Josephine, Empress of the French................................ 374 Map illustrating the Campaign preceding the Treaty of Campo-Formio, 1797............................................ 414 SI QUID NOVISTI RECTIUS ISTIS, CANDIDUS IMPERTI: SI NON, HIS UTERE MECUM _Horace_ LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE CHAPTER I. Introduction. The Revolutionary Epoch in Europe -- Its Dominant Personage -- The State System of Europe -- The Power of Great Britain -- Feebleness of Democracy -- The Expectant Attitude of the Continent -- Survival of Antiquated Institutions -- The American Revolution -- Philosophical Sophistries -- Rousseau -- His Fallacies -- Corsica as a Center of Interest -- Its Geography -- Its Rulers -- The People -- Sampiero -- Revolutions -- Spanish Alliance -- King Theodore -- French Intervention -- Supremacy of Genoa -- Paoli -- His Success as a Liberator -- His Plan for Alliance with France -- The Policy of Choiseul -- Paoli's Reputation -- Napoleon's Account of Corsica and of Paoli -- Rousseau and Corsica. Napoleon Bonaparte was the representative man of the epoch which ushered in the nineteenth century. Though an aristocrat by descent, he was in life, in training, and in quality neither that nor a plebeian; he was the typical plain man of his time, exhibiting the common sense of a generation which thought in terms made current by the philosophy of the eighteenth century. His period was the most tumultuous and yet the most fruitful in the world's history. But the progress made in it was not altogether direct; rather was it like the advance of a traveler whirled through the spiral tunnels of the St. Gotthard. Flying from the inclemency of the north, he is carried by the ponderous train due southward into the opening. After a time of darkness he emerges into the open air. But at first sight the goal is no nearer; the direction is perhaps reversed, the skies are more forbidding, the chill is more intense. Only after successive ventures of the same kind is the climax reached, the summit passed, and the vision of sunny plains opened to view. Such experiences are more common to the race than to the individual; the muse of history must note and record them with equanimity, with a buoyancy and hopefulness born of larger knowledge. The movement of civilization in Europe during the latter portion of the eighteenth century was onward and upward, but it was at times not only devious, slow and laborious, but fruitless in immediate results.