University Extension Lectures

Syllabus

of a

Course of Six Lectures

on

NAPOLEON

by

E. L. S. Horsburgh, B.A.
Staff Lecturer in History and Literature for the Oxford and American

Societies for the Extension of University Teaching

I. Military Despotism
II. Bases of the Napoleonic System
III. - The Continental System
IV. National Risings against the Napoleonic System

V. Napoleon's Downfall
VI. The Hundred Days, or Detailed Study of the Waterloo

Campaign

No. 233.

Price, 10 Conts

Copyright, 1903, by
The American Society for the Extension of University Teaching

III South Fifteenth Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR STUDENTS.

TEXT BOOKS.

J. H. Rose: “French Revolution and Napoleonic Era.” (Cambridge

University Press.) Morse Stephens: “Periods of European History." Vol. VII. 1789–

1815. (Rivington Percival.) Seeley: “Short Life of Napoleon.” (Seeley and Co.)

GENERAL WORKS ON NAPOLEON.

J. H. Rose: Life of Napoleon.
Frédéric Masson: Various exhaustive studies of Napoleon in rela-

tion to private and public life. Arthur Lèvy: “Napoléon Intime,” translated as “Napoleon in Private

Life."
Capt. Mahan: “French Revolution and Influence of Sea Power."
Capt. Mahan: “Life of Nelson.”
Sloane's “Life of Napoleon.”
Mémoires and Histories—Various.
Correspondence, and Additional Correspondence of Napoleon I.

SPECIAL WORKS ON NAPOLEON.

J. H. Rose: “The Berlin Decrees." (English Historical Review.)
“Napoleon et Alexandre Ier.” (Alb. Vandal.)
Napier: “Peninsular War."
Horsburgh, E. L. S.: “Waterloo: A Narrative and Criticism.”

(Methuen.)

N. B.-The literature dealing with this Epoch (1789–1815) is so inexhaustible that it is impossible to do more than call attention to some of the principal Histories, Memoirs, and special works and articles which illustrate the period. Special reference will be made, as the lectures proceed, to such special sources of information as may be useful and accessible to the student.

LECTURE I.

MILITARY DESPOTISM.

Reaction following the fall of Robespierre:

If successful, reaction necessarily fatal to the policy and party of the Jacobins. The Jacobins consider themselves to stand for the purity of revolutionary principles. Reaction was an inevitable tendency from the artificial and emergency character of Jacobin government.

Thus the issue had to be fought out.

Government reverts from the Committee of Public Safety to the Convention.

Anti-Jacobin measures of the Convention. Continued Jacobin risings.

The Convention formulates a new Constitution.

Circumstances, from the condition of France, which made a new Constitution necessary.

The Constitution of “the Directory.”

An attempt to combine popular government with control and administrative efficiency.

Examination and criticism of the Directory Constitution.
The Directors: executive.
The Council of the Ancients: legislative
The Council of the Five Hundred: legislative.

The Decrees of Fructidor limit the freedom of election to the new Councils. Causes of these decrees. Violent hostility of Paris to them.

Parisian rising against the new Constitution and the Decrees.

Coup d'état of Vendémiaire, and rise of Napoleon. Oct., 1795.

Napoleon under the Directory.
Is sent to Italy. The Italian Campaign of 1796–7. Posi-

. tion of independence assumed by Napoleon. He negotiates the Treaty of Campo Formio. Returns to Paris. Undertakes the Egyptian Expedition, 1798.

The Directory under military control.

Want of harmony between legislative and executive. Antirevolutionary parties threaten to control the Councils. Coup d'état of Fructidor, 1797, quashes the elections, destroys the constitutional character of the Directory and places it under military control. Jacobins threaten to control the Councils. Coup d'état of Prairial, 1798.

The Directory plainly a stop-gap.

The Directory abroad fails to maintain French prestige. Loss of the result of Napoleon's Italian Campaign.

Return of Napoleon from Egypt. Overthrow of the Directory by the Coup d'état of Brumaire, Nov., 1799.