ad reorganized
France with such skill as to enable her to bid defiance to despotic
Europe in arms against that principle. All France seemed united in
this government of _republican principles under monarchical forms_,
and, notwithstanding the implacable hostility and persistent
coalition of foreign dynasties, all hopes of the restoration of the
Bourbons seemed to have vanished. Ferdinand of Naples and his queen,
who was an Austrian princess, and sister of Maria Antoinette, had,
with great determination, espoused the cause of the Allies against
France. A revolution in their own kingdom, aided by French arms, had
driven them from the continent of Italy to the island of Sicily,
where they were protected by an English army of twenty thousand men,
and by the invincible fleet of Great Britain, which had entire
command of the seas.

The position of the Duke of Orleans in the Sicilian Court must have
been very embarrassing. Ferdinand, a weak man, and his wife, an
intriguing, reckless woman, did every thing they could to entangle
their illustrious visitor, and the suitor of their daughter, in the
meshes of the intrigues in which they were ever involved. Napoleon
had shown a very decided disposition to conciliate the Orleans
family, and to restore to them their possessions if he could have any
assurance that the vast influence which they would thus possess would
not be used in the attempt to overthrow the republican empire which
France had so cordially accepted. The cautious duke felt that it
would be the height of folly to hurl himself against a power which
seemed irresistible.

The Spanish Court had treacherously, while professing friendship for
France, entered into a conspiracy with the Allies to strike her in
the back in the anticipated hour of disaster. The Spanish war ensued,
into the merits of which we have no space here to enter. The king and
queen of Sicily hoped to place upon the throne of Spain their son
Leopold; and they urged the Duke of Orleans to go to Spain, and,
under the patronage of England, to take command of an army for the
invasion of France.

Influenced by these importunities, the duke repaired with evident
reluctance to Gibraltar; but seeing no chance for Leopold, he passed
over to England to confer with the British Cabinet.[I] The duke was a
Frenchman, and, instead of being cordially received in Spain, found
himself in danger of being mobbed by the ignorant and fanatic
populace. Lord Collingwood wrot