ble as his military talent; the
nation willingly resigned itself into his powerful and most skilful
hands, and the machinations of the royalists against his life, the
conspiracies and the infernal machine of 1800, only paved the way to the
Consulate for life, 2d of August, 1802. The Empire followed on the 18th
of May, two years later.

The name of the Republic, however, was retained long after its substance
had departed. The title of Emperor appears as early as 1790, in a
proposition made by M. de Villette on the 17th of June, before the club
of 1789, that the king should be saluted by that title on the day of the
fete of the Federation. "Let us efface," he exclaimed, "the names of
king, of kingdom, and of subject, which will never combine with the word
'liberty,'" _Empire_ signified, under the monarchy as under the
Republic, rather the extent of the territory of France than a form of
government. The first article of the senatus-consulte organique of the
28th Floreal, year XII, which modified the Consular constitution, read:
"The government of the Republic is confided to an emperor who shall take
the title of _Empereur des Francais_." And the Emperor's oath was: "I
swear to maintain the integrity of the territory of the Republic." The
word _Republique_ did not disappear entirely from the official language
for four years. The figure of the Republic ceased to appear on the seal
of State in 1805, and the inscription REP. FRA. from the official stamp
on the news journals on the 1st of January, 1806. It was on this date
also that the Gregorian calendar replaced that of the Republic. The
decree of the 28th of May, 1807, is the last act of the Imperial
government in which appears the phrase _par les constitutions de la
Republique_, but it was only from the 1st of January, 1809, that the
coinage was stamped _Empire Francais_, instead of _Republique
Francaise_. It would seem that in 1808, Napoleon, little as he liked the
Republic, was the only one who remembered its official existence.

Among the most efficient of the minor measures taken to replace the old
order of things by the new was the creation of a new honorary order, to
supersede those of the ancient regime,--the cross of Saint-Louis, for
military services; the cordon of Saint-Michel (cordon noir), for civil
services; and the order of the Saint-Esprit (cordon bleu), which
included only a hundred chevaliers, of the most ancient nobility. A law
of May 19, 1802, created a