She had to receive a party that evening, and though greatly depressed in spirits she did the honours with her usual grace.

Let a Government be what it may, it can never satisfy everyone.  At the establishment of the Consulate for life, those who were averse to that change formed but a feeble minority.  But still they met, debated, corresponded, and dreamed of the possibility of overthrowing the Consular Government.

During the first six months of the year 1802 there were meetings of the discontented, which Fouche, who was then Minister of the Police, knew and would not condescend to notice; but, on the contrary, all the inferior agents of the police contended for a prey which was easily seized, and, with the view of magnifying their services, represented these secret meetings as the effect of a vast plot against the Government.  Bonaparte, whenever he spoke to me on the subject, expressed himself weary of the efforts which were made to give importance to trifles; and yet he received the reports of the police agents as if he thought them of consequence.  This was because he thought Fouche badly informed, and he was glad to find him at fault; but when he sent for the Minister of Police the latter told him that all the reports he had received were not worth a moment’s attention.  He told the First Consul all, and even a great deal more than had been revealed to him, mentioning at the same time how and from whom Bonaparte had received his information.

But these petty police details did not divert the First Consul’s attention from the great object he had in view.  Since March 1802 he had attended the sittings of the Council of State with remarkable regularity.  Even while we were at the Luxembourg he busied himself in drawing up a new code of laws to supersede the incomplete collection of revolutionary laws, and to substitute order for the sort of anarchy which prevailed in the legislation.  The man who were most distinguished for legal knowledge had cooperated in this laborious task, the result of which was the code first distinguished by the name of the Civil Code, and afterwards called the Code Napoleon.  The labours of this important undertaking being completed, a committee was appointed for the presentation of the code.  This committee, of which Cambaceres was the president, was composed of mm.  Portalis, Merlin de Douai, and Tronchet.  During all the time the discussions were pending, instead of assembling as usual three times a week, the Council of State assembled every day, and the sittings, which on ordinary occasions only lasted two or three hours, were often prolonged to five or six.  The First Consul took such interest in these discussions that, to have an opportunity of conversing upon them in the evening, he frequently invited several members of the Council to dine with him.  It was during these conversations that I most admired the inconceivable versatility of Bonaparte’s genius, or rather, that superior instinct which enabled him to comprehend at a glance, and in their proper point of view, legislative questions to which he might have been supposed a stranger.  Possessing as he did, in a supreme degree, the knowledge of mankind, ideas important to the science of government flashed upon his mind like sudden inspirations.