man nature. The contrary opinion is too firmly fixed in
some minds for me to hope to root it out. I shall, I fear, have
contradictors, but I address myself to those who look for truth. To
judge impartially we must take into account the influence which time and
circumstances exercise on men; and distinguish between the different
characters of the Collegian, the General, the Consul, and the Emperor.

CHAPTER XXIX.

1800.

Bonaparte's laws--Suppression of the festival of the 21st of
January--Officials visits--The Temple--Louis XVI. and Sir Sidney
Smith--Peculation during the Directory--Loan raised--Modest budget
--The Consul and the Member of the Institute--The figure of the
Republic--Duroc's missions--The King of Prussia--The Emperor
Alesander--General Latour-Foisac--Arbitrary decree--Company of
players for Egypt--Singular ideas respecting literary property--
The preparatory Consulate--The journals--Sabres and muskets of
honour--The First Consul and his Comrade--The bust of Brutus--
Statues in the gallery of the Tuileries--Sections of the Council
of State--Costumes of public functionaries--Masquerades--The
opera-balls--Recall of the exiles.

It is not my purpose to say much about the laws, decrees, and
'Senatus-Consultes', which the First Consul either passed, or caused to
be passed, after his accession to power, what were they all, with the
exception of the Civil Code? The legislative reveries of the different
men who have from time to time ruled France form an immense labyrinth,
in which chicanery bewilders reason and common sense; and they would
long since have been buried in oblivion had they not occasionally served
to authorise injustice. I cannot, however, pass over unnoticed the
happy effect produced in Paris, and throughout the whole of France, by
some of the first decisions of the Consuls. Perhaps none but those who
witnessed the state of society during the reign of Terror can fully
appreciate the satisfaction which the first steps towards the
restoration of social order produced in the breasts of all honest men.
The Directory, more base and not less perverse than the Convention, had
retained the horrible 21st of January among the festivals of the
Republic. One of Bonaparte's first ideas on attaining the possession of
power was to abolish this; but such was the ascendency of the abettors
of the fearful event that he could not venture on a straightforward
course. He a