Disastrous effects of the blockades on the commerce of the United States.
A year later England established a similar paper blockade of the ports of the French empire and its allies, but permitted the ships of neutral powers to proceed, provided that they touched at an English port, secured a license from the English government, and paid a heavy export duty. Napoleon promptly declared all ships that submitted to these humiliating regulations to be lawful prizes of French privateers. The ships of the United States were at this time the most numerous and important of the neutral carriers. The disastrous results of these restrictions led to the various embargo acts (the first of which was passed by Congress in December, 1807), and ultimately to the destruction of the flourishing carrying trade of the United States.
Napoleon's attempt to make the continent independent of English colonial products.
Napoleon tried to render Europe permanently independent of the colonial productions brought from English colonies and by English ships. He encouraged the substitution of chicory for coffee, the cultivation of the sugar beet, and the discovery of new dyes to replace those coming from the tropics. But the distress caused by the disturbance in trade produced great discontent, especially in Russia; it rendered the domination of Napoleon more and more distasteful, and finally contributed to his downfall.[427]
Napoleon's policy in France.
251. France owed much to Napoleon, for he had restored order and guaranteed many of the beneficent achievements of the Revolution of 1789. His boundless ambition was, it is true, sapping her strength by forcing younger and younger men into his armies in order to build up the vast international federation of which he dreamed. But his victories and the commanding position to which he had raised France could not but fill the nation with pride.
Public works.
He sought to gain popular approval by great public improvements. He built marvelous roads across the Alps and along the Rhine, which still fill the traveler with admiration. He beautified Paris by opening up wide streets and quays, and building magnificent bridges and triumphal arches that kept fresh in the people's mind the recollection of his victories. By these means he gradually converted a mediæval town into the most beautiful of modern capitals.
Reorganization of education.
The whole educational system was reorganized and made as highly centralized and as subservient to the aims of the emperor as any department of government. Napoleon argued that one of the chief aims of education should be the formation of loyal subjects who would be faithful to the emperor and his successors. An imperial catechism was prepared, which not only inculcated loyalty to Napoleon, but actually threatened with eternal perdition those who should fail in their obligations to him, including military service.[428]