r of Holland, shattered by his misfortunes and too proud to
undergo a public trial, cut short a life which already was doomed. Never
have plotters failed more ignominiously and played more completely into
the hands of their enemy. A _mot_ of the Boulevards wittily sums up the
results of their puny efforts: "They came to France to give her a king,
and they gave her an Emperor."

* * * * *

CHAPTER XX

THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE

For some time the question of a Napoleonic dynasty had been freely
discussed; and the First Consul himself had latterly confessed his
intentions to Joseph in words that reveal his super-human confidence
and his caution: "I always intended to end the Revolution by the
establishment of heredity: but I thought that such a step could not be
taken before the lapse of five or six years." Events, however, bore
him along on a favouring tide. Hatred of England, fear of Jacobin
excesses, indignation at the royalist schemes against his life, and
finally even the execution of Enghien, helped on the establishment of
the Empire. Though moderate men of all parties condemned the murder,
the remnants of the Jacobin party hailed it with joy. Up to this time
they had a lingering fear that the First Consul was about to play the
part of Monk. The pomp of the Tuileries and the hated Concordat seemed
to their crooked minds but the prelude to a recall of the Bourbons,
whereupon priestcraft, tithes, and feudalism would be the order of the
day. Now at last the tragedy of Vincennes threw a lurid light into the
recesses of Napoleon's ambition; and they exclaimed, "He is one of
us." It must thenceforth be war to the knife between the Bourbons and
Bonaparte; and his rule would therefore be the best guarantee for the
perpetual ownership of the lands confiscated during the
Revolution.[305]

To a materialized society that great event had come to be little more
than a big land investment syndicate, of which Bonaparte was now to be
the sole and perpetual director. This is the inner meaning of the
references to the Social Contract which figure so oddly among the
petitions for hereditary rule. The Jacobins, except a few conscientious
stalwarts, were especially alert in the feat of making extremes meet.
Fouche, who now wriggled back into favour and office, appealed to the
Senate, only seven days after the execution, to establish hereditary
power as the only means of ending the plots against Na