Roveredo on the 4th of September, and Bassano on the 8th December; and Wurmser, with a remnant of his troops, took refuge in Mantua. Again a new Austrian army, under Marshal Alvinzy, was despatched to stay the course of the conqueror. In this campaign some successes were gained at first by the Austrians, but the French were finally and completely successful in the hard-fought battles of Arcola (November 15-17), and of Rivoli, 14th January, 1797. Mantua itself capitulated on the 2d of February. The pope who had grown restive was reduced to submission by a battle or two, and signed the humiliating peace of Tolentino, 19th February. A last effort was now made by Austria. The Archduke Charles, with the best of his successful troops from the Rhine, was summoned to make a stand against the entry of Napoleon into the hereditary states of the empire. On the 16th of March, Napoleon forced the passage of the Tagliamento, and the archduke had to retreat after other defeats as far as Neumark, while Napoleon on his part reached Klagenfurth. Napoleon felt that he had advanced far enough for safety without support, and disturbances were begining in Venetia. He offered peace; and after again defeating the archduke at Neumark, the preliminaries of Leoben were signed 18th April, 1797. Turning southwards, Napoleon dealt with the Venetians, whose ancient oligarchy he overturned. On the 14th June a Cisalpine republic, which included the Milanese, was formed on the model of the Cispadane republic, into which Napoleon had moulded, the year before, Modena, Reggio, Bologna, and Ferrara. On the 17th of October, 1797, was signed with Austria the peace of Campo Formio, which gave to France, among other acquisitions, the left bank of the Rhine, and confirmed Napoleon's political reorganization of Italy, with the exception of Venetia, which Austria stooped to receive. These great changes were effected by a series of victories won between the 12th of April, 1796, and Napoleon's arrival at Leoben on the 5th of April, 1797—less than a single year.
The directory were now perplexed what to do with the conqueror of Italy, nominally their servant, but really their master. The expedition to Egypt, of which they offered him the command, was so far a fortunate scheme that it removed him from France, while it flattered his imagination, now beginning to be heated by success, with dreams of founding an empire in the East. He set out on the 3rd of May, 1798, and, landing near Alexandria, issued a proclamation in which he announced himself as the friend of the sultan and the liberator of Egypt from the tyranny of the Mamelukes. On the 21st of June the Mamelukes were routed at the battle of the Pyramids, and Napoleon at Cairo was reorganizing the government of Egypt, when the news arrived of the destruction of the French fleet by Nelson in the battle of the Nile, 1st August, 1798. A second check to his eastern schemes was given by an English sailor. Napoleon, hearing of preparations by the Porte, had undertaken an expedition to Syria. Marching across the desert he took Gaza, stormed Jaffa, but was unsuccessful in the siege of Acre, in defending which the Turks were powerfully assisted by Sir Sidney Smith (q.v.), and Napoleon returned to Cairo. In the battle of Aboukir, 25th July, he signally defeated a Turkish army very much superior in numbers to his own, and which had landed to contest his occupation of Egypt. He was now, however, not only, it is probable, weary of the expedition, but the news from home of the troubled state of French politics and the successes of Suwarrow in Italy made him anxious to return. Leaving Kleber in command, he quitted Egypt and reached Paris in October. Welcomed by all parties, except that in authority, he executed on the 8th and 9th November, 1799, the coup d'êtat, known by its revolutionary date of the 18th Brumaire. He replaced the government of the directory by one of three consuls, of whom he himself was in name and in all senses "the first," with little less than sovereign authority, despite the existence of two colleagues, a senate, a legislative body, and a tribunate. Napoleon at the Tuileries now proceeded to close the French revolution, and to reorganize France. The revolutionary calendar, with its weeks of ten days, was abolished, and the christian sabbath and the christian worship throughout France were restored. An amnesty to emigrants was proclaimed, and in the choice of public servants political antecedents were forgotten. The system of departmental prefectures was established. The administration of the finances was placed on a solid basis. Practical and scientific education was encouraged. The great monument of Napoleon's supremacy, the