Page:The American encyclopedia of history, biography and travel (IA americanencyclop00blak).pdf/295

 of all the royalist conspiracies. Accordingly, this young nobleman, who was residing at Ettenheim, a small town of Baden, was seized at Napoleon's command, by a troop of armed men, conducted with the greatest haste through Strasburg to Paris, condemned to death by a hurried court-martial, and, despite a magnanimous defense, shot in the trenches of Vincennes.

The fate of the conspirators was shortly after decided upon. Pichegru had already died a violent death in prison, whether by his own hand or that of another is uncertain. George Cadoudal, with eleven confederates, ascended the guillotine. General Moreau, who was implicated, retired into voluntary banishment in America.

NAPOLEON, EMPEROR.

The royalist conspiracies were made use of by Bonaparte to establish an hereditary monarchy. At the instigation of his adherents, the making over the hereditary dignity of emperor to Napoleon was proposed to the Tribunat, sanctioned by the Senate, and confirmed by the whole people by the subscription of their names. Whilst the minds of men were still painfully excited by the late bloody executions, Napoleon was proclaimed emperor of the French, and at the end of the year, solemnly anointed by the pope in the church of Nôtre Dame. The crown, however, he placed on his own head, as well as on that of his wife, Josephine, who knelt before him. This magnificent coronation appeared to be the conclusion of the Revolution, since the whole ancient system, for the extinction of which thousands of human lives had been sacrificed, gradually returned. The new emperor surrounded his throne with a brilliant court, in which the former titles, orders, and gradations of rank were revived under different names. He himself certainly retained his old military simplicity, but the members of his family were made princes and princesses; his generals became marshals; the devoted servants and promoters of his plans were connected with the throne as the great officers of the crown, or as senators with large incomes. The establishment of a new feudal nobility, with the old titles of princes, dukes, counts, barons, completed the splendid edifice of a magnificent imperial court.

The great ends attained by the Revolution—equality before the law, the peasants' right of property in the soil and other possessions, remained untouched. Industry made great progress, civil arts and trades received a vast impulse; and an unaccustomed prosperity made itself everywhere visible. Magnificent roads, like those over the Alps, canals, bridges, and improvements of all kinds, are, to the present day, eloquent memorials of the restless activity of this remarkable man. Splendid palaces, majestic bridges, and noble streets, arose in Paris, every thing great or magnificent that art had produced was united in the Louvre; the capital of France glittered with a splendor that had never before been witnessed. The university was arranged upon a most magnificent footing, and appointed the supreme court of supervision and control over the whole system of schools and education.

Whilst the attention of all Europe was directed to the western coast of France, where Napoleon was fitting out ships of every kind with the greatest diligence, and assembling a vast camp at Boulogne, with the purpose, as was believed, of effecting a landing on the English coast, he was making