The Beginnings of the Storm--The United States of America and France--The Thought-Currents Which Moved toward a Vortex--Execution of King and Queen--France a Ruin but Free--A Republic--First Coalition--Poland and its Partition--Austria Fighting Alone for the Empire--Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy--His Methods and Their Result--Treaty of Campo Formio--Three New Republics--Napoleon in Egypt--His Return--Second Coalition--Dominions of Ecclesiastical Rulers Given Away--Napoleon the Instrument of Fate CHAPTER XVI. Napoleon Emperor of the French--Third Coalition--Prussian Neutrality--The Rheinbund--Dissolution of the Empire and Abdication of Francis II.--Retribution for Prussia--Battle of Jena--Peace of Tilsit--A Continental Blockade--Marriage with Marie Louise CHAPTER XVII. Revolt of Bavarian Peasants--The "League of Virtue"--Invasion of Russia--Burning of Moscow--Retreat--General York Leads a Popular Movement--Prussia at War with Napoleon--The Battle of Leipzig--The Allies in Paris--Napoleon Deposed--Louis XVIII. King--Return of Napoleon--Waterloo and St. Helena CHAPTER XVIII. Reconstruction--The Act of Union--Sentiment of the People--Concessions--Francis II. Died--A Republic in France--Blaze of Revolutionary Fires in Europe--A National Parliament Granted--Its Failure--Napoleon III. in France--Magenta and Solferino--Revolution in Italy--Victor Emmanuel King--William I. King of Prussia CHAPTER XIX. King William and Bismarck--Schleswig-Holstein--Proposed Division--War against Austria--Königgrätz--The North German Union CHAPTER XX. Napoleon III. Plans the Overthrow of Prussian Dominion--Vacant Throne in Spain--A Hohenzollern Candidate--Benedetti and King William--War Declared by France--Metz--Sedan--King William at Versailles--Crowned Hereditary Emperor of the German Empire--Death of Emperor William I.--Emperor Frederick--His Unfulfilled Dreams and his Death--William II. Emperor A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY. CHAPTER I. Foundation building is neither picturesque nor especially interesting, but it is indispensable. However fair the structure is to be, one must first lay the rough-hewn stones upon which it is to rest. It would be much pleasanter in this sketch to display at once the minarets and towers and stained-glass windows; but that can only be done when one's castle is in Spain. Would we comprehend the Germany of to-day, we must hold firmly in our minds an epitome of what it has been, and see vividly the devious path of its development through the ages. The German nation is of ancient lineage, and indeed belongs to the royal line of human descent, the Aryan; its ancestral roots running back until lost in the heart of Asia, in the mists of antiquity.