FALL OF THE OLD ORDER 375

of the people of France, he threatened to re-establish Grand
Monarchy. He created a new nobility of service, depend-
ent and loyal; he suppressed public opinion by secret police,
arrests and arbitrary confinements ; journals and newspapers
were censored and regulated ; even the schools and churches
were converted into pillars of the new despotism which was
no better than that of Louis XIV, though it was also no
worse.

Under Napoleon France got a strong and centralised
government, consolidated the work of the Revolution, codi-
fied her laws (the Code Napoleon), secured social equality,
and trial by jury, a national Church, the Bank of France,
and great buildings, roads, canals, etc. But the " successor
of Charlemagne" and the Bourbons also created a Legion
of Honour, carried the Roman eagles on his military stand-
ards, and dreamed of universal sovereignty. " Supreme in
France, he would also be supreme in Europe. No lasting
peace was possible with such a man, unless the European
nations submitted to his will. They would not submit, and
as a result the Continent for more than a decade was drench-
ed with blood."1

However, the Revolution in France had not been in vain.
Its principles and spirit pervaded the whole of Europe and
still permeate the modern World. Immediately it affected
the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. Everywhere during
the nineteenth century and after it stimulated demand for
the abolition of the established privileges of birth, wealth
and other characteristics of the ancient regime. " The his-
tory of the nineteenth century," as Mr. Davies writes, " is
one of gradual but very definite advance towards the sove-
reignty of the people, and a great deal of the progress which

1. Webster, History of Mankind, pp. 485-6.