The goal to which things were tending was realized by some.  A conspiracy against the life of the consul was discovered.  Napoleon suspected it to have originated with the Bourbons; and the death of the young Duke d’Enghien, a son of the Prince of Conde, without pity or justice, was intended to strike with terror all who were plotting for his downfall.  The swiftness with which it was done, the darkness under the walls of Vincennes, the lantern on the breast of the victim, and the file of soldiers at midnight, all conspired to warn conspirators of the fate awaiting them.  It was the critical moment at hand which turned Bonaparte’s heart to steel.

Only a few days after this tragedy at Vincennes a proposition was made in the Tribunate to bestow upon the first consul the title of hereditary Emperor of the French!

This new Charlemagne did not go to the pope to be crowned, as that other had done in the year 800; but at his bidding the pope came to him.  And when on the 2d of December, 1804, the crown of France was placed upon his head, the great drama commenced in 1789 had ended.  Rivers of blood had flowed to free her from despotism, and France was held by a power more despotic than that of Richelieu or of Louis XIV.

At war with all of Europe, Napoleon swiftly unfolded his great plan not only to conquer, but to demolish—­not one state, but all.  He was going to create an empire out of a federation of European kingdoms all held in his own hand, and to tear in pieces the old map of Europe, precisely as he had the map of Italy.  He was going to break down the old historic divisions and landmarks, and create new, as he had created a kingdom of Italy out of Italian republics.  So, while he was fighting a combined Europe, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Saxony had become kingdoms, and the West German States, seventeen in number, were all merged in a Confederation of the Rhine, “the Rheinbund,” under a French Protectorate.

Then Austria felt the weight of his hand.  Francis Joseph wore the double crown created by Charlemagne a thousand years before, and was Emperor of Rome as well as of Germany.  It had become an empty title; but it was the sacred tradition of a Holy Roman Empire, the empire which had dominated the world during the Middle Ages, and while Europe was coming into form.  Napoleon was ploughing deep into the soil of the past when he told Francis Joseph he must drop the title of Emperor of Rome!  And it is a startling indication of his power that the emperor unresistingly obeyed; the logical meaning, of course, being that he, already King of Italy, was the successor to Charlemagne and the head of a new Roman Empire.

England, never having felt the touch of this insolent conqueror upon her own soil, was still the bitterest of all in the coalition, and was more indignant over the humiliation of Germany than she seemed to be herself.  Prussia, at last reluctantly opposing him, was defeated at Jena, 1806, a time during which the beautiful Queen Louise was the heroine, and the one brave enough to defy him; and then the peace of Tilsit, 1807, completed the humiliation of the kingdom created by the great elector.