and Moreau commanded the
retreat. Sieyes now applied to him. Moreau was not yet the victor of
Hohenlinden. His ascendancy was doubtful, and he hesitated. They were
conferring together when news came that Bonaparte had escaped from
Egypt, and would soon be at Paris. Sieyes exclaimed, rather
impudently, "Then France is saved!" Moreau retorted, "I am not wanted.
That is the man for you." At first Bonaparte was reserved, and took so
much time to feel his way that Sieyes, who was the head of the
government, called him an insolent fellow who deserved to be shot.
Talleyrand brought them together, and they soon came to an
understanding. The conspiracy of Brumaire would have failed at the
deciding moment but for the Abbe. For Bonaparte, when threatened with
outlawry, lost his head, and Sieyes quietly told him to drive out the
hostile deputies. Thereupon the soldier, obeying the man of peace,
drew his sword and expelled them.

Everybody now turned to the great legislator of 1789 for the
Constitution of the hour. With incomparable opportunities for
observation, he had maturely revolved schemes for the government of
France on the lines of that which was rejected in 1795. He refused to
write anything; but he consented to dictate, and his words were taken
down by Boulay de la Meurthe, and were published long after, in a
volume of which there is no copy at Paris or in London.

What I have just said will give you a more favourable view of Sieyes
than you may find in books. The Abbe was not a high-minded man, and he
has no friends in his own country. Some dislike him because he was a
priest, some because he was an unfrocked priest. He is odious to
royalists as a revolutionist, and to republicans as a renegade. I have
spoken of him as a political thinker, not as a writer, an orator, or
an administrator. Mr. Wentworth Dilke and Mr. Buckle[1] have pointed
out something more than specks in the character of Burke. Even if much
of what they say is true, I should not hesitate to acknowledge him as
the first political intellect of his age. Since I first spoke of
Sieyes, certain papers have come to light tending to show that he was
as wicked as the rest of them. They would not affect my judgment on
his merit as a thinker.

[1] Dilke, _Papers of a Critic_, vol. ii. pp. 309-384; Buckle,
_History of Civilisation_, ed. J. M. Robertson, pp. 258-269.

In this oracular manner the Constitution of 1799 came into existence,
and it was no