CHAPTER XLIX. NAPOLEON. FROM the fall of the Babylonian empire (about B.C. 538.) to the Asiatic conquests of Alexander, Jerusalem was in the hands of the Persian emperors. It is with regret that the writer feels himself limited to a mere outline of the extraordinary, yet exact connection, subsisting at this interesting period between the Jewish and Christian series. Nor must the reader be startled at the novelty of discovering the Persian empire to have taken its place in the providential system, as the prototype of Germany; Greece of France; and the founder of the brilliant and brief Macedonian empire, to have filled, to the ancient world, the characteristic place and successes of the founder of the most dazzling and short-lived empire of modern days. The Persian empire, under Cyrus and his successors, had rendered itself the paramount power of Asia, had rapidly conquered the kingdoms lying between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, and finally established over them a government of great satraps or viceroys. In about a century, the provinces on the Mediterranean gradually assumed independence; but, at the time of the Macedonian invasion, those provinces had been once more brought to acknowledge at least a nominal dependence, and all joined in the resistance to Macedon.-In the beginning of the eleventh century, the German emperors possessed almost uncontrolled power, giving their vassals the title of kings, appointing to all dignities of the Church, erecting free cities, and calling the Diet, or grand council of the nation. The princes of the empire all held stations as Officers of the imperial household. From the fifteenth century these privileges were greatly reduced, and the emperors were little more than nominal heads, except of their hereditary dominions. But at the commencement of the French revolutionary war, the spirit of the German league was renewed, and all its princes took up arms in the common cause of the empire. Among the early exploits of the Persian empire had been the overthrow of the Babylonian, though Babylon was still left as an imperial city, renowned for its magnificence.-The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the zenith of Papal superiority, yet at that period Germany gave an irrecoverable blow to the temporal power of the Popedom. The emperor Henry IV. in the twelfth century, had begun the quarrel, on the right of investing bishops, the first effects of which were to drive the reigning Pope, Gregory VII., from Rome into exile, where this ambitious Pontiff died. From the close of the thirteenth century the Papal sovereignty over. Europe sank with surprising rapidity, and was almost totally destroyed by the schism of Avignon. It gradually recovered a portion of its influence, but its uncontrolled dominion, the empire of Innocent and Boniface, was at an end for ever. Alexander was the instrument by which the Macedonian empire was to punish the Persian, as the Persian had punished the Babylonian. Napoleon was the instrument by which the French empire was to break down the German, as the German had broken down the sovereignty of the spiritual Babylon. The original position and progress of both are almost identical.-Alexander was born in an obscure corner of Europe, which had hitherto been nearly barbarous, had been unknown as Greece, and was actually admitted to bear the name but a short time before'. Greece, at the period of Alexander's birth, was a loose system of discordant republics. It had just come out of a violent convulsion, the "Sacred War," occasioned by the plunder of the Temple of Delphi. Athens became especially the victim of factious 'Alexander, the seventh king of Macedon, was not suffered even to contend at the Olympic games, until he had furnished proof that his ancestors were Argive. ૨ ૧ orators and generals, and was, like all Greece, extravagantly eager for war at that moment'. We now revert to the Representative furnished by our own age to the mighty Macedonian. A mere juxta-position is all that can be given here. But the facts are familiar to the world, and the evidence is of the clearest nature. It absolutely cuts off every subterfuge of scepticism. Alexander was born at Pella in Macedon 2; the native of a small and sterile territory, looked on by the Greeks as a half savage spot, and which was fully brought within the Greek community but in the previous generation. The education of Alexander was not Macedonian, but eminently Greek, under Aristotle.-Napoleon was born in Corsica. This island was the Macedon of the south, a little wild spot, chiefly remarkable for its family feuds, and scarcely regarded as European, until its conquest by France, a few years before "The orators" says Mitford, vol. vii. "found their principal source of gain in war. No officer could hold foreign command without an orator, ready on all occasions to undertake his defence. To increase the foreign dependencies of Athens, to have disturbances arise in those dependencies, to have complaints to the courts of Athens, whether from foreign republics against each other, or against Athenian officers, all tended to the advantage of the orators." Are we here reading the history of France or Greece, or are we not rather reading the history of all democracy, the pretence and the profligacy alike in all? 2 B. C. 356. 3 15th of August, 1769. his birth. He was educated at the royal military school of Brienne, in France. A The Sacred War, commencing in the plunder of the great national temple of Delphi', by the Phocians, its guardians, who expended the plunder in levying troops, had thrown all Greece into convulsion. Greece became a system of confederated republics, with Philip holding the chief governorship. Philip was soon assassinated, to the great exultation of the republicans. The tumults of Greece again broke out immediately; the confederation instituted under Philip was at an end; the orators became the governors and disturbers of Greece. Speedily came bloody retribution. war of two years, in which Alexander first repelled the foreign enemies of his father, and then brought the Greeks to submission, exterminating the Thebans, (the original cause of the plunder of Delphi,) made him, at twenty-two, captain general of Greece for the invasion of Persia.— The plunder of the Church establishment of France was the first act of the revolution, as it was probably among its chief incentives. From this ensued a general convulsion of society. The "orators" became the virtual government. But the general state still formed the semblance of a 1 Diodorus says that the plunder of the shrine amounted to the enormous sum of 10,000 talents (about two millions and a quarter sterling). It was speedily dissipated in war. (Diod. xvi. 76.) ૨ ૧ 2 |