enure of the confiscated lands, he rewarded merit with social
honours, and finally he solidified his polity by a comprehensive code
of laws which made him the keystone of the now rounded arch of French
life.

His methods in this immense work deserve attention: they were very
different from those of the revolutionary parties after the best days
of 1789 were past. The followers of Rousseau worked on rigorous _a
priori_ methods. If institutions and sentiments did not square with
the principles of their master, they were swept away or were forced
into conformity with the new evangel. A correct knowledge of the
"Contrat Social" and keen critical powers were the prime requisites of
Jacobinical statesmanship. Knowledge of the history of France, the
faculty of gauging the real strength of popular feelings, tact in
conciliating important interests, all were alike despised.
Institutions and class interests were as nothing in comparison with
that imposing abstraction, the general will. For this alone could
philosophers legislate and factions conspire.

From these lofty aims and exasperating methods Bonaparte was speedily
weaned. If victorious analysis led to this; if it could only pull
down, not reconstruct; if, while legislating for the general will,
Jacobins harassed one class after another and produced civil war, then
away with their pedantries in favour of the practical statecraft which
attempted one task at a time and aimed at winning back in turn the
alienated classes. Then, and then alone, after civic peace had been
re-established, would he attempt the reconstruction of the civil order
in the same tentative manner, taking up only this or that frayed end
at once, trusting to time, skill, and patience to transform the tangle
into a symmetrical pattern. And thus, where Feuillants, Girondins, and
Jacobins had produced chaos, the practical man and his able helpers
succeeded in weaving ineffaceable outlines. As to the time when the
change took place in Bonaparte's brain from Jacobinism to aims and
methods that may be called conservative, we are strangely ignorant.
But the results of this mental change will stand forth clear and
solid for many a generation in the customs, laws, and institutions of
his adopted country. If the Revolution, intellectually considered,
began and ended with analysis, Napoleon's faculties supplied the
needed synthesis. Together they made modern France.

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