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. Position 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.

LECTURE II.

BASIS OF THE NAPOLEONIC SYSTEM.

The ascendency of Napoleon over France and over Europe rests primarily on:

(a) The need of France for order.

(b) The need of Europe for reconstruction. Military force useless without moral force behind it.

I. The restoration of order and authority in France. Brumaire is followed by the establishment of the Consulate. [Napoleon First Consul.]

Constitutional guarantees are strong in appearance; in fact, shadowy and unsubstantial. All control is finally vested in hands of First Consul.

But Napoleonic absolutism differs in character from Bourbon absolutism. It is based on democracy, not on privilege, and is self-imposed on France. It is a government of efficiency and of conciliation; it employs all, and is for all. It heals the internal discords of France, and lays the foundations of sound progressive government.

Thus Napoleon differs in kind from the faction governments which the Revolution had given rise to.

Napoleon as administrator.

The Concordant. The Code Napoleon. In his work he gathers up the threads of work done by his predecessors, and is the fulfilment of revolutionary energy.

II. The need for reconstruction in Europe.

Military successes of the First Consul.

Retrieves French losses in Italy. Marengo.

1800. Final overthrow of the Austrians at Hohenlinden by Moreau.

Interval of European peace.

1803. Rupture of the Peace of Amiens. War with England. Pitt revives the European coalition against France. Napoleon's threatened invasion of England. His design of crushing England directly finally overthrown by Trafalgar.

1805. The Danube Campaign-victories of Ulm and Austerlitz. Collapse of the Holy Roman Empire. Final disappearance of medieval fictions. Austria prepares to take her place as a modern state.

1806. Campaign against Prussia. Victories of Auerstadt and Jéna. Prussia reduced to a third-rate power. Causes of Napoleon's success are to be found as much in Prussia's stagnation as in Napoleon's power. Reconstruction of Europe on a Napoleonic basis. Aloofness of England and Russia from the Napoleonic system. Reasons for this.

1806. Marks the limits of Napoleon's usefulness in Europe.

LECTURE III.

THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM.

Hence

Napoleon passes from reconstruction to tyranny. national feeling in Europe, which the Revolution had awakened, turns against him and brings about his overthrow.

Stages in this process:

England threatens the stability of the Napoleonic system. Must be crushed indirectly, direct measures having failed. Napoleon issues "The Berlin Decrees" excluding British commerce from Europe; thus establishing the Continental System.

Napoleon's conception of a French colonial empire; his efforts in this direction.

England is thus the chief obstacle. She thwarts Napoleon on the sea, in Europe, across the seas.

The Continental System, therefore, aims at reducing England by way of Commerce.

Pressure of the Berlin Decrees on Europe:

Dependence of Europe on British and colonial supplies. The Industrial revolution in England.

Labour-saving

machinery makes England the centre of production for the world; also commands trans-oceanic transport.

Thus the Continental System rests on force to support it; presses heavily on individuals throughout Europe.

1807. Napoleon secures the adhesion of Russia.

Treaty of Tilsit constitutes a copartnership between Russia and Napoleon.