Further changes were inevitable;, but, if France had been left to herself, they might have come about, as quietly as these first ones. In stead, foreign war gave the movement a new character. War was inevitable. Emigrant no bles gathered their forces on the Rhine under the protection of German princes. The em peror, Leopold, brother-in-law of Louis of France, called upon the sovereigns of Europe to recognize the cause of Louis as ethe cause of and demanded from France such changes in her government as should protect Europe against the spread of revolution. This presumptuous dictation in their internal af fa;rs roused a tempest of righteous wrath in the French nation; and in 1792 war began be tween °the cause of and °the cause of peoples? For 23 years Europe was engaged in strife, upon a greater scale than ever before in history.
France was girdled with foes. The empire, Prussia and Sardinia, were at once in arms, Naples and Spain joined the coalition. Sweden and Russia both offered to do so, if needed. Eke long England and Holland were added to the enemies who expected to partition France. Vast armies invaded France; and the French forces were demoralized by treachery of of ficers and by fear of Royalist plots. If France was to be saved, it could not be done by half measures, nor with a Icing in secret alliance with the enemy. Control fell to extremists; and, while the mighty Danton roused and organ ized the national energies, the frenzied mob, unhindered, answered the victories and boast ings of the invaders by the attack on the Tuil eries and the Massacres. In September, the Convention established the French Republic with extreme democratic features and with manhood suffrage. Then revolution within revolution transferredpower to more and more radical factions. The defeated Girondists raised the provinces against the capital ; and for a time Paris and a score of central departments faced the remaining three-fourths of France and united Europe. Out of this crisis, in 1793, grew the great Committee of Public Safety, which ruled France for a year with despotic power. The Revolution now became construc tive, and never has the French genius for or ganization shown itself more triumphantly. The Committee deliberately adopted a policy of °Terror° to crush plots and dissension and to secure united action. Revolt was stamped out. A million soldiers were sent to the front. The invaders were rolling back in rout, and the rag ged but devoted French armies swarmed vic toriously across all the frontiers, to sow civil liberty over Europe with fire and sword. France was not again in serious danger from foreign foes until the fall of Napoleon, 20 years later.
Meantime, while the grim, crime-stained men of the Committee in war and tumult were or ganizing order within and victory abroad, the Convention was laying anew the foundations of French society and advancing the progress of the human race. It adopted the projects of Cambarceres for the codification of French law, and the plans of Condorcet for a system of national education ; it accepted Argobast's metric system of weights and measures; it abolished slavery in the French colonies, created provi sion for the public debt, instituted the first Normal School, the Polytechnic School, the Conservatory, the Institute of France, the Na tional Library and began the improvement of prisons and hospitals, and the reform of youth ful criminals. Meantime the peasants had be come free landholders, and the whole laboring class was rising rapidly in standard of living.
In 1794 the Jacobins split into factions, and these turned the "Terror° upon one another. The following year a conservative reaction gave the Republic a new constitution, which restored property qualifications and indirect vot ing. But the new plural executive (the Di
rectory) proved incompetent and corrupt, and kept itself in power only by a series of coups d' Itat. It was assailed by conspiracy, radical and royalist; and France breathed more easily when, in 1799, Bonaparte overthrew it with his troops and set tip a firm military despotism, veiled by plebiscites.
Napoleonic Period, 1800-15.— For 15 years, as First Consul (1800), Consul for Life (1802) and Emperor of the French (1804-14), Na poleon was sole master of France. He pre served the principle of civil equality and all the economic gains of the Revolution, but po litical liberty for a time was lost. True, his rule was a denial of the old doctrine of Divine Right: each new usurpation received the sanc tion of a popular vote, and he boasted that he was chief by will of the people. But every form of constitutional opposition was crushed or muzzled. The legislative chambers existed only to speak when and as he chose; free speech, free press and all security for personal liberty were suppressed by a system of spies and secret police and by arbitrary imprisonment of suspects; local administration was centralized more highly than ever under the old monarchy, "nor did there exist anywhere independent of him authority to light or repair the streets of the meanest village in France." This all-pervading absolutism was directed by the penetrating intelligence and indomitable energy of the world's most "terrible worker)); and it conferred upon France great and rapid benefits. Order, precision, symmetry were in troduced into every branch of the administra tion. The interrupted work of the Convention was resumed. Education was organized; law was simplified and codified; the Church was again brought into alliance with the state; in dustry was fostered, and magnificent public works were carried out. But in all this, Na •leon was merely the last and greatest of the .eficent despots. And in the outcome, his rule fixed more firmly than before in the mind of the nation the dangerous willingness to de pend upon an all-directing central power; so that in our own day, after many revolutions, the supremely difficult task of the Third Re public has been to create the spirit of load self-government No doubt, in 1800, when Napoleon came into power he sincerely desired peace, in order to reconstruct France. By the brilliant victories of Marengo and Hohenlinden he dissolved the hostile coalition, and a series of treaties, clos ing with the Treaty of Amiens (1802), gave Europe a breathing spell. But soon Napoleon again desired war. His victories in Italy, as a general of the Directory, had first brought him to the world's notice, and only military glory could keep France from murmuring at his rule. Moreover, he aspired frankly to European empire. On the other hand, the nations felt that there could be no lasting peace with him except by complete submission to his will. In 1803, England and France renewed their strife, and between these powers there was to be no more truce until Napoleon's fall 11 years later. In that time Napoleon fought also three wars with Austria, two with Prussia, two with Russia, a long war with Spain and various mi nor conflicts. From 1792 to 1802, the unceas ing European wars belong to the Revolutionary movement. From 1803 to 1815, they are prop erly Napoleonic wars, due primarily to the am bition of a great military genius. In the first series, Austria was the chief opponent of the Revolution; in the second series, England was the relentless foe of Napoleon.