrality of Prussia violated. Mack is cooped up in Ulm. Surrenders to the French on the 16th of October, by which 20,000 men become prisoners of war. Buonaparte advances towards Vienna. The Emperor Francis leaves his capital, and the French take possession of it. Successes of Massena in Italy and Ney in the Tyrol. BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ, and the combined armies of Austria and Russia completely defeated. Treaty of Presburg. On the 21st of January, 1805, Napoleon, in his new character of Emperor, addressed a letter to King George III. in person, on the subject of a lasting peace between the two countries. This letter was answered by the British secretary of state to Talleyrand, and declared that Britain would not make a precise reply to the proposal of peace intimated in Napoleon's letter, until she had communicated with her allies on the continent, and in particular with the Emperor of Russia.

already well known continental storm, On this occasion, Since the death of

These expressions indicated, what was to Buonaparte, the darkening of another about to be directed against his power Russia was the soul of the confederacy. the unfortunate Paul had placed that mighty country under the government of Alexander, whose education had been sedulously cultivated, and who had profited in an eminent degree by that advantage, her counsels had been dignified, wise and moderate. About a fortnight before Napoleon wrote to the king of England, a strict alliance had been signed between the sovereigns of Russia and Sweden, and it was now obvious that the northern powers had resolved to take part