A change so earnestly wished for could not fail to be realised, and to be received with transport.  The majority of the French people longed to be relieved from the situation in which they then stood.  There were two dangers bar to cope with—­anarchy and the Bourbons.  Every one felt the urgent and indispensable necessity of concentrating the power of the Government in a single hand; at the same time maintaining the institutions which the spirit of the age demanded, and which France, after having so dearly purchased, was now about to lose.  The country looked for a man who was capable of restoring her to tranquillity; but as yet no such man had appeared.  A soldier of fortune presented himself, covered with glory; he had planted the standard of France on the Capitol and on the Pyramids.  The whole world acknowledged his superior talent; his character, his courage, and his victories had raised him to the very highest rank.  His great works, his gallant actions, his speeches, and his proclamations ever since he had risen to eminence left no doubt of his wish to secure happiness and freedom to France, his adopted country.  At that critical moment the necessity of a temporary dictatorship, which sometimes secures the safety of a state, banished all reflections on the consequences of such a power, and nobody seemed to think glory incompatible with personal liberty.  All eyes were therefore directed on the General, whose past conduct guaranteed his capability of defending the Republic abroad, and liberty at home,—­on the General whom his flatterers, and indeed some of his sincere friends, styled, “the hero of liberal ideas,” the title to which he aspired.

Under, every point of view, therefore, he was naturally chosen as the chief of a generous nation, confiding to him her destiny, in preference to a troop of mean and fanatical hypocrites, who, under the names of republicanism and liberty, had reduced France to the most abject slavery.

Among the schemes which Bonaparte was incessantly revolving in his mind may undoubtedly be ranked the project of attaining the head of the French Government; but it would be a mistake to suppose that on his return from Egypt he had formed any fixed plan.  There was something vague in his ambitious aspirations; and he was, if I may so express myself, fond of building those imaginary edifices called castles in the air.  The current of events was in accordance with his wishes; and it may truly be said that the whole French nation smoothed for Bonaparte the road which led. to power.  Certainly the unanimous plaudits and universal joy which accompanied him along a journey of more than 200 leagues must have induced him to regard as a national mission that step which was at first prompted merely by his wish of meddling with the affairs of the Republic.

This spontaneous burst of popular feeling, unordered and unpaid for, loudly proclaimed the grievances of the people, and their hope that the man of victory would become their deliverer.  The general enthusiasm excited by the return of the conqueror of Egypt delighted him to a degree which I cannot express, and was, as he has often assured me, a powerful stimulus in urging him to the object to which the wishes of France seemed to direct him.