Volume 1 / Part 3 — CHAPTER XVI (continued 2)

Against such overwhelming odds, Napoleon displayed throughout the desperate months of February and March, 1814, the same remarkable genius, the same indomitable will, as had characterized his earliest campaigns. If anything, his resourcefulness and his rapidity of attack were even greater. Inflicting a setback on one invader, he would turn quickly and dash against a second. Such apprehension did his tiger-like assaults excite among his opponents that as late as February he might have retained the French frontiers of 1792 if he had chosen to make peace. He would play the game to the bitter end. On 1 March, the four Great Powers—Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia—concluded the treaty of Chaumont, definitely cementing their alliance for a period of twenty years and mutually agreeing not to make terms without each other's consent nor to desist from war until their arch-enemy had been overthrown: each contracting party undertook to furnish 150,000 men, and Great Britain further promised a subsidy of five million pounds. The fate of Napoleon was at last settled.

[Sidenote: Surrender of Paris and Abdication of Napoleon]

To describe in any detail the brilliant campaign of 1814 lies outside our province. Suffice it to state that, after the most stubborn fighting, resistance was broken. Paris surrendered to the allies on 31 March, and thirteen days later Napoleon signed with the allied sovereigns the personal treaty of Fontainebleau, by which he abdicated his throne and renounced all rights to France for himself and his family, and, in return, was guaranteed full sovereignty of the island of Elba and an annual pension of two million francs for himself; the Italian duchy of Parma was conferred upon the Empress Maria Louisa, and pensions of two and a half million francs were promised for members of his family. Another seven days and Napoleon bade his Old Guard an affecting farewell and departed for Elba. In his diminutive island empire, hard by the shore of Tuscany and within sight of his native Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte lived ten months, introducing such vigor into the administration as the island had never experienced and all the while pondering many things.

[Sidenote: Restoration of the Bourbons in France] [Sidenote: Compromise with the Revolutionary Ideas]

Meanwhile, in France order was emerging from chaos. In 1793 European sovereigns had banded together to invade France, to restore the divine- right monarchy of the Bourbons and the traditional rights of the privileged classes, and to stamp out the embryonic principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The most noteworthy significance of the Era of Napoleon was the simple fact that now in 1814 the monarchs of Europe, at last in possession of France, had no serious thought of restoring social or political conditions just as they had been prior to the Revolution. Their major quarrel was not with principles but with a man. The Tsar Alexander, to whom more than to any other one person, was due the triumph of the allies, was a benevolent prince, well-versed in the revolutionary philosophy, considerate of popular wishes, and anxious to promote a lasting peace. Talleyrand, the man of the hour among Frenchmen, who himself had played no mean rôle throughout the Revolution and under Napoleon, combined with a desire to preserve the frontiers of his country a firm conviction that the bulk of his countrymen would not revert to absolute monarchy. Between Talleyrand and Alexander it was arranged, with the approval of the Great Powers, that in the name of "legitimacy" the Bourbons should be restored to the throne of France, but with the understanding that they should fully recognize and confirm the chief social and political reforms of the Revolution. It was likewise arranged by the treaty of Paris (30 May, 1814), also in the name of "legitimacy," that France should regain the limits of 1792, should recover practically all the colonies which Great Britain had seized during the course of the Napoleonic wars, [Footnote: Great Britain kept Tobago and St. Lucia in the West Indies, and Mauritius (Île de France) on the route to India.] and should pay no indemnity. "Legitimacy" was a brilliant discovery of Talleyrand: it justified the preservation of France in the face of crushing defeat, and, if it restored the Bourbons, it did so as limited, not as absolute, monarchs.

[Sidenote: Louis XVIII]

Louis XVI's "legitimate" heir was his brother, the count of Provence, a cynical, prosaic, and very stout old gentleman who had been quietly residing in an English country-house, and who now made a solemn, if somewhat unimpressive, state entry into Paris. The new king kept what forms of the old régime he could: he assumed the title of Louis XVIII, "king of France by the grace of God"; he reckoned his reign from the death of the dauphin ("Louis XVII") in the year 1795; he replaced the revolutionary tricolor by the white and lilies of his family; out of the fullness of his divinely bestowed royal authority he granted a charter to the French people. But Louis XVIII was neither so foolish nor so principled as to insist upon the substance of Bourbon autocracy: the very Constitutional Charter, which he so graciously promulgated, confirmed the Revolutionary liberties of the individual and established a fairly liberal form of government for France. It was obvious that the gouty old man had no desire to risk his head or to embark again upon his travels.

