ormed
during the Consulate were sufficient to inspire the Parisians with
lively gratitude and to turn them from political speculations to
scenes of splendour and gaiety that recalled the days of Louis XIV. If
we may believe the testimony of Romilly, who visited Paris in 1802,
the new policy had even then attained its end.

"The quiet despotism, which leaves everybody who does not wish to
meddle with politics (and few at present have any such wish) in the
full and secure enjoyment of their property and of their pleasures,
is a sort of paradise, compared with the agitation, the perpetual
alarms, the scenes of infamy, of bloodshed, which accompanied the
pretended liberties of France."

But while acknowledging the material benefits of Bonaparte's rule, the
same friend of liberty notes with concern:

"That he [Bonaparte] meditates the gaining fresh laurels in war can
hardly be doubted, if the accounts which one hears of his restless
and impatient disposition be true."

However much the populace delighted in this new _regime_, the many
ardent souls who had dared and achieved so much in the sacred quest of
liberty could not refrain from protesting against the innovations
which were restoring personal rule. Though the Press was gagged,
though as many as thirty-two Departments were subjected to the
scrutiny of special tribunals, which, under the guise of stamping out
brigandage, frequently punished opponents of the Government, yet the
voice of criticism was not wholly silenced. The project of the
Concordat was sharply opposed in the Tribunate, which also ventured to
declare that the first sections of the Civil Codes were not
conformable to the principles of 1789 and to the first draft of a code
presented to the Convention. The Government thereupon refused to send
to the Tribunate any important measures, but merely flung them a mass
of petty details to discuss, as "_bones to gnaw_" until the time for
the renewal by lot of a fifth of its members should come round. During
a discussion at the Council of State, the First Consul hinted with
much frankness at the methods which ought to be adopted to quell the
factious opposition of the Tribunate:

"One cannot work with an institution so productive of disorder. The
constitution has created a legislative power composed of three
bodies. None of these branches has any right to organize itself:
that must be done by the l