16. The proceedings of the congress at Vienna were suddenly interrupted by the news that Bonaparte had landed in France, and was received by the soldiers with open arms. The congress instantly issued a manifesto of expulsion, and assembled large armies with all possible expedition. Napoleon opened the campaign, and gained some advantages over the Prussians, but in the evermemorable battle of Waterloo, in which the British, under Wellington, played so distinguished a part, his army was irretrievably ruined, and Europe finally rescued from his iron grasp. After this memorable battle, fought on the 18th of June, 1815, the allies rapidly advanced towards Paris. Napoleon perceiving that his reign was at an end, made a fruitless abdication in favour of his son, and fled to the sea-shore in the hope of escaping to America: but finding it impossible to escape the vigilance of the British cruisers, he surrendered himself to captain Maitland of the Bellerophon. The allies shortly afterwards determined that he should be imprisoned for life, in the island of St. Helena, whither he was immediately sent, and where he expired on the 5th of May, 1821. His death was occasioned by a cancer in the stomach. Thus ended this sanguinary contest, in which every nation in Europe had been involved, and which caused an amount of bloodshed unparalleled in the annals of history. The shores of Great Britain were happily freed from the carnage; but she may be said to have gained little else besides glory, and an enormously augmented national debt, in return for the effectual aid she afforded to the continental powers. In May 1816, the princess Charlotte, only child of the regent, was married to his serene highness Leopold George Frederick of Saxe Cobourg, upon which parliament voted her an annuity of £60,000. She died in child-bed, in November 1817; her death was sincerely deplored by the nation at large, and £50,000 per annum generously bestowed on her disconsolate consort for life. The years 1816-17-18-19 and 20, are remarkable for the immense number of public meetings convened, attended, and almost exclusively conducted by the working classes for the purpose of procuring a radical reform of the House of Commons on the basis of universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and vote by ballot. The expenses of the war had certainly pressed very heavily on the

industry of the country; it was, therefore, only natural that when peace was established, they should expect the burdens of the nation, to be removed to the shoulders of the more wealthy members of the community. To meet this exigency, the regent surrendered £50,000 of his income, and soon afterwards the marquis of Camden relinquished the fees of the tellership of the exchequer, valued at £13,000 per annum, reserving only the salary of £2,700, but alas, no one imitated these laudable acts of generosity.

Queen Charlotte died at Kew, on the 17th November, 1818. The duke of Kent expired on the 23rd of Jan. 1820, and six days afterwards the nation had to deplore the loss of his majesty George III., who expired at Windsor without a struggle, in the 82nd year of his age. XVI.-France, from the termination of the first to the second Empire.

1. Immediately after the departure of Napoleon for Elba, Louis XVIII. was recalled by the French senate to the throne of his ancestors. He made his solemn entry into Paris on the 3rd of May, 1814, having previously consented in general terms to a new constitution, similar to that of Great Britain, drawn up by the senate. He next concluded a peace with the allies: but though matters were left to be finally adjusted by the congress at Vienna, France was given to understand that her continental dominions must be restricted to what they had been in 1792. England, however, liberally restored all her colonial conquests, except the island of Malta, the Mauritius, Tobago, St. Lucia, and the Cape of Good Hope.

2. On the 4th of June, Louis XVIII. presented to the legislature a new constitutional charter, which, though differing in some points from that presented to him by the senate, was accepted without opposition, and became the fundamental law of the realm. There was still, however, many prejudices in favour of Napoleon to overcome; while both the army and the nation at large inferred from the boastings of the returned emigrants, that the court intended to revert to the despotic principles of the old monarchy. These and other similar circumstances created a general feeling throughout the country in favour of the return of the abdicated emperor, who, eagerly responding

to the call of the nation, left Elba with about eleven hundred men on the 25th of Feb. 1815, landed at the small town of Cannes, marched to Grenoble, and from thence to Paris. On his route the armies that had been sent to oppose him declared in his favour, which augmented his numbers so considerably as to render all resistance on the part of the king useless.

3. On the 20th of March the king left Paris, and on the evening of the same day, Napoleon entered it, and was received by the people with as loud acclamations as those which had so recently greeted the return of the Bourbons. He soon perceived the necessity of gratifying the people with a free constitution. He accordingly confirmed the charter of Louis XVIII., established the freedom of the press, abolished the slave trade, reduced the taxes that pressed heavily on the people, and by other similar concessions much increased his popularity.

