authority. In virtue therefore of the services he had rendered France and of the prestige he had acquired by his victories, he caused himself to be appointed Consul for life on the 4th of August, 1802, with the right of selecting his successor. In this way the authority became once more vested in one man, and the semblance of republican government which still obtained was before long abolished. On the 18th of May, 1804, a Senatus-Consultum established the Empire. The Constitution which was enacted (year XII) tried to save appearances by stating that the "government of the Republic was intrusted to an Emperor"; but Napoleon's will became supreme and knew no restraint. For more than ten years France was in a state of constant warfare with Europe.
Defeated in 1814, Napoleon resigned his office and withdrew to Elba, of which he became the sovereign. A provisional government was organized under the presidency of Talleyrand and held authority until the arrival of the Bourbons. On the 4th of May Louis XVIII entered Paris and soon after granted the Charter of 1814. The new monarch was no sooner installed than he found himself compelled to fly to Gand; Napoleon had landed at Golfe Jouan on the 1st of March, 1815; and on the 20th he was in Paris. A new Constitution, entitled the "Additional Act to the Constitutions of the Empire," was enacted, a sort of constitutional monarchy being decreed. But Napoleon's liberalism did not have the opportunity of a fair test; for, upon his defeat at Waterloo on the 18th of June, 1815, he abdicated his sovereignty forever, and was banished to St. Helena, where he died.
A Commission presided over by Fouché was in authority until Louis XVIII, brought back for the second time by the foreign troops, was able to retake possession of the throne of his ancestors (July 8, 1815); upon which a series of reprisals commenced. Marshal Brune was assassinated. Murder and plunder terrorized Nimes and Uzes; prisons were invaded and Protestants, Republicans, and Bonapartists were dragged from them
