retreat--Reaction against the power of Napoleon; campaign of 1813; general
defection--Coalition of all Europe; exhaustion of France; marvellous
campaign of 1814--The allied powers at Paris; abdication at Fontainbleau;
character of Napoleon; his part in the French revolution--Conclusion.




INTRODUCTION


I am about to take a rapid review of the history of the French revolution,
which began the era of new societies in Europe, as the English revolution
had begun the era of new governments. This revolution not only modified
the political power, but it entirely changed the internal existence of the
nation. The forms of the society of the middle ages still remained. The
land was divided into hostile provinces, the population into rival
classes. The nobility had lost all their powers, but still retained all
their distinctions: the people had no rights, royalty no limits; France
was in an utter confusion of arbitrary administration, of class
legislation and special privileges to special bodies. For these abuses the
revolution substituted a system more conformable with justice, and better
suited to our times. It substituted law in the place of arbitrary will,
equality in that of privilege; delivered men from the distinctions of
classes, the land from the barriers of provinces, trade from the shackles
of corporations and fellowships, agriculture from feudal subjection and
the oppression of tithes, property from the impediment of entails, and
brought everything to the condition of one state, one system of law, one
people.