One of Buonaparte’s first acts was to remove the seat of government from the Luxembourg to the old Palace of the Tuileries, “which,” he significantly said to his colleagues, “is a good military position.”  It was on the 19th of February, 1800, that the Chief Consul took possession of the usual residence of the French kings.  Those splendid halls were re-opened with much ceremony, and immediately afterwards Napoleon held a great review in the Place du Carousel.  This was the first public act of the Chief Consul.  Shortly after, he appeared in his new official costume, a dress of red silk and a black stock.  Someone observed to him that this last article was out of keeping with the rest:  “No matter,” answered he, smiling, “a small remnant of the military character will do us no harm.”  It was about the same time that Buonaparte heard of the death of Washington.  He forthwith issued a general order, commanding the French army to wrap their banners in crape during ten days in honour of “a great man who fought against tyranny and consolidated the liberties of his country.”

Talleyrand, appointed minister of foreign affairs by Buonaparte, was now the chief partner of his counsels.  The second Consul, Cambaceres, soon learned to confine himself to the department of justice, and Lebrun to that of finance.  The effective branches of government were, almost from the first, engrossed by Napoleon.  Yet, while with equal audacity and craft he was rapidly consolidating the elements of a new monarchy in his own person—­the Bourbonists, at home and abroad, had still nourished the hope that this ultimate purpose was the restoration of the rightful king of France.  Very shortly after the 18th Brumaire, one of the foreign ambassadors resident at Paris had even succeeded in obtaining a private audience for Messieurs Hyde de Neuville and Dandigne, two agents of the exiled princes.  Buonaparte received them at night in a small closet of the Tuileries, and requested them to speak with frankness.  “You, sir,” they said, “have now in your hands the power of re-establishing the throne, and restoring to it its legitimate master.  Tell us what are your intentions; and, if they accord with ours, we, and all the Vendeans, are ready to take your commands.”  He replied that the return of the Bourbons could not be accomplished without enormous slaughter; that his wish was to forget the past, and to accept the services of all who were willing henceforth to follow the general will of the nation; but that he would treat with none who were not disposed to renounce all correspondence with the Bourbons and the foreign enemies of the country.  The conference lasted half-an-hour; and the agents withdrew with a fixed sense that Buonaparte would never come over to their side.  Nevertheless, as it will appear hereafter, the Bourbons themselves did not as yet altogether despair; and it must be admitted, that various measures of the provisional government were not unlikely to keep up their delusive