Other works which combined beauty with utility were the prolongation of the quays along the left bank of the Seine, the building of three bridges over that river, the improvement of the Jardin des Plantes, together with that of other parks and open spaces, and the completion of the Conservatoire of Arts and Trades.  At a later date, the military spirit of the Empire received signal illustration in the erection of the Vendome column, the Arc de Triomphe, and the consecration, or desecration, of the Madeleine as a temple of glory.

Many of these works were subsequent to the period which we are considering; but the enterprises of the Emperor represent the designs of the First Consul; and the plans for the improvement of Paris formed during the Consulate were sufficient to inspire the Parisians with lively gratitude and to turn them from political speculations to scenes of splendour and gaiety that recalled the days of Louis XIV.  If we may believe the testimony of Romilly, who visited Paris in 1802, the new policy had even then attained its end.

“The quiet despotism, which leaves everybody who does not wish to meddle with politics (and few at present have any such wish) in the full and secure enjoyment of their property and of their pleasures, is a sort of paradise, compared with the agitation, the perpetual alarms, the scenes of infamy, of bloodshed, which accompanied the pretended liberties of France.”

But while acknowledging the material benefits of Bonaparte’s rule, the same friend of liberty notes with concern: 

     “That he [Bonaparte] meditates the gaining fresh laurels in war can
     hardly be doubted, if the accounts which one hears of his restless
     and impatient disposition be true.”

However much the populace delighted in this new regime, the many ardent souls who had dared and achieved so much in the sacred quest of liberty could not refrain from protesting against the innovations which were restoring personal rule.  Though the Press was gagged, though as many as thirty-two Departments were subjected to the scrutiny of special tribunals, which, under the guise of stamping out brigandage, frequently punished opponents of the Government, yet the voice of criticism was not wholly silenced.  The project of the Concordat was sharply opposed in the Tribunate, which also ventured to declare that the first sections of the Civil Codes were not conformable to the principles of 1789 and to the first draft of a code presented to the Convention.  The Government thereupon refused to send to the Tribunate any important measures, but merely flung them a mass of petty details to discuss, as “bones to gnaw” until the time for the renewal by lot of a fifth of its members should come round.  During a discussion at the Council of State, the First Consul hinted with much frankness at the methods which ought to be adopted to quell the factious opposition of the Tribunate: