The great assemblage of Champ-de-Mai had been originally announced for the 10th of May; and its principal business as the formation of a new constitution.  The meeting did not take place so early, and the task of proposing a constitutional scheme for its consideration, proved far more difficult than the Emperor had contemplated.  He had the assistance, in this labour, of Carnot and Sieyes, whose names would have carried great weight with the republican party—­had not both of these old jacobins and regicides accepted, on entering the Emperor’s service, high rank in his peerage—­a proceeding in direct violation of all the professions of their lives.  He was further favoured with the aid of his brother Lucien, who, in spite of all previous misunderstandings, returned on this occasion to Paris; influenced, probably, by the same egregious vanity which made him fancy himself a poet, and hoping, under existing circumstances, to impress Napoleon with such a sense of his value as might secure him henceforth a commanding influence in the government of France.  The Abbe Sieyes, and Lucien also, had had some experience ere now of Napoleon in the character of a constitution-maker.  He was no longer so powerful as he had been when they formerly toiled together upon such a task:  disputes arose; and the Emperor, to cut these short, and give a decisive proof of his regard for freedom of debate, soon broke up the discussion, retired from the Tuileries to the small palace called the Elysee, and there drew up the scheme which pleased himself, and which was forthwith published under the title of “Act Additional to the Constitutions of the Empire.”

This title gave great offence, because it seemed to recognise many anterior enactments, wholly irreconcilable with the tenor of the document itself; and the mode of its promulgation furnished even more serious ground of objection.  This constitution was, on the face of it, not a compact between the prince and the people, but the record of boons conceded by the former to the latter.  In a word, all they that had condemned Louis XVIII. for his royal charter, were compelled to acknowledge that their own imperial champion of freedom was beginning his new career by a precisely similar display of presumption.

The substance of the “additional act” disappointed all those who hankered after the formal exposition of first principles; but it must be allowed that its provisions seem to include whatever is needful for the arrangement of a free representative constitution; hereditary monarchy; a hereditary peerage; a house of representatives, chosen by the people, at least once within every five years; yearly taxes, levied only by the whole legislature; responsible ministers; irremovable judges; and, in all criminal cases whatever, the trial by jury.  The act, however, was published; the electoral colleges accepted of it, as they had done of all its predecessors; and it by degrees came out that the business of the Champ-de-Mai was to be—­not even the discussion of the imperial scheme, but only to swear submission to its regulations, and witness a solemn distribution of eagles to those haughty bands who acknowledge no law but that of the sword.