The most compelling figure of the 18th cen tury is Napoleon Bonaparte and his career is the index that French affairs had reached a point where reaction was inevitable. This product of the time was, to quote Freeman, "nearer to being the master of Europe than any other man had been before.* eHe called himself consul and an old Greek would have said that he had made himself tyrant, but he was a more absolute ruler than ever Louis XIV had been.* One of the last reflections made by Gibbon, the historian of the Roman Empire, whose wide knowledge of world history would seem to give him a right to an opinion on the subject, was that the world would never again see a great conqueror arise who like Alexander or Caesar might threaten to have the world under his domination. Gibbon died in 1794. Had he lived but a scant 10 years more he would have been able to witness the utter con tradiction of this opinion, though there is no doubt now that most of the learned men of his time and especially those familiar with history would have accepted his reflection as almost so obvious as to be an axiom. In this after all Gibbon differed very little from many a serious student of history of a century later who would not have hesitated to say that he now felt sure that a great prolonged European war shared by most of the civilized nations of the world was an utter impossibility.
Bonaparte was carried to the height of power on a flood of military success. Arrived there he proved to have a genius for adminis tration that enabled him to maintain himself and that has stamped his influence on all modern legislation. He came to the front in the Italian campaigns of the wars of the French Revolution when his victories in Italy forced the Emperor Francis of Austria to surrender the Austrian Netherlands to France and to with draw from northern Italy with the result that Piedmont and Savoy were annexed to France was a republic, but there was no re publicanism in the spirit 'of French conquests once the mania of victory developed. Republics were sacrificed quite as readily to French ambi tion, or rather to the ambition of French mili tary leaders, as were monarchies. In return for his surrender to France of these large territories the Austrian emperor was permitted to join the French in destroying the ancient conunonwealth of Venice, which with all that was oligarchical in its govenunent had at least some show of self-ruling about it. The French suul the Austrians divided the Venetian terri tories between them. When in 1798 Bonaparte planned his expedition to Egypt and the French needed money to finance it the Directory of France calmly proceeded to attadc Switzerland, for some six centuries a republic, for no better reason than because the town of Berne was 'mown to possess a large treasure. The French Revolution would seetn then utterly to have failed in its purpose, but it was only an eclipse for a time and in spite of many vicissitudes its spirit was to work for good for more than a century later. Napoleon came to be the hammer
by which a great many of the presumedly most firmly established things of the old order in Europe were smashed upon the anvil of war to be made over for the better, though the betterment was often not immediate.
The greatest woman character of the century in the best sense of the word was Maria Theresa, queen of Austria or 4Icing,x' as her Magyar subjects loved to call her, and finally Austrian empress. Her father had antidpated trouble for his daughter's rule and made the treaty called the Pragmatic Sanction to secure it, but his worst portents were confirmed and Maria Theresa was scarcely seated on the throne before she became embroiled in a series of wars for the preservation and integrity of her states. Probably no woman in history has ever talcen her duties as sovereign more seri ously. On the other hand as the mother of 17 children she took her domestic duties quite as seriously and was a model wife and mother. Her letters to Marie Antoinette during the French troubles show her maternal solicitude at its best and her wisdom as a ruler and administrator. She treated her subjects very much as she did her family, with the most loving care and profound wisdom. She prac tised strict economy, encouraged manufactures and commerce, reformed the army with the idea of preventing bloodshed by being prepared for war, and organized a system of military colonies on the frontiers so as to prevent in vasion and save her subjects from the worst hardships of war, that of having the enemy in their midst. Above all Maria Theresa won the love of all the different peoples who com posed her multilingual kingdom. It has always been a historical mystery why the heterogeneous peoples who constitute the Austrian Empire have hung together and it has often been sup posed that it was a mere question of armed force and repression. There can be no doubt, however, that there was real attachment to the house of Hapsburg and that above all Maria Theresa's long reign of nearly 50 years had much to do with creating a spirit of solidarity among these peoples. Her readiness to do for the suffering among her people was literally unbounded: It is said that once she was driving through a part of the country where famine was rife and people were starving. Passing by a mother seated at the roadside trying to nurse her child, and evidently unable to supply it with food, the empress threw a piece of money into her lap and told her to get some thing to eat, but the mother with tears in her eyes insisted that it would be too late to save her baby. The mother of 17 children might well be expected to be in a condition to supply for lack of infant food, and so the starving baby nursed at the Imperial breast and its life was saved. It is easy to understand that among peoples who had traditions of acts of this kind on the part of their empress queen, deep feel ings of affection would be aroused to become a tradition in favor of the family of which she was a member.