CHAPTER XVI.
NAPOLEON'S INTERVENTIONS War, said St.Augustine, is but the transition from a lower to a higher state of peace.

The saying is certainly true for those wars that are waged in defence of some great principle or righteous cause.
It may perhaps be applied with justice to the early struggles of the French revolutionists to secure their democratic Government against the threatened intervention of monarchical States.

But the danger of vindicating the cause of freedom by armed force has never been more glaringly shown than in the struggles of that volcanic age.

When democracy had gained a sure foothold in the European system, the war was still pushed on by the triumphant republicans at the expense of neighbouring States, so that, even before the advent of Bonaparte, their polity was being strangely warped by the influence of military methods of rule.

The brilliance of the triumphs won by that young warrior speedily became the greatest danger of republican France; and as the extraordinary energy developed in her people by recent events cast her feeble neighbours to the ground, Europe cowered away before the ever-increasing bulk of France.