of institutions. This is generally the characteristic of epochs when
the human faculties, long congealed by untoward restraints, suddenly
burst their barriers and run riot in a spring-tide of hope. The time
of disillusionment or despair which usually supervenes may, as a rule,
be compared with the numbing torpor of winter, necessary doubtless in
our human economy, but lacking the charm and vitality of the expansive
phase. Often, indeed, it is disgraced by the characteristics of a
slavish populace, a mean selfishness, a mad frivolity, and fawning
adulation on the ruler who dispenses _panem et circenses_. Such has
been the course of many a political reaction, from the time of
degenerate Athens and imperial Rome down to the decay of Medicean
Florence and the orgies of the restored Stuarts.

The fruitfulness of the time of monarchical reaction in France may be
chiefly attributed to two causes, the one general, the other personal;
the one connected with the French Revolution, the other with the
exceptional gifts of Bonaparte. In their efforts to create durable
institutions the revolutionists had failed: they had attempted too
much: they had overthrown the old order, had undertaken crusades
against monarchical Europe, and striven to manufacture constitutions
and remodel a deeply agitated society. They did scarcely more than
trace the outlines of the future social structure. The edifice, which
should have been reared by the Directory, was scarcely advanced at
all, owing to the singular dullness of the new rulers of France. But
the genius was at hand. He restored order, he rallied various classes
to his side, he methodized local government, he restored finance and
credit, he restored religious peace and yet secured the peasants in
their tenure of the confiscated lands, he rewarded merit with social
honours, and finally he solidified his polity by a comprehensive code
of laws which made him the keystone of the now rounded arch of French