Though this discussion passed off almost unnoticed, yet it greatly displeased the First Consul, who expressed his dissatisfaction in the evening.  “What is it,” said he, “these babblers want?  They wish to be citizens—­why did they not know how to continue so?  My government must treat on an equal footing with Russia.  I should appear a mere puppet in the eyes of foreign Courts were I to yield to the stupid demands of the Tribunate..  Those fellows tease me so that I have a great mind to end matters at once with them.”  I endeavoured to soothe his anger, and observed, that one precipitate act might injure him.  “You are right,” he continued; “but stay a little, they shall lose nothing by waiting.”

The Tribunate pleased Bonaparte better in the great question of the Consulate for life, because he had taken the precaution of removing such members as were most opposed to the encroachments of his ambition.  The Tribunate resolved that a marked proof of the national gratitude should be offered to the First Consul, and the resolution was transmitted to the Senate.  Not a single voice was raised against this proposition, which emanated from Chabot de l’Allier, the President of the Tribunate.  When the First Consul came back to his cabinet after receiving the deputation of the Tribunate he was very cheerful, and said to me, “Bourrienne, it is a blank cheque that the Tribunate has just offered me; I shall know how to fill it up.  That is my business.”

The Tribunate having adopted the indefinite proposition of offering to the First Consul a marked proof of the national gratitude, it now only remained to determine what that proof should be.  Bonaparte knew well what he wanted, but he did not like to name it in any positive way.  Though in his fits of impatience, caused by the lingering proceedings of the Legislative Body and the indecision of some of its members, he often talked of mounting on horseback and drawing his sword, yet he so far controlled himself as to confine violence to his conversations with his intimate friends.  He wished it to be thought that he himself was yielding to compulsion; that he was far from wishing to usurp permanent power contrary to the Constitution; and that if he deprived France of liberty it was all for her good, and out of mere love for her.  Such deep-laid duplicity could never have been conceived and maintained in any common mind; but Bonaparte’s was not a mind of the ordinary cast.  It must have required extraordinary self-command to have restrained so long as he did that daring spirit which was so natural to him, and which was rather the result of his temperament than his character.  For my part, I confess that I always admired him more for what he had the fortitude not to do than for the boldest exploits he ever performed.