The National Register.
London, England, 1813-09-05 00:00:00

-.540

r
-44

TTT . INT T 1(

His birth precluded every idea of superiority over his
former equals ! and What reliance could be placed on the
loyalty of the French towards the new dynasty after the
scenes of the French Revolution, during which sovereigns
and nobles had been uniformly represented as the enemies
of mankind ? Add to this, that although the wild enthusiasm
of liberty which had been first excited in France had in a
great degree subsided, still that idea would naturally recur,
that even the abuses of the old Government were prefer. ble
to the minute and degrading despotism to which they were
at last subjectCd after all their struggles and all their sacri-
ficesfor. liberty, ' The innate fears of the tyrant made him
even magnify the danger arising from those considerations.
and he adopted the only system which could give at least a
temporary security to a man in his situation.
His cotetnporaries he could not expect to reconcile to his
usurpation, but he built his hopes on the rising generation,
AU France and the countries annexed to it were transformed
into a vast camp; the youths of the most respectable fami-
lies were trained in the strict subordination of military dis-
cipline; no other systoin of education was allowed even in
private families, and unbounded submission to the will of
the military leader was inculcated as the first of all virtue:-
A new system of terror was established. The sanguinary
executions of ROBERSPIERRE had, at last, excited horror
and could not again be renewed ; but the dark mysterious
midnight murders of BUONAP A RTE acted more forcibly on
the imagination than the daily sight of blood, and the dread
of the fiend was increased by the uncertainty of the fate of
his victims. In the mean time a new spirit of allegiance was
preached by venal writers ; the assumed glory of the revolu-
tionary EMPEROR was blazoned forth in the most glowing co-
-1 ours, a new zera had arisen for the great nation, and the ab-
ject submission of the rest of Europe at once proclaimed its
high destinies, and the superior genius of its invincible
EMPEROR. Thus had BUON AP ART E established his power
on the stano bases on which that of his predecessors had
formally sto-oilki.P.;TAtrror and Delusion, wit h only a small de-
viation in the app-licati:n of principles; but the work
was still to be completed. By concentrating the revolu-
tionary power into his hands, he stood solely answerable to
the French nation for the promises he had made on his
usurpation ; his orders could not be resisted in Euro> with-
out his authority being questioned at borne. French vanity
was to be reconciled to slavery, by beholding the test of man-
kind iu a still more degraded state of vassalage, and the rising
generation trained to military habits, deprived of every other
source of employment, was to employ in subjugating Europe
that i estless activity, which at home might have been dan-
gerous to the tyrant's power.
He has iict(d on the conviction that this system alone

could insure his safety, by refusing to accept the ultimatum
of'the'Allicd Powers, and, by preferring the chances of war
to a comp omise, by which the very basis of his power would
have been shaken in France ; for he well knows that the in-
del•endenc e of Europe, and the existence of a Revolutionary.
Government in France, are totally incompatible, whatever
may be the character of the Ruler.—But it would require
volumes to put this truth in all its light.

EItRATUM.--:lilevoith hoe from the conclusion of the last Poli-
tical 1).),q iision, instead of " the same inuans by which it has
I), eo a tvcrsive of all received opinions"--rind " the saute ;deans by,
vide!. i has been created ; it 61.4m:uteri ou the subversion of all re-

rivt•tl opinions," &c.