no match for Napoleon. The
Coalition, which the Czar and he did so much to form, was a house of
cards that fell at the conqueror's first touch; and the Prussian
alliance now proved to be a broken reed. His notions of strategy were
puerile. The French Emperor was not to be beaten by small forces
tapping at his outworks; and Austria might reasonably complain that
our neglect to attack the rear of the Grand Army in Flanders exposed
her to the full force of its onset on the Danube. But though his
genius pales before the fiery comet of Napoleon, it shines with a
clear and steady radiance when viewed beside that of the Continental
statesmen of his age. They flickered for a brief space and set. His
was the rare virtue of dauntless courage and unswerving constancy. By
the side of their wavering groups he stands forth like an Abdiel:

"Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal:
Nor number nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth or change his constant mind,
Though single."

While English statesmanship was essaying the task of forming a
Coalition Ministry under Fox and Grenville, Napoleon with untiring
activity was consolidating his position in Germany, Italy, and France.
In Germany he allied his family by marriage with the now royal Houses
of Bavaria and Wuertemberg. He chased the Bourbons of Naples from their
Continental domains. In France he found means to mitigate a severe
financial crisis, and to strengthen his throne by a new order of
hereditary nobility. In a word, he became the new Charlemagne.

The exaltation of the South German dynasties had long been a favourite
project with Napoleon, who saw in the hatred of the House of Bavaria
for Austria a sure basis for spreading French influence into the heart
of Germany. Not long after the battle of Austerlitz, the Elector of
Bavaria, while out shooting, received from a French courier a letter
directed to "Sa Majeste _le Roi_ de Baviere et de Suabe."[63] This
letter was despatched six days after a formal request was sent through
Duroc, that the Elector would give his daughter Augusta in marriage to
Eugene Beauharnais. The affair had been mooted in October: it was
clinched by the victory of Austerlitz; and after Napoleon's arrival at
Munich on the last day of the year, the final details were arranged.
The bridegroom was informed of it in the following laconic style: "I
have arrived at Munich. I have arranged your marriage wi