It was now also that the Chief Consul commenced the great task of providing France with an uniform code of laws.  He himself took constantly an earnest share in the deliberations of the jurists, who were employed in this gigantic undertaking; and astonished them by the admirable observations which his native sagacity suggested, in relation to matters commonly considered as wholly out of the reach of unprofessional persons.  But of the new code we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

Buonaparte at this period devised, and began to put into execution, innumerable public works of the highest utility.  The inland navigation of Languedoc was to be made complete:  a great canal between the Yonne and the Saonne was begun, for the purpose of creating a perfect water communication quite across the republican dominion—­from Marseilles to Amsterdam.  Numberless bridges, roads, museums, were planned; and the vain were flattered with rising monuments of magnificence, while the wise recognised in every such display the depths and forecast of a genius made for empire.

Thus far the measures of the Consulate may be said to have carried with them the approbation of all but a few individuals.  They were accompanied or followed by proceedings, some of which roused, or strengthened and confirmed, sentiments of a very different description among various important classes of the French community; while others were well calculated to revive the suspicion of all the neighbouring nations.

It is said that the first idea of the Legion of Honour arose in the breast of Napoleon on witnessing one day, from a window at the Tuileries, the admiration with which the crowd before the palace regarded the stars and crosses worn by the Marquis Lucchesini, ambassador of Prussia, as he descended from his carriage.  The republican members of the senate could not be persuaded that the institution of an order, with insignia, was anything but the first step to the creation of a new body of nobility; and they resisted the proposed measure with considerable pertinacity.  On this head, as on that of the concordat with the Pope, the Consul condescended to enter personally into discussion with the chief persons who differed from his opinion, or suspected his intentions; and if any, who heard his language on this occasion, doubted that both nobility and monarchy were designed to follow hard behind the Legion of Honour, they must have been singularly slow of understanding. Berthier had called ribbons and crosses “the playthings of monarchy,” and cited the Romans of old as “having no system of honorary rewards.”  “They are always talking to us of the Romans,” said Buonaparte.  “The Romans had patricians, knights, citizens, and slaves:—­for each class different dresses and different manners—­honorary recompenses for every species of merit—­mural crowns—­civic crowns—­ovations—­triumphs—­titles.  When the noble band of patricians lost its influence, Rome fell to pieces—­the people were vile