Page:The Outline of History Vol 2.djvu/385

 was childless, in order to secure the "continuity" of his "dynasty." Napoleon, thwarted of a Russian princess, snubbed indeed by Alexander, turned to Austria, and married the arch-duchess Marie Louise. The Austrian statesmen read him aright. They were very ready to throw him their princess. By that marriage Napoleon was captured for the dynastic system; he might have been the maker of a new world, he preferred to be the son-in-law of the old.

In the next two years this adventurer's affairs crumbled apace. Nobody believed in his pretensions any more. He was no longer the leader and complement of the revolution; no longer the embodied spirit of a world reborn; he was just a new and nastier sort of autocrat. He had estranged all free-spirited men, and he had antagonized the church. Kings and Jacobins were at one, when it came to the question of his overthrow. Only base and