4. The allies at the congress of Vienna no sooner heard of his return, than they denounced him as the common enemy of Europe, declared him a usurper, and resolved to unite all their efforts to maintain the treaty of Paris. For this purpose, Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia concluded a new treaty, whereby each power agreed to maintain an army of 150,000 men, until they had incapa citated him from disturbing the peace of Europe. Although out of the pale of national law, he in return made gigantic preparations to maintain his position by force of arms. An army of 559,000 men was speedily got ready, of whom 217,000 were ready to take the field on the first of June. He however soon perceived that his opponents were much more powerful in number than himself, and hurried across the frontiers on the 14th of June, for the purpose of fighting them before their forces could be united. On the 16th, after a well contested battle, he compelled the Prussians under Blucher to retreat from Ligny to Wavre. On the same day Marshal Ney attacked the English, who made a corresponding movement; first to Gemappe, and afterwards to Waterloo, where preparations were made for concentrating the allied forces. On the memorable 18th, Napoleon, who commanded in person, brought his whole forces to bear upon the British army. The action began at ten o'clock in the morning, and was gallantly sustained on both sides. The French attacks being uniformly unsuccessful, a desperate effort was made

at seven o'clock in the evening to force the left centre of the British by a combined attack of cavalry, infantry, and artillery; but the English guards, not waiting the attack, rushed forward and drove them back in great confusion. At this critical period, the Prussians, under Blucher, came up, attacked the enemy in the right flank, and decided the fate of the day. Bonaparte fled to Paris, where he soon perceived that his dynasty was at an end; the French capital was again occupied with foreign troops. Napoleon again abdicated, and finding all endeavours to escape to America futile, surrendered to the English, and was sent by the allies, divested of all his titles save that of general, to St. Helena, a rocky island in the Atlantic Ocean, where he was detained as a prisoner of war till his death; every attempt to liberate him having been declared a capital crime by parliament. He died in 1821: his remains were removed by permission of the British government, and deposited in the church of the Invalides on the 15th of Dec. 1840.

5. Louis XVIII., who was now permanently restored, returned to his capital on the 6th of July, whereupon an act of amnesty was passed excepting all those who had voted for the death of Louis XVI., or had accepted offices from Bonaparte after his return from Elba. This measure was only put in force against a few of Napoleon's most strenuous supporters.

6. The congress of Vienna now concluded their labours, and they evidently considered their own aggrandizement, as kings, a matter of much greater import than the liberation or independence of nations. Poland was annexed to Russia, Venice to Austria, Genoa to Sardinia, while Prussia received the half of Saxony and a considerable accession of provinces on the left bank of the Rhine. The three monarchs, who had thus encroached on the right of nations, entered into a solemn compact, on the 26th of September, to protect themselves against popular commotions, known as the Holy Alliance, from the fact that the contracting parties hypocritically declared that they took the principles and duties of the christian religion as the basis of their conduct and actions.

7. On the 20th of November, a second treaty of Paris was concluded, by which it was agreed that the French frontiers should be occupied at the cost of France, for not less than three years, by an allied force of 150,000 men, and

seven hundred millions of francs were to be paid as a remuneration for the last contest, the various monuments of art which the victories of the French arms had put into their possession were restored to the nation they had been taken from.

8. Though petty disputes took place from time to time between the royalist and liberal parties, France may be said to have enjoyed domestic tranquillity from the year 1815 to the death of Louis XVIII., which took place on the 16th of September, 1824. In 1823, Louis XVIII., who feared that the revolutionary movements in Spain endangered the safety of France, sent an army of one hundred thousand men into that country, and they speedily compelled the Spaniards to submit to the despotic sway of king Ferdinand.

9. Charles X., brother and successor of the deceased king, took the oath to govern according to the charter. He was however a resolute opposer of the principles of democracy, and lent too willing an ear to the counsels of the jesuits, a religious order, who wished to restore the church to the power it formerly possessed. In 1829, prince Polignac, an ultra royalist, was placed at the head of affairs; violent commotions ensued. In the spring of 1830, the ministers endeavoured to turn the public attention to war, by sending out an armament to seize Algiers, on account of insults previously offered to the French flag. Though success attended the expedition, the ministry gained no popularity by it; the chambers were dissolved in May, and the returns of the elections indicated so strong a majority against the ministry, that Charles X. was induced to violate the charter by issuing two arbitrary ordinances, countersigned by his ministers, abolishing the liberty of the press, and changing the mode of election; and he even went so far as to dissolve the new chamber of deputies before it had met.

10. These measures speedily excited the indignation of the people. The inhabitants of Paris rose in insurrection, and after a dreadful contest in the streets, which lasted three days, drove the royal troops out of the city. A provisional government was now formed, headed by the duke of Orleans, and the command of the national guard was conferred on the distinguished veteran La Fayette. On the 2nd of August, Charles signed his abdication, and immediately afterwards set sail for England while on the