CHAPTER XV.

The Beginnings of the Storm--The United States of America and France--The Thought-Currents Which Moved toward a Vortex--Execution of King and Queen--France a Ruin but Free--A Republic--First Coalition--Poland and its Partition--Austria Fighting Alone for the Empire--Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy--His Methods and Their Result--Treaty of Campo Formio--Three New Republics--Napoleon in Egypt--His Return--Second Coalition--Dominions of Ecclesiastical Rulers Given Away--Napoleon the Instrument of Fate