[Sidenote: Monarchical Restorations Elsewhere in Europe]

The same month that witnessed the unbecoming straddle of this French Bourbon between revolution and reaction, beheld the restoration of another Bourbon in the person of Ferdinand VII to the throne of Spain, and the return of Pope Pius VII, amid the enthusiastic shouts of the Romans, to the ancient see upon the Tiber. About the same time Piedmont and Savoy were restored to Victor Emmanuel I, king of Sardinia. Europe was rapidly assuming a more normal appearance. To settle the outstanding territorial questions which the overthrow of Napoleon had raised, a great congress of rulers and diplomats met at Vienna in the autumn of 1814.

[Sidenote: Napoleon at Elba, 1814-1815]

Within a few months the unusual calm was rudely broken by the sudden reappearance of Napoleon Bonaparte himself upon the European stage. It was hardly to be expected that he for whom the whole Continent had been too small would be contented in tiny Elba. He nursed grievances, too. He could get no payment of the revenue secured him by the treaty of Fontainebleau; his letters to his wife and little son were intercepted and unanswered; he was treated as an outcast. He became aware of a situation both in France and at Vienna highly favorable to his own ambition. As he foresaw, the shrinkage of the great empire into the realm of old France filled many patriotic Frenchmen with disgust, a feeling fed every day by stories of the presumption of returning émigrés and of the tactless way in which the Bourbon princes treated veterans of the Grande Armée. Napoleon in time felt certain that he could count once more upon the loyalty of the French nation. That he would not be obliged to encounter again the combined forces of the European Powers he inferred from his knowledge of the ever-recurring jealousies among them and from the fact that even then Russia and Prussia on one side were quarreling with Austria and Great Britain on the other over the fate of Saxony and Poland. If some fighting were necessary, the return of French prisoners from Russia, Germany, Great Britain, and Spain would supply him with an army far larger than that with which he had fought the brilliant campaign of 1814.

[Sidenote: The Episode of Napoleon's Return to France: "The Hundred Days," March-June, 1815]

On 26 February, 1815, Napoleon slipped away from Elba with some twelve hundred men, and, managing to elude the British guardships, disembarked at Cannes on 1 March and advanced northward. Troops sent out to arrest the arch-rebel were no proof against the familiar uniform and cocked hat: they threw their own hats in the air amid ringing shouts of vive l'empereur. Everywhere the adventurer received a hearty welcome, which attested at once the unpopularity of the Bourbons and the singular attractiveness of his own personality. The French people, being but human, put imagination in the place of reason. Without firing a shot in his defense, Napoleon's bodyguard swelled until it became an army. Marshal Ney, the "bravest of the brave," who had taken the oath of allegiance to the Bourbons and had promised Louis XVIII that he would bring Napoleon to Paris in an iron cage, deserted to him with 6000 men, and on 20 March the emperor jauntily entered the capital. Louis XVIII himself, who had assured his parliament that he would die in defense of his throne, was already in precipitate flight toward the Belgian frontier.

[Sidenote: Napoleon and France]

Napoleon clinched his hold upon the French people by means of an astute manifesto which he promptly published. "He had come," he declared, "to save France from the outrages of the returning nobles; to secure to the peasant the possession of his land; to uphold the rights won in 1789 against a minority which sought to reëstablish the privileges of caste and the feudal burdens of the last century; France had made trial of the Bourbons; it had done well to do so, but the experiment had failed; the Bourbon monarchy had proved incapable of detaching itself from its worst supports, the priests and nobles; only the dynasty which owed its throne to the Revolution could maintain the social work of the Revolution. … He renounced war and conquest … he would govern henceforth as a constitutional sovereign and seek to bequeath a constitutional crown to his son."

[Sidenote: Napoleon and Europe]

The emperor was as wrong in his judgment of what Europe would do as he was right concerning the attitude of France. The statesmen who had been haggling about treaty stipulations at Vienna speedily forgot all their differences in the face of common danger. The four Great Powers solemnly renewed their treaty of alliance, and with alacrity and unanimity all joined in signing a declaration. "In violating the convention which established him in the island of Elba, Bonaparte has destroyed the only legal title to his existence. By reappearing in France with projects of disorder and destruction, he has cut himself off from the protection of the law, and has shown in the face of all the world that there can be neither peace nor truce with him. Accordingly the Powers declare that Napoleon Bonaparte is excluded from civil and social relations, and as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world he has incurred public vengeance…."

