eyes
on that ancient palace of royalty; but he knew the importance of not
arousing any suspicion that a future king might dwell in the palace of
the abolished monarchy.

Bonaparte had brought back from Italy a magnificent bust of Junius
Brutus; there was no suitable place for it at the Luxembourg, and toward
the end of November, Bonaparte had sent for the Republican, David, and
ordered him to place the bust in the gallery of the Tuileries. Who could
suppose that David, the friend of Marat, was preparing the dwelling of a
future emperor by placing the bust of Caesar's murderer in the gallery of
the Tuileries? No one did suppose, nor even suspect it.

When Bonaparte went to see if the bust were properly placed, he noticed
the havoc committed in the palace of Catherine of Medicis. The Tuileries
were no longer the abode of kings, it is true, but they were a national
palace, and the nation could not allow one of its palaces to become
dilapidated. Bonaparte sent for citizen Lecomte, the architect, and
ordered him to _clean_ the Tuileries. The word might be taken in both
senses--moral and physical.

The architect was requested to send in an estimate of the cost of the
cleaning. It amounted to five hundred thousand francs. Bonaparte asked
if for that sum, the Tuileries could be converted into a suitable
"palace for the government." The architect replied that the sum
named would suffice not only to restore the Tuileries to their former
condition, but to make them habitable.

A habitable palace, that was all Bonaparte wanted. How should he, a
Republican, need regal luxury? The "palace of the government" ought to
be severely plain, decorated with marbles and statues only. But what
ought those statues to be? It was the First Consul's duty to select
them.

Accordingly, Bonaparte chose them from the three great ages and the
three great nations: from the Greeks, from the Romans, from France and
her rivals. From the Greeks he chose Alexander and Demosthenes; the
genius of conquest and the genius of eloquence. From the Romans he chose
Scipio, Cicero, Cato, Brutus and Caesar, placing the great victim side
by side with the murderer, as great almost as himself. From the
modern world he chose Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, the great Conde,
Duguay-Trouin, Marlborough, Prince Eugene, and the Marechal de
Saxe; and, finally, the great Frederick and George Washington--false
philosophy upon a throne, and true wisdom founding a free state.