Yet Europeans in the late 20th century, recovering from the disasters of World War I and II, tend to see him as a perceptive visionary whose diplomatic ideas kept Europe at peace between 1815 and 1914. In this time period, Europe became the dominant economic and military power in the world. By the mid-20th century, even the future American secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, was praising Metternich's diplomacy.
The French Revolution of 1789 and its consequences were referred to by Metternich as the "hateful time." Although much of the French nobility were executed or fled the country, the French monarch Louis XVI was allowed to retain his throne as a limited "constitutional" monarch until 1793. Increasingly convinced that the king was conspiring to import a mercenary army to gain back his full power, the revolutionary government decided in 1794 to execute the king and his family. A period of bloody chaos, named the " Reign of Terror," followed.
As order was slowly restored, one of the army's generals, Napoleon Bonaparte, convinced many French citizens that he could both save the Revolution and restore order. In 1804, following a national referendum, Napoleon was crowned emperor of France.
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