Shortly afterwards, in the committee occupied with the Code, Napoleon entered upon a long disquisition in favour of the Roman law of adoption; urging with intrepid logic, that an heir so chosen ought to be even dearer than a son.  The object of this harangue was not difficult of detection.  Napoleon had no longer any hope of having children by Josephine; and meditated the adoption of one of his brother’s sons as his heir.  In the course of the autumn a simple edict of the Conservative Senate authorised him to appoint his successor in the consulate by a testamentary deed.  By this act (Aug. 4, 1802) a new dynasty was called to the throne of France.  The farce of opening books in the departments was dispensed with.  Henceforth the words “Liberty, Equality, Sovereignty of the People,” disappeared from the state papers and official documents of the government—­nor did the change attract much notice.  The nation had a master, and sate by, indifferent spectators; while he, under whose sway life and property were considered safe, disposed of political rights and privileges according to his pleasure.[42]

This year was distinguished by events of another order, and not likely to be contemplated with indifference by the powers of Europe.  After the peace of Amiens was ratified, certain treaties which the Chief Consul had concluded with Turkey, Spain, and Portugal, and hitherto kept profoundly secret, were made known.  The Porte, it now appeared, had yielded to France all the privileges of commerce which that government had ever conceded to the most favoured nations.  Spain had agreed that Parma, after the death of the reigning prince, should be added to the dominions of France:  and Portugal had actually ceded her province in Guyana.  In every quarter of the world the grasping ambition of Buonaparte seemed to have found some prey.

Nearer him, in the meantime, he had been preparing to strike a blow at the independence of Switzerland, and virtually unite that country also to his empire.  The contracting parties in the treaty of Luneville had guaranteed the independence of the Helvetic Republic, and the unquestionable right of the Swiss to settle their government in what form they pleased.  There were two parties there as elsewhere—­one who desired the full re-establishment of the old federative constitution—­another who preferred the model of the French Republic “one and indivisible.”  To the former party the small mountain cantons adhered—­the wealthier and aristocratic cantons to the latter.  Their disputes at last swelled into civil war—­and the party who preferred the old constitution, being headed by the gallant Aloys Reding, were generally successful.  Napoleon, who had fomented their quarrel, now, unasked and unexpected, assumed to himself the character of arbiter between the contending parties.  He addressed a letter to the eighteen cantons, in which these words occur:—­“Your history shows that your intestine wars cannot be terminated,