In order to give force to their threats, the allies rushed troops toward France. Wellington assembled an army of more than 100,000 British, Dutch, and Germans, and planned to coöperate with 120,000 Prussians under Blücher near Brussels. The Austrian army under Schwarzenberg neared the Rhine. Russia and Germany were alive with marching columns. To oppose these forces Napoleon raised an army of 200,000 men, and on 12 June, 1815, quitted Paris for the Belgian frontier. His plan was to separate his opponents and to overcome them singly: it would be a repetition of the campaign of 1814, though on a larger scale.

[Sidenote: Waterloo]

How Napoleon passed the border and forced the outposts of the enemy back to Waterloo; how there, on 18 June, he fought the final great battle of his remarkable career; how his troops were mowed down by the fearful fire of his adversaries and how even his famous Old Guard rallied gloriously but ineffectually to their last charge; how the defeat administered by Wellington was turned at the close of the day into a mad rout through the arrival of Blücher's forces: all these matters are commonplaces in the most elementary histories of military science. It has long been customary to cite the battle of Waterloo as one of the world's decisive battles. In a sense this is just, but it should be borne in mind that, in view of the firm united determination of all Europe, there was no ultimate chance for Napoleon. If he had defeated Wellington, he would still have had to deal with Blücher. If he should then defeat the Prussians, he would have to turn suddenly against Schwarzenberg and the Austrians. By that time Wellington would have been sufficiently reënforced to resume the offensive, and the war would have gone on inevitably to but a single grim conclusion. The allies could put almost limitless numbers in the field; Napoleon was at the end of his resources. For the conservation of human life, it was fortunate that Napoleon was overwhelmed at Waterloo and that the first battle of the campaign of 1815 was also its last. Waterloo added military prestige to the naval preëminence which Great Britain already enjoyed, and finally established the reputation of Wellington as the greatest general of his age next only to Napoleon himself. It is small wonder that the English have magnified and glorified Waterloo. [Footnote: An interesting side issue of the Waterloo campaign was the fate of Joachim Murat. The wily king of Naples, distrustful of the allies' guarantees, threw in his lot with his brother-in-law. His forces were speedily put to rout by the Austrians and he himself fled to France and later to Corsica, and was ultimately captured and shot. His action enabled still another Bourbon, the despicable Ferdinand I, to recover his throne.]

[Sidenote: Final Overthrow of Napoleon ]

On 21 June, Napoleon arrived in Paris, defeated and dejected. That very day the parliament, on the motion of Lafayette, declared itself in permanent session and took over all functions of government. The following day Napoleon abdicated the second time in favor of his son, and the provisional government of France, under the skillful trimming of the clever Fouché, reopened negotiations with the Bourbons. On 7 July the allies reoccupied Paris, bringing the flustered old Louis XVIII "in their baggage-train." The Bourbons, thus unheroically restored, were destined for fifteen years to maintain in peace their compromise between revolution and reaction.

[Sidenote: Napoleon at St. Helena 1815-1821 ]

On 15 July, the day following the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, Napoleon, who had gone to Rochefort on the French coast, with some vague idea of taking refuge in America, delivered himself over to the commander of a British warship which was lying in the harbor. For us who live a century after the stirring events whose narrative has filled this chapter, it is easy to perceive that the British government might safely have extended hospitality to their famous captive and might have granted him an asylum in England. He was finally discredited in the eyes not only of the European despots but also of the vast majority of the French people; no matter how much he might burn with the flame of his old ambition, he could never again be in a position to endanger the safety or prosperity of the United Kingdom. But in 1815 Englishmen felt differently, and naturally so. To them Napoleon had been for years a more troublesome and dangerous enemy than a Philip II or a Louis XIV. By them he was deemed the unregenerate child of darkness and of the evil spirit. And "General Bonaparte," as the British authorities persisted in calling him, was not suffered to touch foot upon the sacred soil of England, but was dispatched on another British warship to the rocky island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic.

