elicate topic, by two
different persons, neither of whom produced any proper credentials, and
who denied all knowledge of each other, conceived, very naturally, that
they were mere adventurers if not spies, and at once broke off his
communications with both. Napoleon, on discovering this intrigue,
summoned Fouche to his presence. "So, sir," said he, "I find you make
peace and war without consulting me." He was dismissed from the ministry
of police, and sent into an honourable banishment, as Governor of Rome.
Fouche's presumption had been great: but long ere now Napoleon was
weary, not of him only, but of Talleyrand, and indeed of all those
ministers who, having reached eminent stations before he himself
acquired the supreme power, preserved, in their manner of transacting
business, and especially of offering advice, any traces of that period
in which Frenchmen flattered themselves they were free. The warnings
which he had received, when about to commence his atrocious proceedings
against Spain, were remembered with the higher resentment, as the course
of events in that country, month after month, and year after year,
confirmed the accuracy of the foresight which he had contemned. This
haughty spirit could not endure the presence of the man who could be
supposed to fancy that even on one point, he had the better of his
master.

The disgrace of Fouche was certainly a very unpopular measure. The
immediate cause of it could not be divulged, and the minister was
considered as having fallen a sacrifice to the honesty of his
remonstrances on the Spanish invasion and the increased rigour of the
Emperor's domestic administration. It was about this time that, in
addition to the castle of Vincennes, nine new state-prisons were
established in France; and the number of persons confined in these
receptacles, on warrants signed by the Emperor and his slavish privy
council, far exceeded those condemned to similar usage in any recent
period of the Bourbon monarchy, under the _lettres de cachet_ of the
sovereign. These were proofs, not to be mistaken, of the growth of
political disaffection. In truth the "continental system," the terrible
waste of life occasioned by the late campaigns in Poland and Austria,
and the constant demands, both on the treasure and the blood of France,
rendered necessary by the apparently interminable war in the
Peninsula--these were evils which could not exist without alienating the
hearts of the people. The p