aced, the electors, having every thing to
dread from the Bourbons and foreign powers, would not accept so
hazardous a mission, and leave the assembly unattended?

Was it not also probable, that no one would covet the dangerous honour
of making part of the new national representation, the first act of
which must necessarily be, to proscribe for ever the dynasty of the
Bourbons, and acknowledge Napoleon, in spite of the foreign powers,
the sole and legitimate sovereign of France?

However, so true it is, that with Napoleon events always belied the
most sagacious conjectures, the electors hastened in crowds to Paris;
and men most respectable for wealth and character entered the lists to
be chosen deputies, soliciting votes with as much ardour, as if
France had been tranquil and happy[10].

[Footnote 10: I speak generally: I know there were
departments, the electoral colleges of which, from
various causes, were composed only of a small number of
individuals.]

And why was it so? Because, in the eyes of the electors and of the
deputies, the object at stake was not the fate of a particular man,
but of their country. It was because the critical situation of France,
instead of intimidating the partisans of the revolution, awakened in
their hearts the most courageous sentiments of patriotism.

They, whom I here call the partisans of the revolution, were not, as
certain persons endeavour to persuade the world, those sanguinary
beings, who were branded with the title of Jacobins, but that immense
body of Frenchmen, who, since the year 1789, have concurred more or
less in the destruction of the feudal system, with its privileges and
abuses; of those Frenchmen, in fine, who are no strangers to the value
of liberty, and the dignity of man.

But was the assembly of the _Champ de Mai_ to be deprived of its chief
ornament, the Empress and her son? The Emperor was not ignorant, that
this princess was carefully watched; and that she had been surprised
and threatened into an oath, to communicate all the letters she might
receive. He knew, also, that she was surrounded by improper persons:
but he thought, that he owed it to himself, and to his affection for
the Empress, to exhaust every means of putting an end to her
captivity. At first he attempted by several letters, full of feeling
and dignity, to move the justice and sensibility of the Emperor of
Austria. Entreaties and recl