On St. Helena Napoleon lived five and a half years. He was allowed considerable freedom of movement and the society of a group of close personal friends. He spent his time in walking on the lonely island or in quarreling with his suspicious strait-laced English jailer, Sir Hudson Lowe, or in writing treatises on history and war and dictating memoirs to his companions. These memoirs, which were subsequently published by the Marquis de Las Cases, were subtly compounded of truth and falsehood. They represented Napoleon Bonaparte in the light of a true son and heir of the Revolution, who had been raised by the will of the French people to great power in order that he might consolidate the glorious achievements of liberty, equality, and fraternity. According to the emperor himself, he had always been the friend of peace and of oppressed nationalities, the author of blessings which had flowed uninterruptedly upon his people until he had been thwarted by the machinations of the British and the sheer brute force of the European despots. Napoleon shrewdly foresaw the increase of popular discontent with the repressive measures which the reactionary sovereigns and statesmen of Europe were bound to inaugurate, and in the resulting upheaval he thought he could see an opportunity for his beloved son to build anew an empire of the French. It could hardly have been blind chance that caused him to insert in his will the pious request that he "be buried on the banks of the Seine in the midst of the French people whom he so dearly loved." On 5 May, 1821, the greatest adventurer of modern times died on the island of St. Helena.

[Sidenote: The Napoleonic Legend]

Already the history of the emperor was becoming the Napoleonic Legend. The more his memory was revered as the noble martyr of St. Helena, the more truth withdrew into the background and fiction stepped into the limelight. His holocausts of human life were forgotten; only the glory, the unconquerable prowess of his arms, was remembered. French cottages were adorned with cheap likenesses of the little corporal's features; quaint, endearing nicknames for their hero were on villagers' lips; and around hearth and campfire were related apocryphal anecdotes of his exploits at Lodi, at Austerlitz, and at Wagram. From a selfish despot Napoleon was returning to his mightier, if humbler, position as a child of the people. Thus the last years at St. Helena were far from fruitless: they proved once more that the pen is mightier than the sword,—for one day, not by feats of arms, but by the power of the Napoleonic Legend, another Bonaparte was to be seated upon the throne of France.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ERA OF NAPOLEON

[Sidenote: A Continuation of the Revolutionary Era] [Sidenote: Liberty under Napoleon]

If we turn now from the story of Napoleon's life to an attempt to appraise the significance of the whole era which fittingly bears his name, we are struck by its manifold achievements in politics and society, in commerce, and in war. In general it was a continuation of the French the Revolution. The principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which, from 1789 to 1799, had been laid down as the foundation exclusively of French political and social institutions, became, from 1799 to 1815, the building-blocks for all European nations. The least understood and used was undoubtedly liberty. To be sure, both the Consulate and the empire were concrete and substantial examples of the replacement of the old theory of divine-right monarchy by the new idea of popular sovereignty, of governments resting, in last analysis, upon the consent of the governed. But Napoleon did hardly more to vitalize individual liberties than did the benevolent despots of the eighteenth century, or those of his own day. To secure the interested support of the bourgeoisie and the peasantry, the sacred right of private property was eloquently reaffirmed, and, as a trusty weapon against possible clerical pretensions, the noble rights of liberty of conscience and liberty of worship were grandiloquently preached; but the less serviceable liberties of speech and of publication were confined within the narrowest limits of military and imperial toleration.

[Sidenote: "Equality" under Napoleon]

With equality it was quite different. In all the lands annexed to France or included within the radius of Napoleon's direct influence, the forms and rights of feudalism and serfdom were abolished, and the social equalities embodied Code Napoléon were guaranteed. Throughout southern Germany, the Netherlands, the Iberian peninsula, and a great part of Italy, as well as in France, the social aspects of the old régime underwent a thorough transformation; interior customs lines, private roadways, toll-bridges, and internal trade restrictions were swept away; in the place of large landed estates, with their old- time noble owners and their wretched peasants attached to the soil and suffering from burdensome tithes and dues and personal services, appeared a numerous class of peasant proprietors, owning and tilling their own fields, free to buy, sell, or exchange them, or to move away to the growing towns. Outside of Napoleon's direct influence, the land reforms of Baron vom Stein in Prussia reflected the same spirit of the age. These social gains in the direction of equality were, in fact, the most permanent achievements of the Napoleonic Era: in spite of later reaction, it was beyond the reach of possibility to restore the inequalities of the outworn feudal system.

