For more than twenty years the history of France was the history of Europe; for more than fifteen years the history of Napoleon was the history of France, but a history cruelly bloody and agitated, often adorned with so much glory and splendor, that the country might, and in fact did, indulge itself in long and fatal illusions which drew down bitter sufferings. All this life of our country, however, was not dissipated afar off in the train of its victorious armies, or its arrogant ambassadors; if old France was sometimes astonished to find herself so much increased that she ran the risk of becoming one of the provinces of the Empire, she always remained the centre, and her haughty master did not forget her. Carried beyond her territory by the wild instinct of ambition, he did not renounce the home government of his first and most famous conquest. Seconded by several capable and modest men to whom he transmitted peremptory orders, often modified by them in the execution, Napoleon founded again the French administration, formerly powerful in the hands of the great minister of Louis XIV., but destroyed and overthrown by the shocks of the Revolution. He established institutions, he raised monuments which have remained while all the dazzling trophies of his arms have disappeared, while all his conquests have been torn from us, after worn out France, bruised and bleeding, found herself smaller than at the end of the evil days of the French Revolution. "Scarcely invested with a sovereignty, new both to France and to himself," said Count Mollien in his memoirs, "Napoleon imposed upon himself the task of ascertaining all the revenues and expenses of the state. He had acquired patience for the details from the fact that, in his campaigns, he depended entirely upon himself for the care of securing food, clothing and pay of his armies." On the eve of Austerlitz, after immense efforts made by the government as well as the public, to re-establish order and activity in a country so long agitated and weakened by incessant shocks, the measure of new enterprises had been exceeded; embarrassments extended from public to private fortunes, all the symptoms of a serious and impending crisis were already shown. Napoleon did not hide this from himself, but he saw and sought for no other remedy than victory. Passing before Mollien, when going to theatre, he said to him, "The finances are in a bad way, the Bank is embarrassed. I cannot put these matters right." For a long time the fortune as well as the repose of France was to depend upon the ever doubtful chances of victory; long she submitted to it with a constancy without example. The day came when victory was not sufficient for our country, she had not strength enough to support the price of her glory. The Emperor Napoleon was deceived in seeking the sources of public prosperity in conquest; the blood which flows in the veins of a nation is not restored as soon as another nation, humiliated and vanquished, shall