p up their delusive
hopse. We may notice in particular a change in the national oath of
allegiance, by which one most important clause was entirely erased:
namely, that expressive of hatred to _royalty_: and an edict, by which
the celebration of the day on which Louis XVI. died, was formally
abolished. Sieyes, in opposing this last measure, happened to speak of
Louis as "the tyrant":--"Nay, nay," said Napoleon, "he was no tyrant:
had he been one, I should this day have been a captain of engineers--and
you saying mass." The Bourbons were very right in considering these as
monarchical symptoms; but shrewd observers perceived clearly in whose
favour such changes were designed to operate. It appears that some of
Napoleon's colleagues made a last effort to circumscribe his power, by
urging on him the necessity of his immediately placing himself at the
head of the armies in the field; expecting, no doubt, great advantages,
could they remove him from the seat of government, at the time when the
new machinery was getting into a regular course of motion. He sternly
resisted all such suggestions. "I am Chief Consul," said he, biting his
nails to the quick, "I will remain in Paris."

And it was, indeed, most necessary for his success that he should remain
there at this critical epoch; for, in the arrangement of every branch of
the new government, he had systematically sought for his own security in
balancing against each other the lovers of opposite sets of principles
-men, who, by cordially coalescing together, might still have undone
him; or by carrying their animosities to extremity, overturned the whole
fabric of his manufacture. It was thus that he had chosen one consul
from the Republican party, and another from the Royalist; either of whom
might, in his absence, have been tempted to undermine his sway; whereas
both Cambaceres and Lebrun, overawed by his presence, proved eminently
serviceable in drawing over to the interests of the Chief Consul
innumerable persons, of their own ways of thinking originally, but no
longer such zealous theorists as to resist the arguments of
self-interest--those strong springs of hope and fear, of both of which
Napoleon, while at the Tuileries, held the master-key. It was thus,
also, that, in forming his ministry, he grouped together men, each of
whom detested or despised the others; but each unquestionably fitted, in
the highest degree, for the particular office assigned to him; and each,
ther