The peace of Campo Formio was the most glorious ever made for France.  The river Rhine was at last recognized as her frontier, thus placing Belgium within the lines of the republic.  Napoleon had captured not alone Italy, but France herself?  What might she not accomplish with such a leader?  The delighted Directory discussed the invasion of England.  Napoleon, knowing this would be premature, dramatically conceived the idea of crippling England by threatening her Asiatic possessions, and led an army into Egypt (1798).  Although Nelson destroyed his fleet, he still maintained the arrogance of a conqueror.

No king, no military leader, had brought as much glory to France.  Du Guesclin, Turenne, Conde, all were eclipsed.  And so were Marlborough and Prince Eugene.  What would not France do at the bidding of this magician, who by a single sweep of his wand had raised her from the dust of humiliation and made her the leading power on the Continent!

The young officer, now so distinguished, had married in the early part of his career the widow of M. de Beauharnais, one of the victims of the Reign of Terror.  During his absence in Egypt, the Directorate, and the Legislature, and the people had all become embroiled in dissensions.  Things were falling again into chaos, with no hand to hold them together.  Discontent was rife, and men were asking why the one man, the little dark man who knew how to do and to compel things, and to maintain discipline, why he was sent to the Nile and the Pyramids!

Josephine, from Paris, kept Napoleon informed of these conditions.  So, leaving his army in charge of Kleber, he unexpectedly returned.  He knew what he was going to do; and he also knew he could depend upon the army to sustain him.  By political moves as adroit and unexpected as his tactics on the field, the Directorate was swept out of existence, and Napoleon was first consul of France.

It was a long step backward.  The pendulum was returning once more toward a strong executive, and to centralization.  From this moment, until he was a prisoner in the hands of the English, Napoleon Bonaparte was sole master of France.

The early simplicity of the republic was disappearing.  The receptions of the first consul at the Tuileries began to recall the days at Versailles.  Josephine, fascinating, and perfect in the art of dress, knew well how to maintain the splendor of her new court; as also did Bonaparte’s sisters, with their beauty and their brilliant talents.  But outside of France, and across the channel, the consul was only a usurper, and Louis XVIII. was king—­an uncrowned but legitimate sovereign!

Perhaps it is not too much to say that nothing in Napoleon’s career has left such enduring traces, and so permanently influenced civilization, as two acts performed at this period:  the creation of that monumental work of genius the codification of the laws of France and the sale of Louisiana to the United States.  Spain had ceded this large territory to France in 1763, and Bonaparte realizing that he was not in a position to hold it now, if attacked, sold it to the United States (1803), in order to keep it out of the hands of England.