not under his sway: Russia, Turkey,
Poland, and England. (See map.)

[Map: Italy in 525 A.D.]

[Map: Italy in 650 A.D.]

[Map: Italy in 1175 A.D.]

[Illustration: Charles the Fifth]

Three hundred years after this, the Austrians were again invading
Italy, and at the time when Bonaparte entered it (1796), they had
overrun and controlled the entire valley of the Po. The cause of the
war was still the deposing of the French monarch. The Austrian armies
were fighting to force the people of France to take back the rule of
the hated kings. The armies of France, on the other hand, represented
the rights of the people to choose their own form of government.

Of course the French, intoxicated by the success of the Revolution,
were eager to spread the republican form of government all over
Europe. There was a real possibility that they might do so, and the
kings were fighting in defense of their thrones. (The map shows
the conquests of the new republic up to this time.)

[Map: Europe in 1796]

Such was the situation when young Bonaparte, twenty-six years of age,
went down into Italy to take command of the French army. The generals,
many of them as old as his father, began offering him advice, but he
impatiently waved them aside and announced that he was going to wage
war on a plan hitherto unheard of. He made good his boast, and after a
short campaign in which he inspired his ragged, hungry army to perform
wonders in fighting, he had driven the Austrians out of northern
Italy, broken up the Republic of Venice, and forced the emperor to
make peace with France. After a brilliant but unsuccessful campaign in
Egypt and Syria, Bonaparte returned to France, where, as the popular
military hero, he had little difficulty in overthrowing the five
Directors of the French government and having himself elected "First
Consul" or president of France.

A new combination of nations now united against the republic, but
Bonaparte cut to pieces a great Austrian army, and a second time
compelled his enemies to make peace. He now proposed that the French
people elect him "emperor of the French" for life, and by an
overwhelming vote they did so. The empire was very different from the
other empires and kingships of Europe, since it was created by the
vote of the people. The other monarchs held their thrones by reason of
their descent from the chiefs of the plundering tribes which invaded
Europe during the Dark Ages. By this time, the kings h