[Sidenote: "Fraternity" under Napoleon] [Sidenote: The Emphasis on Nationalism]

Fraternity, or national patriotism, received a marked impetus during the era. Communicated from France by the ardor of the revolutionary and Napoleonic soldiers, it evoked ready response not only in Poland, Holland, Portugal, Spain, England, and Russia, in which countries it was already existent, but also in the Germanies and in the Italian states, where centuries of petty strife and jealousy seemed to have blotted it out forever. The significance of the Napoleonic period in the history of Germany is incalculable. The diminution of the number of states, the abolition of the effete Holy Roman Empire, the regeneration of Prussia, the War of Liberation, the Battle of the Nations, the consciousness of common interests, and the wave of patriotism which swept over the whole German folk, presaged before the lapse of many decades the political unification of the Germanies and the erection of a powerful national state. Nor were the Italians devoid of a similar national feeling. The fame of Napoleon, a man of Italian blood, the temporary establishment of a "kingdom of Italy," the title of "king of Rome" conferred upon the infant heir to Napoleon's fortunes, the social reforms and the patriotic awakening throughout the peninsula,—all betokened a national destiny for the whole Italian people.

[Sidenote: Minor Political Happenings]

In minor political ways the Napoleonic Era was not without significance. The Tsar was enabled finally to acquire Finland, Poland, and Turkish land as far as the River Pruth, Minor thus completing the work of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, and rounding out the European frontier of Russia to its present extent. Sweden secured Norway and a new dynasty, which, descended from Marshal Bernadotte, the interesting son of an obscure French lawyer, has reigned ever since. In the case of Portugal, the flight of the royal family to Brazil in 1807 had the curious effect of causing them for several years to hold their court in their principal colony and to govern the mother-country through regents.

[Sidenote: Remarkable Significance of the Era to Great Britain] [Sidenote: Colonies] [Sidenote: Commerce]

Beyond continental Europe the period was of utmost importance. The maritime and commercial supremacy of Great Britain, which had been seriously shaken by the War of American Independence, was regained in the course of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Of course the United States continued independent. But the great victories of Lord Nelson over the French fleets rendered Great Britain the true mistress of the seas; and she proceeded to utilize her naval superiority to appropriate what remaining French colonies most suited her purpose. In this way she possessed herself of Malta (1800), St. Lucia, Tobago (1803), and Mauritius (1810). Then, too, the dependence of Holland upon France, involuntary though it was most of the time, afforded her an opportunity to seize such valuable Dutch colonies as Ceylon (1795), Guiana (1803), and South Africa (1806). The sorry subservience of the Spanish Bourbons to Napoleon gave Great Britain a similar chance to prey upon Spanish commerce, to occupy some Spanish colonies, and to open others to her own trade: at this time the British took possession of Trinidad (1797) and Honduras (1798) and sent raiding expeditions against Buenos Aires and Montevideo (1806-1807). The subsequent Peninsular War, in which, as we have seen, the British coöperated with the Spaniards in maintaining the latter's freedom against Napoleon, put an end to the hostile British incursions into the Spanish colonies, but it worked in another way to Great Britain's advantage. The Spanish colonies—Mexico, Central America, and the greater part of South America—were thrown into grave administrative perplexities by the conflict of authority between the two Bourbon kings, Charles IV and Ferdinand VII, and between King Joseph Bonaparte and the revolutionary juntas; the colonists gradually got into the habit of managing their own affairs and of opening their ports to British trade; and the result was that by 1814, when Ferdinand was at length firmly established upon the Spanish throne, he was confronted by colonists, the greater number of whom had all along professed allegiance to him, but who now, accustomed to the advantages of free trade and practical independence, were resolved to maintain them. The disruption of the Spanish colonial empire was a direct outcome of Napoleon's career, and next to the colonists themselves the British were the chief beneficiaries. In general, the new colonies which Great Britain acquired were intended either, as in the case of Malta, Mauritius, Ceylon, and South Africa, to strengthen her hold upon India, or, as in the case of the others, to develop her trade with Spanish America.

[Sidenote: Industry]

This naval predominance of Great Britain and the expansion of her commerce and colonial empire synchronized with the rapid development of the Industrial Revolution within England. It was the ceaseless operation of spinning frames and power looms, of blast furnaces and steam engines, in a country on which the French emperor's army had never trod, that most truly worked the downfall of Napoleon.

