If we may follow M. de Bourienne, Napoleon at this time laboured under intense anxiety of mind.  Conscious of the daring heights to which he had ere now accustomed his ambitious imagination, he was fearful that others had divined his secret, and was haunted with the perpetual dread that some accident might unite Royalists and Republicans in the work of his personal ruin.

The first public appearance of Buonaparte occurred (January 2, 1798) when the treaty of Campo-Formio was to be formally presented to the Directory.  The great court of the Luxembourg was roofed over with flags; an immense concourse, including all the members of the government and of the two legislative bodies, expected the victorious negotiator; and when he appeared, followed by his staff, and surrounded on all hands with the trophies of his glorious campaign, the enthusiasm of the mighty multitude, to the far greater part of which his person was, up to the moment, entirely unknown, outleaped all bounds, and filled the already jealous hearts of the directors with dark presentiments.  They well knew that the soldiery, returning from Italy, had sung and said through every village that it was high time to get rid of the lawyers, and make the “little corporal” king.  With uneasy hearts did they hear what seemed too like an echo of this cry, from the assembled leaders of opinion in Paris and in France.  Anxious curiosity and mutual distrust were written in every face.  The voice of Napoleon was for the first time heard in an energetic speech, ascribing all the glories that had been achieved to the zeal of the French soldiery—­for “the glorious constitution of the year THREE”—­the same glorious constitution which, in the year eight, was to receive the coup de grace from his own hand; and Barras, as presiding director, answering, that “Nature had exhausted all her powers in the creation of a Buonaparte,” awoke a new thunder of unwelcome applauses.

Carnot had been exiled after the 18th Fructidor, and was at this time actually believed to be dead.  The institute nominated Buonaparte to fill his place; and he was received by this learned body with enthusiasm not inferior to that of the Luxembourg.  He thenceforth adopted, on all public occasions, the costume of this academy; and, laying aside as far as was possible, the insignia of his military rank, seemed to desire only the distinction of being classed with those whose scientific attainments had done honour to their country.  In all this he acted on calculation.  “I well knew,” said he at St. Helena, “that there was not a drummer in the army, but would respect me the more for believing me to be not a mere soldier.”