brought with him to the _Rue de la Victoire_ only 100,000
crowns, saved from the fair allowances of his rank. No one who considers
the long series of intrigues which had passed between Buonaparte and the
party that triumphed in Fructidor, can doubt how he regarded this part
of their conduct. Every day confirmed them in their jealousy; nor did he
take much pains on the other hand to conceal his feelings towards them.
On many occasions they were willing to make use of him, although they
dreaded in so doing to furnish him with new proofs of the vast
superiority which he had reached in public opinion above themselves; and
he was, on his part, chary of acceding to any of their proposals.

On the 21st of January, the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI. was
to be celebrated, according to custom, as a great festival of the
Republican calendar; and, conscious how distasteful the observance had
by this time become to all persons capable of reflection, the government
would fain have diverted attention from themselves, by assigning a
prominent part in the ceremonial to him, on whom, as they knew, all eyes
were sure to be fixed whenever he made his appearance. Napoleon
penetrated their motives. He remonstrated against the ceremony
altogether, as perpetuating the memory of a deed, perhaps unavoidable,
but not the less to be regretted. He told them that it was unworthy of a
great Republic to triumph, year after year, in the shedding of an
individual enemy's blood. They answered by reminding him that the
Athenians and Romans of old recorded, in similar festivals, the downfall
of the Pisistratidae and the exile of the Tarquins. He _might_ have
replied, that it is easier for a nation to renounce Christianity in
name, than to obliterate altogether the traces of its humanising
influence. But this view did not as yet occur to Napoleon--or if it had,
could not have been promulgated to their conviction. He stood on the
impolicy of the barbarous ceremony; and was at length, with difficulty,
persuaded to appear in it as a private member of the institute, along
with the rest of that association. His refusal to be there as the great
general of the Republic annoyed the timid Directory; and yet, on his
being recognised in his civic dress, and pointed out to new myriads of
observers, the effect which the government had desired to produce was
brought about in spite of all Buonaparte's reluctance. The purpose of
the assemblage was almost forgotten: