The following day, Tuesday, the First Consul asked me to breakfast with him. After breakfast, while he was conversing with some other person, Madame Bonaparte and Hortense pressed me to make advances towards obtaining a re-instalment in my office, appealing to me on the score of the friendship and kindness they had always shown me. They told me that I had been in the wrong, and that I had forgotten myself. I answered that I considered the evil beyond remedy; and that, besides, I had really need of repose. The First Consul then called me to him, and conversed a considerable time with me, renewing his protestations of goodwill towards me.
At five o'clock I was going downstairs to quit the Tuileries for good when I was met by the office messenger, who told me that the First Consul wished to see me. Duroc; who was in the room leading to the cabinet, stopped me as I passed, and said, "He wishes you to remain. I beg of you not to refuse; do me this favour. I have assured him that I am incapable of filling your office. It does not suit my habits; and besides, to tell you the truth, the business is too irksome for me." I proceeded to the cabinet without replying to Duroc. The First Consul came up to me smiling, and pulling me by the ear, as he did when he was in the best of humours, said to me, "Are you still in the sulks?" and leading me to my usual seat he added, "Come, sit down."
Only those who knew Bonaparte can judge of my situation at that moment. He had at times, and when he chose, a charm in his manners which it was quite impossible to resist. I could offer no opposition, and I resumed my usual office and my accustomed labours. Five minutes afterwards it was announced that dinner was on table. "You will dine with me?" he said. "I cannot; I am expected at the place where I was going when Duroc called me back. It is an engagement that I cannot break."—"Well, I have nothing to say, then. But give me your word that you will be here at eight o'clock."—"I promise you." Thus I became again the private secretary of the First Consul, and I believed in the sincerity of our reconciliation.
CHAPTER XIII.
1802-1803.
The Concordat and the Legion of Honour—The Council of State and the
Tribunate—Discussion on the word 'subjects'—Chenier—Chabot de
l'Allier's proposition to the Tribunate—The marked proof of
national gratitude—Bonaparte's duplicity and self-command—Reply to
the 'Senatus-consulte'—The people consulted—Consular decree—
The most, or the least—M. de Vanblanc's speech—Bonaparte's reply—
The address of the Tribunate—Hopes and predictions thwarted.
It may truly be said that history affords no example of an empire founded like that of France, created in all its parts under the cloak of a republic. Without any shock, and in the short space of four years, there arose above the ruins of the short-lived Republic a Government more absolute than ever was Louis XIV.'s. This extraordinary change is to be assigned to many causes; and I had the opportunity of observing the influence which the determined will of one man exercised over his fellow-men.
The great object which Bonaparte had at heart was to legitimate his usurpations by institutions. The Concordat had reconciled him with the Court of Rome; the numerous erasures from the emigrant list gathered round him a large body of the old nobility; and the Legion of Honour, though at first but badly received, soon became a general object of ambition. Peace, too, had lent her aid in consolidating the First Consul's power by affording him leisure to engage in measures of internal prosperity.
The Council of State, of which Bonaparte had made me a member, but which my other occupations did not allow me to attend, was the soul of the Consular Government. Bonaparte felt much interest in the discussions of that body, because it was composed of the most eminent men in the different branches of administration; and though the majority evinced a ready compliance with his wishes, yet that disposition was often far from being unanimous. In the Council of State the projects of the Government were discussed from the first with freedom and sincerity, and when once adopted they were transmitted to the Tribunate, and to the Legislative Body. This latter body might be considered as a supreme Legislative Tribunal, before which the Tribunes pleaded as the advocates of the people, and the Councillors of State, whose business it was to support the law projects, as the advocates of the Government. This will at once explain the cause of the First Consul's animosity towards the Tribunate, and will show to what the Constitution was reduced when that body was dissolved by a sudden and arbitrary decision.