ad forgotten
that they owed their power to the swords of their fighting men, and
there had grown up a doctrine called "The Divine Right of Kings." In
other words, the kings claimed that God in his wisdom had seen fit to
make them rulers over these lands, and that they were responsible to
God alone. In this way they tried to make it appear that any one who
attempted to drive a king from his throne was opposed to the will of
Heaven.

The victorious French, exulting in their newly-won freedom from the
tyranny of kings and nobles, were full of warlike pride in the
wonderful victories gained by their armies under the brilliant
leadership of Napoleon. (He dropped his last name, Bonaparte, when he
was elected emperor.) They swept over the greater part of Europe and
helped to spread the idea that the people had rights that all kings
were bound to respect, and that it was not necessary to be ruled by
descendants of the old robber chiefs.

For sixteen years Napoleon did not meet defeat. He beat the Austrians
and Russians singly; he beat them combined. In two fierce battles, he
crushed the wonderful Prussian army, which had been trained in the
military school of Frederick the Great. He drove out the king of
Spain, the king of the Two Sicilies, the kings of several of the small
German kingdoms. He made one of his brothers king of Spain, another
king of Holland, a third king of Westphalia (part of western Germany).
He set his brother-in-law on the throne of Naples. He had his small
son crowned king of Rome. He took away from Prussia all of her
territory except Brandenburg, Silesia, Pomerania. and East and West
Prussia. He reorganized the old Polish kingdom and kings called it the
Grand Duchy of Warsaw. He forced Austria to give up all claim to
northern Italy. He annexed to France the land which is now Belgium and
Holland, and parts of western Germany and Italy. (See map
entitled "Europe in 1810.")

[Map: Europe in 1810]

All over Europe, those of the people who had education enough to
understand what was going on, were astonished to see the old feudal
kings and princes driven from their thrones and their places taken by
men sprung from the common people. The father of the Bonapartes had
been a poor lawyer. Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, king of South
Italy, was the son of an innkeeper. Bernadotte, one of Napoleon's
generals, whom the Swedes chose as their king, was likewise descended
from the lower classes. In nations where