—­[The Tribunate under this Constitution of the year VIII. was the only body allowed to debate in public on proposed laws, the legislative body simply hearing in silence the orators sent by the Council of State and by the Tribunals to state reasons for or against propositions, and then voting in silence.  Its orators were constantly giving umbrage to Napoleon.  It was at first Purified, early in 1802, by the Senate naming the members to go out in rotation then reduced to from 100 to 50 members later in 1802, and suppressed in 1807; its disappearance being regarded by Napoleon as his last break with the Revolution.]—­

Bonaparte composed the first Consular Ministry as follows:  Berthier was Minister of War; Gaudin, formerly employed in the administration of the Post Office, was appointed Minister of Finance; Cambaceres remained Minister of Justice; Forfait was Minister of Marine; La Place of the Interior; Fouche of Police; and Reinhard of Foreign Affairs.

Reinhard and La Place were soon replaced, the former by the able M. Talleyrand, the latter by Lucien Bonaparte.

—­[When I quitted the service of the First Consul Talleyrand was still at the head of the Foreign Department.  I have frequently been present at this great statesman’s conferences with Napoleon, and I can declare that I never saw him flatter his dreams of ambition; but, on the contrary, he always endeavoured to make him sensible of his true interests.—­Bourrienne.]—­

It maybe said that Lucien merely passed through the Ministry on his way to a lucrative embassy in Spain.  As to La Place, Bonaparte always entertained a high opinion of his talents.  His appointment to the Ministry of the Interior was a compliment paid to science; but it was not long before the First Consul repented of his choice.  La Place, so happily calculated for science, displayed the most inconceivable mediocrity in administration.  He was incompetent to the most trifling matters; as if his mind, formed to embrace the system of the world, and to interpret the laws of Newton and Kepler, could not descend to the level of subjects of detail, or apply itself to the duties of the department with which he was entrusted for a short, but yet, with regard to him, too long a time.

On the 26th Brumaire (17th November 1799) the Consuls issued a decree, in which they stated that, conformably with Article iii. of the law of the 19th of the same month, which especially charged them with the reestablishment of public tranquillity, they decreed that thirty-eight individuals, who were named, should quit the continental territory of the Republic, and for that purpose should proceed to Rochefort, to be afterwards conducted to, and detained in, the department of French Guiana.  They likewise decreed that twenty-three other individuals, who were named, should proceed to the commune of Rochelle, in the department of the lower Charente, in order to be afterwards filed