But nothing went as he expected. He suffered terrible reverses, which he knew the government at home was using to break his hold on the people; his supplies and information were cut off; his prestige in his own army weakened; his faith in his destiny was shaken. That the effect of this bad fortune was not more than skin deep was clear enough when he accidentally learned that things were in a very bad way in France, that much of what he had gained in Italy had been lost, and that Austria and Russia were preparing an invasion. [Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF NAPOLEON In this house, on the little island of Corsica, the first emperor of France spent his boyhood.] FIRST CONSUL OF FRANCE Promptly and secretly Bonaparte slipped out of Egypt, and before the powers at home knew of his intention he was in France and the people were welcoming him as their deliverer. He was ready to be just that. It was no great trick for a man of his daring and sagacity, adored by the populace, to overturn a discredited and inefficient government and make himself dictator. It was done in a few weeks, and France had a new form of government, a consulate, of which the head was a first consul, and Bonaparte was the first consul. The most brilliant and fruitful four years of Napoleon Bonaparte’s life followed; for it was then that he set out to bring order and peace to a country demoralized and exhausted by generations of plundering by privileged classes, followed by a decade of revolution against privileges. France needed new machinery of all kinds, and this Bonaparte undertook to supply. There were many people who regarded him as a great general; but to their amazement he now proved himself a remarkable statesman. NAPOLEON THE STATESMAN He attacked the question of the national income like a veteran financier. The first matter was reorganizing taxation. He succeeded in distributing the burden more justly than had ever been known in France. The taxes were fixed so that each knew what he had to pay, and the inordinate graft that tax collectors and police had enjoyed was cut off. New financial institutions were devised; among them the Bank of France. The economy he instituted in the government, the army, his own household, everywhere that his power extended, was rigid and minute; as he personally examined all accounts, there was no escape. The waste and parasitism that pervaded the country began to give way for the first time since the Revolution. [Illustration: EMPRESS JOSEPHINE From a painting by Pierre Paul Prud’hon.]