away from Fontainebleau. Few of Napoleon's actions were more
harmful than this series of petty persecutions; and among the
influences that brought about his fall, we may reckon the dignified
resistance of the pontiff, whose meekness threw up in sharp relief the
pride and arrogance of his captor. The Papacy stooped, but only to
conquer.

For the present, everything seemed to favour the new Charlemagne.
Never had the world seen embodied might like that of Napoleon's
Empire; and well might he exclaim at the birth of the King of Rome,
"Now begins the finest epoch of my reign." All the auguries seemed
favourable. In France, the voice of opposition was all but hushed.
Italians, Swiss, and even some Spaniards, helped to keep down Prussia.
Dutchmen and Danes had hunted down Schill for him at Stralsund. Polish
horsemen had charged up the Somosierra Pass against the Spanish guns,
and did valiant service on the bloody field of Albuera. The
Confederation of the Rhine could send forth 150,000 men to fight his
battles. The Hapsburgs were his vassals, and only faint shadows of
discord as yet clouded his relations with Alexander. One of his
Marshals, Bernadotte, had been chosen to succeed to the crown of
Sweden; and at the other end of Europe, it seemed that Wellington and
the Spanish patriots must ultimately succumb to superior numbers.

Surely now was the time for the fulfilment of those glowing oriental
designs beside which his European triumphs seemed pale. In the autumn
of 1810 he sent agents carefully to inspect the strongholds of Egypt
and Syria, and his consuls in the Levant were ordered to send a report
every six months on the condition of the Turkish Empire.[240] Above
all, he urged on the completion of dockyards and ships of war. Vast
works were pushed on at Antwerp and Cherbourg: ships and gunboats were
to be built at every suitable port from the Texel to Naples and
Trieste; and as the result of these labours, the Emperor counted on
having 104 ships of the line, which would cover the transports from
the Mediterranean, Cherbourg, Boulogne and the Scheldt, and threaten
England with an array of 200,000 fighting men.[241]

In March, 1811, this plan was modified, possibly because, as in 1804,
he found the difficulties of a descent on our coasts greater than he
first imagined. He now seeks merely to weary out the English in the
present year. But in the next year, or in 1813, he will send an
expedition of 40,000 men from the S