military possession of Rome in February, 1809; the Pope, however, still remaining in the Vatican, and attended there as usual by his own guards.

On the 17th of May, Napoleon issued, from Vienna, his final decree, declaring the temporal sovereignty of the Pope to be wholly at an end, incorporating Rome with the French empire, and declaring it to be his second city; settling a pension on the holy father in his spiritual capacityand appointing a committee of administration for the civil government of Rome. The Pope, on receiving the Parisian senatus-consultum, ratifying this imperial rescript, instantly fulminated a bull of excommunication against Napoleon. Shortly after some unauthentic news from Germany inspired new hopes into the adherents of the holy father; and, disturbances breaking out, Miollis, on pretence that a life sacred in the eyes of all Christians might be endangered, arrested the Pope in his palace at midnight, and forthwith dispatched him, under a strong escort, to Savona.

The intelligence of this decisive step reached Napoleon soon after the battle of Wagram, and he was inclined to disapprove of the conduct of Miollis as too precipitate. It was now, however, impossible to recede; the Pope was ordered to be conveyed across the Alps to Grenoble. But his reception there was more reverential than Napoleon had anticipated, and he was soon reconducted to Savona.

This business would, in any other period, have been sufficient to set all Catholic Europe in a flame; and even now Buonaparte well knew that his conduct could not fail to nourish and support

the feelings arrayed against him openly in Spain and in Southern Germany, and suppressed, not extinguished, in the breasts of a great party of the French clergy at home. He made, therefore, many efforts to procure from the Pope some formal relinquishment of his temporal claims-but Pius VII. remained unshaken; and the negotiation at length terminated in the removal of His Holiness to Fontainebleau, where he continued a prisoner, though treated personally with respect, and even magnificence, during more than three years: -until, in the general darkening of his own fortunes, the imperial jailer was compelled to adopt another line of conduct.

The Em

The treaty with Austria was at last signed at Schoenbrunn on the 14th of October. peror Francis purchased peace by the cession of Salzburg, and a part of Upper Austria, to the confederation of the Rhine; of part of Bohemia to the King of Saxony, and of Cracow and western Galicia to the same prince, as Grand Duke of Warsaw; of part of eastern Galicia to the Czar; and, to France herself, of Trieste, Carniola, Friuli, Villach, and some part of Croatia and Dalmatia. By this act, Austria gave up in all territory to the amount of 45,000 square miles, and a population of nearly four millions; and Napoleon, besides gratifying his vassals and allies, had completed the connection of the kingdom of Italy with his Illyrian possessions, obtained the whole coasts of the Adriatic, and deprived Austria of her last seaport. Yet, when compared with the signal triumphs of the campaign of Wagram, the terms on which Napoleon signed the peace were universally looked

upon as remarkable for moderation; and he claimed merit with the Emperor of Russia on the score of having spared Austria in deference to his personal intercession.

Buonaparte quitted Vienna on the 16th of October; was congratulated by the public bodies of Paris, on the 14th of November, as "the greatest of heroes, who never achieved victories but for the happiness of the world;" and soon after, by one of the most extraordinary steps of his personal history, furnished abundant explanation of the motives which had guided his diplomacy at Schoenbrunn.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Napoleon divorces Josephine-Marries the Archduchess Maria Louisa-Deposes Louis Buonaparte-Annexes Holland and the whole Coast of Germany to France— Revolution in Sweden. ·Bernadotte elected Crown Prince of Sweden-Progress of the War in the Peninsula-Battle of Busaco-Lord Wellington retreats to the Lines of Torres Vedras.

THE treacherous invasion of Spain, and the imprisonment of the Pope, were but the first of a series of grand political errors, destined to sap the foundations of this apparently irresistible power. On his return to Paris, Napoleon proudly proclaimed to his senate, that no enemy opposed him throughout the continent of Europe--except only a few fugitive bands of Spanish rebels, and "the English leopard"* in Portugal, whom ere long he would cause to be chased into the sea. In the meantime, the Peninsula was too insignificant an object to demand either his own presence, or much of their concern: the general welfare of the empire called on them to fix their attention on a subject of a very different nature; namely, the situation of the imperial family. "I and my house,"

*The leopards had been changed into lions in the English shield five hundred years before this! To such small matters could Buonaparte's rancour stoop.

said Napoleon, "will ever be found ready to sacrifice everything, even our own dearest ties and feelings, to the welfare of the French people."

This was the first public intimation of a measure which had for a considerable period occupied much of Napoleon's thoughts, and which, regarded at the time (almost universally) as the very masterstroke of his policy, proved in the issue no mean element of his ruin.

Josephine had loved Napoleon, and been beloved passionately by him in his youth. She had shared his humbler fortune; by her connections in Paris, and especially by her skilful conduct during his Egyptian expedition, she had most materially assisted him in the attainment of the sovereign dignity: she had subsequently adorned his court, and gratified his pride by the elegance of her manners, and won to herself the attachment of his people, by her sincere good nature and active benevolence. Her power over her husband was known to be great, and no one ever doubted but that it had uniformly been exerted on the side of mercy. She was considered as the good angel who, more frequently and effectually than any influence besides, interfered to sooth the fierce passions, and temper the violent acts of her lord. Her devotion to him was perfect: she partook his labours as far as he would permit her to do so, submitted to all his caprices, and, with a dark presentiment that his ambition would one day cast her aside, continued to centre the whole of her existence in the contemplation of his glory.

Long before Napoleon assumed the imperial title, his hopes of offspring from this union were at