[Illustration: THE BONAPARTE FAMILY]

ADDITIONAL READING

TEXTBOOK NARRATIVES. H. E. Bourne, The Revolutionary Period in Europe, 1763-1815 (1914), ch. xvii-xxvii; J. H. Robinson and C. A. Beard, The Development of Modern Europe, Vol. I (1907), ch. xiv, xv; H. M. Stephens, Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815 (1893), ch. vii-xi; J. H. Rose, Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, 1789-1815 (1895), ch. vii-xi; J. A. R. Marriott, The Remaking of Modern Europe, 1789-1878 (1910), ch. vii-xi; H. T. Dyer, A History of Modern Europe from the Fall of Constantinople, 3d ed. rev. by Arthur Hassall (1901), ch. lxi-lxvii; C. A. Fyffe, A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 (1896), ch. v-xii.

STANDARD BIOGRAPHIES OF NAPOLEON. Two suggestive outlines, either one of which may serve as an admirable introduction to more careful study: Herbert Fisher, Napoleon (1912), in the "Home University Library"; and R. M. Johnston, Napoleon, a Short Biography (1910). August Fournier, Napoleon I, 3d rev. ed., 3 vols. (1914), perhaps the best biography, a German work, scholarly, well written, and impartial, trans. into English from the 2d German edition by A. E. Adams, 2 vols. (1912). J. H. Rose, The Life of Napoleon I, new ed., 2 vols. in i (1907), a highly prized work, mainly political, and thoroughly British in tone; and, by the same author, The Personality of Napoleon (1912), a collection of interesting lectures. W. M. Sloane, The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, rev. and enlarged ed., 4 vols. (1910), confined largely to the personal history of Napoleon, with special reference to his earlier years, based upon source-material, and profusely illustrated. J. C. Ropes, The First Napoleon (1900), a military and political outline by an authority on several of the great campaigns of the emperor. Pierre Lanfrey, The History of Napoleon the First, Eng. trans., 2d ed., 4 vols. (1894), a severe arraignment of the character and policies of Napoleon by a celebrated French scholar, reaches only to the close of the year 1811. Adolphe Thiers, Histoire du consulat et de l'empire, 20 vols., highly laudatory of Napoleon, and should be read as an antidote to Lanfrey; the portion of the work down to 1807 has been translated into English by D. F. Campbell, 2 vols. in 1 (1845). H. A. Taine, The Modern Regime, Eng. trans. by John Durand, 2 vols. (1890-1894), a brilliant and fascinating analysis of Napoleon's genius and a critical estimate of the importance of the institutions established by him. Frederic Masson, Napoleon et sa famille, 5th ed., 12 vols. (1897-1915), an encyclopedia of information concerning the emperor's numerous relatives, and, by the same author, Napoleon à Sainte-Hélène (1912). Three volumes of an elaborate history of Napoleon appeared in 1912-1914, the work of a well-known German specialist, F. M. Kircheisen, Napoleon I: sein Leben und seine Zeit. See also, on the early life of Bonaparte, Oscar Browning, Napoleon: the First Phase, 1769-1793 (1905); and, on his final years at St. Helena, Lord Rosebery, Napoleon: the Last Phase (1900). An illuminating work is that of A. M. Broadley, Napoleon in Caricature, 1795-1821, with an introductory essay by J. H. Rose, 2 vols. (1911).

ILLUSTRATIVE SOURCE MATERIAL. In addition to the indispensable Readings in Modern European History by J. H. Robinson and C. A. Beard (1909), the following selections from the masses of source material are especially serviceable: D. A. Bingham, A Selection from the Letters and Despatches of the First Napoleon, 3 vols. (1884); Memoirs of the History of France during the Reign of Napoleon, dictated by him at St. Helena to the generals who shared his captivity, Eng. trans., 2d ed., 4 vols. (1823-1824); the correspondence of Napoleon I, published in French under the auspices of Napoleon III, 32 vols. (1858-1870), and Napoleon's military correspondence published under the auspices of the Ministry of War of the Third French Republic; Narrative of Captain Coignet, new French ed. (1909), Eng. trans. by Mrs. Carey, the story of the life of a soldier in the ranks. Of the abundant memoirs of the period, the best are those of Mme. de Rémusat, covering the years 1802- 1808, hostile but informing, Eng. trans. by Mrs. Cashel Hoey and John Lillie (1891); Fauvalet de Bourrienne, Eng. trans. by J. S. Memes, 3 vols. (1892); Antoine de Marbot, 3 vols.; C. F. de Méneval, covering the years 1802-1815, 3 vols. (1894); A. F. Miot de Melito, Eng. trans. (1881); L. P. de Ségur, 3 vols; and C. M. de Talleyrand-Périgord, Eng. trans., 5 vols. (1891-1892). For further bibliographical suggestions, see F. M. Kircheisen, Bibliography of Napoleon (1902). An extended bibliography is in course of publication by an Italian scholar, Alberto Lumbroso, 5 parts to date (1894-1914).

