brought universal odium on the late government.-This was followed by a repeal of the severe decree against priests who refused to abjure loyalty; substituting a simple oath of fidelity to the present constitution. By a decree passed at the same time the churches were restored to the roman catholics, without restricting them, as before, to the decade, or tenth day: and freedom of religious worship was granted in the fullest extent. These measures were opportune and well judged, because they were calculated to prepossess the nation in favour of the ruling powers at the present critical juncture: but there was no department of government so arduous under the existing circumstances of the state as that of finance. To supply the place of the revenue which was to have arisen from the forced loan of 100,000,000 livres, a fourth part was added to all contributions or imposts on property, territorial, personal, and sumptuary. Moreover, the principal bankers of Paris consented to a loan of 500,000 livres, for the present exigencies of the state, secured by promissory notes from government. These supplies enabled the administration to carry on the war without a relaxation of energy, while the committee of finance were devising expedients for providing further resources and reviving public credit. Great complaints having been made of defects in the department of police, that it was destitute of unity and connexion, and afforded safety neither of person or property, as a remedy for these evils, it was now enacted, that the police appointed to discover robbers and preserve citizens from their attacks should be connected together in all its parts, from the centre of the system to its circumference, and that the power of imprisoning should be restrained.-Due attention was, at the same time, paid to the regulation of the marine and commercial departments." During these proceedings, the committee appointed to digest a new constitution had completed their work. Being submitted to the commissions of five hundred and of elders, in which Lucien Buonaparte and le Brune presided, after some debates, it was approved by a great majority and received the sanction of the whole. The reader is referred to an appendix for a particular account of this constitution. To convey a 1799 * 1799 general idea of its nature, it will be sufficient to delineate it, as con- Thus, after the several changes which the French government had undergone, from an absolute to a free monarchy, from a free monarchy to a tyrannical democracy, and from a democracy to an oligarchy which had brought extreme reproach on itself by the abuse of power, the French nation was destined to be subject to a government which has, indeed, the appearance of freedom, but which was established by the bayonet, and in which the whole executive power is virtually vested in one chief magistrate, who is also commander in chief and has the army at his devotion.* Whether, with the ardour, the military talents and address of a general, he possesses the temper, discretion, and judgment of a statesman, whether his natural disposition or motives of policy may lead him to demean himself with such moderation and prudence as may recommend him to the ational esteem, or the French nation may once more find themselves amused with the semblance of liberty without the effective enjoyment of it, and may see the authority and revenue of the state employed for the aggrandizement of him to whom they have intrusted the executive power, his subsequent conduct will prove. A new administration was now formed, in which Cambaceres and le Brune were joined with Buonaparte in the consulate. Gaudin was appointed minister Ferguson's observation on the influence of climate and other circumstances in which the characters of nations originate is very applicable to the events of the French history during this period of revolutions. "The frequent vicissitudes and reverses of fortune which nations have "experienced on that very ground where the arts have prospered, are probably the effects of a "6 busy, inventive, and versatile spirit, by which men have carried every national change to "extremes. They have raised the fabric of despotic empire to its greatest height, where they "had best understood the foundations of freedom. They perished in the flames which they " themselves had kindled; and they only, perhaps, were capable of displaying, by turns, the greatest improvements, or the lowest corruptions, to which the human mind can be brought."History of Civil Society. 184. 46 minister of finance; Talleyrand minister for foreign affairs; Berthier war minister, and Fouché minister of police.! 1799 SPAIN. DON CARLOS experiences continually new evils from that depression to which he had suffered himself to be reduced. In the late year, we have seen him becoming the tool of France, to forward the interests of that state at the court of Constantinople, and his ambassador insulted by the reis effendi, and ordered to leave the Porte. And in the present he was constrained to hear war declared against him by the Russian emperor as the ally of the same power. 1799 HER majesty having long been in a state of mental derangement, it was deemed proper that the prince of Brazil should take on him the government of the kingdom. He therefore issued a decree, † importing that, in virtue of the laws on which the Portuguese monarchy is founded, the rights of sovereignty had devolved on his person, and that, from the date of the present decree, all laws, acts, decrees, and resolutions should be formed in his name, as prince regent, during the queen's actual incapacity; and that he should be addressed as such in all proceedings of state." 1799 1799 ITALY AND GERMANY. THE unreasonable requisitions made by the French plenipotentiaries at the congress of Rastadt, and the insincerity betrayed by the French government in the course of the conferences, had convinced the world that they were not disposed to peace; on the contrary, that they wished to protract the war, to gratify their rapacity and passion for aggrandize ment. It now became the prevailing opinion, that a renewal of hostilities was the only effectual mean to prevent the encroachment, to restrain the tyranny, and free themselves from the insolence of the directory; which was continually more inflamed by their success in dictating to the powers which had been engaged in the coalition against them.-Actuated by this persuasion, and encouraged by the signal victory which the English fleet had obtained off the mouths of the Nile, the courts of Vienna and Naples now concluded a new treaty and resumed their arms. The German diet issued a spirited conclusum, declarative of their determination to support the head of the empire in vigorous warlike measures for the maintenance of their rights and independency, and " calling on every member of the empire to hasten with patriotic zeal to raise to a quintuple the contingent which it ought to furnish, to the end that, by an energetici co operation, all the enterprises and efforts of the enemy may be arrested, and that the exertions of the empire, combined with those of its supreme chief, may lead to a peace just, honourable, and lasting; which they have not yet been able to obtain, notwithstanding the ardour with "which it has been sought on the part of the empire."-Warlike operations, in the mean-time, were commenced at the different seats of hostilities Whilst the Neapolitan army was advancing to join its allies in Lombardy, the Austrian armies, reinforced by strong bodies of Russian troops, took the field in Germany and Italy; and a very active campaign ensued, the events of which have been already related. 66 The Prussian monarch, still attentive to the immediate welfare of his realms, State Papers. 261. realms, and keeping in view the advantages which he hoped to derive from the friendship of France, denied that support to the coalition which alone could give it success. Soon after the recommencement of the war in which the court of Rome had originally engaged with so much zeal, it was deemed expedient to remove the aged pontiff further from the seat of hostilities. He was forthwith conveyed to Valence in Dauphine; and was greeted on his route, and at the place of his final destination, with the respect due to his character and venerable age.-This was the last, and at present, perhaps, the most acceptable tribute that could be paid him. Before he had been many days at Valence, he breathed his last, after a short illness, in his eighty-second year. † b 1799 DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND RUSSIA. THE kings of Denmark and Sweden persevered in their system of neutrality, and in the policy of making a period of peace conducive to the prosperity of their realms. Agreeably with these principles, the Swedish monarch addressed the diet, on his arrival at his majority, in a speech which, whilst it breathed the most manly sentiments of patriotism, gave the dietines the strongest assurances that it had been his grand object to promote the prosperity of his country, and the stability and dignity of the state, by a strict regard to economy and an improvement of the financial system. The Russian emperor, in the mean-time, vigorously prosecuted the warlike measures which he had adopted in the preceding year.-We have seen the active part which his troops bore in the war in Italy and Switzerland. To render his support of the allied cause more effectual, he fitted out a fleet of twelve sail in the Baltic, to co-operate with the British fleet, and sent a squadron to join the Turks in their operations in the Archipelago. He declared war against the king of Spain, as the ally of France: bb he con 1799 |