sity; but I may say that he has often been unjustly
accused. None but those who are blinded by fury will call him a Nero or
a Caligula. I think I have avowed his faults with sufficient candour to
entitle me to credit when I speak in his commendation; and I declare
that, out of the field of battle, Bonaparte had a kind and feeling
heart. He was very fond of children, a trait which seldom distinguishes
a bad man. In the relations of private life to call him amiable would
not be using too strong a word, and he was very indulgent to the
weakness of human nature. The contrary opinion is too firmly fixed in
some minds for me to hope to root it out. I shall, I fear, have
contradictors, but I address myself to those who look for truth. To
judge impartially we must take into account the influence which time and
circumstances exercise on men; and distinguish between the different
characters of the Collegian, the General, the Consul, and the Emperor.

CHAPTER XXIX.

1800.

Bonaparte's laws--Suppression of the festival of the 21st of
January--Officials visits--The Temple--Louis XVI. and Sir Sidney
Smith--Peculation during the Directory--Loan raised--Modest budget
--The Consul and the Member of the Institute--The figure of the
Republic--Duroc's missions--The King of Prussia--The Emperor
Alesander--General Latour-Foisac--Arbitrary decree--Company of
players for Egypt--Singular ideas respecting literary property--
The preparatory Consulate--The journals--Sabres and muskets of
honour--The First Consul and his Comrade--The bust of Brutus--
Statues in the gallery of the Tuileries--Sections of the Council
of State--Costumes of public functionaries--Masquerades--The
opera-balls--Recall of the exiles.

It is not my purpose to say much about the laws, decrees, and
'Senatus-Consultes', which the First Consul either passed, or caused to
be passed, after his accession to power, what were they all, with the
exception of the Civil Code? The legislative reveries of the different
men who have from time to time ruled France form an immense labyrinth,
in which chicanery bewilders reason and common sense; and they would
long since have been buried in oblivion had they not occasionally served
to authorise injustice. I cannot, however, pass over unnoticed the
happy effect produced in Paris, and throughout the whole of France, by
some of the first decisions of the Consuls. Perhaps none but those who
witnesse