any articles “contrary to the respect due to the social compact, to the sovereignty of the people, and to the glory of the armies.”  By a finely ironical touch Rousseau’s doctrine of the popular sovereignty was thus invoked to sanction its violation.  The incident is characteristic of the whole tendency of events, which showed that the dawn of personal rule was at hand.  In fact, Bonaparte had already taken the bold step of removing to the Tuileries, and that too, on the very day when he ordered public mourning for the death of Washington (February 7th).  No one but the great Corsican would have dared to brave the comments which this coincidence provoked.  But he was necessary to France, and all men knew it.  At the first sitting of the provisional Consuls, Ducos had said to him:  “It is useless to vote about the presidence; it belongs to you of right”; and, despite the wry face pulled by Sieyes, the general at once took the chair.  Scarcely less remarkable than the lack of energy in statesmen was the confusion of thought in the populace.  Mme. Reinhard tells us that after the coup d’etat people believed they had returned to the first days of liberty.  What wonder, then, that the one able and strong-willed man led the helpless many and re-moulded Sieyes’ constitution in a fashion that was thus happily parodied: 

  “J’ai, pour les fous, d’un Tribunat
    Conserve la figure;
  Pour les sots je laisse un Senat,
    Mais ce n’est qu’en peinture;
  A ce stupide magistrat
    Ma volonte preside;
  Et tout le Conseil d’Etat
    Dans mon sabre reside.”

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI

MARENGO:  LUNEVILLE

Reserving for the next chapter a description of the new civil institutions of France, it will be convenient now to turn to foreign affairs.  Having arranged the most urgent of domestic questions, the First Consul was ready to encounter the forces of the Second Coalition.  He had already won golden opinions in France by endeavouring peacefully to dissolve it.  On the 25th of December, 1799, he sent two courteous letters, one to George III., the other to the Emperor Francis, proposing an immediate end to the war.  The close of the letter to George III. has been deservedly admired:  “France and England by the abuse of their strength may, for the misfortune of all nations, be long in exhausting it:  but I venture to declare that the fate of all civilized nations is concerned in the termination of a war which kindles a conflagration over the whole world.”  This noble sentiment touched the imagination of France and of friends of peace everywhere.