VI INTR0DUCT0RY NOTE

of Toulon (1793). On the 14th of October, 1795, he routed and dispersed, by a terrible cannonade, the National Guard when it attempted to force its way to the Convention in the Tuileries, and was in conséquence raised to the command of the Army of the Interior. The following year he was appointed to the suprême command of the Army of Italy, and directed the exceedingly brilliant campaign of 1796-1797. With vastly inferior forces he defeated successively five of Austria's armies, and forced upon that country the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797), in which it ceded to France Lombardy, the Netherlands, and some smaller territories. The eyes of the whole nation were now on Napoléon, and when the Directory in 1798 determined to invade England, he was made commander- in-chief of the invading army. But instead of executing the purpose of the Directory, he secretly formed the plan of conquering Egypt, where he hoped to inflict a crushing blow on England by destroying her Indian commerce, and aiso to lay the foundation of that universal empire which ever allured his imagination. When his plans for the Egyptian campaign were matured he succeeded in persuading the Directory to agrée to them. The f urther developments of this enterprise are to be read in the text below.

Thiers' historical works are distinguished by a rare power of lively and dramatic narrative, and a libéral, tolérant, and truthful spirit, but are considered to be at times déficient in rigorous historical criticism. As an admirer of Napoléon, he is naturally inclined, in spite of his own republican spirit, to extol his hero. .

ïffTRODÛCTOfcY KÔÏË, Vil

Thiers early devoted himself to a public career. He became successively Minister of the Interior, Minister of Commerce and Public Works, and Minister of Foreign Affaire. In thèse various offices he displayed much power and capacity. He was at three différent times prime-mini8ter. During his premiership he sought to gain by diplomacy what Napoléon had tried to attain by force in Egypt and Syria — a controlling power for France in the Levant. At the révolution of 1848 he accepted the Kepublic, and was banished by Napoléon III. after the coup d'état of 1851. Permitted to return, he re-entered the Chambers in 1863. During the Franco-Prussian War, 1870, he again rose into eminence, and conducted ijie negotiations of peace at Versailles. In 1871 he was elected "Président of the # French Eepulriic," which office he held until May, 1873. He continued as a member of the French Assembly until the year of his death, 1877.