Code Civil, was planned, discussed, and completed. Nor were new military triumphs wanting to the period of the consulate; the disasters of the French arms in Italy were retrieved. In May, 1800, making the celebrated passage of the Great St. Bernard, Napoleon with forty thousand men fell upon the rear of the army of the Austrian general Melas, and on the 14th June gained the decisive battle of Marengo, which, followed by Moreau's victory at Hohenlinden, compelled Austria to make the peace of Luneville, 31st December, 1800. A concordat with the pope, July, 1801, completed Napoleon's transformation of revolutionary France, and with England herself a peace was made—the short-lived peace of Amiens—27th August, 1802. In the same year was established the famous Legion of honour, and Napoleon was elected consul for life. The attacks of the English press, especially of Peltier (q. v.), a French emigrant editor settled in London, irritated Napoleon. England was alarmed at his encroachments on the continent, culminating in the annexation of Piedmont to France; and declared war on the 18th May, 1803. Napoleon began to assemble at Boulogne the so-called "army of England." In February, 1804, was discovered the conspiracy of Georges Cadoudal, Pichegru, and Moreau. On a mere suspicion of being connected with it the Duke d'Enghien was seized in the territory of Baden, brought to Vincennes, summarily tried by a military commission, and shot, 21st March, 1804. Events now march rapidly in the biography of Napoleon. At the instance of the senate he assumed the title of emperor, and was crowned by the pope at Paris, 2d December, 1804. By another coronation at Milan, 26th May, 1805, he became king of Italy. Meanwhile a new coalition against France was formed between England, Russia, and Austria. Napoleon took the field in person, forced the Austrian general Mack with twenty thousand men to capitulate at Ulm, 17th October, 1805. On the 13th November he was at Schönbrunn, and his troops were in possession of Vienna. It was then he heard of the destruction of the French fleet by Nelson at Trafalgar. On the 2nd of December, the first anniversary of his coronation, he defeated the Austrians and Russians in the great battle of Austerlitz—followed by the peace of Presburg between Austria and France, 6th December, by the formation of the confederation of the Rhine, and the Emperor Francis' resignation of the empty title of emperor of Germany. In the May of 1806 Napoleon made his brother Joseph king of Naples and Sicily, and in June his brother Louis king of Holland. In the autumn of the same year Prussia formed the coalition with England and Russia. On the 14th October, 1806, Napoleon destroyed the Prussian-Saxon army in the double battle of Jena and Auerstadt, and on the 27th he entered Berlin. There, on the 21st November, he issued the celebrated Berlin decrees, declaring Britain blockaded. Entering Poland, where he was welcomed by the population, he fought with the Russians the doubtful battle of Pultusk (26th December), and on the 7th and 8th February, 1807, the doubtful and bloody battle of Eylau. But the result of the battle of Friedland (14th June) was not doubtful; the Russians were thoroughly defeated. Then came the interview between Napoleon and Alexander on a raft in the Niemen, 25th June, followed by the peace of Tilsit. The Prussian provinces on the lower bank of the Elbe contributed to form a kingdom of Westphalia, of which Jerome Bonaparte was made king, and a grand duchy of Warsaw was carved out of Prussian Poland and given to the elector, created king of Saxony. On the continent there remained only two great powers, France and Russia.
From the north-east Napoleon now turned to the south-west, and resolved on Gallicizing the Iberian peninsula. A cause of quarrel with Portugal was ready in the refusal of that power to carry out the Berlin decrees, and a French army under Junot entered Lisbon on the 30th of November, 1807. The king of Spain, Charles IV., was persuaded to abdicate in favour of his son, Ferdinand VII., from whom an abdication was wrung at Bayonne, where he was entrapped by Napoleon. Joseph Bonaparte was transferred from the throne of Naples (bestowed on Murat) to that of Spain and the Indies. England came to the aid of the Spaniards and Portuguese, and Napoleon in person with a new army appeared in the Peninsula, after meeting Alexander of Russia at Erfurt, 27th September, 1808. Madrid capitulated to him on the 4th of December. But he was suddenly summoned from the Peninsula by the threatening attitude of Austria. Starting anew from Paris in April, 1809. when he heard of the entry of the Austrians into Bavaria, he defeated them at
