At the time of this fete, that is to say, in the middle of the month of July, the First Consul could not have imagined that the moderate conditions he had proposed after the victory would not be accepted by Austria.  In the hope, therefore, of a peace which could not but be considered probable, he, for the first time since the establishment of the Consular Government, convoked the deputies of the departments, and appointed their time of assembling in Paris for the 1st Vendemiaire, a day which formed the close of one remarkable century and marked the commencement of another.

The remains of Marshal Turenne; to which Louis xiv. had awarded the honours of annihilation by giving them a place among the royal tombs in the vaults of St. Denis, had been torn from their grave at the time of the sacrilegious violation of the tombs.  His bones, mingled indiscriminately with others, had long lain in obscurity in a garret of the College of Medicine when M. Lenoir collected and restored them to the ancient tomb of Turenne in the Mussee des Petits Augustins.  Bonaparte-resolved to enshrine these relics in that sculptured marble with which the glory of Turenne could so well dispense.  This was however, intended as a connecting link between the past days of France and the future to which he looked forward.  He thought that the sentiments inspired by the solemn honours rendered to the memory of Turenne would dispose the deputies of the departments to receive with greater enthusiasm the pacific communications he hoped to be able to make.

However, the negotiations did not take the favourable turn which the First Consul had expected; and, notwithstanding all the address of Lucien, the communication was not heard without much uneasiness.  But Lucien had prepared a speech quite to the taste of the First Consul.  After dilating for some time on the efforts of the Government to obtain peace he deplored the tergiversations of Austria, accused the fatal influence of England, and added in a more elevated and solemn tone, “At the very moment when, the Consuls were leaving the Palace of the Government a courier arrived bearing despatches which the First Consul has directed me to communicate to you.”  He then read a note declaring that the Austrian Government consented to surrender to France the three fortresses of Ulm, Philipsburg, and Ingolstadt.  This was considered as a security for the preliminaries of peace being speedily signed.  The news was received with enthusiasm, and that anxious day closed in a way highly gratifying to the First Consul.

Whilst victory confirmed in Italy the destinies of the First Consul, his brothers were more concerned about their own interests than the affairs of France.  They loved money as much as Bonaparte loved glory.  A letter from Lucien to his brother Joseph, which I shall subjoin, shows how ready they always were to turn to their own advantage the glory and fortune of him to whom they were indebted for all their importance.