orted and reiterated until its exaggeration became falsehood, yet
France and the Napoleonic soldiers appeared to fight and suffer
enthusiastically for what they still considered a great cause. Even
the dull boors, whose intelligence had been nearly quenched by
centuries of oppression, felt stirrings of manhood as they listened to
the Emperor's fiery words; the middle classes, though not deceived,
had no power to refute such language from such a man; and among the
few truly enlightened men of each nation who were aware of their
country's abasement under dynastic absolutism, a tremendous impression
was often created, at least temporarily.

This fact had already been well illustrated in Poland. Austria had
another appanage whose people cared little for the prestige of their
foreign kings and much for their own liberties. The Hungarians were a
conservative, capable race; many of them were ardent Protestants, well
educated and well informed, successfully combining in their
institutions the best elements of both civic and patriarchal life. To
them Napoleon issued a proclamation on May fifteenth which was a
masterpiece of its kind. It set forth that the Emperor Leopold II in
his short reign had acknowledged their rights and confirmed their
liberties; that Francis I had sworn to maintain their laws and
constitution, but had never convoked their estates except to demand
money for his wars; that in view of such treatment, Hungary should now
rise and secure national independence. The proclamation produced some
effect, but as a whole the Hungarians stood fast in their allegiance.

Four years earlier Napoleon's proclamation declaring that the Bourbons
of Naples had ceased to reign was launched from Schoenbrunn. Now
another, to which reference has already been made, equally famous,
was dictated within its walls, though dated, May seventeenth, from the
"Imperial Camp at Vienna." It was a document even abler than that
addressed to the Hungarians. Citing the abuses which had from
immemorial times resulted from the confusion of temporal with
spiritual power in the papacy, it revoked the donation of Charles the
Great to Hadrian I (made a thousand years before!), declared that Pius
VII had ceased to reign, and that, as an indemnity for the loss of his
secular power, he was to receive an annual increase of income
amounting to two million francs. In time of peace this decree would
have produced throughout Europe a tremendous stir; but in th