ed a hope that at last Napoleon
would relent, and that at last some share in the honours of the state
would reward so much assiduity and so much obsequiousness. He was
bitterly undeceived. Under the Imperial constitution the electoral
colleges of the departments did not possess the right of choosing
senators or deputies, but merely that of presenting candidates. From
among these candidates the emperor named members of the senate, and the
senate named members of the legislative body. The inhabitants of the
Upper Pyrenees were still strangely partial to Barere. In the year 1805,
they were disposed to present him as a candidate for the senate. On this
Napoleon expressed the highest displeasure; and the president of the
electoral college was directed to tell the voters, in plain terms, that
such a choice would be disgraceful to the department. All thought of
naming Barere a candidate for the senate was consequently dropped.
But the people of Argeles ventured to name him a candidate for the
legislative body. That body was altogether destitute of weight and
dignity; it was not permitted to debate; its only function was to vote
in silence for whatever the government proposed. It is not easy to
understand how any man who had sat in free and powerful deliberative
assemblies could condescend to bear a part in such a mummery. Barere,
however, was desirous of a place even in this mock legislature; and a
place even in this mock legislature was refused to him. In the whole
senate he had not a single vote.

Such treatment was sufficient, it might have been thought, to move the
most abject of mankind to resentment. Still, however, Barere cringed and
fawned on. His letters came weekly to the Tuileries till the year
1807. At length, while he was actually writing the two hundred and
twenty-third of the series, a note was put into his hands. It was from
Duroc, and was much more perspicuous than polite. Barere was requested
to send no more of his Reports to the palace, as the Emperor was too
busy to read them.

Contempt, says the Indian proverb, pierces even the shell of the
tortoise; and the contempt of the Court was felt to the quick even by
the callous heart of Barere. He had humbled himself to the dust; and he
had humbled himself in vain. Having been eminent among the rulers of
a great and victorious state, he had stooped to serve a master in the
vilest capacities; and he had been told that, even in those capacities,
he was not worthy