—­[On such points there was constant trouble with the Bonapartist family, as will be seen in Madame de Remusat’s Memoirs.  For an instance, in 1812, where Joseph insisted on his mother taking precedence of Josephine at a dinner in his house, when Napoleon settled the matter by seizing Josephine’s arm and leading her in first, to the consternation of the party.  But Napoleon, right in this case, had his own ideas on such points, The place of the Princess Elisa, the eldest of his sisters, had been put below that of Caroline, Queen of Naples.  Elisa was then only princess of Lucca.  The Emperor suddenly rose, and by a shift to the right placed the Princess Elisa above the Queen.  ‘Now,’ said he, ’do not forget that in the imperial family I am the only King.’ (Iung’s Lucien, tome ii. p. 251), This rule he seems to have adhered to, for when he and his brothers went in the same carriage to the Champ de Mai in 1815, Jerome, titular King of Westphalia, had to take the front seat, while his elder brother, Lucien, only bearing the Roman title of Prince de Canino, sat on one of the seats of honour alongside Napoleon.  Jerome was disgusted, and grumbled at a King having to give way to a mere Roman Prince, See Iung’s Lucien, tome ii. p, 190.]—­

At this period, when the Consulate for life was only in embryo, flattering counsels poured in from all quarters, and tended to encourage the First Consul in his design of grasping at absolute power.

Liberty rejected an unlimited power, and set bounds to the means he wished and had to employ in order to gratify his excessive love of war and conquest.  “The present state of things, this Consulate of ten years,” said he to me, does not satisfy me; “I consider it calculated to excite unceasing troubles.”  On the 7th of July 1801, he observed, “The question whether France will be a Republic is still doubtful:  it will be decided in five or six years.”  It was clear that he thought this too long a term.  Whether he regarded France as his property, or considered himself as the people’s delegate and the defender of their rights, I am convinced the First Consul wished the welfare of France; but then that welfare was in his mind inseparable from absolute power.  It was with pain I saw him following this course.  The friends of liberty, those who sincerely wished to maintain a Government constitutionally free, allowed themselves to be prevailed upon to consent to an extension of ten years of power beyond the ten years originally granted by the constitution.  They made this sacrifice to glory and to that power which was its consequence; and they were far from thinking they were lending their support to shameless intrigues.  They were firm, but for the moment only, and the nomination for life was rejected by the Senate, who voted only ten years more power to Bonaparte, who saw the vision of his ambition again adjourned.