In the discussions which preceded the decree of the Consuls few persons had the courage to express a doubt respecting the guilt of the accused.  Truguet was the first to mount the breach.  He observed that without denying the Government the extraordinary means for getting rid of its enemies he could not but acknowledge that the emigrants threatened the purchasers of national domains, that the public mind was corrupted by pamphlets, and that—­Here the First Consul, interrupting him, exclaimed, “To what pamphlets do you allude?”—­“To pamphlets which are publicly circulated.”—­“Name them!”—­“You know them as well as I do.”

     —­[The Parallel between Caesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte, of which I
     shall speak a little farther on, is here alluded to.—­Bourrienne.]—­

After a long and angry ebullition the First Consul abruptly dismissed the Council.  He observed that he would not be duped; that the villains were known; that they were Septembrizers, the hatchers of every mischief.  He had said at a sitting three days before, “If proof should fail, we must take advantage of the public excitement.  The event is to me merely the opportunity.  They shall be banished for the 2d September, for the 31st May, for Baboeuf’s conspiracy—­or anything else.”

On leaving one of the sittings of the Council, at which the question of a special tribunal had been discussed, he told me that he had been a little ruffled; that he had said a violent blow must be struck; that blood must be spilt; and that as many of the guilty should be shot as there had been victims of the explosion (from fifteen to twenty); that 200 should be banished, and the Republic purged of these scoundrels.

The arbitrariness and illegality of the proceeding were so evident that the ‘Senatus-consulte’ contained no mention of the transactions of the 3d Nivose, which was very remarkable.  It was, however, declared that the measure of the previous day had been adopted with a view to the preservation of the Constitution.  This was promising.

The First Consul manifested the most violent hatred of the Jacobins; for this he could not have been blamed if under the title of Jacobins he had not comprised every devoted advocate of public liberty.  Their opposition annoyed him and he could never pardon them for having presumed to condemn his tyrannical acts, and to resist the destruction of the freedom which he had himself sworn to defend, but which he was incessantly labouring to overturn.  These were the true motives of his conduct; and, conscious of his own faults, he regarded with dislike those who saw and disapproved of them.  For this reason he was more afraid of those whom he called Jacobins than of the Royalists.

I am here recording the faults of Bonaparte, but I excuse him; situated as he was, any other person would have acted in the same way.  Truth now reached him with difficulty, and when it was not agreeable he had no disposition to hear it.  He was surrounded by flatterers; and, the greater number of those who approached him, far from telling him what they really thought; only repeated what he had himself been thinking.  Hence he admired the wisdom of his Counsellors.  Thus Fouche, to maintain himself in favour, was obliged to deliver up to his master 130 names chosen from among his own most intimate friends as objects of proscription.