Some time before he left Italy, a motion had been made in one of the chambers for rewarding him with a grant of the estate of Chambord, and lost owing solely to the jealousy of the Directory.  This opposition was on their part unjust and unwise, and extremely unpopular also; for it was known to all men that the general might easily have enriched himself during his wonderful campaigns, and it was almost as generally believed that he had brought with him to the Rue de la Victoire only 100,000 crowns, saved from the fair allowances of his rank.  No one who considers the long series of intrigues which had passed between Buonaparte and the party that triumphed in Fructidor, can doubt how he regarded this part of their conduct.  Every day confirmed them in their jealousy; nor did he take much pains on the other hand to conceal his feelings towards them.  On many occasions they were willing to make use of him, although they dreaded in so doing to furnish him with new proofs of the vast superiority which he had reached in public opinion above themselves; and he was, on his part, chary of acceding to any of their proposals.

On the 21st of January, the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI. was to be celebrated, according to custom, as a great festival of the Republican calendar; and, conscious how distasteful the observance had by this time become to all persons capable of reflection, the government would fain have diverted attention from themselves, by assigning a prominent part in the ceremonial to him, on whom, as they knew, all eyes were sure to be fixed whenever he made his appearance.  Napoleon penetrated their motives.  He remonstrated against the ceremony altogether, as perpetuating the memory of a deed, perhaps unavoidable, but not the less to be regretted.  He told them that it was unworthy of a great Republic to triumph, year after year, in the shedding of an individual enemy’s blood.  They answered by reminding him that the Athenians and Romans of old recorded, in similar festivals, the downfall of the Pisistratidae and the exile of the Tarquins.  He might have replied, that it is easier for a nation to renounce Christianity in name, than to obliterate altogether the traces of its humanising influence.  But this view did not as yet occur to Napoleon—­or if it had, could not have been promulgated to their conviction.  He stood on the impolicy of the barbarous ceremony; and was at length, with difficulty, persuaded to appear in it as a private member of the institute, along with the rest of that association.  His refusal to be there as the great general of the Republic annoyed the timid Directory; and yet, on his being recognised in his civic dress, and pointed out to new myriads of observers, the effect which the government had desired to produce was brought about in spite of all Buonaparte’s reluctance.  The purpose of the assemblage was almost forgotten:  the clamours of the people converted it into another fete for Napoleon.