At the same time the imperial masquerade was further continued in a proclamation which it pleased the imperial writer to date from Aachen, the capital of Charles the Great. Rome reëstablished in France, the land of science, literature, and art, the glories of the coming century should eclipse those of the past. To this end were founded prizes, some of ten thousand, some of five thousand francs, which once in ten years, on the eighteenth of Brumaire, the Emperor with his own gracious hand would distribute in state to successful competitors in the race for scientific, artistic, and literary honors. The best book in each of the physical, mathematical, and historical sciences respectively would then be crowned; so, too, the best play, the best poem, the best opera, the best mechanical invention, the best painting, the best statue. Unfortunately the brightest spirits of the nation were in exile. The inspiration of those who worked under fear was but a scanty rill, and the French intellectual life of the Napoleonic age was feeble and uncertain. Not that the output was meager, for it was not; but the censorship was applied to newspapers and books with ever-increasing rigor, and what did appear in books or on the stage was in general utterly colorless and vague. The only exceptions were those pieces which summoned historical allusions to bolster the existing government. The censors smiled approval on the story of "William the Conqueror" as told by Duval, on the tale of "Peter the Great" in the words of Carrion-Nisas, on M. J. Chénier's "Cyrus," or Raynouard's "Templars," on any thing which, in the Emperor's own words, set forth the "passage from the first to the second race," provided only the theme was from days sufficiently distant. The career of Henry IV, founder of the Bourbon line, who became king by the victories of the Protestants and by the (p.~351) consent of the people, was not to Napoleon's liking, even though he traced in that career a resemblance to his own. The daily papers could publish no news except such as redounded to the credit of France, and dared not discuss religious matters at all. In the whole country there was but one unfettered genius, that of the painter Prud'hon, and he was free because he moved in the orbit of antiquity, within limits which did not intersect the public life of his day. Gros might perhaps rank near him, but David's talent and Chénier's muse were alike enthralled in fetters light but strong. Some high authorities have but lately claimed immortality for Sénancour and the subtle abstractions of "Obermann"; but they are caviare not merely to the multitude, but to many of the initiated.