CHAPTER X. The Home Government (1804-1808)

CHAPTER XI. Glory and Illusions. Spain and Austria

CHAPTER XII. The Divorce (1809-1810)

CHAPTER XIII. Glory and Madness. The Russian Campaign (1811-1812)




THE HISTORY OF FRANCE




CHAPTER VII.

THE CONSULATE (1799-1804).


For more than ten years, amid unheard of shocks and sufferings, France had
been seeking for a free and regular government, that might assure to her
the new rights which had only been gained through tribulation. She had
overthrown the Monarchy and attempted a Republic; she had accepted and
rejected three constitutions, all the while struggling single-handed with
Europe, leagued against her. She had undergone the violence of the Reign
of Terror, the contradictory passions of the Assemblies, and the
incoherent feebleness of the Directory. For the first time since the death
of King Louis XIV., her history finds once more a centre, and henceforth