The eighteenth century closed upon a strangely altered Europe. France was the ruling power on the Continent. Prussia had hidden herself in a timid neutrality, and left Austria to fight with foreign allies for the life of the empire. That battle had been a losing one, and now Francis II. sat upon a trembling throne and bore a title which had no longer any meaning. But Napoleon was building his own edifice. In 1803 he had himself declared First Consul for life, and in 1804 he assumed the title of Napoleon, Emperor of the French. His coronation took place at Paris, where he compelled the Pope to come and perform that ceremony. Then, after changing the groups of Italian republics into a Kingdom of Italy, he crowned himself, after the fashion of the Emperors whose successor he meant to be, with the Iron Crown of Lombardy. He had entered upon the most daring scheme ever attempted in Europe: to convert the whole Continent into one vast empire, with the kings and princes over the several nations all subject to him. Then there was a third coalition from which Prussia still held aloof, and which was composed of England, Austria, Russia, and Sweden. Alexander I. was now Emperor of Russia, and the timorous and unpatriotic policy of Prussia was guided by Frederick William III., who had succeeded his father Frederick William II. The Prussian King, influenced by antagonism to Austria and by the hope of obtaining safety and reward for Prussia, stubbornly maintained his attitude of neutrality, while the German Empire was receiving its death-blow at Austerlitz. That "battle of the three Emperors," as it is called, was a paralyzing defeat to the Allies. Prussia ignominiously received Hanover as her reward, and seventeen German states, including Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, and Hesse-Darmstadt, formally separated themselves from the German Empire and declared themselves subject to the French Emperor. This was known as the Rheinbund. The German Empire was now reduced to three separate bodies: the Rheinbund, a federation of states giving willing allegiance to Napoleon; _Prussia_, practically in alliance with her destroyer; and _Austria_, helpless in that destroyer's grasp, while he, sitting in the Imperial Palace at Vienna, dictated terms of peace. The Empire was broken beyond repair. On the 6th of August its dissolution was formally announced. Francis II. abdicated the Imperial crown and assumed the title of the "Emperor of Austria." It was not the people of Prussia who bartered their allegiance to the fatherland for peace and for Hanover. It was their King and princes who brought this stain upon them, and their beautiful Queen Louise, mother of the late Emperor William, had pleaded in vain with the King to pursue a loyal and patriotic course.