Washington was the first president. He took the oath of office April 30th, 1789, in the presence of a vast multitude. He served eight years, and then retired again to Mount Vernon, where he died in the sixty-eighth year of his age, December 15, 1799. His countrymen mourned him with a sorrow, sincere and deep. Their reverence for him has not diminished with the progress of the years. To this day the steamers, which ply upon the Potomac, strike mournful notes as they sweep past Mount Vernon, where Washington spent the happiest years of his life, and where he now reposes. CHAPTER XIX. PROGRESS OF LIBERTY IN EUROPE. INFLUENCE OF LA FAYETTE--DESPOTISM IN FRANCE--THE BASTILE--CORRUPTIONS OF THE CHURCH--COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION--THE MARSEILLAISE--ITS WONDERFUL INFLUENCE--REIGN OF TERROR--NAPOLEON BONAPARTE--HIS WONDERFUL CAREER--JEWISH SANHEDRIM--FALL OF NAPOLEON--HIS DEATH--PROGRESS OF LIBERTY. When the war of independence was over La Fayette returned to France. He was the lightning-rod by which the current of republican sentiments flashed from America to Europe. He was the hero of the hour. A man {188} who had helped to set up a republic in America, was a dangerous element for old despotic France to receive into her bosom. With the charm of a great name, immense wealth and boundless popularity to aid him, he everywhere urged that men should be free and self-governing. The influence of La Fayette was soon apparent. The people of France were living under a government which had come down from the feudal ages. They wished to follow the example of the United States, but how could this be accomplished? The king could do as he pleased--make war, build fleets, tax the people, even send men to prison when charged with no crime, keeping them in prison till they became old and gray-haired, or until death set them free. Of all the gloomy prisons of France, the Bastile was the most horrible. Its dark, deep dungeons were ever dripping with water and alive with vermin. No straggling ray of light ever entered them The floor was covered with mud and slime and the bones of victims who had died of starvation.