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THE LIFE OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON.

[CHAP. IV.] a general officer, independently of other resources, renders it certain that he could not have been exposed to greater inconve niences of this sort than such as were common to men of his rank. To suppose that, in a season of general scarcity, and under the pressure of a depreciated currency, he was exempt from ordinary discomforts, would be to form an hypothesis at variance with his admitted superiority to all mercenary considerations. In the French revolution, as in the American, few that were honest were rich. But from Bonaparte's prudent habits and simple tastes, incessant application to duty, and long absence from the capital, it may be safely inferred that in this crisis of national difficulty, he was subjected personally to but slight annoyance. For, although it appears that he sold his carriage and a set of books soon after his arrival in the metropolis, it is certain that, about the same time, he placed his brother Louis at a provincial military school, and at his own expense maintained him there.

His time was chiefly devoted to official duty and professional studies; his hours of recreation to the society of his early friends, and the entertainments of the theatre. Private circles felt the energy of his language; public men, the scrutiny of his look. His conversation was remarked as picturesque and original. His demeanour, which was generally sedate, sometimes indicated intense meditation. For he looked into himself, and lingered to contemplate the glorious inspirations of his genius; as a beauty gazes with secret pride on the reflection of those charms which are to delight, she feels, and to subdue mankind.

CHAPTER V.

From October 1795 to March 1796.

The convention adopt the constitution of the year III-Its principal provisions-Likely to be acceptable to the nation-The additional acts engrafted on it excite dissatisfaction-Wisdom of those acts-Combined opposition of the royalists and jacobins-The people of Paris stirred up to opposition-They vote for accepting the constitution and for rejecting the actsA majority of the nation and the armies give their suffrages for both— Resistance and insurrection of the sections of Paris-Violence of the section Lepelletier-Measures of the convention-General Menou commander in chief of the army of the interior-He attemps to disperse an armed body of insurgents-Hesitates and fails-Danger of the crisis - Bonaparte an accidental witness of Menou's miscarriage-Repairs to the gallery of the convention-Agitation of that assembly-His conference with the executive committee-Protests against being fettered by commissaries of the convention - Is appointed by the committee to command the troops- Barras made nominal commander in chief-Bonaparte's prompt and judicious measures-Gets possession of the cannon and occupies the bridges-Danican, commander in chief of the insurgents, summons the convention to dismiss their troops-Bonaparte furnishes the members with armsMovement of the insurgent leader Lafond, upon Pont-Neuf- Cartaux abandons that post, and falls back to the Louvre-The insurgents close in and fire upon the Tuileries-Bonaparte orders his troops to act-Spirit and success of his operations- Courage and repulse of Lafond-The insurgents defeated at all points-Humanity of Bonaparte-The insurrection quelled-Exultation of the convention- Meanness of Barras-The appointment of Bonaparte, as commander of the army of the interior, confirmed by the convention-Their moderation-Trial and danger of Menou -Saved by the influence of Bonaparte-Bonaparte disarms the national guard, and executes other unwelcome but salutary measures-Scarcity in Paris-Discontent of the populace-Anecdote-Recomposes the legislative guard for the new government-Organises a legion of police, and a guard for the directory-Becomes acquainted with Madame Beauharnais

and her son-Interesting interview-The Italian frontier again in danger -Bonaparte consulted by the directory-Furnishes a plan of campaign— Appointed commander in chief of the army of Italy-Marries Madame Beauharnais State of his fortune and his probable reflections - Leaves Paris and takes command of his army.

In the summer of 1795, while General Bonaparte was employed in the war department at Paris, the Convention discussed and adopted the constitution of the year III. By this plan of government, which was a manifest improvement on the one it was intended to supersede, the executive power of France, under certain limitations, was lodged in a directory of five members; the judicial power in a body of elective magistrates, whose sentence, in criminal cases, were to be founded on the verdicts of juries; and the legislative power, in two houses, the upper, or council of ancients, consisting of two hundred and fifty members, and the lower, consisting of twice that number, and called the council of five hundred. The legislative bodies were to appoint the members of the directory, and to reappoint one out of the five every year, and were themselves to be chosen by electors delegated for that purpose by the people in their primary assemblies. One third of each council was to be elected annually, so that the entire legislature was to be triennially renewed by the popular will, and the entire directory quinquennially, by the will of the legislature. There was not only a proper separation of the great branches of power in the state, and an approved subdivision of the legislative branch, but an approximation to unity in the executive, and to independence in the judicial departments. The advantage of a single executive magistrate, like the President of the United States, was not overlooked in the deliberations of the Convention; but a long line of paternal princes had created such a natural horror of monarchical power, that a nearer approach to unity than five, had it been proposed by the Convention, would have been repelled by their constituents (1).

