The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-16

ity. He heard of it with unmistakable astonishment and indignation, and sud- denly and rudely awakened Fouche from his wild dream of a great diplomatic achievement, dismissing him from his cabinet and appointing General Savary to the ministry of police. The United States thus escaped the fate of Poland; the lilies of the Bourbons did not dis place the stars in the blue field of the American flag, and the Yankee sailors re- mained a plague to both Napoleon and George H.
 A Chinese Wall
 To shut out the wares of British man. ufacturers and the products of British colones, Napoleon had marched his army from the border of Lisbon to the banks of the Niemen. He had gathered all the nations of the continent be- heath his sword in @ continental union against his island foe and erected a wall of China around Europe.
 But even the bayonets of a million soldiers could not close the immemorial avenues of trade, nor could Napolean s big broom sweep back the natural cur rents of commerce. The war between England and France prostrated the hon. est business of the continent and of the British Isles and brought on an epi- demic of bankruptcy, but the ruined merchants were replaced by 100000 smugglers, who matched their wits against an army of customs officials.
 When at last the Emperor found he could not stop smuggling. he adopted a system of licensing it and sharing in it's profits by taking 50 per cent of the value of certain kinds of imports of fered for sale. All other smuggled goods were coniscated by him and sold at great auctions. But he excepted from the auction the British wooden and cot tons that his agents had seized. These were piled in heaps and destroyed in huge bopfires that lit up the empire All letters written in English or cap tured in transit between the continent and the British Isles were also burned as many as 10000 being given to the flames on an appointed day.
 At War With Rome
 Every nation, and indeed every house. hold, felt the burden of the continental system It set the empire at war with the church itself, although the St Petersburg official we'll might have blamed woman for that quarrel, and an American woman, too. For Betsy Paterson really was at the bottom ol the unhappy conflict between Romt and It's eldest daughter. It was not unti the Emeperor asked that Jerome Bona partes American marriage be annulet that the first open breach occurred Tn, ecclesiastical authorities found. on in vestigation, that the ceremony had no been performed in strict conformit, with decree of the council of Trent but it was also found that this lattel decree never had been published a Baltimore and consequently had n, force in that diocese. Pope Plus VII re piled to the Emepror therefore, tha the marriage was valid and that he wal powerless to gratify his wish.
 It may easily be imagined with how little patience Napoleon saw his pur pose baked by technicality like that and thenceforth the relations of tn, Emperor and the pope, rapidly wen from bad to worse. In a year the French troops seized Rome. In two years, tn, Eternal City was annexed to France becoming only the capital of the de partment of the Tiber, and Plus was prisoner in close confinement behind the high garden walls of the arch bishops palace at Cavona on the Ri viera.
 The papal states formed at the tim' 2 considerable territory lying betweei Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy and hi' subject kingdom of Naples, and h' treated the sovereign of that territor, with no more consideration than an! other sovereign who happened in hi way.
 It was to compel the papcy to re nounce It's temporal sovereignty that h. locked up Plus VII, mild. unaggres