This promised assemblage was preceded by one of the rabble of Paris, convoked in front of the Tuileries on the 17th of May, and there feasted and harangued by Napoleon—­a condescension which excited lively displeasure among his soldiery.  He himself looked and spoke as one thoroughly ashamed of what he had done and was doing.  It had been his desire to stimulate among these people something of the old zeal of the revolutionary period, in case Paris should be once more threatened by a foreign enemy; but he had the double mortification to find that the army considered their touch as contamination, and that among themselves the name of Louis was almost as popular as his own.  Even the Dames des halles, so conspicuous in the revolutionary tumults, screamed royalist ditties in his ear as they drank his wine; and the only hearty cheers were those of the day-labourers, who had profited by his resumption of some great public works suspended by the King’s government.

The Champ-de-Mai itself, which, despite its name, fell on the 1st of June, turned out hardly a more successful exhibition.  Napoleon, his brothers, and the great civil functionaries, appeared in theatric dresses, in the midst of an enormous amphitheatre, where the deputies, sent from the departments to swear allegiance to the Emperor and the “additional act,” were almost lost in the military among whom the eagles were to be distributed.  The enthusiasm was confined to these.  The same ominous silence which prevailed at the coronation of 1804 was preserved among the people.  The sun shone bright, and the roar of cannon filled every pause of the martial music.  It was a brilliant spectacle; but Napoleon retired from it in visible dejection.

Three days after, the two houses met; and while that of the peers, composed of persons who all owed their rank, and most of them much besides, to Napoleon, showed every disposition to regulate their conduct by his pleasure, there appeared from the beginning a marked spirit of independence in a considerable proportion of the representative body.  The Emperor’s address to both was moderate and manly.  He requested their support in the war which circumstances had rendered unavoidable, and professed his desire that they should consider the “additional act” and all other subjects of national interest, and suggest whatever alterations might appear to them improvements.  Some debates, by no means gratifying to Napoleon, ensued; but he had no leisure for witnessing much of their proceedings.  It was now needful that he should appear once more in his own element.

[Footnote 71:  By this contemptuous name his soldiery designated all who had never borne arms.  The word dropt once from the lips of one of Napoleon’s marshals in the hearing of Talleyrand, who asked its meaning.  “Nous nommons pequin,” answered the rude soldier, “tout ce qui n’est pas militaire.”—­“Ah!” said the cool Talleyrand—­“comme nous nommons militaire tout ce qui n’est pas civil.”]