Although, in this form of government, there was much to recommend it to the nation, it was modified by two supplementary decrees or additional acts, which, after an animated debate, the Convention thought fit to adopt, and which exposed their work and themselves to mischievous misrepresentation and violent resistance.

By these decrees, the one engrafted as an unavoidable sanction (2) on the other, and both made inseparable parts of the constitution, the delegated choice of the people was to be so restricted, on the first occasion, as to compose two thirds of the new legislature of members of the existing Convention (3). So that, by this constitution, five hundred members of the assembly which framed it were to enter, by privilege, into the composition of the legislature which it proposed to create, while two hundred and fifty members, only, were to be drawn, by right of election, from the nation at large.

Whatever might be the motives of prudence, or prospects of advantage, by which this arrangement was dictated, it could scarcely be expected to escape exceptions, even from a constituency united in political concord. The people, it was true, in their primary assemblies, might reject both the constitution and the additional acts incorporated with it. But the necessity of a better organized government than the rule of a popular assembly, in which all the authority of the state, in spite of theory and experience, was accumulated, was generally felt and acknowledged. In this state of things, when the heaving of recent convulsions, and the pressure of foreign war, rendered hesitation in domestic councils critically dangerous, to submit to the nation a form of government which, desirable in itself, was clogged with offensive conditions, was a proceeding tending to place the prejudices of the people directly in the way of their judgment. But a faithful physician offers to the lips of his patient the salutary draught, although it may disgust his taste and nauseate his stomach.

This natural irritation of public feeling it was the business of the existing parties to increase. The jacobins were smarting under the severity of the thermidoriens, while the royalists had profited by their indulgence. These were grown bold; those despe

Both parties saw, in the tranquil vigour of public affairs, likely to follow the adoption of the new constitution, the defeat of their hopes and projects. Thus, while their opinions differed, their interests coincided and their passions combined, and they readily cooperated in reprobating the additional acts, and opposing the adoption of the constitution, as well as in exciting resistance to it after it was accepted and proclaimed. The jacobins adhering to their theories, and the royalists speculating on the accidents of domestic confusion and foreign aid, insisted, with

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equal violence, on leaving with the people the unlimited choice of their representatives, and denounced the supplementary decrees as acts of gross usurpation, of self-created privilege, and incipient tyranny. But the motives of these parties were as foul as their professions were fair; while the conduct of the Convention, though to appearance selfish and absurd, was really founded on considerations of foresight and caution, which prudent and patriotic men could not well disregard.

In 1791, the constituent assembly, acting upon a principle of disinterestedness, in which there was more of prudery than wisdom, had decreed the exclusion of its own members from the legislative assembly. By this respectable but inconsiderate delicacy, the new republic was deprived of the services of her most enlightened and experienced statesmen, at a season when she most needed them; when howling factions were to be chained down with one hand, and rapacious kings to be held off with the other. To this error of the constituent assembly, many of the military miscarriages, financial blunders, and political crimes which ensued, were generally and justly attributed. Without, therefore, a downright defiance of experience, and a violent sacrifice of the public good to popular humour and personal reputation, the members of the convention, it is plain, could not have repeated a measure, which, in the moment of transition from one form of government to another, was not likely to be less mischievous in its second trial than it had proved to be in its first. They determined to serve their countrymen faithfully at the risk of offending them; not only to avoid the indiscretion of their predecessors, but to profit by their example; and, instead of debarring the men who were already in power from participation in the new government, to render their exclusion, for a limited time, impracticable.

The wisdom of this determination, had it not been sanctioned by recent experience, and by regard to the newness of the French people in the duties of self-government, was demonstrated by its effects on the two factions, to the hostility of which the real friends of the republic were exposed. The royalist and jacobin leaders were sorely disappointed to find they would still have to contend against the resolute, experienced, and incorruptible men, who had abolished monarchy, overthrown Robespierre, could neither be bribed nor terrified, and, in the midst of civil discord