and ecclesiastical lands; the army
idolised the great captain who promised them glory and profit; the
Church rallied to an autocrat who restored the hierarchy. Moreover,
the brilliancy of Napoleon's military genius was balanced by an
all-embracing political sagacity. The chief administrative decrees of
the Convention, especially those relating to education and the civil
and penal codes, were welded into form by ceaseless energy. Everything
he touched was indeed degraded from the Republican ideal, but he drove
things through, imposed his own superhuman activity into his
subordinates, and became one of the chief builders of modern France.
"The gigantic entered into our very habits of thought," said one of
his ministers. But his efforts to maintain the stupendous twenty
years' duel with the combined forces of England and the continental
monarchies, and his own overweening ambition, broke him at length, and
he fell, to fret away his life caged in a lonely island in
mid-Atlantic.

The new ideas were none the less revolutionary of social life. The
salon, that eminently French institution, soon felt their power. The
charming irresponsible gaiety and frivolity of the old _regime_ gave
place to more serious preoccupation with political movements. The
fusing power of Rousseau's genius had melted all hearts; the solvent
wit of Voltaire and the precise science of the Encyclopedists were a
potent force even among the courtiers themselves. The centre of social
life shifted from Versailles to Paris and the salons gained what the
court lost. Fine ladies had the latest pamphlet of Sieyes read to them
at their toilette, and maids caught up the new phrases from their
mistresses' lips. Did a young gallant enter a salon excusing himself
for being late by saying, "I have just been proposing a motion at the
club," every fair eye sparkled with interest. A deputy was a social
lion, and a box for the National Assembly exchanged for one at the
opera at a premium of six livres. Speeches were rehearsed at the
salons and action determined. Chief of the hostesses was Madame[173]
Necker: at her crowded receptions might be seen Abbe Sieyes, the
architect of Constitutions; Condorcet, the philosopher; Talleyrand,
the patriotic bishop; Madame de Stael, with her strong, coarse face
and masculine voice and gestures. More intimate were the Tuesday
suppers at which a dozen chosen guests held earnest communion. Madame
de Beauharnais was noted for her excellen