Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/751

Rh The Papal States and Holland joined to the French Empire.—That Napoleon cared but little for the thunders of the Church is shown by his treatment of the Pope. Pius VII. opposing his continental system, the emperor incorporated the Papal States with the French empire (1809). The Pope thereupon excommunicated Napoleon, who straightway arrested the Pontiff, dragged him over the Alps into France, and held him in captivity for four years.

The year following the annexation of the Papal States to the French empire, Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland, who disapproved of his brother's continental system, which was ruining the trade of the Dutch, abdicated the crown. Thereupon Napoleon incorporated Holland with France, on the ground that it was simply " the sediment of the French rivers."

Napoleon's Second Marriage (1810).—The year following his triumph over Francis I. of Austria, Napoleon divorced his wife Josephine, in order to form a new alliance, with Maria Louisa, Archduchess of Austria. The fond and faithful Josephine bowed meekly to the will of her lord, and went into sorrowful exile from his palace. Napoleon's object in this matter was to cover the reproach of his own plebeian birth, by an alliance with one of the ancient royal families of Europe, and to secure the perpetuity of his government by leaving an heir who might be the inheritor of his throne and fortunes. His hope seemed realized when, the year following his marriage with the Archduchess, a son was born to them, who was given the title of "King of Rome."

Napoleon at the Summit of his Power (1811).—Napoleon was now at the height of his marvellous fortunes. Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, and Wagram were the successive steps by which he had mounted to the most dizzy heights of military power and glory. The empire which he had built up stretched from the Baltic to Southern Italy, embracing France proper, Belgium, Holland, Northwestern (iermany, Italy west of the Apennines as far south as Naples, besides large possessions about the head of the Adriatic. On all sides were allied, vassal, or dependent states. Several of the ancient thrones of Europe were occupied by Napoleon's