whose conciliatory policy, the interests of France
became more consolidated than at any former pe-
riod. Henry, however, was assassinated by a
fanatic in 1610, when fresh disorder ensued, and
France again was seen involved in all the conten-
tions ofthe European states, and of England with
her American colonies, which took place in the
interval of that period.

It was immediately after the general peace of
Europe in 1763, when the English American
colonies obtained an honorable independence,
that the triple oppression of the crown, the no-
bles, and the clergy became intolerable to the
French people.

The finances became inextricably embarrassed,
and the States General or assembly of the repre-
sentatives of the people according to an ancient
but disused custom, were called together in 1789.
From the consideration of fiscal affairs they were
led to the discussion of political rights and theo-
ries of government. The revolution followed,
and its events form the most tragic and bloody
page in all modern history. This occurrence in-
volved France in a war with almost all Europe,
and her efforts single handed against this tremen-
dous odds excited the astonishment of the world.
Among those who contributed more especially
to the eclat of the French armies, was a young
officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, who, on his return
to Paris, after his successful campaign in Italy,
was intrusted with the command of a vast ar-
mament to the shores of Egypt, and when he re-
turned in 1799 was mainly instrumental in form-
ing a new constitution under a Triune consulate,
senate and legislative body, in which he himself
was appointed one of the consuls. In October,
1801, a peace was signed with England, which
proved, however, of short duration. War was
renewed in 1803, when Bonaparte was appointed
Consul for life, with power to nominate his suc-
cessor ; this, however, fell short of his ambition,
and in May of the following year he was pro-
claimed Emperor of France. On the 1st of
October, 1805, he again headed a powerful army
against the German States ; detached the minor
powers from the Germanic confederacy, and
united them to his own interest, under the new
title of the Confederation of the Rhine. In 1803,
he marched an army of 80,000 men into Spain,
and placed one of his brothers on the throne of
that country; another brother he had caused to
be crowned king of Holland; another king of
Westphalia, and a brother-in-law king of Naples.
The whole of the Netherlands he had annexed to
France, in 16 departments; and on the king of
Holland resigning his crown in 1809, the adiole
of that country, with the coast of Germany, as
far as the Elbe; the states of the papal church,
and the greater part of the north of Ttaly, were
also decreed integral parts of the French empire,
in 28 additional, departments.

The emperor of Austria, imagining that the di-
vision of the French forces into Spain afforded
him an opportunity of avenging the repeated de-
feats he had sustained, provoked a new contest in
1809, when Napoleon again took the field against
the Austrians, and on the 5th of July completely
defeated them. A treaty of peace followed,
in which the daughter of the emperor of Austria
was ceded in marriage to the conqueror of her
father’s capital. The birth of a son in 1811 seemed
for a time to render permanent the fortunes of
Napoleon and his family; but an ill-fated ambi-
tion led him, in 1812, to march an army of 300,000
men into Russia. After repeated and severe con
flicts he reached Moscow, the acient capi'a! of
that empire, on the 14th of September. By the or-
der of the governor, this city was secretly set on
fire, and the desolation by which Napoleon found
himself surrounded induced him to withdraw his
forces. They were overtaken with snow storms
before they could reach the frontiers, whilst the
Russians on their rear subjected them to continued
disasters; and in the end destroyed the finest ar-
my which ever assembled in Europe. In the mear.
time the French troops in the peninsula were ex-
posed to frequent defeats; and, by 1814, Napoleon
and his troops had not only been driven with- j
in their own frontier, but a united Russian,^;
Prussian, and Austrian army entered France from
the N. E., the British, Spanish, and Portuguese¹
armies entered it from the S. W., and Napoleon, j
seeing the tide of fortune completely set against I
him, immediately abdicated the sceptre. The is-
land of Elba was assigned to him as a residence
in full sovereignty for life, with an income of
about xc2xa3200,000 per annum. On the 3rd of May,
1814, Louis XVIII., who had been exiled in Eng.
during the consular and imperial dynasty, arrived
in Paris to resume the throne of his ancestors.
On the 5th of March, 1815, Napoleon secretly lan-
ded at Frejus, and marched without interruption
to Paris, from which Louis fled at midnight on
the 20th. Napoleon arrived the same evening ;
on the 27th the national council annulled his abdi-
cation, and called upon him to resume his impe-
rial functions. On the 29th he abolished the Af-
rican slave trade; on the 12th of June he left
Paris, to take the command of an army on the N.
E. frontier , but, after a whole day’s severe fight-
ing, on the 18th his line was broken, his troops
thrown into confusion, and the palm of victory
left with the allies, who marched again upon Paris,
which they* reached on the fith of July. Napoleon
again abdicated the imperial sceptre, and on the
29th of June quitted Paris never to return. Louis
again resumed the sovereignty on the 18th of
July; on the 25th of the same month Napoleon
surrendered to the commander of a British ship
of war, and was afterwards carried to the island
cf St. Helena, in the Atlantic Ocean, where he
died on the 5th of May, 1821.

Louis XVIII. died in September 1824, and was
succeeded by his brother Charles Philip (Count
d’Artois) under the title of Charles X., whose in
creasing infringement of the rights of the people
at length aroused universal indignation, and ex-
pelled him from the throne he had so unworthily
filled, and the country he had laboured to enslave.
The form of government since 1814 resembled
that of Britainxe2x80x94the power being vested in the
king, the chamber of peers, and the deputies. To
strengthen himself in the chamber of peers,
Charles X. increased it by creations : to vrqaken
the people he invaded the elective franchise and
shackled the press. In August 1829 he dismissed
M. Martignac’s administration because it would
not go all lengths against the people, and appoint-
ed another of ultra royalists, under his natural
son Prince Polignac. The first act of the depu-
ties, on the meeting of the chambers in March
1830, was an address praying for the dismission
of the ministers. The king answered it haughtily
and dismissed the chambers. Finding that the
new chamber was likely to thwart his views
still more than the former, he determined to strike
a decisive blow, and on Sunday, July 25, he
signed three ordinancesxe2x80x94the first abolishing the