THE ERA OF NAPOLEON. A very brief summary: Charles Seignobos, History of Contemporary Civilization, trans. by J. A. James (1909), pp. 150- 185. Standard general works: Cambridge Modern History, Vol. IX (1906); Histoire générale, Vol. IX; History of All Nations, Vol. XVI, The French Revolution and the Rise of Napoleon, ch. viii, ix, and Vol. XVII, The Napoleonic Empire, by Theodor Flathe; Wilhelm Oncken, Das Zeitalter der Revolution, des Kaiserreiches, und der Befreiungskriege, 2 vols. (1884-1886); Émile Bourgeois, _Manuel historique de politique étrangère, 4th ed., Vol. II (1909), ch. viii- xviii. Standard works on special phases of the era: Armand Lefebvre, Histoire des cabinets de l'Europe pendant le consulat et l'empire 1800-1815, 2d ed., 5 vols. (1866-1869), an admirable diplomatic history; Albert Sorel, L'Europe et la révolution française, 8 vols. (1885-1904), a standard authoritative work, of which Vols. VI-VIII treat of the communication of revolutionary ideas to Europe during the Era of Napoleon; L. de Lanzac de Laborie, Paris sous Napoléon, 8 vols. (1905-1913), invaluable for a detailed study of French life under Napoleon; Émile Levasseur, Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l'industrie en France de 1789 à 1870, Vol. I (1903), Livre II, Le consulat et l'empire, for social history; Jean Jaurès, Histoire socialiste, 1789-1900, Vol. VI, by Paul Brousse and Henri Turot, Le consulat et l'empire, 1799-1815 (1905), likewise for social history; J. 0. B. de Cléron d'Haussonville, L'eglise romaine et le premier empire, 1800-1814, 5 vols. (1868-1869), for ecclesiastical affairs; Alphonse Aulard, Napoléon I-er et la monopole universitaire (1911), for educational matters; Henri Welschinger, La censure sous le premier empire (1882), for restrictions on personal liberty in France: and for French plots and attempts against Napoleon, the works of Ernest Daudet, particularly La police et les chouans sous le consulat et l'empire, 1800-1815 (1895), Histoire de l'émigration, 3 vols. (1886-1890), and L'exil et la mort du Général Moreau (1909); and Sir John Hall, General Pichegru's Treason (1916). MILITARY CAMPAIGNS OF NAPOLEON. T. A. Dodge, Napoleon: a History of the Art of War, 4 vols. (1904- 1907), the work of an American army officer, not always accurate, but the best general account in English; A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812, 10th ed., 2 vols. (1898), a justly famous book, especially valuable for the Continental System. Special campaigns: Albert Vandal, Napoléon et Alexander Ier, 3d ed., 3 vols. (1893-1896); R. G. Burton, Napoléon's Campaigns in Italy, 1796-1797 and 1800 (1912), and, by the same author, From Boulogne to Austerlitz: Napoleon's Campaign of 1805 (1912); the works of F. L. Petre, particularly Napoleon's Conquest of Prussia, 1806 (1907), Napoleon's Campaign in Poland, 1806-1807 (1906), Napoleon and the Archduke Charles (1908), Napoleon's Last Campaign in Germany, 1813 (1912), Napoleon at Bay (1914); Henry Houssaye, Jéna et la campagne de 1806, with introduction by Louis Madelin (1912); Édouard Driault, Austerlitz: la fin du Saint-Empire, 1804-1808 (1912); Charles Oman, History of the Peninsular War, a monumental work extending to the year 1812, 5 vols. (1902-1914), and, by the same author, Wellington's Army, 1809-1814 (1912); Hermann Baumgarten, Geschichte Spaniens vom Ausbruch der französischen Revolution bis auf unsere Tage, Vol. I (1865), a scholarly German treatment of the Peninsular campaign; R. G. Burton, Napoleon's Invasion of Russia (1914); F. W. O. Maycock, The Invasion of France, 1814 (1915); Oscar Browning, The Fall of Napoleon (1907), useful for the years 1813-1815; E. F. Henderson, Blucher and the Uprising of Prussia against Napoleon, 1806-1815 (1911), in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series; D. P. Barton, Bernadotte: the First Phase, 1763-1799 (1914); A. F. Becke, Napoleon and Waterloo, 2 vols. (1914); J. C. Ropes, The Campaign of Waterloo, 2d ed. (1893).

