the conduct of the diplomatic business to his colleagues, and reached Paris at the beginning of December.  Nor was he without a feasible pretext for this rapidity.  On the 2nd of October, the Directory had announced to the French people their purpose to carry the war with the English into England itself; the immediate organisation of a great invading army; and their design to place it under the command of “Citizen General Buonaparte.”

During his brief stay at Rastadt the dictator of Campo-Formio once more broke out.  The Swedish envoy was Count Fersen, the same nobleman who had distinguished himself in Paris, during the early period of the Revolution, by his devotion to King Louis and Marie-Antoinette.  Buonaparte refused peremptorily to enter into any negotiation in which a man, so well known for his hostility to the cause of the Republic, should have any part; and Fersen instantly withdrew.

On quitting this congress Napoleon was careful to resume, in every particular, the appearance of a private citizen.  Reaching Paris, he took up his residence in the same small modest house that he had occupied before he set out for Italy, in the Rue Chantereine, which, about this time, in compliment to its illustrious inhabitant, received from the municipality the new name of Rue de la Victoire.  Here he resumed with his plain clothes his favourite studies and pursuits, and, apparently contented with the society of his private friends, seemed to avoid, as carefully as others in his situation might have courted, the honours of popular distinction and applause.  It was not immediately known that he was in Paris, and when he walked the streets his person was rarely recognised by the multitude.  His mode of life was necessarily somewhat different from what it had been when he was both poor and obscure; his society was courted in the highest circles, and he from time to time appeared in them, and received company at home with the elegance of hospitality over which Josephine was so well qualified to preside.  But policy as well as pride moved him to shun notoriety.  Before he could act again, he had much to observe; and he knew himself too well to be flattered by the stare either of mobs or of saloons.  “They have memories for nothing here”—­he said at this time to his secretary—­“if I remain long without doing anything, I am done.  Fame chases fame in this great Babylon.  If they had seen me three times at the spectacle, they would no longer look at me.”  Another day Bourienne could not help congratulating him on some noisy demonstration of popular favour.  “Bah!” he answered, “they would rush as eagerly about me if I were on my way to the scaffold.”