Both countries rejoiced in the cessation of hostilities. Fox came over from England and was received with great cordiality. Napoleon said, "I considered him an ornament to mankind, and was very much attached to him."
Four months later, Aug. 4, 1802, by an overwhelming majority of the votes of the people, over three and a half millions in favor to about eight thousand against it, Napoleon was declared Consul for life. La Fayette could not conscientiously favor it, unless liberty of the press were guaranteed. He said to Napoleon, "A free government, and you at its head—that comprehends all my desires."
Napoleon said, "He thinks he is still in the United States—as if the French were Americans. He has no conception of what is required for this country." Napoleon felt, no doubt sincerely, that France was more stable under an Emperor than a President. And yet since the fall of Napoleon III. France has shown that she can live and prosper as a republic.
All through these years the Royalists were plotting to return to the throne; for when did ever a king reign who did not think it was by "Divine right"?
Louis XVIII. wrote another letter to Napoleon: "You must have long since been convinced, General, that you possess my esteem.... We may insure the glory of France. I say we, because I require the aid of Bonaparte, and he can do nothing without me. General, Europe observes you; glory awaits you; I am impatient to restore peace to my people." In answer to this letter, Napoleon wrote, "You must not seek to return to France. To do so, you must trample over a hundred thousand dead bodies."
Several attempts were made to assassinate Napoleon. Possibly some of these were the work of Jacobins, who feared that the republic was slipping into an empire; but they were for the most part traced to Royalists, the leaders of whom lived in England, and were receiving yearly pensions, because they had aided her in former wars.
On the evening of Dec. 24, 1800, as Napoleon was going to the opera to hear Haydn's Oratorio of "The Creation," he was obliged to pass through the Rue Saint-Nicaise, where an upturned cart covered a barrel of gunpowder, grape-shot, and pieces of iron. The "infernal machine" exploded two seconds after he had passed in his carriage. The carriage was uplifted from the ground, four persons were killed, sixty wounded, of whom several died, and forty-six houses were badly damaged. One of the horses of Napoleon's escort was wounded.
Other plans were soon discovered, concocted by Georges Cadoudal, General Pichegru, and others, all in the confidence of the Comte d'Artois, afterwards Charles X., the brother of Louis XVIII. He lived in or near London.
Cadoudal, or Georges as he is usually called, was to meet Napoleon in the streets, and, with a band of thirty or forty followers, kill him and his staff. When all was ready, the Bourbon princes were to be near at hand to head the revolt of the people. Georges was arrested and executed with eleven of his companions.
The Duke d'Enghien, Louis Antoine, Henri de Bourbon, son of the Duke of Bourbon, and a descendant of the great Condé who had done so much for France in her wars, was living at Ettenheim, under the protection of the Margrave of Baden, to be near the lady whom he loved, the Princess Charlotte de Rohan, and "to be ready," says Walter Scott, "to put himself at the head of the royalists in the east of France," if opportunity offered.