quest. The great modern
difficulty remained: how to discipline the competition and to find an
impartial judge, an undisputed arbitrator of the competition.

IV. Napoleon, Judge-Arbitrator-Ruler.

Napoleon as judge of competition.--Security of his seat.
--Independence of his decisions.--Suppression of former
influences and end of monarchical or democratic intrigues.
--Other influences against which he is on guard.--His favorite
rule.--Estimate of candidates according to the kind and
amount of their useful labor.--His own competency.--His
perspicacity.--His vigilance.--Zeal and labor of his
functionaries.--Result of competition thus viewed and of
functions thus exercised.--Talents utilized and jealousies
disarmed.

Behold him, at last, this judge-arbitrator. On the 8th November, 1799,
he appears and takes his seat, and that very evening he goes to
work, makes his selections among the competitors and gives them their
commissions. He is a military chieftain and has installed himself;
consequently he is not dependent on a parliamentary majority, and any
insurrection or gathering of a mob is at once rendered abortive by his
troops before it is born. Street sovereignty is at an end; Parisians are
long to remember the 13th of Vendemaire and the way General Bonaparte
shot them down on the steps of Saint-Roch. All his precautions against
them are taken the first day and against all agitators whatever, against
all opponents disposed to dispute his jurisdiction. His arm-chair as
first Consul and afterwards his throne as Emperor are firmly fixed;
nobody but himself can undermine them; he is seated definitively and
will stay there. Profound silence reigns in the public crowd around
him; some among them dare whisper, but his police has its eye on them.
Instead of conforming to opinion he rules it, masters it and, if need
be, he manufactures it. Alone by himself from his seat on high,
in perfect independence and security, he announces the verdicts of
distributive justice. Nevertheless he is on his guard against the
temptations and influences which have warped the decisions of his
predecessors; in his tribunal, the schemes and intrigues which formerly
obtained credit with the people, or with the king, are no longer in
vogue; from now on, the profession of courtier or of demagogue is a
poor one.--On the one hand, there is no success, as formerly under the
monarchy, through the a