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carriage through the Rue St Nicaise, from which danger be very narrowly escaped. This plan failing, it as usual served the intended victim, by enabling him to execute and transport several personal enemies; as also to venture upon the strong measure of the seizure and military execution of the duke of Enghien, which he justified, as similar sanguinary proceedings have frequently been justified, by state necessity, and the law of self-preservation. He was doubtless surrounded at the time with dangerous and implacable enemies, rendered desperate by his exaltation, Pichegru and Moreau, Georges, the two counts de Polignac, and forty-three more were arrested, of whom Pichegru died in prison ; Georges and eleven more suffered on the scaffold, and Moreau was exiled and departed for America. These ill-concerted intrigues hastened the grand event which they were destined to avert, and addresses were got up all over France, calling upon the first consul "to accept the crown of Charlemagne." He affected none of the reluctance of Cæsar, but aware that the French were not Romans at once acquiesced in the splendid proposal, which was confirmed by a degree of the senate, dated 18th May, 1804.
On the 21 December following he was crowned emperor of France in the church of Notre Dame in Paris, by the hands of pope Pius VI, whom he obliged to come in person from Rome to perform the ceremony. He was immediately recognised by the emperors of Austria and Russia, and by the kings of Prussia, Spain, and Denmark; the king of Sweden alone refusing. The popular form of the Cisalpine republic being incompatible with the new order of things, he now proclaimed himself king of Italy; and Great Britain being his sole