THE GERMANIES IN THE ERA OF NAPOLEON. Brief accounts: G. M. Priest, Germany since 1740 (1915), ch. iv-vii; Ferdinand Schevill, The Making of Modern Germany (1916), ch. iii; E. F. Henderson, A Short History of Germany, Vol. II (1902), ch. vi, vii, and, by the same author, the book on Blücher listed in the preceding paragraph; C. T. Atkinson, A History of Germany, 1715-1815 (1908), almost exclusively a military history; H. A. L. Fisher, Studies in Napoleonic Statesmanship: Germany (1903), instructive and stimulating. The best and most thorough work in English is J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, or Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age, 2 vols. (1879). Standard German works, all highly patriotic in tone: Ludwig Häusser, Deutsche Geschichte vom Tode Friedrichs des Grossen bis zur Gründung des deutschen Bundes, 4th ed., 4 vols. (1869); K. T. von Heigel, Deutsche Geschichte vom Tode Friedrichs des Grossen bis zur Auflösung des alten Reiches, 2 vols. (1899-1911); Hans von Zwiedineck- Südenhorst, Deutsche Geschichte von der Auflösung des alten bis zur Errichtung des neuen Kaiserreiches, 1806-1871, 3 vols. (1897-1905), of which Vol. I deals with the years 1806-1815; Heinrich von Treitschke, Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, 5 vols. (1890-1896), of which Vol. I, in Eng. trans. (1915), covers the period down to 1814; Heinrich Ulmann, Geschichte der Befreiungskriege, 1813 und 1814, 2 vols. (1914-1915), not so much military as political and diplomatic; Hans Delbrück, Das Leben des Feldmarschalls Grafen Neidhardt von Gneisenau, 3d rev. ed. (1913). A reliable French view is that of Ernest Denis, L'Allemagne, 1789-1810 (1896).

GREAT BRITAIN IN THE ERA OF NAPOLEON. Sir Herbert Maxwell, A Century of Empire, Vol. I, 1801-1832 (1909), political and conservative; G. C. Broderick and J. K. Fotheringham, Political History of England, 1801-1837 (1906), accurate but dry, containing valuable bibliographies; J. H. Rose, William Pitt and the Great War (1911), a notable contribution, and, by the same author, though not so excellent, Pitt and Napoleon: Essays and Letters (1912); W. C. Russell, Horatio Nelson (1890), a convenient little biography in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series; A. T. Mahan, The Life of Nelson, the Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain, 2 vols. (1897), a standard work; J. S. Corbett, Campaign of Trafalgar (1913), with reference to Pitt more than to Nelson; A. T. Mahan, Sea Power in its Relation to the War of 1812, 2 vols. (1905); J. W. Fortescue, History of the British Army, Vols. IV-VII (1906-1912), a monumental work on the British military campaigns from 1793 to 1810; Sir W. L. Clowes (editor), The Royal Navy: a History, Vol. IV (1899), ch. xxxiv-xxxvii, for the years 1792- 1802, and Vol. V (1900), for 1803-1815; J. W. Fortescue, British Statesmen of the Great War, 1793-1814 (1911), derogatory of Pitt and marked by zealous prejudice in favor of other Tory statesmen, especially Castlereagh and Liverpool; Sir Herbert Maxwell, The Life of Wellington, 2 vols. (1899); W. O'C. Morris, Wellington, Soldier and Statesman (1904), in "Heroes of the Nations" Series; F. J. MacCunnan, The Contemporary English View of Napoleon (1914), an interesting compilation.