de Stael attach herself to my government? what is it she wants? the payment of the deposit of her father?  I will give orders for it:  a residence in Paris?  I will allow it her.  In short, what is it she wishes?” “Good God!” replied I, “it is not what I wish, but what I think, that is in question.”  I know not if this answer was reported to him, but if it was, I am certain that he attached no meaning to it; for he believes in the sincerity of no one’s opinions; he considers every kind of morality as nothing more than a form, to which no more meaning is attached than to the conclusion of a letter; and as the having assured any one that you are his most humble servant would not entitle him to ask any thing of you, so if any one says that he is a lover of liberty,—­that he believes in God,—­that he prefers his conscience to his interest, Bonaparte considers such professions only as an adherence to custom, or as the regular means of forwarding ambitious views or selfish calculations.  The only class of human beings whom he cannot well comprehend, are those who are sincerely attached to an opinion, whatever be the consequences of it:  such persons Bonaparte looks upon as boobies, or as traders who outstand their market, that is to say, who would sell themselves too dear.  Thus, as we shall see in the sequel, has he never been deceived in his calculations but by integrity, encountered either in individuals or nations.

CHAPTER 2.

Commencement of opposition in the Tribunate—­My first persecution on that account—­Fouche.

Some of the tribunes, who attached a real meaning to the constitution, were desirous of establishing in their assembly an opposition analogous to that of England; as if the rights, which that constitution professed to secure, had anything of reality in them, and the pretended division of the bodies of the state were anything more than a mere affair of etiquette, a distinction between the different anti-chambers of the first consul, in which magistrates under different names could hold together, I confess that I saw with pleasure the aversion entertained by a small number of the tribunes, to rival the counsellors of state in servility.  I had especially a strong belief that those who had previously allowed themselves to be carried too far in their love for the republic would continue faithful to their opinions, when they became the weakest, and the most threatened.

One of these tribunes, a friend of liberty, and endowed with one of the most remarkable understandings ever bestowed upon man, M. Benjamin Constant, consulted me upon a speech which he purposed to deliver, for the purpose of signalizing the dawn of tyranny:  I encouraged him in it with all the strength of my conviction.  However, as it was well known that he was one of my intimate friends, I could not help dreading what might happen to me in consequence.  I was vulnerable in my taste for society.  Montaigne