On Europe at large he has left traces of his empire, not less marked or important.  He broke down the barriers everywhere of custom and prejudice; and revolutionised the spirit of the Continent.  His successes and his double downfall taught absolute princes their weakness and injured nations their strength.  Such hurricanes of passion as the French Revolution—­such sweeping scourges of mankind as Napoleon Buonaparte, are not permitted but as the avengers of great evils, and the harbingers of great good.  Of the influence of both, as regards the continent, it may be safely said—­that even now we have seen only “the beginning of the end.”  The reigning sovereigns of Europe are, with rare exceptions, benevolent and humane men; and their subjects, no less than they, ought to remember the lesson of all history—­that violent and sudden changes, in the structure of social and political order, have never yet occurred, without inflicting utter misery upon at least one generation.

It was England that fought the great battle throughout on the same principle, without flinching; and, but for her perseverance, all the rest would have struggled in vain.  It is to be hoped that the British nation will continue to see, and to reverence, in the contest and in its result, the immeasurable advantages which the sober strength of a free but fixed constitution possesses over the mad energies of anarchy on the one hand, and, on the other, over all that despotic selfishness can effect, even under the guidance of the most consummate genius.

[Footnote 74: 

    “The godlike Ulysses is not yet dead upon the earth;
    He still lingers a living captive within the breadth of ocean,
    In some unapproachable island, where savage men detain him.”

ODYSS. book i. ver. 195.]

[Footnote 75:  Tres peu aimant.]

[Footnote 76:  Louis XVI.!—­married to the aunt of Maria Louisa—­See Bourienne.]

INDEX

Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, in Egypt, 164

Aberdeen, Earl of, 399

Aboukir, battle of, 95;
  Turks defeated at, 107

Acre, siege of, 101, 102

Alexander, Emperor of Russia, resents the murder of the Duke
      d’Enghien, 210;
  stimulates King of Prussia against Napoleon, 211;
  meets Napoleon at Tilsit, 254

Alexandria captured by French, 89;
  battle of, 164

Allies approach Paris, 420;
  their proclamation, 427;
  enter Paris, 429;
  refuse to treat with Napoleon, 430;
  resolved to restore Louis XVIII., 430

Almeida, siege of, 327

Aloys Reding, 178

Alps, passage of the, 143-145

Alvinzi, Marshal, opposes Napoleon, 50, et seq.

Amiens, peace of, 166, 168;
  rupture of treaty of, 187

Ancona occupied by French, 61

Andalusia, Dupont marches into, 279