and
more radical democracy was at hand.

OVERTHROW OF DEMOCRACY IN FRANCE

The year of 1799 saw also a great change in France, but in the opposite
direction, away from democracy and back toward absolutism. The French
government, grown rash with its marvellous victories, had dared to
despatch Bonaparte, its ablest general, on an ill-considered and
somewhat fanciful expedition to distant Egypt. There his fleet was
destroyed by the English admiral, Nelson, in the celebrated Battle of
the Nile, and he and his army were left practically prisoners in
Egypt.[25]

Deprived of his genius at home, French military affairs went badly.
Monarchy rallied from its momentary depression. Russian troops drove the
French from Switzerland; Germans defeated them along the Rhine. The
Constitutional government in Paris was proving impracticable, its
members incompetent. Bonaparte saw his opportunity. Leaving his army in
Egypt, he escaped the British and returned alone to France. In Paris he
summoned the soldiers around him, entered the hall of the assembly,
and, much as Cromwell had once done in England, bade the wrangling
members disperse. Then he constructed a new government, which he still
called a republic. But as he himself was to be First Consul, with almost
all power in his own hands, the Government proved in reality as complete
an absolutism as that of Richelieu or Louis XIV. The first European
attempt at democracy had perished. The new century was to learn what
this suddenly risen dictator would establish in its stead.

[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME XV]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See _Battle of Lexington_, page 1.

[2] See _Battle of Bunker Hill_, page 19.

[3] See _Signing of American Declaration of Independence_, page 39.

[4] See _Canada Remains Loyal to England_, page 30.

[5] See _Defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga_, page 51.

[6] See _First Victory of the American Navy_, page 68.

[7] See _British Defence of Gibraltar_, page 116.

[8] See _Siege and Surrender of Yorktown_, page 97.

[9] See _Close of the American Revolution_, page 137.

[10] See _Settlement of American Loyalists in Canada_, page 156.

[11] See _Joseph II Attempts Reform in Hungary_, page 85.

[12] See _French Revolution: Storming of the Bastille_, page 212.

[13] See _Republican France Defies Europe: Battle of Valmy_, page 252.

[14] See _Execution of Louis XVI: Murder of Marat: Civil War in France_,
page 295.

[15] See _T