Napoleon Bonaparte.
Napoleon, with the exception of Oliver Cromwell, was the first great statesman in Europe to engage in designs for the advantage of the Jews. In 1806, the world heard with amazement that Napoleon had summoned a grand Sanhedrim of the Jews to assemble at Paris. The twelve great questions which Napoleon submitted to the Jewish Rabbis thus assembled and the answers which they gave to him, did much to dispel popular prejudice against that people, and prepare the way for their social and material advancement. Some of these questions and answers were of peculiar importance in a religious point of view. From these we learn, that in 1806, among the Jewish people, and among some of the advanced thinkers of that age, marriage was considered null and void unless the ceremony was performed by a person possessing divine authority. Further, that polygamy is taught in the Jewish scriptures, but had been discontinued by the Jews by virtue of a decree of the Synod of Worms, in A. D. 1030. (For further particulars see "Journal des Debats" pour 1807. Milman's History of the Jews, page 592.)
The influence which Napoleon exerted upon the course of human affairs is without parallel in history. In comparison with these, the conquest of Caesar and Alexander dwindle into insignificance. Never before had any man inflicted upon his fellows, miseries so appalling; yet did never one man's hand scatter seeds destined to produce a harvest of political change, so vast and so beneficent. To the despots of Europe he was the dreaded apostle of democracy. The amazing events which followed each other in so swift succession in France were watched with profound interest in other lands. The results were quickly apparent. When Napoleon fell, the desire for self-government had silently spread over Europe. The anxiety, which the dethroned monarchs evinced to please their subjects, began to disclose to the people the secret of their own strength.
A congress of delegates from the great powers met in Vienna, in 1814, to restore the thrones to the kings who had been exiled during the wars of Napoleon. They were blind to the lesson which the revolution had taught. They dreamed not of the new forces which had been silently growing strong underneath the tumult and confusion of universal war. Napoleon was at length banished to St. Helena, a rocky island in the South Atlantic, far from any other inhabited land, where he died, May 5th, 1821. Thus darkly closed a career the most brilliant, the most influential, and the most remarkable of modern times.
The power of the people now began to be everywhere felt. In 1820, the American possessions of Spain rose against the despotism under which they had long suffered, and successfully asserted their independence. Insurrections broke out in Spain, Portugal, Naples and Piedmont, and only ended when they obtained constitutional government.
Across the Adriatic, Greece took encouragement from the energy of her neighbors to assert the liberty of which Turkish oppression defrauded her. Helped by Europe, she succeeded.
The City of Athens.
Athens, once the seat of learning and philosophy, the home of poets, painters and sculptors, the city that once led the world in civilization and art, became the capital of the modern kingdom of Greece.